by Emily Duvall
His fingers mold around mine. There’s heat in his touch and in his eyes. “I thought I was, most of the time, yes. Lately though, Darcy’s everywhere. I thought I’d skipped through the worst of the grief. Last month was the eight-year anniversary.”
I think of how much I miss Libby and she’s alive, living in driving distance. “You must miss her so much,” I say with such heartfelt conviction.
“So much so that I can’t see straight sometimes,” he says with a strange, thick quality to his voice.
“I want to see the picture again.” I pull him up with my hand. “Can you show me? Can you tell me more about her?”
“I—I don’t think so.” Caleb shakes his head and curses. “I’m sorry, I’m not good at this.”
“She’s your daughter. Let me get to know who she was.”
He nods. “Okay.”
We go inside the house and he immediately goes to a cabinet with multiple drawers.
“Does Libby know about Darcy?” I ask.
“I never told her.” Caleb opens and closes the drawers. “I meant what I said. I haven’t told anyone. I don’t talk about Darcy.”
“Why not? You should.”
He looks up with pain in his eyes. “I want to protect my privacy.”
“How can she exist if you don’t talk about her?” I take a seat on the couch.
Caleb coughs and looks away, then meets my gaze. “I became selfish with my memories of her and what we had gone through. I didn’t want anyone to have a slice of my loss. If I talked about her, then I had to talk about her death.” A moment later he returns and hands me a stack of photos. “Here.”
The pictures are of Darcy. Her hair is dark like his and a smile too big for her face with her front teeth missing. “How did she die?”
“Cancer of the throat. It was aggressive.”
“Did she feel pain?”
Caleb’s pained glance is brief. “Yes, she did.”
I look through the photos and place them on the coffee table. “What was she like? Did she like school?”
“She loved school. She was good at math and reading and there’s so much to her, like her mismatched clothes she insisted on wearing and her tea parties for her stuffed animals.” Caleb pinches the bridge of his nose and makes a noise from his throat. “She hated string cheese. I couldn’t pay her to eat the stuff.”
“I understand that. The stuff is terrible.” My hand lands on his back, the way Libby touches me when I’m having a hard time. “I am so sorry.”
He brings his heavy gaze to mine. “I am too.”
“You can still have more children.”
Caleb’s entire body stiffens. His gaze lashes through mine and his voice is punishing. “No. Why would you say that?”
I pull my hand away. “Why not though?”
He moves my hand off him. “Some questions you don’t get to ask. Some statements you have to think about before making.”
“You said I could ask you anything.”
“Know your limits,” he roars, causing me to jump.
“What’s wrong with me asking if you’ll have more kids?”
“Can’t you hear the anger in my voice?”
“Yes, I can. You’re loud and mean. I never want you looking at me like you are right now.” I move back and around the dining room table to one of the chairs and clench the sides.
He’s on the other side of the table, red-faced and tense. “Then stop asking.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I want to know the answer.”
He grabs the chair out of my hands. “You’re not entitled to it!”
“I am.” I’m breathless and my stomach is a mess of tangled knots. The disorder between us is confusing. “I want to know about her. I want to know about why you don’t talk about this or why you wouldn’t want to have more kids. You love her so much. Don’t you want to feel that again?”
“Know what? You’re right.” He stares at the ground and shakes his head. “The answer is no. No, I don’t want children. I’ll never stop thinking about what Darcy would be like now, or in five years, or when her friends are graduating from high school and go to college or have their first job. No one will ever replace her, which is what I assume you are suggesting by your statement.”
“I didn’t mean that at all.”
He barely hears me. “Darcy doesn’t get to live her life and I’m left to figure out what she would have been like. I don’t get to be a father to her or a grandfather to her children. I am not angry. I am terrified, Maren. Terrified to have kids and worry that something bad will happen. She was healthy one day and sick the next. She did nothing wrong, and yet, she’s not here. I was cheated, and I won’t ever, ever put myself through that sort of pain again.”
“So, you just live with it every day?”
His hands fall to his hips. He’s breathing like he’s winded. “Yes.”
“That’s insane. You should talk to someone.”
Caleb comes out of his thoughts and levels me with his gaze. “No.” He lets go of the chair and walks around the table to me. He’s in front of me, so close that I feel his breath on my lips. “You can’t quantify this,” he says, though some of the anger is gone.
I beg to differ. I open my mouth to speak. Caleb silences me with a kiss. His hands grab my face and his lips charge over mine, sending shockwaves through me. He’s hurried and desperate and I open my eyes to catch his turbulent gaze. “Damn you,” he says, pushing his lips harder against mine. I kiss him back with my whole heart. His lips burn mine. His touch is lethal and decisive. His body is a force.
His hands pull my shirt up and he tosses it to the floor. Automatically, my hands cross over my bra. Last night we were in the dark. Now we’re in the light. My skin looks different. Uneven flesh and scars and jiggles are in plain view. I am naked, but I feel exposed. “You can see me.”
His gaze is fierce and clinging to my lips. “And I like it.”
His lips trail down my middle and lower half. I clamp my legs together and he works his mouth over my breasts. He backs himself into the chair and brings me on top of him. I am wet and soft and ready for him. My gaze stays on his with the utmost dedication as my hands strip off his clothes. He does the same to me. My brain fast-forwards to the rules. “This is going to be the second time we do this.”
“Second, third, fourth. Who’s counting?” He unleashes the sexiest grin I have ever seen, and he pushes my hair back. “One day, I want you to love me, Maren Cole.”
“Did you just say love?” A thousand senses erupt all over me.
“I did.”
I lower my mouth to his lips, fighting back how much this freaks me out. I don’t have an answer for his demand. My hands cling to his shoulders and my hips arch, moving against him with friction that will bring me release. It’s what I want, all I want, that moment my body hitches into his and I shudder and shake with pleasure, a high I can’t satisfy any other way. I’m somewhere else for a second, letting go at the same time he does, the messy high he leaves me with is all-consuming and he crashes over top me, pinning me down and ending with one gratifying, final, kiss.
What had he asked me? To love him? My head nestles in the crook of his shoulder. For now, I stay close.
“Spend the night,” he says in my ear.
He’s asking me to sleepover. A guy is asking me to stay the night. At his house. “Yes,” I say swiftly.
He runs his lips over mine as our bodies separate.
Caleb gives me time to shower and he offers me a T-shirt, one from his college days. I put it on, though it covers over my shorts. We order dinner and settle into the evening. We do not discuss the Pierce case, that is off limits for both of us. Rather, Caleb tells me about his work in general and he asks questions about my job.
The doorbell rings right as I’m picking off the Canadian bacon on my slice of Hawaiian pizza.
“I got that,” he says, getting up from the barstool. There’s a female voice and C
aleb is talking fast. “I’ve got that on my laptop, wait by the door.”
“I’ve been texting,” calls the familiar voice. “Why haven’t you answered? Julie even tried calling you.” Footsteps, argument, and commotion head in my direction. I put down my piece of pizza and swivel around on the stool to see Sara walking toward me.
Caleb enters with his laptop open. “Sara, I was going to come back to the door.”
She looks over the kitchen and her eyes pause at me. Her lips curl in a way that reminds me of a snarl and there’s a spot of electricity to her eyes.
I do not like the way she looks at me. “Do you want pizza?” I offer, pointing to the box.
She turns her back to me with her strict, squared shoulders. Sara remains silent while Caleb puts his signature on the document and flips the papers over and returns them to her. “That should do it,” he says, leading her to the front of the house. The door clicks closed and locks.
Caleb returns with a face full of dread. He takes a stance on the other side of the counter and braces his hands down. Silence stretches between us, long enough for me to know he is agonizing over Sara’s visit. “This changes things for us,” I say.
He cracks a miserable laugh. “Yes.”
Chapter 24
Caleb
I screwed up. Nervous doesn’t begin to describe what’s happening inside me, like I have been run over by a monster truck and my body is flattened out on a dirt road. Sara saw Maren. At my house. Wearing my GW shirt. I watched her take in the scene with perceptive eyes and a glaring understanding. I’ve never risked my job for any woman. Rules are in place to make sure my career stands tall after I send a lover home. If there was a checkbox for what you should not do as a lawyer, I have checked all the boxes. Sara’s going to go straight to Julie and there will be hell to pay. Or even worse, she’ll go to that damn prosecutor, Dana, and I’ll lose the case.
Sleep is a joke with the dust and rubble of my career laying at my feet. I am wide awake with my hands linked behind my head. My veins pump resentful blood through my body at my stupidity. The lack of control and discretion I have exercised has landed at my doorstep with an acrimonious thud.
I roll onto my side and watch Maren. The ridge of her shoulder and hip are visible in the first rays of morning. The room is splashed in hues of light blue and silver. I told her no, then yes, and back to no. The aftermath of my flip-flopping is coming. To her, we are real. This is—I swallow over a lump of regret, is what Libby had warned me about, that I would put myself in Maren’s life and she would get hurt.
I drape my arm over her waist and let my fingers graze her lower back. “I’m going to break your heart,” I mouth against the stillness of the room, only the empty walls and furniture could hear, as if they had ears, as if I’m asking them to harbor one more secret. I ache for her and I whisper, “I am so sorry.”
She stirs and flips over, hitting me with her arm as she does. Her leg slips between mine. I lay there longer, until the sunrise won’t be ignored, and light invades the bedroom.
Her eyes open and her lips break into a smile. “Hi,” she says. “Were you watching me?”
“Yes. I woke up and I couldn’t go back to sleep.” I get right to business. “We have to talk.”
She yawns. “No. It’s too early for this.”
I sit up. “Sara’s visit put me in a bad position.”
“I know.”
One flippant I-told-you-so-look from her and I’m in hell. “I was that obvious?”
“Your entire mood changed after she left. I didn’t know whether to stay or go. I would have gone, if that would have made your night easier. Or not. What is the right answer?” She sits up and twists her body, dangling her legs over the side of the bed. Her messy hair stimulates all kinds of racing thoughts. Every one of which is chased away by my poor decision making.
“I don’t have the answer either. I wish I did. The truth is, she’s going to do what she wants. If she talks to my boss, I will be fired.”
“You knew that going into this.”
My head jerks to hers. “You didn’t exactly try to stop me.”
“Why would I have done that?” She sits up with shoulders poised. “I like us together. If not for the trial, we would be living our lives. We would be going out to eat and having fun.”
I shake my head. “I’m just the first guy to come along. You think I’m special, but I’m not. I have to fix this.”
“If this was such a bad relationship for you to have, why did you? Why do you say one thing and do another? Right now, yes, you aren’t special. You’re what I expected.”
“That’s on you.” What am I saying? What am I doing? I back down a smidge. I lower my voice. “Wouldn’t you do anything to keep your job?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t lie.”
A resentful laugh leaves my lips. “You make all of this seem like a walk in the park.”
“We’re not walking in a park, Caleb, and maybe you should have thought about how this would all end before you started going back-and forth.”
“How can you even say that? You didn’t exactly say no or provide any clarity.”
“I’ve always been clear, from the moment we started jogging. I’ve told you what I want. You’re the one who has no idea what you want.”
I rip the sheets off me, exposing my body except for the boxer briefs. “I can’t lose my job.”
Maren does the same. We’re standing on opposite sides of the bed. She’s glaring at me and fighting back tears. “No, but you can lose me.”
My fist hits the mattress. “You need to go.”
She gathers her clothes and slips her feet into her shoes. “You can stay in this house with the photo of your dead daughter and your career.”
“Fine. Get out.”
My pulse thumps loud and hard in my ears. Bracing my hands on the dresser, I take several breaths until my body is still, except for the heavy breath slipping through my lips. “Fine,” I repeat without cruelty.
I spend the rest of the weekend reaching out to Sara and hear nothing back. I don’t call Maren and she doesn’t make a move either. She just never gives back, a thought I can’t put to rest. It’s spiteful and irrational, but I’ve dumped girlfriends for far less.
I leave my house wearing my brand-new navy suit that’s been tailored to fit my frame perfectly. I walk to my car with anxiousness swimming through my veins. I have a bad feeling and I slide into the driver’s seat and blow out a heavy sigh. My fingers turn the keys in the ignition at the same time my phone rings.
The number belongs to Julie.
“Here we go,” I grumble and answer. “Hey.”
“I’ve just gotten off the phone with Dana Rosenthal.”
I want to shrivel up in a ball and pretend I never cared about my career. “What did she want?”
“She informed me that new evidence made by Maren will mean an emergency hearing this afternoon. She was so sorry to break the news.” Julie’s silence is like a silent bully waiting in the wings to pounce. “That’s disappointing, Caleb.”
“I know,” I say, sighing.
“How could you let this happen? Maren’s testimony will crush Pierce and all that work we’ve done will set us back. What about Libby? Is she still with us?”
“Yes, but Libby wasn’t the one who was out in the parking lot. We still have a strong case. The testimony from Pierce and his staff will be enough.”
She snorts. “You haven’t gone delusional on me, have you? My three-year-old granddaughter could come up with a better defense.”
“Julie, we will be fine.”
“I want this win. Don’t forget what’s at stake.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
Silence. “You had better not.”
I do not forget. Not in the week after our phone call. Not when the judge denies Dana’s motion to bring new charges to the case. Julie is more hands-on than ever, a bad sign, and my team and I work until well after midnight in the days le
ading up to the trial. Sara has been out of the office, doing work on behalf of Julie and she still won’t return my calls. I do not contact Maren. I do not wake up with thoughts of her. The only course I get back on is the one where my name will be on the side with Hockley & Lyon. I even write it down to envision what that will look like. What it will feel like.
Hockley, Lyon & Allan.
Whatever life has brought these past few months, I leave at my home on the morning of the trial. I drive like a bullet train to the courthouse. I remind myself that we do have a solid defense. Mr. Pierce telling his side of the story and I still have two girls in a coma and the driver who I now know was assaulted and forced into drinking unwanted alcohol. I know Maren belongs on Dana’s side, but I can’t help but take this hit personally. Maren wouldn’t have lied for me if I had put her on the stand. Not that I would have asked her to do such a thing. I would have used logic to gloss over her story. What am I saying? I was going to hurt her either way.
Jane’s waiting on the steps of the courthouse. “Ready?” she says, her voice hesitant.
“Are you?” I shoot back.
“I think so.”
“Wrong,” I quip. “Always say yes like you mean it.”
She stands up straighter and locks her arms at her sides. “I’m ready.”
“That’s better.”
Sara rounds the corner and walks up the wide steps leading to the courthouse with a gaze pointy as icicles. “Well, here we are,” she says stiffly.
“Jane, give us a moment.” I wait for her to leave. “How are you feeling?”
“Like you care.”
“I do.”
The corner of her lip tugs up in triumph. “You got caught. You lost a witness. If I were you, I would be kissing my ass.”
My teeth grind, and my throat constricts. “I’m asking for your discretion.”
“Bullshit. You don’t ask for anything.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t understand. How many times I would have killed to look that comfortable in your house.”
“You don’t know what you saw.”
“She was wearing your clothes. I know exactly what I saw. Maren’s a witness for the prosecution. She’s changed sides. She’s about to ruin the case and you’re worried if I’ll tattle on you? You really have lost your touch.”
