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“Then stand somewhere else,” Ellen said, just as quietly. “I can take care of myself.”
“That’s right,” Richard said, taking a step forward and tripping against the threshold so he nearly fell into the house. He recovered by grabbing the doorjamb with one rubbery arm. “My wife doesn’t need your help, Romeo. You’re just a pretty face to her. Probably haven’t got the brains the Lord gave an ant, but I bet you’re hung like a horse, aren’t you? S’okay, Els, I get it. I haven’t been around in a while, and you have needs. God, do you ever have needs.”
A salacious smile stretched across his face as he surveyed her body, lingering over her legs and her breasts. She hadn’t buttoned the shirt up properly. There was a lot of Ellen on display.
“I remember how to please you, darlin’. Let me.”
A choked cry came from behind Richard, and all heads turned to look at Cassie. “You lying bastard.”
Richard flapped a hand in her direction, dismissing the woman he’d no doubt been romancing all evening long.
“You brought him here?” Caleb asked Cassie. “Let him past the checkpoint?”
“Yes, but only because he said—”
“Go home.”
“But I—”
“You’re fired. Go home.”
Cassie opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again as tears filled her eyes. She turned and walked quickly down the driveway, heading for her car.
Later, he would care that she was upset. She’d been the wrong person for the job, another in a series of bad calls. His fault. This whole sorry mess was his fault.
Richard jerked his head in Caleb’s direction. “You can send the meathead packing now, darlin’. I want to come in so we can … talk. Get reacquainted. We can spend the whole day getting to know each other again.” He smiled, and Caleb’s hands curled into fists.
“Henry’s coming home this morning.” There was something about the way she spoke to him. No-nonsense, but not nearly as forbidding as she’d been at Maureen’s yesterday. It made the hair on the back of Caleb’s neck stand on end. She was coddling Richard. Humoring him. Caleb wanted to roar like an animal. “And I have a lot of work to catch up on. I think we’ll have to save getting reacquainted for another day.”
“We can leave the kid with my mom.” He reached for Ellen’s wrist and ran his fingers up beneath the unbuttoned cuff of Caleb’s shirt. Caleb’s stomach clenched hard, and he wondered for a heartbeat if he would throw up. Ellen took a step to the side and gently tugged her arm from Richard’s grip.
“No, we can’t. I miss him when he’s gone. Plus, you really look like you could use some sleep. Why don’t you go home and rest? Later on, you can give me a call. We’ll talk.”
Caleb snapped. “Christ, Ellen, what’s the matter with you? He treats Henry like a toy, and now he shows up at dawn with another woman and insults you. Why are you even talking to him?” She turned on him, eyes blazing, but Caleb didn’t care. He couldn’t take it. “Get the fuck out of here,” he told Richard. “Go home. Leave her alone.”
Richard squinted at Caleb, offended in a bleary sort of way, but when he turned to look at Ellen his eyes came into focus. “This is my home,” he told her. “I want back in my house, and I want this imbecile out of it. I’m going to fuck you six ways from Sunday, Els. If you still want to talk after, it’s—”
Then he shut up, but only because Caleb had walked him backward and pinned him to the side of the house by the throat. “You’re the one who’s leaving,” he said. It was such an immeasurable relief to finally be able to sound exactly as mad as he was, to grip Richard’s neck exactly as hard as he wanted to. “On foot or in an ambulance. Your choice.”
Richard tried to kick him in the balls, which gave Caleb a reason to let go. He waited for Richard to come at him, and then he punched him in the mouth as hard as he could.
Richard dropped to his knees. The satisfaction reverberated up Caleb’s arm, a clean physical pain he welcomed.
He wanted nothing more than to pick Richard up, pin him to the wall, and hit him again. Hit him until he wasn’t even a man anymore, until he was just meat. Obliterate him from the face of the earth so Caleb wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that Ellen had loved this asshole once, that she’d married him and still cared enough to be civil to him even when he treated her like shit, but she wouldn’t let Caleb take her out to dinner. She wouldn’t love him. She wouldn’t even pretend to.
But when he raised his fist again, he couldn’t do it. Richard was helpless. Worthless. A satisfying man to hate, but not legitimately threatening. There would be no honor in hurting him.
Worse, the useless piece of shit was Henry’s father.
“Eric,” he said. “Get him out of here.”
Eric and another of the guards stepped forward and pulled Richard to his feet. “What do you want us to do with him?” Eric asked.
“Take him home.”
It was only as Caleb turned back toward Ellen’s house that he noticed camera flashes going off in his peripheral vision and understood he was going to get fired for this.
And if the look on Ellen’s face was anything to go by, that wasn’t the worst of his problems.
