Man With A Message

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ALARM SHRIEKED in Cam’s ear. Without moving his head from the pillow, he reached out to slam it off.

Blessed quiet.

He’d finally gone to bed at 4:00 a.m. and set the alarm for seven. There was too much to do at the school today to allow for eight hours’ sleep. But certainly he could steal another fifteen minutes.

Fred, however, had other plans. The Lab, awake at the foot of the bed and waiting for the smallest sign that Cam was awake, leaped onto his chest and bathed his face with dog kisses.

Cam tried to push him away, but he was weak after the all-night session and the measly three hours’ sleep. The dog plopped down on top of him and chewed on his chin.

Cam knew if he didn’t get up he’d be eaten. It would be done with affection, but he’d be eaten.

“Okay, Fred, that’s enough,” he said calmly but firmly, pushing the dog off.

He sat up to swing his legs over the side of the bed just as Fred decided he’d cooperated long enough and it was time for some serious extreme wrestling. Growling, large mouth open in what Cam thought of as his alligator mode, Fred attacked.

Cam’s body, unfortunately aimed toward the edge of the bed, went over the side, dog atop him and gleefully pretending to kill him.

MARIAH HEADED FROM THE CAR where Parker waited, along the little walkway to the stairs that led up to Cameron Trent’s apartment. She’d awakened this morning determined to apologize to the man who’d given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and been slapped for his efforts.

Provided the man was Cameron Trent. And provided he would even want to listen to her. She intended to reassure him quickly that she would take only a moment of his time, then she would never darken his doorway again.

She climbed the stairs, rehearsing her little speech. “Mr. Trent, I apologize for slapping you. I thought you were my…” No. That was too much information.

“Mr. Trent, I apologize for slapping you. I was in a sort of dream state and your lips were…” No, no! Too revealing of feelings she didn’t understand and he was bound to misinterpret.

“Mr. Trent, I’m sorry I hit you. I awoke to see a stranger leaning over me and I…I…”

Okay, get it straight! She told herself firmly. Don’t stammer like an idiot. Maybe a simple “I’m sorry.” He’d know what she was sorry about, so there was little point in belaboring why it had happened.

She checked the note in her hand. Apartment E. Parker had called Addy at the Breakfast Barn, where she always had breakfast with her cronies, and learned Trent’s address.

She stopped in front of the end apartment upstairs, pulled aside the screen door and, bracing herself, knocked lightly twice. The door squeaked open.

She heard a commotion beyond the door and concluded he must have the television on. She knocked a little louder. The door opened farther, making the commotion inside more audible.

But it wasn’t the television. Someone was being attacked! By…dogs? In Maple Hill? The man’s cries sounded desperate. She looked around for help, but Parker couldn’t see her from the car.

She couldn’t just walk away. This man had possibly saved her life; the least she could do was make an effort for him.

She looked around for a weapon and, finding none, simply took a firm hold of the handle of her purse, burst through the door and ran toward the sound.

In a bedroom at the back of the house, she found a sight that chilled her. The man whose face she’d awakened to yesterday now lay half on and half off the bed, his legs trapped in the blankets while a huge black beast, fangs bared, attacked him unmercifully, sounding like one of the dogs of hell unleashed.

She fought a trembling in her limbs and advanced, swinging at the glossy hindquarters with her purse. “Stop it!” she shrieked at the animal. “Get out! Get out!” The dog yelped and withdrew onto the bed, eyes wide. Encouraged that she’d made it retreat, she followed it, purse in full swing.

“Whoa!” the man shouted.

His directive didn’t register, however, as she climbed onto the bed in pursuit of her quarry. “Get out of here you—”

Her threat was abruptly silenced as something strong manacled her ankle, effectively dropping her facedown into the bedclothes.

Momentarily blinded and unable to move, she felt a cold chill as she heard a menacing growl just above her.

“Fred!” Trent shouted. “Down! Now!”

She heard the dog’s claws connect with the hardwood floor.

Fred? Cameron Trent had been viciously attacked by a dog named…Fred?

CAM WAS SURE HE WAS hallucinating. First of all, there was a woman in his bedroom, and that hadn’t happened in a long time. Second, she appeared to be an avenging angel determined to rescue him from Fred’s morning wake-up ritual. An angel he’d rescued himself just last night. Only, she hadn’t reacted like much of an angel.

It took a moment before he realized her determination to save him included hitting his dog with a leather purse that resembled something Evander Holyfield would hang from the ceiling and beat with boxing gloves. And then he reached up and caught her foot.

She plopped down in the middle of his mattress, skirt halfway up her legs, one shoe off, the other dangling from her toe. He experienced a sudden visceral need to put his hand to the back of her thigh and explore upward.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—his foster parents’ civilizing influence had taken root in him and he simply freed her ankle and got to his feet. Then, remembering he was wearing only white cotton briefs, he wrapped an old brown blanket around his waist as she rolled over.

She wasn’t happy.

He wasn’t surprised.

For an instant he simply absorbed the steamy look of her in his bed. She wore another long-sleeved silky blouse, pale blue this time, and another long skirt—black. Her hair was in a tight knot at the back of her head; her cheeks were flushed from exertion.

Nothing about her should have been seductive, but there she was amid his rumpled bedclothes, knees bared, one tendril of dark hair falling from her right temple. Her eyes smoldered.

He concluded that expression was probably fueled by anger or embarrassment, but what it contributed to the picture she made was powerful. He wanted her. Badly.

But what was she doing here?

Fred, standing near the edge of the bed, leaned a long neck and tongue forward and slurped her bare knee.

She shrank back with a little cry.

“Fred!” Cam caught the dog’s collar and made him sit. Fred complied, apparently totally affronted.

“I’m sorry,” Cam said quickly as Mariah looked around herself, her cheeks growing rosy. So it was embarrassment. “I know that appeared brutal, but it’s a game we play. Fred’s just seven months old and very frisky. The snarling and teeth flashing are phony. He’s just trying to get me up for breakfast.”

She drew a deep breath and something inside her seemed to collapse. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t like the look of it. Her eyes lost their smolder and filled with the sadness he’d seen in them last night.

Instinctively, he reached for her waist to pluck her off the bed and stand her on the floor. In her stocking feet, she barely skimmed his shoulder. “I appreciate the rescue, though,” he said, his hands still on her. “I’ll bet that purse packs a wallop.”

She put her hands on his and removed them from her waist. “Where is my purse?” she asked stiffly.

It had gone over the side of the bed when she’d fallen. He went to retrieve it for her. It weighed a ton.

When he came back with it, she was hunting for her second shoe. Then she looked beyond him and gasped. Fred, whom he’d lost track of when he’d scooped her off the bed, had it in his teeth.

“Fred, give me that shoe!” she demanded, going toward the dog with a hand outstretched.

“Mariah…” Cam began to caution, but he was too late. The dog had darted off toward the living room, tail wagging, and Mariah went in pursuit.

Cam followed, catching up with them in the kitchen. Mariah had one end of the shoe and Fred the other. This could not end well.

“Mariah, don’t pull!” he ordered. Then to the dog, he said in the authoritative tone he’d learned in obedience class, “Fred, give!”

It never worked in class, either. Fred was an independent thinker.

Cam finally grabbed the dog around the jaw and pried the shoe from his teeth. There was a small tooth hole in the side of the black leather flat, and slobber on the toe. He wiped it off with the tail of the blanket wrapped around him and handed the shoe to her.

She snatched it from him and slipped it on, the smolder back in her eyes. “Thank you!” she snapped. “I came here in an attempt to be a thoughtful human being, and thanks to you and Mr. Astaire here—” she pointed in the direction of the dog “—or is it Flintstone? Regardless, I’ve been harassed and embarrassed!”

“I’m sorry you were embarrassed,” he said reasonably, “but I didn’t expect visitors this morning.”

“Then you should have locked your door.” She marched back to the bedroom, where she’d left her purse. “I thought you were being killed!”

He tried to placate her with “You were very heroic.”

“No, I was mistaken.” She made that correction grimly as she shouldered her purse.

“Is that such a terrible thing?” he asked quietly. “Or is it just that making mistakes is new to you?”

She blew air scornfully. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But I’m trying to change the pattern.”

Fred had followed them back to the bedroom and she leaned down to stroke the dog’s head. He reacted with his customary enthusiasm and was about to lick her face.

Cam caught him before he could connect, but Mariah surprised him by leaning down to take one of Fred’s kisses, then laughing as she nuzzled his face with her own.

“It’s okay, Fred,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean any harm. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Cam, now completely confused about her—and just as captivated—asked innocently, “Aren’t you sorry you yelled at me?”

HE WAS GORGEOUS NOW THAT she observed him with all her faculties at work. She hadn’t appreciated the width of his shoulders last night, the odd gold color of his eyes. His good looks weren’t a feature-by-feature thing but rather a whole impression made by confidence and humor playing in the rough angles.

She frowned and folded her arms. “Did I yell at you?”

He pretended hurt feelings in a theatrically dramatic sniff. “Yes, you yelled at me. You blamed me for what you called your ‘embarrassment,’ and here I was the one wearing nothing but my skivvies when you burst in. And in danger of being puppy chow, if you’ll recall.”

She wanted to laugh. Nothing made her laugh these days—except children and dogs. “You assured me you were in no danger.”

He folded his arms over that formidable chest and looked away in a gesture of emotional delicacy. “Because I didn’t want you to risk yourself further on my behalf.”

She still managed to keep a straight face. “Well, I appreciate that. I have to go.”

She headed for the door again, but he caught her halfway across the living room and turned her around. His hand was warm and strong and stopped her cold though he applied no pressure.

“What was the thoughtful reason you came?” he asked. There was something urgent in his eyes.

“Oh.” She sighed, realizing she’d never offered her apology. “I forgot.” She angled her chin, hoping to put him off by appearing haughty. Men usually hated that. And she did not want to be attracted to this one. “I came to apologize for slapping you last night. I was…” What was it she had rehearsed? He was gazing into her eyes and she couldn’t remember. “I was sort of dreaming and you…and I…” She stopped, hating that she was stammering like a twit. She squared her shoulders and tried to go on. “When I woke up, I thought you were…” She did everything humanly possible to avoid completing that sentence, avoid uttering the word that dangled unspoken.

“You thought I was kissing you?” he prompted, apparently having no such compunction.

He didn’t really appear self-satisfied, but there was an artlessness to him she didn’t trust at all.

“Yes,” she admitted, making herself look into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She tried to leave again, but he still had her arm. She felt a sudden and desperate need to get out of there.

“What?” she demanded impatiently.

“I haven’t accepted your apology,” he reminded her.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Well, how I react to this,” he explained in an amiable tone, “will be determined by why you hit me.”

“I just told you! I was dreaming and I…”

“I know, but if you were angry at me because you were disappointed that I wasn’t kissing you, that requires a different response altogether.”

She knew where this was going and she didn’t want any part of it. Well, she did, but only for purely selfish reasons. She missed the intimacy of marriage. Not the sex, necessarily, but the touches, the pats, the…the kisses. And though she’d sworn there would never be another man in her life, she was still allowed to miss what a man brought to a relationship. Wasn’t she?

“I thought you were…” She even hated to say his name aloud. It brought back memories of those last awful few months of her marriage when she’d shouted it pleadingly, begging Ben to understand how she felt.

Cam waited.

“My…husband,” she said finally.

His eyes closed a moment. “You have a husband?”

That was her out. She had simply to say yes, and he’d lose interest in this unsettling morning exercise. Freedom was one small word away.

She opened her mouth to speak it but heard herself say, instead, “My ex-husband.”

He looked cautious. “You want him back?” he asked gently.

For the first time in a year she faced that question directly. Did she want him back?

“No,” she whispered. “But I miss…” It was hard to say.

“You can tell me,” he encouraged her softly.

The words clogged her throat. What had begun in amusement and sexual challenge was all of a sudden filled with real emotion.

“I miss trust,” she finally admitted, her voice barely audible, even to herself. He tipped her face up as if to help himself hear. “I miss holding hands, telling stories, and I miss…” She had to say it. “Kisses.”

And that seemed to be all he had to know. This was no longer about what she’d felt last night when she slapped him, but what was suddenly between them now as she admitted need and he responded.

His mouth came down on hers with tender authority. The sureness in the hands that framed her face told her to leave it to him; he knew what he was doing. And he did.

The touch of his lips was familiar from last night, and she experienced none of the awkward newness of first kisses. He was confident, she was willing, and the chemistry was its own catalyst.

His mouth was dry and warm and clever, his hands sure as they moved over her back, down her spine, stopping at the hollow just below her waist, then moving up again.

She met his lips avidly, basking in the almost-forgotten comfort of the shelter of a man’s arms.

HER RESPONSE WAS FAR MORE enthusiastic than Cam had expected. He wasn’t entirely sure what was happening here, except that it wasn’t what he’d originally intended. He’d been teasing her, playing with their previous connection, trying to taunt the stiffness out of her because…he wasn’t sure why. Stiff, tight women weren’t his type. And neither were small ones. They made him feel huge and inept and afraid to move.

But she wrapped her arms around him gamely, dipped the tip of her tongue into his mouth with tantalizing eagerness, combed her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and somehow touched something inside him that seemed to rip in two everything he thought he’d decided about women since his first wife, Allison.

Then without warning she sagged against him, dropping her forehead to his chest and remaining absolutely still for several seconds. When she raised her head, her eyes were stormy with something he couldn’t quite define.

She punched his shoulder as if to release some pent-up emotion. But it didn’t seem to be anger.

“Now you’re going to have to come back tomorrow,” he said, trying to lighten the abrupt sadness in the room, “and apologize for hitting me again.”

“So this is what’s taking so long,” a female voice said from the doorway.

Cam looked up and Mariah started guiltily out of his arms.

“Parker!” she said, her voice sounding strangled. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I thought the dog was devouring him and came in to…”

Parker glanced at Cam, still partially wrapped in a blanket, then listened interestedly as Mariah tried to explain, then gave up. It did sound ridiculous.

“Oh, never mind.” Mariah looked up at Cam, opened her mouth to speak, then apparently decided against it. “Goodbye,” she said, instead. She walked past Parker and out the door. Fred whined.

“Good morning, Parker,” Cam said politely, feigning a normalcy the situation denied.

Parker, who’d always been warm and kind to him the few times they’d met in city hall, now studied him with a measure of doubt. “Mariah’s my sister,” she said.

He nodded. “Hank told me.” He explained briefly about Fred and his growling game. “It was 4:00 a.m. when I got home. I pulled my shoes and socks off on the porch because I was drenched, came in with an armload of stuff and kicked the door closed—or thought I had. When Mariah heard Fred playing, she assumed I was in trouble and came in to rescue me.”

“That kiss was a thank-you?” she queried.

“No,” he replied. “You should probably ask her what it was.”

She nodded and prepared to leave. He walked her to the door, where she stopped and smiled. “She’s a very nice girl who’s had a very bad time recently.”

He leaned a shoulder in the doorway. “The ex-husband?”

Parker looked surprised. “She told you?”

“Only that she had one.”

“He was a good guy,” Parker explained, “who turned out to be a bastard. I’d hate to have that happen to her again.”

“Don’t worry, she’s learned to defend herself,” he said with a wry smile. “She keeps hitting me.”

Parker frowned. “She came to apologize for that.”

He laughed lightly. “She did. Then she hit me again.” He straightened and assured her seriously, “I’m not a bastard. My background isn’t pretty and I wouldn’t claim to be a good guy, but I’m not a threat to anybody’s safety, either.”

She studied him, as if deciding whether or not to believe him. Then she finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll take your word on that. Otherwise, I know how to massage your shoulder into your eye socket.”

“Rough women in your family,” he noted with a grin.

She smiled pleasantly and hurried down the stairs.

Cam closed and locked the door, fed Fred, then decided against cereal in favor of stopping at Perk Avenue coffee shop on his way to work. He deserved a little sugar after what he’d been through this morning.

In the bedroom, he yanked off the blanket, delved into the closet for fresh jeans and a sweatshirt and started toward the bathroom, but something sparkling in the middle of the bed caught his attention. He reached for it and found that it was a little gold hoop with three tiny beads—an earring. Mariah’s earring.

He tossed it in his hand, remembering her leaping to his rescue, sprawled in the middle of his bed, leaning into him as he kissed her.

He had to draw a breath to clear the images. He didn’t need this. If he did intend to get involved with a woman, he wanted some buxom, uncomplicated ray of sunshine who’d want to make a home, raise children and help him forget all he’d lost or never had.

He didn’t need a tiny brunette with troubled eyes who’d had “a hard time.”

He tossed the earring again as he headed for the bathroom, caught it, then stopped with a growl of complaint when it bit into his hand. He opened his palm to find that his overzealous grab had caused the sharp post to jab his ring finger.

A metaphor for his involvement with her? he wondered.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE SECOND MORNING AFTER the deluge, Mariah encouraged her little troupe to finish breakfast so that they could get to school on time. They were rushed this morning. Mariah had overslept—something she never did—and it had taken Ashley’s violent shaking to wake her up.

“I’m sorry I have to hurry you,” she explained, shooing the girls upstairs to brush their teeth. “I know it’s all my fault, but we can still be on time if we put some effort into it.

“We were late yesterday,” Philip said, “and nobody cared.”

“That was because of the excitement the night before. But today it’s our responsibility to be punctual.”

“There’s still no carpet,” Amy complained as she and the other girls started up the stairs.

Mariah nodded. “We have to wait for the wood to dry. It’ll be replaced at the end of the week.”

“So, where do you think the gold is?” Peter asked Brian as the three boys, teeth already brushed, shouldered their backpacks.

Brian considered. “Cam says I have to do more research.”

“Well, where else could it be?” Philip asked.

“I’m thinking maybe in…”

Mariah missed whatever it was he thought as he lowered his voice to a whisper.

Brian had dropped Cam’s name at every opportunity since the flood. The boy had acquired status among the other children because the man who’d rescued Mariah had asked him to help. He was clearly enjoying his popularity.

Mariah tried not to think about that night—or yesterday morning. Her behavior in Cam’s apartment had to have been a result of her embarrassment at discovering that he hadn’t been in danger at all, simply playing with Fred. Added to that was the fact that she hadn’t seen a partially naked man in a long time, and the fact that the hormones she’d been sure had died with her marriage were still very lively. She had to have lost her mind just a bit.