The Last Man In Texas. Jan Freed

grabbed a bulging folder from her desktop. The agency vendor invoices wouldn’t file themselves.

      The instant she entered the left hallway, her gaze jumped ahead to Elizabeth’s office. Pete and Mitch stood eavesdropping shamelessly outside her closed door. At Rachel’s sudden appearance, the men snapped to military attention, saw who she was, then resumed their straining cocked-ear poses.

      Squelching a powerful desire to join them, she ducked into a large room filled with file cabinets, office supplies and two photocopy machines. What were her co-workers hearing? she wondered. Probably he was talking himself back into Elizabeth’s favor. Cameron could charm the coat off a freezing person.

      But he was more likely to offer that person the coat off his own back.

      Four years ago Steven, a victim of downsizing, had lost his job and insurance coverage for the whole family. Soon afterward Cameron had walked in on Rachel crying because she’d forgotten to reorder nondairy creamer for the coffee room.

      Next thing she knew, he’d added not only her, but also Steven and Ben to Malloy Marketing’s group insurance policy. It had taken Steven nine demoralizing months to land a comparable management position in the oil industry, and two more for his new insurance coverage to kick in. In the meantime, his emergency appendectomy and Ben’s bout with influenza drained Rachel’s emotions, but not her family’s savings account.

      There was much more to Cameron than charisma and a face to die for. He was a mensch. A good man. Though sometimes, like today, he was as big a schlemiel as she’d ever been.

      Rachel moved to a long worktable against one wall and laid her folder next to the humming network laser printer. The output tray was full. A paper jam waiting to happen. She snatched up the offending sheets and began slipping each one into wall folders bearing the appropriate employee’s name.

      Halfway through the stack, she scanned the top page and froze.

      So much for her instincts. So much for Cameron’s legendary charisma and powers of persuasion. So much for a buffer between his temper and everyone’s tochus.

      Oy!

      CHAPTER THREE

      CAMERON STARED ACROSS Lizzy’s desk, his mind struggling to process her stunning revelation.

      Did not compute.

      He must, indeed, be going deaf. “You’re what?”

      A fiery blush belied her frosty glare. “Is my getting married so impossible to fathom?”

      Damnation, the woman had a talent for twisting his words! “Did I say that? No, I did not say that.”

      “Then why are you so shocked? Because my social life is obviously more ‘active’ than you thought?”

      Yes! “No. Will you stop answering your own questions and let me finish?”

      She pursed her mouth and examined a short unpolished fingernail.

      Now what? “Look, you can’t blame me for being surprised. You’ve never talked much about your personal life. But I figured if you ever got involved with someone, you’d at least tell me.”

      Her gaze sliced up. “I figured if you ever got interested in my personal life, you’d at least ask questions once in a while.”

      They exchanged a righteous wounded look.

      Cameron rallied first. “I respected your privacy. Besides, I thought you were completely committed to your career at Malloy Marketing.”

      “You know I was. But I also want more from life than a satisfying career. Most people do. At some point in their lives, they want to meet their soul mate, settle down and raise a family. And that includes men people, no matter what they say or others think.”

      She’d found her soul mate?

      “Your brother Travis is a perfect example,” she continued, warming to the subject. “He’s so excited about Kara’s pregnancy he’s like a little kid waiting to open a present. But when he was single, you told me he never wanted to remarry, much less have children.”

      “Yeah, but—”

      “And look how great your dad is doing? Not so long ago, you worried about him being lonely. You were convinced he would never marry again. Then he fell in love with both Nancy and her son, and now they’re a happy family.”

      “True, but—”

      “What about Rachel and Steven? Fifteen years, and they’re more in love than ever. You can’t deny that marriage has changed the lives of a lot of people who are close to you for the better.”

      “No, but—”

      “A husband and wife can form the greatest team of all, Cameron. Haven’t you ever wanted, even for a moment, to experience that kind of love and commitment yourself?”

      He opened and closed his mouth.

      She looked so hopeful, so wistful and innocent, her luminous brown gaze like a child’s wishing upon a star. Of course, she hadn’t witnessed Travis’s bitter divorce, long estrangement from Kara and bruising, bumpy road to remarriage. Or, for that matter, John Malloy’s twenty-year mourning period after Cameron’s mother lost her long battle with cancer. Their pain had been devastating. And devastatingly painful to watch.

      But did he want the kind of blissful marriage his brother and father enjoyed now? Sure he did. He’d be a fool not to.

      And a bigger fool not to wait until the odds on having one were stacked high in his favor.

      He managed a credibly careless shrug. “I’m a realist, not an idealist.”

      “Meaning?”

      “Meaning that at my age, it’s hard enough to meet attractive and interesting single women. The chances of meeting my one perfect soul mate aren’t very good.”

      Lizzy’s eyes dimmed.

      He smoothed his tie, struck with the sense that he’d somehow failed her, or himself—or them both. Before he could analyze his reaction, her eyes rekindled with a mocking gleam.

      “Poor Cameron. Having one foot in the grave must be a tough handicap to meeting women. Then, too, being one of Austin’s ten most eligible bachelors is such a turnoff.”

      Jeez. “All I’m saying is that I don’t bet on long shots. It’s a documented fact that half of all marriages in this country end in divorce.”

      “Documented?”

      Uh-oh. She’d taken on the look of Seth’s bird dog sifting through multiple scents in the air.

      Cameron saw the exact instant she pinpointed her covey of information, and braced himself for a flurry of facts.

      “Actually, the fifty percent divorce rate quoted by the media is wrong. The Census Bureau calculated the marriages and divorces in one year without including the fifty-four million marriages already in existence, and—presto! A totally inaccurate, but highly quotable, divorce rate appeared in the hat like magic. Lazy journalists all over the country yanked it out with regularity. But when divorces are tracked by the year in which a couple married, the correct rate is closer to between eighteen and twenty-two percent. Not too terrible, really…and I can see that you’re fascinated.”

      He blinked the glaze from his eyes and found hers narrowed. “What? I’m listening.”

      “Good. Because you need to hear this. The chance of you finding your ideal soul mate would improve considerably if you took more time getting to know a woman. More than six dates’ worth of time, that is.”

      Indignation prodded him fully alert. “I’ve dated women more than six times.”

      “Cameron, you’ve dated women more times in the past year alone than the average man does in his entire bachelorhood.