Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance (22 page)

“Good.” Caleb kneeled on the subfloor, staring at a corner where the caulk around the tub had turned gray and pocked with age.

There had been a time when he’d have said more. Let his father in on his troubles. Caleb had been uncomfortable around his dad since the stroke, unsure how to deal with the situation. Katie gave him a hard time about it.
He’s just Dad
, she’d say, exasperated.
He’s the same
.

But he was different, and every reminder of it hit Caleb like a physical blow. He pitied his father, and pity didn’t sit right between them. He didn’t want to feel sorry for his dad any more than Dad wanted to see it on his face.

So they did this. The short conversations and the companionable silence thing. They’d always worked well together. As the only son, Caleb had been raised fetching tools and accepting his father’s instructions on how to clean up graffiti and get stains out of carpet. How to keep the roof in good shape and the flower beds looking their best. Hundreds of things.

“Dropped by the office on my way back from town,” Derek said, accepting the piece of flooring Caleb passed out of the bathroom, relief cuts completed, and handing him the tub of glue and a putty knife. “Katie told me something interesting.”

“About Levi?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

They were silent for a minute while Caleb spread glue. Finally, he blurted out, “I wish she’d told me. I could’ve helped her get home to Camelot after he walked out, at least. But I wish she’d told me back when she married him.”

“I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“I could’ve helped,” he repeated.

“Everybody has to make their own mistakes.”

Caleb had certainly made his share, but he’d have preferred to keep Katie perpetually eight years old, untouched by anything hard and dangerous in life. Untouched by Levi Rider, that was for sure.

Not exactly realistic, but that was how he’d always felt about her.

“She tell you not to say anything to Mom?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

Mom was going to give her seven different kinds of hell when she found out. “She seems all right, though.”

“You know Katie. Tough as nails, that girl. Takes after her mother. She’ll be fine.”

Caleb spread glue. His dad was probably right. Katie was tough. When he handed the tub back to his father and received the flooring again, Derek said, “I’d like to hang that Rider kid from the nearest yardarm.”

“Draw and quarter the little asshole,” Caleb agreed.

They began to ease the vinyl in place, lining up the factory edge with the long, uninterrupted wall so the pattern wouldn’t come out crooked.

“Make soup from his guts,” Derek said after a few beats.

“Break all his bones, one at a time.”

“Mess up that smarmy smile of his.”

“Cut off his balls and make him eat them.”

Derek laughed. “Now that’s just plain disgusting, son.”

Caleb smiled, and for a while, he forgot about the stroke and simply enjoyed his father’s company.

By the time they finished up, it was two o’clock, and he needed a shower. He stopped home, cleaned up, ditched the black shirt, and went to his office. Katie seemed disappointed that he’d taken away her comedic inspiration.

She dispatched him to pick up Nana Short from her new place and drop her by Carly’s, which he did, and then Nana asked him to drive to the Village Market for groceries. After that, it was home again for dinner with Katie, a casserole to take to Carly, and he was beginning to feel like an errand boy.

“Stay for dinner,” Nana said. She carried the casserole into the kitchen and emerged to say, “Over at the home, I never get to eat with hot young things like you.”

“Don’t call it ‘the home,’ ” Carly said from the couch. “You make it sound like we’ve stuck you in one of those nightmare nursing homes from the movies where they neglect you and you get bedsores while they steal all your money. You picked this place out, for crying out loud. It looks like freaking Palm Springs. It’s the nicest condo in the county.”

“If it’s so great, why don’t you move there?” Nana asked. “Bunch of old people sitting around playing pinochle. There’s a reason I never wanted to move to Palm Springs.”

“That bad, huh?” Caleb grabbed a seat beside Carly to eat some of the chips and sour-cream dip Nana had set out for them. He enjoyed listening to Nana and Carly spar. It was like watching Ali and Foreman fight—they were pros.

“Everyone is so
wrinkly
. It’s disgusting. But on the plus side, I’m getting laid left and right.”

Caleb choked on his chip, which made Nana laugh.

“Don’t encourage her,” Carly said. “Honestly, Nana, nobody wants to hear about your
sex life.”

“Tough. It’s my duty as a feminist to talk about it. The media perpetuates terrible stereotypes about mature women’s sexuality, like it’s a crime to want to get some if you don’t have perky boobs anymore.”

“Forget I said anything,” Carly muttered.

But Nana was on a roll. “Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m neutered.” She wagged a finger at Carly. “And it sure as hell doesn’t mean I’m going to put on one of those ugly red hats and go on cruises with a bunch of biddies.”

“No?” Caleb asked, having recovered enough to reach for another chip. “I could see you having a good time on a cruise. You know they have open bars, right?”

“Oh, yeah?” Nana’s eyes softened as she forgot about the lecture and started imagining herself on a cruise. “You think I could find myself a boy toy on one of those ships? A rich one who’ll spring me from the home?”

“I think if you find a boy toy, he’s going to be after
your
money. If you want a rich one, you’ll have to settle for wrinkles.”

Nana sighed. “Story of my life. I can have hot or rich, but not both.”

Caleb winked at her. She walked up behind the couch and squeezed his biceps experimentally. “I think I’ll go with hot. You free, sweet cheeks?”

“Oh my God, shut
up
, both of you,” Carly said, flopping back onto a pillow.

Caleb laughed, and his phone chirped to tell him he had a text.

It was from Ellen.
Done working soon. You like Bogart?

Another one came in immediately after the first.
Come over. Bring chocolate sauce
.

“Sorry, Nana. I have other plans for the night.”

Nana read over his shoulder and whistled. “I should say so. Is that from Ellen next door? Sweet, quiet, legs-up-to-here Ellen?”

“A gentleman never tells,” Caleb said, tucking his phone away and wishing he’d been discreet enough not to look at it within twenty feet of Nana.

“What’d she say?” Carly asked, sitting up straight again.

Nana ignored her. “You’re a lovely boy, Caleb, but you’re no gentleman.”

“No? I thought I had the whole officer-and-a-gentleman thing going.”

“C’mon, what’d she say?” Carly begged.

“Nah, you have the battle-scarred-soldier thing going. Don’t worry, though. It’s better.”

Caleb smiled. “Thanks. I think.”

“One of you
has
to tell me,” Carly said.

“Good night, ladies.” Caleb was already heading for the door.

He had to make another run to the grocery store, but this time, he didn’t mind.

Chapter Seventeen

Jamie would never have guessed it could be so hard to get on a plane.

He resettled his shoulders against the leather seat and looked out the window. Nothing but sun-baked tarmac and flat, parched fields beyond. Dullsville, USA.

Technically, he was sitting somewhere outside Houston. He’d had no idea what city he was in when he listened to the message from Ellen. Hadn’t even known he was in Texas. He lost track, got used to going where he was taken and not worrying too much about where he was until it was time to say,
Hello, Cleveland!
to the crowd.

Somewhere out there, somebody was fueling up the jet, performing whatever checks had to be performed to get him off the ground. He didn’t really know how it worked. Just lately, he’d been noticing he didn’t know how much of anything worked.

All he knew was he needed to get to Camelot. Ellen’s message saying Carly and the baby were in trouble had hit him like a mallet to the skull. He’d been an idiot to leave Carly and an even bigger idiot to think he could stay away from her.

It made him frenzied—knowing she might need him while he was so many states away, messing with trying to locate his bag, pack up his stuff, duck security, and get out of the hotel. He’d rushed through the anonymous hallways to the elevator, across the lobby, ignoring the guests elbowing each other and staring, the whispers.
Is that Jamie Callahan?
Out the main entrance, where he’d hoped to find his driver waiting but hadn’t.

Where did Ryan go when he wasn’t supposed to be driving Jamie somewhere? It had never occurred to him to ask. Further evidence that he was a selfish asshole.

The evidence had been piling up since he met Carly.

A clean getaway would have been ideal, but security was only a few steps behind him, accompanied by Christina, his manager. “What’s up, Jamie?” she asked as he peered around the side of the building. “Who was on the phone? Where are you going?”

He started walking across the vast parking lot, wanting simply to escape her, to escape this anonymous five-star hotel in—Dallas? Raleigh? It was fucking hot, wherever it was.

In the end, he’d had to ask Christina how to call Ryan, which should have been no big deal. He asked her to do things for him all day long. But this time, he’d been embarrassed, because what he’d really been asking was
How do I go somewhere without your permission?

“Can you close the door?” he asked the flight attendant.

“Of course.”

The temperature climbed inside the plane, so high that sweat began to bead at his temples, but he felt better once he was sealed inside his expensive tin box. Once he knew nobody could stop him from doing what he should have done days ago.

“I’m going to Camelot,” he’d told Christina.

“You can’t do that. You have a show tonight.”

The words had grated on his last nerve. How many times had he heard that in his life,
You have a show
? First from his mother, who’d trotted it out whenever she didn’t want him to do something any normal kid would have been allowed to do.

No, you can’t go to Roger’s birthday party, you have a show on Sunday
.

No, you can’t go to Homecoming, you’ll be tired for your audition
.

College is fine for Ellen—she doesn’t have a career to think about. You have so much lost time to make up for! You need to
focus,
Jamie
.

He didn’t blame his mother. He’d wanted all of this once—the fame, the concerts, the fans. The girls.

It was only lately that he’d begun to chafe at what it did to his freedom, the way it turned every opportunity into a
Let me check my schedule
or
I’ll have my assistant get back to you
, until he couldn’t even walk out to the car and fly to Ohio to be with the woman he loved—the
only
woman he’d ever loved, besides his mother and his sister—without being trailed by his manager and reminded, several times,
You have a show
.

“Cancel the show,” he’d said to Christina, and her eyes had gone so wide, he’d thought they might pop out.

“You can’t do that. They’ve sold all the tickets, and—”

He’d gone off on her then. “I don’t care! Jesus, everybody else cancels when they have a sore throat. I’m thirty years old, and I’ve never canceled a show. I’ve gone onstage with the flu. I went onstage the day after my mom died. I’m not doing it anymore. I don’t care what you tell them. I don’t care what it costs me. I don’t even care if I never sing again. I’m leaving. Cancel the fucking show.”

Superstar temper tantrum. His first, and he hoped his last. Poor Christina hadn’t deserved the rant, but at least she’d stopped following him.

He’d kept walking, noticing how heavy his bag was and wondering when he last had to carry it for himself. Sweat plastered his shirt to his back, the cars zoomed by on the busy urban road, and eventually he found Ryan’s number in his phone. Christina must have programmed it in. Somebody had.

“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Callahan?”

“No, thanks.” The flight attendant was new. Younger than him, tall and leggy, wearing a
skimpy, retro-style uniform that somebody must have picked out thinking he’d like it. He spent his life surrounded by people who did things the way they thought he’d like them, and all he wanted was Carly, who didn’t give much of a damn what he liked.

Carly, who made him laugh. Who picked on his clothes, thought his albums were crap, and had told him the first time he played the piano for her that a talented guy like him shouldn’t be wasting his time on pop music.

Carly, who wanted to be tough but who purred like a cat when he held her and ran his fingers through her hair. The sort of woman who’d rather face down a horde of Vikings than admit publicly to any sort of vulnerability.

But when they were alone together, she was vulnerable. They both were.

Carly had become his refuge, his haven. He’d fallen for her without even knowing it was happening. He’d been a brat about the press, a spoiled fucking
kid
, and when she’d told him to go, he’d walked out without understanding how shamelessly he’d used her.

Carly and the baby. Ellen said they needed him now. He couldn’t imagine what possible use he would be, but whatever he had to offer her, he was going to be there to offer it. Because
he
needed
them
.

“Just let me know when we’re about to land,” he said. “I’m good for the flight.”

“Of course, Mr. Callahan.” She smiled, toothy and naive, and sashayed toward the front.

She probably had a demo in her purse, a CD or a flash drive with a song she just knew would be a hit. Unless she wanted to sleep with him. Or both.

Most everybody wanted something—everybody but his sister, who’d only ever wanted him to be a good brother and a better uncle. And Carly, who’d wanted him to be a man.