Caleb’s Salvation

by Doyle, S

  4

  Bud’s

  Two weeks later

  Vivienne

  I stood outside the bar and shivered as the wind kicked up around me. It was now or the next time I could work up my courage. Which might not happen again soon.

  I opened the door and walked through it. It was early afternoon. Long before any of the regulars might arrive. Shelby had taken Sam for me. I knew what I needed to say. I also knew Bud was a hard-ass who hated change.

  Which was why he lived in Hope’s Point. Which was why he hated all the newcomers.

  And I don’t think he was thrilled we were all women.

  As suspected, the place was empty. Unfortunately, including Bud.

  Shoot. Did the guy take lunch breaks? Naps? Was I going to have to come back and do this when he actually had customers? If he rejected my idea in front of everyone, it might be humiliating.

  Humiliation, I could handle. It was not getting the job that had me worried.

  I’d already checked with Gert to see if she needed part-time help. Her answer had been a definitive no. But Bud’s made sense. I’d only been a few times with Sammy, but everyone had to go to the bar for what they wanted. How would the guys hanging out by the pool tables like having their beer brought to them?

  Enough to tip?

  Right now, I had free rent. Food was expensive, but I didn’t need much. Wood…Cal set me up for a while with the wood. He’d sent Ty, a roustabout who worked for Eli, with a truck full of wood.

  Ty explained he’d been sent to help me with anything I needed and to make sure I wasn’t being hassled by any of the guys from camp. I didn’t need two guesses as to who had sent him.

  Caleb obviously wanted to make sure I had the help I needed but had come up with a plan to avoid me. Sending Ty, a man I figured to be about my age, lean with dark brown hair and a scruffy jaw line, was probably intentional.

  He was cute and sweet. Plus, he had all the patience in the world when it came to showing me how to split a log. After an hour I was sore all over my body, but mildly competent at the task.

  No, I really didn’t need much money. Just enough to sustain me and Sammy. Enough to cover Shelby’s time, although I doubted she would take any money. She said watching Sammy and Zeke Jr. was a labor of love.

  I was about to face the reality that Bud wasn’t here and was thinking about leaving, when he came out of the kitchen.

  I cleared my throat and made my way to the bar.

  “Little early for you to be drinking, isn’t it?” he asked.

  I laughed, assuming that was a joke. “No, sir. I’m not here for a drink. I don’t know that we’ve formally met. I’m Vivienne Chester.” I reached my hand across the bar.

  He looked at it, then looked at me.

  Right. I dropped my hand, rubbing it against my jeans and just went with my pitch. “I have a proposition for you. Bud’s is a flourishing business with the oil riggers and I was thinking, why not increase the level of service? I can take orders and deliver food and drinks directly to the tables and back where the guys play pool.”

  “I’m not paying you,” he said bluntly.

  I smiled. “That’s the beauty of my plan. I’ll work for tips. You get the added value of table service on the nights I can work, and it doesn’t cost you a thing.”

  “I get ten percent of your tips. My food, my booze.”

  I lifted my chin. “Five percent,” I countered.

  “Seven.”

  “Done,” I agreed. I had no idea whether that was a fair deal or not. But I was going to make ninety-three percent of whatever I could get the guys to tip me, and I had a feeling I could get by on that.

  “I have a baby.”

  “Seen him.”

  I smiled. When Sam and Zeke Jr. were in the bar, they were pretty hard to miss. “Anyway, I won’t be able to work every night. Shelby’s agreed to watch Sammy, but we’ll need a schedule. She knows Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest nights so I’ll try to accommodate.”

  “No skin off my nose.”

  I smiled again. I did it. I had a job. I had a place to live, a job and a sitter. I felt tears threaten, which meant I had to get out of there fast. Pretty sure Bud wasn’t someone to abide a crying woman.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I left him with a wave as I headed out the door.

  I got to the cabin and Shelby was bouncing a wide-awake Sammy on her lap.

  “I did it!”

  Shelby looked up and squealed. “Yay! That cranky old Bud, I knew he had a heart.”

  I clapped as I walked over to pick up Sammy who was bouncing his fists like he was sharing in my excitement.

  “Heart and seven percent of my tips,” I said with a smile. “But it’s a start. I really think I can make this work and pay you, Shelby.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you said, but it means something to me. You know. To do this. To support myself.”

  She stood and patted me on the shoulder. “Trust me, girl, I know exactly what you mean. We’ll work out a deal. These days Eli doesn’t mind hanging out with me at my place rather than going to Bud’s every Friday and Saturday. He won’t mind doing that while I watch Sam. He loves to play with Zeke Jr. when I have him for stay-overs. Says it’s good practice for the future, which oh my, doesn’t that make my heart go pitter-patter.”

  I laughed at the idea of Eli practicing being a dad with Sam.

  I hugged Sam close and nuzzled his neck so he giggled. “You’ll have to remind Eli that Sammy is the best baby there ever was so as not to set his expectations too high.”

  Shelby smiled. “He is a doll baby,” she said, running a gentle hand over his head. “Okay, let me know what nights you want to work. Cell phone is spotty out here but sometimes if you stand outside of Gert’s you can get a signal.”

  “Oh…uh, I don’t have a phone.”

  Shelby blinked. Then realized her mistake. “Oh my gosh, I’m so stupid.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Who didn’t have a phone these days? It wasn’t just the money, either. I’d never had one. My father thought they were gateways to sin. Phones, television, the internet.

  “No, it’s not. Let me talk to Eli. I bet we can set you up with a burner phone where you can pay by the call.”

  I shook my head. Everyone here was being so kind to me. “Shelby, I don’t know how—”

  “Sugar, stop right there. You forget I was the first one to come up here. I know how hard it is to leave something behind and start a life over. Only I got to do it with Eli. Well, mostly with Eli. A lot of it, I had to do myself. I only wish I had a me here before to help show me the way.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but I knew Shelby was being sincere and that’s all that mattered.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Bye, Sammy.”

  Then she was gone, and I was left with a heady feeling of success. More than that, I felt hope.

  “Momma did it again, Sammy.”

  He babbled but I decided it sounded suspiciously like, I’m proud of you.

  * * *

  Bud’s

  Vivienne

  It was the first time I’d seen him since he ran away from me that day weeks ago. God, it’s like I’d forgotten how handsome he was. He was sitting at a table with his guys. And they were all these big, beefy man types, sure, but there was something about Caleb. A quietness about him that drew the eye. Like there was this invisible force field around him that kept him separate from everyone even while he sat there in the middle. And you couldn’t help but wonder why he needed that barrier.

  Jackson, who I’d met last week, was there with Kate. Kate, the contest winner who had left, but now was back. She was a cop in Nome, according to Shelby who also expected her to be around a lot more now.

  I watched Jackson casually reach over and touch her thigh and thought how intimate that was. A touch high on her thigh, like it was his right to touch her there.<
br />
  There had been none of that with Sam’s father. Just an invitation to play with him in the back of his rig. The truth was the sex hadn’t even felt that good. The first and second time hurt real bad. By the time I got the hang of it, to start even imagining what an orgasm might feel like, I was pregnant and he was gone.

  There’d been no flowers. No dating. Sex without any real intimacy. I didn’t know that at the time. When he’d been flirting with me, I’d been planning weddings in my head and houses with picket fences. Some place not with Pop. Because I’d been that desperate. Maybe that lonely, too.

  Lonely. That’s what it was about Caleb. He was sitting at that table with his friends, surrounded by people he knew. But he still looked lonely. I tossed my braid over my shoulder and made my way toward them.

  “Another round guys?” I asked with a smile on my face. Cal scowled at me. This time I scowled back at him so he would know I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

  “Vivienne, what are you doing?” he asked me, like my very existence on this planet was a challenge for him.

  “Bud and I have an arrangement,” I told him, once again deliriously proud of my accomplishment. “I deliver food and drinks, and I get to keep the tips. So how about you all order another around and then pony up?”

  “I’m in,” Kate said, shooting me a smile.

  “Yep,” Jackson said, getting out his wallet.

  “Fine,” Cal said, sounding reluctant. He pulled out a twenty and handed it to me. I flashed him a smile then headed to bar.

  Once there, I put in the orders with Bud. Trying not to look over my shoulder at Caleb. Trying and failing.

  Bud and I swapped out the money, and I pocketed the change. I put the drinks on the tray, quickly learning that moving beer around a reasonably full bar was more of a waitressing challenge than pouring coffee at a diner, but I was getting the hang of it. Especially since Bud charged me for every beer I spilled.

  I got to Caleb’s table and dropped off the drinks. I handed Eli his change minus the two bucks he’d indicated with his fingers as tip. I thought about the fifteen bucks I still had in my pocket for Caleb.

  As a little dare, I started to walk way. That’s when I felt it. His hand circling my wrist to stop me. Was his thumb rubbing along the inside? It was and it was doing things to my insides that made every hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  Oh, my goodness. He was turning me on with the barest touch of his fingers on my wrist.

  What would happen when he finally touched me? Because I was starting to believe that day was coming. There was something there. A thing between us. This wasn’t about me being desperate. Or chasing something I couldn’t have. I was sure of it.

  This was chemistry.

  And from what I understood about people, chemistry wasn’t something you could control. It also wasn’t something you could stop. No matter how badly Caleb wanted to stop it.

  “Where’s my change?” he asked. He still wasn’t letting go of my wrist.

  I shrugged and took a guess. “Figured you would just give me the rest as a tip, so I kept it.”

  I held my breath for a second, but when he said nothing, I knew I’d guessed right.

  “Where is…he?”

  Right. My name he was now okay with, but Sam’s? Caleb was still having a hard time.

  “With Shelby,” I told him, although I suspected he knew the answer.

  He looked at Angel, who quickly averted his eyes. Obviously, he was still in the doghouse for the whole contest. I should feel bad for him, but I didn’t. Because of Eli, I was here. Because of Eli, Shelby was watching Sam for me. Giving me a chance to earn a living and take care of my baby boy. Giving me a sense of purpose. Telling me I wasn’t as useless as I’d felt when Pop kicked me out.

  Because of Eli, I met Caleb. A man who made me tingle in the best possible way. At a time when I didn’t know if that would ever happen again.

  Even though he was fighting it. Fighting me.

  The question was whether or not that was a war I wanted to engage in. I’d come here looking for someone to help me, someone to save me. Someone to shoulder my burdens.

  What I’d gotten was something else. Some helpful support. A chance to for me to help myself.

  Independence. Pride in myself. Things I never thought I would have. Maybe it was selfish to want more.

  Finally, he let go of my wrist with one last brush of his thumb against my skin.

  Was Caleb a man worth fighting for? The way he touched me, I believed he was.

  Boldly, I reached over and patted his cheek. “Poor Cal,” I said. “I know you’re fighting it, but eventually I’m going to win. You’ll see.”

  I left with a wave and a smile on my face as I took care of a bunch of other tables. No, Caleb didn’t know. It was in that moment. That single moment when he touched my wrist and had to force himself to let go, that I’d formed a new plan.

  I was going to call it The Break Caleb Down Plan. And I didn’t care how long it took.

  5

  Present

  Cal

  She was standing just outside of Gert’s store. I’d parked my truck and gotten out but froze as I watched her tilt her head back and let the sun hit her and her kid’s faces. It was February. Full-on winter when the sun didn’t rise until ten-thirty and was gone by six. On days when there actually was sun. Not dismally cloudy skies or, worse, never-ending snow.

  Today wasn’t one of those days. The sun was high and beaming and, despite the cold, Vivienne was taking in every drop. I didn’t blame her.

  I didn’t think they would last. None of them. Shelby, Kate. Certainly not Vivienne, who didn’t have the comfort of a man keeping her warm at night. At least, I was fairly certain she didn’t.

  Ty, it was easy to see, had become enchanted with Vivienne. What had begun as a task I’d assigned him had quickly become his passion. A simple How is she doing? would result in a jabber-fest of everything Vivienne and Sam. Did she feel the same way for Ty?

  She should. He was good-looking, her age, a decent person.

  Her age.

  Why shouldn’t they start dating?

  Because Ty’s got the maturity of an eighteen-year-old and Vivienne has a son she needs to raise.

  I blinked away those thoughts. Again, not my responsibility.

  Except she’d been in Hope’s Point now five months, silently wrecking me, messing with my peace of mind making me feel and want things I hadn’t thought about in seven years.

  Sex, you dumb asshole. She makes you think about fucking.

  I closed my eyes on a low grown. The fantasy last night had been the worst yet. Her on my bed, her red hair spread out on my pillows, naked with her skin so pale, so delicate. It made me feel like a Viking marauder, like I’d conquered her and was ready to bend her to my will.

  I hadn’t even gotten as far as thrusting inside her before I was awake, rock hard and jacking myself off. Just the thought had my dick twitching again.

  I coughed to cover the sound I’d made.

  The sound that alerted her to my presence. She and the boy turned in my direction.

  “Good morning, Caleb.” She beamed.

  I scowled at the use of my full name and she scrunched up her face. My scowls were no longer effective on her, which was ridiculous as they had been working on my men for years.

  “Oh, no. You can’t look sour at me today. This is the first real sun we’ve had in over a week. Nothing is spoiling this for us, isn’t that right, Sammy?”

  He babbled around the teething ring he was holding in his chubby little hand. Almost ten months old. He was probably crawling by now, although I wondered how he did that on the wood floor of the cabin. It wasn’t like it was sanded down to a smooth finish. It was a cabin.

  I tried to force away the image of him picking up splinters in his hands and knees.

  “How does he crawl on your wood floor?”

  She blinked as if the question stunned her. Then she smiled and
kissed the baby’s cheek, making him smile. “Eve had an old rug she brought over for me. It’s perfect. Covers most of the cabin and keeps the place a little warmer. Not that we don’t have plenty of wood. Thank you again for your latest drop-off.”

  I nodded. Ty had been tied up, so I’d had to do it myself.

  “You and Ty...” I said, trailing off. “Things going well?”

  Her lips quirked. “Well, if you’re asking me if he’s showing me the ropes, I would say so. Actually, that’s where I’m headed now. Said he wanted to meet me at the cabin. Wants to show me how to take care of myself in case there are bears, but I wasn’t sure what he meant. You don’t think he’s going to teach me how to wrestle them?”

  I knew she was teasing me. That was her thing. Any time she could, when I showed up at the bar. Always poking at me. Like a finger in my ribs. It was annoying as hell especially when she actually got me to laugh.

  “Doubtful.”

  “You should come over. You can check out what I’ve done with the cabin. The other day you just dropped off the wood then took off. I couldn’t even offer you a cup of coffee.”

  Because just watching her come out of the cabin and wave goodbye to me as I sped off was enough to trigger a sex dream.

  Maybe it was time. Maybe seven years of abstinence was my limit. Enough self-enforced punishment for failing to keep my wife and child safe. Was my sentence over?

  Not that I would touch Vivienne. She was too young, too vibrant, too sweet for what I wanted. She’d only had the experience of that one asshole who’d gotten her pregnant then dumped her.

  I should ask her if she knew his full name. Maybe have Zeke do a check on him…

  Not your problem. You just want to get laid.

  I could try Nome, although I knew most of the women there. They were either married or didn’t care about being married and none of that interested me. If I was going to do something about these newly resurrected sexual urges, I would have to go Anchorage. Some nameless bar. Some nameless woman.