by Donna Fasano
“How can you be so sure?” Craig raised an eyebrow.
“Because I won’t let him.”
The hard, no-nonsense phrase hung in the air like the ring warning gunshot.
The three waited, each eyeing the other. No one wanted to break the brittle silence. The tension around them charged the dry air so that it felt as if one sound might set off a spark that could ignite an explosion of emotion.
Julia’s heartbeat throbbed in her temples and thudded in her ears. Her hands tangled in her lap, winding tighter and tighter together until her skin burned and her knuckles ached.
Cameron’s gaze held steady, unyielding.
Finally, she had to say something. “I have lived my life asking people to trust in my help, Mr. O’Dea. I think it’s time I show I can do what I ask of others.” She stood and faced him, her arms folding over her chest as if that could still her pounding heart. “Tell me what we have to do to get your nephew back safely.”
~*~
Shortly before noon, Cameron pulled his car up to the shelter again. Once he had obtained Julia’s cooperation in this adventure gone awry, he’d had to act fast. First he’d had to spirit away the gold and place it in a place both secret and secure. Only he and his direct supervisor knew the hideaway.
That made Julia useless to Michael as a guide to the treasure. Nothing he had learned about or sensed from Julia made him think she would reveal anything. But he also could not take the chance that she might give the location away by accident or out of some misplaced idea that her involvement could turn the tables for Devin.
Then, he’d had to gather all the information and equipment he would need for the mission. He’d already made one slip up going in unprepared. He would not be so careless again. He rubbed his tired eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Sleep had evaded him last night. But then, he doubted he would rest much at all until Devin and that gold were safely where they belonged.
The car door let out a long metallic creak as he nudged it open with his shoulder. He’d hoped Julia would be waiting for him on the sidewalk outside St. Patrick’s. She’d promised to give him a full hour of her precious time to go over things with him in her office, with Craig Davis lurking about, no doubt.
That’s why Cameron had insisted they meet outside the shelter over lunch—an invitation he did not extend to her assistant.
Julia’s reticence to spend time alone with him had prompted him to include Devin’s mother in the meeting. It would be good for Fiona to get out instead of waiting and worrying on her own. It also saved him the trouble of repeating his plan separately to both women. Cameron checked his watch. If Julia didn’t show up in a couple of minutes, he’d have to go in and drag her away from the latest emergency good deed that she thought only she could attend to. He had to smile at her tenacity and go-get-’em attitude, but he wondered if she didn’t get weary trying to take on so much. And now he and his little family scandal had added to her workload.
He drummed his fingers on the roof of his sedan, tempted to march inside and tell Julia he didn’t need her help after all. The nerve-jangling trill of his phone kept him from doing it. He slid back behind the wheel and answered, “O’Dea here.”
“Uncle Cam?”
“Devin!” He gripped the phone receiver so hard edge cut into his palm. “Devin, lad, where are you?”
“Now, you know I can’t be lettin’ him tell you that, Cam, old man.” Michael Shaughnessy’s voice dripped sarcasm and contempt even through the phone’s speaker.
The sound brought a weighted chill to the pit of Cameron’s stomach. “How did you get this number, Michael?”
“We called Mom first, Uncle Cam. She gave it to us. I hope it’s okay”
“Of course it’s okay” Shaughnessy chimed in. “Your Uncle Cam just loves hearing from you, son. Just as I’d love to hear from him. Especially if he has gold news…I mean good news… for me.”
“I’m telling you, Michael, if you harm one hair on the head of that boy—”
“I’m okay, Uncle Cam. Uncle Mike understands that I don’t know where the gold is and he isn’t pushing me to tell him anything.”
“I see.” The knot in his stomach eased a bit.
“It’s just like being on one of those fishing trips he used to take me on,” Devin chattered, oddly chipper. “Except no fish.”
“No fish?” Though his heart wasn’t in it, Cameron needed to find a way to comfort the boy, to make things seem under control. “That’s not so different from your usual fishing trips.”
Fishing trips. Cameron’s mind raced as the boy laughed at his lame joke. Was Devin giving him a hint as to their whereabouts? He made a mental note to have every nearby pond and camping area checked. Michael would not get too far from the gold at this stage, Cameron was sure.
“I just don’t want you to worry about me, Uncle Cam. Uncle Mike let me talk to Mom a long time and she knows I’m okay,” Devin went on.
“Devin, I want you to know, I will do everything I can to get you home to your Mom as soon as possible."
“Everything?” A slippery quality permeated Michael’s tone. “Does that include handing over what’s rightfully mine?”
Cameron clamped his jaw down so tight he could hear his back teeth grind together.
“Well, Cam?” Michael pushed.
“You know I don’t have the gold, Michael.” Not on him, at least.
“But when you get it—and that will be soon, I suspect—I wonder if you’d be willing to part with it in exchange for Devin’s safe return?”
Devin’s safe return. The evil implications pricked at Cameron’s imagination. “So that’s it, then. You’ve officially reduced yourself to threatening your own godson—the child you swore you would love and protect as your own flesh and blood. And for what, Michael? Money? Fulfillment of some legend based on a kind of twisted logic?”
“I would never hurt Devin. Never.”
Deep in his heart, Cameron trusted the vehemence of that claim. He had to cling to the hope that the Michael he had once known and loved like his own brother would keep that promise. He had to try to reach that man. “Then let Devin go, Michael. Keep this between you and me.”
“It can never just be between the two of us, Cam, and you know it. It’s for Devin I’m doing this, for his future.”
“Devin’s future does not lie in that gold.”
“I think otherwise, and when you find it—”
“If I find it,” Cameron corrected.
“When you find it. You will find it. I know you’re close now. That’s why, when I saw my opportunity to take Devin, I didn’t hesitate. I knew you were closing in on the treasure and I needed an edge. I didn’t do it to hurt the boy.”
“It hurts him to be away from his mother."
“Then find the gold so he can go home to her.” A detached frostiness tinged Michael’s words.
Cameron shuddered to realize that the corruption of his old friend had run so deep. “What are you going to do in the meantime?”
Michael laughed. “Just keep enjoying my little fishing expedition, I suppose.”
“Let Devin go,” he urged again, praying his appeal would not go unheeded.
“Find the gold.”
Cameron closed his eyes against the searing pain of his failure to touch the soul of his former friend.
“Oh, and Cam,” Michael added, his voice lowering, “I’ve been one step behind for a long time, old man. So don’t be too surprised if, just as you reach down to snatch up one of those beautiful golden coins, ’tis my shadow that falls across your back.”
And the call ended. Shadow across your back? It sounded like a threat. Michael was threatening him. Devin might be safe with the man, but was anyone else? Could Michael have sunk so low he would harm Cameron? And what danger was Julia in now? That would not stand. He had promised her that he would keep her safe. He had failed Devin, he would not fail Julia.
~*~
“Now I know how a worm feels
when it’s dangling from a fish hook.”
“Quit squirming, lass, or you’ll know how a worm feels when it gets stuck on a fishhook.” Cameron closed the sharp pin into the latch then leaned back in the driver’s seat of his car to admire the small golden pin he’d placed on her sweater. “Besides, you’re not the bait in this little plan of mine, I am.”
“If I’m not the bait, then why are you tagging me like some animal about to be released into the wild?” She pressed her chin to her chest to get a glimpse of the pin.
“It’s just a tiny tracking device.” Cameron held the tracking receiver in the palm of his hand. A whisk and several muted clicks filled the air as he adjusted the high tech gizmo’s antenna. He pointed it toward the pin and a green light went berserk with blinking. He turned the wiggling sensor away from the pin and on came a steady red light. “Everything seems to be in order. Don’t worry.”
“An agent of Interpol is about to monitor my every movement just in case I fall into the clutches of some loony with leprechaun gold fever and you say don’t worry.” She batted her eyes at him. “Any other advice?”
The wind teased her long curls through the barely open car window. The brisk late-winter breeze brought a glow to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. Behind her, along the busy street outside his choice of restaurant, an honest to goodness Irish Pub in Covington, Kentucky, right across the river from Cincy. The noon lunch crowd shuffled and scurried in the bright sunlight, oblivious to the secret goings-on in the nondescript brown sedan.
Cameron did not feel such detachment. Already in his quest to clear his family name, he had placed an innocent loved one at risk—and that person had gotten snared in the process. He would not let Julia fall victim to his carelessness as Devin had.
An icy cold filled the bottom of his stomach, a gloomy fog shrouded his thoughts. Why hadn’t he sent Devin home first, then returned to see if they’d actually found the hiding spot of the gold? He told himself he hadn’t really believed the gold could lie in such an obvious place, but his heart knew that impatience had won out. Pride had won out. Even greed, not to possess the money, but to seize his goal at long last, had won out.
Julia scowled at the tracking device, her full lips pursed in a pout.
Cameron had to laugh. “Don’t be such a skeptic. It will work.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, that you’ll have cause to use it.”
“It’s a precaution.”
“So are locks and bolts and all manner of self-defense devices. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy that we live in a world where they’re necessary” She crossed her arms.
“Well, if you can’t be happy, could you at least be hungry? Because I’m ready for lunch.” He jerked his thumb toward the double doors of the pub.
Julia ducked her head to check out the place, moving her folded arms lower to cover her flat stomach. “I think I’ll just sit and drink a glass of water while you eat.”
Cameron didn’t know if he should be insulted or concerned that she didn’t want to share a meal with him. “Oh, but you have to try the food here. It’s excellent.”
“No, really All the excitement today and waiting to hear the rest of your plan about how to catch Shaughnessy, it’s kind of squashed my appetite. I couldn’t eat a bite.” A low, growling complaint from the depths of her belly contradicted her claim.
“Oh, you couldn’t?” he asked, pretending not to hear the grumblings. “You’re sure, not even a bite? They make an above fair fish and chips here, a hearty stew or if you’re not feeling the Irish this fine day, they’ll make you up a hamburger that will—”
“I said I couldn’t eat a thing.” Her slightly longing gaze, the delicate way her tongue danced over the part in her lips—as though she could taste the delicious fare already—said otherwise. And if that weren’t enough, her stomach chimed in again.
“You can’t eat or you won’t?” He might as well have called her a liar to her pretty face and his attempt to try to ease his way out of it did not help matters at all. “You’re not on some crazy diet, are you?”
“No!” She narrowed her eyes and arched her back, pulling her shoulder up like a cornered she-cat’s. “Though I could certainly stand to lose a few—”
“Don’t you dare.” He swept his gaze over her foot to chin and didn’t give a damn if the gesture came off sexist or even a little proprietary. “You’re a fine, healthy girl. You look perfect just as you are. And I won’t be sitting at a table with you, me tucking in to a full plate and you sippin’ on water.”
“Then perhaps we should move this little executive planning meeting of yours elsewhere because I’m not ordering one bite of food.” She gave a calculated but cute as could be shrug, flipped her hair over her shoulder then turned her profile to him to let him know she considered it ‘case closed’.
“We can’t go somewhere else. I’ve already arranged for Devin’s mother to meet us here,” he said low and steady so as to not sound like an ogre as he shoved the tracking receiver into the inner pocket of his parka. What was it about this willful, wonderful woman the pushed his usually even tempered nature to the brink of frustration with little more than a flash of defiance? He raked his fingers back through the shaggy hair curling against his temple. “You’re eating and I’ll say no more about it.”
“I am not and I’ll listen to no more of it.” Her long legs angled in his direction. She wriggled in her seat, cocking her head to one side and giving him the slow study meant to keep him off his game. “I agreed to work with you, Mr. O’Dea, not to take orders from you without question.”
Defiance over lunch was one thing but this little illusion of her had to be nipped in the bud. He lowered his voice to a dangerous whisper. “There’ll be times, lass, when you’ll for sure take an order from me without question. The success of this mission may well depend on it, do you understand that?”
“I do, but I also understand this is not one of those times.” She poked one finger into her cupped palm. “The success of your precious mission, my friend, hardly rests on my scarfing down a big ol’ shepherd’s lunch here when I have a perfectly good peanut butter sandwich back at the shelter.”
He rolled his eyes. He admired frugality as much as the next good steward, but she took it a bit too far. “Pity you didn’t bring your little lunch pail with you then, lass.’’
“Well, I would have if I had known you planned a meeting in a pub. A pub where I can’t even afford to go halfsies on an appetizer, which, by the way, would be any pub or restaurant.”
Boom. The revelation dropped like a frozen hailstone in the heated discussion.
“Oh.” He nodded. “So that’s how it is, is it?”
A blush blossomed on her cheeks.
He hated seeing her humbled so but he didn’t mind getting a glimpse of her in a vulnerable moment. It gave him some insight into the woman, which he needed in order to work with her, of course. Working with her was his primary concern, he reminded himself even as he touched her hand slightly and smiled, “Well, don’t you be worrying about that, lass. I can well afford—”
“No.” She jerked her hand away from him and up. “I can’t let you pay for my lunch.”
His smile grew into a soft chuckle. “And why not?”
“Because you’re a man and I’m a woman. It might look… like a…” her eyes darted to the people passing on the sidewalk and even though they were secluded in the quiet of the car, she lowered her voice and finished, “…like a date or something.”
It took all he could muster not to bust into a hard, quick laugh at that. Instead, he shifted in his seat, angling his shoulders to the window to up the sense of privacy between them. He laid one forearm over the steering wheel. He studied her intently. “And that would be the worst horror in the world? For you and I to go on a date?”
She opened her mouth and drew a breath. A hesitation. She pressed her lips together.
Under other circumstance, another time, another road ahead o
f them he would have leaned over and kissed those lips right now. They wanted kissing, he told himself, and he wanted to slip his hand beneath her hair, cradle the back of her head and kiss those lips so thoroughly they would both feel the heat of it long into the night.
Julia clearing her throat broke the spell of the moment. She looked away then at him, her gaze cooled. “We have a working relationship, Mr. O’Dea.”
“Cameron,” he murmured.
“Mr. O’Dea,” she emphasized.
Her gaze locked to his like iron to a magnet. Their wills were more like iron to iron. He couldn’t help thinking of the saying ‘iron sharpens iron’.
Bring it on, he thought. It had been a long time since a woman had tempted him so. Longer still since one had challenged him as Julia did. They only had a short time together but had a feeling that by the time they parted way, he and this amazing Julia Reed would both be as keen-edged as any saber.
Chapter 4
Cameron Brennan William O’Dea! How can you, in good conscience, sit at this table, two meals before you and Miss Reed with only a wee bit o’ water to stave her hunger off?” Fiona O’Dea picked up her fork and pretended to jab him.
Julia started to say she was fine, to assure Cameron’s perky, petite sister-in-law (again) that she really didn’t want anything to eat but Cameron responded first.“What can I say, Fiona, my darling?” He spread his arms as wide as the curved booth would allow, grinned and tipped his head up, those eyes practically sparkling with the mischief of the moment. “I’m a glutton.”
“A glutton for punishment, you are, for carrying on so in front of me.” If she had been in the US for anytime at all, Fiona’s accent had not lost a note of its lyrical Irish charm. The folks at the table next to them must have thought so, too, by the way they smiled and nodded as Cameron’s sister-in-law shook her pixie-short red hair back from her freckled face. “If I were you, Miss Reed, that man…” another job with her fork, this time almost actually poking him in the ribcage, though Cameron did not so much as flinch, “…would be wearing a second helping of fish and chips for a hat!”