Free Wolfe Wedding by Joan Hohl Page B

vacation, should they still be on speaking terms—Sandra left the bedroom with her fingers crossed.
    After one look at Cameron’s face as she entered the kitchen, Sandra uncrossed her fingers. So much for wishful thinking, she chided herself.
    “Well?” she asked impatiently, when he was not immediately forthcoming.
    “You can’t go back to Denver.”
    Perplexed at hearing him state the obvious, Sandra stared at him a moment before replying, “I know, everything’s covered with ice out there.”
    “Even if there were no ice, you couldn’t go back.”
    “Why not?” she asked, in a reasonable tone that she hoped concealed the impatience gathering speed inside her.
    “Whitfield’s back in Denver.” His taciturn response was, for Sandra, as good as no response at all.
    “Back from where?” Her brow crinkled in a frown of utter confusion.
    “Chicago.”
    That terse tidbit of information meant nothing to her; she hadn’t even known Whitfield had left Denver, nor would she have cared if she had known.
    “Uh-huh.” Her hard-fought-for reasonable tone lost ground to advancing irritation. “I don’t think we’re connecting here. What, exactly, whether or not he’s in Chicago, does Raymond Whitfield have to do with my returning to Denver?”
    Cameron raked a hand through his hair, betraying his own fraying patience. “I think Whitfield was laying down a smoke screen by flying to Chicago.”
    Sandra literally threw up her hands. “Well, that explains everything.” Controlling herself with effort, she took a quick breath, and tried again. “Cameron, I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about.”“Whitfield,” he barked. “I put a surveillance team on him. He flew to Chicago last Saturday morning, but now he’s back in Denver.”
    “So what?” she asked, more confused than before. “And why in heaven’s name put a surveillance team on him in the first place?”
    “Because of the threats he’d made to you, that’s why,” he said, a tone usually reserved for slow learners. A tone, moreover, that she rather resented.
    “But that’s ridiculous!” Sandra was barely hanging on to her temper. “I told you I thought Whitfield was only making noises.”
    “Oh, yeah?” His blue eyes glittered beneath raised golden brown brows. “Well, you thought wrong.” He indicated the phone with a sharp head movement. “That call was to the operative I’ve got tailing Whitfield. He told me he followed Whitfield from the airport, straight to your apartment.”
    Though she managed not to show it, Sandra was a little shaken by the news. “Still, that doesn’t mean he had anything sinister in mind,” she said, unsure whether she was trying to convince him, or herself.
    “It wouldn’t, if he had gone about it in a normal way.” Cameron shook his head. “But he didn’t. He sat in his car until it was dark, then he poked around, not only at the front of the complex, but the back, as well. Then he returned to hiscar. He was still there, just sitting and watching the place, when the agent beeped me.”
    Really shaken, Sandra nevertheless put up a brave front. “That doesn’t prove he means me harm,” she said, hoping she was right, but fearing she wasn’t.
    “No, it doesn’t, but—” he smiled in a feral way that raised the short hairs at her nape “—I’m not taking any chances, with either Whitfield or Slim.”
    “Slim?” She frowned, having momentarily forgotten the escapee his fellow agents were certain was tracking Cameron. “The criminal?”
    “The same.” Cameron paced to the window to peer into the darkness. Grunting, he flipped the switch that activated the trouble lights positioned at either corner of the house. “As soon as this damn ice melts, I’m getting you out of here.”
    Sandra had gone to the stove and pulled open the oven door to check their dinner. His flatly voiced statement made her pause as heat poured over her from the open oven. “Getting me out of here?”