Keeping Caroline

by Vickie Taylor

  The bus to Port Kingston left in less than an hour.

  Savannah headed into the house, calling Jeb. “You come inside with me and leave these folks to their business.”

  Without even a typical, “Aw, Ma,” Jeb trailed off after Savannah. Caroline’s attempt at a smile failed. The boy had been quiet this morning. Too quiet. She was afraid there was more than lost sleep to blame, but so far, she hadn’t been able to figure out what he was thinking.

  She had, however, figured out what Matt was thinking. Last night, his appearance here had been a mystery. This morning, his motivation seemed all too clear.

  She studied his duffel bag darkly. His packed duffel bag.

  She’d wondered where he’d gotten his gun—he hadn’t been armed when she’d found him in Hailey’s room, she’d been sure. Now she knew. He’d brought his duffel and his dog with him last night.

  He was leaving.

  Turning his back on her and on his daughter. On himself, she realized bleakly. On the future he could have, if he would reach out for it.

  But if he was leaving, why had he stopped here first? To say goodbye? Then why sneak into the house unannounced? Why not knock on the front door?

  And why had he been in Hailey’s room? He’d made it perfectly clear he wanted nothing to do with his daughter.

  A surge of angry protectiveness flushed the last vestiges of last night’s fear from Caroline’s system. As usual, Matt kept his own counsel. He hadn’t bothered to clue her in on what he was doing, or what he planned to do, much less how he felt about it. He definitely hadn’t bothered to ask how she felt about it. He never did.

  Standing, she dusted off the seat of her cutoffs and headed toward the two men. Matt was going to find she wasn’t as easy to cut out as she used to be. She’d had her fill of him and his agendas. If he was so anxious to leave, let him go. She would talk to the police herself.

  Both heads turned her way as she approached. The deputy tipped his hat. “Ma’am.” Then he turned back to Matt. The look he and her husband shared—a short glance that spoke volumes—infuriated her. Cop communication. Quick. Efficient. Totally closed to outsiders.

  She gritted her teeth. “Did you find anything?”

  “Got some tire prints, ma’am, but I’m not sure they’ll help us much. Lots of folks drive down to that pond to fish.”

  The county deputy pulled out a pen and a dog-eared pocket notebook. “You didn’t see anything other than what your husba—” he cleared his throat uncomfortably “—Mr. Burkett has already told me?”

  She let his stuttering pass without comment. Evidently the whole county was aware of the impending change in her marital status. “No, I’m afraid not. Matt and I heard something downstairs. I stayed with the children while he went to investigate.”

  If the deputy wondered what she and her almost-ex-husband were doing upstairs in her house in the middle of the night, he had the good manners to not ask.

  “And you have no idea who would want to harass you.” He flicked another cop look at Matt. “Other than the girl, Gem Millholland.”

  Caroline bit down on her lower lip. Gem. She couldn’t have done this, could she? She was just a child herself, and she’d been doing so well, taking responsibility for herself and her babies.

  Matt must have known what she was thinking. Her doubts. She almost thought she saw a glimmer of sympathy behind his impenetrable cop face. “I asked the deputy to have someone check on her. She’s missing, Caroline. Snuck out sometime after Savannah left her last night and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Oh, no. The twins?”

  “Still with their foster parents.”

  Caroline frowned. “I can’t believe she’d leave her babies.”

  “Believe it,” Matt said.

  She looked up. “That doesn’t mean she was the one who broke in last night. Savannah took her home—”

  “She had plenty of time to sneak out and get back here.”

  “She wouldn’t have done this.”

  The deputy put his notebook away. “It’s my understanding that she was angry at you, ma’am. That she’d made threats earlier in the evening.”

  “It was just a misunderstanding. She was upset, was all.”

  She looked to Matt for support, but got only an unreadable look. She guessed she shouldn’t have expected his support in this. He didn’t know Gem the way she did.

  He turned to the deputy. “Thanks, Bill. You’ll be in touch if you get anything on the girl?”

  “You bet.” He touched the brim of his hat again, and turned to leave. “Y’all take care now, you hear?”

  Matt nodded. As the deputy headed around the house to his car, Matt trudged to the back porch.

  “Will they find her?” Caroline asked his back, following him.

  He shrugged. “They’ll make a few phone calls, keep their eyes open. Mostly as a professional courtesy.”

  “That’s all?”

  “We’ve got a runaway and some petty vandalism. I doubt they’re going to air it on ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ Besides—” he cut her a look over his shoulder “—I thought you didn’t believe it was her.”

  “I don’t.” She frowned. “At least I hope it wasn’t.”

  “Then why the rush to justice?”

  “I just want her found, Matt. Gem’s foster parents aren’t able to take care of the twins full-time. If Gem doesn’t come back, Child Protective Services will take them away.”

  Matt grunted. “Chances are, they would’ve done that sooner or later anyway.”

  Caroline stopped, propped her hands on her hips. “When did you become such a pessimist?” Continuing after him, she wondered what had happened to the fun-loving, idealistic man she’d married. The man who believed in people. And in himself. The answer echoed in her mind unbidden.

  She’d buried him with her son.

  He wheeled so suddenly that she almost plowed into him. With her standing a step below him, that put her nose practically in his chest. And a broad chest it was, too. Well-muscled. Powerful.

  “I’m not pessimistic,” he said. “Just realistic.”

  The strength and masculinity radiating from him with each word he spoke shook her. The fact that she noticed it shook her more. “You’re not even going to consider that it could have been someone else?”

  “Like who?”

  Her mind went blank.

  “Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.” He headed into the house.

  His condescension rubbed on her last nerve. Shouldering past him, she worked her way to the top of the stairs where she could look down on him. “She’s just a child, Matt. But then, you can’t even stand the sight of your own daughter, can you? Why would you care anything about a stranger?”

  Fire burned in his opalescent eyes, but the only outward sign that he felt anything other than complacency was the ticking in his jaw. “This isn’t about us, Caro.”

  “Isn’t it? What were you doing in Hailey’s room last night, Matt? Why were you even here?”

  The ticking in his jaw stopped. The fire in his eyes went out, and Caroline’s heart turned to ash. She knew what he was going to say, decided to say it for him. Save herself the pain of hearing it from his lips.

  “You came to say goodbye.”

  “Caro—”

  On legs stiff as stilts, she walked slowly across the porch toward the back door. She paused with her hand on the loose knob. “Go then.”

  He didn’t move.

  “I said go. Hailey and I don’t need your goodbyes.”

  His eyes drilled into her with an intensity that bordered on painful. “I can’t,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  “I can’t leave now.” He turned his eyes to the blood-red message on the solarium wall, drawing her gaze with his, despite her reluctance to look at the ugly threat. “Until Gem Millholland is found, or we know for sure who did this, I’m moving in.”

  Chapter 6

  “Don’t you think you’re g
oing a little overboard?” Caroline asked, appearing in the doorway. Matt had just gotten back from Sweet Gum where he’d wiped out the town’s supply of dead bolts and motion-sensing security alarms.

  He flicked a gaze her way. “No.”

  “You don’t seriously think Gem is dangerous.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  It was a hard to believe Gem could do this. His impression of Gem was that the girl was impulsive, a little reckless and not the best judge of character, but dangerous? No.

  Still, something didn’t feel quite right about the whole situation with Gem. He just couldn’t put his finger on what, exactly.

  “Then why lock this place up like Fort Knox?” Caroline asked.

  “Because I don’t plan to give her a chance to prove me wrong.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “For that you’re sleeping on my couch for three weeks?”

  He stalled a few moments, organizing his purchases on the counter and mentally listing the tools he’d need, but sooner or later he was going to have to tell Caroline what he’d found. Sooner was probably better. “Last night when I ran into Gem at the bar, she told me some guy had given her a ride because her car wouldn’t start.”

  “You said you didn’t believe her.”

  “I didn’t. But on my way home from the hardware store, I stopped at that diner where she works. Her Volkswagen was still there.” Matt finished unloading his bag, folded it and tucked it between the refrigerator and the cabinet, with the rest of the paper sacks. He straightened, turning his full attention on Caroline. “The battery cable had been disconnected.”

  Caroline’s hand tightened on the edge of the counter. “Someone sabotaged her car? Why?”

  He’d given that some thought. “Some guy, maybe someone she served at the diner, wanted to pick her up bad enough, he might pull a stunt like disconnecting her battery cable then being Johnny-on-the-spot to rescue her. Especially if she’d turned him down before.”

  Revulsion shuddered across Caroline’s face.

  Matt shrugged. A long night with not much sleep and lots of worry weighed on him. “Or maybe the cable just shook loose on these bumpy roads and this guy showing up and offering her a ride was a coincidence.” Except Matt didn’t believe in coincidences. “Either way, if she was here last night, someone else drove her. She has an accomplice.”

  “Or she’s a victim herself. She was upset last night. A man who would rig her car wouldn’t hesitate to use the situation to make himself out to be even more of hero. He might have even done the spray-painting himself.”

  “Anything’s possible,” he admitted.

  “We’ve got to find her, Matt.”

  “The sheriff is looking.”

  Her expression said that wasn’t enough. It never was, not when kids went missing.

  “In the meantime—” He rattled one of the dead bolt boxes at her. “Keep your doors locked.”

  She pushed her hips off the edge of the counter. “I suppose I’ll sleep better knowing the house is secure, but the other…you staying…” She wrung her hands, bit her lip. “It’s really not necessary.”

  “I think it is.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “Fine. Think of me as a contractor. You hired me to work on the house, that’s what I’m going to do. For the full thirty days.”

  “And if I don’t want you here?”

  She angled her chin. Matt knew that prideful look. He also knew what caused it.

  He set down the locks, pulled out a chair and sat. “Caro, about last night—” He leaned on his elbows, his hands draped between his knees and his gaze on the floor. “I’m sorry about what I said.” He risked a look up at her, but he couldn’t read her feelings from her expression. The wife who’d once been an open book to him now might as well be a stranger. “About you getting pregnant on purpose. I know you didn’t— That is, I didn’t mean it.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  He winced inside. She was right, in a way. He didn’t believe she’d gotten pregnant deliberately, but he did feel betrayed. Betrayed by Caroline. By a baby he hadn’t known existed.

  Betrayed by God.

  “It was just a shock,” he said, shaking off his reverie. “Finding out about Hailey like that. That’s all.”

  “And now the shock has worn off, and you want to move in and get domestic?” She dropped her hand from the door frame. He wondered if she knew it was clenched in a fist. “What’s really going on here, Matt?”

  His chest weighed a thousand pounds. Too much to lift for the breath he needed. “I said I would fix up the house. I’m just trying to keep my promise.”

  Her caramel eyes assessed him coolly. He didn’t think she’d bought it, even when she spoke. “Suit yourself,” she said, turning away. “You have twenty-one days to go.”

  Halfway out of the room, a thin wail erupted from the baby monitor clipped to her belt. She pressed a button to mute the sound and turned to him.

  “If you think you can stand it.”

  The next morning, when Matt heard Savannah’s car pull out of the drive, he bolstered himself by chugging the bottom half of a cup of extra-strong black coffee and went in search of Jeb. Matt had finished installing the dead bolts the night before and had made Caroline promise to keep them locked, even during the day. That meant Jeb needed to know how to open them in case of fire.

  Opening the door to the playroom, Matt called the boy.

  Jeb ducked to the back of the plastic play set he’d been crawling through.

  “Come on, Jeb,” Matt repeated. “I want to show you something.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No. Ain’t going with you.”

  Matt choked the doorknob. He just wanted to get this over with. But the thick layer of fear riding beneath the veneer of defiance in the boy’s voice tempered his impatience. “Why not?”

  Jeb’s answer was a hiccup. Matt took a few steps toward the plastic blocks hollowed out so a child could fit inside. High-pitched hiccups jumped out at him, one after the other, increasing in frequency.

  Matt stopped, took a step back. He was quiet a moment, then hitched up his pants and squatted so he could look inside Jeb’s hiding place. The boy’s complexion was ashen, but it was Matt’s mouth that tasted like cinders. “You don’t have to be afraid, Jeb.”

  “I ain’t afraid,” the boy proclaimed in a voice as sharp as a blade of dry Bermuda grass.

  Matt balanced with one hand on the carpet. “No, of course you’re not. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant…I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Jeb tucked his chin to his chest.

  Matt duck-walked a step forward. He knew Jeb heard him by the way the boy’s shoulders hunched back. He stopped, satisfied to be a foot closer. “I know you’re not afraid or anything. But I could understand if you wouldn’t want to come out because you thought someone was going to hurt you.”

  “You hurt people.”

  “Usually I help people.”

  “You made Miss Caroline cry.” Jeb’s chin came up. His face was wrinkled and wet. “And you got a gun. I heard you cock it last night.”

  Anger exploded in Matt’s chest. Anger at himself for scaring a child, and anger that a five-year-old boy knew enough fear to listen for the sound of a gun. Had Jeb’s father had a gun?

  The son of a bitch. Matt prayed the man never showed up here, because if he did, Matt would probably spend the rest of his days in jail.

  For murder.

  But right now, murder wasn’t Matt’s concern. Getting one small, frightened child out of a plastic play cube was. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the play cube. “I have a gun to protect people. I’m a policeman.”

  “Cops don’t protect nobody. People gotta protect themselves.”

  “Who said that?”

  “My mama.”

  Matt wasn’t sure Savannah trusted him much more than Jeb did, but still he wondered if that particular c
onversation had been meant for little ears. She didn’t seem the type to plant those kinds of ideas in her son’s mind. “The police didn’t protect you and your mom very well, did they? But we do our best. We try. That’s why I have a gun. That’s why I’m here.”

  Jeb sniffed. “To protect Miss Caroline?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “From sumbuddy what broke into the house?”

  “Yes,” Matt said. But he didn’t want to add to Jeb’s fears. “No one is going to break into the house anymore, though. I put new locks on the doors. Big strong ones so that everyone inside will be safe. That’s what I wanted to show you. Want to come see?”

  Jeb looked suspicious, but interested. “Then can I see your gun.”

  “No.” Matt decided a change in topic was in order. “Tell you what, Alf is out on the front porch. After I show you the new lock, we can go pet him.”

  “For real?”

  Matt almost smiled as the boy perked up. “For real.”

  After two days of installing locks, tightening window bolts and testing motion detectors, Matt had apparently decided the house was secure. They hadn’t had any more trouble, Gem hadn’t been heard from, and he’d gone back to work on the solarium. Balancing a tray laden with two tall tumblers of iced tea in one hand, Caroline pulled the porch door open with her other. She stopped on the threshold, her heart surging into her throat at the sight before her.

  Matt stood on a ladder, doing something technical with the wiring in the rafters where the ceiling light would go. Jeb stood on the floor below him, looking up as if he were consulting on the job. Matt handed a tool down to the boy whose focus was all turned to his task.

  “Needle-nose pliers,” Matt said.

  Squatting beside the ladder, Jeb rummaged through the tool box.

  “They have a long, skinny point,” Matt instructed. “With rubber on the handles.”

  A moment later Jeb held up his prize. When Matt said, “You got it,” the boy’s grin grew to the size of a slice of cantaloupe. Holding the pliers carefully, Jeb climbed the first three rungs of the ladder, handed the tool up to Matt, then descended to his place, waiting expectantly for the next command from on high. The scene looked like a modern-day Norman Rockwell. If their racial heritages weren’t so different, a passerby might have thought them father and son.