Mistletoe Mine by Emily March Page A

on the assembly, but he couldn’t see that the junk had caused any real damage to the unit. It took him a couple of breaths, but Cam managed to cut the trash away and free the cruiser’s prop.
    He surfaced and swam to the Bliss ’s swim deck. He hauled his tools aboard, then levered himself onto the deck. A Bliss crew member tossed him a towel. Cam dried his legs and then his chest before flipping the towel over his head to pull it back and forth across his back.
    Aboard the Wanderer , Martin called, “Many thanks! I wish you fair winds and following seas, Cameron Daniel Murphy.”
    Cam opened his mouth to reply when movement on the Bliss ’s gangway caught his attention. He froze, his fists clamping the towel in a white-knuckled grip.
    Twenty years might have passed, but he’d know her anywhere. No bigger than a minute and curved in all the right places. Dark hair cut short and sassy in a way that suited the angles of her face. And those eyes. Those gorgeous, long-lashed, Elizabeth Taylor violet eyes.
    Sarah Reese.
       Cameron Daniel Murphy.
    Sarah’s heart pounded. Her mouth went dry and her knees went weak and she thought she might hyperventilate.
    Cam Murphy.
    He looked …  Wow … Oh, wow … He looked like he’d come straight off the cover of a paperback romance. The boy she’d known two decades ago had disappeared beneath mature muscle and suntanned skin. He was still lean, his stomach still flat, but his shoulders had broadened and he’d added definition to his abs. He wore his hair a little longer and his beard lost-my-razor-three-days-ago scruffy. The words beach bum and surfer dude and pirate sprang to mind.
    But his eyes—those mesmerizing eyes—hadn’t changed. He stared at her with eyes of shades of green. Mountain eyes. Just like Lori’s.
    Lori.
    Sarah gasped and twisted around to look at her daughter. His daughter. Our daughter . Lori stared back at her with a question in her eyes. His eyes.
    Oh, Lori . The potential consequences of this chance meeting hit Sarah like a brick.
    Lori had wanted to contact her father ever since Sarah confessed the truth about his identity to her when Lori turned sixteen. In the months that followed, Lori had spent hours tracking the name Cameron D. Murphy on the Internet. Although she’d come up with what she considered to be half a dozen likely suspects, as far as Sarah knew she’d never taken the search for her father beyond that. At one point, when money was especially tight around the Reese house, Lori had asked her to hire a private investigator to find Cam to demand child support.
    Now this beautiful, confident young woman watched Sarah with wary mountain eyes. “Mom? It’s not an uncommon name, right?”
    Sarah tried to force words through her throat, but the sound that emerged was a strangled gurgle.
    At her mother’s reaction, Lori’s expression slackened with shock, then she jerked her stare back toward Cam. “That is him?”
    Feeling a little bit sick, Sarah braved another look, too.
    His gaze remained locked on Sarah, heated and intense. Her stomach took another turn. She swayed slightly, feeling dizzy. Then abruptly, he shifted his stare toward Lori, and for a long moment, Sarah held her breath. He looked stunned.
    “That’s him ?” Lori repeated. “He’s your Cam?”
    Cam mouthed a word, and Sarah was pretty sure that word was mine . He took one step forward just as the boy from this morning—Devin, the van driver—approached him, saying, “Hey, Dad. I didn’t think you were coming down here this morning. Martin said you wanted to see me?”
    Dad .
    Dad?
    Dad!
    Fury stormed through Sarah like a hurricane. That boy was only a few years younger than Lori!
    Lori reached out and caught hold of Sarah’s arm, steadying herself. Her voice broke on the words, “He has a family.”
    Oh, baby. No. Not like this .
    “Mom, let’s get out of here,” Lori said, an anguished look in her eyes. “Now.”
    Cam’s gaze upon them was