Page 54 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
“She wouldn’t talk to me after that, and she ran to her room when we got home.” He stared at Camille. “How can I fix it?”
He was looking at her as if he wanted—needed—her help, and instinctive panic began to well up inside her. She didn’t have kids. Even when she was a kid, she wasn’t particularly normal. How was she supposed to figure out how to fix Zoe? Steve was the dad. If he didn’t know what to do, what chance was there that Camille would?
But the thought of sweet Zoe being so sad broke her heart. “After you got home and she ran into her bedroom, did you try to talk to her?”
“Yeah. I knocked, but she yelled at me to go away.”
Camille frowned. “Do you think she’d talk to Maya or one of her brothers?”
His mouth tightened into a grimace. “Probably not. When Zoe’s upset, she tends to want to be by herself. Not that I blame her. As much as I love them, none of her siblings are especially…tactful.”
“Should we let her have her space, then? Let her stay in her room until she decides to come out and talk to us?” The last word popped out so naturally, with no hesitation. It was true. Sometime over the last few weeks, it had happened. She and Steve had started to become anus.
Steve looked startled for a moment before giving her a slight smile. “I like having you on my team.” Before his words had a chance to sink in, his frown returned. “Could you talk to her?”
“Me?” The panic that had mostly retreated rushed back to the forefront of her brain. “I’ve never… I mean, that’s not something I’m going to be good at. What if I just make things worse?”
“You won’t. YougetZoe.” As if Camille had actually agreed to something, he grabbed her hand and tugged her to the door that led outside. Still rattled by his suggestion, she allowed him to tow her through the door and halfway to the house before the cold air brought her out of her head.
“Wait!” She put on the brakes, and he stopped when she pulled back. He turned to face her, although he didn’t release her hand. “Hang on. Let’s think about this first. I don’t want to just burst in there and do something wrong and completely break your child.”
“You won’t,” he said with complete assurance—something she did not share. “Where’s your coat?”
Already off-balance, she answered automatically. “Your coat.”
“Fine. Where’s my coat, then?”
“Um…it’s still in the workshop.”
Steve shucked his jacket and dropped it over her shoulders. This one was even better than her other borrowed coat, since it was warm from his body heat and smelled even more like him. Catching her hand again, he led her toward the house. “I’ll text Will to grab it when he comes inside.”
She just nodded. Now that she was warm again, her abandoned coat was the last thing on her mind. “I really think this will go badly,” she warned as they reached the porch.
“She might not even want to talk,” he said, sounding like he was back to his confident, even bossy self now that there was a plan in place. Steve, she was finding, hated to be helpless. “If sheiswilling, then you’ll do fine. Just listen to her. You’re good at that. You always know what’s wrong, even when they don’t come right out and say it. Besides, Zoe—and all the kids—already love you.”
“I don’t know…” Despite feeling that it was very likely she’d make a bad situation worse and quite possibly feature in future Zoe’s therapy sessions, she followed him into the house. At this point, refusing to even try to talk to Zoe seemed churlish. Still, her stomach churned with nerves as she stripped off her boots and second borrowed coat. “Do you really think—?”
“Yes.” Steve didn’t even let her finish. “You’ll do great. Go up there and knock.”
“Have you always been this bossy?” She gave him an annoyed glare that hopefully hid her apprehension. It was silly to be so nervous about talking to an almost-twelve-year-old, but that thought didn’t help settle her stomach. Deep down in the most insecure corner of her brain, she acknowledged that she really liked Steve’s kids, and it was important to her for them to like her. She was just worried that saying the completely wrong thing would make Zoe—as well as Steve and the rest of his children—realize what a socially backward outcast Camille actually was. If they dismissed her from their lives now, it would hurt—a lot. It would be all the pain of a breakup times five, because she’d lose the kids, too.
But Steve needed her. The bossiness was fueled by worry for his daughter. How could she turn away from that? Especially now that there was anus.
Pretending that she wasn’t trembling in her socks, she marched up the stairs with as much confidence as she could muster. The sight of the closed bedroom door was a bit intimidating, and she glanced behind her to see that Steve had followed. He gave an encouraging nod, and she frowned at him. She didn’t want Zoe to refuse to talk to her because Steve was there. “Stay downstairs,” she mouthed.
He gave another short nod and headed back down the stairs. Raising a hand, Camille knocked.
“Dad, I told you that I don’t want to talk to you right now.” Although Zoe’s voice was a little shaky and watery, she sounded a lot more coherent and less hysterical than Camille had feared.
“It’s me,” Camille said. Silence fell on Zoe’s side of the door, and Camille held her breath.
Finally, there was a heavy sigh that was clearly meant to be heard outside the room. “You can come in.”
Turning the knob, Camille cautiously opened the door just far enough to stick her head in. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Zoe was a pitiful sight sitting slumped on the edge of the bottom bunk bed, her eyes and nose red and the rest of her face pale. She was stroking Lucy, who was curled up on her lap. When Camille didn’t move any farther into the room, Zoe asked, “Why aren’t you coming in?”
“Just checking to see if you were building a revenge bomb or something before I put myself in the blast zone.” When Zoe didn’t laugh, instead just stared at her with sad eyes lined with wet, spiky lashes, Camille suppressed a wince and slipped inside, closing the door behind her. “Sorry. I know that you’d be a lot more creative about getting revenge if you needed to. In fact, your dad was just telling me last weekend how ingenious you can be when it comes to getting your siblings back, and how I shouldn’t ask you to help me prank Will, since things would get out of hand.”
