Page 76 of Forged in Peril

It was a life she could have had already, had she made different choices. She could have already been Bristol Forge for years by now.

She reached over to the plastic container that held her pancakes, prying off the lid and tearing off a corner of one of the fluffy creations before stuffing it into her mouth.

There was no use in dwelling on what might have been. All she could do was what she’d told Cameron already. She could try to open her heart to figuring out the future she really wanted, and maybe, if it was God’s plan, it would include pancake-filled domestic bliss.

“Okay, I’m glad I got the double stack, ‘cuz I’m totally having some of those,” Cam said, reaching for the packets of syrup and butter that Iris had packed in the brown takeout bag.

“Please do,” Bristol said, rolling a second chair over to the empty desk so that both of them could sit side by side.

As Cameron covered the pancakes in copious amounts of fat and liquid sugar, Bristol leaned over and nuzzled her face into his shoulder, soaking in the smell of his shower gel and whatever delicious cologne he always seemed to be wearing.

The breakfast was good, but this was even better.

They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, each tearing through two of the large pancakes and most of the fruit, until finally, Cameron set his fork down and looked over at her.

“So,” he said, giving her a quick smile, “I talked to Gabe last night.”

Bristol swallowed her tea too fast, coughing for a moment before she recovered.

“That was quick,” she said. “I didn’t think he’d get a chance to talk to her yesterday. I barely saw her. She had me running back and forth between file rooms all afternoon.”

“He stayed late,” Cameron said. “But I’m glad he did, because it was good news. Very good, actually.”

“Oh?”

Bristol listened patiently as Cameron recounted what Gabe and Jaclyn had discussed, chewing on bits of the remaining pancake to keep herself from fidgeting as he spoke.

Gabe knew what he was doing. By the sounds of it, he had looked for an answer for every concern she’d had, even going so far as to find out the identity of the second Albert.

“I should feel relieved,” she said at last as he finished, pushing aside the last few bites of the third pancake that she immediately regretted eating.

“But?”

Cameron’s voice was gentle, but she couldn’t help but to wonder if there was an undercurrent of exasperation running through it.

Still, she’d promised to attempt to be vulnerable, and that meant being honest about how she felt, even if she was worried that he’d find it foolish.

“I can’t get the alarm bells to stop ringing,” she confessed. “Something tells me that that call wasn’t what Jaclyn says it was. My instinct, my gut, whatever you want to call it.”

She picked up her tea and sipped at it, glad to be able to hide her reddening face as the words hung in the air, waiting for his response.

“Like I said, it’s good to listen to our instincts,” Cameron said, reaching over and placing a hand on her forearm. “But there’s also nothing wrong with trusting an outside source, especially if there might be something else skewing our perception.”

She felt a prickle of uncertainty tingling against the back of her neck.

“What do you mean? I heard what I heard. Jaclyn hasn’t driven me to the ‘hearing voices’ stage of insanity yet.”

Her joke came out without humor, and she gripped the cardboard cup tight, suddenly wishing that Cameron would pull his hand away and stop touching her.

“I have zero doubts about what you heard,” Cameron said carefully, a muscle twitching along the edge of his jaw. “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about other things. Other things that have happened lately. Things that might be causing you to feel more anxious than normal. Paranoid, even.”

Bristol froze.

“Like the rape, right? Or was it the vandalism? Or when someone broke into my mother’s house?”

“Bristol, that’s not–”

She couldn’t help herself from continuing, the words bitter on her tongue as her voice continued to raise. “Oh, I’m sorry, were you referring to the time that a stranger grabbed me in broad daylight, shoved a gun into my back, and came this close to chucking me into the back of a kidnapper van?”

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