Bluegrass Blessings. Allie Pleiter

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      “These are for you. Oven rent.” Dinah appeared at his door thirty minutes later with a batch of macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. A stack of large, blueprint-like papers lay strewn out on his kitchen table. The display made it easy to picture him in the corner office of some Manhattan high-rise.

      “Thanks,” Cameron said, taking the cookies and putting them next to the papers. He had an elegant look about him that made him seem so foreign here, even in jeans. There was something in the set of his shoulders, the way he carried himself. A sleekness that came from always having the upper hand.

      An upper hand she was pretty sure he felt he no longer had. That was pure intuition, but Dinah was a mighty intuitive gal and prided herself on her ability to read people. All that carefully crafted city confidence was coming unraveled in a few corners. She saw it in the way he’d overly defended his negotiation. In how he always tapped his left foot. There was a story there, all right. Even Sandy had alluded as much, although Dinah certainly had no idea what it was.

      “I’m warning you,” Dinah pointed to the cookies, “don’t put those within easy reach. If you haven’t eaten lunch, you’re in trouble.”

      “I’ll be fine,” he said.

      “Willpower is no match for the smell of my macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. Don’t get cocky or I might come back up here to find you hiding an empty plate behind your back.”

      He didn’t even laugh at the joke. “Baked goods don’t scare me.” He sat back down at the table, all business.

      Dinah headed toward the door, but stopped before leaving. “So, why’d you leave New York, anyway?”

      That made him look up. She knew it would. “To get away from people asking personal questions.”

      If he thought she’d be put off by a few snarky replies, he had a think or two coming. “No, really. What made you come all the way out here?”

      Cameron pulled off his glasses and wiped his hands down his face. “Let’s just say ‘employment issues.’”

      Dinah leaned against the open door. “You got canned?”

      “Are you always this diplomatic?”

      “I’ll take that as a yes. I heard some famous guy say all truly innovative people get fired at least once in their careers.”

      “That’s not true.”

      “How do you know?”

      “Let’s just say it was my lack of innovation that…heralded my job change.”

      “Meaning?”

      He leaned on one elbow. “It was because I wouldn’t get creative that I lost my job. And I didn’t lose it, by the way,” he corrected himself. “I merely agreed with the management that it would be best for all concerned if I left immediately.”

      “Honey, in this neck of the woods, that’s called getting fired. Best own up to it now, so you can move on.” She walked back into the apartment despite the dark look he gave her. “What kind of ‘creative,’ anyway? You mean cheating?”

      “It has a nicer term in real estate. Alternative accounting. Although that’s not the name I’d put to it. I wouldn’t look the other way when some guy started skimming off the sales when apartment buildings were made into condos. Unfortunately that process has a lot of convenient little places to hide some cheating—if no one is looking. But I was, and when they started really putting the pressure on me, I had no choice but to go to the local authorities. I just couldn’t sit by and watch them steal from people.” He sighed and got up from the table. “But, as you can see, it didn’t exactly go well for me.”