Love Built to Last

by Lisa Ricard Claro

  Maddie smiled. “I’m sure.”

  “So that piece of paper could potentially be the last written message you ever get from Jack.”

  Maddie stared at Brenna while the full import of that sank in. She turned the paper in her hands. Her heart pounded with…what? Fear? Anticipation? Excitement? Jack’s last words. Maybe it would be better not to know.

  Awakened from his nap by outside noises, Pirate barked, and the unexpected sound made Maddie jump. The dog stood up from his dog bed and barked again, tail wagging. He trotted out the doorway and stopped at the top of the stairs, looked back at Maddie, and woofed again, then took off. A minute later someone’s fist banged on the door.

  “Maddie! Maddie, you home?”

  Bam-bam-bam.

  Maddie’s face lit with a surprised smile. “It’s Caleb.” She pushed her glasses up, tightened her ponytail with a quick tug, tucked Jack’s paper into the back pocket of her cut-offs, and flew down the stairs.

  Chapter 15

  “Caleb.” The happiness in Maddie’s voice matched the smile she couldn’t contain. Sweet Lord, there he stood, right here on her porch, every gorgeous male inch of him radiating high-voltage energy. “What are you—”

  “TJ took off about an hour or so ago, coming here to see you. I assume you haven’t seen him?”

  Her smile faded. “He what?”

  “Call me if he shows up. Please.” He turned and jogged down the stairs toward his truck.

  “Wait,” she called out. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Well, move your ass. I don’t have time to wait.” He climbed in the truck and slammed the door. The engine roared to life.

  Brenna pushed the screen open and handed Maddie her purse. “I heard. Go. I’ll call you if he shows up.”

  “Thanks. C’mon, Pirate.”

  Maddie slid her feet into the old flip-flops by the door and ran down the steps and across the yard. She flung open the passenger door of the truck and climbed in after Pirate who jumped into the back and pressed his wet nose against the window. Cal buzzed the back window down and Pirate thrust his head out, tongue lolling.

  “Wait. Did you check the barn?”

  “Yes.” The muscle in Cal’s jaw tightened and his knuckles on the steering wheel shone white. He maintained the truck’s speed at a slow roll and peered into the woods along both sides of Maddie’s long drive as he drove toward the main road.

  “Why do you think he’s headed to my place?”

  “That’s what he told Henry.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Maddie, maybe because he’s a five-year-old kid who doesn’t understand why someone he cares about would disappear from his life without a word.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t returned your calls,” she said, knowing her excuses would sound lame. “I’ve been—”

  “I don’t care why,” he said. “I just want to find my son.”

  Maddie’s gut clenched. This was bad. She adjusted her glasses and focused on looking into the trees for any sign of TJ. “Where have you looked so far?”

  “Just the neighborhood and the route to your place. There’s no reason to think he took a detour.” He banged the heel of his hand on the steering wheel and blew out a long breath. “Shit. Shit. He’s five. God knows where he went.”

  They reached the end of Maddie’s driveway and Cal flicked the left turn signal. A line of cars zoomed past them. The rural highway saw speeds of sixty-five on some stretches, not a good thoroughfare for a five-year-old to be walking alone, even one as smart as TJ. Maddie peered through the window into the woods and drummed her knees with her fingers. Please let us see him, please, please, please…

  Cal made the turn and kept the pace of the truck slow, pulling onto the shoulder when faster vehicles drove up behind them.

  “Did you call the police?” She kept her tone as gentle and steady as she could manage, not an easy task when the monster of worry clawing in her belly wanted to scream.

  “Not yet. Since I knew where he was headed I really expected to spot him somewhere along the way.” He shook his head and frowned. “Maybe I should have called the police right off, but I thought—” The steering wheel suffered another mighty whack. “Goddamn it. He’s only five, with little feet and little legs. How far could he walk?”

  Strong little feet and strong little legs, and the energy of a nuclear reactor. The answer is far, he can walk far! The words bellowed in her brain. Maddie spent ten months of the year teaching five-year-olds and knew firsthand how resourceful and energetic they could be. She bit her lip hard to keep the words contained. “We’ll find him.”

  Cal’s phone buzzed and he snatched it up from where it lay on the seat between him and Maddie. “Hey. Tell me you found him.” Cal’s shoulders slumped and the corners of his mouth turned down. He looked older by years. “Okay. We’re almost home. I’ll call the sheriff’s department when I get there. Thanks, Dante.”

  Maddie’s stomach wrenched. She had to agree with Cal that if TJ was trekking to her house they should have seen him somewhere along the way. It was an easy route, only the left out of the neighborhood, and then the right into Maddie’s driveway five or six miles up the road. So if he was walking to her house, where was he? Did he try a short cut and get lost? Was he hurt trying to cross the road? What if some stranger picked him up? He could be fifty or a hundred miles away by now.

  Fear drew its finger down her spine. She suppressed a shudder and kept her eyes on the tree line beyond the passenger window.

  A thought wriggled its way past her distress. She reached out her hand and laid it on Cal’s arm, noted the bunched tautness of his muscles.

  “Cal, TJ’s smart. Smart enough not to wander off too far, no matter what he told Henry. He knows how to get to my house, but he also knows it’s a long way to walk and that the road is dangerous.”

  Cal glanced from the road to Maddie. His eyes radiated desperation. “Okay. So what are you saying?”

  “That I think he’s still in your neighborhood.”

  Cal shook his head. “No, he’s not. I drove through a bunch of times, and Dante did the same. Shelley’s been calling around. If he was in the neighborhood someone would have seen him.”

  “Not if he didn’t want you to.”

  Caleb turned into his neighborhood and pulled over to the side of the road. He shifted the truck into park, but left it idling, and faced Maddie, his eyes narrowed and considering. “You think he’s hiding from us?”

  “Didn’t you ever run away when you were a kid? It’s classic, right? You grab some food, a favorite toy, and you set out for an adventure. Maybe you go a little farther than you’ve ever gone before, but in the end you loop around because you’re really too scared to venture far. I was seven when I ran away. I was home for lunch before my mother even knew I’d left.”

  Cal didn’t have a smile for Maddie, but his expression hinted at hope. “I was six when I ran away. And, yeah, same thing. Home by dinnertime.” He drew a deep breath that shuddered out of him when he released it. “God, I hope you’re right.”

  He eased the truck back onto the road and into the neighborhood. When he pulled into his own driveway, the brief optimism fled. He cut the engine and grabbed his phone. Dante and Shelley met them in the driveway.

  “Guess it’s time to call the sheriff.” Cal said. The muscle in his jaw worked overtime.

  Maddie pulled Pirate’s leash from her purse. She clipped the lead to his collar before allowing him to jump from the truck. While Cal dialed the sheriff, Maddie walked Pirate around the yard, let him sniff and pee, and then pee some more. What was it with dogs and the need to mark every darn thing?

  Pirate wandered across the driveway and crossed the property line into Shelley’s yard to, yes, pee. Maddie dragged him back onto Cal’s driveway. She said hello to Dante and introduced herself to Shelley as Caleb’s friend—is that what she was?—and embarrassed herself with a squeal when Pirate jolted the leash. He danced around
on his three legs, ears up, tail swishing, whining from deep in his throat.

  “What is it Pirate? What is it boy?” The short hairs on the back of Maddie’s neck stood on end. There was only one thing that ramped up Pirate’s excitement like this. “Do you smell TJ? Do you? Good boy, Pirate! Good boy! Find TJ, Pirate. Find TJ!”

  Pirate emitted a mighty woof and leapt forward. The leash whipped from Maddie’s hand. The dog raced down the sidewalk and disappeared through a hedge of azaleas five houses up at the corner of a cul-de-sac. His rocket-like take off was reminiscent of the day at the park.

  Maddie raced after Pirate. Cal’s long legs ran him past her before she even reached the corner. He tore around the bushes and Maddie followed, cursing her flip-flops. Not made for running, they hurt her feet and jammed her toes into the ground. Around the corner now, she saw Pirate run across the street, through another flowering hedge, over a chaise lounge, around a kiddie pool and between two houses, where Maddie lost sight of him. Cal disappeared between the houses and Maddie stopped to catch her breath. Dante pulled up in his convertible.

  “I never run when I can ride,” he said. “Hop in. We’ll catch them the next street over.”

  The engine growled and he turned around in the cul-de-sac. There was no sign of Cal or Pirate on the next street, or the next. And then Dante said, “There. They just went over a fence into someone’s back yard. At the end of the street, the house second to the last on the left.”

  “With the arbor and the climbing roses?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Dante drove to the house, a well-maintained Cape Cod, and parked on the street. Maddie hopped from the vehicle before he’d even killed the engine. She ran to the fence, a three-foot high scalloped yard divider that delineated the flowery front yard from the grassy expanse behind the house. Parked along the edge of the back yard and shaded by a stand of oak trees was a three-wheeled trailer that held a boat partially covered by a tarp.

  Pirate stood beside the watercraft barking and whining in turns, his tail a frenetic blur. Cal came to a stop beside the dog, chest heaving as he sought to regain his breath. A corner of the tarp lifted and out peeked the small oval of TJ’s face.

  He squinted against the light and blinked his eyes, looking first at his father and then at the dog. The rest of his head poked out from the interior of the boat and his eyebrows lifted high over shining eyes. His sweaty hair lay half plastered to his scalp and half standing on end.

  “Pirate! I knowed you’d find me!”

  TJ wriggled over the side of the boat into Cal’s waiting arms.

  “Hold up there, buddy,” Cal said. “You can see the dog in a minute. First I get a look at you. You know you’re in really big trouble, right?”

  “Aw, Dad. I knowed Pirate’d find me.”

  He hugged Cal, a fierce embrace lasting all of a nanosecond, then squirmed down to greet the dog, who knocked him to the ground and covered his face with slobbering licks. Cal observed the Pirate/TJ love fest with his hands on his hips and glanced back at Maddie, who remained on the other side of the fence watching the scene unfold. Her gaze connected with Cal’s and she felt the familiar giddiness in her stomach when a smile tugged one side of his mouth. Profound relief, partnered with weariness, etched into his features.

  Dante approached the fence in the company of a balding man who was dressed in swim trunks and a T-shirt silkscreened with the image of an anchor and declaring him to be The Cap’n. He dropped his jaw to scratch the side of his stubble-laden face and lifted a koozied beer can at Cal in greeting. “I guess the little fella spent a few hours hiding out in my boat,” the man called over the short fence.

  “Yes, sir, he did. Sorry about that,” Cal said.

  “Can’t say as I blame him,” the guy said, and chuckled. “I’ve certainly spent plenty of time hiding out in that fiberglass tub myself. He okay?”

  “Except for the dog slobber, he appears to be perfect.”

  “No harm, no foul then.”

  Cal strode to the fence, introduced himself, and shook the man’s hand. “Here’s my business card. Please check your property, sir, and give me a call if my son did any damage. I’ll make it right.”

  “Aw, I’m sure he didn’t hurt anything.” The man squatted to TJ’s eye level. “What’s your name, son?”

  “TJ Walker.”

  “Say, TJ, how’d you like my boat?”

  TJ screwed up his face. “Well, it was hot in there and kinda smelly.”

  The man’s big laugh rolled again and his round gut followed suit. “That, m’boy, is because I’m a fisherman. On the best of days, anyway.” He gave TJ an exaggerated wink. “The rest of the time I just hang around here and do what the wife tells me.”

  It took a full twenty minutes to extricate themselves from conversation—one look at Dante’s classic Mustang elicited more of the homeowner’s belly-jiggling chortles—and by the time they rolled up to Cal’s house, the tumult caused by TJ’s little expedition, and the relief of finding him safe, had taken its toll on everyone. Even Pirate sat with his eyes drooping toward the beginnings of a nap. Shelley stood in the yard with Henry who clapped his hands and danced a jig the minute he spotted his friend.

  “I’m gonna go play with Henry,” TJ said, crawling from the convertible.

  “No you’re not.” Cal stopped TJ’s forward motion with a firm hand. “You’re in big trouble, buddy. We’ve got some serious talking to do and you’re in for the rest of the day.”

  “Aw, Dad.”

  Cal gave his boy a look that brooked no argument. “You’re just lucky I never talked to anyone at the sheriff’s department. You owe everyone here an apology and then you’re going inside for a bath. You smell.”

  “That’s ’cause we’re the smelly—”

  “Save it. Say you’re sorry for worrying everyone and screwing up their Saturday.”

  TJ threw Cal a mutinous look and kicked the ground. “Sorry.”

  “What’s that? Pick your head up, open your mouth, and say it like you mean it, loud enough to be heard.”

  TJ sighed a couple times while his gaze roamed the serious adult faces. His cheeks, already ruddy from the heat and excitement, grew redder still. “I’m sorry. But I wanted to see Miss Maddie.”

  “This wasn’t the way to do it,” Cal said. “Now tell everyone goodbye and go on in the house. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Can Miss Maddie and Pirate come in?”

  “Nope. Uncle Dante’s taking them home right now.”

  Thus dismissed, Maddie tamped down her disappointment. She knelt and held her arms out to TJ. He moved into her embrace like a moth to a porch light and rested his sweaty head on her shoulder. His skinny arms looped around her. Cal hadn’t lied, the kid smelled like three-day-old fish, but underneath it, right there at the nape of his neck she breathed in the little boy sweetness, a heady combination of dirt, sunshine, and Batman bubbles. She closed her eyes and held him tight.

  “I love you, Miss Maddie.”

  His whisper stabbed at her heart. “I love you, too, TJ. So much. Next time just give me a call, okay?” They pulled apart and she wiped a streak of dirt from his cheek with her thumb. “Your daddy has my number. If he calls me—” She swallowed hard and looked up at Cal. “I’ll answer. I promise.”

  Cal looked away. “C’mon, buddy. Time to go in.”

  TJ maintained the soulful gaze of a martyred saint all the way up the driveway and into the house. He walked with his arms dragging and shoulders slumped. He flipped his hand up in a pathetic wave when he passed by Henry. Henry waved back and frowned in solidarity. When TJ reached the front door, he cast a hang dog expression over the crowd before disappearing into the house. The door closed with a meek click.

  “Thanks everybody. I’m sorry for all this. And Henry, you’re a great friend to TJ. Thanks for stepping up.” Cal tousled Henry’s hair and the boy shrugged, but a grin tugged his lips upward. “I better get in there with my little runaway,
” Cal said. “Thanks again, y’all.”

  “Hey, Caleb.” Shelley stopped him with a hand on his upper arm and a smile. “Are we still hooking up later?”

  Her words and Cal’s affirming, “Absolutely,” stung Maddie like a slap.

  She knew her expression relayed every detail of her surprise and hurt because Dante winced on her behalf. She dropped her gaze and stared at her toes, noted that the Coral Cove polish needed a touch up, that her worn flip-flops looked like a garage sale purchase. She prayed the sun and heat of the day would take the blame for her hot cheeks, which no doubt shone a flaming red. She felt more than saw Cal step up to her and steeled her expression before she lifted her face. He held the end of Pirate’s leash toward her.

  “Thanks for your help. Don’t forget this guy.”

  “I’d like for you to keep Pirate,” Maddie said, her voice husky. She cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses to hide the blink back of tears. She’d die before she’d cry in Caleb Walker’s driveway with his new girlfriend standing next to him. “Please. He really belongs to TJ.”

  “Maddie, no. I’m not taking your dog.”

  “Please, Caleb. TJ’s the one who found him, and I only took him in as a foster. You’ve seen TJ and Pirate together. Pirate may live with me, but he’s TJ’s dog. Please. It will be good for TJ, you know it will.”

  Cal dropped his gaze to Pirate, who sat panting. “Are you sure about this? I feel terrible taking him away from you. You love this ugly beast.”

  Maddie stroked her fingers through Pirate’s fur. She couldn’t argue with Cal’s assessment. Blessed with charm and intelligence, Pirate was shortchanged in the looks department. “TJ happens to think he’s beautiful, and so do I. You aren’t taking him, Cal. I’m giving him to you. I’ll call the vet, Traci McManus, and let her know you’ll be the one taking over his care. I feed him twice a day, two cups each feeding. Traci can tell you what kind of food it is. I’m sorry, I don’t remember the brand.” Maddie knelt and hugged Pirate. She rubbed her cheek against the thick fur of his head, kissed the broad space between his ears, and whispered, “You’ve got your forever home, boy. Take good care of them for me.”