That Night In Texas

Turning, Cam saw the chair next to the bed. He hooked his foot around its legs and dragged it toward him. He dropped down into it and placed his forearms on his thighs, resisting the urge to shake her awake. What the hell game was she playing? She had to be playing one, because, let’s be honest, everyone did.

He wasn’t sure if she’d played him then, but he was certain she was playing him now. Cam stared at her as memories of that dive bar rolled over him. It had been a crap hole, little more than a shack serving watered-down drinks to the ranch hands and the refinery crews working in the area.

He’d been aware of her—Vivianne, he now had a name to go with the stunning face—the moment she stepped into the dive bar, as had every other man in the place. She’d looked so damn young and so very vulnerable with the shot glass in her hand, her eyes on the fiery liquid. He expected her to push it away, to turn tail and run, but she’d squared her shoulders and tossed the liquor back, blinking furiously as she swallowed. She’d banged her glass down, ordered another and slowly, oh so slowly, turned those brown-black eyes in his direction.

“One down, two more experiments to go.”

He’d lifted his beer bottle in her direction, noting her long legs in tight, faded denim and the way her white T-shirt hugged the curves of her breasts and skimmed a board-flat stomach.

She was older than he initially thought, somewhere in her midtwenties, yet while they might be close in age, he’d figured he’d lived a thousand more lifetimes—all of them harder and rougher than hers.

He should’ve ignored her, finished his beer and left, but he’d turned to face her and cocked his head. “You a scientist, sweetheart?”

She’d ignored him at first, taken the second shot and tossed it down her throat. He’d never managed to forget her answer. She’d wrinkled her nose as she decided how to answer. “Nope. Tonight I’m going to see what being normal feels like.”

“There are better bars in better places,” Cam had told her, hoping that she’d walk out and leave him to his beer and his loneliness. He knew how to handle his liquor and his solitude, but she had him wanting to drink less and talk more.

She’d plopped that spectacular butt down on the seat next to him, her knee brushing against the outside of his thigh. He’d felt a bolt of desire skitter up his thigh and lodge in his balls. He’d swelled and groaned. He wasn’t a kid, so why was he getting turned on by a light touch and a woman who looked like the girl next door and smelled like wildflowers?

“But I can’t get to those places and you look like fun.”

Cam had almost smiled at that. Him fun? She couldn’t be more wrong. He’d thought about leaving her there in the bar, about going back to his motel room with a six-pack, but he couldn’t leave her there alone. So he’d bought her a beer and then they’d moved on to a diner for burgers and ended the evening with fantastic sex in a motel room. No names, no expectations and, yeah, he’d had fun.

He’d liked her.

And now, after three years, she was back in his life, lying in a hospital room, dressed in a hospital gown, banged up and bruised. With his name as her emergency contact number. And like back then, his mouth was dry, his heart was thumping and his pants were tight against his crotch. Peachy.

What the hell was going on here?

Cam felt her leg jerk and his eyes shot to her face. Her eyelids flickered, and he waited for that burst of brown, braced himself for the sexual punch that was sure to follow. She groaned, half lifted her hand and then dropped it to the bed, as if the action required more energy than she was capable of. Those long eyelashes lifted and he watched as she took a moment to focus. Her mouth tilted at the corners and her expression softened.

“Camden?”

So she knew him, recognized him. Cam frowned when her eyes drifted closed again. Oh, no, he wasn’t going to sit next to her bed like a lovelorn admirer waiting for her to wake up. He was exhausted and hungry, dammit. Cam tapped her hand with his finger and slowly her eyelids lifted.

The tip of a pink tongue darted across her top lip and Cam ignored the bolt of lust as he remembered that tongue on his abs, going lower. She’d been inexperienced in that department but very enthusiastic...

Down, boy.

He rubbed his hand over his face, and when he dropped his hand again, the confusion in her eyes was replaced by panic. “Where am I? Where’s Clem? Is she okay?”

She started to push herself up, groaning as she sat up. She pushed the covers away and swung those sexy, bare legs to the side. Cam immediately realized that she was trying to climb out of bed. He shot up and placed a hand on her shoulder, pinning her to the pillow. She slapped his hand away and went for the IV, trying to pull the needle from her arm.

“I’ve got to get to Clem. Let me go, dammit!” Her breath hitched and panic made her words run together. “What’s the time? How late is it? Where’s my phone?”

Cam looked at his watch. “It’s shortly past eleven.”

“It’s still Friday morning?”

At his nod, her shoulders dropped three inches and the cords in her neck loosened. She slumped back against her pillow and closed her eyes. “Thank God.” She gripped the sheet and twisted the fabric between her fingers. When she spoke again, her voice was thin with pain and exhaustion. “I need to make a call. Can I borrow your phone?”

“Not until I get some answers,” Cam told her, stepping back and folding his arms against his chest.

Vivianne released a frustrated sigh. In her eyes he saw a solid streak of stubborn under the obvious exhaustion. “I understand that. But you’re not going to get another word out of me until I make a call.”

It wasn’t worth arguing about. Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, he pulled out his phone, tapped in the code and handed it to her.

She shook her head. “Sorry, the world is still a bit fuzzy. Can you dial for me?”

Cam punched in the number she gave him, and when it started to ring, he handed the phone over. Vivianne placed her fingers on her forehead before speaking. “Charlie? Is Clem okay?”

Evidently the response reassured her. Those sexy shoulders dropped and the hand gripping the sheet relaxed. Cam tipped his head to the side, thinking that watching her was like witnessing a balloon losing its air. Suddenly she looked paler, more fragile, ten times smaller. And a hundred times more vulnerable.

He stepped forward, realized he was about to pull her into his arms, to offer what comfort he could, and immediately stepped back. What the hell? He didn’t do comfort; he wasn’t the type.

Vivianne gnawed at her bottom lip, wincing when she encountered the cut she’d made earlier. “Thanks, Charlie. I’ll see you later this afternoon, maybe a little earlier if I can.”

As if. According to the nurse, she had a concussion and that normally meant an overnight stay. He’d be happy to watch her all night. But only because he wanted to know what she was up to. Not because she was freakin’ gorgeous. And not because he found her fascinating, or because he couldn’t imagine walking out of this room without knowing when he was going to see her again.

He was just tired. And hungry. That was why he was acting so out of character. Had to be.

“Thanks, Charlie.”

Cam jammed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and glowered at her. “Ready to start talking?”

Vivianne sighed. “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice.”

“Not really, no.”

“I’m Vivi Donner, by the way.”

Vivi suited her better than Vivianne. He rolled the name around his mind and could easily imagine himself whispering it as he kissed her, painting it on her skin as he tongued her. Sighing it as he slid into her hot, wet warmth. Cam gave himself a mental punch to the temple.

Yeah, he was still attracted to her but so what? He was frequently attracted to women. He was a guy and that was what guys did. It was simple biology. It didn’t mean anything.

“Let’s start off with you telling me how you ended up in a hospital with stitches and scrapes and more bruises than an MMA fighter.”

Vivi pushed back that heavy hair and he caught a whiff of citrus and dank water. “According to the nurse, who spoke to the responding EMT, I was driving and it was really foggy. I slid off the road into a gully filled with fast-moving water. I remember going into the water and nothing much after that. The next time I came around, I was in this bed.”

Every cell in his body iced over. Few people knew how to escape a car filled with water, yet she had. Thank God.

“A policeman saw me go off the road. The working theory is that I pushed myself out the window and swam to the surface. The cop saw me come up, but then I was hit by a branch and swept away. Luckily a rescue boat was downstream from me and they hauled me out. I don’t remember anything after my car hit the water.”

God, she’d been fantastically, ridiculously lucky. She obviously had a dozen angels sitting on her shoulder.

He desperately wanted to find out why she’d run out on him that night, why she’d insinuated herself back into his life now. She’d known him as a greasy rigger, solidly blue collar. He’d been good for a night, a roll in the sheets, and he hadn’t really been surprised when he’d turned over and she wasn’t there.

He was a ship in the night, here today and gone tomorrow, He only ever indulged in fun that lasted a few hours, max. He was not a guy someone like her—classy and warm—wanted to face over coffee in the morning.

Was she back only because his bank accounts were fat and his social standing solid? Because he was now apparently acceptable?

Cam felt the sharp burn beneath his rib cage and cursed. He cursed himself for caring what she thought and he cursed her for dropping back into his comfortable, and predictable, life. He’d never forgotten her and he hated her for that. He didn’t like connections, ties, memories.

Cam walked over to the window and stared out into the hospital parking lot. There, close to the entrance, was his luxury SUV, top of the line, ridiculously expensive. He lived in a big-ass house, had numerous, hefty bank accounts. He had, he reluctantly admitted, everything he’d ever wanted, yet this brown-eyed woman made him feel like his world was shifting, that something was changing.

Vivi’s reappearance in his life was going to rock him to the soles of his feet.

Cam sighed before turning around. “Why am I your emergency contact person, Vivianne?”

This time Vivi gripped the sheets with both hands, and whatever color was left in her face drained away. She stared at him, licking her lips, and he could see the turmoil in those eyes, the trembling of her bottom lip. “I have a daughter, Clementine. I call her Clem. She’s two years old and you are her father.”

Two

Telling a guy he had a child was a hell of a way to clear a room.

Vivi looked at the door Camden had slammed closed, half expecting him to reappear and start yelling. When twenty seconds passed, then thirty, then a minute, she finally released the breath she was holding. While she was better at confrontation now than she’d been years ago, she still didn’t like to argue. The same, so she’d heard, couldn’t be said for Camden McNeal. All her research—and she’d researched him to death—pointed to the fact that Cam McNeal, oil rigger turned venture capitalist, treated business like a boxing ring and went in swinging. He was tough, demanding and controlling, and he didn’t take any prisoners, ever.

Neither, it was reported, did he suffer fools. The business press called him a blizzard, cool and deadly, but Vivi thought they’d mischaracterized him. He wasn’t cold. Beneath that icy facade resided a passionate man. A man fully in control of his volatile emotions. But cold and unfeeling? Oh, hell, no.

Vivi pulled her knees up and groaned as every muscle in her body protested. She was exhausted both mentally and physically, but she was sure there was no chance of sleep anytime soon, since she knew she hadn’t seen the last of Cam this morning. Instinctively she understood that Cam had only left the room so that she wouldn’t witness his anger, disappointment or shock. Or all three. He obviously needed some time to regain his famous control. That was okay; she needed to regain hers, too.

Three years and he was still earth-shatteringly sexy.

Vivi heard the ding of an incoming message and looked at Cam’s smartphone, which she still held in her hand. Swiping her thumb across the screen, she saw the dial pad and impulsively dialed Joe’s number, needing to connect with the only person she considered family.

After a brief explanation to Joe about the accident, Vivi told him that she was fine and that he didn’t need to rush across town.

“But how are you going to get home? Pick up Clem?” Joe demanded.

“I have someone here,” Vivi admitted. When she’d made Camden Clem’s guardian and her emergency contact she’d never considered that he might actually need to be called. “Camden McNeal.”

Joe waited a beat before snapping out his question. “And why is Cam McNeal with you, Vivianne?”

Here came the hard part.

He’d been the first man she’d noticed on entering that hole-in-the-wall bar three blocks down from her mom’s house in Tarrin, a small town west of Houston. He was lounging on a bar stool, watching her with bright blue eyes. His light brown hair had been longer then, touching the collar, though now it was expensively cut. His tall, muscular body seemed harder now, as was his attitude.

“So, I’ve told you a little of my history with my parents,” she began.

“A little, mostly that you were fed a steady diet of anti-government and end-of-the-world BS from your father and you’re-going-to-fry-if-you-don’t-listen propaganda from your mother,” Joe said, always impatient with intolerance.

“I was an only child with ridiculously overprotective parents, so college was out of the question. Dating—unless it was arranged through my mother—was frowned upon, and socializing outside of their tight social circle was not acceptable. Drinking and dancing and sex? Hell, no.”

“And hell, as you were frequently told, was where you’d end up if you flirted with those vices.”

“I told you that my dad died and that the family money was placed into a trust, controlled by lawyers who were my dad’s friends, and every decision we made had to go through the lawyers. I was so angry.”

“I’m still not seeing the connection to Camden McNeal.”

“After leaving the lawyers and my mother after the funeral, I ended up in a bar, and later, in Cam McNeal’s bed. And with his baby in my belly.

“My mother was angry with me for embarrassing her on the day they buried my father, but she was incandescently furious when I told her I was pregnant. Basically, she disowned me,” Vivi explained.

“Can I track her down and give her a piece of my mind?”

Vivi smiled at Joe’s outrage. God, she loved this man.

“You must’ve been so scared, Viv.”

“I was, but I also felt empowered. And free.”

She’d faced a tough, uncertain future, but it was her future, one she’d created. “I thought about contacting Clem’s father but I didn’t know his surname and had no idea where he worked.”

But more than that, she hadn’t wanted to put herself under anyone’s control again. This was her life and she was responsible for herself and her baby. She’d made this bed and she was determined to show herself that she could sleep in it.

“I relied on public assistance and bounced from job to job, first juggling pregnancy and then a tiny baby as I tried to earn enough to support us both. Then I found work with you.”

Those first few months after Clem’s birth had been super tough, but life had improved when she found steady work as a dishwasher at The Rollin’ Smoke. She’d met Charlie, the widowed mother of one of the servers, who ran a childcare service from home. Finally, after placing Clem with someone who was both affordable and loving, her confidence had grown. She’d pestered Joe to both teach and promote her, and the result was that she’d risen through the ranks at a record pace. Line chef in three months, sous chef in six, head chef within the next year.

“And sometime, I’m guessing recently, you bumped into Cam again. Probably at the restaurant, since Ryder Currin introduced him to my place.”

Nail on head. “Three months ago, I was off duty but I went into Rollin’ with Clem at lunchtime to check on my kitchen. You grabbed Clem and took her into the restaurant to meet the customers.”

“She is the grandchild of my heart.”

Vivi felt the hard ball of emotion clog her throat. “I looked through the kitchen window and saw two men sitting at the coveted VIP table.” And just like earlier, she’d found her head swimming and her throat constricting. She’d looked into that hard, sexy face and realized that her baby’s dad was eating at her restaurant.

“I asked Gemma who he was.”

She still remembered the words from the waitress. “The younger hottie is Camden McNeal, venture capitalist. He’s one of those guys who went from rags to fabulous riches in a heartbeat.” Gemma had added, grinning, “So sexy.”

He was. And his sexiness was the reason for the little girl she loved more than life itself.

“Since then I’ve wrestled with whether to contact McNeal, whether he had the right to know that he had a daughter,” she told Joe. “One day I’d decide it was the right thing to do, and the next I was convinced that it was better to leave him in the dark.”

They’d met when they were both poor, both in different places in their lives. They’d moved on from the people they were then, thank goodness, and while she was proud of her achievements, his rise to success had been stratospheric. According to her research—Google, mostly—he routinely refused personal interviews; it was reported that he was cynical, controlling and suspicious, not one for making friends easily.

“I kept thinking that if I showed up on his doorstep with Clementine, he’d accuse me of being a gold digger trying to cash in on his wealth. Or he’d want to take control of the situation. And of Clementine.”

“Well, that’s a moot point now, isn’t it?” Joe said, as blunt as always.

Maybe, but neither option was remotely acceptable. She didn’t want his money. Nothing was more important to her than making it on her own, and she certainly wouldn’t give Camden McNeal any say over her or her daughter’s life. She’d lived under her parents’ control, and she wasn’t ever going back to that.

And then there was the little problem of her still being utterly, completely, ridiculously attracted to him. As much, or more, than she was three years ago. She just needed to see a photo of him online and her lungs constricted and heat rushed between her legs.

Not something she wanted to think about when she was having a conversation with the person who’d stepped into her father’s shoes.

“But at the end of the day, Camden is, apart from my mother, Clem’s only biological relative. I was so worried that, if something happened to me, Margaret would petition the courts for custody of Clem.”

“I’d would’ve fought her,” Joe assured her.

He would and she loved him for it. “But, because you are close to seventy, Joe, and my mom is only in her early fifties, and a woman, she would’ve won. Even if I gave Clem to you, and I wanted to do that, I was told it would be easily challenged given your age and the fact that we’re not related. On legal advice, I updated my will to give Cam custody and put him as my emergency contact number in case something bad happened.”

And it so very nearly had.

And now, Camden McNeal, that gorgeous, billionaire badass, was back in her life.

* * *

He was the one thing he’d never thought he’d be.

In the hallway outside Vivi’s room, Cam lifted his hand and saw his shakes. As a young kid, six or seven years old, when his dad left him alone, for days on end, his hand had never shaken. When he’d scaled buildings and crept past sleeping couples to steal wallets and jewelry, he’d shrugged off the nerves and kept his cool. The day he was arrested and heard that his father wouldn’t bail him out, his hands hadn’t trembled.

He was a dad, he had a kid...

Life had finally found the one thing, the only thing, that terrified him. Cam rested his head on the wall and fought the urge to slide down its smooth surface. Slapping his palms on the cool surface, he locked his knees and pulled in rhythmic breaths, desperately looking for control, for a measure of calm.

He had no idea how to be a father, a parent responsible for someone else. His father had only occasionally remembered to feed and clothe him. He’d taught him how to roll a cigarette, to spot a mark, to lift a wallet. He’d taught him to fight dirty, to run from cops and social workers, to distrust the system. He’d been more like a delinquent older brother than a father, and consequently all Cam knew about fatherhood was how not to be one. Had Vivi recognized that in him? Was that why she never informed him of his daughter? Clementine. Clem.

He had a daughter. Cam blinked furiously, annoyed at his moist eyes. Okay, she was only two, but he was no longer completely alone. There was another person in the world he was linked to. She was young and defenseless, but that link existed, it meant something.

Cam rubbed his hands over his face and pushed his fingers through his hair. What now? He couldn’t prop up this wall for the rest of the day. At some point he’d have to go in and face Vivi, deal with the situation he found himself in. Cam glanced at Vivi’s closed door and sighed. He also needed to deal with his instant, hot-as-hell attraction that was arcing between him and the mother of his child. Supposed mother of her child. Cam grabbed on to that cynical thought and held on with every fiber of his being. He just had her word that he was her kid’s dad. She could be scamming him, running a con. If he was sensible, he’d walk out of here right now and demand a paternity test. He should wait for scientific proof...

No, that wasn’t going to happen. He was upset, confused, utterly side-slapped by this news, but his gut instinct told him that she was telling the truth. He was a daddy.

God.

Cam watched a doctor and nurse walk toward him. They stopped at Vivi’s door and handed him a harried greeting. They entered her room and he followed them in, standing at the back of the room out of their way as they approached the bed. Over their heads he saw her resigned expression.

“I’m fine,” Vivi firmly stated, but Cam heard the tremor in her voice. “I need sleep and a couple of painkillers and I’ll be fine.”

“I went to med school and studied for a dozen years. Do you not think I should make that call?” the female doctor replied, amused. She jerked her head in his direction. “Someone you know?”

Vivi’s eyes collided with his and Cam felt the air leave his lungs. God, she was so damn beautiful. He’d thought so three years ago but there was a strength to her now, a maturity that had been missing in that girl he’d slept with so long ago. Back then she’d been a fun night, a diversion, a break from a hard job and constant loneliness. Lying in that hospital bed, she was now...what? He didn’t know.

“I know him,” Vivi said, resigned. “When can I get discharged?”

The doctor examined her eyes as the nurse wound a blood pressure cuff around her arm. The doctor pushed and prodded Vivi’s slim body before stepping back and folding her arms. “I will only discharge you if you promise not to drive.”

Frustration flashed in Vivi’s eyes. “My car is, I presume, waterlogged and at the bottom of a gully, so I won’t be driving anywhere. I’ll catch a cab or Uber.”

The thought of her being trapped in that car iced his veins and Cam placed his palm on the wall to anchor him. He couldn’t imagine a world, didn’t want to imagine a world, that didn’t have Vivi Donner in it. A surprising thought, given that he’d never expected to see her again.