by Donna Fasano
For one fleeting second Julia wished he could be her man.
She shut her eyes and drooped back against a shelf of olive-drab blankets to shut out that thought and steady herself. “Look, Cameron, I admire your dedication, but it’s just not feasible. You can’t hope to pull something together on such short notice.”
“I can always hope, Julia.” He stepped closer again, adding, for Julia, a nuance to his words that made her heart flutter. “And I can do more than that, I can try.”
“Try?” Her pulse picked up, stronger. So strong she felt it in her throbbing temples. She doubted if he meant it that way, but Julia heard both challenge and accusation in his words. Did he think she didn’t try hard enough? That she wasn’t giving his idea fair deliberation before dismissing it?
The hair on the back of her neck stood up. The coarse weave of the surplus blankets grabbed at her sweater, scratching all the way through to her skin. She clutched her clipboard tightly to her side. “It’s not as if I’ve never organized fund-raisers and shelter parties, Cameron. I know they take time and planning. It’s not something you can pull out of a hat with a few days’ notice.” She gritted her teeth against the dull ache in her head and tipped her chin up. “It simply can’t be done.”
“If that’s a sample of the positive thinking you say you live on, it explains a great deal.” Even the hint of humor faded from his rugged features.
She pressed her shoulders to the prickling blankets. “I believe in positive thinking and in positive action.”
“But?” he asked, clearly baiting her.
“But,” she ground her reply between her back teeth. Left emotionally threadbare by the events of the last two days added onto the burdens of years of working to help so many and feeling she’d barely made a dent, it mortified Julia more than she wanted to admit that the thing that got her the most right now was Cameron’s implication that she had not done enough. Because it echoed her worst fears, not because his opinion of her mattered so much, she hurried to remind herself lamely. Those wounded feelings put an edge to her voice and a she concluded, “I also believe in a concept that seems to have gotten lost in that dreamland of your Irish imagination—it’s a little thing some people like to call reality.”
His green eyes flashed at her reproach.
“If you need a dose of my reality,” she went on, despite the burning tightness in her throat, “just look around you. Tonight we may be looking at double capacity. And if that’s not troubling enough, every day this cold weather continues, with the increased occupancy it causes, may just be cutting another day off of the amount of time we can afford to keep our doors open.”
“Then I’d say your reality is that you need money.” He crossed his arms over his chest and anchored his feet on the cement basement floor. “And I’m offering to help you raise that money.”
“What good will one simple fund-raising event do at this point?” she countered, her bitterness more for the situation than for the man proposing to help.
The room fell silent for a moment. Cameron narrowed his eyes and flexed one of his hands, his arms still lashed over his imposing chest. She didn’t know if the man was sizing her up or writing her off.
After a tense moment more he let out a quick sigh, shook his head and stepped toward her, putting both his hands on her shoulders so she had to face him and listen. “What good did you think you could do when you stopped by the billboard to offer Devin food and shelter?”
She tipped her head back. The pencil behind her ear gouged into the thick roll of one blanket, which scraped the nape of her neck and snared her hair. He had a point. The man always had a point. And it was really beginning to gnaw on her nerves. She sighed out a reluctant concession to his question.
He shifted his hands to his hips, his long fingers flexing against the faded denim. “I understand reality just as well as you do, Julia.”
She missed his touch the moment his hands moved from her but the soothing tone of his deep voice seemed to assuage the awful pain in her head. She relaxed just a bit. “What I’m talking about, Cameron, is logistics. It’s about time constraints and organization—"
“And about getting my nephew home safely to his mother,” he cut in, getting to the heart of the matter at last.
Julia frowned. “What do you mean?”
He paused, his great shoulders rising and falling with the weight of his breathing then rubbed one hand through his hair, admitting, almost sheepishly, “I mean that this could be my chance to bring Michael out of his hiding place. Don’t be mistaken, while I am confident that Michael won’t hurt Devin and I’m willing to take my time so as not to scare him into hiding, getting that boy back to his mother safely and Michael in custody is still my priority.”
“And this connects to a big fund raiser thrown together is a few days… how?” She wasn’t trying to be dense, she just needed him to lay it all out for her, to know what she was saying yes to… if she decided saying yes was the right thing at all.
“Think of it. Me. You. The very day and of all places, St Patrick’s shelter. If Michael is watching our every move, and I know he is, how could he resist it?”
Once again he had a point but all Julia could see was the danger and the downside. She pressed her lips together.
“It’s ideal. Being public as it is, and with so many people around, I feel that Michael won’t be able to resist showing up to scope things out but wouldn’t dare be so bold as to try anything that might harm anyone.”
She nodded. It made sense. Of course it made sense, this man knew his business. But she also knew hers. “There are so many things we usually do before we hold a fundraising event like that. So many people we try to get involved, people of influence who want to give some input and then the publicity is its own deal. We couldn’t possibly just—”
“What do you propose I do, sweet Julia?” His kept his tone even but beneath the quick clipped words of his question she could practically hear his patience snapping. The jerk upward of his broad shoulders and narrowing of one eye, the clenching in his jaw told anyone looking on that he wasn’t used to anyone questioning his plan. “Tell Fiona that we must wait until we can form the proper committees, have a dozen planning meetings, confer with the experts, drum up media support?”
She pressed her lips shut tight.
Cameron didn’t back down, but concern and not anger filled his face as he finished, “Then, perhaps after we’ve taken it all under advisement, we’ll consult our calendars and set a date to do something. Is that what I should tell the woman waiting for her child’s return?”
“No.” She wet her lips and batted away a stray spiral of hair that tickled her cheek. “No, of course not. But I just don’t think you realize, Cameron, what’s involved here. I don't see how we can pull it off so soon.”
He stared at her for a moment then heaved an exaggerated sigh and dropped his hands to his sides. “Then maybe we shouldn’t try.”
She shot her hand out, making her clipboard clatter to the floor. Her palm went flat against the mound of blankets behind her, as if to steady herself in an overplayed show of sarcasm. “You mean you’re giving up? Just like that?”
“Who said anything about giving up?” He leaned his shoulders in, bringing his face so close that those eyes were all she could see. “I’m proposing a shift in focus off of what we —you and I—can do.”
“Do?” she asked in barely a murmur and as soon as she did it, realized she had put her lips in perfect kissing position.
His gaze dipped slightly. His pupils dilated.
Her breathing went shallow. Her head spun. For a moment she thought of raising her hands to twine her fingers in his hair and bring him the few inches it would take to pressed her lips to his.
He must have been reading her mind as he leaned down, reached toward her, took a step and…
Crack!
The plastic clipboard broke under the weight of the big man and his rugged hiking boot, and so did the spell
of the moment. Cameron staggered backward slightly.
Julia gasped softly and with a shake of her head came fully to her senses. Well, pretty fully. As fully as she could with Cameron still standing so close and the promise of a kiss unfulfilled still lingering between them.
Cameron cleared his throat and swept one hand back over his hair. It took a moment but he finally gave a short of shrug and said with cool intensity, “Look beyond what you think you know, Julia, and maybe you’ll see that my idea is not so impossible after all.”
She wanted to believe it, wanted to more than she suspected Cameron knew.
He held his hand out. “C’mon, sweet Julia. Won’t you surrender your fears and trust me?”
Her fingers ached to reach for his. Her skin actually itched to make the physical connection, symbolic of a new way of dealing with her life and work. She wet her lips.
“Julia!” Craig’s bellow nearly made her jump out of her skin.
“Julia, where are—oh, there you are.” The young man appeared in the doorway behind Cameron. He nudged his glasses back high on his nose and gazed pointedly at Cameron’s still outstretched hand. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Julia pushed away from the shelf of blankets and went down on one knee to gather up the broken clipboard. “That’s okay, Craig. What’s up?”
“Um, we got the extra bread delivery, but they only came through with half the quantity they promised. The driver has more bread on his truck that he could leave but he says someone has to call his boss.”
“Then call his boss,” Cameron said in tone more suited to a phrase such as ‘get lost, we’re in the middle of something.’
“Julia is the only one who can deal with these people,” Craig snapped back. He turned to her. “We really need you right now, Julia. The delivery man won’t wait much longer.”
“Fine.” She gave a crisp nod. “Tell him I’m coming.”
Craig returned her curt nod, then spun around and dashed away
She sealed her lips in a tight line for a moment, breathing slowly, her gaze locked with Cameron’s. “It’s a lovely philosophy, Cameron. As lovely as a rainbow—and just as faint in substance. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
She left him standing in the storage room, his hand still open—and empty.
~*~
“More green?” The shelter cook grimaced into the huge stainless steel bowl of cake frosting. Around then the staff had been busy at work trying to get as much done in their limited down time as they could the past two days since Cameron had gotten the ball rolling on this big event.
“Have ya any idea what day it is we’re commemorating, lad?” Cameron slapped his palm on the fellow’s shoulder and gave a squeeze, notching up his Irish brogue a bit.
“Yes,” the cook replied, his dark eyes staring straight through Cameron from his pinched, weathered face. “Saint Patrick’s Day.”
“Saint Patrick—known as the patron saint of Ireland, known as the emerald isle? This?” Cameron pointed into the bowl and gave a friendly wince, “is a sickly, pale, dreary green. It hardly conjures up images of shamrocks and the laughing eyes of little red-haired tots and—”
“More green, it is, then,” the cook grumbled, clearly not entirely convinced his efforts would accomplish what Cameron wanted. He seized a squeeze bottle of black-green liquid and began squirting it in long swirls into the huge bowl.
“So, how are the preparations going?” Julia strode into the kitchen, her head high.
Cameron resisted the urge to gloat. “Smooth as your cook’s own cake frosting.”
He dipped his finger into the brilliant green concoction and offered a dollop to her.
“No thanks.” She wrinkled up her nose.
Cameron shrugged and popped the icing into his mouth.
Julia touched the cook’s arm lightly and mouthed a thank you as she moved between the large metal counters toward a desk at the far end of the room where a screen saver of a happy meadow shone in contrast to the bleak industrial practicality of the kitchen.
Cameron rubbed his tongue over his teeth hoping to get any last bit of green frosting off and followed her with a spring in his step. “Still pouting because it looks like this might all happen without Julia Reed’s approval or control?”
“I am not pouting.” Her full lower lip protruded just enough to contradict her claim. She stopped and took a second to consider. “I’m—”
He came up short, right behind her, practically laying his chin on her shoulder as he suggested, with a wee bit of what some might call wicked glee, “Annoyed?”
“Surprised,” she finished through a clenched jaw.
“Pleasantly surprised?” he prodded, unwilling to give up until he got an answer he liked.
“Of course.” Her expression softened. She even relaxed a little as she looked at the working going on around them. “You’re doing great things for the shelter, Cameron.”
He tried not to look too proud of himself as he hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and grinned. “I’d wondered if you’d noticed.”
“How could I help but notice?” She said it like she had earnestly tried her best to ignore his deeds but had finally surrendered to the inescapable charms of Cameron O’Dea. “So far you’ve brought a dozen volunteers back to work, contacted all manner of media to cover your little event, even made some inroads with a corporate sponsor that had refused to renew its contribution to us.”
She swiped one finger along the countertop, studied it as though testing for dirt, then folded her arms across her oversized blue sweatshirt. Her proud shoulders slumped a bit as she let out a long sigh. “What other kind of reaction but pleasant would I have for someone able to accomplish his goals so quickly, so...adequately?”
“Careful. High praise like that may make me think you actually appreciate what I’m doing.”
“I do appreciate it,” she said, faintly.
“When you say that you look like you’ve just bitten into something sour, my dear—a grape, perhaps?”
“It’s not sour grapes,” she insisted as she pulled the chair out from the kitchen command center desk. The wheels cried out for a good oiling, making Julia cringe. At least that’s why he thought she cringed as she hunched her shoulders up tight and said, “It’s just that—”
“Yes ?”
“Well, I’ve learned the hard way not to get too attached to… projects around this place.” She touched the keyboard of the computer and the sunny meadow scene disappeared, revealing an open spreadsheet on the screen.
It was the hesitation in her words that caught him off guard. Was she referring to him or to the Saint Patrick’s Day event or…
“Gang-way—hot pans coming through.” The cook’s assistant came weaving and bobbing by, a huge cake pan held aloft in both hands.
The warm, sweet aroma wafted over them.
“Watch out, Miss Julia, ma’am, this is very hot,” the assistant warned as he settled the pan onto the counter beside Julia.
Cameron stepped toward the swinging kitchen door and pushed it open with one hand.
Julia took his silent suggestion that they take their discussion elsewhere and ducked out into the dimly lit hallway.
When the kitchen door whooshed shut, cutting off the sounds and smells of the preparations, Cameron realized he hadn’t given Julia much breathing space beyond the door.
She stood, her face upturned just enough so that their gazes connected, less than a foot away from him.
In other circumstances he might have kissed her then. Heaven knew, this was not the first time this week he’d wanted to do just that. He inhaled the faintest scent of vanilla, and it cut him to the quick.
But it was wrong. His obligation was to protect Julia, not pursue a romance with her. His life and circumstances prohibited any kind of involvement right now, and even to imagine they could share more than a working relationship wasn’t fair to either of them.
She swirled her thi
ck braid around her fingers, her blue eyes fixed on his face, calm and expectant.
Still, he thought, his heart thudding in his chest, it’s been a long time since I’ve known a woman like Julia Reed Strong yet vulnerable, kind, courageous. Unafraid to take on the troubles of the world – or to stand up to him. Perhaps he never had met such a woman. He hated to think that it could all slip away. Once this issue of the gold was settled, he decided, as he smoothed his palm back over the unruly waves of his hair, perhaps he and Julia could have the chance denied them now.
It would only take a matter of days to wrap up all his unfinished business with work and then—
And then was better left to the future.
“Now.” He brought his hands together in a thunderous clap. “What’s this about not forming attachments?”
She bowed her head. “I’ve just found that’s the best way to get along sometimes. I mean, something comes along and you really think, ‘this is it, this is the thing that’s going to work for me’—I mean, work for the shelter.”
“What’s wrong with that?"
She raised her chin, her eyes tinged with resignation. “Have you ever heard the expression, ‘life is what happens when you’re making other plans’?”
His lips tugged into a halfhearted smile.
“Well, welcome to my life.” She extended her arms out to her sides then let them drop again. “Our budget should have kept us in the black from one fiscal year to the next, but Cincinnati’s city wide cut backs coupled with last week’s cold snap and the flood of people it brought in really depleted our funds.”
