Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance (31 page)

She wouldn’t always have Caleb in her bed.

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.

But damn it, he kept provoking her into reacting. He kept making her
feel
things, which wasn’t fair at all when she couldn’t trust him to keep her heart safe if she handed it to him. Why didn’t the man understand she’d dumped his sorry ass? Kicked it to the curb, because he wasn’t what she and the Wombat needed.
So long, Jamie Callahan. Nice knowing you
.

But there were the texts he’d been sending her. The e-mails. The phone calls. The messages on Twitter about how much he missed her, how beautiful she was, how much he admired her wit and her strength and her zest for life. If she weren’t pregnant and marooned on this stupid couch, she’d be out there right now, forcibly removing him from her lawn. He could admire her zest for life while she kicked him in his perfect butt.

Everyone was conspiring against her. Nana got a huge kick out of playing romantic broker, Katie thought Jamie was so hot that Carly must be out of her mind not to take him back, and Ellen loved her brother and wanted both of them to be happy. Traitors, the whole lot of them.

“Testing, testing. Sing a song of sixpence. Cool. This works.”

Jamie’s smooth, sexy voice came through the microphone and crossed the airwaves and sank right into her skin. The Wombat kicked. Her heart beat too hard.

“Somebody go out there and cut the power, or I’ll do it myself.”

“Can’t,” Katie replied. “Caleb’s standing guard over the extension cords.”

“Killer’s on his side, too?” God, this kept getting more and more unfair. Why wasn’t anyone with her on this?

“Is that some kind of army nickname?” Ellen asked.

Katie frowned. “It’s Carly’s stupid nickname.”

“It’s not stupid,” Carly said, peeved. “Clark’s been a lady killer since the day he was born.”

Katie shot her an eat-shit-and-die look, and Carly realized belatedly this wasn’t maybe the smartest topic of conversation”.

Nana came to the rescue. “Caleb is a lovely boy. I’ve never understood why you insist on calling him ‘Killer.’ It doesn’t suit him at all.”

“Exactly,” Katie said. “He’s a great guy. You always make him sound like some kind of womanizing creep.”

Carly rolled her eyes. “I do not.”

Ellen piped up. “You said he went through women like Chiclets.”

“Chiclets?” Katie asked. “What a horrible thing to say! Ellen, I’m sorry, I know I’m a perfect stranger and all, but you have to believe me when I tell you this: Carly is totally full of
shit. My brother does
not
go through women like Chiclets. Carly’s just bitter because she kicked out the love of her life and now she refuses to admit she made a mistake.”

“What’s a Chiclet?” Nana asked.

“It’s a kind of gum,” Katie answered.

Jamie Callahan wasn’t the love of her life. He was irresponsible, flighty, impulsive, immature, gorgeous, tender, attentive, and unbelievably good in bed.

Crap
. She needed to work on that. It happened every time she tried to list his bad points.

“Caleb had, like, four million girlfriends in high school,” she said. “I’m completely justified in calling him ‘Killer.’ ”

“C’mon, Carly, that was fifteen years ago. He’s grown up, you know.”

She snorted but didn’t respond. It was no good arguing with Katie about her brother. She would defend Clark with her dying breath. Also, she maybe had a point. Girls had started throwing themselves at Caleb from the moment he hit puberty, and back in high school he’d been happy enough to catch them. But now that she thought about it, when was the last time she’d heard about him going out on a date?

She couldn’t remember.

“Whatever,” she said, hating to make the concession.

Music began to play outside, throbbing loud enough to vibrate the windows.

“Ooh, he’s starting!” Nana shouted from her post in the window seat. “Can you see, Carly? Want me to help you move closer?”

“I’m not watching,” Carly insisted.

“He’s wearing a tuxedo,” Nana replied.

“Where did he get that?” Ellen wondered aloud.

“Caleb got it for him,” Katie said absently. “Wow, he’s hot. If you don’t want him, Carly, let me know.”

And then Jamie started talking, and Carly tried shoving a pillow over her head, but it was no use. She heard every single word.

“Hi, Carly,” he said into the microphone, as if the crowd of five or six hundred people weren’t there. “I, uh—man, this is a lot weirder than I expected. You know, I’ve been giving concerts for most of my life, but I’ve never performed on anybody’s front lawn before. And I’ve never—there’s never been so much at stake. So if I sound a little nervous, you’ll have to cut me some slack.” There was a pause, and then he chuckled, and the Wombat kicked again. “Yeah. Like that’s going to happen. It’s not really in your nature, is it? But you know, that’s just one of a thousand different reasons why I love you.”

He loved her. Oh, that was just
fantastic
. Just hearing him say the words triggered a gigantic avalanche of doomed joy in her stupid, pregnant, irrational body, while the heels she’d
dug firmly into the dirt reminded her that Jamie might have mentioned that he loved her
before
she’d dumped him. When she still loved him back. When she would have given a lot to hear him say those words and tell her he understood what she was going through, and he wanted to be there for her. But not now. What was the point now? It was over.

Over.

“So here’s the thing, Carly. I know you’re sitting in there, probably somewhere pretty far from the window so you can’t see me, and if I know you at all, you’ve got your fingers in your ears and you’re saying ‘la-la-la-la’ and hoping I’ll go away.”

She sat up and took the pillow off her head. Three women were smirking at her. “Shut up,” she told them.

“But I’m not going away,” Jamie said. “Not this time. I already did that, and it was the stupidest mistake I’ve ever made. This time, I’m sticking. I’ve never stuck before, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”

“Oh, Jamie,” Ellen said with a sigh.

Oh, Jamie
, Carly thought. And then wanted to slap herself, because she was losing this battle, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

“So I figure everybody has their talents, and I’ve only ever really had two. I can sing, and I can—” He paused, then chuckled again. “Let’s just say ‘pencil dick’ was a low blow.”

The crowd went crazy.

“I figure if I want you to let me in the house, I should use my talents to try to persuade you. So what I’m going to do is sing—I wrote you a whole bunch of songs, Carly, which means this could take a while—and maybe dance a little, even though I don’t have any choreography for this new stuff yet.”

“I knew he’d sing,” Katie said. “This is going to be sweet. Don’t stop him too soon, okay, Carly? I want to hear the new songs.”

“The other thing I’m going to do,” Jamie continued, “is strip.”

At this point, the assembly on Burgess started screaming and cheering so loudly, Jamie had to wait a full minute for them to settle down.

“And if you don’t stop me and let me into the house so I can talk to you, eventually I’m going to be naked out here.”

More cheering and screaming. In her head, she could imagine Jamie smiling, sheepish but defiant. He had a thousand smiles, and all of them got to her differently. All of them got to her.

“Then I guess I’ll get arrested. But not before I give all these nice folks a chance to see for themselves about the pencil-dick thing.”

Five hundred people lost their minds, including Katie and Nana. Ellen said, “Oh, Jamie” again, not so pleased this time, and Carly sank down onto the couch with her arm over her face.

Then Jamie started to sing, and the ice around her heart began to melt.

“This is so stupid,” she said, trying to harden it back up.

“This is so romantic.” Katie sighed.

Nana cracked the window and yelled, “Take off your shirt!”

Jamie belted out the chorus. “Damn,” Ellen said. “This is a really good song. He didn’t even tell me he was writing.”

“That man’s got moves,” Katie said.

“He really does,” Nana agreed. “I could watch him wiggle that butt all day long.”

He started a new song.

“Oh!” Katie again.

“I think I’m having a hot flash.” Nana.

“What did he do?” Carly asked, hating herself.

“He took off the tie.” Ellen this time.

“That’s all?”

“He has a way of taking off his tie …” Katie said, fanning her hand in front of her face.

Oh, shit
. She knew that. She’d seen him do it once, after he’d taken her out for dinner in Columbus. He’d loosened his tie in the backseat of the limo, yanked it out of his collar with a practiced flick of his wrist, and she’d gone a little insane with lust. They’d had to do it right there and then. When they were halfway home, she’d flashed back to the tie-yanking thing again and crawled onto his lap for round two.