Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

Lindy’s voice floated to them on the breeze. “I’m all done being busy now!”

A rare smile lit Shane’s face as he sat up and put his sunglasses back on. “I think that’s our call to duty.”

“Duty?” Faith questioned, slowly gathering her scattered wits. She took Shane’s hand and let him help her up from the blanket.

“Construction crew. I promised Lindy I’d help her build a sand castle.”

“You’re a talented man, Mr. Callan.”

He slid an arm around her shoulders as they headed up the beach. “I told you before, I’m full of surprises.”

Faith leaned against him, silent, wondering if she dared hope one of the surprises inside him would be love.

He watched from the deck of the cabin cruiser, one eye pressed to the eyepiece of a state-of-the-art telescope. His blood heated as he watched them kiss and embrace. “Ah, yes,” he murmured, “love is a many-splendored thing.”

Sitting back in the comfortable helm seat on the navigation bridge, he propped his legs up on the railing and lazily polished the dull blue barrel of a semiautomatic pistol. “Love and death. How poetic. Soon Mrs. Gerrard, Agent Callan. Soon.”

ONE SAND CASTLE turned into two and eventually became a minor megalopolis on the little beach. After the construction boom came a well-deserved cookie break, then Lindy curled up on the blanket with her bedraggled doll tucked to her chest and fell into the deep, blissful sleep of a happy child.

Faith gazed down on her daughter, gently rubbing a hand back and forth over Lindy’s back as she slept. Shane watched quietly, his expression pensive as feelings tumbled loose inside him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such a sense of peace. There was no denying that the source of that peace was the lady sitting across from him, and the little girl with the sun-blushed cheeks and yellow Big Bird sweatshirt.

“She’s pretty special, isn’t she?” he murmured, reaching out hesitantly to touch Lindy’s silky hair. A curl wound around his finger.

Faith shot him a grin. “I hope you’re not expecting an unbiased opinion. Personally I think the sun rises and sets on this little one.”

“I’ve got a slew of nieces and nephews,” Shane announced, almost as startled as Faith was that he had revealed something personal. Suddenly uneasy, he looked out at the ocean where fishing boats bobbed on the horizon. “I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

“Because of your job?”

“The life I lead is not conducive to emotional complications.”

Faith didn’t attempt to hold back her harsh laugh. “How clinically put.”

“It’s the truth.” His answer was almost as sharp as the look he leveled at her. “Would you rather I lie to you, Faith?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’ve been lied to enough.”

Shane bit back an oath. He wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself to anyone-quite the opposite, in fact-but one look at Faith’s expression compelled him to tell her more. “If an agent lets emotions get in his way, he can screw things up. A clear head can mean the difference between life and death.”

“So you just turn it off like a faucet?” she asked. That kind of control was well beyond her. She both envied and pitied him for it.

Shane let the question hang in the air. He didn’t want to think about it today. Today the sun was shining on him. Today he could be with Faith and her daughter. He could pretend to be a normal man for a few hours. The shadows would swallow him up again soon enough.

Faith didn’t press for an answer. She had more questions to ask, but she didn’t voice any of them. Wasn’t it a lonely way of life? She knew it was, she’d sensed the loneliness in him, she’d heard it in his music. Had he ever thought of quitting? That question was too dangerous. “No” would have been too painful an answer to hear.

“When I was a kid,” he said, staring out at the sea again, “my family had this place on the coast of Maine. We used to spend the whole summer there at the ocean.”

Relieved that the sudden tension between them had evaporated, Faith soaked up the information he offered. She felt a little like a squirrel hoarding nuts in preparation for a long, bleak winter, secreting away what tidbits she could about this man. He liked poetry and music and children and summers by the sea. There was a side of him that wasn’t dangerous at all. There was a side of him that was just a man, a man full of memories and loneliness, a man who needed love.

A week ago she had wondered if she had the strength to keep from loving him. Now her perspective was changing, and she began to wonder if she had the strength to give him her love. Could she offer the bounty of her heart, knowing he needed it but might not take it? Could she risk that kind of rejection again? Did she really have a choice?

They put off going back to the inn for as long as they could, trying to squeeze the most out of their golden afternoon. But as the fog bank began to drift in, they surrendered and gathered their things together.

The walk was made in near silence, with Lindy the only one in the mood for conversation. Shane was reticent by nature, but Faith thought she could sense another reason for his silence as they climbed the wooden stairs that zigzagged up the cliff from the beach-sadness.

For once she didn’t scold herself for romanticizing. They had shared something very special. She was certain Shane was as reluctant to leave it behind as she was.

Faith watched him as he carried her daughter across the lawn toward the sprawling house, his head bent, expression serious as he listened attentively to Lindy’s plans for the shells she had gathered. He was so patient and gentle with Lindy. William had offered his attention to his daughter only when there had been a press camera trained on him.

Stopping in her tracks, Faith hugged the folded blanket to her as she came to a decision. She loved Shane Callan. It didn’t matter why. It didn’t matter that he believed he could promise her nothing. She loved him, and she would take what time they had together to give him that love. If a future came of it, she would embrace that future wholeheartedly. If nothing came of it, she would embrace the memories and harbor no regrets.

Shane stood beside his bed frowning as he slipped off his watch and put it on the nightstand. Sleep was going to be a long time coming tonight. Restlessness stirred within him. The day that had healed him with peace and sunlight was a memory now, and somehow that left him feeling unsettled.

Damn, he thought as he pulled his shirt off, he was getting melancholy in his old age. He was supposed to be thinking about surveillance and suspects, but his mind wanted to linger on thoughts of the beach and Lindy… and Faith. Faith the woman, not the witness.

A soft knock drew his attention to the door.

“Shane?”

Her voice was soft and tentative, yet it seemed to reach through the door to caress him. His skin heated instantly at the thought. Before his hormones could run amuck, he called out, “Come in.”

Faith slipped into the room like a thief, closing the door quietly behind her. When she turned to face him, Shane felt as though he’d taken a punch to the solar plexus. Faith stood there, her doe eyes wide and uncertain, the amber glow of the lamp teasing out the red lights in her hair. She wore an ivory satin robe that was belted at the waist and fell to the floor. Framed by the V neckline of her robe was the necklace she always wore. The delicate bit of gold glittered warmly above her heart.

“You said you’d be here when I changed my mind,” she said, her gaze holding him captive. Her teeth grazed her lower lip, further betraying her nervousness. She swallowed and her breasts gave a little jump as she sucked in a breath. “I’ve changed my mind.”