An Accidental Hero. Loree Lough

held out his arms and Cammi melted into them. Plenty of time to tell him about the accident—and everything else—later. For the moment, wrapped in the warmth of his embrace, she put aside the reasons she’d left home. Forgot his “you’ll be sorry” speech. Forgot how determined she’d been to prove him wrong, for no reason other than that for once in her life, she’d wanted to make him proud.

      Proud? So much for that! Cammi thought.

      “Good to have you home, sweetie.”

      My, but that sounded good. Sounded right. This was where she wanted…no, where she needed to be. And if the length or strength of Lamont’s embrace was any indicator, her father felt the same way. At least, for now. “Good to be home,” Cammi admitted.

      He released her and went for his wallet.

      “Dad,” she started, “I can pay the—”

      But Lamont had already peeled off a fifty. “That’ll cover it, right, son?” he asked, shoving the bill into the driver’s hand.

      “Yessir, it sure will!” Eyes wide, he waited for permission to pocket the bill.

      “Keep the change,” Lamont said, grabbing Cammi’s bag.

      The man beamed. “Sayin’ ‘thanks’ seems lame after a tip like this!”

      Grinning, Lamont saluted, then slung his arm over Cammi’s shoulder. “Drive safely, m’boy,” he said, guiding her toward the house. He hadn’t closed the front door behind them before asking, “Where’s the rest of your gear?”

      “I shipped some boxes a couple of days ago. They’ll be delivered tomorrow, Monday at the latest.” She tugged the strap of her oversized purse, now resting firmly against his rock-hard shoulder. “Meanwhile, I have the essentials right here.”

      “Meanwhile,” he echoed, frowning as he assessed her rain-dampened hair and still-wet clothes, “you’re soaked to the skin.” He nudged her closer to the wide, mahogany staircase. “Get on upstairs and take a hot shower. After you’ve changed into something warm and dry, meet me in the kitchen. Meantime, I’ll put on a pot of decaf.”

      In other words, Cammi deducted, despite the late hour, he expected her to fill in the blanks—some of them, anyway—left by her long absence; she hadn’t been particularly communicative by phone or letter while she’d been gone, with good reason, and she was thankful Lamont hadn’t pressed her for details. Now the time had come to pay the proverbial piper. “Warm and dry sounds wonderful,” she said, more because it was true than to erase the past two years from her mind.

      “Everything is exactly as you left it.”

      How like him to keep things as they were. Though her mother had been gone thirteen years when Cammi headed west, the only things Lamont had replaced were the linens, and even those were duplicates of the originals. Something told her it was love of the purest possible kind that kept him so stubbornly attached to his beloved Rose. The fact that her dad had held on to memories about her, too, inspired a flood of loving warmth. “I’ll just be a few minutes,” Cammi said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Love you, Dad.”

      “Love you, too.”

      At least for now you do, Cammi thought.

      Suddenly, the prospect of being in her old room, surrounded by familiar things, rejuvenated her, and she took the steps two at a time, half listening for his oh-so-familiar warning:

      “You’re liable to fall flat on your face and chip a tooth, bolting up those stairs like a runaway year-ling.”

      He’d said the same thing, dozens of times, when Cammi and her sisters were children. She stopped on the landing and smiled. “I’ll be careful, Dad,” she said, pressing a hand to her stomach, “I promise.” He had no way of knowing she had a new and very important reason to keep that promise.

      Cammi blew him a kiss and hurried to her room. The sooner she got back downstairs, the sooner she’d know if this amiable welcome was the real deal…or a temporary truce.

      Real, she hoped, because she would need his emotional support these next few months, even if it might come at the price of seeing his disappointment yet again. How would she tell him that, in yet another characteristically impulsive move, she’d exchanged “I do’s” with a movie stuntman in a gaudy Vegas wedding chapel? And it wouldn’t just be the non- Christian ceremony he’d disapprove of.

      When Reid had asked earlier if she had a husband and children, her heart had skipped a beat. For a reason she couldn’t explain, it mattered what Reid thought of her. Mattered very much. So much so, in fact, that though she’d enjoyed his company, she’d rather never see him again than risk having him discover the truth about her. And if a stranger’s opinion mattered that greatly, how much more difficult would it be to live with her dad’s reaction!

      For the past four months, since learning of Rusty’s death and the baby’s existence, Cammi had spent hours thinking up ways to break the news to her father. She’d hoped an idea would come to her during the long, quiet drive from California to Texas. Sadly, she still didn’t have a clue how to tell him that in just five short months, his first grandchild would be born.

      Lamont would be a terrific grandfather, what with his natural storytelling ability and his gentle demeanor. If only he could learn he was about to become a grandpa in the traditional way, instead of being clubbed over the head with the news.

      What Cammi needed was a buffer, someone who’d distract him, temporarily, anyway, from asking questions that had no good answers. “Hey, Dad,” she called from the top step, “where’s Lily? I sort of expected she’d be the one bounding down the front walk when I got home…with some critter wrapped around her neck.”

      “Matter of fact, she’s in the barn, nursing one of those critters right now.”

      Lily was the only London daughter who’d never left home. A math whiz and avid animal lover, the twenty-four-year-old more or less ran River Valley Ranch. “As much time as she spends with her animals,” Cammi said, “I’ll never understand how she manages to keep your ledger books straight.”

      “That makes two of us,” Lamont said, laughing.

      She ducked into her room, telling herself that if she survived coffee with her dad, she’d pay Lily and her critter a little visit. Maybe her kid sister would drop a hint or two that would help Cammi find a good way to tell them…everything.

      A shiver snaked up her spine when she admitted there was no good way.

      Lamont’s back was to her when she rounded the corner a short while later, reminding Cammi of that night so many years ago, when she’d padded downstairs in pajamas and fuzzy slippers. “Dad,” she’d whimpered, rubbing her eyes toddlerlike despite being twelve years old, “I can’t sleep.”

      When he’d turned from the kitchen sink, his redrimmed eyes were proof that he hadn’t been able to sleep, either, that he’d been crying, too. “C’mere, sweetie,” he’d said, arms extended as he settled onto the caned seat of a ladder-back chair.

      She’d ignored the self-imposed rule that said a soon-to-be teenager was too old to climb into her daddy’s lap, and snuggled close, cheek resting on the soft, warm flannel of his blue plaid shirt, and closed her eyes, inhaling the crisp spicy scent of his manly aftershave.

      Even now, all grown up and carrying a child of her own, she remembered how safe she’d always felt when those big arms wrapped around her, how soothing it was when his thick, clumsy fingers combed through her curls. Her unborn baby deserved to feel safe and protected that way, too; had her impulsive lifestyle made that impossible? Could Lamont accept what she’d done, at least enough not to hold it against his grandchild?

      It hadn’t been hard to read his mind that night, the eve of Rose’s funeral. What was going through his mind now? Cammi wondered. Had looking through the rain-streaked window at