Marrying the Marshal

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Are you even listening to me?” he asked, holding her captive in his beautiful, sage green stare. “You don’t have a choice, Allie. You have to at least be willing to give shared custody a chance. I’m not going away.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Adam said, pausing to pet a pony while strolling their way. “Why don’t you two just shut up already? Did you forget you’re wired for sound?”

  Allie shook her head. Bloody fantastic. As if the constant bickering wasn’t bad enough, she’d forgotten they had an audience.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so,” Adam said, taking a smashed Snickers from his jeans pocket. The pony sauntered up, apparently to check out the new smell. “Me and the guys took a vote, and bro, seems to us this whole matter could be solved easily enough by you just telling her how it’s going to be.”

  “Oh, really?” Allie said, hands on her hips. “And tell me, Adam, how are things going to be—according to the guys?”

  “First,” Adam said around a big bite of candy bar, “my brother’s got to propose. Then, you’ve got to accept. Then, the way we see it, the two of you—and Cal—live happily ever after.”

  Caleb snorted. “Great plan, there, stud. Only one problem.”

  “What’s that?” Adam asked, cramming the last half of the candy into his mouth.

  “I have no intention of proposing.”

  “That’s good,” Allie said. “Because I have no intention of accepting.”

  “HE’S REALLY YOUR DAD?” Billy Stubbs asked Cal in gym class Monday morning.

  “Yep.” Cal couldn’t help but puff out his chest with pride.

  “And you really didn’t know?” his friend Nathan asked.

  “Nope. Mom lied. She said he was dead.”

  His friend Reider whistled. He was the only one in their class who could do it, so when he did, everyone paid lots of attention. “You mad at your mom?”

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t you be?”

  Clara Holmes, whose parents had been divorced twice, making her an expert, said, “I’ve been thinking, you should use this to get a new Xbox. Maybe even an electric scooter.”

  “Really?” Cal’s eyes got all big.

  “You should listen to her, Cal,” Bart Henning said. “I know my parents only got divorced once, but you can get lots of good stuff. All you gotta do is act all sad—but not so sad they make you go to a head doctor. Just sad enough that they buy you lots of good stuff to cheer you up. Right before Dad moved out, I got a new baseball bat and glove and gobs of candy.”

  “Cool!” Billy said. “I wish my mom and dad would break up.”

  “You gonna live with your dad now?” Clara asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cal said. “I s’pose.”

  Clara said, “You know that means you never get to see your mom again?”

  “Really?” Cal looked around at his group of friends, and every one of them was nodding.

  Except for Billy—he was picking his nose.

  “When my mom got her second divorce,” Clara said, “we had to move here. I never get to see my real dad anymore. So if your parents get divorced, you’re gonna have to pick.”

  “But I don’t even think they’re married,” Cal said.

  “They have to be married,” Billy said. “Elsewise how’d they have you?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Cal sighed. “So if I go with Dad, does that mean I don’t get to keep my room and bike and stuff? Or do I get to just kick Mom out and tell Dad to stay?”

  “You’d kick your mom out?” Sam asked. “She makes good cupcakes.”

  “I know,” Cal said. “But she lied.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Guess she’ll have to go.”

  Clara said, “One thing you better do before you get rid of your mom is find out if your dad knows how to cook. Otherwise you’ll have to eat pizza every night.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Billy asked.

  “Sounds good at first,” Clara said, “but trust me. After eating nothing but pizza every night for years and years and years, you get sick of it.”

  “HEY, BABY,” Allie said when she walked in the back door late that afternoon, finding Cal at the table doing homework. “Look what I brought for dinner. Your favorite.” Careful not to drop it, she waved the pizza box she’d had to beg her driver to take her to pick up.

  He gave her a funny look, then went right back to long division.

  “How’d you do in gym today? Make anymore soccer touchdowns?”

  He shook his head. “And they’re called goals. Touchdowns are for football.”

  “Cal…” She took a deep breath. “Are we ever going to be friends again, or are you going to keep being mad?”

  “Being mad.”

  “Okay…” She set the pizza box on the counter and slipped off her coat, tossing it over the back of the chair. “Baby, I know you still have times when you’re angry with me about your dad, so if you want to yell at me, go for it.”

  He said nothing, just sat there, staring at his paper.

  “I get it that you’re ticked I lied,” Allie said. “I’m sorry. Really sorry. But at the time, it seemed like the best thing to do.”

  “And now?” he said. “Would you do it again?”

  What a big question from a little boy. “Truthfully,” she said, easing onto the seat beside him, “I’m not sure.”

  “You always tell me never to lie to you. How come you’re allowed to lie to me?”

  Allie swallowed hard. “You’re right,” she said. “It wasn’t very nice of me—or fair—to lie to you. But at the time, I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “That’s stupid,” he said with a vehemence she hadn’t known he possessed. “You taught me honesty’s the best policy. But that’s only for kids?”

  “No, honey.” She sighed. Swiped her fingers through her hair. “When I lied, I thought I was protecting you.”

  “From Dad? Is he dangerous?”

  “No. Of course not. Caleb—he’s a wonderful man. Kind, considerate. Brave. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

  “Then how come you didn’t want him to be my dad?”

  “Good question.” Very good question.

  “HE ASLEEP?” Allie asked Caleb later that night. While he’d tucked in their son, she’d been in the living room, reading the same page of her latest stack of court briefs for the fifteenth time.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Did he want to talk about it?”

  By it, they both knew what she meant. He’d been in a mood all afternoon. Caleb shook his head. “All he wanted to know was when I’m getting his rooster. Guess some girl at school told him since we’re getting a divorce, he gets presents.”

  Allie wrinkled her nose. “But we’re not even married.”

  “Try telling that to Clara. Seems she knows more about life than either of us.”

  “Clara.” Allie sighed. “That’s another kid I’ve never heard of. Where are they coming from?”

  Caleb shrugged, helping himself to the lounge chair beside her. “You ever miss having a wood-burning fire?” he asked, staring into the sterile gas flames.

  “Sometimes. I miss the smell mostly. Remember that cabin we rented our sophomore year? It had a gorgeous rock fireplace. I ate so many s’mores I thought I’d barf.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “And here I’d forked out big bucks to spend a wild night in the bedroom—not to watch you hug the bathroom throne.”

  “Sorry,” she said with a misty smile. They’d been so good together back then. Right up until she’d gotten pregnant, she’d never considered spending the rest of her life with anyone but him. He’d been everything to her. And maybe some small part of her had secretly hoped his love for her would be enough to sway him into practicing office law instead of the Wild West variety.

  When she’d told him she was pregnant, she’d secretly expected him to fall to his knees, proposing that not only they immediately merge their private lives into a marriage, but the
ir professional lives into a shared private practice. When after a week of his knowing about the baby, he hadn’t done either of those things, she’d gone into defense mode. Saving not only her spirit, but her pride. The “losing the baby” story—sheer desperation. For if she couldn’t have all of Caleb—his absolute love and support of their marriage along with his commitment to keep himself safe for not just her, but their baby—she didn’t want him at all. Couldn’t want him. For the day-to-day terror of not knowing if he’d walk through her front door—or a pair of fellow marshals, to tell her of his untimely death—would not only be the death of their marriage, but her.

  “What’re you thinking about?” he asked, still staring into the flames.

  “Life,” she said. “How differently things turned out from what I’d expected.”

  “You mean us?”

  She nodded.

  “That night,” he said. “At your rental house? The last night we fought. I left…”

  “Yes?” She leaned closer.

  “A few days later, I came back. I wanted you to marry me. But you were gone.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, willing her pulse to slow. “Were you also planning on ditching your plans to become a marshal?”

  “No. And since when was my entering the marshal’s service even an issue?”

  “Since the day you first told me that’s what you wanted to do.”

  “That’s b.s., Al.”

  “Oh, so just because your personal safety is a hangup of mine, it’s b.s.? Remember, Caleb, it was you who left that night—not me.”

  “Yeah, but you’d just handed me this bomb. What was I supposed to do?”

  Her eyes welled.

  “Don’t you get weepy,” he said. “Not when you were the one who ultimately ran away. I came back for you. I was going to marry you. Make it right. But no-o-o, you’d taken the coward’s way out by running off. Oh, that was real mature.”

  She shook her head. “See? Even in the midst of this beautiful speech about how you’d come back for me to ask me to marry you, you still throw out that wretched phrase.”

  “What phrase?” he demanded.

  “Making it right,” she said with a cocky sway of her head. “Ooooh, now that’s every girl’s dream proposal. That’s right on up there on the romance scale. Ties with winning a bride in a poker tourney.”

  “Look,” he said. “Just because—”

  Caleb’s cell rang.

  “Dammit,” he said under his breath. “Sorry. Better get it.” He flicked open the phone, the whole while never breaking her stare. “This is Caleb.”

  “Hey there, son. I hear congratulations are in order.”

  “Dad. Um, hang on a sec.”

  “Sure,” his father said.

  He covered the mouthpiece, then stood, saying to Allie, “Be right back. And I want to pick up right where we left off.”

  “Me, too,” she said, eyes suspiciously misty.

  Caleb walked to the kitchen. “Okay,” he said. “Now I can talk.”

  “You on duty?” his dad asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why couldn’t you talk before?”

  “Geez, Dad. Does it matter?”

  “You weren’t trying to steal another kiss from your boy’s momma, were you?”

  Caleb groaned. He could just see the grin lighting his old man’s eyes.

  “Good grief,” Caleb said. “My sister has the biggest mouth this side of the Mississippi. And no—I wasn’t trying to kiss Allie. Just talk.”

  “I liked her,” his dad said. “Seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders. Well, at least until…But since she didn’t lose the baby after all, well…Why didn’t you ask her to marry you the second you found out she was pregnant? That would’ve been the honorable thing to do. I raised you better than—”

  “I was going to ask her to marry me. She took off.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh. So I don’t see why my family is all of a sudden taking her side.”

  “There are no sides here, son, except for your boy’s. We just want to welcome him into our family. Making nice with his mom is a big first step.”

  “I know,” Caleb said. “So can I please get back to doing just that?”

  After enduring a brief lecture on never being too old to be scolded for talking back to his father, Caleb finally hung up and headed back to the living room.

  Where Allie had fallen asleep.

  He was covering her with the red blanket from the back of the sofa when she bolted awake. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “That’s okay.” She covered her mouth while yawning.

  “Sorry about the call,” he said. “Guess I should’ve let voice mail answer.”

  “It was your father,” she said. “You had to get it. And quit apologizing for everything, Caleb. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Then how come I feel like I’ve done nothing but screw up ever since I got here? Especially when you’re the one who had a secret.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Am I wrong?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “No,” she said. “But I’m tired. Tired of fighting. Of worrying about Cal’s safety and my own….”

  He sat in the chair beside her and she curled onto her side, looking sleepy and beautiful and vulnerable.

  “Just for the rest of this night, Caleb, can’t we call a truce?”

  “Sure,” he said, against his better judgment. He was ready to grant her anything, anytime.

  Chapter Nine

  Not long after their truce, talk drifted to making up for lost time—namely, swapping dating disasters. “Didn’t you forget one?” Allie asked.

  Grimacing, Caleb said, “Once you’ve had a blind date with a female mortician who’s idea of a good time is finding just the right hairstyle for her latest client…” His wince pretty much finished his sentence.

  Sipping her mint tea, trying to pretend her next question didn’t mean as much as it did, she asked, “What about the woman from the I-5 Waffle Hut?”

  He sat up straighter. “Where’d you hear about her?”

  Allie’s stomach fell. He wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he still had feelings for her, was he? “I, um, was talking with Adam one day and he brought her up.”

  “Mmm…Delores,” he said with a wistful nod. “Along with a certain pair of large, melon-shaped assets, she made damn good coffee. Guess that’s why I didn’t mention her. She was more delicious than disaster.”

  Allie rolled her brief and swatted him.

  “Ouch!” he complained. “What was that for?”

  “I don’t know. Just felt like you needed it.”

  “Why?” he teased with a cocky grin that stirred heat all the way to her toes. “You threw me away. Shouldn’t the rest of the world’s female population have a shot?”

  Allie was in trouble.

  When Caleb was charming like this, he was at his most dangerous. He reminded her how much fun they used to have. How much life they used to share. But that was a long time ago. They were different people now.

  “Okay, wait a minute,” Caleb said. “I told you about Delores and Penny, who played beauty shop on dead people. When do I get the scoop on your illustrious social life?”

  “Ha!” Allie laughed. “What social life?”

  “You can’t be serious,” Caleb said. “You’re a hottie. How can I be your only guy?”

  “Oh, puh-lease. I’d hardly call myself hot. And I didn’t say you were my only guy. Just that I haven’t dated that much.”

  “All right….” Leaning forward, rubbing his palms together, he said, “Let’s hear it. Who was your last major fling?”

  “Well…” It took her an embarrassing few seconds to even remember. Truthfully, usually after one or two dates, she knew she hadn’t liked the guy even a fraction as much as the father of her son, so what had been the point in leading the guy on? “There was that hunky Juvie Court judge I had a
wild fling with at the National Judicial Conference in Vegas.”

  “For real?” His eyebrows shot up.

  “What’s the matter, Cowboy Cal? You jealous?”

  Caleb froze.

  Cowboy Cal.

  She used to call him that in the heat of sex. Based on his love of all things Wild West, it’d been their little joke. And judging by her flushed cheeks, he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her slip.

  He cleared his throat. “Guess I should get back outside, huh? Let you get back to work.”

  “You on duty?” she asked.

  “Nope. Officially off.”

  “Then stay,” Allie couldn’t believe what she’d just suggested. “I have a perfectly proper guest room. You can be here in the morning when Cal wakes up.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Doesn’t sound kosher.”

  “You’re probably right.” She pretended to be busy tidying her court documents. “I don’t even know why I asked.”

  “So? Why did you?” Caleb angled on his chair to better face her. She looked weary. Big, brown eyes tired and red. Long, blond strands had escaped her ponytail, lending her the look of a naughty little girl. When she was made up, Allie was a stunning woman. But he’d always liked her best like this. Natural. Honest. Or at least she used to be honest. Now, he wasn’t sure what she was. Other than no longer his.

  “Who knows why I asked.” She sighed. “Maybe because once I tuck Cal in for the night, I get lonely.”

  Caleb knew that cost her a lot to admit.

  “Then why not date?” he couldn’t help but wonder out loud. “We’ve already established that you’re hot.”

  “You established,” she said with grin.

  He rolled his eyes. “Bottom line, I’d think lots of guys would want to go out with you.”

  Casting him a wistful smile, she said, “That’s just it. I’ve had guys want to go out with me, but I can’t say I wanted to spend extended periods of time with any of them.”

  What about me? Did the fact that she wanted him there all night, sleeping just down the hall, bear any special significance?

  “Sure. I get it,” he said. And he truly did. Because he felt the same about not dating other women. Even when he found someone whose company he thought he could enjoy, once he got to know her, he’d discover her to be nothing like Allie. She wouldn’t have her humor. Her drive and fire. Her goofy love of Chia Pets. But where did that leave them? Essentially, just because Allie and him had forged a tentative new friendship, it didn’t mean anything. Not of significance. Their son was still at the heart of the trouble between them.