by Annie Jones
He raised an eyebrow at her unexpected reaction then glanced at the young man glaring at him from a poorly patched wingback chair. “I’ve been known to have this effect on women.” Cameron winked at the woman’s overt scrutiny. “Not to worry, though. It tends to wear off once they become adjusted to my sparkling personality.”
The man harrumphed his opinion of Cameron’s jest.
“Darlin’, you’re ogling me like I was the ghost of Elvis come back to check into this little Heartbreak Hotel of yours. I don’t suppose you’d want to tell me why that is?”
“I—we...” She fanned her flushed cheeks with an open hand.
“Have we met before?”
Her lips fell open as if to answer yes,’ but the long waves of her hair moved gently as she shook her head “no’ instead.
Cameron smiled and leaned against the door frame, stealing a moment to study the woman he had sought out. Julia Reed. He’d had her profile and all pertinent information pulled up last night. Just a matter of a few keystrokes for a veteran agent such as himself and he knew more about her then she probably knew there was out there to know.
She’d chipped a tooth when she was twelve, broken an engagement when she was twenty-one. In college her grades had been average but her commitment to causes made her a stand out. Sometimes she told people that she hadn’t gone to college to get a degree, she’d gone to get an education. She had no credit card debt. No gym membership. No husband, no kids—not even a dog depended on this woman. Yet, Cameron got the feeling anyone could depend on her.
At least he hoped so, because he needed to depend on her—and before it was all said and done, she would need to depend on him, too.
He stroked his chin and narrowed one eye as he took in a quick physical survey of her. The blurred picture from a five- year-old newspaper clipping certainly did not do her justice, he concluded, as a trained professional sizing up a potential suspect. Tall and lean with jet-black hair and a classic facial structure. He raised his knuckle to his lips, trying not to laugh at the stiff description that sounded like it belonged on a police report. Julia Reed would not be so easily summarized.
Yes, she was tall and there seemed not an ounce of fat on her frame, but there was a fragility about her all the same. No husky Amazon here, but a willowy quality, strong yet flexible. Her long hair tumbled over her stalwart shoulders like waves over a rocky shore. The flickering overhead light shone across the inky blackness of her curls. Such hair, he decided, would go silver with age. Not gray or white, but silver—noble, dignified silver.
This is the hind, of woman a man could grow old with, Cameron thought.
For an instant he felt a twinge of longing for all that he could never have, all that he had vowed he would forgo until he cleared his family name. He couldn’t ask any woman to share the shame of the secret he hid. And yet, he had often wished that he could find a woman—perhaps a woman like Miss Julia Reed—and finally make a home.
Funny that only a moment in the presence of this woman should reawaken those old dreams in him. He looked into the depths of those quiet blue eyes, and his heart skipped a hard, unsteady rhythm.
Where had he seen that face before? he wondered. In a dream? No. For too many years he had seen only one thing in his dreams: his goal, his quest, the one reason he got up in the morning and performed a job that no longer held pleasure or promise for him. Except the promise that he might someday accomplish what he had sworn to do long ago—to right an old wrong and wipe away the shame that had covered his family name for three generations. That’s why he had come today.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Cameron tore his gaze from the woman and blinked at the spindly-legged young man who had suddenly bolted up between them. He pushed off from the door frame with his forearm and stepped inside the room, which looked more like a storage shed for a thrift shop than an office. “I’ve come to volunteer.”
The young man’s knobby shoulders slanted back as he bristled in silent challenge.
“And I’ve come to see Miss Julia Reed.” Cameron blasted his would-be nemesis with a smile of practiced affability. “I take it you’re not her.”
“I’m Julia Reed.” She stood.
Good, Cameron thought. She’s the straightforward type. He’d known she would be, and yet he could not be sure of her. He had every reason to believe that this blue-eyed woman with the spotless record had just last night uncovered enough gold to turn anyone’s head—and she may well have kept it.
“Hello, Miss Reed. Cameron O’Dea.” He offered his hand freely and withheld his judgment.
She moved past the wary-eyed young man, reaching out in response. Her cool hand pressed inside his warm palm, the effect sending a subtle shockwave straight to his belly. Her long, delicate fingers folded around his and her grip tightened. She met his gaze, unafraid, all pretense aside.
He smiled. He couldn’t help himself. Something about the woman brought out the Irish in him. It felt good. Better than he had felt in many a year.
“How do you do, Mr. Cameron O’Dea?”
The sound of his name on her lips sank into his being like the first drops of a soft rain on a desert.
“You say you’ve come here to volunteer?”
“I spoke with your staff last night, and they had me fill out some forms and told me to report back to you this morning.”
Without lying, he’d given her an answer she would accept.
“Did you?” She cocked her head as though considering his claim. “And tell me, Mr. O’Dea, how is it you chose to give your time to St. Patrick’s?”
“Tis an obvious question, isn’t it, lass?” he asked, always opting to evade a direct question rather than to concoct a story.
“Lass?” She cast a shaded glance at the young man at her side, who returned her look with a guarded frown. She cleared her throat and focused on Cameron again. “And just how is it you heard of our shelter?”
Cameron reached into his back pocket and tugged free the small business card he had found half-buried in the loose dirt near the pilfered pot of gold. Earthy smudges darkened the once stark white paper. He hadn’t bothered to clean away the evidence of where he had come upon the card, knowing her reaction to it as it was would speak volumes.
With keen-eyed precision, he extended the card toward her. Her gaze dipped.
Her assistant’s rubber-soled shoes squawked on the tile floor as he pivoted to see for himself.
Julia froze, her face ghostly white.
Gotcha. Cameron’s smile tugged into a smirk. “Is something wrong, Miss Reed?”
“I.. .um, no.” She stepped backward.
Cameron could see her thought process on her honest, open face. Surprise turned to fear, then to confusion, then to rationalization, and finally cautious relief.
She shook her head, as if to release the last of her negative thoughts, and moved toward her desk. “For a minute, I thought—well, it doesn’t matter. You say you filled out one of our volunteer forms?”
*
She’d find the information she needed there, Julia told herself. The sheer coincidence of this man, the man she’d seen moments before she found the boy, a man with the same green eyes and traces of the same accent, showing up on the heels of her finding that gold rattled her to her core. The dirty card, which could easily have fallen from her jeans pocket last night, clinched her suspicions.
But what did he want? Why go through the charade of volunteering at the shelter? Julia felt sure the answers lay in that application and a few quick calls to his references—a strict prerequisite to accepting any volunteer.
“I answered every question in excruciating detail,” he told her, returning the card to his pocket. “Marital status—single, if it matters—general health, proof of American citizenship. Only in this country would a fellow have to submit himself to everything but a CAT scan to determine his intentions in offering a helping hand.”
She smiled at the obvious diversionary humor. But s
he wasn’t so easily distracted. “Have you been in America long, Mr. O’Dea?”
“Long enough to learn the language,” he said, a twinkle in his green eyes.
“Oh?” She gripped the cold metal handle of her desk drawer, suddenly unsure where his kidding stopped and the bits she needed to focus on in order to understand him began. “What is your native tongue?”
“Blarney,” Craig grumbled.
“What?” The drawer grated as she yanked it open. Her gaze flashed from Craig’s dour expression to Cameron’s brash grin and sparkling eyes. Her face warmed with the flush of her realization. “Oh, of course, English is your native tongue. What was I thinking?”
She wasn’t thinking, she told herself. And that could be a dangerous, if not deadly mistake. She pulled a stack of papers from her desk drawer. “Gee, your form is here.”
“You thought otherwise?”
She looked up from the small, square letters of Cameron’s handwriting to meet his teasing gaze. “Sometimes things
get... misplaced around here.”
“I can imagine it,” he said softly. “In a place as big as this one I assume all manner of things might be lost—and then found again.”
He knows about the gold. Her pulse thudded like a death knell in her ears. She wet her parched lips.
“What is it you want, Mr. O’Dea?” She shoved back the hair that had fallen into her face with a trembling hand. “I mean, what do you want to do... here at the shelter?”
“Ah, what is it I do best, is that what you’re asking?” He tapped his finger to his chin and turned his gaze upward. “I’m a dream weaver by trade—a teller of tales, a seeker of knowledge, a practitioner of the occasional sleight of hand.”
“Dream weavers we have by the hundreds, my friend,” she warned with a smile. Despite her anxiety, she was charmed by his brogue and bravado. “What else have you got for me?”
“Just myself, lass. Nothing more than Cameron O’Dea, part bloodhound, part workhorse, all yours.”
Hers. Cameron’s volunteer application crinkled in Julia’s hand. “That’s a generous offer, Mr. O’Dea, but one I may have to decline. If you had some special skill or training that could be used in the shelter...”
“My head may not be filled with the stuff of college degrees and the like, Miss Reed, but it stays pretty cool in an emergency That’s a skill I’d wager you could use.” He tapped his head, drawing attention to the golden hair that probably hadn’t seen a barber’s sheers in months then held his hands up like a man confident enough to offer a sign of surrender in order to put her at ease. “I may not have the calluses of a skilled laborer, but these hands are capable of a bit of hard work or of reaching out to someone who needs them.”
She couldn’t help looking over his open palms. He had good hands, strong and large, with long, blunt fingers and short, clean nails. He wore no wedding ring, no jewelry of any kind—no hint of who he might be or what he might want. Julia smoothed her own hand down the leg of her jeans. A thousand shimmering thoughts and emotions swirled through her. Was this man the answer to a prayer or a walking threat to her life?
She raised the volunteer form. “While we can use all the help we can get around here, there are a few things we have to confirm before we can approve your application. We’ll call you when—”
“I can wait.” He folded his arms over his chest.
She twisted her head to stare at Craig. Normally, she wouldn’t put up with this from a potential volunteer, but they both knew this was not a normal situation. She had the feeling that no matter what she did or said, Cameron O’Dea would stand firm.
“Here, give me those, Julia.” With two squeaking footsteps, Craig stood next to her. “I’ll start checking his references.” Craig took the paper and narrowed his eyes into slits behind his wire framed glasses. “Immediately.”
Torn between feeling grateful for her assistant’s efficiency and fearful of finding herself alone with the mysterious Cameron O’Dea—and the gold—she nabbed Craig by the arm. “While you do that I can show Mr. O’Dea around the shelter.”
“An excellent suggestion, Miss Reed,” Cameron said in a lilting tone. “It’ll give you and me some time to get to know one another. After all, I have the feeling we’re going to be spending quite a bit of time together.
Cameron started to shrug off his parka. Tiny sparks of static electricity popped against the yam of his sweater. “Mind if I leave this here while I take the tour?”
Yes, she did mind. Very much. She didn’t want to give him any reason to return to her office—and the place where the gold was stored—again. Her plan, if anyone could call a few hasty thoughts of a very muddled and worried mind a plan, was to give the man a quick look around the building, conveniently ending at the front door. Then bye-bye, busybody.
Julia whisked her hand over her forehead. “Um, to tell the truth, Mr. O’Dea—”
“And you always tell the truth, I’m sure, Miss Reed.”
His benign smile nagged at Julia’s conscience. She hadn’t lied to anyone—and yet, she didn’t feel completely right about her actions. He clearly realized she had something to hide.
“I do always tell the truth, Mr. O’Dea.” She wound her arms around her cardigan, as if tucking herself inside a security blanket. “But I don’t feel I have to reveal everything to everyone who walks through my door. Now, if you feel I haven’t been truthful with you, perhaps you’d be more comfortable volunteering elsewhere.”
He said nothing. Just smiled that heart-tweaking Irish grin of his, those green eyes all but dancing with delight at her display of bravado.
“If you still want that tour, however, I suggest you keep your coat with you.” She used one hand to indicate that he should step into the hallway. “We can’t begin to afford to heat the whole building, and it can get pretty damp and chilly in the basement.”
He draped the olive green parka over one arm and nodded his head in concession. His heavy hiking boots scuffed over the floor as he turned and moved out the door ahead of Julia.
She cast one apprehensive glance at Craig, who was already fast at work on his smart phone checking those references, then pulled her office door shut with a resounding clunk.
Cameron had taken a few steps away from her. As she turned to follow him, she couldn’t help noticing the width of his shoulders, the straightness of his back and the way his softly faded jeans clung to his powerful, long legs and caressed his fine, firm…
He stole a look behind him and caught her looking at him.
Her breath snagged in her throat. “This way, please, I prefer to start my tour in the back.”
“I can see that you do, lass.” He stepped to one side, cocked an eyebrow and swept his arm out to usher her past as he said, “Maybe you should lead the way then.”
She pushed ahead, trying to ignore the sheer physical power she felt as she brushed by him in the hallway. Next to him, Julia felt diminutive but not overwhelmed. Not many men she met in her everyday work towered over her or even met her eye to eye. It gave her a sense of proportion. Was that the right word?
She felt if she and this Cameron were a meant-to-be matched set—but a set of what? Peas in a pod? Love birds? She thought of his allusions that suggested he knew about the gold. Her breath seemed to ball in her lungs and force its way upward as she exhaled. Maybe cat and mouse was a better description.
In one gust of emotion the seriousness of the situation seem to swoop down on her. How could she have allowed herself to lose perspective because of a pair of astonishing eyes, a lyrical brogue and a tight little tushy? That kind of lapse could be a big mistake. Maybe even a fatal mistake! Her heart thudded and she spun away from Cameron’s penetrating gaze. Hurrying down the narrow stairway and hit the swinging gymnasium doors with the full force of her fear. The loud thump echoed in the huge, empty room as the doors whooshed open.
“Years ago, this building housed a prestigious parochial high school.” She walked at a brisk pace u
p the aisle created by rows of metal bunkbeds. “When they consolidated with another school and moved to a new facility, this building was left standing empty. After a time, several local churches bought the place, converting the upstairs classrooms into offices. The downstairs with its gym, cafeteria, and lockers was set up as the shelter. I want to be very clear about that, you are volunteering at an emergency shelter, not a housing program.”
“Meaning?” He had stopped and bent slightly to peer at the underside of an upper bunk.
“Meaning I’m going to need you the most at bedtime.” She realized she’d said it wrong even as the words were leaving the tip of her tongue and yet she had been powerless to reel them back in. “I’m so sorry, that sounded--”
“Someone will be wanting this, I’m thinkin’, and by the way, don’t apologize. It’s been a long time since anyone needed me…” He reached beneath the bed and retrieved a tattered photograph from the bedsprings and in a few steps stood almost over her, offering it and a soft smile as her murmured, “…especially at bedtime.”
She drew in the musty odor of the linens, the faint scents of the occupants who had spent the night here only a few hours earlier. She glanced at the photo, somebody’s mom or girlfriend she figured. The fact that he had understood someone who had so little in life would value it enough for him to rescue it told her he was both keenly observant and not unfeeling. The fact that he had confessed to her that he hadn’t been needed at bedtime for a long time?
Thoughts swirled in her head and she needed to clear them. Her soft-soled shoes slapped against the hard floor as she rushed across the room to push open another swinging door. “Through here, we have the lockers and showers.”
“I’m sure those are appreciated.” He peered in for an instant just as she released the heavy door and it fell shut.
“We rent the lockers for a nominal fee to the working homeless. It gives us a little bit of revenue and them a place to store their things while they’re on the job.”
“Working homeless? How can there be such a thing?”