by Unknown
other, from the diner. The painfully shy insurance salesman. Right now, he looked like a salesman, put together and properly pressed to present a confident, competent appearance in pale slacks and an equally washed-out blazer.
One might consider him mildly attractive, once you looked beyond the computer-geek façade. Too bad he flushed like a schoolgirl at her first dance every time he got within ten feet of a woman. She’d seen firsthand proof of that in the diner. How did the man function in a business that demanded he deal directly with the public?
Slapping her palm over her thudding heart, she took pity on the horrified man on her steps, offering him a reassuring smile. “It wasn’t you. My mind was…elsewhere. Doug, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Doug Weston.” He beamed down at her, his Adam’s apple bobbing with his pulse. If he turned any redder, she feared she’d need to dial 911
for an ambulance. “You remembered.”
“Of course.” She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear.
Her initial gut reaction was to back up a few paces, slip her keys between her fingers just so, even as she kept a steady smile plastered to her lips.
Then she chided herself for being ridiculous. The man was harmless as a gangly pup, tall and reed thin. She could, in all likelihood, snap him in half without breaking a sweat. He was probably more afraid of her than she was of him. In fact, she cautioned herself not to smile too big. He just might keel over on her.
“Umm, can I help you with something?” Why did he keep staring at her like that? Was he waiting for her to sprout another head or something?
“Oh,” he stuttered, jerking back a step. “I, ah, I b-brought you, ah, a welcome b-basket.” Every word out of his mouth deepened the color burning his neck 277
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and face. He turned away, bending at the waist, and plucked up a whicker basket with long, narrow fingers. A large bow shimmered, pale pink, in the late afternoon sunshine.
“Oh, goodness, you didn’t have to do that.” Flustered now, she moved forward accepting the heavy parcel.
“I didn’t…I mean, it’s not from me. Well, not all of it. That is I…” He paused, visibly battling the bullfrog in his throat. “It’s a welcome b-basket from the city council. Everyone who moves to town gets one. It’s really just a b-basket of promotional stuff from local businesses.”
She could see that now upon closer inspection.
Dozens of multicolored pens, three rolled-up t-shirts, and a wide assortment of magnets, all meticulously printed with business logos, filled the basket to overflowing. Two tiny bottles of liquor advertised Pappy’s Bar and Pool Hall. A tiny bowling pin keychain nestled among a small, colorful spray of scratchpads. A silver coffee mug bore Maggie’s name in bold, artistic script. A red-handled claw hammer announced Connor Hardware in plain, no-nonsense lettering.
“Thank you.” Then she glanced around, only just now realizing there was no car in her drive aside from her Jeep. “Did you walk all the way out here just to bring this to me?”
The flush had begun to recede from his cheeks.
It surged once more, and he slipped a finger into the collar of his shirt, tugging uncomfortably. “Oh, ah, it was nothing. Should’ve brought it out before now.
Just a good stretch of the legs…” Stepping up onto the porch beside him, JJ
glanced over her shoulder as she inserted the key into the lock. “Would you like to come in for a glass of iced tea or something? I baked chocolate chip cookies last night.”
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His face brightened with a cheerful smile, his eyes lit up. “That would b-be—” Gravel crunched and sprayed beneath large tires, cutting his reply short. The muscled purr of a diesel engine cut away, and a vehicle door slammed.
“JJ?” Cam’s voice curled a giddy fist of anticipation deep in the pit of her stomach.
Like the flip of a switch, Doug’s face closed down, his eye went oddly vacant. “I have to go.”
“Oh, but…” JJ set the basket by the back door and trailed him down the steps. “You don’t have to leave yet.”
“I have to get b-back to work,” Doug called over his shoulder, all but trotting away. He offered Cam a curt nod as he passed, then scrambled off without another word to either of them.
“Well. That was strange,” JJ mumbled as she reached Cam’s side.
“He’s strange…but about as dangerous as a day old doughnut with a few missing sprinkles,” Cam remarked, catching her around the waist, spinning her into his arms. “Hey there, gorgeous.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. His lips sealed over hers, thorough and possessive. By the time he drew back, JJ’s head spun and pleasant warmth crackled like heat lightning through her limbs.
“I missed you.” He nipped and nibbled at her lips as though he had the next century or two to sample her flavor.
Doug Weston might be harmless, but Cameron Walker had lethal stamped all over him. A girl’s willpower could happily go down in flames with just a slow, sinful curl of those skillful lips. JJ leaned back in his embrace, more than a little pleased despite herself when his arms remained locked around her waist. He was in uniform again. She could almost smell the beginning whiffs of smoke 279
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rolling off her self-control.
Then she got a good look at his face and stilled in his arms, her hands resting on his shoulders. Her gaze cruised his features, picking up on the finer details one might miss if they weren’t paying close enough attention. The fine shadow of stubble on his jaw made the faint shadows beneath his eyes just a little more pronounced. The smile curving his lips deepened the lines of strain at the corners of his mouth. His eyes might glitter with sensual promise, but they were also tired, care-worn.
“Are you still on duty?”
“For a few more hours yet.”
“Have you eaten today?”
The crease in his cheek deepened as the corner of his lips hitched up. He traced the curve of her lips with the heat of his stare. “Not for a while. I could use a bite or two…if you’re offering.” Tilting her head, unable to fight the smile, she scolded, “You just said you’re on duty.”
“I’ll take my lunch break.”
JJ shot a glance at her watch. “At three in the afternoon?”
“C’mon, honey,” he murmured, nuzzling the side of her neck. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head all day. Invite me in.”
“I should be working on those paintings I promised June.”
“You can work on them later.” His hot mouth suckled the sensitive flesh beneath her ear. Her stomach quivered in response. “Please?” His plea was one hot breath feathered over her skin as his hands grew bold.
“Yes,” she conceded breathlessly, but as soon as he released her, she planted a finger in the middle of his chest and pinned him with a stern frown despite the stars she was certain were still circling in her eyes. “I’ll fix you a sandwich, make you some coffee.
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But that’s it mister. You are on duty.” Ducking his head, he still couldn’t hide the amused grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
Stifling a snort, JJ led the way to the back door.
Cam snagged the welcome basket before she could give it a second thought, carrying it inside and setting it on the table for her. She went straight to the fridge and dug out the makings for Cam’s late lunch, turning quickly as soon as she sensed his presence behind her.
Her arms were laden with foodstuff, a poor defensive shield when pitted against the hunger in his eyes, but use them she did. He glanced down once at her burden, then slowly lifted his smoldering gaze to hers, leaving no doubt in her mind what his preference for a meal was.
Undeterred, she lifted a brow, frowning him back. Heaving a dramatic sigh, he took a seat at the table to wait while she spread her supplies out on the counter and began assembling his lunch.
“How’s your day going
so far?” Her gaze lingered on his face as she slid a full glass of milk and a loaded plate on the table in front of him.
The grimace flickered across his face at her question, gone so fast she might have missed it if she’d blinked.
“Milk?”
“It’s good for you.” Frowning, she drew the chair beside him out and sat down. “Talk to me, Cam.
What’s going on?”
He scrubbed his palm down the side of his jaw, leaning back in his chair, tossing his shoulders in a weary shrug. “Same old, same old.” She lifted her brow again, eased an elbow onto the table, and waited.
Taking his time, Cam lifted the sandwich and took a healthy bite, chewed slowly. “Have I told you lately what a good cook you are?” 281
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“Cam.” His name was an admonishment this time, drawn out and firm, warning him she wouldn’t be put off or patted on the head and ignored.
His gaze cut to hers. She could see the battle raging in his eyes, but, in the end, he yielded. “The break in the vandalism—now arson—case fell through. The kids had an alibi.” She didn’t want to bring it up, didn’t want to remember the gruesome scene in the woods, but she refused to cower from reality. “And the killer?” He paused, staring at the sandwich. He took so long to answer, she wasn’t sure he would. “No leads.
The guy’s good, hasn’t made a single mistake.” Gnawing on the tip of her thumbnail, JJ
watched in silence as Cam finished his lunch. When he drained his glass and set it aside, she coaxed, “I know there’s probably all sorts of rules and regulations about what you’re allowed to discuss with a civilian, but if you ever need to talk—”
“I don’t want this to touch you,” he interrupted.
His eyes were hard now, his lips compressed. “You’ve been through enough.”
“It already has, Cam. Whether or not you like it, I am involved. I was from my first night in town when some cowboy cop tackled me in the mud for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She shot him a smile to soften the remark, show there were no hard feelings.
She leaned forward in her seat, reached a hand across the table, smiled when his palm landed in hers. She considered him with a shrewd gaze, and she bit the bullet. “I figure you already know about what happened to me…and to Sarah. Even without the badge, it’s not that difficult to get information about that night.”
“JJ, I don’t want you to think that I—”
“No, Cam,” she cut in, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know if now is the time to have this 282
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conversation…but I guess now’s as good a time as any.”
“Honey, you don’t need—”
“Yes, Cam,” she insisted. “I do.” She needed to do this, for herself as much as for him. “I still have…flashbacks of that night sometimes. I never know when it’s going to happen, or why. But something always happens, triggers a flashback, and…” Dropping her chin, she studied their linked hands. “And I run. Sometimes I don’t even realize what I’ve done until I’m a hundred miles away from wherever I was.”
She dragged her gaze to his, the confession sour on her tongue. What would he think of that? Of her?
He remained silent, but his fingers tightened on hers, lending her the support to go on. “I’ve run a lot, Cam. I’m trying…really trying to stay put this time.”
“Have you had any of these flashes since you came to Sutter Hollow?”
She blinked, moistened her lips, and skimmed a scrape along the back of his hand with the pad of her thumb. Slowly, she nodded, admitting, “A few.”
“But you didn’t run.”
“No, I haven’t run.” Yet.
“You won’t run. Not anymore.” There was such conviction, such fierce assertion in his voice, in his eyes that she almost believed him.
Almost.
But she knew herself, better than anyone. She knew better than to lay odds on a long shot, and she was a long shot, straight out of the gates.
“The point, Cam, is that I’ve stuck it out…so far.
I’ve stayed longer here than I have anywhere else since that night Jerry… I am a survivor. At least, I’m trying awful hard to be. I won’t break. I won’t shatter if things get too scary.” She hoped. “After Jerry…I never thought I’d be able to trust a man again. But I trust you.” Her heart stuttered at the 283
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admission, then it froze solid in her chest as she offered the one thing she feared more than making herself vulnerable to someone else. She offered the chance for someone else to count on her. “I want you to trust me too.”
He stared at her from across the table, stared hard. The glass, coated with milky residue, and the crumb-speckled plate could have been a barbed wire fence, his expression was so solemn. The muscle in his jaw leaped to life as he drew his hand slowly from hers. Her icy heart suffered a tiny crack, and she couldn’t breathe. The scrape of chair legs on old linoleum echoed in the kitchen as he pushed back from the table, but he didn’t rise. He sat there for a moment, tense, eyes closed. Then, with a muttered curse, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Splayed fingers tunneled into his hair as he dropped his head onto his palms.
She didn’t know what to say, completely at a loss as to how to go on from there. How could she have been such a blind fool? Obviously, she’d seen something that wasn’t there. She was a grown adult, should have known not to assume just because they’d stolen a wild night between the sheets that it automatically meant any level of intimacy. After all, hadn’t Ginny and the others told her he’d never returned to the same bed twice? Somehow, she’d convinced herself that it would be different between them, more fool she.
She wanted to hide, but her pride held her to the chair, held her chin up, pushed her to ignore the bruise forming on her heart.
His voice startled her.
“The son of a bitch wrote on them.” It took a moment to process his words. Once she did, once she realized he was letting the barriers down, she could breathe again. Then his words clicked into place, and she stuttered in shock, 284
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“He…he writes on them?”
“Yeah,” Cam growled at the floor. His voice cracked, laced with angry confusion, riddled with weary guilt. She didn’t need Dr. Greene to analyze that one. JJ would have recognized that tone anywhere. She’d used it herself often enough. “He leaves a silver rosary with each victim, and he writes on them.”
“A rosary,” JJ murmured to herself, eyes narrowed with concern as she watched Cam struggle with his emotions. “What does he write?”
“He wrote…lust, he wrote lust on Lori. On Ed…gluttony.”
“And Mayor Hughes?”
“Greed.”
“Lust. Gluttony.” She recited the words quietly.
Something nagged at her. “Greed?” She tapped her finger on the table for a moment, gnawing on the edge of her lip. “And a rosary? Were the victims Catholic?”
“None of them were. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Hmm,” she murmured, frowning. Reluctant to step on his toes—or his pride—she hesitantly inquired, “Have you requested help from another agency…the state police or the FBI?”
“The Feds are too busy with other cases…too much red tape, too many hoops to jump through. Oh, they had some behavioral analysis unit come up with a profile, lot of help that was. Hell, it pointed the finger at half the males in town between the ages of 17 and 35. I could be a suspect for all the damned good that thing did.”
“What about these words…lust, gluttony, greed?”
“Damned if I know.”
JJ nibbled on her thumbnail as something tugged at her memory, something from long, long 285
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ago. With a small gasp, her gaze flew to Cam.
“Cam…the victims might not have been Catholic…but maybe he is? A rosary? Lust, greed, gluttony…those are three of the Sev
en Deadly Sins, aren’t they?”
His head whipped up and around. His eyes pierced hers with the first glimmers of hope. That hope quickly died beneath a landslide of self-recrimination. “Shit, that never even occurred to me.
How could I have missed it?” Then his expression fell, and his face went white as a sheet. “Ah, sweet Christ…he’s not done.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are seven sins, JJ…he’s only taken care of three. He’s not done yet.”
A long moment of silence, pregnant with deadly implications, hung heavy in the air between them.
Cam dropped his forehead into his palms again.
She’d never seen him this way, and it was killing her. Cam—always so self-aware, confident to the point of arrogance—hunched forward in his chair like a man condemned.
Outside, the wind began to pick up, rattling the windowpanes, as if stirred by the roiling emotions bottled inside the man before her. The room grew dim as dark thunderheads rolled across the azure skies. The first whiffs of rain wafted through the open window above the sink, stirring the pale lace curtains JJ’d found in a packing box in one of the bedrooms upstairs.
Following instinct, she slipped from the chair to kneel at Cam’s feet. Slowly, gently, she clasped his wrists in her hands, drew them down and held his hands between them as she gazed up into his face.
The strain of the burdens he carried etched deep lines on either side of his mouth, dug a deep groove between his eyebrows. His eyes burned her, glittering with emotion at which she could only 286
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guess. At present, he was a man carrying the weight of the world on his broad shoulders…undoubtedly capable shoulders that could rival Atlas…and yet, just now, he looked so vulnerable. Utterly exposed.
“I’m sorry,” he rumbled. Dejection had never sounded more hollow. “I shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have…” He trailed off, shaking his head, as if he couldn’t find the words he sought. “I just couldn’t… There was nowhere else I could think of…
I needed—”
JJ laid a palm softly against his cheek, shushing him. Pushing up on her knees, her waist cradled between Cam’s thighs, JJ sealed her lips over his in unspoken understanding. There had been a time when she too hadn’t known where to turn, had needed someone to just be there. That he would turn to her…that he needed her…spoke directly to her heart, bypassing all those roadblocks she’d so cleverly set up, decimating all those walls she’d so meticulously erected.