Page 99 of My One and Only

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Later that night, after Fiona was in bed, Jo sat on the couch with Cam, their fingers entwined. She wanted to be in his bed with him, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. They’d agreed they’d give Fiona a day to get over what had happened with Don, a day to digest the fact that Jo was her father’s girlfriend, then they’d talk to her about sleeping in the same bed.

Cam cleared his throat, and Jo glanced over at him. “I, ah, have a thought,” he said. “About your job situation.”

“Yeah?”she asked, shifting closer to him.

“You’re gonna come back here after every job. For your ten days off, right?”

“Absolutely. Try to keep me away.”

Cam swallowed, and Jo realized he was nervous. “I have a better idea. What if you didn’t leave?”

Jo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’d like to hire you as our head of security for the company.” He shook his head. “I should have had someone in charge of security all along. If I’d had a person in place, maybe all this stuff with Don wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have been able to switch out the crappy studs and pipes for the ones our specs call for. If we’d had a head of security, maybe Don wouldn’t have started gambling again.”

Jo put her hand over his. “First of all, that’s not true. If you’d had a security chief, he or she might have uncovered Don’s materials scheme and stopped it. But you don’t know that. And the gambling? I’m not sure anyone could have stopped Don from gambling.”

She sighed. “And secondly, as much as I’d like to accept your offer, I can’t leave my job at Blackhawk right now. Mel and Dev are already short of agents, and I can’t walk away. But maybe, in a year or so, they’ll have hired enough people that I’ll be comfortable leaving.”

“I understand that, and I admire your loyalty. But you’re not responsible for correcting Mel and Dev’s errors. They should have been recruiting more bodyguards.”

Jo sighed. “Yeah, I know, and I think they know that, too. But they’re working on an idea to expand the business, and they’re recruiting people for that, too. Spec Ops guys like Dev -- members of the SEALs, Delta Force, and Ranger teams. FBI agents. CIA agents.”

“Again, Jo, not your problem.”

She swiveled to face him. “I know, Cam, but I can’t leave now, as much as I’d like to quit tomorrow and take your security job. Mel and Dev took me on and trained me before they were sure I could do the job. I wasn’t a hot-shot spec ops member with a lot of training already. I was just a former Army grunt, but they gave me a chance. So I need to stay until they stabilize things with Blackhawk Security.”

Cam sighed and closed his eyes. “I know you’re doing the right thing, and the hell of it is, I agree with you. I’m just selfish. I want you with me and Fiona all the time.”

“I want that, too, Cam. And I’m not staying at Blackhawk Security forever. Just until Mel and Dev get the kinks ironed out.” She slid onto his lap. “And it’s not as if I won’t see you at all. I’ll be back for ten days after each of my jobs.”

Cam pressed his mouth to hers. “Not nearly enough,” he said roughly. “But I’ll take as much of you as I can get.”

“This won’t be easy for me, either, Cam,” she said.

She leaned over and kissed him, and he held her in place for a long moment. When she finally pulled away, she said, “You need to talk to Fiona tomorrow. Sleeping across the hall from you is going to be torture, when I want to be beside you.”

“Yeah, me too. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

Chapter 32

After they dropped Fiona off at school the next morning, Jo drove Cam to the office. As soon as they walked in, Jo wrapped her arms around him. Held him tightly and said, “It’s gonna be all right. You’ve got this, Cam. Your employees know who you are. It’s going to be painful for a while, especially when you have to tell everyone what Don did. But you can do this. This is your company. You started it, and it’s got your fingerprints all over it.” Jo took a deep breath. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do today?”

“Yeah,” Cam said, shoving his fingers through his hair. “The first thing I have to do is talk to Don’s assistant. See if I can figure out if he knew anything about Don’s scheme.”

“What does your gut tell you?”Jo asked.

Cam took a deep breath. “Honestly? I don’t think Will was involved. I hired him a while ago to handle paperwork and minor things I didn’t have time for. Don saw how hard he worked and wanted to make Will his assistant. Will’s a good kid.” He sighed. “Not a kid anymore, but I hired him right out of college.”

“Then maybe you should just bring him in and talk to him.” She put her hand on Cam’s arm. “This must be overwhelming. Don’s gone, and you need to find someone to do his job, but you don’t know who you can trust. Honestly, his assistant is probably the right choice. Talk to him now, then get a warrant to look at his financials.”

Cam nodded slowly. “Yeah, someone’s got to supervise the foremen and the skilled laborers. And Will Delgado is the obvious choice.”

He picked up his phone and dialed an extension. After a moment, he said, “Will, this is Cam. Can you come to my office? I need to talk to you.”

After a moment, Cam said, “Thanks, Will. See you soon.”

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