The Cooper Brothers Camden ~ Save me BOOK THREE

Everyone has a past. Some people can talk about theirs without thinking twice. They remember the good parts, laugh about the embarrassing ones, and eventually learn to live with the things they wish had happened differently. Others spend years trying not to think about what happened to them at all.

I used to believe that moving forward meant leaving everything behind. That if I kept myself busy, made plans, and concentrated on the life I wanted, the things I’d rather forget would eventually stop mattering.

I know better now.

The past has a way of finding its way into the present, even when you think you’ve dealt with it. Sometimes it’s a memory you weren’t expecting. Sometimes it’s a person you thought you’d never see again. And sometimes it’s meeting someone whose life is so different from your own that you begin to question everything you thought you understood.

Camden Cooper was never someone I expected to fall in love with.

He was arrogant, infuriating, and far too good at making me lose my temper. He had an answer for everything, a grin that usually meant trouble, and an impressive ability to turn even the simplest conversation into an argument. There were days when I genuinely wondered how anyone managed to put up with him.

But there was another side to Camden. One he didn’t show easily, and certainly not to me.

Behind the tattoos, the reckless behaviour, and the sharp remarks was a young man who had become a father when he was barely old enough to understand what that meant. While the rest of us were worrying about school, friendships, and what we wanted to do with our lives, Camden was learning how to feed two newborn babies, change diapers, and get through another night without sleep.

Willow and River.

Two little girls with his green eyes, completely unaware of how much their father had already sacrificed for them.

For years, they were the center of his world. Every decision he made, every responsibility he took on, and every fear he tried to hide somehow came back to them. He loved his daughters more than anything, but loving them didn’t make the rest of his life easier. It certainly didn’t protect him from everything that had happened before they were born or everything that followed.

There were things Camden didn’t know how to talk about. Things he’d convinced himself were better left alone. He could make a joke when a conversation became uncomfortable, lose his temper when somebody asked the wrong question, or simply walk away before anyone got close enough to see how badly he was struggling.

For a long time, I mistook that for arrogance.

And perhaps that was exactly what he wanted.

The more I learned about him, the harder it became to reconcile the Camden everybody thought they knew with the boy who had once been left holding two babies, wondering whether their mother would ever come home. His family had helped him raise them, but there were parts of those years that nobody could take away from him. He’d been frightened, angry, and hurt, and somewhere along the way, he’d learned to expect things to go wrong.

Then there was Imogen.

Her disappearance had left questions that never really went away. Questions about what had happened to her, why she’d never returned, and what it would mean for Camden and the girls if she ever did.

I couldn’t have imagined how complicated those answers would become. Or how much they would change the lives of everyone involved.

And I had my own past to contend with. My own mistakes, my own family, and truths I wasn’t prepared to face. Falling in love with Camden didn’t make any of that disappear. If anything, it forced me to look at things I’d spent years avoiding.

There were times when loving him frightened me. Not because I doubted how I felt, but because I could see how much he had to lose. Willow and River weren’t simply part of his life. They were his children, and their happiness and safety would always come before anything else.

I understood that.

What I didn’t know was whether Camden would ever believe he could let somebody love him without putting everything he’d fought for at risk.

I couldn’t fix his past. I couldn’t give him back the years he’d spent afraid, or undo the things people had done to him. And no matter how much I loved the girls, I could never replace their mother. I wouldn’t want to.

But I could be there. For Camden, for Willow and River, and for whatever came next.

The difficult part was convincing him that I meant it.

Because Camden had spent so long looking after everybody else that he seemed to have forgotten he was allowed to need somebody too.

And I was beginning to understand that if I wanted a future with him, I would have to accept all of it. The daughters he adored, the family who never stopped interfering, the past that still hurt him, and the parts of himself he was convinced nobody could love.

The question wasn’t whether I could love Camden Cooper.

I already did.

The question was whether he would ever let me.