Irish Eyes (Stolen Hearts Romance) (14 page)

Cameron shifted his hiking boots on the steps of the old building, always scanning the surroundings for any sign of Michael… or Julia Reed. “Well, it certainly is an excellent opportunity for your station to come off looking very altruistic.”

“Yeah, and it makes us look like the good guys, too, putting community first and all that stuff.”

“That’s what I…” Cameron’s cheek twitched and he nodded. “It doesn’t hurt, I suppose, that your main competition is doing a noon report from the shelter, either.”

“Won’t lie to you, pal, it feels good to get the scoop on ’em." He glanced up at the cameraman, who squatted in front of them and held his hand up. “Now, I’m going to do the weather, then do a teaser—we’ll show you and let you say something
Irish—then we’ll cut away to a commercial, then come back and do your interview.”

Say something Irish?
Cameron combed his fingers through his hair.
This had better work,
he thought as he plastered on his best “I’m from the old sod” expression. He hated the idea of making a fool of himself for nothing.

In the week he’d been working in and around the place, he had come to care about the staff, the regulars who depended on the place, and most of all, the lovely shelter director. Knowing he could help their cause made this little green-gilded dog-and- pony show all the more crucial.

“And that’s what you can expect for your workday weather.” Eric’s spirited summation brought Cameron’s attention back to the reporter.

“It’s fitting that we’re coming to you today from St. Patrick’s Homeless Shelter in downtown Cincinnati. And I have with me today a former resident of the Emerald Isle who is going to tell us a bit about the shelter, its needs, and what we can all do to help. Meet Mr. Cameron O’Dea.”

Cameron nodded into the dark, bottomless lens trained on his face.

“So, Mr. O’Dea, give us a wee taste of the lilting brogue of the wee folk of old Eire.”
Schultz shoved the microphone under Cameron’s nose, and suddenly his mind closed up. Unfortunately, his mouth did not have the same problem.

*

“Always after me Lucky Charms?” Julia lifted a shamrock- covered paper cup to her lips and sipped at the dregs of lime punch gone flat. “That’s the best you could do?”

“He put me on the spot,” Cameron grumbled.

“Well, good thing for you, you can think on your feet,” she teased, gazing at him from over the rim of her upturned cup. “They teach you that at the secret agent technical institute?”

“I must have been absent the day they lectured on sharing witty banter with wacky weathermen.” He scanned the crowd shuffling around the gaily decorated cafeteria.

The late afternoon sun streamed in the barred windows, illuminating the stragglers with a golden glow. Even Julia had to admit that the event had been a huge success.

“You did great. And by the time the last reporter left, you handled yourself like a pro.” She followed his line of vision, pretending to be fascinated by the fading flurry of activity. “Let’s just hope it works.”

“Are you kidding? Look at this place.” He swept his hand out. “This shindig has garnered more good publicity than this place has had in years.”

The rolled lip of the paper cup scraped against her teeth when her jaw inexplicably tightened. She tossed back the last of the warm but still tart punch.

He tapped his fingers against his own cup as he went on. “The cash contributions have been enormous, not to mention the big corporate check that showed up oh-so-coincidentally with the noon news crew.”

Her fingers crushed one side of her cup. “I meant, I hope this works to attract Michael Shaughnessy’s attention.”

He nodded, his eyes still fixed at some point in the crowd. “Oh, and by the way, I received a whole packet of inform
ation on Cumberland Falls today”

‘Where?”

“Cum-ber-land Falls,” she pronounced each syllable as though she were speaking to an inattentive child. “You know, the place in Kentucky—with the moonbow?”

“Oh, right. Right.” He nodded. The green shamrock pinned to his collar fluttered with the movement.

“Anyway,” she said, trying not to be fascinated with his every motion, “all the brochures are on my desk in my office under the notes you made at the restaurant.”

He hummed a noncommittal reply, his gaze on the crowd again.
And spoke sort of into the air, not as if he were part of an actual human conversation at all.
“Thank you.”

It shouldn’t have bothered Julia. She had absolutely understood his inattentiveness to her all day. She had done the same with him, being so busy and… and never too busy to seek him out in the crowd, to catch a glimpse of those golden curls of his across the room and take a moment to just… sigh. So, yes, it did bug her a little that he wasn’t even looked her way. Maybe she could remedy that. “I’m afraid 1 spilled a little magical Irish fairy dust on them, so they are now, unfortunately, invisible to the naked eye.”

“Uh-huh.” He squinted toward a commotion in the hallway.

“But that won’t matter too much. You can still find them by looking under the big pink polka-dotted hippopotamus I used for a paperweight.”

“That’s fine, lass, I will.” The commotion turned out to be Craig asking some people to Irish it up so he could upload a video from his phone.

Julia folded her arms over her chest, her eyes practically boring a hole in Cameron’s strong, compelling profile. “I’d say ‘I give up,’ but I have a sneaking feeling that
that
you’d hear.”

A slow grin broke over his lips, even as he kept his eyes trained on the dwindling party

Standing this close, she was once again aware of how tall and powerful a man Cameron O’Dea was. And yet, he did not abuse either his physical power or his authority. She’d seen him treat everyone from Fiona to the shelter resident with fairness and a gentle kind of
consideration. She could see why so many people were drawn to the man with the glimmering Irish eyes.

She, for all her hard work and sacrifice, seemed to be always fighting and flashing like a fish on a line. If only she could let go a little more—maybe not of everything, but at least of the things that had her so hooked that she found herself losing her time and joy and even her hope for the future to them.
Julia sighed and looked again at Cameron’s face. She smiled at the way his golden hair curled against the collar of his sweater, the one he’d worn the first time she saw him.

Suddenly his expression changed. He squinted hard.

“What? What is it?” Her heart began to pound faster, her breathing grew shallow. “Do you see something?”

“Some
one
,” he corrected in a whisper.

She could feel the energy building in him, a coiled tension waiting to act but his stance did not betray a bit of it. Her gaze flew to the throng, searching for the face she had seen that evening by the billboard. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

“Right—there.” He lifted his paper cup, as if making a toast, and called across the room. “Norman Wilson, great to see you could make it.”

“Norman Wilson?” She flattened her hand to her chest as her pulse settled back into a steady rhythm “Norman
Wilson
?”

“Your neighbor.” He muttered.

“Yes, I know he’s my neighbor. You’ve been living in the man’s driveway using his RV to keep tabs on me. How could I
not
know him? But…” She blinked as if trying to make the jigsaw pieces of information form some kind of picture.
“What’s he doing
here
?”

“I told him he should come down and volunteer his time. Since he retired, his wife has been complaining about always having him underfoot. He says he isn’t ready to just sit and rock, he wants to do something meaningful with his time.” Cameron waved to the gray-haired fellow that Julia who lived across the street from Julia. “He’s an ex-firefighter, you know.”

“No. I didn’t,” she snapped, agitated because she had thought this might be the big break in the case they had hoped for. Also because she had lived across from Norman Wilson for two years without knowing what he had done for a living, that he had a wife or ever once considering he might want to volunteer his time. Yes, it cut her to the quick that she hadn’t been the one to discover all that. She was the great rescuer of people, after all.

That was pride talking. That’s what made her work such a struggle, she realized, while Cameron breezed through touch situation with an ease and humor. Maybe it was time she let go of a little of that. She gave her smiling neighbor a friendly wave.
“I mean, no, I didn’t realize that.”

“I’m not surprised you didn’t know much about him—or any of your neighbors. He said they hardly ever see you. I suppose it’s because you’re so wrapped up in this place.” He turned to face her, his head bent so that she could hear his soft voice above the din in the cafeteria. “You put in far too many hours here, you know.”

“I do what I have to do to keep this place afloat. Nobody else can run it the way I do.” Her throat tightened as she heard the defensive edge in her words.

“Maybe you should let someone else try from time to time.” He fixed that gaze of his so fully on her face that for a moment she was lost to anything but the warmth of his voice, the depth of those eyes.

“They’d make more mess than they’d help,” she managed to murmur in reply. “I have my own system and it’s worked so far. I don’t see why I should let anyone—”

For the record and as if she needed proof of how effective the man’s laid back approach could be, he did not laugh out loud at her claim but let just the corner of one side of his mouth lift to show his amusement at her unchecked reaction.

So much for letting go a little. She sighed. “Well, maybe, if they had the proper training, I could let someone help—”

“Good.” He clapped his hands together then rubbed his palms over each other like a master villain about to unleash a diabolical plan, she decided. “And thanks to me, you can start getting away from this place soon.”

“What?”

“Because your unsalaried work force has blossomed, my dear. Today alone we’ve gathered a stack of new volunteer applications this thick.” There was more than an inch of space between his thumb and forefinger. “Before long they’ll hardly even need you around here. You’re going to have more free time than you know what to do with. How does that sound?”

Like nobody needed her anymore she thought. “Peachy,” she muttered, scowling into her mutilated punch cup. “Just peachy.”

“Great.” He turned and gave her tightened cheek a pinch, obviously aware that she was being sarcastic and choosing not just to ignore it but to use it against her. “Because that upbeat, new of yours attitude is going to make what I have in mind for us next all the easier.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The crisp March air tingled on the tip of Julia’s nose.

The clear night sky scattered with thousands of twinkling stars seemed bigger over her quaint Cincinnati suburb than it had over the city. The moon, nearly full, hung so big and glorious against its backdrop that the sight brought a million tiny goosebumps to her skin.

Funny that she had never noticed that phenomenon before.

Cameron placed his hand on her back to guide her along the darkened walkway from the car to the house.

Warmth from his palm permeated her tired muscles. She closed her eyes, exhaled quietly, and let the feeling swirl through her for the first moment of pure relaxation she’d felt in a long time.The moment proved fleeting. She glanced at the garish yellow beam of the porch light illuminating her front door only a few steps away.

She knew when they reached the door that she would have to say something, to give at least a passing compliment on the day’s achievement, before they said good night. She wound her fingers closed over her keys, the tooled metal biting into her flesh. Her shoulders tightened again, and her throat went dry.
What do you say,
she wondered, to
someone who in one week totally reorders your workplace and even has you questioning the way you live your life?

It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful. She was. Grateful—and a little blue.

Today, with the big fund-raiser and the ensuing hope of revitalization at the shelter, marked the advent of two things— the lessening of her roll as director and the beginning of the end of her time with Cameron.

His plan for the shelter had brought in enough money, with the help of a sizable corporate donation, to hold St. Patrick’s Shelter in good stead until the new fiscal year and their new budget took effect. And he had made a very valid point that she needed to let others do some of the work of running the place. Her insistence that she do it all hadn’t put them in their economic crunch, but it certainly had contributed by keeping her focused on trivial things while the budget shortfall built to a crisis level.

Besides, she knew that if she didn’t use the volunteers who had signed up today, they would slowly drift away and lose interest—as others had before. She had to utilize more people, involve more people, trust more people. That’s how Cameron handled things, and she could see the results already.