Caleb’s big blue eyes, so like his daddy’s, widened. “He knows about me?”
“Of course,” she said, her expression animated. “I told him he’d get to come and visit you soon. I’m still training him and you can help with that. I told him how smart you are and that you are very good with dogs. He needs to be gentle with children so you are the perfect person to help him learn.”
Caleb tilted his head and gave her an impish stare. “Am I gentle?”
The innocent question tugged at Kaitlin’s heart strings.
“Yes, you sure are. But you’re also very brave. That’s why I brought Warrior to visit with you.”
Well, that and the fact that your domineering father told me in no uncertain terms that I would come here tonight.
She had Caleb for a distraction, at least. A good distraction. And she’d mostly given in to Slade’s demand so she could see how Caleb was doing. She adored this little boy. He took her mind off what had happened today. He took her mind off the big man in the kitchen making sandwiches, the man who’d gruffed out an introduction when he’d brought her into the house.
“Papa, this is Kaitlin Mathers and her newest trainee, Warrior. You might remember her. She’s visited Caleb and she’s watched him for me at her place a couple of times. We had a prowler near the training yard who tried to kidnap Kaitlin. She’s staying here tonight.”
His father, white-haired and holding on to a walker, had smiled and nodded while Chief had hopped up to inspect Warrior. After the dogs had sniffed each other to their mutual satisfaction, Patrick McNeal had said, “C’mon in, Kaitlin. You’ll be safe here.”
She supposed law officers had their own code of speaking, because she was pretty sure she missed some of the undercurrents of that brief, curt conversation. She’d also heard bits of a whispered conversation when she’d come out of the bathroom.
Caleb didn’t speak a lot, either, but tonight he’d actually talked to her more than the last time she’d seen him. That had been a few weeks ago when Slade had brought Caleb to work for a couple of hours and she’d offered to take him out onto the training yard. She’d promised Caleb they’d find his friend, but Slade hadn’t asked her to talk to Caleb since then. And she’d tried to respect Slade’s decision by not nagging him too much. She always asked about Caleb, though. Now she had a chance to help him again. She intended to keep that promise she’d made to the little boy, somehow. After the incident today, Kaitlin was once again reminded of how life could change in a minute. Something she’d learned after her mother had died.
Taking a quiet minute to thank God that she was safe and here now with this little boy, Kaitlin rubbed Warrior’s soft fur, her gaze on Caleb. “So do you think you two can be friends?”
Caleb bobbed his head, his dark curls bouncing against his forehead. Then he reached up and patted Warrior on the head. “I can show him my secret hiding place. I wuv him.”
“I do, too,” Kaitlin said. She was about to ask Caleb where his hiding place was, but she looked up to find Slade standing at the door with a look of longing and regret on his face. His gaze slammed into hers with lightning-bolt precision, leaving her drained and shaky.
“Dinner’s ready,” he said. Then he turned and hightailed it back to the kitchen.
Wondering what was wrong with the man, and what was wrong with her for caring, Kaitlin gently tugged Caleb to his feet. “Let’s go see what your daddy whipped up for dinner.”
* * *
Slade ladled the vegetable soup the day nurse had made earlier into bowls to go along with the sandwiches. “Hope you like soup. Terri is a great cook. She let this simmer all day.”
Not one for sparkling conversation, he decided to just give Kaitlin the soup and let her eat. After that scene in Caleb’s room, he felt overwrought and disoriented. Truth was, seeing his son smiling and laughing with a pretty woman tore at the hole in his heart. He really should take one of the casserole girls up on attending the church social. Just to get out of the house more. Papa was always telling him he’d never find a woman if he didn’t ever bother to be around available women. Why his dad worried about such stuff was beyond Slade.
Well, they both wanted Caleb to find a mother figure he could trust and love again. Slade didn’t think he needed to be concerned about a female companion for himself, however. His job kept him occupied.
“Smells great,” Kaitlin said. “Makes me think of my grandmother’s kitchen.”
“Where’d you grow up?” Papa McNeal asked, his hands pressed together.
“In Mesquite, just outside Dallas.” She glanced at Caleb, then lowered her voice. “Just my mom and I, but my grandmother lived close by. My father had to...uh...leave when I was a baby and...my mother...passed away when I was a teenager. Then it was just Grandmother and me. But Grandmother had a sister here in Sagebrush, so after I left for college, she moved here to be closer to Aunt Tina. They both passed away just years apart.”
Slade nodded, understanding she had chosen her words carefully because of Caleb.
“You all alone?” his son asked, clearly deciphering what “passed away” meant.
Slade hoped the boy didn’t start asking about his mother. It was hard to explain over and over that she’d never come back to them.
Kaitlin glanced at Slade before answering. “I don’t have any family nearby, but...I have Warrior and I have people I work with and go to church with. So no, I’m not alone.”
Caleb’s gaze moved from Kaitlin to Slade. “And you have us. Right, Dad?”
Slade felt as helpless as a new puppy. He grunted a reluctant, “Yeah, sure.”
Warrior, having heard his name, did a little “Yeah, sure” of his own. That dog was a lot braver than Slade right now.
Papa, looking amused, took his soup from Slade and waited for him to sit down. Then he reached for Kaitlin’s hand on one side and Caleb’s hand on the other. “We say grace before our meals,” he explained.
Kaitlin took his hand, then realized she’d have to take Slade’s on her other side. She shot him a look that shouted “Oh, no.”
So she was afraid of him? Maybe disgusted with him? She probably thought he was the world’s worst parent. Or maybe the world’s worst law-enforcement officer since he couldn’t settle a five-month-long case.
He stretched his hand toward her, all the while preparing himself for the current of awareness he always felt when he was around her. Did she feel it, too?
She took his hand, then quickly lowered her head and shut her eyes.
Slade remembered having her in his arms earlier, remembered seeing that gun pointed at her temple, too. The first memory warmed his soul while the last one stopped him like a cold bullet.
He jerked his hand away before his daddy said Amen.
When he ventured a glance at the woman sitting at his kitchen table, he saw confusion and hurt in her pretty eyes.
Well, that was the effect he had on most women.
* * *
The house was quiet now.
Kaitlin lay on the comfortable bed in the spare room and listened, unable to sleep. Every creak settling in the walls, every twig brushing against the house, caused her to wake with a start. She hadn’t tasted this kind of fear in a long, long time.
She thought about the man who’d brought her here. She should feel safe with him in the house and she did. But she couldn’t get that masked man out of her head.
After dinner, Slade told her he had to finish up some paperwork. Mr. McNeal went to bed when his night nurse, Jasper, arrived. The big male nurse