Page 55 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
Zoe blinked at her, looking confused. At least she’d distracted the girl from the thought of her friend leaving—for a moment, anyway. “Why do you need to get revenge on Will?”
“I thought he’d pranked me. Want to hear the story?”
“Sure.” Zoe’s breath hiccupped, and Camille felt her heart squeeze in sympathy. Instead of sitting in the desk chair, as she’d originally planned, she moved to take the spot on the bed next to Zoe.
“This okay?” she asked, perching on the edge of the mattress when Zoe nodded.
There were a few seconds of silence, broken only by Lucy’s rumbling purr and another residual sob-hiccup from Zoe, before she asked, “What’d Will do?”
“It was on Saturday, after I cleaned stalls with Maya. I went right from the barn to help at the gift shop, and I’d been wearing my hat all morning, so I had a pretty sad case of hat hair.”
“Yeah.” Another hiccup caught the last part of the word. “I hate that about winter.”
“Usually, only Lucy sees me without my hat, so I haven’t had to worry about it.”
“Until you worked in the shop.” Zoe was starting to sound a little less shattered, and a knot in Camille’s chest started to release.
“Exactly. So, Will showed me where to put my coat, and he was there when I took my hat off. He told me to take out my ponytail and bend so my head was upside down.” Standing, she demonstrated each step as she recounted it. “Then, he had me flip my hair back as I stood up.” She did a better flip this time, not having any strands hanging in her face. “I couldn’t see my reflection in the window very well, so I had to trust him that it looked okay. He promised me it was fine and then left. I walk out of the office, and Steve sees me…” She trailed off, suddenly unsure how to tell the next part to Steve’s young daughter.
“Then what?” Zoe looked at her with interest. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and some of the redness had faded from her eyes.
Camille knew she had to finish the story, so she cleared her throat, mentally trying to edit out the flirty parts. “He saw me, and made this face.” She bugged out her eyes and let her mouth drop open a little. It was exaggerated, but not by that much, and it made Zoe giggle.
“Why? Was it that bad?”
“I don’t know!” Camille flung out her hands dramatically before plopping down next to Zoe again. “I started talking about getting revenge on Will, and Steve said it didn’t look bad, and he was just surprised, since he’d never seen it down.” There was no way she was going to mention that Steve had admitted he’d liked it.
“Really?” Zoe looked skeptical, which was understandable since Camille was leaving out large chunks of the story. “That seems like a weird thing to bethatsurprised about. What’d you say to Dad after he said that?”
“Well…nothing for a while.” When Zoe gave her a sideways glance, she added, “It was busy on Saturday! Later, I told him that I liked…” Too late, she realized that it could be a potentially awkward thing to say. Knowing Zoe would never let her leave that unfinished, Camille cleared her throat and then said the whole thing in a rush, wanting to just get it out and over with. “I told him that I liked his hair too. And that I liked his face…and pretty much all of him.”
“What?” Zoe’s eyes widened as she started to giggle. The giggles multiplied until she was laughing uncontrollably. “I can’t believe you told my dad you liked his face.”
“I know!” Camille flopped back on the bed, part embarrassed, part happy that she’d gotten Zoe to laugh. “I can’t believe I said that. I’m such a dork.”
“Do you really like hishair?” Her giggles finally fading, Zoe lay back next to Camille. Lucy snuggled in between them. “He’s not Rapunzel or anything. His hair is really short and brown. It’s kinda boring, actually.”
“I do like it.” In a burst of honesty, she admitted, “There’s really nothing about him I don’t like. I mean, I even like how hopelessly bad he is at wrapping things in the gift shop.”
Zoe snorted. “He’s horrible. Just wait until Christmas. He’s even worse at wrapping our presents.”
“I believe it.” They were both quiet for a moment before Camille spoke again, turning to look at Zoe’s profile. “He’s worried about you. He feels really bad about saying the wrong thing.”
“I know he does.” Zoe’s voice got that watery tone to it again, and Camille cringed, hating that she’d made her sad. “He just doesn’t get it. He and Will and Maya all make friends really easily. I don’t…not usually. When I met Wyatt on my first day here, it was like…instant. I felt like we’d been friends forever.” She let out a quavering sigh. “Now Wyatt’s moving to Texas, and school is going to suck so bad. I won’t have anyone to eat lunch with, and no one will pick me as a biology partner, and it’s going to be like the first day all over again, but worse.”
“Oh.” Camille didn’t know what to say that would make Zoe feel better. It wasn’t really something she or Steve could fix, no matter how much they wanted to. “I’m sorry, Zoe.”
“I didn’t have a chance to finish his rocket packorhis robotic legs.” A fresh tear slid down the cheek closer to Camille. Still not knowing how to console Zoe, she reached out and gently wiped the moisture off her cheek. With a choked sob, Zoe rolled over and buried her face in Camille’s shoulder.
For a while, Camille let her cry, rubbing her back lightly and staring at the ceiling, racking her brain for something helpful to say that would somehow lighten the hurt Zoe was feeling. When her sobs started to taper off, Camille said, “You know, just because he’ll be in Texas doesn’t mean you should stop working on your projects. He could still come visit and try out the jet pack or the robotic legs.”
Zoe turned her head so her cheek was resting on Camille’s shoulder. “I guess.”
“It’d be like a movie.” Camille stared at the ceiling as the possibilities played in her head. “You’ll design these amazing robotic legs and change a bunch of people’s lives. Then, when you go away to college to…MIT?”
“Colorado School of Mines,” Zoe corrected. “It has one of the top twenty robotics engineering programs. Besides, it’s closer to the ranch, so I can come home to visit a lot.”
“Okay. When you go to your first class at Mines, Wyatt walks through the door using his robotic legs…the design you invented. He sits down next to you, and you start talking, and it’s like you never were apart. The two of you build a jet pack together. When Will, Micah, and Maya come to visit, all five of you test out the jet pack, but you don’t tell your dad, because he’d huff and puff and pace until you were all safely on the ground again, because that’s what good dads do.”
