His voice sounded a little deeper as he continued to give her directions. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he was a short adult. Glancing at him, Claire smiled to herself.
“You know, you look just like your dad did at your age.”
The comparison stunned him. “My dad was my age?” he asked in wonder.
She knew how surprised she’d been the first time her mother had shown her a photograph of herself as a child with her own parents. It took her a while to wrap her mind around the fact that her mother hadn’t always been this slender five-foot-two redhead. “He certainly was,” she told the boy.
Danny leaned back in his seat, taking the information in. “Wow.”
She liked all children, but even after knowing him only a few minutes, she could tell that Danny was something special.
“We all start out as little people and get bigger,” she told him matter-of-factly. “Your dad was pretty much a handful back then. Getting into all sorts of stuff.” In the beginning, he’d kept her on her toes, resenting the fact that a girl had been placed in charge of him. But eventually, budding hormones kicked in and he began to see her in a new light, she now realized. She spared Danny a quick look as she took another corner. “So, are you like that?”
“No, ma’am.” He wiggled a little, as if his answer left him somewhat uncomfortable. She sensed a little mischief in the boy, which she’d always believed was a good thing, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
“So, you live with your Dad.” It wasn’t really a question but a rhetorical statement since the boy had said he wasn’t allowed in a car except with his father or the other person he’d named. She wondered why he hadn’t mentioned his mother.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who’s Mrs. Collins?” Maybe his parents were divorced and that was the way he referred to Caleb’s girlfriend.
“The old lady across the street who stays with me until my dad comes home.”
Old. To someone Danny’s age, that could be anyone twenty and up, she thought. “Where’s your Mom?” she asked casually, glancing at his profile as she waited for him to answer.
She saw his face crumble. Her heart tightened in her chest in empathy even though she wasn’t sure just what was coming.
Danny sighed deeply. “She’s gone.”
For a moment, there was silence. Claire tried to gauge what his answer meant. Had there been an acrimonious divorce? Had his mother just taken off with someone, leaving him behind?
Or…?
“Some bad guys killed her,” the small voice said, barely rising to the level of a whisper. Danny turned his head and gazed out the side window. “Last year, when I was little,” he added, talking to the glass.
“Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry.” She ran her hand comfortingly along his arm, knowing just how he had to feel. That would explain the dark look on Caleb’s face when she’d said what she had about him going home to his son and his wife, she realized suddenly. She turned back to watch the road. Why hadn’t Caleb said anything? “You know, I lost my dad when I was just a little older than you,” she told Danny.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy look at her in wonder.
“You did?” he cried.
“I did.” Her father had succumbed to a heart attack at an incredibly young age. Thirty-nine wasn’t nearly old enough to leave behind a wife and child, she’d always thought. “It’s rough, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” The situation built an instant camaraderie between them. Danny shifted in his seat. “My dad’s real sad,” he confided. “He doesn’t want to play or anything anymore now that my mom’s gone.”
Claire tried to recall anything that looked or sounded half as lonely as Danny did at that very moment. She failed.
That evening, as he approached his house, it took Caleb a moment to place the vehicle parked beside his front curb. When he did recognize it, he assumed it had to be a coincidence. Someone else in town had to own a cherry-red vintage 1968 Mustang besides Claire Santaniello.
But one glance at the license plate told him that while there might be other cherry-red Mustangs out there on the road, this particular vehicle was Claire’s.
He looked at the plate again, but he knew he hadn’t made a mistake. He had a penchant for remembering details, he always had, a little trick that had not only helped him in school, but in being a detective.
Not that any of that mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.
But, if he was being honest, he had to admit that on some far-off plane, his curiosity had been aroused.
What the hell was Claire doing here?
Had something happened to Danny? he suddenly wondered, a tightness seizing his chest. Wouldn’t they have called him from the school if it had? He glanced down at the cell phone clipped to his belt, tilting it to see if there were any messages that had come in, their announcing beep muffled by the noise of everyday life around him.
There were no messages.
Which meant Danny was okay.
He let go of the breath he was holding. But then, why was Claire here?
Unlocking the front door, Caleb walked in and called out, “Mrs. Collins?” The woman always remained until he came home. But this time, he didn’t hear the sound of shuffling feet as the moccasins she favored rubbed against the rug. She rarely lifted her feet high enough to break contact.
In response to his voice, Claire, a towel tucked around the front of her skirt like a makeshift apron, came walking out of his kitchen. For the moment, Danny was nowhere to be seen.
“Hi.” She greeted him with a radiant smile. “She’s not here. I told her I’d stay with Danny until you came home.”
He stared at her. “What are you doing here?” he asked. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her expression. Would she be smiling if there was something wrong?
Caleb decided he really didn’t know her all that well. A great deal of time had passed since they’d known one another at all.
He expected the worst because the worst usually happened. “Something happen to Danny?”
When she’d decided to stay, Claire had first called home to check on her mother, then called Nancy on her cell to make sure that everything was really all right because Nancy had promised to drop by her mother’s during the day. Nancy had assured her that her mother was indeed doing well.
Her conscience temporarily at rest, Claire had turned her attention to the immediate problem at hand: Danny’s all but decimated self-esteem.
“Yes,” she answered cheerfully. “He’s learned that he can cook.”
Caleb could only stare at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What?”
“I’m having Danny help me prepare dinner.”
“Dinner?” Caleb began to feel a definite kinship with a village idiot.
Claire’s head bobbed in response. Wisps of soft red hair that had come undone from the pins she’d placed to keep it up moved independently, making her look like some kind of storybook fairy with an apron. “Uh-huh. As I recall you used to love to eat.”
“I don’t love anything anymore.” The words had just come out of their own accord, but ultimately, it was the truth. His capacity to love died the same moment that Jane had drawn her last breath.
“Except Danny,” Claire corrected, her eyes warning him that there was only one acceptable answer to what was phrased as a coaxing question.
“Yeah—” he shoved his hands into his pockets “—except Danny. That goes without saying.”
And he did, Caleb thought defensively. He did love his son, but he couldn’t seem to display it. He felt trapped, separated from everything around him by a wall of thick glass. He could see everything, but touch nothing, reach nothing. It was all just out there, just beyond him.
So the best that he could do was provide for his son and see that the boy was taken care of. If the boy wasn’t getting his quota of demonstrative love, he’d make it up to Danny down the line. Soon. Just not now. Not yet.
“But
it should be said,” Claire told him gently. “And often.”
Not wanting to get into an argument, he ignored what she said. “Where is he?” Caleb asked, looking around the room.
“In the kitchen. C’mon.”
She led the way back as if this wasn’t his house and he didn’t know his way around. Did she always take over like this? He tried to remember, but his childhood memories were clouded with prepubescent budding surges of lust and desire.
“We didn’t have all that much to work with,” she confessed, even though, midway through, she’d made a quick run to the grocery store with Danny. “But we did the best we could.” She turned toward her energetic assistant. “Didn’t we, Danny?”
Danny, wearing a makeshift towel/apron jauntily about his middle just like Claire, was kneeling on a stool that in turn was butted up against the counter. There were splotches of flour on his face and hands, not to mention on different sections of his torso, the “apron” not withstanding.
The boy’s eyes, Caleb thought, looked brighter than he’d seen for a long while. Something very distant within him was glad.
“What is all this?” he asked in a voice that comprised equal parts of bridled impatience and confusion.
“Dinner. It’s called chicken la—” Stumped, Danny looked over toward his mentor for help.
“Chicken à la King,” Claire supplied brightly. “I told Danny that was your favorite.”
If the woman smiled any wider, her lips were going to split, Caleb thought, annoyed. He didn’t want anybody in his house when he came home at the end of the day. He just wanted to retreat in peace. Having Claire here forced him to at least be semisociable.
“Yeah, a long time ago.” He shook his head as if to clear it. Dinners ordinarily were delivered by adolescents with either a pizza embossed on the side of their car, or a fading green dragon with a bobbing head affixed on the top of their roof. To his knowledge, there was next to nothing except for beer, milk and bread in his refrigerator. “Where did the chicken come from?”
“The grocery store,” she answered without missing a beat. “I did a little shopping,” she confessed and glanced at the boy on the stool. “Danny helped.”
“What is it that you’re doing here—besides cooking?” he said before she could restate the obvious.
“I drove Danny home.”
Caleb glanced over at his son, who seemed to be intent on the job he’d been assigned. “Danny walks home.”
“I know, he told me,” she said, absolving the boy of any wrongdoing in case Caleb thought that Danny had asked her to bring him home. “But this time, I thought he needed a ride.”
Caleb looked over to see if there was any telltale sign of injury somewhere on his son’s person. There wasn’t. If he wasn’t hurt, why couldn’t he just walk home the way he always did?
“Why?”
This looked as if it was going to get complicated, Claire thought. She made an impulsive decision.
“Excuse us for a second, Danny. Keep stirring,” she instructed. Danny nodded solemnly and did as he was told. Claire hooked her arm through Caleb’s and led the surprised-looking man off to the side, where, unless he suddenly started shouting, their voices wouldn’t carry. “Did you know that he gets picked on at school?”
No, he hadn’t known, Caleb thought, keeping his face immobile. Danny had never said anything. He grew defensive of his son.
“He can take care of himself.”
“Can he?” she pressed. Before he could answer, she continued, trying to make him aware of what he should have already known. “He’s not you, Caleb. He’s a much sadder, withdrawn little boy. And that makes him a perfect victim for bullies. I defused one situation today and I’ll look out for him on the school grounds as much as I can, but while I was driving him home, he talked a little—” Caleb looked at her sharply. “Just enough for me to find out that you lost your wife.”
Indignation rose within him. He felt as if he’d been invaded. “That’s not any business of yours, Claire.”
“We’re all connected in this world and you’re my friend. And you and your son are both hurting,” she pointed out, making her case. “I think that makes it my business.”
“Danny’s okay,” he insisted.
But Claire shook her head. When he turned away, she grabbed his arm, pulling him back around. Forcing him to listen. “Danny lost his mother—and, from what I’m picking up, just possibly his father, as well. That definitely is not okay.”
Because this was Claire, he struggled to hang on to a temper that had become dangerously frayed this last year. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do—”
“Do you? From where I’m standing it looks to me as if you think I’m butting in.”
His eyes narrowed. But try as he might, a section of him couldn’t fault her. “Well, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said without reservation, completely taking the wind out of his sails.
“Miss Santaniello, it’s bubbling,” Danny called out to her urgently.
The discussion they were having would wait. “Excuse me, my assistant needs help.”
She left Caleb speechless and staring.
Chapter Six
“You’re not going to stay?” Danny asked, watching her pick up her purse.
The dinner was made and she and Danny had finished setting the table. He’d looked a little confused when she’d had him put out only two place settings but he didn’t voice his concern until after she’d brought out the food and he saw her getting ready to leave.
Caleb had said nothing, moving off to the side and observing the activity in silence. She was aware that at one point, he’d been watching her every move and she couldn’t gauge if he was holding his tongue out of politeness or if some other emotion governed him. Heaven knew his expression wasn’t readable. He probably made a marvelous poker player.
Pushing her purse strap up on her shoulder, Claire paused to lightly run her hand through the boy’s thick dark hair. With affection, she brushed some away from his eyes. His hair was a little long, a little shaggy, but she liked that. If he followed his father’s path, she judged that Danny would be an undoubted heartbreaker in another few years. Caleb, she had to concede, was an extremely handsome man.
“I think your dad would prefer that it’s just the two of you for dinner,” she told him.
She glanced over toward the family room a few feet away. Caleb sat on the sofa, flipping through channels at an exceptionally fast clip and pretending not to listen—but she could tell by the tilt of his head that he was.
Danny turned his head to look at his father, clearly disappointed by the turn of events. “Can’t you tell him you’re staying, Miss Santaniello?” Danny asked. “You’re a teacher. He can’t say no.”
It was painfully obvious that the boy was hungry for attention and affection, Claire thought. This was something that needed to be worked out and she fully intended to do it. More than anything, she felt that that sort of thing was her mission, her calling. But for the time being, she’d butted in as far into this family as she could.
“It doesn’t work that way, Danny,” she told him. “This is your dad’s house and I can’t just invite myself to dinner.”
“Why not?” Caleb asked, rising and crossing over to her and his son. The question took Claire entirely by surprise. “You invited yourself in to cook.”
“Well, you and Danny needed to have something for dinner,” she explained, then spread her hands innocently. “Inviting myself to share that dinner might be taking too much for granted.”
Caleb’s expression remained somber. He circled her slowly. A tiny, distant part of him delighted in putting his babysitter on the spot. Just how much surprised him. The ache created by watching her go through the same paces in the kitchen that Jane used to also surprised him. He forced himself to squelch a bittersweetness wrapped in anger.
“And what you did up until now isn’t?” he asked.
Claire neve
r wavered. She’d faced down hostile soldiers bent on wiping out the village where she was ministering. Caleb McClain was a pussycat in comparison. She raised her eyes to his. “You would have told me to leave if it was.”
Fair enough, he thought. “I’m not telling you to leave now.”
Her lips widened in a smile. “Is that a backward invitation?”
Glancing at Danny, she saw that his more somber mood was dissolving, replaced by a glimmer of hope.
Something exceedingly maternal stirred within her. He was a darling, darling boy. If she’d had children, she would have wanted a son just like Danny.
“You cooked it, you might as well stay to have some,” Caleb said, shrugging. Moving past her, he raised the lid from the Dutch oven on top of the burner. “Looks like you made enough to feed an army.”
Claire slid her purse strap off her arm, leaving her purse on the counter. “No, just a couple of hungry men.” She ruffled Danny’s hair and he grinned at her. “As I recall,” she said to Caleb, “you liked leftovers.”
For a long moment, Caleb said nothing, he just watched her. When he’d first realized who she was at the restaurant the night he came to her rescue, a fragment of pleasure had surfaced. Just for a second. But in the face of the tragedy that existed in his past, pleasure didn’t last and so that fragment quickly faded.
Both then and now, he wanted nothing to disturb the equilibrium he’d managed to reach. It allowed him to function, which was the only thing he was concerned about. If he couldn’t feel, so much the better. It kept the pain from destroying him. In the long run, though he might not agree now, it was also best for Danny. At least his son wouldn’t see him have a meltdown.
But having Claire here put an immense strain on the locks of the gate that kept out all that pain, all those feelings.
“You recall too much,” he told her, his voice as flat as the Mojave Desert.
“Maybe you don’t recall enough,” Claire countered. Her voice was light, but the look in her eyes burrowed right through him. It made him momentarily regret his offhanded invitation. But before he could say anything, the woman who had made herself so at home in his house turned toward his son. “Let’s go wash up, Danny.”
The 39-Year-Old Virgin Page 6