Along Came Trouble(22)

“Not yet, but I feel like you have the potential.”

She didn’t know quite how to take that. The insistent drumbeat his remark set off between her thighs suggested one interpretation, but rationally it wasn’t the most likely one.

Not that she had much rationality left. At some point in the last few minutes, she’d crossed the line that divided pleasant, alcohol-infused drowsiness from blurry, weary, and done.

Ellen stood up and gazed down at Caleb for one long, fathomless moment.

Bodyguard, she reminded herself. Bad, bad idea.

“I’m going to bed now.”

“In the morning, I want to install new deadbolts on your doors.”

She sighed. “If I’ve managed to make it through the night without getting slain in my bed, we’ll see how I feel about it then. At the moment, the answer is no.”

“I’m also going to go ahead and tell the a.m. shift they can pull the car into your driveway. I want a separate team on Carly’s place. If anything weird happens, it’ll be easier to deal with if I’ve got four men and two vehicles here.”

Did she care whether the SUV parked on the street or in her driveway? She was pretty sure she had, earlier, but she couldn’t remember why.

“Fine. That’s it, though. Don’t push your luck.”

He stood up, putting him much closer than she’d been ready for. Close like that time in the market. Whoa close.

Her lips parted on a hitched inhale that might have been nothing but might have been an invitation. She wasn’t exactly sure, because with his face six inches from hers, she couldn’t think straight. His dark, devilish eyes blanked out her brain, and she didn’t want to think, anyway. She just wanted him to do things to her—to remind her what it felt like to let somebody else lead. He’d be good at it. He was tall and strong, and he smelled like fabric softener and wine and man.

Kiss me, she thought.

But he didn’t. He backed up, and she hadn’t been ready for that, either. She’d unconsciously shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, and as he retreated down the first of the porch steps, she lost her balance and swayed into him, planting both hands on his chest.

His firm, hot, way-out-of-her-league chest.

Get a grip, she told herself, but her libido had no claws, and the situation was slippery—a bizarre combination of socially awkward and inconveniently arousing. Just when she ought to have been letting go, she clutched at his shirt.

Caleb took her wrists in his hands and gently tugged until she released him. He backed farther down the steps as he lowered her arms, eyes on his shoes, his thumbs brushing over her knuckles just before he dropped her hands.

“Better if I don’t,” he said to his feet.

Right.

Too humiliated to reply, she shrugged. He made a squinty, wrinkle-nosed face that conveyed regret and embarrassment, and she wished she might miraculously disappear, but it didn’t happen.

“Goodnight, Caleb.”

When he nodded and turned to go, she hoped to have the self-discipline not to watch him all the way down the driveway, but she found, to her disappointment, that she didn’t.





Chapter Six



“Doesn’t he need pants?” Carly asked.

“He’s not too keen on them lately.” Ellen fastened the harness buckle that secured Henry in the backpack and hoisted it onto her back with an indelicate grunt. “Okay, we’re ready.”

“You want all that stuff you packed?”

Right. That. Sippy cup, crackers, sunscreen, sun hat, favorite toy steamroller—all where she’d left them on the table. Forgotten.

“Yeah.” She loaded the supplies into the mesh pockets on the side of the pack, wondering if the number of mom points she’d just lost was equal to or greater than the points she’d earned for meticulously gathering the stuff up to begin with. Motherhood had forced her to learn a lot of unpleasant lessons, but the impossibility of getting everything right all the time was the one she least liked having shoved in her face.

Henry piped up from behind her head. “Do you have your steamroller?”

My steamroller, he meant. His habitual pronoun confusion made her heart ping. Two-year-olds were basically torture implements on legs, but Henry was so freaking cute, he made up for it. Mostly. “Yep, I’ve got it, buddy.”

“Want it.”

Ellen fished it out and handed it back to him before cheerfully announcing, “Okay, now we’re really off.”