Page 6 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
His mouth pulled down in a grimace as he waved a hand at the products lining the shelves. Dragging her gaze off him, Camille actually noticed what he’d been examining so intently.
“You need my help with…feminine hygiene products?” She wasn’t sure why she’d used the technical term, but it was such an odd situation. Steve had reappeared out of the blue after sixteen years. He’d saved her from what could’ve been a horribly humiliating event in the woods, and he was now standing in front of the tampon display. She was just happy she was capable of talking at all.
“If you don’t mind.” He gave her a slight smile, not wide enough to create the charming creases in his cheeks she so vividly remembered. “This is an area I… Well, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
“Okay.” She cautiously moved closer, drawn by him as she’d always been, even as a gawky fourteen-year-old. “What kind of help do you need? Is this for your wife?” She remembered when she’d heard about his marriage, just two years after he’d left town after graduating from high school. Even though she and Steve had only exchanged a handful of words, Camille had still felt a painful twist in her chest at the news.
“No.” He focused on the boxes as he tipped his head from side to side, the motion drawing Camille’s attention to the way the rounded muscles of his shoulder angled to meet his neck. In his time away, Steve had not slacked off in the working-out department. “She died eight years ago.”
“Oh.” Jerking her attention off his body, she stared at the familiar line of boxes, not knowing the right response, as usual. “I’m so sorry.”
He accepted her words with a tight nod.
Camille mentally scrambled to think of something to say. What could possibly follow “My wife’s dead”? Camille hadn’t known her, so she couldn’t say something like “She was a wonderful woman,” since she had no idea what his wife had been like. She didn’t even know her name. Anything unrelated to his wife’s death, on the other hand, felt so silly and blasé, as if she was blowing off what had happened to him as something small and casual and not the hugely devastating event it surely had been.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “This is for my daughter.”
“Right.” Of course Steve was the wonderful kind of dad who went to the store to get tampons for his kid. Camille was not surprised at all—impressed and even more smitten, but not surprised. “What does she usually use?”
He rubbed his neck—it was like he wastryingto get her to focus on his excess of muscles—and twisted his shoulders in an uncomfortable shrug. “She doesn’t…not yet. I know it’s coming, though. Zoe’s almost twelve, and she’s living in a houseful of guys, except for her little sister, Maya, and I want her to have”—he waved at the tampon display—“whatever she needs on hand when the time comes. It’s been hard enough for her to grow up without her mom. The only thing I can do is to hopefully make things a little easier for her.”
With a frustrated grunt, he turned to face Camille. “Unless this is just going to make it worse? Should I bring her here and let her pick out what she’ll need instead?” Before she could answer, he groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve been a parent for fourteen years, and it didn’t used to be this hard. Now that they’re growing up, it feels like all the rules are changing, and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
Camille’s mind went blank. She was horrible at thinking of the right words in the moment—at three the next morning while lying sleepless in bed, sure, but in the moment, never. As the silence stretched, Steve’s shoulders began to sag, and he looked so defeated that Camille couldn’t stand it.
“My grandma raised me,” she blurted out, horrified at the words that were leaving her mouth. Was she really going to tell Steve-freaking-Springfield this story, of all stories? What was she doing? Despite the impending humiliation, though, she kept talking while focusing on a box of panty liners. If she met Steve’s warm hazel eyes, she knew she’d stumble over her words and it’d all come out sounding even worse. “I’ve always been shy, so I didn’t have many friends.”Or any.
“When I got my period, I was eleven. I panicked. My grandma was long past having to use any of this, so there wasn’t anything in the house. Since I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know if tissues would be enough, so I used one of Grandma’s dish towels, emptied my piggy bank, and came here.”
She grimaced at the memory and at the fact that she was actually sharing this traumatizing story with anyone, much less Steve. Freaking. Springfield. “It wasn’t an early Sunday morning like this, though. It was Saturday afternoon, packed with everyone doing their weekly grocery shopping, including the prettiest and meanest girl in sixth grade, Hayden Larchmont.”
Her cheeks burned as red as they had two decades ago. “There I was, Grandma’s embroidered dish towel stuffed in my underwear, feeling like everyone could take one look at me and justknow, lurking in the candy aisle as I waited for Hayden’s family to leave so I could grab what I needed and run. Finally, this lane was clear, and I hurried over—and I stood right here, in this very spot, staring at all this helplessly. I had no idea what to buy. Hayden and her mom came around the corner, and she stared at me standing in front of the tampon display and started to giggle, like she knew about the dish towel andeverything, and I realized that soon everyone at school would know every humiliating detail, too. I was so flustered and embarrassed that I just grabbed a box at random and ran.”
Now that the story was out, her word vomit spewed all over poor Steve, she had no choice but to leave before she melted into a puddle of liquid humiliation. She plucked two types of tampons and a box of pads from the shelf and piled them into Steve’s arms. “Here. She can start with these. It might take some time for her to find out what works best for her, but one of these should get her through the first period.”
Steeling herself, she turned and met Steve’s wide eyes. His mouth was open slightly, but he didn’t say anything.
“And for the record, I think you are a very good dad.” Turning, she marched to the checkout counter, not looking back at him, even when he called out a thank-you. As Kacey rang up her chocolate stars, Camille stared at the debit card reader, trying very hard not to think about what she’d just done.
I told Steve Springfield the story of my first period.
There was no other option. Camille was going to have to move.
* * *
“How many times do I need to say this?” Steve frowned at his two girls. “No more blowing things up—especially not in the house.”
“But, Dad…” Maya gave him the sweet smile that worked a little too well when it came to getting out of trouble. “It was only a tiny explosion. Just a littlepop.”
“I didn’t mean for it to blow up.” Zoe frowned at the blackened parts in her hands as if she could read what had gone wrong from the bits that remained. “It wasn’t anintentionalexplosion. I’m not sure what happened… Maybe a leak in the fuel line?”
“That shouldn’t cause an explosion. A fire, maybe, but…” His eyes narrowed. “No. You aren’t distracting me this time. Both of you know the rules. No working on combustible, explosive, or otherwise dangerous projects without an adult present. You”—he pointed at Maya—“are on stall-cleaning duty every day until Christmas.” Ignoring her groan, he turned to Zoe. “You are cleaning out the shop. Once that’s done, you’re helping your sister with the barn chores.” Although she grimaced, she accepted the punishment absently, and he knew her mind was still on the cause of the explosion. “No more working on this engine unless I’m directly supervising—or Joe, if I’m not available.”
“What? No!” That had gotten her full attention. “Uncle Joe isn’t around this close to Christmas. He’s better at hiding from the customers than Micah is, and Micah’s, like,invisiblethis time of year. I’ll never get to work on my engine.” Her big brown eyes, so painfully reminiscent of her mother’s, widened as she pleaded with him.
“Fine.” He knew he was too big a softy when it came to his children, but he couldn’t help it. They were good kids—just a little too smart and creative for their own good sometimes. When they were little, it’d been easy to know the right thing to do, but parenting grew harder and harder the older his children got. Now, he often felt as if he were trying to put together one of Zoe’s engines without a manual—and with a good chance that everything would blow up in his face. “No working on your engine unless it’s in the shop and one of your uncles is supervising or I’m there.”
“Or Will or Micah?” Zoe added hopefully.
