Autumn Chill in Utah Springs, page 15
He wouldn’t have expected sweet little Megan Vance to know how to kick a man right in the gonads without even blinking an eye. Only a kiss. To him, the world had shifted, the skies had opened, heavenly choirs of angels had burst into song.
To her, it had only been a kiss.
He bared his teeth. “Right. Absolutely.”
“I suppose it was just a natural reaction, right? We were both just carried away by emotion, by the sheer, overwhelming relief at finding Cameron after so many hours of intense stress.”
“If you say so.”
He wasn’t quite sure which of them she was trying to convince. He had to admit, he wasn’t buying it. He kissed her because he wanted to, more than he wanted to breathe. Because somehow she had made a shambles of the hard, protective shell he used to keep the world out.
Because when he was with her, the world seemed softer, somehow. Sweeter.
“You don’t think it was a release of stress?”
He made a rough sound in the back of his throat. “It sure as hell didn’t release any of my stress. What about you?”
She blinked at him for a moment, and then she gave a startled laugh. “I suppose it didn’t.”
After a quick, sidelong look at him, she turned her attention back to the food on her plate. They lapsed into silence and he was racking his tired brain to come up with another subject of conversation when she spoke again, her voice pitched low as if she were revealing some deep, dark secret.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she whispered.
He wasn’t sure how he reacted—he hoped to hell he hadn’t groaned aloud, though he certainly felt like it. Still, her emerald gaze flickered to him again, dismay in her eyes.
“I probably shouldn’t have said that, should I?”
He cleared his throat. “Depends in what context you’re thinking about it—as an experience you found completely repulsive and hope to never have to endure again?”
He paused, his pulse pounding. “Or otherwise?”
She was silent for a long time, the only sound in the little alcove the ticking of a clock on a bookshelf and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. He was an idiot to kiss her and an idiot to care so much about how she had reacted to it.
When she finally spoke, her voice was pitched low, so quiet he could barely hear.
“Otherwise,” she whispered.
So much for all the million reasons he told himself he wouldn’t kiss her again. Hadn’t he just finished telling her it was a mistake and wouldn’t happen again?
He stared at her, instantly aroused even though he knew it was insane. How could just a word send heat and hungry need sizzling through him?
“This is crazy, Caleb,” she said, her voice ragged and color suddenly climbing her high cheekbones. “We barely know each other. What little time we have spent been together has been under the worst conditions imaginable, at least for me.”
He took some comfort that she seemed to be desperately trying to convince herself more than him. He knew a decent man would probably try to change the subject to something safe and innocuous, just let the whole thing drop.
He discovered he wasn’t very decent after all, at least not when it came to Megan.
“Crazy,” he agreed, then he leaned forward and captured her mouth with his.
She sighed his name, her hands fluttered up to twine around his neck and he was lost.
He wanted to devour her like the meal she had just prepared for him, but he ruthlessly beat down the wild need, keeping the kiss soft, easy. She wasn’t ready for more. He sensed it as surely as he knew it was killing him to hold back his hunger.
Words of tenderness tangled on his tongue, but he knew she wasn’t ready for those, either.
The clock on the bookcase ticked on and as each moment passed, more and more of his control slipped away with it. She was so soft and warm, like slipping aching muscles into a natural hot spring after a hard day of climbing.
“You taste like brownies,” she murmured.
You taste like heaven, he wanted to say, but the words caught in his throat when she licked the corner of his mouth.
His control frayed and he deepened the kiss, against his better instincts. Instead of pulling away as he’d feared she would, she let out a breathy little sigh and welcomed him inside her mouth, her hands tangling in his hair. He wanted her like he’d never wanted anything in his life and miraculously, incredibly, she seemed to feel the same thing.
He pulled her onto his lap, desperate to be closer, and she didn’t resist. She snuggled closer, pressing her soft curves against him, and he had to wonder if he’d been caught in that cave-in after all and that this just was some delayed version of paradise.
“Mom?”
They both froze, their breathing ragged, as the word drifted down the hallway. She stared at him for perhaps ten seconds, her eyes soft and aroused. Then shock replaced the heat and she scrambled away from him as if he had pinched her.
She opened her mouth to say something, then jerked it shut and hurried down the hall to her son’s bedroom, leaving him aching and hungry and wondering what the hell he had just done.
CHAPTER 14
After she left, Cale sat alone for a few moments, trying to wrestle all his rampaging hormones back under control. He could deal with unsatisfied desire. What he wasn’t sure he could handle was this sudden foreboding.
He hadn’t missed the expression in Megan’s eyes before she had rushed away to deal with her son. She had looked both shocked and dismayed at their heated embrace, and he was fairly certain he had also seen a resigned finality there, like a child reluctantly giving away a toy.
He decided not to worry about what she planned to give up yet. After another moment or two, he rose and joined her in the bedroom.
Cameron was sitting up on the bed, his blond hair messy. He wore X-Men pajamas and looked small and fragile, much like his mother.
He frowned in confusion when Cale walked into the room, head cocked as he no doubt tried to figure out who the strange man in his room might be. After a moment, recognition registered in those eyes that looked so much like his mother’s.
“You’re the one from the mine. You found me.”
He didn’t know anything about seizures, but he wouldn’t have thought the kid had been alert enough to remember anything that had happened underground. Maybe Cam hadn’t been quite as unaware of his surroundings as he had seemed.
He smiled a little. “Right. I’m Caleb Davis.”
“Agent Davis is with the FBI,” Megan said.
Cameron’s eyes widened and he looked at Cale with new interest. “The FBI? Really?”
“He and his partner have been two of the many people looking for you since the morning I realized you were gone.”
The intrigue in his eyes shifted quickly to chagrin, and he looked down at his quilt. “I’ve put everybody to a lot of trouble, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” Megan said firmly, then moderated her tone. “But everyone is very relieved you’re home safe.”
Cameron chewed his lip. “I was stupid to get lost. Dad never would have gotten lost or had a dumb seizure.”
“Your father made plenty of mistakes.” Megan’s tone was gentle. “I don’t know that he ever decided to explore an abandoned mine by himself, but he took many risks he later admitted hadn’t been wise.”
“I didn’t mean to go so far into the mine. I was just going to go in for a minute. But then I saw…” His voice trailed off and he pulled his knees to his chest, hugging his legs. “I was so scared and I ran and ran and I took a wrong turn and then I didn’t know how to find my way back out.”
Cale pulled a chair over to the bed. “What happened, Cameron? Why did you run?”
The boy rocked back and forth, his features anxious. Cale hated to push him, but they needed to know so they could take the necessary steps to keep him safe.
His obvious distress must have been too much for his mother. Megan pulled him closer and the boy leaned into her, closing his eyes as if he could block out the nightmare Cale knew he must have endured inside those mine tunnels.
When he spoke, his voice was small and frightened. “I saw something. Something bad.”
“What did you see, Cameron?” he pressed.
“I don’t want to say.”
Megan now looked as distressed as her son. If he could spare her this, he would have. But through years of experience interviewing crime witnesses, he knew Cameron would feel better only after he had talked about what he had seen and shared the burden of it.
Cale drew the chair closer to the bed and gave the boy a reassuring look. “I think I know what you saw, Cameron. We found someone else in that mine besides you. Someone who had been shot and killed. Did you see that happen?”
A shudder shook his small frame. He didn’t say anything, just shook his head. “I didn’t see, but I heard it.”
Megan pulled him closer, her delicate features pale in the low light of the room.
“I saw lights on the mountain going into the mine,” Cameron said. “I thought they were terrorists making a bomb and I thought they must be using the mine tunnels. I sneaked inside to see what they were doing. I know it was wrong, but I was pretending I was like my dad. He was a hero and I wanted to be one, too. I wanted to catch the bad guys. But when I went inside, it smelled funny. Different from the times I went in before, and I didn’t like it. Then I heard them.”
Cale’s heart clenched when he thought of the danger the boy had put himself in. As traumatic as his ordeal must have been inside the mine, Cale knew it could have been much, much worse if he had been caught by the meth cook or his killer.
“How many people did you hear?”
“Two men.”
“Could you see their faces?”
“It was too dark and I didn’t want them to see me so I didn’t go closer. But I could tell they weren’t terrorists. They were yelling and fighting. About money, I think, but I couldn’t really tell.”
“What did they say?”
“The one who sounded familiar was talking about cooking and his aunt Mabel and bags with nickels.”
“You recognized one voice?”
Cameron hesitated. “I don’t know. I thought it sounded like someone I had heard before. Someone I knew from somewhere, but I couldn’t tell for sure where or how I knew him.”
“Was he young or old?”
“I don’t know. He just sounded mean, I guess.”
His voice trailed off and he shivered again. Megan sent Cale a pleading look, begging him silently to stop. He didn’t want to upset her or her son further, but he knew he had no choice.
“What happened after that, Cam?”
The boy’s chin wobbled. “It’s like you said. They were fighting and then the other one sounded scared and said he was just joking around and the first one said he didn’t have a sense of humor.”
He screwed up his face as if he could block the memories out. “And then I heard two loud bangs and I knew he shot him, like on TV. I was afraid he would shoot me, so I ran. I went into a tunnel I hadn’t been in before just to hide for a while. I was just going to wait until he was gone and then find my way back out, but I…I got turned around and couldn’t find the way out. I looked and looked and looked but I was just going deeper and deeper, until I didn’t know where I was.”
He swiped at a tear. “I was just a big baby. I shouldn’t have been so scared. Dad wouldn’t have been so scared or so dumb.”
Cale couldn’t help himself. He leaned closer, looking intently into the boy’s brimming eyes. “Listen to me, Cameron. You are not dumb. You were smart enough to get away from a dangerous situation and you were smart enough to survive in there on your own and to leave marks so you could backtrack the way you had come. That’s the only reason we found you, Cam. Because you pointed the way for us.”
The boy looked as if he desperately wanted to believe him. “You really think so?”
“Absolutely. You shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place—you know that now, right?”
Cameron nodded.
“And when you realized you were lost, you should have stayed put so rescuers could find you, instead of going farther and farther into the mine tunnels. You made some mistakes, but you did a lot of things right. I don’t know a lot of grown men who could have survived what you did in there, Cameron.”
The boy looked desperate to believe him. His eyes searched Cale’s. After a moment, he gave a hesitant smile. “I was really scared,” he admitted. “Especially after I used up all the flashlight batteries.”
“I don’t blame you one bit,” Cale answered. “I was scared going in there, too, and I had a field telephone and plenty of light and somebody with me the whole time.”
He didn’t add that he was mostly scared he would have to bring Megan back her son’s body. The boy didn’t need to know that.
“You’re not going to ever do anything like that again, are you?” Megan said sternly.
Cameron shook his head hard. “No way. I swear.”
“The sheriff is going to want to talk to you,” Cale said after a moment. “I can tell him what you told me, but I’m sure he’ll want to hear it for himself. He’ll probably have more questions for you. Do you think you can work on trying to figure out why that voice sounded familiar?”
The boy’s eyes turned grim. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“I know it’s scary and hard. But if you can give us even a couple of ideas, that would be a big help in finding the bad guy. You can be a hero after all, just like your dad.”
“I’ll try.” He paused. “Uh, thanks for finding me and stuff.”
“You’re welcome.” Cale smiled at the boy, then risked a glance at his mother. Megan was looking at him with a soft expression he couldn’t quite read. Before he could puzzle it out, Cameron spoke again.
“Can I have something to eat? I’m really hungry.”
“Of course!” Megan said instantly. “I’ve got your favorite sandwich already made. PB & J. How about a big glass of milk to go with it?”
“Oh, yeah!” Cameron said.
“I’ll go downstairs for some milk while you bring in the sandwich,” Cale offered.
When he returned with the milk, he found Megan on the landing at the top of the stairs, clearing up the remains of their shared meal that had ended with such disastrous heat.
Her gaze shot quickly to his, then she turned her attention back to the plates in her hand. He knew her sudden nervousness around him had more to do with their kiss than his questioning of Cameron. But since he wasn’t at all ready to discuss the former, he chose to focus on the latter.
“I’m sorry I had to push Cam about what he witnessed inside the mine,” he said. “I could tell it upset you.”
“You only did what you had to. He was going to have to talk about it sooner or later.” She frowned. “Do you really think the killer might be someone he knows? Someone from Moose Springs?”
“It makes sense. Somebody knew enough about this area to find that mine entrance so they could use it for a meth lab. And the murder victim is local. It’s logical he would be working with someone from around here.”
“I can’t imagine who it might be, if indeed it’s someone familiar. Cameron hasn’t met many people at all. We’ve only been here a few months! I can probably name on one hand the adult males he’s met besides his uncle—his new soccer coach, the pastor at church, the elementary school principal. See, I can’t even come up with five names. How could anyone we know be a murderer?”
In her agitation, she nearly dropped the whole tray on the floor. He took it from her. He was loath to worry her further, but knew she needed to face reality, however grim it might be.
“Megan, if the guy is from around here, he has to know about Cameron’s disappearance and his rescue from the mine. It won’t take him long to figure out Cam probably saw something.”
“I know,” she said in a small voice. “It’s not over, is it?”
He longed to pull her into his arms but sensed she wouldn’t welcome it.
“Not yet. But with Cameron’s help, it soon will be.”
“Will you keep him safe?”
He gazed at her, unable to resist the plea in her green eyes. She could ask him to move that mountain out there and he knew he would go find a bulldozer and start digging.
“I’ll do my best,” he said gruffly.
It was a promise he prayed he could keep.
* * *
“No frigging way. Are you crazy?” Cale snapped at the sheriff several hours later.
Late morning sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, sending shafts of light across the table. From here, Megan watched Cameron and Hailey playing Go Fish on the coffee table in the great room. She could hear Hailey’s sweet giggle at something her brother said and see a sunbeam gleaming white in Cam’s hair.
After the trauma of the last few days, this would have been a perfect moment—except for the two hard, dangerous men glowering at each other over coffee.
Though he looked annoyed, Daniel Galvez didn’t rise to the bait, and she thought again how much she had come to appreciate his unruffled demeanor in just about every situation.
“I didn’t say I was in favor of the idea. I’m only presenting it to Megan, who ultimately must make the final decision.”
She squirmed as they both turned their attention to her. She wanted to hug her children close and enjoy the beauty of a Saturday morning in August, not become embroiled in their disagreement.
“You didn’t say you opposed the idea, either,” she pointed out to the sheriff. “I would like to know your true opinion before I make any kind of decision.”
The subject of Cale’s wrath seemed innocuous enough. Every year Moose Springs threw a big celebration, Moosemania Days, complete with a parade, a carnival on the town square, a barbecue thrown by the Rotary Club and a fireworks display.
The celebration had been put on hold during the search for Cameron. Since his rescue, the town was apparently ready to party and the mayor had approached Daniel about having Cameron be the guest of honor at the barbecue that evening.
