And it meant nothing. Sadly he relinquished Acasia’s arm. "Touché," he said. "You win." Then he brushed by her and through the snarl of grasses.
"Cam." For a trace of an instant entreaty wavered in Acasia’s voice. She didn’t want to win, she wanted to fight, to taunt, to snap back and forth as they always had—anything that didn’t force her to deal with herself and her feelings for him.
Cameron hesitated without turning. "What?"
Her mouth was so dry that she could barely speak. "For what it’s worth, you were—" Great, fantastic, wonderful, the best… None of the adjectives said enough. She took a deep breath and raised her chin. The next step was risky and irrevocable, but she took it anyway. "I’m glad it was you out there with me today."
There was so much she couldn’t say, so much that would have to wait. Cameron turned, and for a fraction of a second they shared one thought, hesitant but unwavering, wary but distinct: later. Acasia’s mouth lifted in the tentative hint of a smile. The lines about Cameron’s lips deepened cautiously.
"Anyway," Acasia said, "thanks."
Cameron glanced away to hide his pleasure, then looked back and lifted a finger to his brow in a mock salute. "No sweat," he said, and stepped into the clearing to join Fred.
N
UMB, ACASIA STOOD in the center of the infirmary and took in the destruction. It had taken years to build and equip Fred’s clinic. She supposed the mess looked worse than it was. This sort of destruction so often did. Still, it was daunting to see how little a life’s work could be boiled down to—and how quickly.
"Hey, Casie! You going to give us a hand?"
She turned around at the sound of Fred’s voice. He was facing away from her, directing the cleanup, and there was something very reminiscent of
I told you so
about the set of his back. But perhaps that was merely whimsy on her part. Or guilt.
"Put anything that looks remotely salvageable in the box in the corner," he ordered. "I’ll make a list for repairs later." He shook his head at the increasing flow of trash, watching Cameron use a splintered floorboard to scrape shredded paintings and glass into a pile. "Damn."
"Yeah." Fred’s autoclave rolled by, its door twisted on its hinges, and Cameron’s jaw tightened. "You going to have trouble replacing anything?"
"Not with your name on the order form."
Cameron gave him a sharp nod. "Whatever you need."
Anger filtered through Acasia’s numbness. How dare Dominic take out his hatred for her on Fred? What he’d done here was the work of a petty coward. But then, she supposed that was what he was—and had always been. Only a coward took down fleeing children and unarmed women for pay. She spun on her heel, jerked a saw out of Fred’s tool crib and strode out of the clinic, giving all the bits of broken serenity a wide berth.
Near a stack of lumber slated to enlarge the clinic to include an operating room whenever Fred found a surgeon willing to work in the village with him, Acasia set up sawhorses and went to work. Floorboards pried up and torn loose in Dominic’s search for a hiding place had to be replaced; windows had to be boarded up; screens had to be repaired. She didn’t have time for this stupidity. She had to get Cameron away from here, even if she had to trek him out on foot. Then she had a score to settle with Dom.
This time for good.
She glanced up from her work, and Cameron caught, full force, her expression of pure undisguised hatred. When she focused on him, her jaw clenched and a muscle twitched in her cheek. Yes, she seemed to be telling him, it’s me, and though you weren’t supposed to see it, I do know what it’s like to want to kill. He looked away from her, at the rubble around him, where the ghosts of her history flirted with him and disappeared. No one had ever intruded on Rhiannon this way, but he could imagine how this sort of wholesale invasion of the institute or his home would make him feel. He knew how he felt about this intrusion here and now. He hefted the hammer he held and walked across the compound, halting beside her.
"I’m sorry," he said.
Acasia kept sawing without looking up. "For what?"
"For not imagining all the possible consequences my visit might have down here. For my part in this."
"You have nothing to do with this, Cam. You’re just an excuse." The saw bit through the last millimeter of wood, and the length of board dropped to the ground. Acasia wiped the back of her hand across her brow and looked at him. "And how could anyone with your background possibly begin to imagine something like this?"
"Backgrounds aside," Cameron said evenly, "I know what it’s like to work for something, to build it. I can imagine what it would be to see it destroyed."
Acasia snorted. "I don’t think you can compare a twenty–million–dollar high–tech, high–security research institute in backwoods Vermont to a little sweat–of–the–brow jungle hospital built with makeshift tools during a guerrilla war."
"What do you want from me?" Cameron exclaimed, pitching the hammer to the ground for emphasis. "I didn’t think I had to have a license to understand it."
"You understand this?" Acasia flung out an arm to encompass the village. "Great! Explain it to me, because I don’t. Oh, hell." She scrubbed a hand through her hair. "Look, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. You’re here, and I just want a fight."
Cameron swallowed his own anger and nodded. "So do I. I only wish it would do some good." He grinned at her experimentally. "So, right now, what do you think? Best two out of three falls? Maybe later we can—"
"Hey, Acasia! Radio," Fred called from the foot of the veranda. "It’s Jules."
"Hallelujah. It’s about time," Acasia muttered. She dropped the saw and started toward the clinic at a run, then skidded to a stop and turned back to Cameron. "About later," she said, a wry grin spreading across her mouth. "Maybe we can."
* * *
Who was she kidding, making maybe promises about the future, even if it was the near future and the promises were short term? She certainly wasn’t kidding herself. She glared at the shortwave radio in Fred’s kitchen that had somehow missed Dominic’s rage. "Damn it, Jules, this can’t wait! Get that thing off the ground and get here today."
"Sorry, Casie, no can do. I’m working as fast as I can." Julianna Burrows’s uppercrust–British vowels cut clearly through the static to add insult to Acasia’s misery. "What are you bitching about, anyway? You ought to be enjoying a cozy bit of Auld Lang Syne, not—"
"Dom’s alive," Acasia said flatly, cutting off Julianna’s speculations. "And he’s looking for us. Just tell me when you’ll be here and get off the air."
"Damn," Julianna said, and let the empty airwaves crackle for a moment.
Acasia pushed a hand through her hair and waited, her foot tapping nervously. "Come on," she muttered. "Come on." She punched the button on the transmitter. "Come on, Burrows, give me a when!"
"Stay out of trouble for thirty," Julianna returned, and the air went dead.
Acasia stared at the transmitter without seeing it. Thirty hours. Well, this was certainly Murphy’s Law at its finest. Whatever could go wrong was going wrong, and at the most inconvenient possible moment. And here she was, trapped neatly in between two pasts, chocolate–dipped strawberries and vine–covered cottages on one side, hell and damnation on the other. Great. Why didn’t she just—
"It’s later, Casie." Cameron’s familiar baritone stroked the sullen air behind her.
A curious languor stole through Acasia. Daring to hope, she waited, unable to keep a smile from lurking about the corners of her mouth. Silly little butterflies tortured her insides, and her mouth was lined with cotton. "Yes," she whispered. "Where shall we begin?"
"The beginning’s good," Cameron said, crossing the room to her. "Allow me to introduce myself—Cam Smith, roving truth–seeker."
The smile came, refusing to stop at her lips, reaching her eyes. "Casie Jones, resident steamroller and specialist in melodrama."
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Jones." Cameron shook the hand she offered. "Been around these parts long?"
"Forever and a day." Acasia nodded. "The heat hereabouts will do strange things to you."
"I noticed." They stood awkwardly, not quite willing to meet one another’s eyes. Cameron motioned at the radio. "How long do we have?"
He was so near. Too near. She could taste his breath on her lips, smell his sweat, feel his heat. She took back the hand he still held. They mustn’t touch. Not yet. It was too soon, even though she wanted to. She wet her lips, watched him swallow. He wanted to, too.
"Thirty hours." Restlessly Acasia moved away to wander around the small room, touching things. "Tomorrow afternoon, early."
Cameron settled his hips against the radio table. "Not much time."
"No."
Her restlessness infected him, and he pushed himself away from the table and wrapped his hands around the top of a ladder–back chair.
"When we get out of here, do you want to have lunch—or something?"
She had learned life’s expensive lessons and learned them well: never relax, never look away. Cameron’s newest question brought them into uncharted territory. Acasia paused at the counter. "Do you?"
"Yes. The something."
"Really?" Hope leaped forward before Acasia could leash it. "It’ll have to be before next Thursday. I have to be in Costa Rica then."
Costa Rica. What would she be doing in Costa Rica? Did he want to know? "Saturday, then? In New York? Dinner and a show?"
They’d never had a real date before. And since him… since Lisetta… well, what she’d done with Dominic could never pass for
dating
. "Fine."
The air crackled with the strain of things unsaid, with the care they were taking not to say anything wrong. "Question?" Cameron said finally.
She’d never known him to be without one. Cautiously she nodded.
"Why you? Why didn’t they send someone else after me?"
"You said it yourself—I’m good at what I do. I’m also an expert on both Emilio Sanchez and Zaragoza." The brief explanation didn’t seem to say enough. She wanted him to understand at least this part of her. "Did I mention that I did a stint in the army? Did three tours and opted out. Got my discharge about the time Fred was coming down here, so I came, too. I was at loose ends, didn’t have anything better to do, I guess. Anyway, right after we got here, Sanchez decided to carve out his mini–empire and the place turned into a bloody mess—literally.
"Fred wouldn’t leave when the State Department suggested it was time for Americans to get out, so I stayed and chased around after him, playing nurse, soldier and gofer. I have no illusions whatsoever about what El Presidente will or will not do to get what he wants, so when Zaragoza is on a corporate agenda, they ask for me."
"Well, this time asking for you was a mistake." He didn’t ask; he told her. "You can’t afford to let a job like this get personal, and this time it’s personal for you right down the line."
Acasia shrugged. "Yeah, well… what can I say? Who was I going to trust with you?"
Cameron rubbed the back of his neck incredulously. "My God, you are arrogant, aren’t you?"
She smiled sheepishly. "You’ve met my father and my brother. Do you honestly expect anything less from me?"
Gray eyes laughed with her. "No."
They regarded one another, the laughter bringing them closer.
"This may be a little late," Acasia said shyly, "but, uh… thanks for not letting me go off half–cocked out there today. I don’t usually lose it like that…." She hunched uncomfortably and stopped.
There was so much about her… Even through the day’s grime, the serviceable clothing, she was intrinsically woman, heady, earthy, titillating. With an effort, Cameron kept himself from moving nearer.
"Sorry I was so rough, but you surprised me a bit, though I don’t know why. You always did try to protect everyone you knew. I rather liked that about you."
"I know." She raised a finger, meaning to trace a line down his chest, but she pulled it away without touching him. Cameron started to cup her face, but he let his hands drop to his sides before they reached her. "You know what happened when I thought you were engaged?"
"No, what?" If he couldn’t touch her soon…
Come to me, Cam. Come to me,
she begged silently. "I broke a wineglass, and Fred had to put six stitches in my hand."
A delighted chuckle rumbled from Cameron, and he took the first step and drew a line down Acasia’s nose. "Good," he said emphatically. "I’m glad I’m not the only idiot around here."
Acasia wrinkled her nose. "Thanks a lot. It hurt like blazes. I still have the scar. Want to see it?"
She showed him the faint white line in the ball of her right thumb. Cameron rubbed a finger over the spot. "You always were physical about things." He raised the hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there.
Acasia shivered and leaned toward him, her breath quickening. "I still am, about some things," she said hoarsely.
Cameron heard the soft plea and relinquished her hand to slip his arms around her even as hers went around him. "Me, too," he muttered, and crushed her to him, bruising her mouth in his hunger to possess her, then breaking away to return gently with a kiss meant to quest tentatively, to promise more. Acasia answered his promise with one of her own, burying her face in his neck and hugging him tightly, unwilling to let go.
"I missed you," she breathed.
He lifted her face, and his eyes drank her in. "I missed you, too, Casie. I missed you, too. No one else in the world can make me as crazy as you do." His tongue traced her lips, lingering when hers darted out to play. "I want—I need you, woman."
Acasia’s mouth trembled against his. Please, God, let me have this one sip of water from the moon and I’ll never ask for anything more.
"Yes, Cam, I want you, too."
He looked into her eyes and was stunned by the tenderness she didn’t hold back.
This much, this moment, she could offer. I’m not afraid, she thought, not afraid.
"Oh, lady." He kissed her again, fleetingly, feathering a series of kisses from one upturned corner of her mouth to the other. "I want some time… some talk… some catching up…." From the other end of the clinic they heard Fred yell something indistinguishable. "Without interruption. We need to talk."