“I try.” She looks across the water, her cheeks tinging red.
I can sense just how much she loves her boys. “Do you have pictures?”
She looks at me, one eyebrow up, and opens her phone to an image of them playing in mud. “Mason and Kasen.”
“Wow. They look just like you and your sister. Except with dark hair.”
“Yep. My dad had dark hair. A little darker than yours.”
“Had?”
“Mm-hmm. He passed away.”
She loves those boys in a way that’s all over her face even while she’s playing it cool, and something about that catches me somewhere I wasn’t expecting.
I want to be worthy of that. The thought lands before I can dodge it.
Which is a hell of a thing to feel about a woman who doesn’t even know my real last name.
She just handed me the real shape of her life—her kids, their father’s absence, all of it—and I gave her half of mine in return. Not a lie exactly. Just not the whole truth either, and I know the difference even when I’m pretending I don’t.
“Sorry to hear that.” I pick the guitar back up because I need something to do with my hands.
“It’s been a while.”
I look at her, my voice quieter than I intend. “Me too.”
“Oh, yeah?” She looks at me, not with pity, because she knows exactly where I’ve been. Just the same quiet expression I gave her.
“Yep, he died before I was born. I have a great stepdad, though, who has done everything he can to honor my father while also being my dad.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize it at the time growing up, but it is.”
I don’t know why it is that right now my chest is heavy. I’ve said this in interviews more times than I can count because the press won’t let it go. But saying it to Mallory feels different.
I don’t usually say more than that, and most people don’t push. Mallory doesn’t push either, but the way she’s looking at me makes me feel like she already understands the part I left out—that you can grieve someone you never had, and that sometimes the loss that marks you most is the one you have no memory to attach it to.
I strum a few notes and think about how my dad would be proud of the man who stepped in without ever trying to replace him.
“That’s the same song you were playing the other night.”
I look at her. She has a good ear. Too good, maybe. The song has her fingerprints all over it: the prickly exterior, the blue eyes that give more away than she knows, the way she sketches things that won’t leave her alone.
“It’s new.”
She doesn’t even question it. She simply accepts that I’m sitting here writing a song on a guitar as a ranch hand. When I think about it, it makes perfect sense. She’s an artist too.
I play what I have, although I don’t sing. I know she’s going to find out who I am. And she just shared a really big piece of herself with me. But I almost hear her off, because I realize getting to know Mallory Jenkins is proving interesting and important.
I set down the guitar and look her straight in the eyes. “I want to kiss you again, Mallory.”
“I don’t even know your last name, Cam.”
“It’s Walker.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. Her words from five minutes ago land differently now. Her boys’ father is that in name only. I should just come clean, but I hesitate. What if she doesn’t want everything my name brings to the table?
Oblivious to my internal struggle, she looks at me with those mesmerizing blue eyes. “Mine is Jenkins. I want you to kiss me, Cameron Walker.”
