She waited while he poured and carried the two mugs back to the table, where their pie still sat untouched. He set one mug in front of her and carried the other to his side of the table.
Cait spooned sugar into hers and stirred for a moment, head bent. Then she looked at him again, and he saw her worry.
“I finally decided they were leveling the ground. Which they were. Because eventually a cement truck arrived and I got to watch a patio being poured. It was totally fascinating. At least, I thought so. After the truck left, Jerry and the other man smoothed the concrete and then finally they left. I saw Jerry’s pickup driving away, but I was sort of hunkered down behind a shrub and I could tell they didn’t see me. I liked to hide, so I guess I was going on instinct.” She looked down into her tea. “This was a Saturday or a Sunday—I don’t remember. I think I went home for breakfast, and I don’t know what else, but eventually I gave in to temptation and I went back, let myself in through the gate and picked this place on the corner and pressed my hands into that wet concrete.”
“You left handprints,” he said slowly.
“Yes.”
“Which they would have found later.”
Cait nodded, her gaze never leaving his.
“But they’d have had no idea who left them.”
This time she shook her head.
“And what is it you said, Cait? When you ran into Jerry?”
“I said, ‘I’ll bet you remember me best for the handprints I left in your concrete.’ Or something like that.”
“Goddamn, Cait.”
“It was the hole, wasn’t it?” she said miserably.
“The handprints must have scared the shit out of them. Maybe a kid had come on the wet concrete long after it was poured, but more likely this kid at least saw the truck pouring it. What must have really made them sweat was wondering how early the kid started watching. How much did he or she actually see?”
“It wasn’t more than, I don’t know, two or three weeks later that Mom took me away from Angel Butte.”
“And Jerry and his buddy probably spent months worrying. But eventually, when nothing happened, they’d have quit worrying.”
“Until I opened my mouth,” she whispered.
He held out a hand. “Come here.”
She came. This time, making love wasn’t on his mind. Holding her tight, keeping her safe, was.
“You know you need to tell Lieutenant Vahalik, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Colin. I need to tell Colin first.”
* * *
NOAH DROVE HER home, parked and came in with her as though his doing so was a given. Cait knew she ought to protest. Did he think she was incapable of telling Colin the story herself? Did he believe she’d leave parts out if he wasn’t there to keep her honest? Or was he only taking charge, the way he always did?
But she didn’t mind as much as she should. She doubted he was in love with her or anything like that, but he cared, and right now, she needed to know someone did.
Oh, who was she kidding? She wanted to know that Noah cared.
She wanted him to love her.
Stupid, when it was so impossible for so many reasons.
Colin, of course, had met them on the porch. He looked more curious than irritated when Noah mounted the steps beside her. She hadn’t really noticed until now, but…was it possible they were becoming reconciled to each other?
“Chandler,” her brother said, nodding.
“McAllister.” Noah laid a hand on her back. “Cait’s remembered something.”
Nell brought them coffee, asked if they’d prefer she not be there, then sat down cuddled up to Colin once Cait said, “Of course you can stay.”
Colin listened in increasingly grim silence as Cait told him a slightly condensed version of the story. She didn’t have to explain why she’d slipped out of the house early in the morning to ride her bike aimlessly around the neighborhood, for example. He knew.
He didn’t say a single word until she was done. Then he gusted out a breath. “Well, damn.”
She laughed a little. She was probably semi-hysterical. “Sorry,” she said after seeing the others’ expressions. “That’s pretty much exactly what Noah said.”