“Yeah, I’m headed to the bank.” Had to open a new account and arrange for his money to be wired here from LA.
“I’m headed back to the office, but let’s get together soon. Tell some lies.”
Cam grinned. Relieved to be back on solid ground, he said, “Sounds good.”
He watched the sheriff walk away and envied him for a moment. Nathan Battles had always known his place. He had found it years ago, and now he walked through Royal, a man at peace with himself and the life he’d carved out.
Cam was back in Royal to do the same.
It took him nearly a half hour to walk to the bank because he was stopped every few feet by old friends. Back in California, he was a successful businessman. A self-made millionaire. But in Royal, Texas, he was a home-grown success story. People being people, they were all curious about what he’d been doing the last fifteen years. And these people, being Texans, would want their questions answered.
Funny, because back in the day, he’d been the half–Native American son of ranch workers, and his only claim to fame was starring on the Royal High School baseball team. Back then, he’d had major-league dreams that fueled his imagination. Cam had gotten scholarship offers based on his pitching abilities, but he hadn’t taken any of them because his world had been abruptly upended after graduation.
Yet here he was, returning to his hometown a millionaire many times over and the owner of the very ranch where his late parents had worked. Life could be strange—even when it was satisfying.
He walked into the bank and paused, taking it in. A big building with the stamp of Texas all over it, there were wide red tiles on the floor, paintings of Texas on the walls and dark wooden beams on the ceiling. The counters were of gleaming dark wood to match those beams, and the tellers worked behind a wall of thick plexiglass. There were several manned desks opposite the tellers and a staircase leading to the second floor in the corner. Cam’s gaze swept the desks, looking for the bank manager. But when he spotted him, it wasn’t the man Cam focused on, but the woman sitting opposite him.
Beth Wingate.
Every ounce of breath rushed from his lungs, and his vision narrowed until she was all he could see. It was as if the world had disappeared, leaving her in a bright spotlight.
Cam couldn’t have looked away if it had meant his life. Because at one time she had been his life. And, apparently, his body remembered. He was hard as stone, his breath laboring, his heart racing. His palms itched to touch her again, and even as he silently admitted that simple fact, guilt rushed into his mind to tear him a new one.
Hell, his wife had only been dead two years, and here he was lusting after the woman who had ripped out his heart and pushed him into Julie’s arms.
As if she could feel him looking at her, Beth slowly turned her head and fixed her gaze on his.
Her eyes were filled with memory as his own must have been. Once upon a time, he’d thought the world began and ended in those green eyes. Now he felt the power of her gaze slamming into his chest like a punch to the solar plexus. Why did she still have to be so damn beautiful? Her hair fell long and straight to the middle of her back, still blond but with highlights now that made it shimmer like gold when she shook her head. She was tall and thin, but not so skinny she didn’t have curves that he remembered all too well. As he watched, she stood up and held herself like a damn queen.
He should be irritated by that, because of course she did. She was a Wingate, and in Royal they were at the top of the ladder. Hell, Beth’s mother, Ava, had been the interior designer of the Texas Cattleman’s Club, and there was no club that better described Royal. The TCC was renowned for its membership. Every wealthy, influential person in this corner of Texas was a member, and those who weren’t were trying to get in. As Camden would be.
Beth stood there staring at him, and he let his gaze drag up and down her body lazily. She wore a summer dress, sleeveless, in a dusty blue with pale yellow stripes. Her tanned legs were bare, and she wore three-inch heeled sandals on her narrow feet.
She looked...too damn good. And he probably looked like just what he was—a man struck dumb by lust and need. Why the hell had he run into her in a public place? Knowing Royal, everyone in the bank was watching this meeting. Waiting to see if there would be a fight, or fireworks of a different kind.
There would be neither, Cam vowed. Damned if he’d let Beth see that she could still turn him inside out.
She sauntered toward him and he admired that slow, perfect walk. She’d always had a way of moving that made a man think of silk sheets and moonlight.
“Hello, Cam,” she said, and that deep, throaty voice of hers fell over him like warm water.
“Beth.” He kept his gaze on hers and saw the flash of...something there.
“I heard you were moving back.”
“Hard to keep secrets in Royal,” he said. Just as it was hard to read her expression. Her eyes were shimmering—but with what? Memory? Desire? Irritation? Hell, if he knew.
“Were you trying to keep it a secret?”
“No,” he replied. “Why would I?”
“No reason, but for the fact you’ve been back a week and this is the first time you’ve been in town.”
His mouth quirked. “Keeping tabs on me?”
“Hardly.” She shook her head, sending that golden hair of hers into a brief, soft swing. Then she lifted one bare shoulder in a shrug that had the bodice of her dress strain against her perfect breasts. “You said it yourself. Hard to keep a secret here. So have you been hiding out at the ranch?”
“Hiding from what?”