by Ruthie Knox
When he finished, he walked up the stairs to her room and opened the door just wide enough to lean against the jamb and look at her in bed. She had her face turned toward the window, but she seemed softer than she’d been when he brought her lunch. Almost soft enough to touch. The need to touch her was burning him up.
“Play the one about me,” she said quietly.
“They’re all about you.”
“Not the first one.”
“You’re right, that one’s about the Shrimp. But the Shrimp’s still part of you.”
She looked over at him then, her blue eyes troubled, and sighed. “I’m scared, Jamie. The music helps. Go play me another song.”
So he played her another song. But he walked over to the bed and kissed her first, gentle and undemanding, with his fingers resting on her wild coppery curls.
She let him.
“Caleb, sweetie, you look like hell,” Nana said with her customary good cheer. “Get in here. A chocolate-chip cookie will fix you right up.”
He appreciated the thought, but it was going to take more than a chocolate chip cookie. Especially one of Nana’s.
Lifting the casserole dish he held in his right hand, he said, “I’m just dropping this off.”
Katie’s idea. She’d pretty much taken charge when he staggered into the house this morning—one long look, and she’d shoved him toward the shower, saying, “Clean up. Change your clothes. Come back out here, and I’ll feed you.” She got him to eat, but she couldn’t make him tell her what had happened with Ellen. He wasn’t ready to talk about it. Didn’t need to hear where he’d gone wrong.
He hadn’t had to tell her about punching Richard. She’d already found the pictures on the Internet by the time he got out of the shower.
They went in to the office together, waiting for the order to come through.
It didn’t come quite the way he’d expected. Breckenridge clearly wanted to fire him, but the company didn’t have the manpower to take over the job. They’d tried telling him what to do from afar, but he’d refused to go along with that. He was an independent contractor. If they wanted to fire him, they needed to terminate his contract. If they wanted to put him underneath someone else, that someone needed to show up in Camelot. Until then, Caleb was going to run the show.
So they had a guy on the way, and when he showed up, Caleb would be relieved of command.
The phrase made him wince.
It was only a civilian job. He knew that. Getting his contract with Breckenridge canceled wouldn’t be in the same league as losing a command. It didn’t carry the same disgrace.
But even though it was a civilian job and he hadn’t lost it yet, he felt as if he had. And he felt dishonored, discarded, and foolish.
Even if they didn’t end up firing him, his company was circling the drain. There would be no more business coming his way from Breckenridge, and without it, he wouldn’t have enough work to keep the money coming in.
After the shoe dropped, Katie had pushed him out the door, insisting he go see what was happening on Burgess.
Everything was happening on Burgess, same as yesterday. Three-fifty or four hundred people waiting for Callahan to show his face or the mysterious Carly to come out and wave to the crowd. He’d run himself ragged keeping it all under control, and when he turned up at home around dinnertime, Katie had put the casserole in his hands and steered him right back out.
“Your turn to take Carly her supper. Try to be cheerful. Whatever Ellen did to you, it can’t be as bad as what Carly’s doing to Jamie.”
It was worse. It had to be worse, because Carly loved Jamie, and she’d take the guy back eventually.
Ellen didn’t love him. She didn’t even want to try.
I want my life back. She couldn’t have made it any clearer that she didn’t need him in it. He’d become an inconvenience, a complication, and Ellen didn’t like things complicated—didn’t like anything she couldn’t keep firmly under her thumb.
He’d known that. It was his own damn fault, the whole mess.
Nana peered at his left hand, which didn’t look so hot. He’d cleaned it out, but he hadn’t bothered to dress his knuckles, and they kept closing over and then cracking open again. His fingers were bruised, blue-black. His hand looked about as unsightly as he felt.
“You really clocked him, huh? I wish I’d seen it. Richard has had that coming for years.” She tugged his arm. “Come on in. I’ll put something on your hand. It must sting.”
It did sting. He was ignoring it. He’d ignored a lot worse.
Inside, Nana disappeared into the bathroom, probably searching through her store of ointments. Jamie was sitting at the piano playing something slow and bluesy, but he stopped when he saw Caleb.
“Hey,” he said, hopping up off the bench and walking over to meet Caleb in the middle of the room. “You’re the man of the hour.” He stuck out his hand, and Caleb shook it awkwardly with his right, puzzled. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for punching that worthless crapsack in the face. If you ever get another chance, I hope you’ll take it. I’ve been wanting to punch him for years, but he’s never given me a good enough excuse.”
Caleb managed half a smile. “You ever punch anyone?”
“Does stage fighting count?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then no. Is it worth the busted knuckles?”
“If you’re busting them on Richard’s face, absolutely.”
Jamie grinned at that, rocking back on his heels. “So what’s this I hear from Breckenridge about them sending in a new guy?”
“I’m being demoted.”
“I don’t get it. What are they knocking you down for?”
“You name it, I’ve probably screwed it up.”
Jamie frowned. “They weren’t real happy about the concert, huh?”
“Nope. Or the fact that I came out of your sister’s house half-dressed at five in the morning and got into a brawl with her ex-husband in front of the press. Your guy called that ‘ethically questionable, at best.’ ”
“But you did what they hired you to do.”
“My idea of what they hired me to do is different from theirs.”
Caleb didn’t want to talk about it. He was still coming to terms with this version of himself—the one who failed to follow orders, failed his family, failed to win Ellen over.’
“What’s up with Carly?” He looked upstairs at her closed door.
“She won’t talk to me.”
For a man who was getting the cold shoulder, Callahan had a strangely satisfied expression. Caleb raised his eyebrows, and Jamie explained, “I’m making progress. She’ll cave eventually. I’ll be here when she does.”
Carly shouted from behind her door, “Is that Caleb out there? Get your ass up here, Clark. I need someone to play poker with.”
“Play with Callahan,” he called back. “I’m in no mood.”
“Jamie can’t bluff to save his life, and you’re supposed to be nice to me because I’m sick. Come up here before I die of boredom.”
He glanced at Jamie, who shrugged and said, “Whatever the woman wants.”
Nana appeared with a deck of cards and a box of matches, which she handed over. “To bet with,” she said. “Stop in the kitchen before you leave so I can fix up those cuts.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Carly sat up straighter when he came in. He hadn’t been inside her room since he was about thirteen. She’d redecorated. But the decor didn’t interest him as much as the tray of uneaten food on her bedside table. She didn’t look so hot. There were shadows under her eyes, and her color was off.
“You have to eat.”
“God, not you, too. They’ve been plying me with food all day. I’m not hungry. I had a stomachache, anyway.”
That caught his attention. “Stomachache isn’t good.”
“Jamie-induced. It went away. Give me the cards. And that tray.”
He did, and she took the food of
f so she could use the flat surface to shuffle on. “Sit down, Clark,” she said. “We’re playing seven-card stud.”
They played a few hands for matchsticks, but he couldn’t keep his head in it, and even though Carly managed her usual steady stream of shit-talking, she wasn’t at the top of her game, either.
“What happened to your hand?” she asked, rubbing her temple with two fingers.
“Punched Richard Morrow.”
“Nice. Did Ellen faint and call you her hero?”
“Ellen told me to take a hike.”
“I have to say, Clark, you might actually suck at this relationship stuff worse than I do.”
“At least I can play poker.”
Carly massaged her left shoulder in her right hand. “Yeah, I’m kind of sucking at poker. Maybe we should play Go Fish instead.”
“Go Fish is for little kids.” He stood up. “I have to get home.”
Her hand shot out and wrapped around his wrist. “Don’t. Please stay for a little while. It helps keep my mind off … everything.”
He studied her. She was rumpled and small, with tired, scared eyes and more bravado than any one woman should possess. He felt sorry for her. It was marginally better than feeling sorry for himself.
With a sigh, he sat back down. “I don’t want to talk about Ellen.”
“Fine. Deal the cards.”
Jamie started playing something on the piano, and Caleb and Carly settled into a game of strategy best suited for eight-year-olds. After a few minutes, she rubbed her temple again, then stretched her shoulders as if they were bothering her.
“You have a headache?” he asked.
“Little bit.”
He put down his cards. “How long have you had it?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“How long?”
“Since this morning,” she admitted.
“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”
“Nothing.”
He stared at her until she started to squirm. “It aches. But I’ve been laying in bed all the time. Of course I’m going to have some aches and pains.”
He stood up and peeled back the covers from her feet.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Caleb wrapped his hand around her bare ankle and pressed his thumb against her skin for a few seconds. When he took it away, the imprint remained in her swollen skin. Edema.
“You need to go to the hospital. Don’t move.”
She swung her legs over to the side of the bed, and he pointed a finger at her and raised his voice. “Don’t even think about it. For once in your life, you’re going to listen, and you’re going to keep your ass right there.”
Carly’s eyes widened with the first flash of panic.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, more gently. “The baby will be fine. But you need to go to the hospital. I’ll handle it.” He left the room.
“Callahan,” he called as he took the stairs two at a time. “Can you pick her up?”
“Carly?”
“Yes, Carly. Can you carry her, or do I have to do it?”
Jamie gave him a blank look.
“She needs to go to the hospital. She has a headache, shoulder pain, edema, and a stomachache. Those are all signs of preeclampsia. Can you pick her up or not?”
“Yes.”
“Get her and carry her down to my car.” Caleb tossed him the keys. “I’ll meet you out there. Tell Nana to stay put. I’m going to send Ellen over for her.”
He walked out of the house, through the yard, and straight up to Ellen’s side door, where he pounded for what seemed like a long time before she opened it. For half a second, he thought he saw something in her eyes. Something good, like hope. Delight. But whatever it was, she killed it off quickly and fixed her lawyer expression in place.
“I’m taking Carly and your brother to the hospital. I need your help. Can you and Henry go over and pack up some of Carly’s stuff and drive Nana over? The quicker, the better. I don’t know where to find Carly’s purse with her insurance card or any of that, but Nana should know. She can’t handle it by herself, though.”
“What’s wrong with Carly?”
“Nothing, I hope.”
“I don’t understand. You said—”
He wanted to touch her, but he stopped himself. She’d asked him to back off. “Ellen. Focus. Can you do it?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you.”
As he walked away, he heard Henry ask, “Cabe doin’?”
Ellen said, “Caleb is taking care of Carly now, Peanut, and you and I are going to grab your diaper bag and go for an outing to the hospital …”
Her voice faded as he crossed back to Carly’s driveway. He didn’t think about it. Refused to think about anything except the mission at hand.
“Eric!” he called, jogging to the SUV. “We’re taking Short to the hospital. Callahan’s going to be with us. I need you to call ahead to hospital security and tell them what’s happening. I’ll be pulling up to the ER entrance. Tell them to let us through and Ellen’s car, but nobody else. It’s going to be a madhouse over there within an hour. They need to be ready for it. Tell them we can loan them men, and have them call me if they need to. Then call Katie and tell her what’s going on. Tell her I want Sean with me, and I might need her at the hospital, too. You stay put and keep the show running here. Nobody gets into either house. You understand?”
“Got it.”
Caleb glanced up to see Jamie putting Carly into the backseat of the car. “All right. Clear the barricades for me. We’re out of here in one minute.”
By the time he reached the car, Jamie had Carly inside and buckled in. He was leaning close, holding her hand and speaking soothing words in her ear, and Carly looked a little less scared than she had in her room.
“Okay, Short Round,” Caleb said as he pulled out onto Burgess and a dozen camera flashes went off. “Here’s where all your years of reckless driving pay off. Tell me again what the fastest route to the hospital is.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Carly threw up in Caleb’s nice car, and then she threw up in the wheelchair on the way to Labor and Delivery. Her headache got so bad, she wished someone would take pity on her and lop off the top of her skull. Instead, the nurses hustled her into a hospital gown and stuck her in a bed with an IV in her arm.
She’d seen that Baby Story show enough times to know the scary music was playing now, and it was time to either be brave or dissolve into helpless, mascara-streaking tears.
Carly had no problem with brave. She’d been born brave. It would be easier if she didn’t feel so astonishingly horrible, and if she weren’t terrified for the Wombat, but she could suck it up. She was going to be a mother. Sucking it up was her job now.
They’d given her some kind of steroid to help develop the Wombat’s lungs more quickly. She knew what it meant, even if no one seemed to want to say it out loud. It meant the Wombat might be breathing air soon. It meant they might have to take the Wombat out of her body before being pregnant killed her.
Being brave meant not thinking too hard about this. Which wasn’t a problem, because the ice pick in her head made thinking kind of unpleasant anyway.
Every single inch of her skin itched like mad. “Scratch me,” she told Jamie, who sat beside the bed, holding her hand.
“Hmm?”
“I’m itchy. Make yourself useful.”
He smiled at about a quarter of his usual wattage and shook his head. “It’s the magnesium sulfate,” he said, gesturing toward the IV. “The nurses said it might do that. I don’t think scratching’s going to help.”
The magnesium sulfate was to keep her from having a seizure. Another thing she didn’t want to think about. “Then distract me,” she demanded, squeezing her eyes shut. “Tell me something good.”
She felt the bed dip beside her as Jamie sat down on the edge. Behind her lids, she could see him—his tousled blond curls and those blue eyes soft with co
ncern. He had on jeans that probably cost as much as her car payment and a Western-style shirt with pearl snaps that made him look like a rodeo cowboy. The sexy kind, not the real kind with manure on their boots. She hoped she hadn’t puked on it. She really liked that shirt.
“This would probably be a bad time to tell you I love you,” he said.
“Terrible,” she agreed. But she squeezed his hand tighter, and something near her sternum got all warm and buttery. Heartburn.
The mattress bucked and creaked as Jamie maneuvered awkwardly, moving behind her, curving his body around hers. He wrapped an arm over her and snugged their clasped hands to her breasts. “Okay?”
She took a deep breath and relaxed against him, grateful for his warmth and the rise and fall of his chest. Grateful he was here. She tried to remember why she hadn’t been speaking to him, but her head hurt, and she decided high blood pressure and the possibility of seizures gave her a free pass.
“The Shrimp has hair now,” he said in his warm-honey voice. “He weighs more than three pounds, which is the same as four navel oranges.”
“That’s the least helpful weight comparison ever.”
He smoothed her hair back and kissed behind her ear. “Don’t blame me, I read it online. He has toenails, too. I figure that means he’ll do okay, even if he has to be born soon. Hair and toenails—those are the finishing touches, right? He’s all done cooking. The rest of the pregnancy is just to fatten him up.”
It was a comforting thought, and she liked knowing Jamie had been reading about the Wombat on the Internet. Also, her headache didn’t bother her as much with him holding her.
“It could be a girl,” she said.
“Yeah. What are you going to call her?”
“I don’t know.”
A nurse came in, took her blood pressure, and made an announcement Carly couldn’t follow about protein in her urine and ultrasounds and the doctor’s schedule. Jamie listened. Carly decided to delegate listening to him. The nurse left.