by Ruthie Knox
“Of course he’s cold. You hurt his feelings. He’s manly. That’s how manly guys do hurt feelings.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. Though she did, a little bit. How else would Caleb be when in pain but strong, controlled, and silent? “He doesn’t care anymore.”
Jamie had the gall to laugh at her. “Maybe you don’t need a Frisbee. Maybe you need, like, a baseball bat.”
“Quit it.”
“Quit what?”
“Quit picking on me when I’m down.”
Jamie leaned over and plucked her forearm off her eyes, dropping it on the bed beside her head. His face was as familiar as her own, and as she studied it she realized he wasn’t trying to pick on her, not really. He was trying to help her.
“Ellen, what are you afraid of? That you’ll go after him and he’ll say no, or that you’ll go after him and he’ll say yes?”
She was afraid he’d turn her down. That Caleb no longer loved her, or maybe he never really had. She was afraid he’d be cruel, and his cruelty would wipe out all her good memories of him.
She opened her mouth to tell Jamie all that, and she said, “Losing myself.”
Oh. Damn. There was the Frisbee. There was the sensation of getting smacked in the face with the truth. She couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs.
It wasn’t about Caleb. Once again, what she was afraid of had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her whole life. The way her mother had pushed her into Jamie’s shadow. The way Richard had cultivated her dependence and girdled her self-confidence until she became someone she didn’t recognize.
She’d fought so hard to find herself after a lifetime of being who other people wanted her to be. Jamie had helped, and so had Henry, but ultimately it had been her fight, and she’d won it. She’d built herself a fortress on Burgess Street in Camelot, Ohio, and stalked around the battlements, proud and independent. Nobody was going to get inside again. Nobody was going to help her, because she’d finally figured out how to be sufficient all by herself.
After a lifetime of depending on people, it had felt so good to be enough that she’d turned it into a vice. Independent Ellen didn’t believe in love. She didn’t need romance. And she didn’t recognize the best thing that had ever happened to her until she’d driven him away.
Jamie quirked an eyebrow. “You just had, like, a million different expressions on your face over the space of five seconds.”
“The Frisbee,” she said.
“Ah.” He leaned back and dusted off his hands. “My work here is done.”
Ellen’s heart raced. She sat up and tugged on his sleeve. “No, you have to help me figure this out.”
“What’s there to figure out?”
How could she fix it? She’d fallen in love with Caleb, but she’d treated him like dirt. Meanwhile, she’d handled her asshole ex-husband like a man worthy of concern. “I picked Richard over him. Richard. God, how terrible am I?”
“Not terrible. Just stupid.”
“Oh, thanks. That’s really helpful.”
“No, it’s all right. Love makes everybody stupid. It’s a cliché for a reason.” He stood and shouldered the bag. “I have a fiancée and a baby to get back to.”
“You’re mean,” she said, because he was abandoning her when she needed him.
“You already figured it out, Ellen. Now you have to decide what you’re going to do about it. I can’t help you with that.”
On the way out, he stepped over Henry, who had ground several Doritos deep into the nap of the bedroom rug. “Sayonara, Squirt. See you soon.”
“Sy-nara,” Henry said. “Sy-nara means?”
“It means goodbye,” Ellen said. Jamie flashed her a quick smile and left.
“Your water is?” her son said, and she picked him up and went looking for his sippy cup.
A few days ago—God, had it only been a few days ago?—she’d asked herself what she wanted, and she’d decided she wanted to be a Chiclet. Now she knew she’d been fooling herself. She’d wanted Caleb. She still wanted Caleb. The whole Caleb, not some imaginary version she’d constructed to suit her fantasies. But she was letting fear keep her from going after him. Fear imposed on her by the past—by her mother’s warped priorities and her own juvenile decisions.
Caleb wasn’t Richard. He was the furthest possible thing from Richard. She’d told him not to manipulate her, not to push her around or play games with her, and he’d done as she asked. Unless you counted the fence, which she didn’t really, because he hadn’t felt he had a choice, and he’d been right. Weasel Face was the same thing—Caleb had been trying to protect her. Yes, he should have said something, but he didn’t have to be perfect for her to love him. Nobody got everything right all the time.
“There it is, baby,” she said when she located the sippy cup under the kitchen table. She set Henry on the ground and let him crawl underneath to retrieve it.
Caleb respected her opinions. He didn’t always agree with them, and he didn’t roll over and let her get whatever she wanted, but he respected them. Where Richard would have told her she was wrong, Caleb had said, “Let’s negotiate.” Where Richard had made her feel small and worthless, Caleb had made her feel beautiful, sensual, and appreciated. He liked her and admired her. He made her laugh. He made her come like a freaking freight train.
She loved him. Was she really going to let the legacy of a crummy childhood and a worse marriage keep her from finding out if she and Caleb could build something together? Something better? Something incredible?
She could be stupid, but she wasn’t that stupid. Not anymore.
Ellen looked at the clock. It was already a quarter past five. Opening the drawer in the phone table, she pulled out the slim Camelot phone book and flipped through to the Cs.
There it was: Clark, C. 501 Brooklyn Ave. 437-3372.
If she’d wanted to know where he lived, all she’d had to do was look in the damn phone book.
“You want to watch a movie while Mama takes a shower, Peanut?”
“Yas,” Henry said. “Watch the train one.”
If they hurried, they could be at Caleb’s in time for dinner.
Chapter Thirty-one
Caleb had just dropped his bloodstained T-shirt into the laundry basket when he heard Katie’s question from the back patio. “Where’s the cake?”
“What cake?” He rummaged through his drawer for a clean shirt.
“Clark’s cake. You know, the one you were supposed to pick up today?”
Shit. He’d forgotten about the cake. He’d forgotten about the whole party.
“Sorry, I spaced it. Can you pick it up? I have something I need to do.”
He’d made up his mind up on the roof—he was going over to Ellen’s. His father was right. Ellen was the problem he needed to fix. She mattered the most.
Ever since he’d come back to Camelot, he’d had the nagging feeling he wasn’t good enough—that he’d performed well in the army, where there was a structure, but as a civilian none of his skills would matter. He’d set the bar pretty damn high: rescue his family, launch a successful business, talk Ellen into happily-ever-after in the space of a few days.
No wonder he kept falling short.
His dad was right. He’d been doing his best. His best was all he had. If his best turned out not to be good enough, he’d do something else. Life would go on. There were no medals for being exemplary at security work, anyway. Only satisfied clients, if he did the work well. People who were safer because of him.
By any objective standard, he’d done fine over on Burgess Street. Ellen and Henry, Carly and Dora—they were all safe and healthy. But the job wasn’t done, because he’d fallen in love with Ellen, and only a complete jackass would give up on that as easily as he had.
Katie stuck her head through his bedroom window just as he pulled the new shirt over his head.
“Christ, Katie. A little privacy?”
She ignored him. “What do you
have to do that’s so important you can’t pick up the cake?”
“I’m heading over to Ellen’s.”
He didn’t have a clue what to say when he got there, but he’d think of something. He loved her, and he knew she had some feelings for him. It hadn’t all been a game. He wanted Ellen Callahan in his life, and he was going to keep turning up on her doorstep until she either convinced him they had no future together or fell in love with him. It might take months or years to bring her around, but he had time. Whatever effort it took to win her trust and her heart would be worth it if he got Ellen.
Backing off was for losers.
“You’re going like that?” Katie asked. “There’s blood on your shorts, and you’ve got caulk on your ear. Plus, your hand is gross.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“If you showed up at my door smelling like you do, I wouldn’t let you talk to my dog.”
“You don’t have a dog,” he said, irritated because she was right. He’d been sweating in the sun for hours. He smelled awful, and he needed to shave. He’d been so focused on getting over to Ellen’s, he hadn’t given any thought to what kind of impression he’d make. “You don’t even have a door.”
“Don’t rub it in. Look, I’m all for anything that gets you out of the mood you’ve been in, but you can’t just turn up at her house with your dick on a plate. You need a strategy.”
He sat down on his bed with a heavy sigh. “I suppose you’ve got one for me.”
“No, since you won’t even tell me what happened. But I do know you don’t have enough time before the party to clean up, woo your woman back, have make-up sex, and get home before the lasagna’s cold. Which means you’re going to have to save your big move until after our guests go home.”
He glanced at the clock. Five thirty. She was right again. Damn it.
“I can go pick up the cake,” Katie said. “You take a shower and sign the card for Clark. It’s on the table. I wrapped your present for you.”
“What did I get him?”
“Some horrible video game Amber doesn’t want him to have.”
Perfect. “Thanks. You’re a good sister.”
“I’m your best sister,” she said with a smile, withdrawing from the window. Then, abruptly, she popped her head back in. “Oh, and Caleb? Wear that black shirt. No woman could resist you in black.”
“You made fun of me last time.”
“I didn’t want your ego to get too big. Truth is, you’re sex on legs in that shirt.”
By the time he’d gotten dressed and signed the card, Katie was back, and the rest of the family showed up soon afterward and commenced talking too loudly and letting the kids and the dog run wild. As he pulled plastic knives and forks down from a kitchen cabinet, the doorbell rang, and his nephew Jacob sprinted to answer it. Caleb was en route to the dining room, huge salad bowl in one hand and a stack of disposable dishes in the other, when he looked up to see Jacob escorting Ellen into the room, Henry on her hip.
She wore a floaty white skirt that almost reached her knees and a red top that showed off her tanned shoulders. She looked incredible, like an ice cream sundae or a glass of cold lemonade—the essence of summer and woman in one amazing package. She also looked nervous, and Caleb realized suddenly that everyone had stopped talking and turned to stare at her.
The polite thing would be to introduce her, but he couldn’t find his tongue. Couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Hi,” she said finally.
“You came,” he managed to reply. The words were a hoarse croak.
“I hope I’m still invited.”
Always, he thought. But he was having trouble with his throat.
He’d never had the balls to imagine her in his house, surrounded by his family. Never once. And here she was, ballsier than him. His Amazon.
Katie came to his rescue. “Hi, Ellen. Hey, Henry. Welcome to Casa de Clark. Caleb, you want to introduce her around, or are you just gonna stand there and gawk?”
He shot Katie a look meant to convey his intense displeasure, but she only smiled, sweet and evil.
Caleb gave it a shot. “Everybody, this is my … Ellen. And the little guy is Hank.”
“Henry,” she said.
“Right. Don’t call him Hank unless you want to get your head bit off by his mother. She has a fierce bite. She’s a lawyer.”
Ellen smiled at him. Just a small smile, but big enough to give him the shot of courage he needed. Caleb smiled back. “Ellen, honey, this is my family.”
Holy hell, Caleb’s mother was that Mrs. Clark. Janet Clark from the Admissions Office. Ellen had met her several times at college functions. She was sharp and beautiful and terrifying.
Actually, “beautiful and terrifying” pretty much summed up the female side of the Clark family. Katie had shampoo-commercial hair, straight and sleek, and Caleb’s older sister, Amber, was supermodel tall and slim, despite having given birth to three sons.
The male Clarks were more approachable. The boys couldn’t sit still or keep their hands to themselves at the dinner table—pretty much the essence of boyness. The puppy was supposed to be sitting in the corner, learning how to obey commands, but they kept sneaking it scraps of food under the table, and the adults kept pretending to care. Caleb’s father sat on her right, down-to-earth in a red baseball cap, with an easy smile that matched his son’s. Amber’s husband turned out to be the hard-hat-wearing construction guy Ellen had been extremely uncivil to on the morning she yelled at Caleb for putting up the fence. His name was Tony, and he seemed friendly enough, if preoccupied with the kids.
Caleb was on her left, at the head of the table. She wasn’t sure yet what he thought of her being here. They hadn’t had a second of privacy, but a few times when she glanced his way, his eyes were on her, intense and possessive in a way that made her shivery.
My Ellen, he’d said.
Thank goodness she had Henry on her lap to keep her firmly grounded in reality. He dropped lasagna on her white skirt, screamed when she offered him milk from a cup with no straw, and knocked over the salad dressing, spilling a generous daub onto the tablecloth. He also made it impossible for her to carry on anything but the briefest, most superficial conversations.
Instead, she ate her dinner, tried to keep Henry pacified, and listened to the family banter flowing around her. It didn’t take her long to figure out that despite his complaints, Caleb’s family genuinely liked one another. They joked around, but they also took time to ask questions about the details of their lives, and the kids received just as much attention as the adults.
At home, Caleb was just as he’d been everywhere else she’d interacted with him, but more so—an irresistible blend of solid and witty, confident and caring, easy and commanding. Maybe that’s why she’d been afraid to see him here, among his family. Maybe she’d known it would be impossible to witness this Caleb and not fall for him.
The longer she listened, the more she noticed the way the conversation eddied around him. He didn’t direct it, exactly, but a lot of the discussion seemed to move through him, as though he exerted a pull on everyone at the table.
The only one who swam against the current was his mother. Janet Clark confused Ellen. She fawned over and insulted her husband in the same breath, and she said things to and about Caleb that made his shoulders tense and his jawline hard. But when Ellen analyzed the words, she could never quite find the offense she knew was in there, nor could she imagine a motive for Janet’s subtle attack. And with Katie and Amber, there was none of that. Janet seemed to reserve her brand of passive aggression for the males of the family.
Or so Ellen thought until Janet turned the conversation in her direction.”
“I imagine it’s quieter over at your place now that Carly and your brother are in Mount Pleasant,” Caleb’s mother said.
“Yes, quite a bit.”
Henry opened his mouth for another bite of lasagna, and she fed him a forkful.
“That m
ust be a relief. I’ve never seen anything quite like what was going on there last week. So many people with cameras! But I suppose you’re used to it, with your family.”
Ellen smiled politely. “Not really, no. Jamie was always performing when we were kids, but he didn’t get famous until I was in college. And nobody’s ever bothered to take my picture much.”
She thought briefly about the sort of pictures they’d taken. Her with sleep-tangled hair, no bra, and bare legs, standing in her front doorway beside a half-naked Caleb. Nothing she’d want his mother to see, but it wasn’t as though she could do anything about that.
“Want some water,” Henry said. She helped him hold her paper cup and drink from it.
“It must be so frightening, having all those lowlifes after you. I imagine you feel better now, with the real professionals in charge of you and your son’s safety.”
Caleb tightened up beside her.
“Actually, you’re dead wrong about that,” she said, and then Henry stood up in her lap and leaned way over the table for the salt shaker. When she pulled him back, he screeched. “No, buddy. You’re not allowed to have that.”
“Henry want it! Want to look at it.”
“Nice try, but no.”
He squealed in frustration, and she cast around for something to distract him with. Finally, she gave up and pulled the clip out of her hair, sticking it on his nose. Henry smiled. “Do the alligator,” he demanded.
She growled and chomped his nose with the clip a few times until he was cheerful again and had begun happily clipping and unclipping his own fingers. It was only when she turned her attention back to her plate, hoping to sneak in a few bites of food, that she realized Janet was still watching her, head tilted slightly to the side as if ready to resume their discussion at any moment.
Also, her expression had a distinctly mouthful-of-sour-owls cast to it.
Ellen backed up the conversation in her head. Oh, shit. She’d been rude to Caleb’s mom. She was so terrible at this leaving-the-house stuff.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Clark. I didn’t mean to be impolite. I only meant that Caleb handled everything so well, and the Breckenridge people have never impressed me much.”