The 39-Year-Old Virgin

by Marie Ferrarella

  Claire gazed down at him and tried to read between the lines. The orange juice could wait. She sat down beside him on the sofa, her eyes never leaving his. “What happened tonight?”

  “Nothing,” he retorted. “I just had some time to think, that’s all.”

  He’d said nothing much too fast, she thought. She began to understand why he said so little. It was because he didn’t lie very well. She studied his face for a long moment.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “You do know that it’s a sin to lie to a sister of the Dominican order, don’t you?”

  His eyes narrowed. Was she having second thoughts about her decision? Had making love caused her to want to return to the shelter of her previous life?

  “I thought you said—”

  “Even an ex-sister of the Dominican order,” she amended. And then she became serious again. “What happened tonight?”

  In general, tonight had been a huge success. They’d broken up a kiddy porn studio tonight. But he’d taken a bullet to the chest when they stormed the floating studio. If he hadn’t been wearing his bulletproof vest, or if the shooter’s aim had been a bit higher, he wouldn’t have made it back tonight.

  As it was, the impact of the shot had knocked him off his feet, dazing him. Ever since Jane’s death, he’d been wishing for oblivion, praying for death. But now that it had almost happened, the first thing on his mind had been Danny. From what he had heard and seen, from everything that Jane had told him, there was nothing worse for a child than to be passed around within the foster system. He couldn’t do that to Danny. But not everything was within his control. Which was where Claire came in.

  He looked at her. She was still waiting for an answer. Knowing that Claire wasn’t about to back off without something, he shrugged, trying to make the incident insignificant. “There was a raid tonight and there was gunfire—”

  The moment he said it, her eyes lowered, looking for a sign that he’d been hit. When she didn’t see anything immediately, she pulled apart his jacket to make sure he wasn’t hiding something.

  That was when she saw the hole in his shirt.

  “Whoa.” Pulling back, he stilled her hands. “I didn’t get hit.”

  “Then what’s that?” she demanded, nodding toward the hole in his shirt.

  He looked down even though he knew what she was referring to. “That’s where the bullet met my vest,” he told her matter-of-factly.

  Claire’s eyes widened. Her thoughts began to scramble and she had to grasp on to them to keep them from flying in directions she didn’t want to go. “Oh God. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her gruffly, although her concern did touch him. More than he was comfortable about admitting. “It just knocked the wind out of me—and started me thinking about Danny.” He looked at her. “You haven’t given me an answer.”

  Did he really think he needed one? “That’s because it goes without saying. Of course I’ll look after him. Just have the papers drawn up, I’ll sign them. And hope we never need them,” she added with feeling. Claire rose to her feet again. “Now wait right here and let me get that juice.”

  Caleb leaned back against the sofa again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiled to herself as she left the room. It took her exactly two minutes to get the juice, pour it into a glass and return with it.

  The same amount of time it took Caleb to fall asleep.

  Looking at him, her smile widened. He was staying the night after all.

  Claire set down the glass on the coffee table, in case he woke up and wanted it. Seeing him like this, she thought he almost looked peaceful.

  About time.

  She covered him with the throw that hung over the back of the sofa and quietly backed away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What are you doing about Thanksgiving?”

  Crouching beneath the master bathroom sink like an early Christian martyr doing penance, Caleb had thought he was alone. The sound of Claire’s voice caught him off guard and had him smashing the top of his head against some very unforgiving porcelain.

  He swallowed a curse—just barely—and crawled away from the pipes he was still reattaching to the brand-new sink he’d installed earlier. Sitting on the ice-blue tile—installed last week—he looked up at her. His expression at the moment was far from friendly.

  Caleb rubbed the top of his head. Tiny devils with tinier anvils shot through his system. It was all he could do not to wince. “I’m letting it happen, same as I do every year.”

  Claire shook her head and crouched down beside him. She preferred being eye to eye with Caleb when she was trying to convince him of something.

  “No, I mean do you have any plans?” He was still looking at her as if she had suddenly lapsed into some foreign language he couldn’t begin to place. Once more with feeling. “Are you and Danny invited anywhere?” she enunciated slowly.

  As a matter of fact, Ski had extended an invitation just the other day, but he refused to take his partner up on it. The man was already way too chummy. He didn’t need to get to know the man’s wife and two kids any better than he already knew them.

  “No.”

  She thought as much. She had no idea just where this relationship of theirs was going to go, but she didn’t want either him or his son spending the holidays isolated. “Well, you are now.”

  Knowing where this was going—and what the probable outcome was going to be, he was still going to make her work for it. He didn’t want her feeling too confident. This despite the fact that they, he, Danny and Claire, were spending more and more time together. They’d gone to Knott’s Berry Farm just the other weekend, finally using the tickets that Mrs. Collins had given him plus buying two more because Claire’s mother had come with them. Danny had insisted on pushing the wheelchair that Margaret had been forced to use in order not to become too tired. Everyone had had a good time, even him.

  They were becoming a unit. The thought would have worried him if he allowed himself to dwell on it. But every time his thoughts became introspective, he shut them down. To dwell on them would have made him instinctively pull back. Because he’d anticipate pain at the end of the road. It was a given.

  “Where?” he deadpanned.

  “Here,” she answered. “It’d be good for Danny, good for my mother.” She actually needed this as much as Caleb did, she thought. “She’s not doing too well again,” she confided. She’d seen it coming for a while now. The lab workup at their last visit confirmed it. The short-lived remission was officially over. The leukemia had returned and was aggressive. “Having Danny around helps her forget about things.”

  Caleb studied her for a moment, trying to ignore the fact that being this close to her aroused feelings he still tried to keep under lock and key. He wasn’t successful. She looked so hopeful, so enthusiastic, he was finding her increasingly difficult to resist.

  “So this counts as a good deed if I say yes?”

  Her head bobbed up and down vigorously, her silky red hair brushing against his bare arm. “Definitely.”

  For a second, he struggled against the urge to pull her into his arms. But her mother or Danny could walk in at any moment and he wasn’t ready to let anyone else know that his feelings were not as removed as he wanted them to be.

  His eyes searched her face for some sort of indication. “What about you?”

  She wasn’t sure she understood what he was asking. Maybe she was too caught up in watching his mouth, she thought, upbraiding herself. “What about me what?”

  He rose to his feet, dusting off his hands on the back of his jeans, then gave her a hand up, as well. She came up a little too fast and a little too close. Crowding his space. Crowding him. He didn’t mind nearly as much as he should have.

  Belatedly, he remembered to let go of her hand. “You said having us over would be good for Danny and your mother. What about you? Would it be good for you?”

  The very words brus
hed along her skin, waking up every single pulse point on her body. Her eyes held his and she heard herself saying, “That goes without saying.”

  He surprised her by running his finger down her nose. It was a playful gesture that was completely out of character for the adult Caleb. But not for the boy she had once known.

  “Nothing goes without saying,” he told her. With that, he turned away, feeling much too compromised at the moment. He began rummaging through the toolbox on the counter. He needed to get back to work if this sink was going to be functioning by the time he left.

  She found herself addressing his back. “That is a very odd philosophy for a man who could give the Sphinx a run for its money.”

  He glanced up at the mirror, their eyes meeting briefly via their reflections. “The Sphinx doesn’t run.”

  Claire laughed, shaking her head. “Are you baiting me?”

  The shoulders beneath the faded denim shirt rose and then fell in a careless movement. “Maybe, just a little. I have so few hobbies.”

  This was the old Caleb, she thought happily, the one she remembered so fondly. The one who had a sense of humor about himself. “Protecting and serving and being the world’s best handyman isn’t enough for you?”

  Finding the tool he needed, he closed the box. “I’m hardly the best.” He snorted.

  Taking hold of him by the shoulders, she deliberately turned him around to face her. “You show up like clockwork. You refuse to let me pay you and you complete every job you start. And you take on jobs that you don’t have to.” She paused for a second. “If that’s not the best, then I don’t know what is.”

  A smile played on her lips, but it was fairly obvious to him that Claire no longer was talking just about his being a handyman.

  His eyes met hers. “Maybe it’s because you haven’t had any experience…in handymen,” he added significantly.

  “Some things,” she said as she felt a blush creeping up along her neck, feeding up onto her cheeks, “you just know. I don’t need to take an extensive survey—a survey of any kind, actually—to prove that I’m right. It’s a given.” She didn’t need experience to know that he was a patient, giving lover. If the experience hadn’t been as wonderful as it was, the guilt of having wantonly made love would have eaten away at her until there would have been nothing left. As it was, she had to struggle not to let guilt take possession of her in the wee hours of the night, when the world was blackest and all things bad were magnified.

  So much for working, Caleb thought, placing the tool back down on top of the toolbox. He glanced toward the doorway to make sure that neither Danny nor her mother were there. He didn’t want to be overheard. This was far too personal.

  Taking hold of her arms, Caleb looked at her for a long moment. Who would have ever thought…?

  “You know, you’ve been on my mind ever since…”

  She nodded. He was struggling to put this into words and she didn’t want him to feel as if he was on the spot. “Yes, me, too.”

  “I’d like to take you out again. Just the two of us,” he emphasized in case she misunderstood. Hell, he would have liked to take her right here, on the tile floor he’d installed. Only an exceeding amount of restraint kept him from acting on his impulse. “And then bring you home again,” he added so that his meaning was clear. “I find myself thinking about you when I shouldn’t be.”

  He found it harder and harder to keep his mind on his work while at work. That had never happened to him before. He had an iron will and could channel his thoughts as needed. His ability to concentrate, to focus on only one thing, was exceptional.

  Until now.

  Lately, thoughts of Claire would break in, like interference on an out-of-area radio station. Damn, but she had scrambled his head. If he knew what was good for him, he’d grab his son and head for the hills.

  But he didn’t know what was good for him. He just wanted her. “I want to make love with you again,” he told her, his voice low but no less intense for the lack of volume.

  Her mouth curved. Everything he’d just said went twice for her. She stood just inside the threshold of a brand-new, brave world, stripped of her common sense and incredibly eager to go forward. What would the other sisters have said if they could have seen her now? They probably would have all fervently prayed for her soul—while she prayed for something else.

  She was blaspheming—so why did she feel like smiling? No one had warned her that being in the secular world would be so complicated.

  “You’ve been sent here to tempt me, haven’t you?”

  “If anything,” he theorized, “it’s the other way around. How about tomorrow evening?” he pressed. Tomorrow was Sunday, low-key and unhurried in comparison to a Friday or Saturday night. It seemed like a perfect time to go out.

  To his surprise, she shook her head. “Monday’s Halloween.”

  He didn’t see the connection. “Are you planning to turn into a bat at midnight?” he asked.

  “No, I meant that I’ve got things to prepare. My class—”

  “Claire, are you afraid of me?”

  “I told you once. It’s not you I’m afraid of. It’s me.” Because he was coming to mean so much to her. Both him and his son and despite all the obstacles she tried to set up.

  “That makes sense. You’re the scariest person I know,” he deadpanned. When she looked at him, he grew serious. “Because you make me feel things again, things I swore to myself I’d never feel. Things, God help me, I want to feel.” Even as he resisted, he thought. Caleb took her hand. “None of this has been easy for me, either. But you’ve made me realize that if you don’t risk things, you’re not alive.”

  He was giving her way too much credit. He’d done all the hard work. She was just there to pick up the slack once in a while. “I made you realize that, huh?”

  He was deadly serious. “Yes.”

  She ran her hand along his cheek and felt a slight ripple travel through her palm and up her arm. “I guess I’m better than I thought.”

  He took her into his arms. “You have no idea.”

  Before she could say anything, he was kissing her again. Kissing her and making everything swirl around her, just like before. Except that her reaction happened far more quickly. Because she knew what was out there, what was waiting for her if she only let herself be swept away. There was no doubt about it, Caleb had the most incredible effect on her.

  “Tomorrow,” she murmured when he drew back again, an eternity later.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I’ll go out with you tomorrow. You asked, remember?” she reminded him. Taking a step back, she blew out a long breath, trying to get her bearings. “I’d better go start dinner. You’re invited, by the way. You and Danny. But then, you already know that.”

  “Yes,” he said under his breath, watching her leave the room, enjoying the way her jeans hugged her hips as she moved. He was going to have to get a grip, he told himself. But not yet. Not yet. “I already know that.”

  As she wove her way slowly up and down the aisles, proctoring the math exam her students were taking, Claire couldn’t keep her thoughts from drifting beyond the classroom’s gaily, holiday-decorated four walls. A great deal had happened in such a small space of time.

  On the home front, Thanksgiving had turned out to be a huge success, despite the fact that the turkey required an extra hour in the oven. On a whim, she’d invited her cousin Nancy, Nancy’s husband Patrick and their four kids to the dinner.

  When he’d realized that there was going to be more people at the table than just the four of them, Caleb tried to beg off. But she succeeded in twisting his arm, pointing out how mingling with new people was good for Danny. She’d also taken him aside for a moment as he wavered and added that this was important to her. She didn’t know how many more Thanksgivings her mother would be able to have.

  It was a cold, hard truth, something she didn’t like to think about, but she was not above using it to gain what she felt was b
est for everyone’s sake. Faced with that, Caleb reluctantly changed his mind. Part of her knew that no one could make the vice detective do what he didn’t want to do. Since he’d agreed, it meant that at least part of him wanted to be there.

  It was progress. Tiny steps perhaps, but progress.

  In more ways than one.

  Since their initial night of lovemaking, she’d been with Caleb three more times and each time had turned out to be better than the last. They kept improving on perfection. But it hadn’t been without cost. Because of all her religious training, there had been remorse, regret and surging stings of guilt that marred the euphoria. She did her best to hide those feelings but she knew that Caleb picked up on them. And just perhaps, they had added fuel to the struggle she knew in her heart he had to be going through himself.

  They were on a rocky road, but she was determined not to let her fears keep her from moving forward. Because the rewards were so precious.

  They were a little more than two weeks away from Christmas and there were a naked Christmas tree standing in the middle of the family room, waiting to be adorned. The four of them—she’d insisted that her mother come along and at least watch from the car—had selected a real tree from one of the nearby lots last night. To her surprise, Caleb, of his own volition, had brought each viable candidate over to the car for her mother to cast her vote for or against. Danny had excitedly brought up the rear while a none-too-happy lot owner suspiciously watched.

  It had turned out to be a great bonding experience for father and son. In the end, her mother had picked out the tree that was in their family room—after consulting with Danny.

  Looking over the sea of bent heads, Claire couldn’t remember when she’d been happier.

  Lost in thought, she didn’t hear it at first. Not until it became louder and several of the children looked up and toward the door.