The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance) (11 page)

She made a scoffing noise he didn’t believe for an instant.

“As to the makeup,” he continued, “you’re right. Delilah slathered it on like a Gauguin Tahiti painting. I’d never let a client take the stand wearing that much makeup unless I had a point to make.”

“A garish one.”

“I prefer the word
bold.
Or
alluring.
After all, there’s a reason why colorful stones and kohl residues have been found in archaeological digs. Makeup draws the attention of men.”

A look of uncertainty clouded her face. “But I’m no Shopping Mall Queen. I’m...”

After a beat, he asked gently, “What are you, Cammie?”

“Tougher.”

“Than a Shopping Mall Queen?”

“Than what it represents.”

“Shallow, perfect?”

“And weak and unpredictable.”

“Shopping Mall Queens are more complex than I realized. All right, I’ll buy that you’re tougher than a Mall Queen, but even Minnie Mouse is more rugged than one of those.”

“But not as tough,” she said in a mock gangster voice, “as Cammie Copello, Hard-Boiled Private Eye.”

“Hard-boiled, eh?”

“Dat’s right. Following scents right into da remains of alligators.” She jutted out her hip and stuck out her index finger and thumb like a gun.

It was supposed to be play, but at that moment she looked like a fantasy pulp cover come to life. The overhead light gilded her piled-on hair, touched fire to her lips and fingered its heat through that gauzy material, down to the pale bare skin of her chest. And that look in her eyes... Was it his imagination or did those smoky eyes look hot enough to spark a fire?

Wait a minute. This was Cammie. They didn’t exchange looks like that.

Did they?

But that look.

He dared to peer deeply into her eyes, which had lightened to a color he hadn’t noticed before. A sparkling green like sunlight on water. He wondered what it would be like to fall into those eyes, learn what secrets lay deep below the surface.

“This is silly.” With an awkward smile, she dropped her hands to her sides. “I’ve never even been to Florida, much less seen an alligator.”

“Right,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to the beaded, sparkling face, then sliding down farther to those form-fitting pants that sheathed her long, tight legs. “So silly,” he murmured as his gaze traveled up the sultry, puzzling creature who’d taken over his former private investigator’s boyish, businesslike self.

“I should go,” she said. “I’ll grab a taxi downstairs.”

“Stay.” He picked up the box. “There’s garlic bread. And million-dollar sodas.”

She gave him a funny look. “This is about the job, right? You want to talk about it.”

“Right.” He took a slow, calming breath. In these past few minutes, he’d forgotten all about that job, but yes, it was a topic that needed to be addressed.

He patted a spot on the couch next to him. “We’ll take a few minutes and discuss the pros and cons, nosh on the best garlic bread this side of Denver’s Little Italy, and I’ll convince you that drinking expensive cola is better than no cola at all.”

Either he was convincing or she was still hungry—more likely the latter—because she walked over, sat, slipped off her flats and plopped her bare feet onto the glass-and-chrome coffee table. Catching his stare, she quickly set them on the floor. “My bad.”

“Relax,” he said, “prop up your feet. I do it all the time at home.”

“But there’s nobody there to correct you.”

“Just Emily once a year if I’m lucky.”

“Once a year?” She put her feet up again and he did his best not to stare at her distracting legs.

“Kids her age—” he handed the box to Cammie “—are busy with friends and activities. It’s not always fun to hop a plane and be stuck visiting a dad whose lifestyle and values are a throwback to another era. Plus she doesn’t have any pals in Denver, no places to hang.”

“Wherever you go, there you are,” Cammie murmured before taking a bite of garlic bread.

He thought that phrase sounded familiar, like the title of a book he’d heard about. He didn’t ponder it long and let them eat in silence for a while.

“About this afternoon...” Through the overpowering smell of garlic, he caught a hint of her sweet almond scent, which didn’t help him remember whatever the hell he’d started to say.

“We didn’t end on such great terms while sitting in Phil,” she finished for him.

“Right. And I’m sorry for the inconsiderate things I said.”

She cocked her head and looked at him. “Do you really think I moved to Vegas to be a felon?”

“I don’t believe those are the words I used.”

“To engage in felonious activities?”

Those were them. “Those were indefensible, rude words.” They were sitting so close, their thighs pressed together. Although her jeans barely grazed his trousers, it felt as though he were being branded with her heat. “I, uh, can’t remember exactly how you dissed me, but whatever you said, I forgive you, too.”

“I said you weren’t my boss anymore and that I don’t owe you squat.” She took another bite.

“Thank you, Miss Total Recall. Leading question, but I assume you’re sorry for your words, too.”

She nodded, chewing.

“While we’re on the topic of me boss, you P.I., what’s holding you back from taking the job? Because even if I say so myself, it’s a wonderful offer.”

A drizzle of butter edged down her chin. He reached over and swiped it, rubbed the drop of warm liquid between his fingers.

“Didn’t want it getting on that beautiful top,” he said, his gaze drifting to Phil’s face. “Delilah did a great job.”

He was trying to look at Phil’s face. But he’d have to be blind to miss the soft mounds of her breasts underneath that filmy material.

Cammie nodded, swallowed. “I typically view her as being extreme Martha Stewart, but I love this beaded design of Philip Marlowe. You know, your dad borrowed
Farewell, My Lovely
from the prison library. That’s what really broke the ice for us. We’d talk about Raymond Chandler’s life and how we related to it.”

“How?”

“The three of us had had fathers who abandoned their families. I’m not divulging a confidence because I know your dad talked about his family history to the press.”

“I never heard you refer to your father.”

She pursed her lips. “He left before I was born, so I never knew him. But in a way, it’s as though he never left. His ghost, I mean. My mother must have really loved him, or maybe didn’t love herself enough...whatever, she never got over his abandoning us.” She thought for a moment. “In a way, she was like a Shopping Mall Queen.”

“Weak and unpredictable?”

She nodded. “And I was her mother.”

“The strong, stable one.”

“I didn’t always feel that way, but I tried. I’d put her to bed, get her clothes ready for the morning, cook for her. Well, not cook as in turn on the oven. Let’s just say I can make any kind of sandwich imaginable.”

“All while going to school.”

“And not much else.” She released a heavy sigh. “I hated to leave her alone. Every day at school, I’d worry what I’d find when I got home. To be honest, after years of being a parent to my mother, I’ve never wanted to have a child of my own.”

It had never dawned on him to not have children, although these days he often wondered if having half a child was better or worse than having had none. He couldn’t help feeling a spark of excitement at the prospect of another baby. Even if lying, thieving Gwen was the mother, he would be a good father.

Cammie gave a funny smile. “Remember when I was delivering those restitution checks to the victims on behalf of your father?”

The victims of his father’s fraud. He nodded.

“At one house, a woman answered and stared at me as I explained I was there to deliver a restitution check on behalf of Harlan Hamilton. Without a word, she disappeared, then returned with a little girl, probably eight or nine, who explained that her mother was deaf and she would interpret for me. So I again explained why I was there and the little girl used sign language. The woman watched the little girl intently. After I’d finished talking, the woman looked confused. The little girl made a gesture...”

Cammie made a sign with open hands closing into fists that reminded him of catching someone who was falling.

“Later I learned this means
trust.
” She gave her head a slow shake. “That really affected me because as a child, trust was never that simple.”

She became preoccupied with her hands. “My fingers are all buttery from that garlic bread. Did they toss any napkins into that doggie bag?”

“There’s a towel in the kitchenette. I’ll get it.”

Sitting back down, he took her hands in his and began wiping them with the towel, which he’d dampened with water from the tap.

“I can do that,” she said.

But when she tugged, he held on.

“Let me,” he whispered.

He stroked the damp cloth across her slim fingers, over the ridges of her blunt nails.

“My father sometimes told stories how his father, my grandfather, spent most of the day, seven days a week, managing a small textile plant. This resulted in my father’s mother becoming a very lonely, unhappy woman. You’d think my father would have wanted to be different, but no. He also stayed away from home a lot, but unlike his father, he didn’t pretend the marriage was working. Not for the first marriage...or the second or third ones, either.”

He turned her hand over and lightly stroked the napkin along the inside of her palm. She took in a sharp breath.

“I thought I was smarter than my father and grandfather.” He set down her hand, gently picked up the other one. He dabbed the cloth over her fingers. “But I’ve unwittingly continued the legacy. My grandfather was an absentee dad, as was my father, as am I.”

“You’re a good father to Emily.”

“I try. But it’s not about my intentions, it’s that I see her so rarely. This visit is the first in ten months. Do you know how much a child can grow in ten months?” He squeezed Cammie’s hand. “I loved seeing how she let her guard down with you tonight. She’s like that with her granddad, too. Maybe he and I weren’t close, but the two of them are.”

“Harlan used to talk a lot about her.”

“Emily likes you, too. For someone who doesn’t want kids, you’re awfully good with them.”

“I guess being a caretaker is second nature. Besides, she’s more like an adult than a teenager.”

He nodded, growing somber. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

* * *

O
VER
THE
NEXT
FEW
MOMENTS
, as Cammie looked at Marc, it was as though she were seeing him for the first time—observing him with her eyes, and not her heart. He wasn’t Santo Marc, the lawyer who saved abused puppies. And he wasn’t the man who had destroyed her with a single kiss. He was just a guy with problems like everybody else.

His blue eyes were darker, the color of the sky at twilight. A lock of his hair curled like a question mark over his forehead. He looked more rested today, but that was surface only. She sensed how, inside, he was tired of what life had handed him. One child who’d become a reluctant visitor, another a secret within a woman who’d betrayed him. That treachery could mean the loss of his career, which, in turn, would likely seal a permanent loss of his father.

Impulsively, she swept the curl off his forehead. “You should move into a different house,” she whispered. “One that’s smaller, less lonely.”

“But it’s where we lived when Emily was born...”

His words trailed off, but the rest of the sentence was as clear as if he’d spoken it out loud. The big house contained all the memories, all the dreams, all his history. If he left, where would they go? Perhaps more daunting, who would he be?

“It’s getting late, and I have work in the morning,” Cammie said quietly. “About the job...I need to sleep on it, think some things over.”

“What things?”

She’d shared parts of her life tonight with Marc that she hadn’t discussed with anyone in years, if ever. And he’d shared his concerns about his life, his daughter. The fence was down. But they’d done more than simply share secrets—they’d bonded in a quiet, intangible way.

If there was ever a time to ask what had been heavy on her heart for the past two years, now was it. She wanted to know. Needed to know.

“At a Christmas office party a few years ago...” She paused. “Do you remember our...dancing together?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “If it was at the party at Red Lion Inn, I’m afraid I was celebrating too much that night. We’d won that big case.”

“Maxwell versus Richards,” she murmured. “Yes, it was that party.”

“Why, did I step on your toes?”

More like my heart.
“Obviously you don’t remember that night all that well, but there’s something I want to ask.” She took a deep breath. “Have you ever...had feelings for me?”

A perplexed look flickered in his eyes. “Feelings?”

Men, even the smart variety, could be so damn dense sometimes.

“Romantic feelings.” There. She’d said it.

“You mean, have I ever been attracted to you?”

Really, really dense. “Yes.”

“No.”

No hesitation. Just a simple, direct no. She felt like an idiot for asking.

“Why?” he asked.

He hadn’t had feelings for her then or ever.

She sat next to him, immobile, as the seconds stretched into minutes. During that span of time, she was vaguely aware of the distant whir of a helicopter outside, the trace of apple cider in the air, the strangely intent expression in his eyes.

Most of all, she felt the dull, aching thud of her heart as it absorbed the truth.

He’d never, not even once, viewed her as more than Cammie Copello, his private investigator. If only she could be as hard-boiled as they’d joked about earlier, his answer might have hurt less.

The painful spell vaporized and time slogged back to normal. She looked around the room. Nothing had changed. Down on the strip, neon marquees sparkled. Marc still had that puzzled look as he stared at her.