Cold feet (22 page)

"That you know of," he said.

"I don't think they ever really investigated anyone but my father."

"There must be a reason they kept coming back to him."

Madison sensed that Caleb was trying to be understanding, but she didn't feel he was listening to her with an open mind. "Finding that box is about the only scenario I can imagine that would make my father do something so...permanent," she said. "For one thing, he wouldn't willingly leave my mother. They were close, and she depended on him. He lived to take care of her. The last thing he did was sell the old car he'd been restoring so she'd have plenty of cash on hand. And...he loved me and Brianna. He wouldn't have wanted to do something that would hurt us, too."

"Madison, you're searching for reasons to explain a reality that's very painful for you. It's a natural reaction, and I understand how you feel, but--"

"No!" She grabbed his arms in a beseeching movement. "Think about it, Caleb. Could you go on, knowing that because of you, because of your early neglect, your son had turned into a brutal monster and raped and murdered eleven women?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but she pressed a finger over his lips. "Don't answer yet," she said. "My father was no killer. I need you to believe me."

Madison had never asked anyone to believe her. But it suddenly seemed terribly important that
someone
trust her instincts. And she wanted that someone to be Caleb. Maybe because Danny had never doubted that her father was as guilty as the police said. He'd patronized her occasionally, especially at first. He'd been upset about the inconveniences the investigation had brought him. But he'd never once validated her feelings on the matter, never once said, "You should know your own father."

"He wasn't a killer," she repeated.

The air between them seemed to crackle with the intensity of her emotions.
Please feel what I feel,
she wanted to add. But she refused to say more. She was probably asking too much as it was.

He tilted up her chin and gazed into her eyes, his expression skeptical, more of the same old "you're simply avoiding the truth" she got from everyone. But then something changed. "How can you be so sure," he asked, "when everything that's been found says you're wrong?"

The beat of Madison's heart reverberated in her fingertips. "The same way I'd know, if they ever accused you of such a heinous crime, that you didn't do it. I could
feel
it."

That made an impact, started a smoldering in his eyes. Lowering his head, he lightly brushed his lips against hers.

Madison let her eyelids close, reveling in the strength of the arms that slid around her and the solidness of his chest as he gathered her to him. Caleb hadn't said he suddenly believed her father was innocent, but she could tell he
wanted
to side with her, which was a great deal more than she'd ever gotten from Danny. Caleb acted as though he believed in her, just like she believed in him.

"If I'm not careful, you're going to cost me my view of the bay," he murmured, kissing the side of her mouth, the indentation behind her ear, the column of her neck.

"Rent
is
pretty cheap at my place," she whispered.

"And the food is good."

"When I cook."

"There are other benefits." His hand came around to part her jacket and close over one breast.

Madison caught her breath. "We can't do this again, remember? I'm not ready for a relationship," she said, but the warmth of his hand was filtering through her thin blouse and lacy bra, and he was beginning to circle his thumb across the fabric directly covering her nipple, which made it pretty difficult to remember
why
she wasn't ready.

"What if we take it slow?" he said.

"Take
what
slow?" she asked, somehow confusing their conversation with the physical sensations that were drawing all of her body's energy into its very center.

"Anything you want," he answered with a lazy grin.

C
ALEB WAS RELUCTANT
to let Madison go, but he certainly didn't want Johnny or someone else walking in on them. And he didn't want to take things any further in the garage where her father had killed himself. He hadn't meant to make any sexual advances. He'd only wanted to comfort her.

"We'd better clean up this place so we can let your mother know we're here," he said.

Madison didn't move. "Caleb, I have a six-year-old daughter and an ex-husband who will probably always do his best to make my life miserable."

He arched an eyebrow, wondering where she was going with this. "Okay."

"I also have an emotionally weak and rather clingy mother who has no one else and can be difficult sometimes."

He was beginning to catch on. What had passed between them had frightened her, and now she was running scared. "Are you making a point?" He handed her one of the black garbage bags he found on a shelf.

"Of course. My point is that you don't want to get involved with me. I failed miserably in my first marriage. Danny was unhappy with me from almost the first week."

Caleb located a broom in the corner next to a few garden utensils and started sweeping up the glass. He didn't have a very high opinion of Danny, so what Danny had thought or felt meant absolutely nothing to him. But that wasn't the issue. "Well, I failed at my first marriage
twice,
so if it makes you feel any better, I've got you beat," he said.

"How does someone fail twice at the same marriage?"

"It's easy. You remarry the person you just divorced and end up divorcing again."

"Were you still in love with her?"

"No, I made a stupid mistake. She wasn't willing to let our relationship go. She kept calling me, coming over, trying to seduce me. And it was too easy to fall back into the same routine."

Madison made a face that told him the mental picture he'd just created wasn't a pleasant one. "You went on sleeping with her?"

He shook his head. "Not on a regular basis. I had a little too much to drink one night after our first divorce. She came over, it was late, and we ended up in bed together." He sighed and leaned on his broom. "She wound up pregnant, Maddy."

"So you married her again?"

"It was what she wanted," he said, searching the garage for a dustpan. "And with the baby coming...I thought it might make a difference. I wanted to at least try."

"But you told me when you moved in that you don't have any children."

"I don't." He took a deep breath because it wasn't easy for him to talk about the baby. When Holly miscarried, he'd been wanting kids for nearly five years, but she'd kept putting him off. "She lost the baby only a few weeks after the wedding. It happened while I was away on business."

"I'm sorry."

"Now I know it was for the best. We couldn't get along no matter how hard we tried. It's better that a child wasn't involved."

Madison twisted the empty garbage bag around her hands. "How long were you together after she lost the baby?"

"Almost a year, on and off." He gave up looking for a dustpan and swept the glass onto some paper. "So now you know why your failed marriage hardly frightens me."

"But I just pulled my life together again, Caleb, and I really can't get involved, with you or anyone else," she said. "It's simply not what's best for me or Brianna right now."

"How do you know what's best, Maddy? Have you got a crystal ball somewhere?" He rested the broom against the wall and moved toward her. "You can't exactly schedule the people who come into your life, you know. What, did you write in your day planner that three years from now you can meet someone?"

The fact that he didn't immediately back off, as he had earlier, seemed to take her by surprise. Her mouth opened and closed, twice, but nothing came out, and finally she began gathering up the wadded wrappers, napkins, empty paper cups and cigarette butts. "Maybe I did," she said at last. "In any case, you need to quit."

He tried to look puzzled. "Quit what?"

"Quit making me think about getting naked with you."

He laughed outright. "I wasn't the first one to take off my clothes last night."

"You took your clothes off quickly enough once you got the chance."

"True."

"And you goaded me into that little striptease in the first place."

"I won't deny that, either, but I'm certainly not going to help you run away from me just because you're a big chicken."

"I'm not a chicken. I'm being smart."

"If you can call letting fear get the best of you 'being smart.'"

Her brows knitted. "Stop twisting everything I say. I'm not going to sleep with you again."

He motioned for her to move away from the middle of the floor so he could pull the truck into one stall. "We'll see."

She caught him by the arm as he walked past her, her hand cool against his skin. "
We'll see?
I can't believe you just said that."

He stared down at the freckles he liked so much. "Am I supposed to pretend I don't know what you want?"

She immediately released him. "You're supposed to respect my wishes."

"Okay," he said. "I'll respect your wishes. The next time anything happens between us, it'll be your move." He gave in to the smile tugging at his lips. "But that's not going to change a single thing."

C
ALEB WASN'T WEARING
anything special. After they'd finished the open house and gone back home, he'd showered and changed from his faded jeans into a pair of chinos and a button-down shirt. But he looked so good and smelled so good that Madison couldn't keep her eyes from him as they left home in his Mustang and headed toward Highway 20, which would take them north to Fidalgo Island. After their conversation in her mother's garage, she didn't want to be so preoccupied with her tenant, but something significant had happened in those few moments, something even more monumental than last night. He'd offered her the emotional support she'd needed for so long, and that was a powerful aphrodisiac.

At least thinking about him kept her from dwelling on what had happened during the open house. Most of those who'd come through were more interested in the fact that Ellis Purcell had once lived in the house, and died in the backyard, than they were in actually making an offer. One woman had even said that he was eternally damned and his ghost would probably linger on the premises for generations.

That woman's rudeness hadn't been easy to tolerate. But it was Annette who'd nearly driven Madison crazy. Her mother either fretted at her elbow, trying to defend Ellis at every opportunity, or fawned over Caleb, who'd been nice enough to mow the lawn and fix the fence while they were there. Annette had insisted on making him some lemonade, even though he'd told her water would be fine. She'd served him cake he'd initially refused. And after he came in from the yard, she had him relax in their most comfortable chair--and look through all of Madison's old photo albums.

"Wasn't she a cute baby?" her mother had gushed, over and over again.

Madison would roll her eyes and Caleb would grin because he knew perfectly well that she was squirming in her seat.

"You might have mowed my mother's lawn and suffered through my old photo album, but don't think that's going to change my mind," she said as they turned left onto the highway.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Did I miss the first half of this conversation? Because I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"I'm saying I'm not going to sleep with you again."

His chuckle was a low rumble. "Sounds as though you can't think of anything else."

Maddy felt her face flush hot. He was right. She was completely infatuated with him. "It's the first time I've thought about it since the garage."

His smile said he knew she was lying, but he didn't call her on it, and she changed the subject before she could give any more away. "Did you see Johnny while you were out back?"

"No sign of him. But I did place a call to the police about the possibility that one of your brothers might have some tie to the murders."

Anxiety immediately tightened the muscles in Madison's shoulders and neck. "Did you tell them about the box?"

"No. I spoke to a Detective Gibbons, and said you had some suspicions from the way Tye and Johnny have been acting."

She grimaced, recognizing the name. "Gibbons was one of the detectives on my father's case. What did he say?"

Caleb reached out and squeezed her hand. "That they've already checked out Johnny
and
Tye and crossed them off the list of suspects."

"Only because they're sure it was my father!"

"Not anymore, they're not. Not after that other woman was strangled."

Madison missed the warmth of Caleb's hand when he returned it to the steering wheel. "So I don't have anything to worry about."

"That's what they told me."

"But who else could've taken the stuff out of that box?"

He seemed to consider the question. "Let's not worry about that stuff until we find it again, okay? Do you think you could get your mother out of the house tomorrow so I could look around?"

"I don't know. I'll try."

He switched radio stations, then leaned an elbow on the window ledge. "I was hoping for the chance to go under the house and take a look today. But your poor mother needed a distraction from all those strangers pouring through the door into what is normally her private space."

Madison blinked at him, surprised by his sensitivity. He hadn't seen Annette as overbearing, as she'd expected. He'd seen her as an insecure woman trying to cope with certain change, and he'd tried to help. "That's why you let her corner you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I liked looking at your baby pictures."

Madison felt a flicker of guilt for not being more understanding of her mother. "I should've been more patient with her. It's not easy for her to open herself up to the kind of scrutiny she's received over the past decade or so."

"You should know," he said. "You were right there with her."