He put the car in Park a few buildings down from Leann’s place. “We can walk from here. But first, I want to check in with Matt.”
Katherine agreed. She had no idea what waited for her at her sister’s. Her stomach was tied in knots.
“Matt’s voice mail picked up.” Caleb closed the phone. “I’m setting my phone to vibrate. You might want to do the same.”
“Great idea.” Katherine numbly palmed her phone. She stared at the metal rectangle for a long moment, half afraid, half daring it to ring. In one second, it had the power to change her life forever and she knew it.
Think of something else. Anything.
Caleb took her hand. She followed him through the dark shadows, fighting against the pain shooting through her leg.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and mouthed, “Stay here.”
“No.” Katherine shook her head for emphasis.
“Let me check it out first. I’ll signal when it’s okay.”
“What if someone’s out here watching?” Katherine didn’t want to let her cowboy out of her sight. She’d never been this scared, and if he broke the link between them, she was certain all her confidence would dissipate. “I want to go with you. Besides, you don’t know what you’re looking for.”
His eyes were intense. Dark. Pleading. “I don’t like taking risks with you.”
She couldn’t let herself be swayed. They might not have much time inside, and she wouldn’t wait out here while he did all the heavy lifting. “Either way, I’m coming.”
Looking resigned, Caleb’s jaw tightened. “You always this stubborn?”
“Determined. And I’ve never had this much on the line before.”
His tense stance didn’t ease. Instead he looked poised for battle. His grip tightened on her hand. His other hand was clenched around the barrel of a gun.
“Then let’s go,” he said.
Katherine stayed as close behind as she could manage, ignoring the thumping pain in her leg.
Caleb turned at the back door and mouthed, “No lights.”
The streetlight provided enough illumination to see clearly. He turned the handle and the door opened. It should have been locked.
Hope of finding anything useful dwindled. Of course, the men would have come here first.
If there was anything useful around, wouldn’t they have found it already? They couldn’t have, she reminded herself. Or she and Noah would be dead.
She moved to the dining space. The small corner desk was stacked with papers. A photo of Leann holding baby Noah brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back, tucking the keepsake in her purse. The laptop Katherine had bought Leann for school was nowhere in sight.
Caleb’s sure, steady movements radiated calm Katherine wanted to cling to. She dug through the pile of papers neatly stacked on the dining-room table while Caleb worked through the room, examining papers and objects.
Luck had never smiled on Katherine. She had no idea why this capable cowboy appeared. She needed him. The feeling was foreign to her and yet it felt nice to lean on someone else for a change. He looked every bit the man who could hold her up, too.
The realization startled her.
She knew very little about him, and yet he’d become her lifeline in a matter of hours. She could scarcely think about doing this without him and she wasn’t sure which thought scared her the most. Katherine got through life depending on herself.
“Find anything useful?” he asked from across the room.
“No. It’s hard to see in the dark though. You think whoever was here got what they wanted?”
Caleb moved to her. “Hard to say. You haven’t been here since before the funeral, right?”
Katherine nodded. “I offered to pick up Noah, but she said no. Come to think of it, she’s the one who mentioned meeting halfway. She’d never suggested that before. She wanted to meet in Waco this time in a restaurant that was way off the interstate. I figured it was just Leann being herself. Wanting to try something new.”
“Looking back, did she act strange or say anything else that sticks out?”
“When we met she looked stressed. Cagey. I thought the responsibility of caring for Noah might be getting to her. Don’t get me wrong, she loved that little boy. But caring for any kid, let alone one with medical needs, is stressful. Even so, she was a better parent than I ever would be.”
She could feel his physical presence next to her before his arm slipped around her shoulders. “You would have been fine. And you will be, once we get Noah back safely.”
Easy for him to say. He didn’t know her. She didn’t want to dwell on her shortcomings. Not now. She’d have time enough to examine those later when this was all over and her nephew was safe. “I thought she needed a break. The responsibility was becoming a burden. And then I didn’t even think twice when I found out she’d had an accident climbing. I just assumed she’d been reckless.” A sob escaped. “What does that say about me?”
“That you’re human.”
“Or I’m clueless. No wonder she didn’t trust me with the truth. She must’ve known how little faith I had in her.”
He guided her chin up until her gaze lifted to meet his.
“When people tell you who they are, it’s best to believe them.”
“What if they change?”
“Only time can tell that. Besides, it never does any good chasing what-if. You have to go on the information you have. Move from there.”
“I guess.”
“Look. You’re strong. Brave. Determined. You were doing right by your sister. She trusted you or she never would have sent Noah to stay with you. As for the restaurant, she might’ve been worried she was being followed. She might’ve had a hunch there’d be trouble. I’m guessing she didn’t bet on anything of this magnitude. She must’ve thought with Noah safe, she could handle whatever came her way.”
His words were like a bonfire on a cold night. Warm. Soothing. Comforting.
Katherine reached up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
* * *
A
LIGHT
TOUCH
from those silky lips and a hot trail lit from the point of contact. Caleb’s fingers itched to get lost in that chestnut mane of hers. She slicked her tongue over those lips and his body reacted with a mind of its own. His blood heated to boiling. He swallowed hard. Damn.
One look into Katherine’s eyes and he could see she was hurt and alone. He wouldn’t take advantage of the situation even though every muscle in his body begged to lay her down right then and give her all the comfort and pleasure she could handle. Another time. Another place. Might be a different story?
Then again, he’d never been known for his timing. He’d taken Becca in when she’d showed up at his door in trouble. Anger still flared through him when he thought about the bruises on her face and her busted lip. No way would he turn away a woman who looked as though she’d been abused. Caring for her and giving her a place to stay until she got on her feet had been the right thing to do. Having a relationship was a bad idea.
He’d opened his home and developed feelings for her.
Look how that turned out,
a little voice in his head said. She’d left after a year, saying she needed time to figure herself out.
Katherine faced a different problem. She was being brave as hell facing it rather than running and hiding. “Let’s see what else is here.”
“While I’m here, I should find some clothes and change.”
Caleb walked away. If he hadn’t, he couldn’t have been held responsible for his actions. His body wanted Katherine. He was a man. She lit fires in him with a slight touch. A spark that intense couldn’t lead to anything good. He could end up in a raging wildfire of passion. Weren’t wildfires all-consuming? And what did they leave in their wake? Devastation and tragedy.
The image of walking into the kitchen and finding Becca’s Dear John on the counter wound back through his thoughts as Katherine entered the room.
Caleb refocused and searched for something that might be significant. A medical file. A sealed envelope. A scribble on a piece of paper. He kept an eye on Katherine. Her tightly held emotions were admirable. Pride he had no right to own filled a small space inside him.
An hour into the search, her expression told the story. Eyes, dark from exhaustion. Lips, thin from anger. Muscles, tense from frustration.
He moved behind her and pressed his palms to the knots in her neck, ignoring his own rising pulse.
“I know I haven’t painted a good picture of my sister, but I can’t imagine what she could’ve gotten herself into that would cause this. She could be irresponsible, but she had a good heart. Whatever she did would have to have been an accident. Something she fell into. She wouldn’t have caused this much damage on purpose. She was sweet. Harmless. She isn’t—wasn’t—the type of person who’d do something malicious.”
“What happened between the two of you?” He doubted she’d tell him but he took a chance and asked anyway.
Katherine sat for a moment. She leaned forward, allowing him to deepen the pressure on her neck and move his hands to her shoulders.
“She was fifteen. Rebellious. There was this one time I specifically told her not to go out. I needed her home to let a repairman in. She didn’t listen and left anyway. Probably out of spite. We had to go the night without A/C in the middle of a Dallas summer. I’d been in class all day and then worked the afternoon shift as a hostess. I was hot. Miserable. I decided to wait up for her. The minute she waltzed through the door, I blew up. Told her she was a spoiled brat.”
“You had every right to ask her to pitch in more. It wasn’t like you asked her to gut a hog.”
“I didn’t ‘ask’ anything. I demanded she stay home. I thought it was my job to tell her what to do with our parents gone, not that she made it easy. She didn’t want to listen and was never there when I needed her. I resented her. I learned pretty fast that I couldn’t depend on her and had to learn to do things on my own.”
“You should be proud of yourself.”
“I could’ve been more sympathetic. But Leann did what she did best—disappeared. When she came home, I noticed she’d been drinking. I came down on her too hard.”
Caleb knew all about self-recrimination. Hadn’t he been beating himself up with worry since his last girlfriend left? Hadn’t the ache in his chest been a void so large he didn’t think he’d ever fill it again?
Caleb increased pressure, working a knot out of Katherine’s shoulder.
A self-satisfied smile crossed his lips at the way her silky skin relaxed under his touch, and for the little moan that escaped before she could quash it. “You always this tough on yourself?”
Katherine hugged her knees into her chest. “A week later when she left, she didn’t come back. I didn’t hear from her for years.”
Caleb couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Katherine to say those words out loud. She couldn’t be more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, and seemed keenly aware of all her misjudgments now. A few years younger than him, she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders. The knots he’d been working so hard to release tightened. “Your sister was old enough to know better. You were trying to do what was best. I’m sure she knew that on some level.”
“No. I had to close myself off because it was too painful repeatedly being disappointed by her. We stopped speaking. I didn’t hear from her again until this year. Noah had barely turned four. I didn’t even know I had a nephew before then.”
Caleb moved to face her and took a knee, reaching out to place her hand in his. Her skin was finer than silk, her body small and delicate. The point where skin made contact sent a jolt of heat coursing through him. “Life threw you for a loop, too. Besides, you did what any good person would. You stepped up to fill impossible shoes and did your best. Because you weren’t perfect doesn’t mean you failed. You’re an amazing woman.”
He looked at her, really looked at her. There was enough light to see a red blush crawl up her neck, reaching her cheeks. Her skin glowed, her eyes glittered. The fire in her eyes nothing in comparison to the one she lit inside him.
He studied the soft curves of her lush mouth and then let his gaze lower to the swell of her firm, pointed breasts. All he felt was heat. Heat and need. Her jeans, balanced low on slim hips, teased him with a sliver of skin between the edge and the bottom of her T-shirt. Damn that she was even sexier when she was hurting. He pulled on all the strength he had so as not to take her lips right there...then her body.
Caleb needed to redirect his thoughts before he allowed his hormones to get out of hand. She made it difficult to focus on anything but thoughts of how good her body would feel moving beneath his. Alter the circumstances and things might have been different. Last thing Caleb needed was to get tangled up with another woman who showed up at his door with a crisis. He pushed all sexual thoughts out of his psyche.
“Since there’s nothing here, we’d better go. I’m actually surprised no one’s been watching the place.”
Her gaze darted around the room. “Where do we go next? We can’t go back to your ranch, can we?”
“No. I don’t want to put my men at risk any more than we already have. What about your place? Any chance Leann passed a file to you in Noah’s things?”
Hope once again brimmed in her shimmering eyes. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a possibility.”
Caleb glanced at his watch, ignoring the ache in his chest for her. “If we leave now, we’ll make it before daylight.”
He preferred to move under the cover of night anyway.
She pulled back as they started toward the door. “Wait.”
Caleb eased more of her weight on him, ignoring the pulsing heat on his outer thigh at the point of contact. “What is it?”
“I want to grab more medicine and something from Noah’s room first.” Katherine pushed off him to regain balance.
Her phone vibrated and she froze.
“Take a deep breath and then pick up,” Caleb said.
She exhaled and answered.
“Is he breathing?” She paused. “Good. He has asthma. There’s an inhaler he uses and I have medicine. I can bring them wherever—”
The guy on the line must’ve interrupted because Katherine became quiet again and just listened. “What time?”