by Kaye, Gayle
Once school began she’d quickly be back in the swing of things, too busy to think about Cam—and the way the man could kiss. She’d forget how they’d danced together, how she’d bested him with a rod and reel on a quiet creek bank with the cicadas chirping and the water roaring over the rocks, the smell of the dew-laden grass. She’d forget the brush of his mouth against hers and the way her heart tripped all over itself.
Life would be back to normal again, except that Granny would be with her.
Tonight was just a night to share with Cam, a night to have a little fun, a little sophistication in her life that was sorely missing in quiet Greens Hollow.
Just then she heard Cam’s car tires crunch on the gravel drive. She slipped into a pair of sandals with beads across the toe and a slight heel, took one final glance in the mirror at herself and headed for the door.
Cam was standing on the porch at the edge of the cabin, idly staring out over Granny’s back property. Was he still trying to decide whether or not the old girl had a still hidden away out there?
“Cam...” she said softly.
He spun around, but when he saw Hallie, the furrow across his forehead softened, and a wide, pleased smile broke across his lips. “You look...terrific,” he said appreciatively.
So did he.
He had on a pair of pale tan chino slacks, freshly creased, and a crisp navy shirt, open at the neck. His hair was brushed to a fullness, the ends still a little damp around the ends as if he were just straight from the shower.
And that smile smeared across his face was definitely sexy—and all for her at the moment.
He escorted her to his Cherokee and helped her up into the front seat, his touch just this side of electrifying.
She’d have to be on her guard tonight against her wayward senses.
Look, don’t touch.
Cam had been reminding himself of that ever since he’d picked up Hallie this evening. He wasn’t at all sure what was happening to his resolve to keep his objectivity around this woman. Certainly the past two weeks had placed him near the breaking point.
And sitting across the table from her now, watching the moonlight play across her face, had him sucking in a breath and trying to hang on to sanity.
The restaurant was one of his favorites—not that he had much time to try it out often—on top of a refurbished old building on one of Eureka Springs’s winding downtown streets.
In the 1880s, when Eureka was in its heyday, it had been a hotel built on top of one of the mineral springs the town had been famous for. Now it housed unique shops for the tourists, and this pricey establishment perched on top.
The food was better than he’d had back in Chicago, the trendy burg capable of stealing away a terrific chef or two from the big cities. With the summer tourist season in full swing the restaurant was crowded, the streets below teeming with people of all ages who’d come to enjoy the little town built on a mountainside.
But Cam’s observations were limited strictly to Hallie—and the way her smile lit up every closed-off portion of his heart, portions that should remain closed. If he were wise.
He’d kissed that mouth more than a few times lately—and it still had him intrigued. So did the way the candlelight turned her skin above that sexy white sundress to a warm peach. And those tiny straps that curved over her bare shoulders, straps he’d have one helluva time keeping his hands from untying later.
Dinner over, they relaxed, enjoying the remainder of their wine.
“I like this town,” Hallie said. “When I was a little girl I loved to come here and hike the hilly streets, drink from the cool springs. My dad always brought me.”
Hallie had never talked about any other family members, except for Pearl. Somehow Cam had assumed the woman was all she had. “Tell me about your parents,” he prompted.
He thought it a safe enough topic—and maybe it would keep his mind off those tiny straps.
“My...dad was killed when I was eight, in a light plane crash. He had his own—and loved to fly it.”
“I’m sorry, Hallie. I didn’t know.”
She shook her head. “It was a long time ago—but the memories of him are very much with me. My mom and I went it alone after that. Then a few years ago she married again.”
“Does she live in Fort Worth?”
“Not anymore. They—she and her new husband—have a motor home and they travel. I hardly ever see them.” She smiled. “What about you?” she asked.
“My parents live outside Chicago—I don’t see them. often, either. I can rarely get away from the sheriff’s office for a vacation.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“A brother,” he admitted. “Back in Chicago. He’s a cop, too. We were in neighboring precincts. Kenny’s the best Chicago’s ever seen.”
Her green eyes were soft, probing, capable of tearing up a man’s soul.
“Why’d you leave, Cam?”
He’d expected talking about family would bring up other questions...the personal ones he tried not to think about. How could he tell her what he’d never told anyone? He hadn’t even told Kenny. But Kenny had heard what had gone down, knew why Cam couldn’t talk about it yet. Maybe ever.
He took a hard swallow, hoping it might loosen his tongue, but the words still stuck in his throat. He leaned back in his chair, and let out a low sigh.
“I had a partner who was on the take, Hallie. I don’t know if you understand what that can do to a cop—especially when the man had been a partner. But it...did something to me, taught me a hard lesson. A bitter one.”
Her eyes looked solemn—as if she could understand. Or wanted to. “Tell me about it, Cam.”
Of course she’d press. It was the way Hallie was—and he’d opened this whole can of worms up in the first place by asking her a few personal questions.
He took another swallow of wine. Maybe he needed to tell someone—and Hallie was the only person he’d consider sharing the painful part of his life with at the moment.
He’d told what he knew to Chicago’s internal affairs, then had quietly tendered his resignation. What had gone down between Lazaro and himself had hurt—hurt even worse than his breakup a few months later with Elise. But it had only cemented in his mind that it wasn’t good for a man to trust anyone.
“There was a drug deal my partner and I had been working on, but what I didn’t know until that night was that Lazaro was looking out for his own interests. He...he nearly got me killed.
“I knew after that I wouldn’t be a good cop. I wouldn’t be able to trust another partner—and a cop has to be able to trust the guy working alongside him—and vice versa.”
Hallie glanced down at her drink. So that was what had made Cam so mistrusting, why he’d tolerate no lies, no subterfuge, why he was so by-the-book.
The fact that she hadn’t told Cam all she knew hadn’t escaped her. But was now the time to confess? She wanted to—but suddenly she was frightened. Cam would not be very forgiving.
“And your wife? Ex-wife—was she part of the reason you left Chicago, too?”
Maybe this was safer territory. Hallie hoped.
“Lazaro’s betrayal hurt far worse than anything Elise could have done, but yeah. I’d thought Elise and I had a good solid marriage. It turned out we didn’t. It’s not entirely her fault. It’s not easy being married to a cop. I got caught up in my work—and I shut her out of it. These few years here in Greens Hollow have given me a little perspective about that.”
“And now...do—do you still have feelings for Elise?”
Hallie had to know. She didn’t think he did—but what did she really know about how Cam felt on the inside? Tonight was the first time he’d talked to her about himself to any extent.
“What Elise and I had together is long dead,” he said quietly, resolutely, and Hallie was sure she heard herself let out a slow sigh of relief.
She knew how love could die. How one betrayal could change everything. Tommy’s betrayal an
d losing the baby hadn’t exactly bolstered her quotient of trust either.
But Hallie wasn’t afraid to try again. With the right man this time.
She only wished Cam could be that man. But he wasn’t—and no amount of foolish wishful thinking could change that.
She understood Cam a little better, knew who he was and what he was about. Why he felt the way he did about trust, about life, the law...
She needed to tell him about that recipe of Granny’s she’d found, level with him about what she knew.
But just then the waiter appeared with their bill and Cam paid it.
“Come on, Hallie,” he said when he’d dropped a tip onto the table, “let’s walk. I want to show you this town.”
The moment for Hallie’s honesty had passed.
Cam hadn’t been sitting in on the local poker game lately—Hallie had been occupying a good deal of his time—but tonight he decided he’d try his luck. Besides, he needed to pull back and think, think about just where he and Hallie were going with this relationship.
Relationship? How the hell could it be that, when she was planning to leave soon?
Still, a relationship was exactly what it was beginning to feel like.
Last night had been damned nice. He hadn’t minded talking about himself, once he got going. He’d never known a woman he could talk to so easily—but with Hallie, he could.
He found the guys in the usual place, the storage and catch-all room at the back of the general store. Henry Tull who ran the small emporium hosted the party several times a month, and Cam felt badly when he missed. He liked the men who gathered to play—and the poker sessions were about the only thing that passed for male camaraderie around these parts.
Besides, he usually won.
“Well, well, well—decided to turn loose of Miss Hallie for a night out with the boys, huh?” Henry Tull exclaimed as Cam walked through the door.
Jake Grooms danced up from his chair and slapped him on the back with a broad wink of his good eye—the other eye he’d lost in a hunting accident years before. “Great goin’, Sheriff. She’s a pretty one—but you’d better be danged fast on your feet if old Pearl gets her gun out after you.”
Cam refrained from telling Grooms it had already happened.
“What is this? The whole town knows every move I make these days?” Cam asked, narrowing his eyes menacingly at the motley group he’d once thought were his friends.
He was beginning to have second thoughts.
The men only hooted louder.
“Have a seat over here by me, lover boy, I’ll give you a few pointers on how to keep that little female happy,” Charlie Yates, at forty-eight the youngster of the group, razzed.
Cam decided maybe coming here wasn’t a good idea. He also wondered just how much about his relationship with Hallie the small-town busybodies had picked up on.
“Hallie and I are just friends,” he explained, though even to his own ears that pat answer sounded a little weak.
The guys thought it humorous, too, and the hooting and razzing began again in earnest. Cam was beginning to get irritated.
“Hey, guys, I thought we were here to play poker,” he snapped.
He thought of Hallie and the way she’d looked last night at dinner, her green eyes wide and solemn, the moonlight—and candlelight—making them look lustrous, making him feel like he was the only man in the world at that moment.
And when he’d kissed her good-night... He’d known he had to take a serious look at his feelings, a serious look at where he was going. No woman had ever tied him in knots the way Hallie could—and he didn’t know what the hell he was going to do about it
“Yeah, we’re gonna play poker,” Grooms said. “If you can keep your mind on it long enough to play a hand.”
The guys guffawed again, and Cam began to consider making a hasty exit until the heat died down—if it ever did.
“Just deal, guys,” he barked.
The evening wasn’t much better later on when Cam got home. He’d managed to clean the guys out—but only by sheer force of will. His mind had been on other things, as Grooms had inferred. Damn the man. Cam knew he had a few questions he needed answers to, such as—just what was it he wanted from Hallie?
She wasn’t someone a guy could have a quick fling with and then discard—he’d figured that out early on.
Hallie was special. And it might well be that he was falling in love with her.
Lord, but that made him nervous as hell. He spent the remainder of the night—and the next few nights—thumping his pillow and trying to decide just what he was going to do about this pretty redhead very much ensconced in his life.
Hallie had made no bones about returning home after Pearl’s pending legal problem was settled in court—a problem Cam had foolishly brought to light. He only had himself to thank for the situation he found himself in. But Cam didn’t want to think about Hallie leaving, didn’t want to think about what it would be like not having her around.
She’d been like a breath of fresh air to his life—and to this town. She didn’t like it here, he knew—but she was just what the town needed.
Possibly what he needed.
But damn, how could a man be sure?
He couldn’t afford to make another mistake regarding his life. This time he might never recover.
Hallie stayed close to home the next few days. She’d had a wonderful time with Cam the other night, but he’d stirred some shaky emotions in her, emotions that if Hallie had an ounce of good sense she’d squelch—and quickly.
She hadn’t come back to Greens Hollow to tumble head over heels in love—not with anyone.
What had happened to her good sense? What had happened to lessons learned? Lessons learned the hard way?
She had her life on track, a happy track—and she didn’t need any handsome man from this neck of the woods derailing it. She had a teaching contract in Fort Worth. In three more years she’d be tenured. She had plans and goals and an incentive to be the best possible teacher she could be.
She wanted children—several of them—which she intended to have as soon as she met the right man for her.
Cam Osborne didn’t fit the bill, not by any stretch of the imagination.
She needed to quit thinking about him, needed to put some sense and substance back in her life—and that was what she intended to do.
Granny was out again this evening. Time weighed on Hallie’s hands. She’d finished up the supper dishes. There was absolutely nothing on television.
Maybe she’d read. Hallie had tucked two paperbacks in her suitcase, one a romantic fantasy, the other a juicy murder mystery. Since she hardly needed more fantasies to fill her head, she’d read about murder—a little grit and mayhem on this warm summer night.
She dug in her suitcase for the book, but instead her hand ran across a plump envelope of letters she’d brought with her.
She sat down in the middle of her small bedroom and dumped them out on the hardwood floor in front of her. Maybe these little masterpieces would bring reality back into sharp focus for her—the goodbye letters from her class each child had written her before they’d gone off for their small summer adventures, letters she’d brought with her to read when she had a quiet moment.
Well, tonight was quiet—and she needed her life tilted back toward reality.
She picked up the first one reverently and read:
Dear Miss Hallie
I luv you. Thanks for teeching me all bout bugs and stars and math and stuff.
I’m going to the beach in Cala—Californya this summer. I’m going to swim in the big oshun.
Luv, Justin
Hallie’s eyes misted as she tucked the letter back into its hand-made paper-and-glue envelope and picked up the next.
Dear Miss Hallie
Can you teach me agin next yeer?
Your the best Teacher I ever had.
Love, Emily
She reached for another, then another, readin
g each one in turn. Some of the kids had included drawings of their favorite summer activity, their pet, their family.
Her heart wrenched and tears welled up. The children defined who she was, where she belonged. What she needed to go back to.
There was only one problem—he was afraid she was falling in love with Cam. And she wasn’t sure how she’d be able to say goodbye to him when it was time to leave here.
Dear Miss Hallie
Yur my prettyest teacher.
See you next yeer.
I hope yur summer is fun.
I luv you.
Dustin
Hallie let out a deep sigh and tucked the letters away. All of them. She couldn’t read any more tonight. Dustin had wished her a fun summer. And she’d had fun—fun with Cam. But fun wasn’t without complications.
Only in childhood was it ever that way.
She packed the letters back in her suitcase, found her book and pulled it out—but she didn’t feel like reading it
She glanced at her watch, wondering why Granny wasn’t home yet. It was getting late—and Hallie needed someone to talk to, someone with a shot of wisdom, someone to remind her she’d strayed into danger here once before.
That she was straying into danger again.
When nine-thirty came, and Granny still hadn’t appeared, Hallie began to worry in earnest. She checked her watch again and decided she’d better phone a few of Granny’s friends.
She found her phone book and placed a call, then another—and another. Not one of her quilting crew answered. A sinking feeling settled into the pit of Hallie’s stomach.
And it weighed against the doubts about Granny she’d been having the past few weeks.
If she hadn’t been so caught up with Cam lately she would have been more vigilant. She wouldn’t have let Granny’s late nights slide, she’d have gotten a few answers out of the old girl.