by Gayle Kaye
Cam wasn’t going to lose sight of Hallie in this crowd if he could help it. She looked so fresh and tempting in that lime-green blouse, her red hair tumbling over its open collar. Her skirt was long, and flirted sensuously with her slender legs.
He tripped through the crowd that left the trolley, heading off in search of fun and good food, maybe a little music from the bands beginning to warm up in the center of the square. He’d like to have a little fun himself, and only prayed the crowds stayed manageable and orderly, and his deputies proved worth their salt, so he could steal a bit of time with the lady he most wanted to be with today.
Not that he had any right thinking of her in that regard.
He’d vowed to stay on the sensible side of romance for the foreseeable future, possibly forever, but Hallie made that a hard resolve to keep.
Still, if he had any trouble keeping to the straight and narrow he only had to remind himself Hallie would soon be returning to Texas once she had everything settled with Pearl.
Several people called out to him, but he didn’t even glance in their direction for fear that if he did, Hallie might disappear from view.
“Hi,” he said, coming up to her. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.” He put out a hand to assist her from the trolley. She took it a little hesitantly.
A jolt of awareness shot through him at her light touch. He was about to drop her hand when a jostle from the crowd sent her careening into him. He caught her by the elbows and drew her against him for safety.
She smelled like cool rain and new spring grass with a hint of some flowering blossom he couldn’t name. He wasn’t big on flowers, but he’d be damned if she didn’t smell like the most fragrant, the rarest, one he’d like to pluck and keep with him.
“I... I’m fine,” she said, drawing away as if embarrassed she’d lost her footing, or that she had to lean on him for support. “And, of course. I wouldn’t have missed this day. Does the town really do this every year?”
He smiled. “Someone got it up a few years back—and it took on a life of its own after that. I suppose it fosters a sense of community, gets the folks around here all working together—and brings money into the town coffers at the same time.”
It also meant a lot of work for Cam, which at the moment he was cursing. He’d much prefer to run off somewhere with Hallie—at least for a while.
Not the best idea he’d had in recent days, but one of the most persistent.
“Save me a dance later?” he asked, hating the fact that he was hanging on her answer.
“Well, I—”
Hallie was about to answer that of course she’d love to dance with Cam later, but before she could get out the words, she saw Granny headed in their direction, spit and fire brimming in her keen eyes.
Cam spotted her, too. “Here comes trouble,” he murmured, just for Hallie’s benefit. “Maybe I can lock her up at least until I get that dance.”
Hallie stiffened. “That isn’t the least bit funny. Cam Osborne. I don’t want to see Granny anywhere near that jail of yours again. She’s old and...and...”
Cam certainly hoped she wasn’t about to say “feeble” because he’d have to disagree. The feisty little rebel looked for all the world like she could tear him limb from limb at the moment—and do it happily.
“Sheriff, you done told me you’d keep your distance from my granddaughter. You look like you have every intention of eating her up like she’s some tasty dessert. Now what have you got to say for yourself?”
Cam wasn’t going to get that dance, he just knew it. Not if Pearl had anything to say about it.
The woman intended to make his life hell.
And he feared Hallie could do the same—in an entirely different way.
Chapter Six
The sounds of the band lured Hallie away from the booth where she’d been helping Granny. She hadn’t seen Cam all afternoon, not since he’d deftly sidestepped her grandmother’s pointed barb about treating Hallie like a tasty dessert—and reminding him of his promise to keep his hands off her.
As if she were some hothouse plant that would wilt from touch!
Perhaps Hallie wanted Cam’s hands on her. They were such capable hands, too—big and broad and sure. They could make a woman’s skin sing from the slightest brush. What would a night of lovemaking with him be like?
A slow shiver crept along her spine at the imagining before she quietly shoved the thought aside. Granny was undoubtedly right. Any association with Cam—beyond the present, necessary professional one—would only create trouble, trouble Hallie didn’t need in her life.
She stepped to the edge of the wooden pavilion in the square where the dancing was in full swing. Just to watch, just to enjoy the band sounds, and the encroaching evening.
“Is your grandmother around?”
Hallie heard Cam’s low, male voice; its sexy rumble whispered over her nerve endings. She smiled as he approached warily.
“You’re safe,” she said. “I left her gossiping with her friends and complaining that the band was too loud. You’re not afraid of her, are you, Sheriff?”
He leaned close, so close she caught his clean, spicy scent, could see the soft moonlight reflected in his eyes. “Not as long as I have her effectively... disarmed.”
Granny’s shotgun. Cam wouldn’t forget something like that, one mean weapon aimed in his direction—whether or not Granny would have fired at him. Hallie glanced up. “I’m sure Granny’s sorry about that. It’s not at all like her.”
“Yeah, well, all the same, I’m keeping that bazooka of hers under lock and key.” His frown turned to query. “Have you been having a good time?”
“Immensely,” she answered enthusiastically. “But I haven’t seen much of you.”
He leaned back against a tree, one knee bent, his foot resting against the trunk. “I’ve been busy—crowd control and keeping an eye on those two new deputies of mine. But all’s quiet now. I thought I might enjoy the day—or what’s left of it.”
The best part was left, Hallie thought. The evening with the stars lighting the night sky, the band in full rhythm, the...dancing.
Cam seemed to read her mind. “I even have time for a dance or two. If you’ll oblige me, Hallie Cates?” he asked, his eyes sultry and sincere in his tanned face.
Hallie couldn’t resist, even if she’d wanted to. She seemed to be falling under this man’s spell, at least for tonight. “I’d like that, Cam Osborne.”
This was not a good idea, Cam decided the moment he had Hallie in his arms. She felt glorious there, too glorious. Her soft scent teased at his nostrils, still sweet, still flowery. Her hair brushed his cheek, silky and scented like the rest of her.
The bluegrass band playing earlier had given way to a county band, playing sentimental ballads about love gone awry. Cam knew all about love gone awry—and it wasn’t something he wanted to experience again any time soon.
So why did Hallie feel so right in his arms? Was it because she was only a temporary diversion? She would be leaving one day soon? She didn’t belong to him—and never would?
So he was safe?
Wrong—he felt anything but safe. Hallie was the kind of woman who seeped into your pores, settled into your heart in a forever kind of way.
She glanced up at him, and he realized he’d slowed the tempo. Slowed, hell—he’d nearly frozen on the dance floor, unable to move. “You want to sit this out awhile?” she asked quietly.
Cam searched around the edges of the pavilion and saw too many eligible vultures just waiting their chance for a dance with her. Relinquishing Hallie to one of them wasn’t his idea of an enjoyable evening.
Oh, no. He wanted this woman all to himself.
He gave any hopeful contender a warning glower that threatened bodily pain if any one of them even dreamed of cutting in on him.
“No—I want to dance,” he returned. He wanted a hell of a lot more than that from Hallie, but those ideas he might as well shelve forever.
Perhaps that grandmother of hers had been right to warn him away from Hallie. He would do well to take the woman’s advice, and he’d consider it—just as soon as he could think straight again.
Cam monopolized Hallie’s evening, not that she was complaining, taking every dance with the exception of one, and that he’d given up to a man who was nearing eighty-three, then quickly reclaimed her for one final one.
It felt so good to be in his arms, to feel the scratchiness of his uniform against her cheek, the solidness of his chest, the strength of his thighs, as he pulled her against him. The music was twangy and slow, something sappy and sentimental, but Hallie wouldn’t have cared if it was a shuffle as long as she was with Cam, as long as his arms were around her.
They fit together well, as easily as they had the night he’d kissed her on Granny’s front porch. She’d noticed it then, and noticed it now. He bent his head and she rested her forehead against his cheek. It was scratchy, too, with the beginnings of a beard, but she liked the way it prickled.
He’d placed her hand at the back of his neck, and her fingers tangled intimately in his hair that curled over his shirt collar. She closed her eyes and swayed to the music, hoping the song would go on forever.
If Granny could see them now, she’d have a shotgun poised and aimed at Cam’s backside for sure. The poor man would be picking buckshot out for weeks—and Granny would be locked up for the rest of her born days.
Hallie only prayed the woman was well occupied with her friends.
Finally the dance ended, but Cam kept one arm loosely wrapped around her as if staking some sort of permanent claim to her as he walked her from the dance floor.
“How about a triple dip of homemade ice cream and a chance to rest those feet of yours I’ve been stepping all over?” he asked.
He hadn’t been stepping on her feet—and if he had, she probably wouldn’t have noticed. But the proposal of ice cream sounded great. “I’d love some.”
Besides, eating ice cream had to be a little more innocent than dancing, if Granny caught them together. Though she wasn’t sure doing anything with Cam could count as innocent. Not with the way he stirred her insides.
“What’s your favorite flavor?” Cam asked as they neared the ice cream stand.
“Chocolate,” she said, “the richer, the better.”
Cam grinned slowly. He knew one more thing about her. She liked chocolate ice cream, and somehow that fact seemed like an intimate divulgence.
“Chocolate it is, then,” he said and placed the order for two cones of the same.
He wanted to know more about her, wanted to know her favorite everything. “What else do you like?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s your favorite color?” He sounded like a schoolboy out on a first date, but damn it, Hallie had him interested. Much too interested—but that he’d worry about later. “Your favorite movie?”
Her hopes? Her dreams? What she wore to bed? The... scent of that flowery perfume she had on?
Or was the scent natural Hallie?
She gave him a small crooked smile. “Blue—I love the color blue. And my favorite movie is...anything old and romantic. What is this all about?”
He shrugged slightly. “Just curious about you, that’s all.”
That made two of them. Hallie was equally curious about Cam. And flattered that he wanted to know more about her, beyond whether or not she’d found Granny’s still.
He paid for the triple-decker cones and handed one to Hallie, then found a quiet place to enjoy them, a grassy spot at the edge of the square with a minimum of people milling about. Behind her she could hear the music. Overhead, the moonlight sifted through the boughs of the trees, softening the night, making it seem more romantic than it was. This was just a town jamboree, with a few thousand people from around the countryside in attendance.
But somehow Hallie felt alone with this man.
She watched him sample his ice cream, not allowing a drip of it to trickle down the side. In control—Cam Osbome was in control in everything, even his mastery over an ice-cream cone. That made her shiver slightly. He’d win this tussle with Granny. And if he put his mind to wanting Hallie, she’d no doubt go into his arms willingly.
“Tell me about the kids I saw you with the other day. They seemed...enthralled with you, Sheriff. Do you have that effect on everyone around the county?”
“Just kids, dogs and little old ladies. Uh, make that some little old ladies,” he amended quickly.
“Not the other females around here?”
He glanced up at her wickedly. “How am I doing with you?”
A little too well, Hallie thought. “You haven’t won me over entirely yet, Sheriff.”
That was beginning to nudge a little too close to a lie, but Hallie wasn’t about to admit it—even to herself. She enjoyed her ice cream for a long, quiet moment.
“The kids,” she said again, “you have a real way with them. As a teacher I recognized that—and have to admire it.” She also recognized good fatherhood material when she saw it. “What about children of your own?” she asked.
“I don’t have any.”
Hallie smiled. “That wasn’t what I meant. Do you want kids of your own one day?”
That might be personal, but somehow she very much wanted to know.
His answer came too quickly, too harshly. “No.”
She had treaded where she shouldn’t have. One glance at Cam’s darkened face, the hard set of his shoulders told her that, but she’d made her way into this briar patch of too-intimate territory, and she’d have to find her way back out.
Gracefully, if she could.
“Not even one—to teach fly casting to?” she pressed.
His ice cream was gone except for the bottom half of the cone, and that he downed in one bite, then gazed over at her. The moonlight glinted on his rugged features, his nose that he might have broken in a fight or maybe on the rough Chicago streets, his chin, strong and square and raised in determination.
His voice when he spoke was flinty. “I was married once,” he said. “But it was a mistake, one I don’t plan to repeat. I was glad there weren’t any children to...complicate our lives.”
Well, Hallie, that’s what you get when you pry—the unvarnished truth. Cam saw children, at least his own, as a complication.
So had Tommy Lamont.
Was it something in the water in Greens Hollow?
No, this baggage Cam had brought with him was from Chicago. What difficulties had life dealt him back there? Whatever they were, they were still there, ingrained in the man.
Cam was good with children. Hallie had seen that the other afternoon. But those boys were other men’s children, not his own, she remembered quietly.
She’d scraped old hurts in Cam by prying into his life, she realized too late. And she’d resurrected some of her own, as well.
But her own she knew how to deal with—at least on one level. She’d lost a child she’d wanted, even though she’d been young—possibly too young—to know how to raise one.
It hurt now each time she saw a new classroom of children, all bright-faced and scrubbed and eager to meet the teacher, but they soon, each and every one of them, became her kids, the ones she wanted so desperately, the ones she hoped to have one day.
She’d do well to remember her life back in Fort Worth. It was where she belonged. Forget any attraction she might have to one good-looking sheriff.
Forget this town that had brought her heartache.
As soon as this mess with Granny was straightened out, she would do just that—go home. And convince Granny Pearl to go with her.
“I—I’m sorry, Cam. I shouldn’t have stirred up the past by asking so many questions.”
She’d seen the pain that had shadowed his eyes. She wanted to reach out to him—because that was the way she was. She’d never been able to walk away from anyone in need.
But did Cam really need her?
Need anyone?
Cam didn’t want Hallie’s sympathy. Damn the woman. He didn’t talk about himself—or what had happened back in Chicago. Maybe he just ran—ran as far away from hurt and betrayal as he could get.
And he’d thought Greens Hollow the end of the earth.
That was until one pretty, red-haired beauty had come roaring into town to save her grandmother.
Well, she could just take those soft green eyes and that trembling chin of hers and... and... what? She’d looked so stunned when he’d told her he hadn’t needed any kids to complicate his life—or his divorce from Elise.
But then, Hallie was a teacher. She no doubt had one big soft spot in her heart for all rug rats, great and small. Cam did, too, in his own way. He loved teaching the boys around here about fly casting, about sports, about all the other things that interested them, but a kid needed a stable home, stable parents—and he wasn’t sure the world was created that way.
At least his world hadn’t been.
Her nosiness, and his divulgences about his past, had put a definite damper on the evening—an evening he’d like to get back.
Strange, he’d feared it would have been Granny who’d have thrown the rainwater on the night.
But then, the evening hadn’t ended yet.
“Look, Hallie, I guess I’m just not a big believer in home and hearth for...certain reasons of my own. And I’m not sure very many kids in this world get a taste of that kind of life—though, God knows, they all deserve it. Sometimes life is hard and sometimes it’s rotten.”
Hallie knew about life being hard, downright rotten even. Cam didn’t have the corner on that. But it hadn’t made her afraid to believe. It only made her fearful, fearful she could make a second mistake, one even greater than the first.
Was that what frightened Cam, too?
“If...if you’d like to talk about it sometime, Cam...I’m a good listener.”
He cupped her cheek and let his thumb stray across her lower lip. She felt the roughness of it rasp against her sensitive nerve endings and it sent lightning bolts of charged electricity skyrocketing through her.
How could this man make all her senses come so alive?