My Hero (12 page)

Holly reckoned she'd looked right at him at least twice without ever “seeing” him. If Cal had seen her, he obviously hadn't felt compelled to greet her or acknowledge her presence in any way. A little tic of disappointment registered somewhere inside her.

“Does he do this every day?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Getting in shape for going back to work, I suppose.”

“Yep.”

Holly smiled as she made a mental note to cross Cal's monosyllabic brother-in-law off her list of potential on camera interviewees. “Any idea when he plans on going back?” she asked.

“Nope.”

She almost laughed. On second thought, maybe she ought to film Dooley Reese. A few well-placed yeps and nopes would add a certain
je ne sais quoi
to her production.

Across the field just then the figure in the gray sweats levered up off the ground, gazed for a long moment toward the two spectators in the grandstand, and then began walking—not ambling or moseying or sashaying, Holly was happy to see—toward them. A black dog that looked part Border Collie and part just plain dog shambled along by his side, sniffing the ground and every now and then glancing up at Cal's face as if to ask, “Everything okay? How're we doing here?”

“I didn't know Cal had a dog,” she said.

“He doesn't. That's ol' Bee, the high school mascot. He kinda belongs to everybody in town.”

“Bee.” Holly repeated the name. “As in honeybee?”

“As in yellow jackets,” Dooley said. “That's the name of the football team. For years the kids used to spraypaint yellow stripes on Bee before games until some new young English teacher made a big fuss about animal rights and so forth. Ol' Bee never seemed to mind it, though.” He shook his head, chuckling. “Guess he never knew he had rights.”

“I guess not.”

“That dog's taken a real liking to Cal.”

Holly was about to wave to ol' Bee and his pal, but Dooley stopped her with a light touch on her hand. His voice was low, close to a whisper. “I like him, too, Ms. Hicks, which is why I'd hate to see some TV program make him out to be a washed-up nobody.”

She blinked, sincerely shocked by the man's statement. “I have no intention of doing that.”

“I hope not. You talk to enough people around town and you'll find out soon enough that the only person who thinks Cal's still got a future in the Secret Service is Cal himself.”

“He doesn't?” she asked, blinking again. That wasn't the impression she'd gotten. She assumed Cal would be back at work, probably by the time her piece appeared on Hero Week.

Dooley shrugged. “It'd be a miracle.”

Holly was eager to ask him more, but the man who was apparently in need of a miracle was just a few steps away from them right now. Close enough for her to react to the astonishing blue of his eyes. Her heart seemed to skid to the right an inch or so.

“Good morning,” she said, feeling a silly and unwelcome grin slide across her lips. “Again.”

“Morning,” he replied, then looked at his brother-in-law. “Hey, Dooley. What's up?”

“I need to ask a favor of you, Cal.”

“Shoot.”

“Your sister's been after me all week to take her up to Corpus Christi so she can try out some new restaurant there, so we're taking off around noon. We'll probably spend the night there and be home around noon tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Cal replied. The word was part simple acknowledgment and part implied question.
So, why are you telling me?,
he seemed to be asking.

Holly knelt down to pet Bee's thick black coat while Dooley responded above her.

“Well, there's just one little hitch. Ruthie forgot that some real estate agent's supposed to stop by with a prospective buyer sometime this afternoon. It's not altogether certain. Just a maybe. But we can't get in touch with the guy to confirm it, and I'd hate for Ruthie to stay home and then not have them show. You know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Cal said. “I wouldn't want to be within a hundred yards of Ruthie if she got stood up.”

“Yeah,” Dooley added with a small sigh.

Holly, remembering her cool reception yesterday morning in Ruth's stainless-steel kitchen, silently concurred while she continued to pet Bee. She wouldn't want to find herself on Ruth Reese's bad side either.

“We'll be home, like I said, till noon or so,” Dooley said. “Can we count on you to be there after that? Just in case this fella does show up and has any questions.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Holly had begun to pick burrs out of Bee's thick coat when Cal's hand drifted across the dog's back and collided with hers.

“Sorry,” he said softly. “You don't need to bother with those cockleburrs, Holly. He'll just pick up a hundred more this afternoon.”

“I don't mind,” she said just as Bee's wet pink tongue took a swipe across her cheek. “You like the attention, boy. Don't you?” She scratched his ears. “Yes, you do. Don't you, Bee?”

“Ol' Bee never had it so good,” Dooley murmured above her. “Well, I'm gonna be going. Thanks, Cal. I owe you one.” “No problem.”

“Oh, and listen,” Dooley added in a voice that wasn't quite so affable all of a sudden. “I'd just as soon you didn't say anything too discouraging to this real estate fella. You know. Like the last time.”

A rumble sounded deep in Cal's throat, menacing enough to make the dog turn his head in that direction. There was more than a little irritation in his voice when he said, “I'm not going to tap dance and hand out free soda and popcorn, if that's what you're expecting, Dooley. You know how I feel about this sale.”

Her curiosity piqued by the exchange, Holly stood up in order to hear better. Things were definitely heating up in Heroville.

“Yeah, I know how you feel,” Dooley said. “And you know damn well nothing'll come of it. Ruthie's just dreaming a little bit. That's all. Let her dream. It doesn't do any harm.”

Cal responded with an inconclusive shrug.

Dooley gave an irritated twitch of his mustache, then nodded at Holly and touched the brim of his hat. “It's been a pleasure, Ms. Hicks. I hope to see you again.”

“Thank you. Same here. Have a good time in Corpus Christi.”

“I plan to,” he said, then turned to leave the grandstand, calling back over his shoulder, “No later than twelve-thirty, Cal. Okay?”

“Got it.”

Holly knelt down to snag a few more burrs from Bee's neck, and after a moment said, “I get the impression you don't want your sister to sell the ranch.”

“You do, do you?” Cal squatted down.

“Uh-huh. What did you do to discourage the last real estate agent?” she asked.

“It was more misdirection than discouragement.” He grinned. “The guy wound up in the next county.”

She laughed. “I don't suppose your sister appreciated that.”

“Not much.” His expression soured briefly before he smiled again and lifted his hand. “Here. Hold still. You've got a couple burrs in your hair.”

“Oh, that's…”

“Hold still,” he commanded.

Not only did Holly's head hold still, but so did her heart as Cal's fingers deftly combed through her hair and extricated the sharp little objects from curl after curl.

“There.” He chuckled softly, his fingers just grazing her cheek. “You can open your eyes now.”

She hadn't even realized they were closed while all of her senses were focused on his touch. How embarrassing. “I should probably be getting back to Ellie's,” she said.

“What are you doing here at the track?”

“Just taking in the sights,” she said, not adding that he was one of them. “You went to school here, right?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he drawled.

“Did you play football?”

“No.” He cocked his head. “Why?”

“Oh, just…”
Your great bod. The way those damp gray sweats cling and curve and, well, bulge.
“You strike me as very athletic. I mean, you'd have to be, considering the requirements of your job.”

“Yeah, well…I didn't play football,” he said in a tone that clearly signaled the end of that particular discussion.

“I was just curious.” She plucked a final burr from Bee's neck, flicked it away, then endured one last wet lick across her face before she stood up. “Guess I'll head back to Ellie's.”

Cal got up, too. Not with the ease and grace of an athlete, but with obvious difficulty, accompanied by a grimace and a muted curse. She nearly winced watching him, then thought about what Dooley had told her a little while ago.
The only person who thinks Cal's still got a future in the Secret Service is Cal himself.

Holly clenched her teeth, aware of the question any Journalism 101 student would ask right now, knowing she ought to ask it, and fighting not only her professional instincts but her personal curiosity as well in order not to take advantage of this man's obvious vulnerability at the moment. She could almost imagine a microphone in her fist, directed first at herself as she intoned, “There are a lot of people who don't think you'll make it back, Cal. Would you care to comment on that?” and then angling the mike toward Cal for his response.

“Come home with me,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

He lifted his hand to extract another burr from her hair. “I said how about coming home with me this afternoon.”

She was so surprised by the invitation, so pleased, so distracted by his touch and her reaction to it that she didn't know what to say. Her invisible microphone sort of melted in her hand like an ice-cream cone, and there was nothing in her head to replace the question she'd decided not to ask. Yet. So, she didn't speak exactly. Her little sound bite was closer to a gulp. “Why?”

“I don't know. Why not? You can snoop around the alleged hero's childhood home. Look at high school yearbooks. Go through old photograph albums. Don't you people use things like that? Or you could just keep me honest if the real estate guy shows up.”

“I had planned to spend the rest of the day working,” she said, “but that's not a bad idea, actually. The yearbooks and the photograph albums, I mean. I had intended to ask you or your sister about those sometime soon anyway.”

“Well, there you go,” he drawled as he reached down to scratch Bee's ears. “Why don't I come by Ellie's for you around noon?”

“Great. Okay. It's a date.”

Holly wished she'd bitten off her tongue rather than say those last three words. Waving her hand in the air, wishing she could erase them, she said, “Well, you know what I mean. It's not a date. Not a
date
date. It isn't a date at all. I guess if we had to call it something, if we had to come up with a word, you know, for this afternoon, appointment would be a good one. Or engagement. No, forget that.”

God. She could hear herself babbling. She was standing there, having an out-of-body experience, watching herself chatter like a squirrel and wave her hands like an idiot while she conducted a monologue on semantics and while Cal Griffin's smile grew wider and whiter, and his eyes turned an almost Bahamian blue in their sensuous nest of crows' feet and crinkles.

“Go on,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Go on?”

“Keep talking,” he said. “I'm waiting for you to get to the part where you explain what the definition of ‘is’ is.”

She sucked in a breath, let it out slowly, and spoke with all the clarity and precision she could muster. “I'm extremely reluctant to mix business with pleasure.”

“I can see that, Ms. Hicks,” he said, laughing as he stepped down from the grandstand and headed back toward the track with Bee at his side. Then he called over his shoulder, “I'll see you at twelve. And don't worry. I won't give you any more pleasure than you can handle.”

Holly sighed. Oh, God. That's what she was afraid of.

Well, he still talked a pretty good game, Cal thought as he changed out of his damp sweats in the men's room at Ramon's. He wouldn't give her any more pleasure than she could handle. Yeah, right. Provided his performance anxiety didn't get in the way.

He hadn't even dared to resume his workout on the track until Holly had walked away for fear of tripping over his shoelaces or feeling his knee lock mid-stride, sending him sprawling, or taking a distant second place to an arthritic mutt in the quarter mile. On the other hand, maybe he should have just gone ahead while she was in the bleachers watching. His biography could probably do with a little comic relief.

It was a date, dammit. She knew it as well as he did, no matter how she tried to cover it up with synonyms and semantics. And unless his injured brain was misreading her signals, Holly Hicks was as attracted to him as he was to her.

All of his fine intentions of avoiding her seemed to have gone up in smoke this morning while he was picking cockle-burrs from her warm hair. He'd stood there wanting to sink his hands up to his wrists in those vibrant curls, wanting to sink himself into her lithe little body, wanting to drown himself in her the way he'd been drowning himself in booze these past few months.

Once he was dressed, Cal realized he still had an hour before it was time to pick Holly up. He stashed his gym bag behind the bar.

“Ready for a beer, Cal?” Ramon asked, and since the dark-haired, barrel-chested barman considered it a rhetorical question, he was already reaching for a cold Heineken when Cal said, “Let me have a club soda on ice, will you, Ramon?”

The man leaned toward him across the bar, cupping a hand to one ear to shield it from a ninety-decibel Alabama tune. “A what?”

“Club soda on ice,” Cal repeated, louder this time.

Ramon stared at him a second, as if he barely recognized him, then asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah. I'm okay,” he answered irritably. “Just pour me a goddamned seltzer, will you?”

“Hey. Okay, man. Coming right up. You want a twist in that? Lemon or lime?”

“Fine. Whatever. Anything but a fucking umbrella.”

Cal straddled a bar stool while he waited for his drink. If things worked out the way he hoped, it was going to be a long day, spent in the company of the little hero hunter, Holly Hicks, and he didn't want to start out with one foot already in the bag. Maybe later in the afternoon he'd kick back with a beer. Maybe they'd have dinner at the ranch and maybe then he'd pull a bottle out of Ruth's built-in wine rack and…