“Gabby?” he growled.
A high-pitched trill of laughter filled the car, verging on squealing. “Tommy!”
Tom pulled a face before opening his door, but not before he grinned at Caitlin. “I know you’re her teacher and you’re probably going to tell me off, but I did promise her ice cream before dinner. You know, trying to be the favorite uncle and all.”
“You’re my only uncle, Tommy,” Gabby piped up.
Caitlin nodded, it was all she could do. Tried to make her relieved smile appear stronger than it felt, needing a moment to let blood pump back through her leeched-dry veins.
Gabby and Tommy got out of the car, but it wasn’t until he opened her door that she followed—prised her fingers from the seat and forced her legs to cooperate.
They were at the ice cream shop. She turned her head slowly, could see the pink lettering glittering in the near-dark. But her heart was still pounding.
She knew it was stupid—she could see them holding hands, was watching as Tom poked at Gabby and had her leaping around and laughing, but for a moment there she’d almost lost it.
Because she hadn’t known they were joking around. Had thought she was about to witness something she didn’t ever want to see again.
Because she knew firsthand what it felt like to be spoken to like that, only without the laughter and jokes at the end.
When it had happened to her, that kind of seriousness, that type of conversation had never ended in ice cream.
“Caitlin?” Tom looked concerned. Gabby was watching her, too. “You all right?”
She closed the car door and fixed her smile again. “Sorry, I was a million miles away.”
Tom slung his arm around his niece and waited for her to catch up. “My shout.”
And just like that, Caitlin found herself having ice cream before dinner with a man she’d thought this morning that she’d never see again, and one of her favorite little students.
Tom passed Gabby her ice cream before reaching for the single scoop of chocolate Caitlin had ordered. “Enjoy.”
Her fingers brushed his as she took it from him. “I can’t believe you two talked me into this.”
Tom liked her smile, liked the fact that nothing about her seemed put on. “Believe me … the things that this girl makes me do.”
Gabby was licking furiously at her ice cream, completely ignoring him.
“It’s nice that you’re so close to her.”
That made him look up. “She’s pretty special to me, to all of us.”
Caitlin waited. He liked that about her, too, that she didn’t feel the need to press for information like some people did. He hated being quizzed when he didn’t want to talk about something, but he was finding with her that he was opening his mouth and spilling his stories before he even had a chance to think about it.
That needed to stop.
“We kind of made a pact, the three of us, when Gabby was born,” he told her. It wasn’t something they ever spoke about, had never needed to talk about again, because they were all committed to making sure she was the happiest little girl around. “There was a time when Gabby’s mom and dad both had to serve at the same time, and I was always there to step in, although her grandmother, my mom, she’s great with her, too.”
“Were you scared something would happen to them? That she could end up with—” Caitlin paused and lowered her voice, although Gabby was walking far enough ahead not to hear their conversation “—no parents?”
Tom felt a catch in his throat. “Yeah.”
Caitlin’s fingers fell over his forearm, rested there for a moment as they walked. “You’re very brave, Tom.”
He forced himself to look up. Not to shrug away the contact until she let her hand fall away of its own accord, not to recoil at her words. He sure as hell didn’t feel like he deserved the brave tag.
“Do you mean for serving in the Navy or for looking after her?” He had to ask, had to know what she was thinking.
Caitlin’s eyes met his, her gaze fluttering as if she found it difficult to hold the contact. “Both. But what I meant was that not many men are that committed to a child, especially to a niece or nephew.” She blew out a breath. “Hell, half the dads I meet seem to be less committed to their own children.”
Tom relaxed, was pleased they were still talking about kids, that she hadn’t tried to flip the subject back to his work. To that kind of bravery.
Caitlin looked fragile enough to snap beneath the weight of harsh words, and he didn’t exactly find it easy to bite his tongue these days. Not when it came to his work or what had happened to end his career.
“There was always the chance that one of us wouldn’t make it home,” he told Caitlin, suddenly wanting to talk, wanting to get the words off his chest. “I wanted my brother to know that I’d always step in, wouldn’t hesitate to fill his shoes if I had to. And Penny—” He paused, not able to help but smile. “Penny’s like the sister I never had. She’s pretty special to me.”
His eyes darted back to Caitlin, to see the look on her face, needing to see her reaction. The response was warm, a soft acknowledgment by way of a gentle blink, a curve of her lips in one corner, before she turned her attention back to her ice cream.
Tom didn’t know why, or how, but there was something about Gabby’s teacher that was pulling him in, reeling him like a fish resigned to being caught on a line. Maybe it was just because she was so good at her job, was skilled at playing the kind, caring teacher, at getting people to open up.
But something else, some whisper of a voice in his mind, told him that her being a teacher had nothing to do with it.
That he needed to back off now if he ever wanted a chance of escape.
Caitlin didn’t like to be confused. Ever. And tonight she was more confused than she’d ever been.
Tom was being sweet, kind … verging on downright charming, but she had no idea where he was going with it. Was he trying to impress her? She didn’t think so. Or maybe she just didn’t want it to be so.
There was something about him that unnerved her, that was rattling her like a key chain blowing in the wind, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. He was troubled, sure. There were things he was obviously holding tight to his chest. But he was honest, she’d give him that. From the expression she’d seen more than once in his eyes, from the way he looked at Gabby, she doubted he was any good at lying.
Although maybe that was just a by-product of his special-forces training. After all, she didn’t exactly have a great track record when it came to judging men.
“Penny for them?”
She laughed at his old-fashioned saying. “You caught me dreaming again.”
He opened the back door for Gabby, and then the front one for her. Caitlin wasn’t even sure a guy had ever opened a door for her before and yet Tom was already making a habit of it.
“You sure it’s okay to take me all the way home?”
His eyebrows nudged together as he frowned. “Like I’m gonna buy you an ice cream then make you find your own way to your place?”
Caitlin laughed. His expression was so comical she couldn’t do anything but laugh. “Okay, okay. I don’t like being a burden, that’s all.”
From the look on his face, he didn’t think she was a burden.
And