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 must 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.”
“It’s kind of you to defend him, but I’m sure we can agree the situation got a bit out of Caleb’s grasp. All those photographs in the papers! And some of them quite . . . compromising.”
“Well, I agree that having the world gawking at you when you’re wearing a Butter Cow T-shirt is less than ideal,” Ellen answered, knowing full well that wasn’t the kind of “compromising” Janet had in mind. “But there’s not much to be done about it except keep the guys with the cameras off the lawn and wait for them to go away.”
She fed Henry another bite. Caleb leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed.
“They should be forcibly removed from the village,” Janet said firmly.
“Can’t do that.” She popped a bite of lasagna into her mouth. After she swallowed, she added, “They have the right to assemble, just like anyone else.”
“But they’re dangerous! One of those people cut me off with his motorbike the other day, and I nearly had an accident. They don’t respect the pedestrian crossings. I should think you’d be worried. They’re endangering your son.”
Ellen sat up straighter at that. Janet Clark was now officially getting on her nerves. “No, they’re not.”
“Of course they are. He could be struck by one of their cars, or kidnapped for ransom by one of these crazy people. Anything could happen. Any of a hundred things. Why, I’m surprised you haven’t left town.”
That was when Ellen lost track of her polite restraint and all control over her tongue. “My son is not in danger, because your son has been protecting him. Busting his butt protecting him, as a matter of fact, day in and day out, with next to no cooperation from either myself or my brother, or even Henry’s own father.”
Building up steam, she tapped the table for emphasis. “If you could’ve seen him, you’d understand. He knew hundreds of people were going to show up before even Jamie did, and he got a fence up and barricades on the street in advance. He had people walking around my property all the time, day and night, for days, and he put a team of men over at Henry’s grandmother’s place to keep an eye on him. And the whole time, he let us live our lives, even when that meant letting Jamie do that stupid strip show for all the world to see, because that’s what Jamie had to do to get Carly back. Even when it meant organizing security on the fly to get Carly to the hospital as fast as possible when she was in danger.”
Janet frowned. “That’s hardly professional, taking Carly Short to the hospital. That’s what ambulances are for.”
“I disagree. And so does my brother, for that matter. He’s planning to fire those professionals from Los Angeles and bring your son in to take care of all of his security from here on out. I can’t say that I blame him. Caleb is really great at what he does, Mrs. Clark. As a matter of fact, he’s kind of incredible. And if you can’t see that, you have a serious problem.”
When she finally shut her trap, Henry was watching her, stunned into silence, and so was everyone else. Ellen met the eyes of every adult at the table, daring them to disagree with her. Nobody did. She focused on Janet and silently demanded a rebuttal.
Janet looked at Caleb for a moment and said, slowly and with great care, “No, I can see that. I’m not blind.”
Caleb gave his mother a small, warm smile that made Ellen’s chest tighten painfully with empathy. “Go easy on her, Ellen,” he said. “She’s a real sap, deep down. She just turns into a stubborn, critical pain in the keister when she’s worried about somebody she loves. Isn’t that right, Ma?” His smile widened as he said it, softening the criticism so that it sounded like an endearment.
His mother made an exasperated face, but she didn’t quite pull it off. “Honestly, Caleb. That’s no way to talk to your mother.”
“Yeah, but I think we need a new way of talking to each other. One where we say what we really mean. I think it’ll do both of us some good, don’t you?”
His mother didn’t answer. She glanced at her husband, looking slightly rattled. Derek smiled encouragement at her from across the table.
“We may need some coaching,” Caleb said, “since we’re new at this. But I think what you want to tell Ellen is that you’ve been worried about me, but you love me, and you respect and support my decisions.”
Janet looked back and forth between Ellen and Caleb, as if wondering how she’d gotten herself into this. “Of course I do,” she said. “You don’t need me to—”
“I do,” Caleb said.
She stilled, and they looked at each other. Ellen saw something pass between them—a moment of understanding, of honest exchange. “Oh,” Janet said. Almost a sigh.
“This is my life, Ma.” Caleb looked at Ellen and Henry. “This is exactly where I want to be. Exactly what I want to be doing.” He brushed his hand over Ellen’s shoulder, a touch that warmed her right through. “I want you to support me, and I want you to say so.”
Janet’s mouth quirked into a smirk remarkably like Caleb’s. “Well, Ellen, I am proud of him,” she said, looking right at her son. “I love him. I respect and support his decisions.” The statement came out wooden and awkward, but at least she’d said it. When she smiled at Caleb, she looked shy and proud at the same time.
“Me, too,” Ellen echoed. “I think your son is pretty wonderful, Mrs. Clark. And for what it’s worth, I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Jamie. This is where we belong. You may have to get used to a little extra craziness around Camelot.”
Caleb grinned at that, and Ellen lost her head all over again. It felt like an eternity since she’d seen him smile right at her. It made her giddy. She was vaguely conscious of the conversation continuing at the other end of the table, with Katie chiming in to defend Caleb’s skill and dedication, but most of her attention had been captured by the smile wrinkling the corners of Caleb’s eyes, and the rest of it jumped ship when he found her knee under the table and squeezed.
Carly and Jamie could have their crowds and the public declarations of love. Big gestures and drama had never been Ellen’s thing. One gesture, one moment of connection when her eyes met Caleb’s, and she knew. She wouldn’t trade what they had for anything.
Kind of incredible, she thought. My man.
She got a little dippy with it. Which was why she wasn’t at all prepared when Henry dumped an entire cup of ice water on her lap.
She was still mopping at it with a paper towel when Katie announced, apropos of nothing, “So, everybody, while we’re doing the confessions and Hallmark moments, I should probably mention that I’m married.”
After that, no one paid much attention to Ellen and Henry.