by Joan Hohl
Another brightly colored braided rug covered most of the pine board floor. As in the living room, the colors in the rug were picked up in the bedspread and curtains at the room’s two windows, one of which faced the north side of the cabin, the other the mountains to the rear.
All in all, not bad, Sandra decided, hefting the large suitcase onto the bed, then plopping onto the mattress and bouncing to test the resiliency of the springs.
It would do quite adequately, she thought, shivering in response to the thrill of anticipation that scurried up her back as an image of Cameron Wolfe filled her mind, along with the realization of what the bed would be used for, besides sleeping.
The temptation was overwhelming to forget every other concern and to settle back, wallowing in the comfort of the mattress. and exciting speculation.
But, being disciplined and responsible, Sandra resisted the temptation. With an unconscious sigh of longing, she heaved herself from the bed.
It was now midafternoon on Thursday, and there was work to be done before Cameron’s scheduled arrival. He had told her to expect him sometime around noon, give or take an hour or so, on Saturday.
Sandra flicked the clasps on the large suitcase and flipped it open. She had to get her tush in gear. She had to unpack, put away her clothes, make up the bed with her own sheets. And then start scrubbing.
Barbara had given Sandra fair warning that, as she hadn’t been to the cabin since the beginning of December, the place would need a thorough cleaning.
Barbara had not been overstating the case. Even with her quick initial perusal of the place, Sandra had noted the layer of dust that coated every flat surface, lamp, appliance and knickknack. not to mention the tile and fixtures in the bathroom.
It was immediately obvious that neither Barbara nor her daughter was very neat or very much inclined toward cleaning up after themselves. Fortunately, that was not reflected in their professional work or their workplace.
But at the time of her employer’s offer, delighted with the idea of having the use of the isolated retreat, Sandra had shrugged and readily agreed to doing the necessary work involved.
Still, being willing to do the housekeeping chores and actually doing the work were two entirely different things, especially when one was not, either by nature or by training, particularly domesticated.
Sandra heaved another sigh as she began removing her clothes from the case. She did not do housework. With the jam-packed client schedule she carried—or had been carrying up until nowshe didn’t have time to do housework, even if she was so inclined. She paid a hefty amount to a professional service to do for her.
But the cleaning service was in Denver, and she was here, in this isolated cabin. So, Ms. Professional, she told herself, systematically stowing her things in dresser drawers and closets, you’d be well advised to get your act together and get it done.
Sandra was nearly undone herself when she pulled open the narrow drawer in the bedside nightstand. As small as it was, the gun inside the drawer looked lethal—which, of course, it was.
Naturally, she had known it was there. Barbara had told her it was there. Still.
Sandra hated guns. She knew how to handle them, how to use them properly, simply because the use of them had been included in a self-defense class she took while in college. Even so, she hated them.
Shuddering, she slipped the paperback novels she’d brought with her into the drawer, shoving the weapon, and the accompanying box of cartridges, to the back, out of sight. Then, firmly erasing the ugly thing from her thoughts, she turned to begin working on the bed.
Did she want Cameron to think she was a slob?
“Your man flew out of Denver in a private plane at 6:35 this morning.”
“Heading where?” Cameron asked tersely into the phone. He slanted a glance at his watch. It read 6:51; his operative was right on top of his assignment, as he had fully expected him to be.
“Chicago.”
Cameron breathed a sigh of relief; if Whitfield was off to Chicago, on business or whatever, he couldn’t very well be harassing Sandra.
“Thanks, Steve,” he said. “Who will take over surveillance there?”
“Jibs.”
“Okay. I’ll be out of town for a couple of weeks, but I’ll be in touch.”
“I’ll be here.” Steve hesitated, then asked, “You going on assignment or vacation?”
“Vacation.”
Steve let out an exaggerated groan. “I should be so lucky. Enjoy.”
A slow smile played over Cameron’s lips as an image of Sandra filled his mind.
“Oh, I intend to,” he said, anticipation simmering within him. “Every minute.”
After cradling the receiver, he shot another look at his watch. It read 6:59. He had another call to make, back East, but it was still too early.
Turning away from the kitchen wall phone, Cameron poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, then headed for the bedroom. He also still had some packing to finish, the last-minute things he had left for this morning. Sipping the hot brew, he sauntered into his bedroom.
Pack first, call later.
The job of finishing up the packing required all of thirteen and a half minutes—Cameron was nothing if not both neat and efficient.
In addition to being a supremely competent and confident law-enforcement agent, recognized as one of the best operatives in the field, he was a proficient cook and did his own laundry.
Cameron was firmly convinced that his talents when it came to law enforcement were in his genes—although he was the first to credit his father for his early training along those lines.
But his domestic talents were definitely attributable to the concentrated efforts of his indomitable mother. From day one, son one, Maddy Wolfe had stoutly maintained that any idiot could learn to pick up after himself, and that included each one of her sons.
Having lived a bachelor existence from the day he left home for college, at age eighteen, Cameron had numerous times given fervent, if silent, thanks to his mother for her persistence.
He had spent more than a few day-off mornings on his knees, scrubbing the kitchen or bathroom floor of whatever apartment he happened to be living in at the time.
Though this was one of his days off, both his kitchen and bathroom floors were spotlessly clean, as was everything in his current apartment, thanks to the professional housekeeper he now paid to do the chore.
He shot yet another quick look at his watch; all of five minutes had elapsed since his last look. What to do? He had made his bed over an hour ago and, except for washing up the few dishes he had used for breakfast, there was really nothing left to do.
So, wash the dishes.
Draining the swallow of coffee remaining in the cup, Cameron left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later, with the dishes done and put away, and finding himself wiping the countertop for the third time, he literally threw in the sponge, or in this case the abused dishcloth.
Impatience crawled through him. He fairly itched to go, from the apartment, out of the city, into the foothills, in a beeline to Sandra.
Although he had committed them to memory, he dug from his pocket the piece of paper on which he had jotted Sandra’s directions to the cabin. A piece of cake, he decided, tossing the scrap of paper on the sparkling clean table.
Now what? Cameron heaved a sigh and sliced a glaring glance from the clock to the phone.
The hell with it. Early or not, he was placing the call.
Maddy answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Good morning, beautiful,” Cameron said smoothly, heaving another silent sigh of relief at the wide-awake sound of his mother’s voice. “How are you on this bright spring morning?”
“It’s storming here, but I’m fine, just the same,” she returned dryly. “How are you?”
“As usual,” he answered—as usual. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Wake me?” Maddy laughed; it was a rich, deep so
und that he had always loved. “I’ve been up for hours. But you did catch me in the middle of mixing pie crust.”
“Pie crust.” Cameron mentally licked his lips;
Maddy did make tasty pies. “For shoofly?” Shoofly pie was his all-time favorite.
She laughed again—a mother’s laugh. “No. Not today. I’m making lemon meringue.” She chuckled again, and this time the sound was different, loaded with amusement and self-satisfaction.
Cameron frowned. What was she up to? He knew full well that lemon meringue was his brother Eric’s all-time favorite. But why should that amuse his mother?
“Eric coming for dinner?”
“Not today. Tomorrow,” she said, and now her voice was rife with an alerting. something.
“Okay, Mom, I give up,” he said, his curiosity thoroughly aroused, as he knew she had deliberately set out to do. “What’s the story with Eric?”
“He’s coming for dinner tomorrow.”
Maddy did so enjoy teasing her overgrown sons—teasing and testing.
Despite his impatience to get under way, Cameron had to laugh, enjoying his mother’s enjoyment.
“And?” he prompted when she failed to continue.
“He’s bringing Tina with him.”
Tina. He should have known. Cameron administered a mental self-reprimand for missing the clue Maddy had given him.
Lemon meringue. Not only was the dessert Eric’s favorite, but also, from what Maddy had told Cameron, the object of a friendly rivalry between his mother and the young woman his brother had met last fall.
At Maddy’s invitation, Eric had brought the woman home to meet her at Thanksgiving. Tina had brought along a lemon meringue pie as her contribution to the feast.
After the holiday, when Maddy relayed the information to Cameron, she had graciously conceded that Tina’s pie was first-rate. almost as good as her own.
Cameron hadn’t been fooled for a moment. He knew at once that Maddy didn’t give a rip about the pies, one way or the other. But what she did care about was the possibility of a serious relationship growing between Eric and Tina, who, she claimed, was a lovely young woman.
Cameron was also fully aware that his mother lived in hope of first seeing her sons settled into marriages as strong as her own had been, and second spoiling the hell out of her grandchildren—of whom she had expressed a desire for at least eight.
And now Eric was bringing the woman home to mother for a second visit.
Hmm, he mused, recalling that, to his knowledge, Eric had never brought a woman home twice.
First Jake. Now Eric?
“Does this portend something?” he asked after a lengthy silence, realizing that his mother had calmly been waiting for him to assimilate the facts.
“I sincerely hope so,” she answered. “Keep in touch, and I’ll keep you informed.”
“Yeah, well, as to that,” he said, interested in being brought up to speed on his brother’s love life, but a lot more interested in pursuing his own, “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back to you. I’m going out of town for a spell.”
“I see.” Not a hint of concern tainted her voice; after thirty years of living with a police officer, she had long since learned to conceal her fears. “Well, then, I’ll talk to you when I talk to you.” She paused, then added softly, “Take care, son.”
“I will.” A gentle smile tugged at his lips as he hung up the phone. In his admittedly biased opinion, Maddy epitomized the best of the female sex.
Female.
Sex.
Sandra.
Swinging away from the phone, Cameron strode from the kitchen. He collected his bags, glanced at, then deliberately shifted his gaze away from his beeper, which was lying atop the bedside table. He wouldn’t need that where he was going. Gear in hand, he gave a final sweeping look around the room, then left the apartment.
“Dammit.” Cameron wasn’t even aware of swearing aloud; he was too busy making the turn to head back. He had driven only a few miles from his apartment when he knew he just couldn’t do it. He just could not leave town for two weeks without his “connection” to the office, and the weapon that had grown to feel almost a part of him.
Muttering to himself that the two items had taken on the semblance of adult pacifiers, he strode into the apartment and directly to the bedside table.
After snatching up the beeper and the shoulderholstered agency-issue revolver, he shoved the beeper into his pocket and, gripping the weapon, pivoted and retraced his steps to the door.
Something, an uneasy sensation, halted him midway to. the door. What was it? he asked himself, raking the living room with a narrowed look. What was wrong? Nothing had been disturbed in the bedroom. Pacing to the kitchen, he ran a slow, encompassing look around. The entire place was exactly as he’d left it a half hour ago.
Still.
Sandra.
Telling himself he really did need a vacation, Cameron shrugged off the odd sensation, patted his pocket and once again exited the apartment. After stashing the gun in the rear of the vehicle, he drove away.
Now he was on vacation.
Maybe he’d stop somewhere along the way to the cabin and pick up a bottle or two of good wine, and a couple of six-packs of beer, he mused, anticipation crawling along his nerve endings, arousing all kinds of wicked thoughts and exciting reactions.
It wasn’t until he was well out of the city, the wine and beer stashed in the back of his almost new Jeep Cherokee, that Cameron gave some thought to his brothers—and one in particular.
While talking to his mother, he had mused about his brothers. First Jake, the baby of the Wolfe pack, and now Eric, the third of the brood. But, on reflection, he recollected a phone conversation that he had had several weeks ago with Royce.
At the time, something—more what Royce hadn’t said than what he had, a trace of distraction in his manner—had bothered Cameron.
Now, on reflection, he wondered whether Royce could possibly be involved with a woman, and whether his emotions were seriously engaged. Of course, he could have been reading his brother’s voice incorrectly. But Cameron seriously doubted it; he knew his brothers.
And now, here he was, impatiently maintaining the legal speed limit, as anxious and excited as a teenager in the first throes of passion about spending a couple weeks alone in the mountains with Sandra.
Hmm.
Did this portend something?
Cameron’s question to his mother came back to haunt and taunt him.
It’s physical, my attraction to Sandra is purely physical, he assured himself, while trying to ignore the tingle that did a tango from his nape to the base of his spine.
Wasn’t it?
Three
“Whoosh.” Sandra exhaled a deep breath and swiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead.
Damn, housecleaning was hard work, she thought, but at last she was finished. The interior of the cabin virtually sparkled as a result of her concentrated efforts of yesterday afternoon and all of today.
Going into the now-gleaming kitchen, she crossed to the fridge for a diet cola. She was sweaty. She was thirsty. She was hungry. And, boy, was she tired.
Was Cameron Wolfe worth her feverish flurry of activity? Sandra asked herself, dropping limply onto a lemon-scented, polished chair.
Damned right he was!
Laughing to and at herself, she downed the last of the cola and heaved her wilting body from the chair.
Tomorrow.
Cameron should—would—be arriving in less than twenty-four hours.
An anticipatory chill invaded her body.
It was rather shocking. Sandra scowled at herself, at her involuntary physical and emotional response to the mere thought of Cameron’s forthcoming arrival.
Honestly, she chided herself. If her thoughts, feelings, could have been monitored, a stranger, or friend, could have been forgiven for looking askance at her. She was a full-grown woman, mature, intelligent—well, usually
. And here she stood, shivering, in the center of the kitchen, figuratively and literally itching to get her hands, among other body parts, on Cameron Wolfe.
Pitiful.
Sandra grinned.
So it was pitiful. So what?
She wanted the Lone Wolfe in the worst way. and the best way…every way there was.
Hell, for all she knew, maybe she was actually in love with the man.
Now there was a sobering speculation. Sobering and scary. Who knew what love was? Or even if love, romantic love, really existed outside the fantasies individuals dreamed up for themselves?
Sandra had never run across that impossible-todescribe, elusive emotion.
The affliction called love certainly couldn’t be clinically diagnosed. Nor could it be smeared on a slide and studied under a microscope. Come to that, as far as Sandra knew, the feverish fancy had never been nailed down by an absolute definition.
That being the case, how was one woman supposed to know if and when the emotion struck, replacing common sense with uncommon appetites?
Appetites.
Her stomach rumbled.
There were appetites, and then there were appetites.
Sandra laughed aloud. Here she stood, quite like a twittery teenager, mooning over a man, when what she should be doing was rustling up some food.
Of course, Sandra was well aware that feeding herself, getting a shower, shampooing her sweatstiffened hair, then having a good night’s sleep, were all ploys to distract herself from contemplation.
She didn’t want to think about love, in any way, shape or form.
Sex, yes.
But love?
That really was too scary.
Sandra did sleep well, surprisingly well, considering her mental upheaval during the hours prior to her crawling between the sheets.
The questions of the evening, most especially the questions about motivation, were banished by the exciting, erotic dreams that visited her in slumber.
She awoke refreshed, eager to embrace the bright spring morning, and the man who hopefully would be joining her in the retreat by lunchtime.