Mistletoe Mine (9 page)

A recurring dream had disturbed his sleep at least three times a week for the past three months. Today, as his feet pounded the damp sand, he worked to shake off the effects of yet another nocturnal blast from the past, another night spent in Eternity effing Springs.

Considering that he’d reviewed today’s bookings before bed last night, he should have expected it. “Reese, party of two” had topped the list. It wasn’t an uncommon surname. Tourists named Reese went out on his boats at least two or three times a year. Inevitably, each time the name showed up on his manifest, he dreamed about Sarah or Eternity Springs or both. While it wasn’t exactly the recipe for peaceful sleep, he could deal with Colorado dreams two or three times a year.

He didn’t know why he was having these dreams now. He’d lived half of his life since leaving Colorado. An occasional dream about Eternity Springs he could understand, but this repetitive nonsense he’d endured since Christmas? It made no sense, and it was wearing him down.

Dreams of Sarah at nighttime meant thoughts of Sarah by daylight, along with the woulda-shoulda-couldas that invariably followed. Sharp as shark’s teeth, they nipped at him for hours on end. It would have been different if. He should have made another choice but. He could have changed everything if only.

Cam rubbed his eyes. He had his share of regrets in life, and some of them were huge. Most of them involved the holier-than-thou citizens of Eternity Springs, Colorado, and their precious, darling queen of the Good Girls, Sarah Reese.

Sarah Reese. High school sweetheart. Mother of his child. Destroyer of his heart.

Cam summoned a burst of speed, then dashed the final hundred yards to his beachfront home. An hour later, showered and dressed in his favorite shorts and an Adventures in Paradise T-shirt, he unlocked the door of the tour office and went to work.

He had hours of paperwork ahead of him today. Not for the first time, he wished for the days when his sole job was to introduce divers to the wonder of the reef. Life certainly had been simpler then. No payroll to make, no bankers to keep happy, no unexpected repair bills or skyrocketing insurance costs or increasing rents to fret over. Of course, he’d had no family to support then, either. At least, no family who wanted his support.

The ghosts of his youth flitted into his mind once again. Sarah, her head thrown back in infectious laughter. His father, belt in hand and meanness in his eyes.

His mother, lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.

Cam shuddered and gave his head a hard shake, trying to flutter those images right back out again.

Today he needed to keep his thoughts centered on Devin. The boy would be the death of him yet. He landed in one scrape after another these days, and reminded Cam of himself at sixteen too much for comfort. Cam wanted better for Devin, so yesterday, when his son walked into the tour office sporting a black eye and brandishing a school suspension slip for fighting, he had just about lost it. Where had this self-destructive streak come from? What had changed for the boy in the past six months?

Cam suspected the source might be the new group of friends Devin had taken up with last summer. They were polite young men from good families, the kind of youngsters most parents wanted their children to befriend. Not Cam. Something about the group of boys bothered him. They were almost too polite, their handshakes too firm. They definitely had too much money to throw around.

Most telling of all, they rarely looked him in the eyes when they spoke to him. That made Cam’s trouble-coming antenna quiver.

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Devin would arrive at the marina in thirty to forty-five minutes. Maybe he should put the paperwork on hold and go out on the boat with his boy today. Better yet, he could call in a sub for Devin, and they could both play hooky from work, leave the tourists to the rest of the crew, and take the
Freedom
out, just the two of them. Maybe a little father/son time would help Dev remember to make good choices next time the opportunity for stupidity reared its head.

Cam liked the idea. He was overdue for a day off. This paperwork could wait. He picked up the phone and made the arrangements. Ten minutes later, he boarded the
Bliss
to grab his personal diving gear. He’d just hauled it topside when he saw the owner of the
Wanderer
, the cruiser that occupied the slip next to Cam’s, standing at the stern, scowling fiercely down into the water. “G’day, Martin. Got a problem?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Looks like there’s a line tangled in my propeller shaft. I have a banker on board and a tight schedule. Wasn’t planning to get wet, but …” He started shrugging out of his suit coat.

Cam set down his gear on the deck of the
Bliss
. “Hold what you’ve got. I’ll check it out for you.”

Martin sighed with relief. “Thanks, man. I’ll owe you.”

Cam tugged off his T-shirt and toed out of his deck shoes. He pulled on his mask, then grabbed his diving knife and a flashlight and slipped over the side of the
Bliss
into the water. The harbor water was murky. He switched on his flashlight and swam to the cruiser’s stern. He spied the problem immediately. Unfortunately, a simple slice with his knife wouldn’t get the job done.

He surfaced and called up to his friend. “ ’Fraid it’s a little more complicated than a snagged line. You’re dragging trash, but I can handle it. I’ll need a bolt cutter.”

Cam grabbed hold of a dock line and treaded water while Martin went to get the tool he required. Above him, on the nearby bridge, he spied the Adventures in Paradise Tours van arriving.
Good
. When Martin handed down the tool he’d requested a minute later, Cam said, “Our van is pulling up. Would you please tell Devin I want to talk to him?”

“Sure.”

Cam clamped his diving knife between his teeth, then, with the bolt cutters in hand, submerged himself again. He went to work on the tangle around the prop shaft. The wire cable the cruiser had picked up somewhere dragged on the assembly, but he couldn’t see that the junk had caused any real damage to the unit. It took him a couple of breaths, but Cam managed to cut the trash away and free the cruiser’s prop.

He surfaced and swam to the
Bliss
’s swim deck. He hauled his tools aboard, then levered himself onto the deck. A
Bliss
crew member tossed him a towel. Cam dried his legs and then his chest before flipping the towel over his head to pull it back and forth across his back.

Aboard the
Wanderer
, Martin called, “Many thanks! I wish you fair winds and following seas, Cameron Daniel Murphy.”

Cam opened his mouth to reply when movement on the
Bliss
’s gangway caught his attention. He froze, his fists clamping the towel in a white-knuckled grip.

Twenty years might have passed, but he’d know her anywhere. No bigger than a minute and curved in all the right places. Dark hair cut short and sassy in a way that suited the angles of her face. And those eyes. Those gorgeous, long-lashed, Elizabeth Taylor violet eyes.

Sarah Reese.

   Cameron Daniel Murphy.

Sarah’s heart pounded. Her mouth went dry and her knees went weak and she thought she might hyperventilate.

Cam Murphy.

He looked … 
Wow … Oh, wow …
He looked like he’d come straight off the cover of a paperback romance. The boy she’d known two decades ago had disappeared beneath mature muscle and suntanned skin. He was still lean, his stomach still flat, but his shoulders had broadened and he’d added definition to his abs. He wore his hair a little longer and his beard lost-my-razor-three-days-ago scruffy. The words
beach bum
and
surfer dude
and
pirate
sprang to mind.

But his eyes—those mesmerizing eyes—hadn’t changed. He stared at her with eyes of shades of green. Mountain eyes. Just like Lori’s.

Lori.

Sarah gasped and twisted around to look at her daughter.
His daughter. Our daughter
. Lori stared back at her with a question in her eyes. His eyes.

Oh, Lori
. The potential consequences of this chance meeting hit Sarah like a brick.

Lori had wanted to contact her father ever since Sarah confessed the truth about his identity to her when Lori turned sixteen. In the months that followed, Lori had spent hours tracking the name Cameron D. Murphy on the Internet. Although she’d come up with what she considered to be half a dozen likely suspects, as far as Sarah knew she’d never taken the search for her father beyond that. At one point, when money was especially tight around the Reese house, Lori had asked her to hire a private investigator to find Cam to demand child support.

Now this beautiful, confident young woman watched Sarah with wary mountain eyes. “Mom? It’s not an uncommon name, right?”

Sarah tried to force words through her throat, but the sound that emerged was a strangled gurgle.

At her mother’s reaction, Lori’s expression slackened with shock, then she jerked her stare back toward Cam. “That
is
him?”

Feeling a little bit sick, Sarah braved another look, too.

His gaze remained locked on Sarah, heated and intense. Her stomach took another turn. She swayed slightly, feeling dizzy. Then abruptly, he shifted his stare toward Lori, and for a long moment, Sarah held her breath. He looked stunned.

“That’s
him
?” Lori repeated. “He’s your Cam?”

Cam mouthed a word, and Sarah was pretty sure that word was
mine
. He took one step forward just as the boy from this morning—Devin, the van driver—approached him, saying, “Hey, Dad. I didn’t think you were coming down here this morning. Martin said you wanted to see me?”

Dad
.

Dad?

Dad!

Fury stormed through Sarah like a hurricane. That boy was only a few years younger than Lori!

Lori reached out and caught hold of Sarah’s arm, steadying herself. Her voice broke on the words, “He has a family.”

Oh, baby. No. Not like this
.

“Mom, let’s get out of here,” Lori said, an anguished look in her eyes. “Now.”

Cam’s gaze upon them was tangible. Sarah felt frozen in place. “But, honey—”

“Please, Mom?”

Her daughter had gone white as the sails on the cruiser next to the catamaran, and seeing it, Sarah’s mama-bear instincts roared to life. “Sure, honey. We’ll go.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t.” Lori had tears in those big green eyes of hers. “I’m not ready for this.”

“You know what? Neither am I.” Sarah gave Cam Murphy one last look—he hadn’t moved one of those outdoorsman muscles—then tucked her arm through Lori’s and turned her back on the man she’d once loved.

Once off the gangway, mother and daughter walked briskly. When they turned a corner, no longer in sight of the deck of the
Bliss
, Lori urged Sarah into a run.

It took some time, effort, and creativity, but the two Reese women ran all the way home. Back home to Colorado. Back to the caring, comforting shelter of Eternity Springs.