Page 66 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

“Cam?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Too much?”

“Yeah.”

Cameron jerked his hand back to set the hook when a fish finally took his bait. “I never was much of a confidant. But I’m a hell of a fisherman,” he said as he reeled in a nice-size crappie.

“Actually, I think you’re underestimating one of your talents and overestimating another,” Dan drawled. “But you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

Cameron grinned. “That’s going to be tough—as underequipped as you are for heavy thinking.”

Before Dan could come up with a suitably sarcastic reply, a fish hit his own lure. Relieved to have an excuse to change the subject, he concentrated on landing the small bass. He knew he would spend plenty of time later mulling over the things Cameron had said.

Lindsey had always loved watching spring come to the Ozarks. The rolling hills on the horizon looked as though they’d been painted in soft-green watercolors. Pink-and-white dogwoods dotted the landscape, while fluffy white clouds floated lazily across a vivid-blue sky. Glittering lake water lapped against the rocky shore where she stood, stirred by a floral-scented breeze that kissed her cheek and toyed with her hair.

She was staying in a fishing cabin nestled o

n the edge of a picturesque mountain lake. The cabin belonged to Riley’s uncle Bud, and it had been Riley who had offered it to Lindsey for a few weeks. Bud had insisted he wouldn’t be visiting his own place anytime soon. He and Riley had both urged Lindsey to take a vacation, speculating aloud that overwork and exhaustion were the cause of her recent depression.

Without correcting them, she’d gratefully accepted the offer.

If she had any artistic talent, she would try to capture this scene on canvas. As it was, she had to commit it to memory instead. In the future, when she desperately needed solace, she would think about this place, this time, and hope it would bring her peace.

She huddled more snugly into her lightweight denim jacket, her hands buried in the lined pockets. It wasn’t a particularly cool breeze that blew against her, but it made her shiver, anyway. She’d had trouble feeling warm enough lately. Actually, she’d been cold ever since Dan had accused her of being foolishly infatuated with him. Those staggeringly insensitive words had left a heart-deep chill she wasn’t sure would ever go away completely.

How could he know her so well and yet remain so completely clueless?

The words she’d thrown at him as she’d left his bedroom echoed in her mind, almost drowning out the sounds of water and birds and rustling new leaves. Congratulations, Dan. You’ve finally accomplished something I’ve been trying to do for the past twenty years. Thanks to you, I can finally, wholeheartedly say that I’m completely over you.

What a lie that had been. Pure bravado. She would never be completely over him. But she would survive. She’d put her house on the market, get a job in some big, anonymous city and make a new life for herself, just as she had planned to do before she’d made the stupid mistake of letting herself believe Dan was starting to feel about her the way she’d felt about him for so long.

If there was one thing she had learned during the past few years, it was that she was fully capable of taking care of herself. She didn’t need a man in her life—especially one so thickheaded that he couldn’t tell the difference between an infatuated schoolgirl and a woman who loved him.

On that resolute note she turned to go back to the cabin—only to find herself standing face-to-face with that same obstinate male.

Chapter Fifteen

Silhouetted against the spring pastels of the woods behind him, Dan looked dark and almost forbidding as he stood there on the rocky path glowering at her. He didn’t look particularly happy to see her. She wondered why he’d even gone to the trouble of finding her. “What are you doing here?”

He probably hadn’t expected her to throw herself into his arms, but he seemed a bit taken aback by the gruffness of her greeting. Maybe he’d expected her to show a bit more surprise at his sudden appearance. While she hadn’t been expecting him, she wasn’t overly startled by his arrival. If nothing else, he would feel obligated to check up on her—his big-brother act that annoyed her so greatly.

“I had a hell of a time finding you,” he growled without answering her question. “You could have told someone where you were going.”

“Riley knew,” she said with a shrug.

“Riley wasn’t talking. He said you deserved your privacy. What if your brother had wanted to reach you?”

“I have my laptop with me. I check my e-mail occasionally. B.J. knows he can reach me that way. So, how did you find me?”

“Marjorie took pity on me and got the information from Riley. He couldn’t turn her down, of course.”

“Few people can.” She shoved her hands more deeply into her pockets and met his gaze without blinking. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

He glanced over his shoulder, toward the modest little cabin that was just visible through the trees. “Why don’t we go inside where we can have some coffee or something and talk?”

---