Authors: Elda Minger
The hell with Kate.
She groveled.
"Please, Cameron, don't make me." At that moment, Julian, the trial back in San Francisco, the journal, all were forgotten in her desperate fear of walking across that bridge.
"You're going to hold on to me and we're going to cross that bridge together. Come on, Mike, I know you can do it."
"I saw that scene in the Stallone movie where he reached for the girl's glove after the snap broke and she fell. And I know it was done with special effects but—Oh, God, Cameron, this is real and I don't think—"
"Take hold of my belt."
She was almost hysterical as he took her hand and placed it on his belt. He was in front, she was looking at his back, and he started toward a bridge that looked like something a first grader might have made out of Popsicle sticks.
"Please, don't make me..."
He turned and cupped her face in his hands.
"I can't leave you here, Mike. And we can't stop now. I want you to follow me, follow right behind me – and don't look down."
Don't look down.
She remembered his command until they got to the middle of the bridge.
She looked down.
She stopped. She froze. She couldn't move.
"Damn it, Mike."
Everything suddenly became totally clear.
"I want you to leave me here, Cameron. Go on, I'll be fine."
"Then Perry won't be able to get across."
He could he make jokes at a time like this?
She snapped.
"I do have my hand right next to your gun."
"Damn it, Mike, I'm faster than you are. Now move those legs or I'll shoot you myself."
"I can't."
"Look at my back."
"Cameron—"
"Look at my back!"
She did. Somehow, a couple of hundred feet above a steep jungle gorge, on a bridge that was probably sixty feet long and not that wide, she found the inner strength and fortitude to stop looking down and concentrate on Cameron's back.
It wasn't inner strength and fortitude, exactly. He sounded awfully serious about the gun thing and she suddenly realized she didn't want to die.
The wind whipped up and the rope bridge jerked alarmingly. She screamed and went down on her knees, so ashamed of being a coward but not knowing how to get away from a fear so overpowering it almost consumed her.
"Mike. Mike."
It seemed a long time later when she finally heard his voice.
"Mike."
"Cameron?" Her own voice was quivering and filled with tears.
"Mike, I want you to keep your eyes closed and stand up. Slowly."
"I never should have come along on this trip!"
"Let's argue about that later. Can you stand up if you keep your eyes closed?"
"I think so..."
He talked to her the entire time, walking for both of them as she kept her one hand firmly around his leather belt and used the other to keep her balance on the shaky bridge.
"Just a few more feet, Mike, and we'll be there. A few more feet, a few more feet..."
She felt his arms around her and then he was swinging her on to solid ground. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time, which was exactly what she did as she kept her arms around his neck in a stranglehold.
He lowered her to the ground and held her in his lap as Perry, Barnaby and Baretta stood a discreet distance away.
"Oh, Cameron. Oh, my God. Oh, God—"
He kissed her forehead. "Any other phobias I should know about?"
"What?"
"Oh, you know, spiders and heights and things like that."
She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and leaned against his chest, reassured by the steady beating of his heart. "I'm not crazy about thunderstorms and lightning, that sort of thing."
He nodded, kissed the top of her head.
"I cannot stand heights, Cameron. I just can't."
"Okay."
She turned her head and kissed him, so happy to be on solid ground she was almost dizzy with it. Then she placed her fingers against his lips and whispered something that made him smile.
"But I'm not afraid of the dark."
They reached Julian's hideaway right on schedule. As Michaela stepped out into the clearing and saw the structure, she almost laughed out loud.
A little hideaway. Sure.
It was like saying Jeff Bezos had some pocket change.
The house was low and close to the ground but it covered a considerable amount of it. A one-story structure, it had been built to blend in with its tropical jungle surroundings. It was airy and open and really quite beautiful, the actual building surrounding an open courtyard.
She'd been expecting a cabin in the woods, a one room structure, a tin roof. But this looked like a spacious bungalow at a major resort. There was room enough for a dozen people in this house. A dozen large people.
She'd never figure rich people out.
It was charming inside as well. For the first time she had a sense of the enormity of Julian's loss when Mary died. The decor was rather whimsical but it was a home. Toys of all sorts adorned shelves, along with books and small sculptures. Framed prints graced the walls and several wall hangings added brilliant splashes of color against the white stucco walls.
They'd left the main door open and a small green lizard darted in, ran halfway up one of the walls, saw them and disappeared down the hallway.
She glanced at Baretta. He grinned at her reassuringly.
"That one's okay. No poison."
They'd set all their equipment down in the large foyer and she heard Perry, Barnaby and Baretta talking excitedly with Cameron. It was decided their guides would have the next twenty-four hours off to do whatever they wanted to do, just lie around and enjoy themselves. They'd stayed in the guest quarters before. Within half an hour they’d left for the far end of the hideaway.
That left Michaela alone with Cameron.
She didn't mind. Something had changed during this expedition, something she couldn't really articulate but made her feel better about their chances as a couple. With work to do and a decided time limit, they didn't really have the luxury of being able to hash it all out.
"Where did he say the journal would be?" she asked him.
"Somewhere among all the books. He wasn't really sure where."
She glanced around at the large living room. Books lined the shelves from floor to ceiling.
When she’d thought of a hideaway, she'd thought of a tiny, tin-roofed shack, with the journal on a dusty little table in the middle of the room. Like in those movies where the adventurer opens the door and a shaft of sunlight spills over the object he seeks.
No such luck here.
"Okay. I'll start at this end and you can take the other," she said.
"Mike, don't you think you should rest a little? I mean, the baby and... "
Michaela looked in his eyes and they somehow seemed softer, like his voice. The steeliness that had gleamed there when they'd argued on the rickety footbridge had disappeared. In its place was... concern. Affection.
Maybe even a touch of fear for her and their baby.
Maybe this trip will
help us.
She grinned up at him. "You'd better take advantage of the moments I feel this terrific." She patted his butt. "Let’s get to work."
* * *
They were hot, dusty and covered with sweat. And hours later, still no closer to Julian's elusive journal than they'd been in San Francisco.
"Maybe if we called Mrs. Monahan—"
"I already did," Cameron said, pulling another leather-bound volume off the bookcase, flipping it open and examining its contents. He put it back on the shelf and continued searching. "She's asked him a few times but his mind seems a little muddled."
"Probably all the stress he's been under," she muttered, reaching for another volume.
She found a journal later that afternoon, but it was Mary's. Closing it after reading only enough to ascertain it wasn't Julian's and had none of the information she sought, Michaela slid it carefully back on to the shelf, then glanced over at Cameron.
He was hard at work.
How had two people who had so obviously loved each other and been able to commit to each other made it possible for Cameron to harbor such fears? For she knew it was fear, and would have realized this even if Julian hadn't talked to her that evening on the jet.
What had really happened to make him feel the way he did? Many children lost their parents yet went on to become adults and raise families of their own.
She continued to work as she thought, sliding out volume after volume, checking title after title.
From what Julian had told her, she had the impression Cameron had loved his parents very much but that their jet-setting life-style hadn't had much room in it for a child. He'd been five years old, without brothers and sisters, when they’d died. Five years old and all alone.
Except for Julian and Mary.
She glanced up at the journal she'd so recently put back on the shelf—Mary's journal—and wondered if there were any clues inside that leather-bound volume.
Don't even think about it.
Brushing her damp hair off her forehead, she got back to work.
* * *
Cameron watched her as they worked, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Though there were fans placed strategically on tables and even in the ceilings, the weather was still hot and muggy. Julian had never cared for air conditioning in this particular house, so fans had been his choice. And though they moved the air, the air itself was still tropical, moist and dense.
He smiled as the little green lizard darted into the room, close to Michaela's feet. She looked down, saw the little reptile and didn't even flinch.
Cameron still felt bad about the incident at the bridge. He hadn't meant to push her that hard but he really hadn't known what else to do. They couldn't have turned back, she wouldn't have made it on foot, retracing their trail to his house by the beach, without going through major exhaustion.
Once they found the journal he could arrange to have them picked up by helicopter. He'd set off a few carefully placed flares, call one of the pilots on the island and have them back at the airport and on the jet, then back in San Francisco in no time.
That is, if they could find the journal and Julian's notes about Bandit Bear.
"Have you found any of Mary's journals?" he called out, sliding yet another book out of its slot on the wooden shelf.
"One."
"Set it down on the table. She did a lot of sketching for Julian, we might be able to find something to support his case."
They stopped for a quick supper, eating in the spacious, fully equipped kitchen.
"Julian certainly didn't believe in roughing it, did he?"
"His idea of luxury was no phones, no computers, no social media, absolutely no contact with the outside world. He liked coming up here with Mary and recharging the spirit. Those were his exact words."
How wise Julian was. He was so right. She already felt energized after only a few hours in this tropical oasis.
Somehow things seemed more relaxed despite the importance of what they were here for. Cameron, too, must have felt it. Since they'd arrived at the hideaway, he was talking more. She’d never realized how much she'd missed talking to him.
Not about contracts and partnerships, but about life.
She could've sat for hours with him, listening to his stories about Julian and Mary. But there was work to be done so they resumed their search of the dusty volumes.
It was almost midnight before they found it.
"Cameron," Michaela said quietly, her anticipation so great her hands were shaking as she clutched a small red leather-bound book.
He glanced up, on his phone. From the moment they’d started this trip, he'd remained in constant contact with Mrs. Monahan concerning Julian's health.
"I think I found it."
* * *
They’d found Julian's journal
As Michaela sat at the table in the master bedroom and read, her sense of anticipation and relief grew. They not only had a case, they had one so cut and dried that Coleman, Watts and Burrell were going to look like a bunch of greedy, publicity-hungry fools.
In other words, exactly what they were.
It fascinated her, reading about the early years of Teddy's Toys. Julian's dreams, his absolute and unwavering vision came alive on the page, along with the story of his great love for his wife, Mary.
Both of them had loved children. The tragedy of their marriage had been the fact that Mary had been unable to have more than one. But they’d spread their love for children throughout the world through Teddy's Toys.
There were several passages in Julian's fine, careful handwriting concerning his love for his wife that had Michaela reaching for a box of tissues.
"What?" Cameron asked once, and she started. She'd been so involved in Julian and Mary's world, the early years of their marriage, that she'd almost forgotten he was there.
She blew her nose again, not even glancing at him, she was so absorbed in the material. "Oh, it’s just the way he loved her, the way they cared for each other."
Not noticing the expression on his face, she continued reading far into the night.
* * *
He watched her as he worked and knew he was falling in love all over again. And he wondered at the fact that he’d spent most of his life consciously trying to shy away from that most complex and dangerous of emotions.
He'd learned, early on, that life wasn't fair. And he'd picked himself up and gotten on with it. His parents' deaths had been traumatic, but living with his grandparents had been something of a relief. He'd always felt safer with them, as if he could really be a child as opposed to a little adult.
He'd adored his grandmother and her death when he'd been in his early thirties had shaken him far more than losing either of his parents.
He'd also seen what it had done to Julian.
Julian, who had lived and breathed and been Teddy's Toys, had gone on an emotional rampage. He'd left the company. Cameron had found himself making all the executive decisions in his grandfather's absence. Finally, when he'd managed to arrange a little time off he'd flown to the island, knowing where his grandfather had probably chosen to hide and grieve.