Irish Eyes (Stolen Hearts Romance) (21 page)

“Thank you, Officer.” He nodded. “I’ll be very careful. Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you tell him about the four-wheel drive vehicle?” She planted her hands on her hips as he put his phone away. “Honestly, Cameron, were you so busy tuning out my request to drive that you didn’t hear anything else I said?”

“I do recall hearing something about a kiss to make it better.” He inched forward.

“Talk about selective hearing,” Julia muttered. “What about the dark blue—"

“Green.”

“What?”

“The vehicle—’tis green.”

A tiny gasp filled her throat as she flattened her palm to her chest. “That’s right. She did say green. But how did you know?”

“I’ve known what Michael was driving since before we left this morning. Make, model, license plate number—and how much he paid for the rental.”

“But—why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Because, sweet Julia—” He touched his finger to the tip of her nose. “—you are not the officer on the case.”

“But I could have been watching for it as we drove. I might have spotted it and broken the case wide open. I—”

He cut her off with a step forward first. Not imposing himself, but more positioning himself so that she had to tilt her head back, look him in the eyes and listen – as well as she could listen with this man so near she could feel him breathing – when he smiled and said, “
You
no longer have to be the one who saves the day, who rushes to the rescue, who shoulders all the responsibilities, who ‘cracks the case wide open.’ Isn’t that right, Julia?”

He couldn’t get close enough to her to make her agree to
that.
She started to fold her arms and finding no space between them or it, put her hands on her hips. “I bet there are a lot of other things you’ve been keeping from me as well, aren’t there?”

“Nothing that you need to know, Julia.” The powerful mix of gentleness and hard brook-no-donnybrooks way he said made it hard for her not to believe him. He raised his head to look around them a moment, then fixed those eyes on her again. “I wouldn’t withhold anything from you if I thought you really needed it.”

“Except the keys to the RV,” she mumbled, brattiness being the only thing standing between her and the impossible desire to crumple into a helpless tower of goo at the very sight and sound of the man.
She strode to the passenger door and dropped into her seat, thankful
this little excursion, and the emotional roller coaster Cameron O’Dea inspired in her heart, would soon be over.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dupont Lodge,” Julia murmured as the RV rolled past a sign pointing the way to the main lodging in the park. “Hey, isn’t that where I get off?”

“That’s where I said we could get you a room if you insisted,” He guided the massive vehicle along a low, sloping curve.

“Should I have leaped out the window or something?” She twisted around to look longingly back at the road literally not traveled. “I mean, I don’t want to inconvenience you by making you stop, or even slow down, just so I can get to my room.”

The terse clip of her remark plucked at Cameron’s taut nerves. He was so close to nabbing Michael that he could all but smell it. He didn’t have the time or the patience to trade quips even with Julia, and her increasingly testy attitude only cranked up the vise-like pressure of his stress.
“Much as I would have loved to have sent you sailing right out on your…”

She straightened up tall in the seat, shifted her sexy backside in the seat, almost daring him to use the word.

“…way,” he concluded, dragging his eyes back to the road before them. “It would not have been a very good idea.”

He gripped the wheel and narrowed his focus on the task with the heightened awareness of a bloodhound sniffing out a trail. “We have no idea where Michael and Devin are. They could be staying at that very lodge.”

“You mean you don’t know?” She faked shock. “I thought you’d have had the whole place overrun with informants and have every detail available except maybe whether Shaughnessy prefers paper or plastic.”

“Plastic.”

“What?” She whipped her head around to nail him with a glare.

“He recycles. He’s not an animal.” He tossed that out as a joke but the growl of his tone made it come off defensive and testy.

She rolled her eyes. “My point is—”

“Your point, sweet Julia, is well taken.” He tried to make himself take a deep breath to calm his nerves but with Michael so close, and Julia even closer, it took all his concentration to keep his mind from overloading. “I do have people looking out for them in the park and in surrounding areas. At my last contact—at our last rest stop—no one had seen anyone fitting Michael or Devin’s description. No sighting had been made of their vehicle. Satisfied?”

Silence. Not a hard silence or a regret-filled one. Just two people trying to understand each other in a crazy situation. Satisfied? He honestly did not expect as much from Julia who always wanted to know more, to do more. What he was really asking was for her to trust him.

Now, without forcing it, he held his breath and waited.

After a moment, Julia reached out to touch his arm for only a moment as she said, “Look, Cameron, I apologize if I snapped at you, but it’s not easy for me just to ride along and not know what’s happening, not to have a part to play.”

Cameron nodded to let her know that he had known as much all along then, spotting a secluded road with a sign posted reading, “No Unauthorized Vehicles,” he turned onto it.
Limbs from low hanging trees whacked at the top and sides of the RV as the tires bounced and jolted over every dip, rock, and pothole in the road.

He could feel Julia’s gaze on his profile. He knew she expected some kind of explanation, but he had none to give. He’d already asked her a dozen times to surrender even a little of her need to control the circumstances. He did not have it in him to ask again.

“I know you have your reasons, your motives, your goal,” she said, her hand now withdrawn from him and gripping the arm of the passenger seat. “But since you dragged me into this-- and you
did
drag me, you can’t say I haven’t fought it.”

He tipped his head to one side to concede that.

“I just think it’s only fair that you be a little more forthcoming. I’m not asking you to reveal any big secrets. I’m just saying that—” She wrung her hands together and let out an exasperated huff of air. “—Cameron, I just can’t stand to be left in the dark with you.”

A stone struck the underside of the RV with a resounding thunk.

“Don’t want to be left in the dark with me?” He didn’t look her way but managed a half smile as he let her choice of words settle in. “You certainly know how to bruise a man’s ego. I can say that for you, sweet Julia.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. That is, I didn’t
not
mean it that way.” She tipped her head back and groaned. “Not that I wouldn’t want to be in the dark with you, but that I don’t—”

He guided the RV into a secluded spot reserved for park personnel and cut the engine.
“I know what you meant, Julia.
I did drag you along. And you probably deserve to know a bit more than I have elected to share with you.”

“So.” She clapped her hands then rubbed them together. “You’re going to clue me in on the whole game plan? Brief me on key factors in order to find the ways in which I can be of the most help?”

He laughed.

“Oh. I get it.” She turned in the seat and slumped back, crossing her arms and put her raggedy shoes against the dash so that she looked liked she had wedged herself in place for a long pout. “You’re going to ramble off a few evasive comments, wedge in some witty asides, pepper it with ‘sweet Julias’ and Irish quaintisms, and on the whole leave me with no more hard evidence or information than I had before.”

He stroked his chin and hummed as if he were seriously considering that line of action.

She glowered at him.

He pushed up from the driver’s seat and headed to the back of the RV to avoid her scrutiny “I’ve scheduled a meeting with an FBI agent and a park official.
They should arrive in the next fifteen minutes or so.”

The RV swayed slightly under the weight of his movements to collect his phone, his notes, and his composure. Finally, he pushed open the side door and climbed outside. Even as he inhaled the humid air, rich with the smell of the earth and the blossoming foliage, his shoulders tensed. Behind him he could hear Julia shifting about in the RV. Then he felt her standing in the doorway directly behind him.

“Can’t I at least ask you a few questions?” she demanded.

“You can ask.” He tried to shrug, but the bonds of his clenched muscles would not allow more than a jerking shirk.

“Okay.” She remained in the doorway, standing over him.

He could feel the heat of her body, hear the rustling of her cotton shirt each time she snatched at the hem. He smelled her vanilla-scented skin. Her every breath pricked at his alerted senses.

“I’ll ask,” she said. “For starters, why didn’t you just let the FBI go in after Shaughnessy as soon as you had a solid tip of where he was? Why did you have to get here first instead of letting them take him and taking it from there? Why handle even the least likely steps personally?”

Cameron’s mind flashed back to that moment when he had entered the alley, his gun drawn. He knew a stranger, a well- trained agent of the law, would not hesitate, as he had, to use deadly force against a kidnapper. He exhaled a hard puff of air. “Because it’s personal, Julia. A family matter as well as a criminal act.”

“Is that it?” she asked with not a twinge of judgment in her voice. “Or did you want to be the first one to get to Shaughnessy because you think you can still reason with him? You say you are going through all these convoluted steps to catch him but deep down, I think you really hope to save him.”

And she had once accused him of finding
her
transparent. Julia Reed had seen right through him, probably for longer than the trained agent in him would want to admit. For all his bluster and bravado about being one step ahead of people, knowing more than they knew about themselves, he had failed to see that a kind soul with a heart for rescuing the wounded would see beneath that his calculated charm to the man Cameron had tried to hard to conceal.

He hung his head. He could not meet her eyes as he heaved a world-weary sigh and confessed, “He’s like my own brother to me. Like an uncle to Devin. Tis the gold that’s blinded him to his own better qualities, that’s all. But maybe I can still reach him.”

She put her hand on the tight plane of his back and the warmth sank deep, deeper than a mere physical touch should. She leaned close and asked, “And what if you can’t reach him?”

He searched out a spot deep in the thick tangle of trees and underbrush, his gaze fixing so hard on the distance that his eyes ached. “Then I’ll do what I must.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me to stay in Cincinnati, even with an armed guard. Because you didn’t want anyone else to encounter Shaughnessy You have to do it yourself.”

He nodded, not shifting his focus.

“I understand.”

“You do?” He twisted his head until his chin brushed against the fabric of his red shirt.

“You doubt that the queen of control doesn’t understand the need to handle things your way, in your time, on your terms because you see them as your responsibility?” Laughter and disbelief layered the rhetorical question.
They shared a tender smile then she broke eye contact for only a moment. Her gaze going to the woods, to her feet then finding his eyes again, she whispered,
“Cameron, there’s one more thing I have to know.”

He braced himself for what she might ask. “What’s that?”

She wet her lips and held his gaze. “Were you… were you using me as bait to lure Shaughnessy out of hiding?”

The wind hurled dust and bits of dried leaves around the open space where he had parked. The late afternoon sun hung low, a blaze of orange and pink above the hilltops plush with trees full with first buds of spring. Cameron shaded his eyes with one hand. “I knew Michael would never hurt you, Julia.”

“There you go again, avoiding the question.” She slapped her hand to her blue-jeaned thigh. “It’s a fairly straightforward question, Cameron. Just give me a straightforward answer. Did you use me as bait—yes or no?”

“Yes.” He blew out a long, unburdening sigh. “Or no.”

She groaned through clenched teeth.

An easy laughter rolled from his constricted chest. He turned on the heel of his boot to face her. “It’s just not a yes or no proposition, Julia. If you’re asking did I know that Michael would make the connection between you and the gold? Yes. Yes, I did. Maybe in that way I used you as bait.”

Julia leaned her hip against the door frame, her arms crossed over her chest. She dropped her chin, caught him in an expectant gaze, and waited.

“If you’re asking did I know that he would come for you? Then, no. I would never have put you in that kind of danger.” The grass under his boots swished as he shifted his weight. “But from the moment you told me about your meeting with Michael and the fact that he had taken down your license plate number, you became wrapped up in the conflict.”