Along Came Trouble(40)

Until she left Richard, she hadn’t really expected more of herself.

“What do I do, Jamie?” she asked finally, reaching for more celery. It was a rhetorical question. Sort of.

“I’m the wrong guy to ask,” he said. “I can’t seem to make a good decision these days to save my life. What do you want to do?”

She wasn’t accustomed to thinking about what she wanted. Since the divorce, her life had been all about what she had to do. Living alone had taught her what she was capable of, which turned out to be pretty much whatever. She could get the job done for her clients, raise her son, and pay the mortgage. She could fix a leaky faucet and make Carly a batch of chocolate-cherry cookies. Husbands turned out to be optional. She was doing fine without one.

But what did she want?

She wanted Richard to drop off the face of the earth.

She wanted to have sex with her security guard.

These were not good answers.

“I want to incinerate Richard’s balls with a blowtorch.”

Jamie laughed. “That makes two of us.”

“I want you to come visit.”

The mirth went out of his voice. “I can’t do that right now.”

“Why not?” she asked, hoping he’d say something stupid about the press so she could bat away the objection and insist.

“I don’t want the attention on Carly and the baby, okay?” He let out a frustrated breath. “I really screwed that up. The least I can do is keep away from her. Listen, is she—is everything okay there? Are you and Henry safe?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Carly and the baby are fine, too. I think—” I think she misses you. But she’d promised not to say that. “I wish you were here,” Ellen said instead. “And I wish you would call her.”

“There were more pictures today,” Jamie said after a pause.

“We ran into a photographer downtown.” Ellen had left that part out of her report on Richard. “It wasn’t the brightest move.”

“My PR people would kill me if I came back to Camelot.”

“Your PR people work for you. Tell them to back off.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s just, this is harder than I expected, Ellen. I didn’t know what I was getting into with her, or I might not have done it. I’m the last thing she needs.”

“I don’t get it. Why is that, exactly?”

“Because I waltzed in and messed with her life, exposed her to danger and unwanted attention, and then waltzed out again. And I did all that without even thinking about it. Carly’s going to have a baby. She needs somebody who sticks. What use am I to her?”

“You love her.”

The silence stretched out for long seconds before he said, “Yeah, I think I do. That’s why I’m going to stay away from her.”

“Jamie—”

She wanted to tell him she believed in him. That he was good enough for Carly, that he could be somebody who stuck if he wanted to be. But her brother talked right over her, and his tone clearly said the subject was closed.

“Now tell me how things are going with this security guy. Breckenridge wants to know if he’s competent.”

She thought of Caleb’s hard body behind her as she’d talked to Richard in the driveway. Richard wasn’t the threat Breckenridge had in mind when they’d hired Caleb, but she’d certainly felt safe with him standing there. Better than safe.

“Oh, he’s competent.”

“You sound funny. What’s wrong with him? I can get somebody else.”

“No, don’t do that. I like this guy. He’s . . .”

What?

Pushy. Domineering. Too confident by half.

Funny. Kind. Sexy.

The problem with Caleb was that he pushed all her buttons. He wanted to protect her, to mess with her house and her life in order to make her and Henry safer, and she probably needed to let him. To admit he was right. To change.

She didn’t like that.

And he pushed other buttons, too. Caleb made her yearn, and she didn’t want to yearn anymore, not ever again. She’d had enough of twisting herself into pretzel shapes to please men who made her feel small and unwanted. Enough of offering herself body and soul to guys who were all wrong for her.

Only, maybe he wasn’t one of those. She’d thought so when she met him yesterday, but now . . . the way he’d looked at her, touched her. The way he’d stood behind her and offered his help without any pressure, almost wordlessly. Protecting her, but not like a security guard. With one hand on her body, he’d held her there like a lover. He’d claimed her in front of her ex-husband.