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As a mother, she was used to saying goodbye to the old routines and scrambling to recognize and make peace with the new ones. Raising a kid was a chaotic process, change its only constant. But in the past few days, her life had transformed more rapidly than even she could handle. It would be one thing if she knew how it would all come out, but she didn’t. She couldn’t control it—couldn’t control anything.
She hated that.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked as they passed the water tower that marked the end of Central Path.
“Sure,” she said, still gazing outside. She was okay enough. A more sophisticated mental inventory was well beyond her at the moment.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “It never should’ve happened.”
“It’s not your fault. That was all Richard.”
He inhaled deeply, and she glanced over at him. Caleb looked tired and tight and unhappy. Her fingers wanted to sink into the muscles at the back of his neck, an automatic reaction to the tension in his body. But wasn’t that exactly her problem, this impulse to rescue the men in her life? To help everybody else, when she barely had the energy to keep herself going?
She wasn’t any good at having flings. Two days into it, and already she’d lost track of the selfishness that was supposed to have protected her from caring too much about Caleb. Sustained objectification just wasn’t in her nature.
“I shouldn’t have let that happen. I should’ve given Sean clearer instructions, and—look, Ellen. I swear to you, nothing like that will happen again. I’ve asked Katie to send another guy over there. Just in case one of them comes back.”
One of them. The photographer … or Richard.
The news made her breathe easier, and then it made her feel guilty. She didn’t want to celebrate the prospect of Caleb protecting her son from his own father. She didn’t want any of this to be happening. “Thanks.”
They pulled up to the roadblock at the end of Burgess and waited as the officers moved it aside. Caleb rolled through and stopped to talk to one of the men on duty. Then he pulled over and parked by the side of the road.
“I’m gonna leave the car here. Let me walk you back.”
It was only half a block. She didn’t need an escort for half a block. She wanted one, though. She wanted him beside her.
He took her hand as they walked down the shady street. Took her hand and walked with her, and when they got near her house, he led her through the crowd, holding tight to her fingers and moving with such authority that the crush of bodies parted easily for him. Caleb guided her right up to her front door and held it open.
“Lock up, okay? Just for today.”
“Sure.”
He leaned in and kissed her lightly, the warm, dry touch of his lips almost a benediction.
“Be safe.”
And then he went to work to keep her that way.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Maybe he won’t sing. Maybe he’s going to give a speech,” Katie said, peering out Carly’s living room windows at the men milling around on the front lawn.
“Cross your fingers he doesn’t,” Ellen said. “Public speaking is not one of Jamie’s hidden talents.”
Carly groaned and buried her face behind one of the throw pillows, wondering how difficult it would be to get both of them to go home. Could she kick them out of Nana’s house?
Probably not. Nana was having entirely too much fun. Ever since the press conference, she’d been bustling around with her cell phone plastered to her ear, coordinating some kind of betting pool with her friends at the retirement community. She’d spotted Katie outside with Caleb and pulled them both inside to help her rearrange the furniture in front of the window, and then Katie had decided to stay. Nana had even called Ellen up and insisted that she come over for what she kept calling “the festivities.”
And hadn’t that been an awkward moment? Ellen, this is Caleb’s sister, Katie, Nana had said. Katie, this is Ellen. She’s sleeping with your brother. My goodness, once Carly takes Jamie back, it’s going to be positively incestuous around here! And then she’d disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Carly to try to ease the tension between two women who probably would have been nervous to meet even before Nana had forced both of them to imagine their brothers having sex.
“Popcorn!” Nana announced, emerging from the kitchen with two huge bowls filled to the brim. “I’ve got butter and sweet-and-spicy. I did that one up special for Jamie, because he seems like a sweet-and-spicy type to me. When Carly finally lets him in, I figure he’s going to be hungry.”
“I’m not letting him in,” Carly said, for the six hundredth time today. Nana didn’t even bother to respond. Katie gave her a quick smile before turning her attention back outside, and Ellen grimaced, obviously torn between loyalty to her brother and sympathy for Carly.
Carly totally wasn’t letting him in. She was furious with him. He’d told her off for mentioning him on her blog, then flown here and started giving the press a free show. Jamie Callahan, devoted suitor—and what role did that leave for her? Forgiving Madonna or viper bitch?
She didn’t want to be either one. She wanted to be beyond this, calm and centered and capable of turning Jamie away without drama or pain. She wanted to be the sort of woman—the sort of mother—who didn’t succumb to snaps of temper and accuse her ex-boyfriend of having a tiny wiener on the Internet.
