Who was he?
“I still don’t—” And then her eyes widened as she processed what he’d just told her. The connection came to her riding a lightning bolt. “Caleb? Caleb McClain?” she cried, not completely convinced that she was right.
But it was the only answer that made any sense, given what he’d just told her. He was the only little boy she used to babysit. Except that he wasn’t little anymore. And definitely not a boy.
My God, she felt old.
Caleb nodded. “It’s Detective McClain now.”
Even though she’d guessed right, Claire could hardly believe it. Except for the color of his eyes—electric blue—and his hair—a dark sandy-blond—he bore no resemblance to the small, wiry, semishy little boy she used to babysit on a regular basis.
“How long has it been?” she heard herself asking, raising her voice as the music grew louder again.
Caleb brought his chair in closer. “Twenty-two years. Ever since you went off to that convent in New York.”
She’d broken his heart that summer. Up until that time, he’d been nursing his crush, thinking it love, and making plans for the two of them and their future together once he gained a few inches on her. The fact that he was five years younger had never fazed him in the slightest. As an only child, he’d always felt older than he was.
Caleb frowned slightly as he regarded her. She was dressed conservatively enough, certainly not like most of the women here. In a two-piece cream-colored suit with the hint of a rose blouse peeking out, she looked more like she was on her way to a board meeting than a place where singles converged and mingled.
It didn’t make sense, her being here like this. “Do they encourage nuns to frequent places like this?” he asked. “Are you on some mission, looking for converts?”
She was seriously thinking of having cards printed up with a disclaimer written across them. It would certainly save time. “I’m not part of the Dominican Sisters anymore.”
“What happened? I heard my parents talking about your decision to join an order. My mother said you had the calling.” He didn’t add that he felt his heart was going to break that entire summer. Those were merely the thoughts of a highly impressionable twelve-year-old.
Real heartbreak, he now knew, was so much harder to survive.
Claire shrugged, falling back on the excuse she’d given her mother because it was the only simple way she could summarize what had happened. “My ‘calling’ just stopped calling.”
Outside the job, he never prodded. Everyone had a right to their privacy. Still, because this was Claire, the “woman” from his childhood, something kept him in the chair, talking. “So, are you just passing through?”
“No, I’m staying. For now.” Why she felt it was necessary to qualify her words, she wasn’t sure. Maybe because she felt so uncertain about what to do with this new life. “My mother’s ill—” a nice safe word for what was wrong, she thought “—and right now, she needs someone to be there for her.” Although, she added silently, her mother was still almost every bit as feisty as she used to be and determined to keep her independence. If she hadn’t gotten a copy of the lab report, she would never have guessed that there was anything wrong with her mother except a bout of fatigue.
He caught himself vaguely wondering what this mysterious malady was, but he left it alone. Wasn’t any of his business. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She nodded in response to the sentiment he’d expressed. “Thank you. In the meantime, I’ve just gotten a job at an elementary school.” A job. It still felt rather odd to say that. She’d been a Dominican Sister for so long, being anything else was going to take a great deal of adjustment. But they were going to need the money, now that her mother had retired. And there might come a time when her mother would need around-the-clock care, so she needed to amass a nest egg now. “I start next week.”
He could see her as a teacher, he thought. “Which school?”
“Lakewood Elementary.” Caleb laughed shortly under his breath. It wasn’t a response she would have anticipated. “What?”
“Nothing.” But the expression on her face prodded him to elaborate. “It’s just that it’s a small world.” There were a total of six elementary schools in Bedford. It seemed ironic that she should get a job at this one. “That’s the school my son goes to.”
A son. The boy she’d babysat had a son. Sometimes she forgot that other people went on to have lives while she’d been sequestered in tiny villages where running water was considered a luxury.
Claire smiled. “You have a son.”
Her whole face still lit up when she smiled, Caleb noted. That was what had first captured his preadolescent heart, her smile. It surprised him to discover that there were some things that hadn’t changed.
“Yeah,” he finally acknowledged. “I’ve got a son.”
Obviously, he wasn’t one of those fathers who liked to brag, she thought. “What’s his name?”
“Danny.”
Definitely not in the bragging league. “Do you have a picture of him?” she coaxed.
He did, but the one he carried in his wallet was a two-year-old-photograph of both Danny and Jane. Right now, he didn’t feel up to seeing it. So he lied.
“No, not on me.” He really had to get going. And yet, somehow, he continued to remain straddling the chair, his arms crossed over the back, just looking at her. He’d never expected to see her again. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he began in his gruff detective’s voice, then tempered it as he continued, “what are you doing in a place like this?”
“I was asking myself the same question. Some of my friends talked me into coming here with them. I think this is their way of ‘breaking me in.’”
“And where are they now?”
“One, my cousin Nancy, had to leave,” she explained. “The other three—” she waved a vague hand toward the throng “—are out there somewhere on the floor.”
Presumably not alone, Caleb surmised. He rose from the chair and pushed it back toward the table. “Well, I’ve got to get going.” But his feet still weren’t moving. And he knew why. He felt as if he was deserting her, leaving her to be preyed on by the next over-sexed male. Which was why, he supposed, the next minute he heard himself asking, “You want a ride home?”
Claire popped up to her feet as if she’d been launched by a catapult, crying “Yes” with such enthusiasm and relief he found it difficult not to laugh.
Placing a hand to the small of her back, he urged, “Then c’mon.”
Chapter Three
But instead of heading for the door the way he’d expected her to, Claire asked him to indulge her for a moment.
It occurred to Caleb that, up to this point, he’d actually been talking to the Claire from his past. Twenty-two years did a lot to change a person and he really didn’t know the woman beside him at all, just who she had been.
“Exactly what do you have in mind?” he wanted to know.
“It won’t take long, I promise,” she told him. As she spoke, she carelessly placed a hand to his chest, as if to hold him in place. She was a toucher, he remembered. It was one of the things that had set his young heart pounding and his mind spinning romantic scenarios. God, had he ever really been that young? “Wait right here.”
Puzzled, he did as she asked. He had no idea what was on her mind until he saw her burrow her way into the throng and corner a vivacious-looking brunette. The latter’s abbreviated dress appeared to be half a size too small in all possible directions.
The next moment, she was edging the woman out of the crowd. Bringing her back to the table. Trailing after the woman, looking mildly interested, was the man who’d just been gyrating with the brunette on the dance floor.
“Kelly, you have to watch the purses,” Claire told her friend. “Nancy got an emergency call so she went home, and I’m leaving.”
The woman referred to as Kelly looked past Claire and directly at him. The grin on the brunette’s face
was so wide Caleb suspected he could have driven a squad car through it without touching either corner.
“You got lucky,” Kelly cried with triumphant glee, the man standing behind her temporarily forgotten. “First time out, too.”
“Yes, I got lucky,” Claire responded. “Because I ran into an old friend. He’s taking me home.”
The moment she said it, referring to Caleb as a friend, it felt a little odd. She’d never thought of him that way before. The last time she’d seen him, he had been wearing pajamas embossed with figures from a Saturday-morning cartoon show and his head had barely reached her chin. Short for his age, the boy she remembered bore next to no resemblance to the man standing by her right now. This man all but reeked of quiet self-confidence. And masculinity.
“I should have old friends like that,” Kelly murmured, her eyes sweeping over him appreciatively. “Go, don’t worry about anything.” She leaned into Claire. “Purses would be the last thing on my mind if I were going home with someone like that.”
Claire shook her head. Obviously, Kelly was going to think what she wanted to think. “G’night, Kelly,” she said, turning away from the table.
“Ready?” Caleb asked patiently.
“Absolutely.” She’d had enough of this kind of singles’ club to last a lifetime.
“Be gentle with her,” Kelly called after them.
When Caleb turned around to look at the brunette, she winked at him. Not flirtatiously, but as if he and she were privy to some shared secret.
Noting the wink, Claire picked up her pace, weaving her way to the front entrance.
The moment they stepped outside and the door closed behind them, Claire paused to take in a deep breath, savoring the cool air. It had been hot and stuffy inside; all those bodies packed into such a small space had generated a lot of heat.
She savored the quiet even more. The old line about not being able to hear herself think ran through her head. There was a great deal of truth in that, Claire mused.
And then she looked at Caleb. She was rather good at reading body language. His said he was running low on patience. Nodding off toward the left, he began walking.
“I’m sorry about Kelly,” she told him.
His hand lightly pressing the small of her back, Caleb guided her toward the side parking lot. As far as he knew, she hadn’t done anything annoying or offensive. “What are you sorry about?”
“Kelly views any male over the age of eighteen as fair game.” It felt awkward, talking about dating with him, even nebulously. That in itself felt strange. She’d never had trouble talking about anything before. She’d lost count of all the times she’d answered shy, misguided questions about sex from adolescents who hadn’t a clue about what was going on with them.
Well, she’d started this, she had to finish it. Gracefully, if possible. “Kelly seems to think I have to make up for lost time and I think she pegged you as my initiator.”
He stopped walking and looked at Claire. She’d lost him. “Initiator for…?”
She put it in as formal terms as she could. “My entrance into the world of romantic liaisons.” Caleb was shaking his head. Again, there was just the barest whisper of a smile on his lips. The Caleb she remembered was always grinning. What had changed that? she wondered. “What?”
He directed her over to his Mercury sedan, digging into the front pocket of his jeans for the key.
“You still talk flowery. I used to like listening to you talk, even when I didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. It sounded pretty.” The truth of it was, he loved the sound of her voice. He used to pray his parents would go out for the evening so that she would come over and babysit him. Or, as she had referred to it, “young man sit” with him. Looking back, he realized that she was always careful not to bruise his young ego. “I thought that maybe you were going to be a writer or something.”
That occupation had merited about five minutes of consideration before she’d discarded the idea. “I liked to read more than I liked to write, so I opted to become ‘or something.’”
Caleb unlocked the passenger-side door and then held it open for her. The thought that she had certainly become “something” whispered across his mind. “I always wondered, why a convent?”
Getting in, Claire buckled up, then sat back in the seat. She tried to relax, but some of the residual tension refused to leave her body.
“Lots of reasons, I guess. They all seemed very viable at the time.” She’d wanted to serve God and help humanity. Did that sound as hopelessly idealistic as she thought it did? She glanced at Caleb as he got in behind the steering wheel. “But they’re all behind me now.”
He knew she was saying she didn’t want to talk about it, that the subject was private. He could more than relate to that even though a part of him remained curious.
“Fair enough,” he allowed. “So you’re going to teach, huh?”
“Yes. I’m a little nervous,” she admitted freely. “But I am really looking forward to it.” The last class she’d taught was more than a year ago and it had been halfway around the world. They had been happy to get anyone. She considered herself lucky that the school here had accepted her. “I’ve always liked kids—and I’d like to think they like me.”
Leaving the parking lot, he nodded. “They probably do,” he said matter-of-factly.
Claire grinned. “And you know this for a fact.”
He surprised her by giving her a serious answer. “You don’t talk down to them,” he told her. “That’s what I liked about you.” One of many, many things, but he didn’t add that. The thoughts of a preadolescent boy belonged in the past. “You didn’t make me feel like some dumb little kid you could boss around.”
Never once did she lord it over him, even though he knew that he would have willingly submitted to her authority, just to have her there.
“That’s because you weren’t some dumb little kid,” she pointed out. “You were very smart—even if you pretended not to be.” His eyebrows narrowed in a quizzical glance he sent her way. “All those homework problems you used to ask me to help you with,” she recalled for his benefit. “I knew you could do them on your own.”
He’d forgotten about that. Forgotten a lot about his earlier life, the way things were when he was growing up and believed the world held so much promise. “What gave me away?”
“You ‘caught on’ much too quickly when I helped you with your math homework. You would have had to have understood the principle to some extent for that to have happened.” She smiled at him fondly, remembering evenings in the kitchen with books spread out, his and hers. She’d thought of him as the little brother she hadn’t been allowed to have. Michael, who had died long before he was a year old. “I think you were trapped between wanting me to spend time with you, helping you with your homework, and struggling to keep from trying to impress me with how bright you really were.”
He laughed quietly to himself. She’d hit the nail dead on its head. “You shouldn’t have become a nun, you should have become a detective.”
“I’ll keep that in mind as a backup career if teaching and nursing don’t pan out.”
He took a left turn at the end of the next long block, passing by a newly constructed strip mall. “You’re a nurse, too?”
She nodded. The order she’d joined had specifically encouraged her educational pursuits. “I thought getting a nursing degree would come in handy in the places that the order kept sending me to.”
“And that was?”
She rattled off the names of several small countries, some of which had already changed their name again. “Africa, for the most part,” she added, since that was the easiest way to keep track.
He could have easily made the yellow light up ahead before it turned red, but instead, he eased his foot off the gas pedal, switching to the brake. The vehicle slowly came to a stop.
The moment that it did, Caleb turned to look at her in sheer awe, her words playing themselves over in his
head. Try as he might, he couldn’t picture her braving the elements, going from village to village, dispensing hope and medicine. It was difficult enough picturing her in the traditional garb of a Dominican Sister, swaddled from head to foot in black with white contrasts and roasting beneath the hot, merciless sun.
He couldn’t have explained why, but he was suddenly glad that was all behind her.
Very little really surprised him. Somewhere along the line, between his work and Jane’s death, he’d lost the ability to be amazed. But this came close.
“You went to Africa?” he finally asked. “On your own?”
Being in Africa for all those long periods of time had a great deal to do with who she’d been and who she had become. “Yes, why?”
He shrugged. The light turned green and they continued on their way. “I just thought you were in some cloistered place, far away from everyone.” Like Rapunzel in the tower, he remembered thinking. He’d been baptized Catholic at birth, but neither he nor his parents before him had ever really taken an active part in any organized religion. And Jane had been a free spirit, embracing everything, singling out nothing. His image of what nuns actually did was very limited. “Fingering your beads and praying.”
Someone else might have taken offense at the near flippant way he regarded those who had dedicated themselves to the religious life, but she knew he didn’t mean to sound belittling. Something else was going on, something he tried to keep buried. Maybe it had to do with his line of work. She’d known more than one burned-out police officer.
“Praying was a large part of it,” she acknowledged, “but God helps those who help themselves. In my case, I was the one doing the helping.”
“In Africa,” he repeated, the slightest trace of wonder creeping into his voice.
“That’s right.”
Caleb thought about some of the articles he’d read in the newspaper and heard on the news over the years. Stories about wars between African factions and atrocities that were committed. “Were you ever in any danger?”
The 39-Year-Old Virgin Page 3