Wolfe Wedding. Joan Hohl

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 for him to assimilate the facts.

      “I sincerely hope so,” she answered. “Keep in touch, and I’ll keep you informed.”

      “Yeah, well, as to that,” he said, interested in being brought up to speed on his brother’s love life, but a lot more interested in pursuing his own, “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back to you. I’m going out of town for a spell.”

      “I see.” Not a hint of concern tainted her voice; after thirty years of living with a police officer, she had long since learned to conceal her fears. “Well, then, I’ll talk to you when I talk to you.” She paused, then added softly, “Take care, son.”

      “I will.” A gentle smile tugged at his lips as he hung up the phone. In his admittedly biased opinion, Maddy epitomized the best of the female sex.

      Female.

      Sex.

      Sandra.

      Swinging away from the phone, Cameron strode from the kitchen. He collected his bags, glanced at, then deliberately shifted his gaze away from his beeper, which was lying atop the bedside table. He wouldn’t need that where he was going. Gear in hand, he gave a final sweeping look around the room, then left the apartment.

      

      “Dammit.” Cameron wasn’t even aware of swearing aloud; he was too busy making the turn to head back. He had driven only a few miles from his apartment when he knew he just couldn’t do it. He just could not leave town for two weeks without his “connection” to the office, and the weapon that had grown to feel almost a part of him.

      Muttering to himself that the two items had taken on the semblance of adult pacifiers, he strode into the apartment and directly to the bedside table.

      After snatching up the beeper and the shoulderholstered agency-issue revolver, he shoved the beeper into his pocket and, gripping the weapon, pivoted and retraced his steps to the door.

      Something, an uneasy sensation, halted him midway to. the door. What was it? he asked himself, raking the living room with a narrowed look. What was wrong? Nothing had been disturbed in the bedroom. Pacing to the kitchen, he ran a slow, encompassing look around. The entire place was exactly as he’d left it a half hour ago.

      Still.

      Sandra.

      Telling himself he really did need a vacation, Cameron shrugged off the odd sensation, patted his pocket and once again exited the apartment. After stashing the gun in the rear of the vehicle, he drove away.

      Now he was on vacation.

      Maybe he’d stop somewhere along the way to the cabin and pick up a bottle or two of good wine, and a couple of six-packs of beer, he mused, anticipation crawling along his nerve endings, arousing all kinds of wicked thoughts and exciting reactions.

      It wasn’t until he was well out of the city, the wine and beer stashed in the back of his almost new Jeep Cherokee, that Cameron gave some thought to his brothers—and one in particular.

      While talking to his mother, he had mused about his brothers. First Jake, the baby of the Wolfe pack, and now Eric, the third of the brood. But, on reflection, he recollected a phone conversation that he had had several weeks ago with Royce.