She nodded in response to the sentiment he’d expressed. “Thank you. In the meantime, I’ve just gotten a job at an elementary school.” A job. It still felt rather odd to say that. She’d been a Dominican Sister for so long, being anything else was going to take a great deal of adjustment. But they were going to need the money, now that her mother had retired. And there might come a time when her mother would need around-the-clock care, so she needed to amass a nest egg now. “I start next week.”
He could see her as a teacher, he thought. “Which school?”
“Lakewood Elementary.” Caleb laughed shortly under his breath. It wasn’t a response she would have anticipated. “What?”
“Nothing.” But the expression on her face prodded him to elaborate. “It’s just that it’s a small world.” There were a total of six elementary schools in Bedford. It seemed ironic that she should get a job at this one. “That’s the school my son goes to.”
A son. The boy she’d babysat had a son. Sometimes she forgot that other people went on to have lives while she’d been sequestered in tiny villages where running water was considered a luxury.
Claire smiled. “You have a son.”
Her whole face still lit up when she smiled, Caleb noted. That was what had first captured his preadolescent heart, her smile. It surprised him to discover that there were some things that hadn’t changed.
“Yeah,” he finally acknowledged. “I’ve got a son.”
Obviously, he wasn’t one of those fathers who liked to brag, she thought. “What’s his name?”
“Danny.”
Definitely not in the bragging league. “Do you have a picture of him?” she coaxed.
He did, but the one he carried in his wallet was a two-year-old-photograph of both Danny and Jane. Right now, he didn’t feel up to seeing it. So he lied.
“No, not on me.” He really had to get going. And yet, somehow, he continued to remain straddling the chair, his arms crossed over the back, just looking at her. He’d never expected to see her again. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he began in his gruff detective’s voice, then tempered it as he continued, “what are you doing in a place like this?”
“I was asking myself the same question. Some of my friends talked me into coming here with them. I think this is their way of ‘breaking me in.’”
“And where are they now?”
“One, my cousin Nancy, had to leave,” she explained. “The other three—” she waved a vague hand toward the throng “—are out there somewhere on the floor.”
Presumably not alone, Caleb surmised. He rose from the chair and pushed it back toward the table. “Well, I’ve got to get going.” But his feet still weren’t moving. And he knew why. He felt as if he was deserting her, leaving her to be preyed on by the next over-sexed male. Which was why, he supposed, the next minute he heard himself asking, “You want a ride home?”
Claire popped up to her feet as if she’d been launched by a catapult, crying “Yes” with such enthusiasm and relief he found it difficult not to laugh.
Placing a hand to the small of her back, he urged, “Then c’mon.”
Chapter Three
But instead of heading for the door the way he’d expected her to, Claire asked him to indulge her for a moment.
It occurred to Caleb that, up to this point, he’d actually been talking to the Claire from his past. Twenty-two years did a lot to change a person and he really didn’t know the woman beside him at all, just who she had been.
“Exactly what do you have in mind?” he wanted to know.
“It won’t take long, I promise,” she told him. As she spoke, she carelessly placed a hand to his chest, as if to hold him in place. She was a toucher, he remembered. It was one of the things that had set his young heart pounding and his mind spinning romantic scenarios. God, had he ever really been that young? “Wait right here.”
Puzzled, he did as she asked. He had no idea what was on her mind until he saw her burrow her way into the throng and corner a vivacious-looking brunette. The latter’s abbreviated dress appeared to be half a size too small in all possible directions.
The next moment, she was edging the woman out of the crowd. Bringing her back to the table. Trailing after the woman, looking mildly interested, was the man who’d just been gyrating with the brunette on the dance floor.
“Kelly, you have to watch the purses,” Claire told her friend. “Nancy got an emergency call so she went home, and I’m leaving.”
The woman referred to as Kelly looked past Claire and directly at him. The grin on the brunette’s face was so wide Caleb suspected he could have driven a squad car through it without touching either corner.
“You got lucky,” Kelly cried with triumphant glee, the man standing behind her temporarily forgotten. “First time out, too.”
“Yes, I got lucky,” Claire responded. “Because I ran into an old friend. He’s taking me home.”
The moment she said it, referring to Caleb as a friend, it felt a little odd. She’d never thought of him that way before. The last time she’d seen him, he had been wearing pajamas embossed with figures from a Saturday-morning cartoon show and his head had barely reached her chin. Short for his age, the boy she remembered bore next to no resemblance to the man standing by her right now. This man all but reeked of quiet self-confidence. And masculinity.
“I should have old friends like that,” Kelly murmured, her eyes sweeping over him appreciatively. “Go, don’t worry about anything.” She leaned into Claire. “Purses would be the last thing on my mind if I were going home with someone like that.”
Claire shook her head. Obviously, Kelly was going to think what she wanted to think. “G’night, Kelly,” she said, turning away from the table.
“Ready?” Caleb asked patiently.
“Absolutely.” She’d had enough of this kind of singles’ club to last a lifetime.
“Be gentle with her,” Kelly called after them.
When Caleb turned around to look at the brunette, she winked at him. Not flirtatiously, but as if he and she were privy to some shared secret.
Noting the wink, Claire picked up her pace, weaving her way to the front entrance.
The moment they stepped outside and the door closed behind them, Claire paused to take in a deep breath, savoring the cool air. It had been hot and stuffy inside; all those bodies packed into such a small space had generated a lot of heat.
She savored the quiet even more. The old line about not being able to hear herself think ran through her head. There was a great deal of truth in that, Claire mused.
And then she looked at Caleb. She was rather good at reading body language. His said he was running low on patience. Nodding off toward the left, he began walking.
“I’m sorry about Kelly,” she told him.
His hand lightly pressing the small of her back, Caleb guided her toward the side parking lot. As far as he knew, she hadn’t done anything annoying or offensive. “What are you sorry about?”
“Kelly views any male over the age of eighteen as fair game.” It felt awkward, talking about dating with him, even nebulously. That in itself felt strange. She’d never had trouble talking about anything before. She’d lost count of all the times she’d answered shy, misguided questions about sex from adolescents who hadn’t a clue about what was going on with them.
Well, she’d started this, she had to finish it. Gracefully, if possible. “Kelly seems to think I have to make up for lost