Caleb’s eyes made her smile despite her nerves.
“I mean, it looked pretty broken in. Does he wear it all the time?”
She laughed. Caleb tickled her ribs, turning her laughter into helpless giggles.
“Do chicks go for that woebegone poet crap? Huh? Because if that’s what you want in a man, honey, I don’t stand a chance.”
He pushed her onto her back and tickled her armpits and the backs of her knees, smiling down at her as she batted ineffectually at his hands. She laughed until she got a stitch in her side and had to curl into a fetal ball and beg him in the weak, happy voice of a little girl to stop, stop, please stop.
When she finally caught her breath, she said, “I need a drink of water.” She’d go get one. Just as soon as she worked up the energy to move her legs.
“I’ll get it.” He popped up and headed for the kitchen, scooping up his briefs and pants at the threshold and pulling them on.
“If you had blinds out there, I wouldn’t have to get dressed,” he said casually.
“I’m not buying blinds, Clark.”
“I’m not buying a leather vest.”
She smiled as she watched him disappear down the hall, admiring the shape of him. Admiring him.
To think she’d considered him little more than eye candy when he first showed up in her yard. She’d underestimated him. He was smart. A clever warrior, honorable and brave. Frighteningly perceptive. He already understood her well enough to know when to press and when to back off. He’d known she didn’t want to talk about Richard, so he’d played it safe and got her laughing, and now he was giving her a few minutes alone to think.
Maybe she ought to tell him. Not everything. Not all her fears, and the pressure she was under. How it got so heavy sometimes she couldn’t sleep for feeling suffocated. But maybe she could be honest about why she felt so threatened by his need to protect her.
She could tell the truth about what she wanted from him.
Only she didn’t know that herself. She’d told him she wanted sex, but it didn’t feel true anymore. Not only sex, anyway. Maybe something else. Something more.
From the other end of the house, she heard the sucking sound of the refrigerator door opening, and then the clink as he set a glass on the tile countertop to pour water from the pitcher. The bump of a shoulder against something solid as the side door stuck and then gave, opening into the kitchen. And her brother’s surprised voice saying, “Who the hell are you?”
Chapter Nineteen
Even with a baseball cap throwing his face into shadow, Jamie Callahan looked like his sister. They moved the same. Scanning the backyard through the window over the sink, Caleb had spotted him coming even before the new security light mounted over the back patio lit him up, but it wasn’t until Callahan came around the side porch, tripping a second light, that he had known for sure he was looking at Ellen’s brother rather than an intruder.
Though at the moment, even Ellen’s brother seemed like an intruder. Caleb was glad the guy was back for Carly’s sake, but his timing sucked, and his social skills left a little something to be desired.
“I’m Caleb Clark.” He offered his hand and took a perverse pleasure in realizing how short Jamie was. He had a solid build, but damn, he couldn’t be more than half an inch taller than his sister. Five-ten, maybe. With shoes on.
Callahan shook his hand firmly, but his eyes kept darting to Caleb’s bare chest as if he’d never seen one before. “You—you’re Ellen’s—”
“Boyfriend.” He was grateful Ellen wasn’t in the room to object. He was trying to be her boyfriend, and tonight he’d been getting somewhere. Even if she wasn’t ready to talk about Richard, she’d answered his other questions. When he’d left her bedroom, he’ had her exactly how he wanted her—naked, happy, and pink-cheeked from her latest orgasm.
Glowering as if he could read Caleb’s mind, Callahan asked, “Is Ellen home?”
“She’s in her room. I’m sure she’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Caleb couldn’t blame him for looking pissed off. If Caleb had walked in on a half-dressed stranger in Katie’s kitchen, he wouldn’t be too happy either. Of course, Katie’s kitchen was his kitchen, which changed the equation. But Ellen kept the spare room for her brother. Maybe it wasn’t all that different.
What would Caleb want to hear if he were in Callahan’s position?
I’m not sleeping with your sister.
Well, he wasn’t going to lie to the man.
Instead, he said, “Aren’t you supposed to be in Houston right now?”
“Change of plans.”