Unwrapped (The Camdyn Series Book 5) Read online

  “I love her,” I mumbled.

  Yes, I told Willa Taylor that I loved her granddaughter, like a complete buffoon. To make matters worse, while I was mentally cringing and wishing I could turn back the hands of time, she merely patted me on the back like one would comfort a child.

  “I know you do, honey.”

  Oh, the agony.

  “Aw, Trina, I love you back,” Camdyn added while she plucked a couple red grapes from a bowl on the counter, grinning at me like I had just fallen out of a loaded clown car.

  “Something smells great,” I said, hoping to change the subject.

  “It’s Grandma’s cinnamon bread,” Camdyn was quick to inform me, standing near the oven as she made a show of inhaling. “It’s so good to be home. We eat like peasants.”

  “Not really,” I added.

  Willa offered a wink to ensure me that she knew we were properly fed. “I’m sure you girls are glad to have your semester over. How are your studies?”

  My insides clenched as I prepared myself for another onslaught of despair over a B plus. Rather than go off on a tirade, however, Camdyn simply shrugged her shoulders and said things were pretty good. Apparently Willa had a calming presence, which was plenty intriguing and curiously soothing. Maybe this was precisely where I should spend my holidays.

  “It’s December 20th,” Camdyn announced, wrapping her arm around her grandmother’s waist and leaning her head against her arm. “Did you start without me?”

  “Would I do that?” Willa patted Camdyn’s hand and nodded her head in the direction of the refrigerator. “Pull out the eggs, sweetie.”

  “Growing up we had an advent calendar for every day of December,” Camdyn explained as she opened the refrigerator. “Instead of finding chocolate or an ornament behind the doors, each day had a different Christmas tradition. The 20th is sugar cookies, and we take them to all our neighbors when we’re finished.” Turning to place the eggs on the counter, Camdyn pressed her backside against the cabinets and smiled. “Did you do yesterday’s, Grandma?”

  “Of course I did, but it wasn’t the same without you.”

  Shoving my hands in my jeans pockets in an attempt to push back my sudden feelings of being an outsider, I stood awkwardly in the kitchen. Always perceptive, Camdyn was quick to catch my eye.

  “On the 19th we make our own wreath. I’m sorry we missed it. We go to this farm out of town that Grandma used to live near when she was a girl. She still keeps in touch with the owners, even though it’s passed hands three times. We use cedar and ribbon and never make it the same way twice. But I didn’t see it on the door when we came in.” Camdyn directed the last bit at her grandmother, who simply smiled before answering.

  “No, it’s still in the living room on the table. I thought you might want to hang it.”

  Glancing into the living room from the edge of the kitchen, Camdyn wrinkled her nose.

  “You sure you made that yourself? That looks way better than it does when I help you.”

  I nearly laughed out loud when Willa looked at me again. That statement didn’t surprise me in the least, because Camdyn didn’t have a crafty bone in her body. Not really any coordinated bones, come to think of it. How she managed to run every morning without killing herself was beyond me.

  We stood there comfortably in the kitchen, the three of us mixing cookie dough and chatting, with Willa making every effort to ensure I was involved in their tradition. It made me think about my own family.

  Had I been home (actually home in Cape Girardeau, not in the pristine new sanitarium in Nebraska), Mom would have been lining up social functions for her neighborhood groups and Dad would have been buried in whatever paper he was writing. We didn’t really have a crafty, homemade, make-your-own-cookies type of holiday. Things were catered and delivered and planned in advance.

  Cooking held a definite allure for me, though. I’d always loved making a mess in the kitchen trying to create new culinary delights. Over the years I had managed to pull off a few great dishes, so I knew with practice I could be a sufficient cook.

  “Now, things have to chill,” Willa stated as she took the large yellow mixing bowl and placed plastic wrap over the top, shifting it to the refrigerator. She pulled out three red bowls that she had waiting inside, placing them on the counter.

  Cutting out the endless rolls of sugar cookies took most of the afternoon, and as we neared the end of the dough in the red bowls, I reached for the refrigerator door to retrieve the yellow bowl. Catching my eye, Willa shook her head. I hardly blamed her, because I was growing tired of cutting out the cookies myself, and she already had several plates of them on the counter.

  “I’m going to go wash all this flour off,” Camdyn announced as she finished. “Trina, you want me to show you around?”

  “I’ll find it in a second,” I assured her as she passed me on her way to the hall. While I tidied up my little corner and wiped up the remains of flour, I glanced at Willa, who was poking into the refrigerator again. Without a word, she grabbed the yellow bowl and promptly dumped the contents into the trash, covering the mess with some crumpled paper towels. Intrigued, I forgot to pretend that I wasn’t watching, and I stood there gawking at her strange actions.

  “Oh.” She startled as she turned and saw me staring. “Don’t tell her.”

  I almost giggled, but thought better of the action. Twisting my mouth to the side, I stepped a smidge closer. “What are you doing?”

  “Have you ever had any food Camdyn prepared?” she whispered. Taking a second to consider her question, I slowly shook my head. “Well, neither will the neighbors if I can help it.”

  Chapter Three

  By the time the evening began to wind down, an unexpected calm had come over me. It was unclear whether I should attribute my laid-back attitude to Willa’s attentive pampering, which I was enjoying to the fullest, or to the fact that Camdyn herself seemed rather mellow in this environment, which almost never happened in our normal day to day lives.

  Just to make sure an alien hadn’t abducted my friend when we arrived at the doorstep, I glanced over to where she sat on the couch a few feet from me, eyeing her with curiosity.

  “So, are you going to protest your Chinese history grade?”

  Letting out a sigh, she pressed her wrist against her temple and closed her eyes for a second. “Probably won’t do any good. I’ll worry about it later.”

  Uh huh. Alien abduction.

  “Girls, I think I’m going to turn in. Do you have everything you need?” Willa waited at the edge of the room, appearing tired. I couldn’t help but wonder whether whatever brought about Camdyn’s mellow mood was causing the opposite effect on her grandmother, and all the extra attention was making her weary. Mentally I vowed to help her a bit more the next day.

  “Don’t worry, Grandma. I’ll take perfect care of Trina.”

  Camdyn shot me a wink before she bounced up off the couch and stepped toward her grandmother, wrapping her arms around the older woman like she never wanted to let go. When she finally released her, she kissed her grandmother’s cheek.

  “Good night, Grandma. Love you.”

  “Love you too, sweetie. Good night, Trina.”

  “Good night,” I called, watching Camdyn as she returned to plop down beside me.

  Letting out all of her breath in a rush, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the couch. “I’m glad you’re here. So much better than spending time on the beach, am I right?”

  “Naturally.” Shaking my head, I allowed a small smile to escape. “Your grandma’s wonderful.”

  Camdyn peeked out of one eye at me while she pursed her lips in mock frustration. “How many times have I told you that, Trina? Are you saying you don’t trust me?”

  Laughing, I rose and stretched my arms behind my head, releasing a deep yawn. “I’m saying a good night’s sleep sounds pretty great right now.”

  “Deflecting the question. That’s okay, I won’t press the subject.
You want to sleep in Charlie’s room?”

  “No,” I blurted, eyes widening. “You said Charlie didn’t even want me here, so why would I want to take over his bedroom?”

  “He won’t be here for two days. Anyway, it’s not like he’s been sleeping in there, so you don’t have to worry about it being gross.”

  Leave it to Camdyn to think I’m worried about her brother being gross.

  “Are you sure he won’t mind?”

  “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?”

  She prefaced that question with a mischievous smile, which made me feel slightly rebellious. Camdyn stood and jerked her head toward the hallway, which I took as a nonverbal instruction to follow her. Just a few feet into the hall, she turned into the open doorway that framed her bedroom, pausing by the suitcase I had placed there earlier. Glancing at the rows of books on the shelves along the wall and the colorful portraits of landscapes and city scenes gracing nearly every inch of the room, I took a second to study my friend.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Riddle me this, Batman. How do you come across so…” Pausing, I measured my words carefully, “…normal?”

  “Normal?” There was no mistaking the stink-eye she was giving me at that moment.

  “You have all the appearances of being cool and trendy, but you’re sort of a nerd.”

  “How dare you call me ‘sort of’ a nerd?” Grabbing a pair of fake reading glasses off her nightstand, she perched them atop her nose and struck a little pose. The fact that Camdyn’s attempt at being goofy made her look like a model in a Gap ad was not lost on me. So obnoxiously unfair. “For the record, I’m a total nerd. I thought you would have known that by now.”

  “Why do you have fake glasses?”

  “They make me look smart.”

  Of course.

  “What’s with all the pictures on the wall?”

  “Places I want to go,” she told me, removing the glasses from her face and placing them back on the nightstand. “Athens, Egypt, Moscow, Amazon rainforest, Smoky Mountains, Wrigley Field…”

  “One of these things is not like the others.”

  “Oh, I have no fascination with Wrigley Field. I just want to wear Cardinals red there to taunt the Cubbies.”

  Glancing at her rows of books, I raised my eyebrows. “So you fill your room with places you want to go, and…”

  “…places I’ve already been.” She grinned at her books, as though they held some secret treasure map. It was the same look she got on her face in our dorm room when she was scribbling notes about her history courses. The girl had a more active imagination than me, if she viewed books as taking her to faraway lands. I preferred to actually see things in front of me, rather than reading about them in books.

  Grabbing my suitcase, I carried it into the hall, waiting as she followed me and then turned to the bedroom across the way. Pushing the door wide, she waited as I stepped inside and gasped. The entire space was full of baseball memorabilia, with signed balls on the dresser, a couple replica statues, two or three rather worn-out gloves, and a white bedspread with red stitching in a circular pattern.

  “Does Charlie play baseball?” I stared at the splashes of red that dotted the room in the form of St. Louis Cardinals logos.

  “No, he just really likes it. Don’t worry about it, but don’t touch anything. He would notice, trust me. He’s really protective about his stuff.”

  Great.

  “So, you good?” she continued. “Cause I could turn in.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Camdyn was notorious for going to bed before me, mostly because she got up at the crack of dawn for her morning runs. Occasionally I talked her into staying up with me, watching Leno and eating Oreos, but most of the time I was solo.

  Not wanting to make much noise in the house with both Willa and Camdyn going to bed, I settled my suitcase on the foot of my sleeping area, retrieved my pajamas and prepared for the earlier-than-normal bedtime.

  ♥

  A mist rose over the Ozark Mountains, thick and foreboding as it pulled me farther into the darkness, the damp air clinging to my clothes. As I struggled to push away, the nearby foothills turned into piles of books, stacked haphazardly as far as the eye could see. The thought began to circulate in my mind that I needed to find a way back, but I couldn’t force my lips to form the words.

  As I looked around for an escape, something crashed against my body, leaving me feeling scared and confused. My breath began coming in short bursts, and I felt the onset of panic. Before my brain could begin to react, I heard a low groan beside me, and my eyes flew open, trying to adjust to the darkness and remember where I was.

  Camdyn’s grandma’s house…her brother’s bedroom. As the realization of my location flooded me, I realized the fact that the bed moved slightly, and something large and bulky just connected with my leg. Reaching out hesitantly, my fingers connected with something that definitely shouldn’t have been there.

  Fear gripping my chest, I shoved against the bulk, feeling it move away from my middle and further toward my knees. The fact that I managed to move it did little to calm me, though, because I had determined in those moments that it was real and not part of my Ozark Mountains dream. Thrashing my legs, I swung my arm wide, hoping to clear myself of whatever was in the bed.

  “What the…”

  Even as the male voice met my ears, the bed shifted again underneath me, and I heard the thud of something hitting the floor right before the light came on overhead, flooding the room and temporarily blinding me.

  Blinking to try to clear the fuzz from my sight, I managed to focus on the startling figure by the door.

  “Funny. Grandma’s never given me a gift like this before. What did she promise you, a green card?”

  The athletic-looking guy in front of me grinned, showcasing a nice smile that lit up his face and brought a shine to his blue eyes. Pausing to run his fingers through his blond hair, he laughed.

  “I know she wants me to find a nice girl, but I didn’t think she’d actually resort to finding me a mail order bride. Where did you come from? Latin America? Eurasia?” He tilted his head as he stared at me, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s not every day that a guy comes home to find a beautiful woman in his bed. I’m a little stunned.”

  My eyes drifted to the foot of the bed, where a large black bag rested, and my foggy mind attempted to put the facts together. The bag was most likely thrown on the bed, where he sat beside me. Since he still had his shoes on, and his jeans, and a St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt, he couldn’t have been there long. As I realized with clarity what was happening, I struggled to release myself from the baseball bed sheets, trying to stand.

  “Relax, Trina,” he stated. “I’m just messing with you. I should have called to tell them I’d be home earlier than I expected. Sorry for the rude wake-up call, but keep the bed. I don’t mind sleeping on the couch.” As though he intended to punctuate his words, he stepped back toward the bed, picked up the overflowing duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. “And don’t worry, I won’t let any intruders in the house.” At that, he had the audacity to wink at me before he opened the door and stepped back into the hallway as he flipped the light switch, closing me in the darkness once again.

  My heart immediately started overreacting, because what started out as a weird dream inspired by Camdyn’s bedroom had turned into a few startling revelations:

  Number one—Charlie Taylor was incredibly handsome.

  Number two—he might have been partially teasing, but he did call me beautiful.

  And number three—the insane pounding in my chest at that moment had almost nothing to do with the fear of intruders.

  Chapter Four

  Willa offered to make pancakes in the morning, but I insisted she shouldn’t go to the trouble. Camdyn didn’t want a heavy breakfast since she just finished her morning run. Charlie was in the shower so he couldn’t vote, and I hated to ask her to make bre
akfast for me. When she finally admitted that she had cereal, I assured her that was perfectly fine. She directed me to one of the higher cabinets, where I pulled open the door to find a couple sensible varieties of whole bran, along with a few full-sugar options that I hadn’t thought about since I’d been six or seven years old.

  Stifling a giggle, I felt a presence beside me, and I glanced over to see Charlie, hair still damp from the shower, wearing a navy-blue tee with the requisite Cardinal in the center. Without a word or a peek in my direction, he reached past my shoulder and wrapped his fingers around a brightly colored box.

  “Charlie, can’t you even introduce yourself and be polite?” Camdyn scolded from her seat at the kitchen table, where she twisted a half-full glass of orange juice in her hands. “Honestly, Trina, you’re so lucky you’re an only child.”

  Placing the box of cereal on the counter, Charlie let out a loud sigh before he turned to face me. “Charles David Taylor. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance. May I interest you in some Fruity Pebbles?”

  “You’re really eating those?” I asked, glancing at the box.

  “Sort of.” Removing another box from the cabinet, he placed it in front of me. “The mix is the thing…half Fruity Pebbles, half Lucky Charms. Delicious.”

  My gut instinct told me that he was teasing me again, but when he retrieved a bowl and began pouring both cereals together, I could see he was serious. While he opened the refrigerator and removed the milk, he met my eye and offered a rather crooked smile.

  “I’m not really sure you know how the whole introduction scenario works. I told you my name…my full, proper name…so I think you’re supposed to reciprocate.”

  My lips ached to offer a smile, but in front of Camdyn’s prying eyes, I didn’t dare. “Trina Justine Miller, and I’m familiar with how to make a proper introduction, thank you.”