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“Huh?”
“You know, like old people in your family.”
“Like Grandma?”
The unlikelihood of that came through Rachel’s tone and showed on her face.
“Not everybody keeps that kind of stuff,” Cam explained.
“Well, they wear old-fashioned things in the parade every year,” Sophie offered as she buckled her shoulder belt. “Somebody must know where to get them.”
“Do we care that much?” Cam settled his laptop bag on the front passenger seat and met the girls’ gazes through the rear-view mirror once he’d taken his seat. “Because I can check it out if we do.”
Sophie looked tempted but stayed quiet. Rachel nodded as she clipped her seat belt. “Yeah. It would be great. And I think Meredith would like it. She likes having us around.”
Good thing, thought Cam, since we’re going to be underfoot the next few months. He double-checked his tool list, then started the engine. “But remember, this is a job. You need to be good while I’m working or I have to find a sitter for you.”
He didn’t miss their exchanged glances. “Not Grandma, right?” Sophie made a face that inspired Rachel’s giggle.
Grandma didn’t make Cam’s short list of options, either, but he wasn’t a fan of disrespect. “Your grandmother loves you. She’s just got her own way of doing things.”
“Yeah. Mean.”
“Rachel.”
“Sor-ry.”
She stretched out the word as if underscoring her sincerity, but Cam knew better. Rachel called things as she saw them, but he didn’t want to raise mouthy kids. “You guys have your books?”
Sophie patted her backpack.
Rachel looked guilty.
Cam held up three books about an irascible kindergartner whose antics charmed kids of all ages and handed them over the seat. “Luckily, one of us was paying attention.”
She grinned. “Thanks, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome. And I’ve got snacks packed, but don’t mess up Miss Brennan’s house, okay? Or leave food crumbs around for the mice.”
“Real mice?”
“Or rats?” Sophie wondered, intrigued. “Will you pay us if we catch one?”
Cam hesitated, then nodded, unsure how Meredith would handle that idea. Rodents were a fact of life in the country and he paid the girls fifty cents for every mouse they caught, inside and outside. He paid a dollar for rats, but they’d only bagged two of those over the past few years, thanks to Dora, their white-backed calico cat. Dora hunted regularly, as evidenced by the furry gifts she left on their side porch.
She’d had three kittens a few weeks back, two of which were promised to friends.
Kristy had loved kittens. Cats hadn’t been allowed in their apartment, but he’d promised they’d get one once they had their own place. She didn’t live long enough for that promise to become reality.
His fault.
Guilt festered, an angry wound in need of cleansing. But there was little to do for a wounded man who left his wife to die on the couch.
Pneumonia, the doctor said.
Five years later, Cam still felt a slap of disbelief that people died from pneumonia in this day and age, especially young women like his wife. But he should have known because he knew her lungs had been compromised as a child. He’d watched her use an atomizer for exercise-induced asthma. Problems in her first year had taken her to the hospital several times with infant pneumonia. What he hadn’t known was that the effects of those early problems could prove dangerous to the twenty-seven-year-old woman that shared his love, his life, his bed.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?”
He flicked a glance toward Rachel, erased his concerns and shrugged. “Nothing, honey. I’m just pondering how to do things at Miss Brennan’s.”
“Oh.” Rachel nodded, accepting, then sighed. “I love her hair. Don’t you, Sophie?”
Sophie darted a glance between Rachel and her father. Cam caught the tail end of the surreptitious look while paused at a stop light. “It’s all right,” she answered, purposely nonchalant.
“It’s gorgeous.” Rachel laced her observation with full drawn-out emotion. “I want hair like that when I get bigger.”
“I don’t.”
Rachel eyed her sister and shrugged. “Well, you couldn’t have it anyway. You’ve got dark hair. And it’s straight. I’ve got curls like Meredith.”
Cam cringed. The girls barely knew Meredith and already they were arguing about hair. What was next? Nails? Makeup? Boyfriends? “God made you different because you are different, Rach. That doesn’t make curls better than straight or vice versa.”
“Vice-a-whatta?”
“It doesn’t matter what your hair looks like,” he pressed.
Sophie’s eye roll said otherwise.
Rachel just laughed. “Of course it does. It’s hair. It’s supposed to look nice. Don’t you like the way Meredith’s hair looks, Daddy? All shiny and soft?”
Do not go there.
“How we act is more important,” Cam explained, feeling defensive and out of the loop, “than how we look outside.”
Sophie stayed quiet, staring out the window, then leaned forward. “You get your hair cut all the time, Daddy.”
“Yes.” He drew the word out, wondering. “I have to look decent to teach.”
“What if we want to look nice, too?”
Where Rachel finagled, Sophie calmly reasoned. Her words stabbed Cam. Could they possibly think they didn’t look nice? They were beautiful, lovely, adorable girls. They didn’t need artificial enhancements to make that more noticeable. He paused at a stop sign and met Sophie’s honest look.
“You always look nice, honey.”
She stayed silent, their gazes locked. Cam glimpsed a hint of the woman she was to become when she sat back and resumed gazing out the window, her face and posture quietly shutting him out.
He’d blown it, big time, but he had no idea why. Or how. Or why hair mattered to a pair of little girls who should be more interested in crushing opponents on a soccer field than playing with dolls.
As he turned into Meredith’s driveway, his mother’s warning resurfaced. He’d worked hard to raise grounded, gracious girls. Two days after meeting Meredith, he felt like Commander Queeg, murmurs of mutiny surfacing around him.
He parked near the side door and started to unload his gear. For the next few months he’d be here in whatever spare time he could muster. But the girls…
His precious girls.
He’d worked hard to direct them to things of import. If being around Meredith elevated looks and fashion higher than they should be, he’d seek another option. Yes, he needed the money this job would bring. He’d called the orthodontist’s office and set up Sophie’s first appointment to get the ball rolling.
But no amount of money could coerce him to risk his daughters’ emotional well-being. He’d recognized that early on, and refused to leave them with his mother more than occasionally for that very reason. Her negativity could quash their ingenuity, and he wouldn’t have that.
But he wasn’t about to go the other way, either, and have them turn into prima donnas, more concerned with appearance than content.
As the girls rushed the side door with their book bags in hand, Cam sent a look skyward. If only he’d been more on top of things five years ago, Kristy would be here, taking care of the girls, teaching them soccer drills and playing house with them. But she wasn’t, and there was only one person to blame for that, the husband who’d promised to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health.
He’d blown that big time with his wife. He had no intention of risking a grievous mistake with his daughters.
* * *
The bang of the side door preceded the hurried sound of small, running feet. Meredith grinned in anticipation, rose, rolled her shoulders to loosen them, then put a choke hold on an emotional upsurge when Cam’s cautioning voice followed the rapid footsteps.
“Girls. No running. This is a house, not a soccer field. Meredith?”
“I’m here.” She descended the wide, turning staircase quickly, feeling his upturned gaze, pretty sure the inside temperature had risen indiscriminately with his arrival. Or maybe it was her personal internal temperature, in which case a nice, cold glass of tea should do the trick.
One look into Cam’s sky-blue eyes said tea wouldn’t cut it.
Meredith hid that realization behind a mask of calm, a look she’d perfected while dealing with pretentious spa customers who thought money more valuable than good manners.
She wouldn’t have that problem in Wellsville and Jamison. Here she’d have to deal with the naysayers who thought great haircuts, pedicures and facials were acts of self-indulgence.
Meredith knew better. She’d watched her father ruin his life and his health by poisoning his system with drugs and alcohol.
Taking care of one’s self was a reverent act. God offered one body, one life. Meredith believed that. And while painted nails might not provide world peace, didn’t it make sense to add to the beauty of the world, not detract from it?
Cam would probably laugh at her assertion, but he’d be wrong. Looking nice fed heart and soul, and a good spa should be a peaceful, joyous experience. No matter what her fine carpenter thought of the whole deal. “You wanted to check upstairs?”
“Yes.” He thrust his chin toward the back porch. “I brought my tools along. I’m going to lock them inside the kitchen if that’s all right with you. The back porch locks, but the windows make the tools pretty noticeable, and it’s harder to break in through two rooms.”
“Has that been a problem around here?” Meredith couldn’t imagine it, but…
“Yes,” Cam admitted. “There have been a bunch of things gone missing from people’s cars, garages, porches. Saleable stuff, and my tools would bring a nice price to a thief. And most of them are portable.”
Meredith moved toward the porch. “Let’s bring them inside now, then. That way it’s done when we’re tired later.”
“We’re?”
Okay, she’d had it with that little note in Cam’s voice that doubted her abilities to walk and chew gum at the same time. She pivoted. “If you’ve got something to say, Cameron, say it now. Get it off your chest, and let’s deal with it, because I haven’t spent the last fourteen years working night and day to come back here and have you dismiss my work. First of all—” she waggled a finger while he took a wise half step back “—we were kids, it was a long time ago, and things didn’t work out for a wide spectrum of reasons, so if that’s what’s bothering you, I suggest you drop it. It’s over. Done. Finished. And second…”
She leaned in, narrowed her gaze and wished she’d kept her heels on. Without them he had a distinct height advantage, and that brought her face-to-face with a strong, broad chest. Nevertheless… “Taking care of your body, your skin, your face and your hair isn’t a bad thing. It’s food for the heart and soul, and—” she held up two fingers this time, pressing her point “—statistics prove that while women could generally care less about a man’s aging, a hint of gray, laugh lines, a thickening middle—”
He sucked in a nonexistent gut, but Meredith refused to laugh. They’d have this out here and now if they were going to be able to work together at all. “Men tend to flock toward younger women. So if looking good keeps a man from looking elsewhere, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
“Decent men don’t look elsewhere, Mere.”
The softness in his voice said he sensed dangerous ground and would tread softly, while his words rang true. But Meredith had been surrounded by financially comfortable men with less than stellar virtue, starting with her father and ending with the man she’d thought she known. Loved. Trusted. Experience had shown her that a fair number of successful men thought nothing of breaking vows. Or lying and schmoozing to get what they wanted.
“While that’s true, there’s still nothing wrong with men or women wanting to take care of the vessel God gave them. Their body.” She stepped back and gave a wave in his general direction. “If looking good isn’t wrong for you, then why is it wrong for me? For women?”
His expression changed. Deepened. For a quick take of breath he looked thoughtful, but then he latched on to one thing of note, arched a brow and sent her a teasing smile. “I look good?”
He looked better than good, but she was not going there. “I meant it as an example.”
“For teaching purposes only?” He moved a step closer, and yes, he did still smell good, making her wonder if he’d reapplied the scent because he knew they’d be seeing each other, or if he managed to smell good all day without reapplication, a thought that made her want to draw closer. Just to see.
She didn’t.
But he did, and it was impossible to miss the glint in those blue eyes, a twinkle that said…
She had no idea what it said, but the sparkle drew her and she had no intention of being drawn to a guy who thought her simply decorative.
She started to turn, but he caught her hand as naturally as he had all those years before. His fingers melded with hers, the skin tough and callused, firm and solid. Pinpricks of awareness clenched her gut. He drew closer, held her gaze and made a face of regret. “I apologize for being a jerk.”
She started to shrug him off, pretending it didn’t matter, but he moved closer and tipped her chin up, a move she remembered well. “It was rude. I can admit I had preconceived notions about all this.” He waved his free hand around the gracious old house. “You’ve set me straight. I promise to keep an open mind. Generally.”
She growled.
He grinned and released her hand, and she was pretty sure a fairly good piece of her heart. But she’d learned the hard way that men were not always what they seemed.
Was that true with Cam?
Probably not, but Meredith wasn’t in a position to take chances. She’d lost her job, and probably a good share of her credibility by believing the wrong guy. She’d smartened up, but couldn’t afford more mistakes.
She’d been fooled once.
Her fault for being naive.
Letting herself get fooled twice?
Not about to happen, and definitely not in her hometown where private moments were a backyard conversation away from being common knowledge.
She led the way to the porch and helped lug Cam’s tools into the kitchen. She’d do whatever it took to guard Cam’s stuff.
She’d do even more to protect her heart.
Chapter Five
You can do this.
Eyeing the short walkway linking her car and Heather’s entry, Meredith wasn’t so sure.
