Page 82 of Forged in Peril

Reilly knew him far too well to let him get away with coming off as the innocent party. Though they were technically cousins, he was just as much a Forge brother as the rest of them, and as difficult as it could be at times, Cameron was thankful that he had men in his life who kept him honest.

“A lot of stuff I shouldn’t have,” he said, letting out a sigh. It was true. Now that most of the anger had faded away, he felt disgusted with himself and the harshness of his words. “Some of it was true, of course, but a lot of it was my own pride talking. At that moment, I wasn’t trying to let iron sharpen iron. I just wanted to lash out and to hurt her like she hurt me.”

To his credit, Reilly didn’t ask for the grisly details.

He leaned back against the machine, giving Cameron a grim smile.

“You know you can’t leave things like this. Even if the whole Jaclyn phone call thing is nonsense, Bristol’s still in danger, and if she leaves now, you’re not going to be able to guarantee her protection. None of us will.”

Cameron nodded. He was right. No matter how angry he was with her, the thought of her getting hurt was unbearable. While they knew how to guard clients outside of their own walls, Bristol was especially stubborn. The smart thing to do was to make sure she stuck around until this whole thing was finished.

“Even if you ruined your chances at getting back together with her, and she ruined her chances at getting back together with you,” Reilly continued, raising an eyebrow, “you need to apologize, and you need to get her to see enough sense to let us protect her a little longer. It doesn’t matter if she was wrong to treat you the way she did. You need to be the bigger person here.”

“Great,” Cameron said flatly.

He didn’t bother to rebuke Reilly’s claim that he still wanted to be with her.

Despite everything he’d said, and all the fury he’d felt, it was true.

Everything had been easier in the seven years that Bristol had been out of his life, but he wanted something more than a life that was easy and comfortable.

Somehow, despite all they’d been through, there was still a flicker of hope hidden away in his heart. Foolish as it was, he still believed that even the most broken things could be mended.

“I’m kidding, brother,” Reilly said, shaking his head. “You’ve forgiven her for worse, and I suspect you would do it again. If she can’t do the same for you, well, she isn’t the girl God has planned. But either way, we need to keep her safe.”

Cameron got to his feet, reaching for a towel and wiping the remaining beads of sweat from his brow.

“Thanks, Reilly,” he said, surprised at the emotion in his voice. His family drove him crazy at least half of the time, but whenever things got tough, one of them always knew just what to say. “I’m gonna find a peace offering and head upstairs.”

Reilly got up from his own machine and pulled him into a sweaty embrace, clapping him hard on the back. “Love you, man. You got this.”

Cameron started to make his way across the gym, leaving Reilly to finish his workout, but as soon as he’d reached the door that led to the locker room, he turned around.

“One more question,” he said, waiting as Reilly finished a few more reps.

“Shoot.”

“Is my dream of having a wife and a family worth it? Because the process of getting there really and truly sucks.”

Reilly paused.

“For my relationship with Lauren, and for our girls, I’d walk through any fire God could throw at me, as many times as it took,” he said, giving Cameron a soft smile. “That’s one thing I know to be true: real love is worth all of the suffering and sacrifice that it demands of us.”

BRISTOL

The next hour passed far too quickly.

Bristol had begun by going through the files she wasn’t familiar with one by one, trying to take a systematic approach, but as the minutes began to tick away, she’d realized that she had to move faster.

Jaclyn could come back any time, and even though she would have an easy enough time coming up with an excuse as to why she was rooting through her files, she’d hardly be able to explain the untouched pile of work on her own desk. The lawyer would be suspicious, and if Bristol’s intuitions were correct, she couldn’t afford to underestimate what the woman might do if she realized how much she knew.

She was moving more quickly now, shuffling through what felt like endless drawers, cabinets, and cardboard boxes, praying that God would lead her to whatever it was she needed to see.

Just as she’d plopped down unceremoniously onto the floor to go through the two bottom drawers of Jaclyn’s desk, she heard the sound of Melanie’s heels as she clicked her way back into the office.

For a moment, she froze, before remembering that the intern wasn’t going to think anything of Bristol being in her boss’s office, even if she was sitting on the floor surrounded by a sea of paper.

Still, she could hardly believe it when Mel knocked at the edge of Jaclyn’s door and asked Bristol if she minded her taking her half-day today instead of Thursday as usual. Bristol listened politely as she explained that her boyfriend had been cut early from his shift and was driving in from Dallas to see her.

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