But the uncertainty, the confusion in her eyes, got to him. Caleb lightly touched her face, wishing he knew what the hell he was doing here.
“No need to be afraid. I’ll never do anything you don’t want to do,” he promised.
Claire shook her head, doing her best not to react to his touch, to the warmth of his hand against her skin. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of me. I’m afraid I’m going to wind up doing something that I shouldn’t.” There’d always been strict rules to follow. Now, she found herself not wanting to follow them. She raised her eyes to his. “This is all very new to me.”
He framed her face, not to kiss her, but to make her look at him, look into his eyes and into his soul because he really believed that she could. “Then we’ll take it very slow.”
Her pulse raced. No, she couldn’t start something now. Her mother needed her. And she still needed to sort out her head. This was just confusing matters, up-heaving everything she thought she believed in.
“We shouldn’t take it at all,” she told him, but her voice was far from firm, far from convinced.
His eyes never left hers. “Do you really believe that?”
Lying would have put an end to it. But she couldn’t lie. Maybe to herself, but not to him. Not when he looked at her that way.
She pressed her lips together and slowly moved her head from side to side.
“No.”
A hint of a smile played on his lips. Or maybe that was just a trick played on her eyes by the moonlight. He said nothing. Instead, he just took her hand in his and began to walk back to the car.
Oh, Lord, she thought. What am I doing here with him like this? What am I doing, period? She was supposed to be less confused by now, not more.
Only silence met her mental query. Apparently God wasn’t taking calls. She was on her own.
They said very little, allowing the radio to fill the silence that existed in the car. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Right now, empty chatter would have been far more uncomfortable. She needed time to think, to make order out of the chaos in her head. And yet, she knew that thinking wasn’t the answer.
Some things you couldn’t dissect. Some things just had to be.
And suddenly, in a sea of uncertainty, she knew what she had to do. As they made the turn that would eventually lead to her development, she looked at Caleb. She couldn’t pretend any longer that she didn’t feel something for him that went beyond friendship.
She’d left the order for a reason. To find her place in this secular world. She couldn’t do that if she was hiding.
“Take me to your house,” she said quietly.
Caleb’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. There was nothing he wanted more right at this moment than to take her. Here, at her house, at his. It didn’t matter where. But he didn’t want her to feel as if she was somehow coerced.
He slanted a glance at her. She had the face of innocence. “Are you sure?”
Claire took a deep breath before nodding her head. “I’m sure.”
Caleb laughed. “I’m taking you home. Your home,” he clarified in case she misunderstood him.
Stunned, she stared at his profile. “You’re turning me down?”
He had no choice. “Claire, just now, when you said you were sure, you looked as if you were bracing yourself for the dentist to begin drilling on a cavity. That’s not what it’s all about.” He knew she’d been a Dominican Sister for the last twenty-two years, but she’d had a life before she entered the order. “Don’t you remember?”
Claire stared down at her lap. “There’s nothing to remember.”
For a second, her words didn’t make any sense. And then it hit him like a runaway semi. “Are you telling me that you’re a…?”
If she looked at him, would she see pity in his eyes? Sometimes she was just too honest, but there was no getting around her admission. She peered back through the windshield. The world seemed very dark.
“Yes.”
“You never made love?”
“No.”
That didn’t seem to make sense. “But you were seventeen when you left.”
He sounded so incredulous, she couldn’t help laughing. “I was part of a silent majority. Not everyone was sexually active by seventeen.” She had several friends who claimed to have abstained. “My sense of God and mother—not always in that order—was very strong. Besides, at the time I hadn’t met anyone I wanted to be with. Before now,” she murmured after a beat. Caleb wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t making any comments. She began to feel uneasy. And foolish. “Say something. Please.”
“I’m overwhelmed.” He glanced at her as he slowed at a red light. “I thought women like you were like unicorns. A myth.” Everyone he’d known when he was that age was sexually active. He blew out a breath. “This puts a different spin on things.”
Of course it did, she thought. What normal, red-blooded male at his age would want to make love with a thirty-nine-year-old virgin? He probably thought she belonged on display in the Smithsonian.
She continued to stare out the windshield. “I understand.”
Caleb opened his mouth to stay something, then closed it again. Instead of speaking, he pulled over to the side and put his vehicle in Park.
“No,” he told her, “I don’t think you do. Being someone’s ‘first’ is a huge responsibility.”
“I won’t be grading you.” And then she shook her head, embarrassed at the flippant remark. “Sorry, that just slipped out.” Maybe this was for the best. She had no business complicating his life like this. Besides, this went against everything she’d been taught. Good girls didn’t have sex before marriage. That went for thirty-nine-year-old women, too. “This was a bad idea. I don’t even know why we’re talking about it.”
He continued just sitting there, the car idling. “Maybe because we can talk. There’s something about you that makes it easy. There always was,” he added, recalling times in his past. Then she had been an older, wiser woman. That had all been part of the crush he felt. Caleb put the car back into Drive. “C’mon, I’ll take you home.” But even before the words had left his mouth, his cell phone rang.
Caleb tensed. The life of a police detective was never a hundred percent his own. Unofficially, he was on call 24/7.
But when he glanced at the screen, he saw that the number belonged not to his partner or someone else at the precinct, but to his home. An uneasiness slithered through his stomach as he flipped opened the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Caleb.” There was a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. He recognized it immediately. Mrs. Collins. “I thought you’d want to know that Danny fell off his bed and bumped his head.” The woman sounded flustered and concerned. “I don’t know if you want me to take him to the hospital.”
He saw Claire looking at him, concerned. It took him a second to realize she was reacting to the expression on his face. Dire scenarios formed in his mind.
“Is he bleeding?” The moment the question was out of his mouth, he saw Claire stiffen.
“No, but—” Mrs. Collins’s voice trailed off. “Maybe I’m overreacting. I’m sorry, Caleb. It just happened so fast—”
He made no comment. Blame was useless. He had to get to his son. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” With that, he ended the call, closing the phone and stuffing it back into his pocket. He put the car into gear again.
“Don’t bother dropping me off,” Claire told him. “Take me with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Caleb, I’m also a registered nurse,” she reminded him. “I want to see Danny. If he’s hurt, I can assess the situation better than you can.”
He didn’t argue. Grateful for the offer, he turned his car around and headed straight for home.
The moment Caleb unlocked his front door, Claire edged him out of the way and made straight for Danny. The boy was lying on the sofa.
Mrs. Collins, who f
rom the top of her snow-white hair to the bottom of her sensible shoes looked like the personification of everyone’s ideal grandmother, wrung her hands as she hovered in the background, offering a profusion of apologies.
“It just happened so fast,” she cried. “One moment he was jumping into bed, the next, he was falling out the other side and there was this awful noise—”
“It wasn’t so awful,” Danny protested. He looked up at Claire. “I’m okay. Really,” he insisted.
“That’s a pretty big bump for okay,” Caleb commented, far from reassured as he moved the fringes of dark hair away from his son’s forehead.
Claire sat down on the sofa beside the boy, looking intently into his eyes. His pupils weren’t dilated, which was a very good sign. “How many fingers do you see?” she asked, holding two up.
“Five,” he answered. When she frowned slightly, Danny leaned forward and touched each of her fingers, the ones that she held up, and the ones she kept down. “I see five,” he repeated.
She laughed and hugged him. “Can’t argue with that logic,” she told him. Releasing Danny, she glanced over her shoulder at Caleb. “There’s no concussion.” He continued to appear dubious, so she added, “You can still take him to the E.R., but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the goose egg on his forehead is probably the worst of it. Do you have an ice pack?” she asked.
Caleb didn’t answer. Instead, anticipating her next statement, he turned on his heel and went to retrieve it from the freezer section of his refrigerator. He was back in a minute, holding it out to her.
“This should help a lot,” she told Danny, gently applying the ice pack to the lump on his forehead. “I want you to hold that there for a while, Danny. It’ll take the swelling down. And don’t worry,” she told him, lowering her voice as if she was sharing a secret with him, “your hair’ll cover it. Nobody has to know—if you don’t want them to.” She winked at him conspiratorially. In her experience, boys liked to show off their battle scars and brag about them.
“’Kay,” he said solemnly. Then, as she began to get up, he caught her hand, winding his small fingers around hers. “Miss Santaniello, can you stay with me until I fall asleep?” he asked hopefully.
Caleb intervened. Claire had already gone out of her way. “She has to get home, Danny.”
She saw the flash of disappointment in the boy’s eyes. That was all she needed. “No, that’s all right.” She ran her hand ever so lightly over the top of the boy’s head. “I can stay.” Claire raised her eyes to meet Caleb’s. “Why don’t you walk Mrs. Collins home while I get Danny into bed.” Even as she made the suggestion, Claire picked the boy up from the sofa and began to head for the stairs.
Dumbfounded, it took Caleb a moment to come to. He jockeyed for position in front of her. “He’s too heavy for you.”
Claire shook her head, shifting so that Caleb couldn’t take his son out of her arms. “I’m stronger than I seem,” she assured him as she began to climb up the stairs. Danny snuggled against her.
“She’s a very nice girl,” Mrs. Collins commented, hiking her purse up on her arm as she and Caleb walked out the front door.
Claire heard Caleb murmur, “Yes, I know.” She couldn’t explain why, but a small thrill shimmied up and down her spine—even as she tried to tamp it down.
It took a while for Danny to finally drop off to sleep. At first they talked and Danny asked her questions about her evening. But when he asked her if she liked his father, she thought it was time to pull out a storybook.
“But do you like him?” he asked.
“Of course I like your father,” she said, sitting down beside him with a book she’d selected.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because he’s a very nice man.” The book was one that promised a story a night for the entire year. Perforce, the stories were all short, each just about covering the length of a page.
“He used to be nicer,” Danny confided, leaning back against his pillow. “When my mama was around.”
“It’s been tough on both of you,” she agreed. “And some people take longer to get over things. You have to give your dad a little more time.”
“Could you stay here and be my mama?” Danny asked out of the blue. “He smiles when you’re here.”
“He’ll smile when I’m not here,” she assured him. “Just give him time,” she repeated. “And love him.”
“I do,” he told her, struggling to stifle a yawn.
Claire began reading.
Three stories later, Danny had dropped off to sleep. Very carefully, she closed the book. Then, watching the boy’s face for any sign that he was waking up, she made her way over to the bookshelf and replaced the storybook. She held her breath as she tiptoed out of the room.
Completely preoccupied with making a silent getaway, she didn’t realize that Caleb was standing in the hall right outside Danny’s room until she walked smack into him. She clamped down her lips, swallowing the startled sound that emerged. Her entire body went on red alert as her chest bumped up against his. Electric currents went shooting every which way from the point of contact.
She never said a word.
Instead, just this once, she allowed her instincts to take over, to lead her. A cauldron of emotions, hovering so close to the surface ever since the walk on the beach, boiled over. Her arms went around his neck.
He didn’t seem to need any more encouragement. Caleb swept her into his arms, kissing her with such unbridled passion she thought she would ignite right there.
Or at least melt into a heated puddle.
He hadn’t intended to do this. After dropping Mrs. Collins off at her house, he’d come upstairs to see how Danny was doing. But before he could enter the room, he heard them talking. It took him back to his own childhood. Back to when he was the one in bed and Claire was talking to him as if he were an adult, or so it had seemed at the time.
The warm feeling, mingling with relief that his son was all right, overwhelmed him. So he’d stood out there and listened as Claire and Danny talked. He was startled when Danny asked her to be his mother. That was when it really finally sank in. Danny missed his mother as much as he did.
He was about to go in, to say something to Danny in response to his son’s request, but then Claire had begun reading to the boy. The moment was just too special to interrupt, but he couldn’t force himself to leave, either. Because just standing out there and listening had somehow soothed his soul even as it took him back.
Gratitude welled up within him.
But the moment he saw her emerge from Danny’s room, gratitude suddenly turned into something more. Something that he couldn’t express verbally. So he did the next best thing: he acted on his feelings. And within less than a second, the pull between them had suddenly mushroomed and escalated.
Still kissing her over and over again, Caleb picked her up into his arms and made his way into his bedroom without saying a single word. Her arms tightened around his neck. He knew it was her way of saying yes.
Walking in, he shouldered the door closed, then crossed to his bed and placed her on top of the rumpled blue and white comforter. Claire gave no indication that she was about to release her hold on him so he went down with her.
The second their bodies touched, another, larger wave of heat, more urgent than before, flared over him. Consuming him. Caleb glided his hands along the outline of her body, caressing, absorbing, familiarizing himself with every curve, every line.
But even as his body turned into a smoldering inferno, he forced himself to draw back. If this wasn’t what she wanted, really wanted, he had to let her back away. Even if it ripped him to shreds.
“Claire.”
Oh, no, no, this wasn’t the time for a dialogue, or for any words at all. If she practiced restraint, if she struggled to allow a cooler head to prevail, she knew she was ultimately going to regret it. Because this might never happen to her again. She’d lose her nerve if she thought about it. And she nee
ded for it to happen. More than anything, she wanted to know what she had missed by stepping back from the secular world.
So she pulled him back down to her so that his lips moved against hers.
Claire shivered with anticipation as she felt his hands on her, her body straining against the confines of her clothes. And then, just like that, they weren’t on anymore. He’d gotten rid of both her clothes and his.
For a moment, embarrassment found her, threatening to steal her away from experiencing the rush that was, even now, undulating its way forward, up through her chest. And then, embarrassment splintered like brittle glass, disappearing as larger, more ethereal sensations took hold of her.
Everywhere Caleb touched, he just managed to make her want him more. She had no idea that so much longing could fill one person. Every inch of her was on fire with passion and desire. She’d felt passion before—passion for her work, for a cause, but all that paled in comparison to what she was experiencing right at this moment. It was as if something wild surged within her, gaining strength and magnitude.
She could tell he was holding back and for that, she was grateful, because she wanted to savor each new sensation, to explore it and make it her own. She could have sworn swirling lights and fireworks spun in her head. It all took her breath away.
He took her breath away.
And then, he was over her, weaving his fingers through hers. “Look at me,” he whispered against her temple. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
Until he’d said it, she hadn’t realized that her eyes were closed. Opening them, she looked up into his eyes, emotions racing through her at incredible speeds.
And then he entered her.
A shaft of pain shot through her, taking her breath away. She thought herself past it. She saw concern in his face and sensed that he was going to draw back. To shield her. She raised her hips and urgently thrust up against him, silently telling him that it was all right.
That it was more than all right. It was wonderful.
The next instant, a rhythm hummed through her as the pain receded. She moved to its tune. Moved with him until he brought her up to where she’d never been before. To the peak of the ionic storm, with each explosion larger than the last. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time. There seemed to be no end, no way to describe what was happening except that it was magnificent and she was at the center, hanging on for dear life.
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