couple of weeks, but I’ll be in touch.”
“I’ll be here.” Steve hesitated, then asked, “You going on assignment or vacation?”
“Vacation.”
Steve let out an exaggerated groan. “I should be so lucky. Enjoy.”
A slow smile played over Cameron’s lips as an image of Sandra filled his mind.
“Oh, I intend to,” he said, anticipation simmering within him. “Every minute.”
After cradling the receiver, he shot another look at his watch. It read 6:59. He had another call to make, back East, but it was still too early.
Turning away from the kitchen wall phone, Cameron poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, then headed for the bedroom. He also still had some packing to finish, the last-minute things he had left for this morning. Sipping the hot brew, he sauntered into his bedroom.
Pack first, call later.
The job of finishing up the packing required all of thirteen and a half minutes—Cameron was nothing if not both neat and efficient.
In addition to being a supremely competent and confident law-enforcement agent, recognized as one of the best operatives in the field, he was a proficient cook and did his own laundry.
Cameron was firmly convinced that his talents when it came to law enforcement were in his genes—although he was the first to credit his father for his early training along those lines.
But his domestic talents were definitely attributable to the concentrated efforts of his indomitable mother. From day one, son one, Maddy Wolfe had stoutly maintained that any idiot could learn to pick up after himself, and that included each one of her sons.
Having lived a bachelor existence from the day he left home for college, at age eighteen, Cameron had numerous times given fervent, if silent, thanks to his mother for her persistence.
He had spent more than a few day-off mornings on his knees, scrubbing the kitchen or bathroom floor of whatever apartment he happened to be living in at the time.
Though this was one of his days off, both his kitchen and bathroom floors were spotlessly clean, as was everything in his current apartment, thanks to the professional housekeeper he now paid to do the chore.
He shot yet another quick look at his watch; all of five minutes had elapsed since his last look. What to do? He had made his bed over an hour ago and, except for washing up the few dishes he had used for breakfast, there was really nothing left to do.
So, wash the dishes.
Draining the swallow of coffee remaining in the cup, Cameron left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later, with the dishes done and put away, and finding himself wiping the countertop for the third time, he literally threw in the sponge, or in this case the abused dishcloth.
Impatience crawled through him. He fairly itched to go, from the apartment, out of the city, into the foothills, in a beeline to Sandra.
Although he had committed them to memory, he dug from his pocket the piece of paper on which he had jotted Sandra’s directions to the cabin. A piece of cake, he decided, tossing the scrap of paper on the sparkling clean table.
Now what? Cameron heaved a sigh and sliced a glaring glance from the clock to the phone.
The hell with it. Early or not, he was placing the call.
Maddy answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Good morning, beautiful,” Cameron said smoothly, heaving another silent sigh of relief at the wide-awake sound of his mother’s voice. “How are you on this bright spring morning?”
“It’s storming here, but I’m fine, just the same,” she returned dryly. “How are you?”
“As usual,” he answered—as usual. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Wake me?” Maddy laughed; it was a rich, deep sound that he had always loved. “I’ve been up for hours. But you did catch me in the middle of mixing pie crust.”
“Pie crust.” Cameron mentally licked his lips;
Maddy did make tasty pies. “For shoofly?” Shoofly pie was his all-time favorite.
She laughed again—a mother’s laugh. “No. Not today. I’m making lemon meringue.” She chuckled again, and this time the sound was different, loaded with amusement and self-satisfaction.
Cameron frowned. What was she up to? He knew full well that lemon meringue was his brother Eric’s all-time favorite. But why should that amuse his mother?
“Eric coming for dinner?”
“Not today. Tomorrow,” she said, and now her voice was rife with an alerting. something.
“Okay, Mom, I give up,” he said, his curiosity thoroughly aroused, as he knew she had deliberately set out to do. “What’s the story with Eric?”
“He’s coming for dinner tomorrow.”
Maddy did so enjoy teasing her overgrown sons—teasing and testing.
Despite his impatience to get under way, Cameron had to laugh, enjoying his mother’s enjoyment.
“And?” he prompted when she failed to continue.
“He’s bringing Tina with him.”
Tina. He should have known. Cameron administered a mental self-reprimand for missing the clue Maddy had given him.
Lemon meringue. Not only was the dessert Eric’s favorite, but also, from what Maddy had told Cameron, the object of a friendly rivalry between his mother and the young woman his brother had met last fall.
At Maddy’s invitation, Eric had brought the woman home to meet her at Thanksgiving. Tina had brought along a lemon meringue pie as her contribution to the feast.
After the holiday, when Maddy relayed the information to Cameron, she had graciously conceded that Tina’s pie was first-rate. almost as good as her own.
Cameron hadn’t been fooled for a moment. He knew at once that Maddy didn’t give a rip about the pies, one way or the other. But what she did care about was the possibility of a serious relationship growing between Eric and Tina, who, she claimed, was a lovely young woman.
Cameron was also fully aware that his mother lived in hope of first seeing her sons settled into marriages as strong as her own had been, and second spoiling the hell out of her grandchildren—of whom she had expressed a desire for at least eight.
And now Eric was bringing the woman home to mother for a second visit.
Hmm, he mused, recalling that, to his knowledge, Eric had never brought a woman home twice.
First Jake. Now Eric?
“Does this portend something?” he asked after a lengthy silence, realizing that his mother had calmly been waiting
