A Child Under His Tree Page 11

  He shrugged. “Bingo’s a good name.”

  “Has she eaten any more pillows?”

  “No. She’s graduated to jumping on the counter now.”

  “Good thing you didn’t seem to have anything on your counters last time I visited.”

  His lips twitched. “Silver lining, I guess.”

  She wasn’t going to get drawn in by the man’s appeal. “Aren’t you supposed to be calling bingo? The games, not your puppy.”

  “Fortunately, my replacement arrived. You already ate?”

  “Yes. If you’re heading to the cafeteria, the French fries are as bad as they ever were. Just in case you were curious.”

  He smiled. “I wasn’t, but thanks for the heads-up. No, I was thinking I’d give the cafeteria a pass, considering a good steak at Colbys is within walking distance. Want to come with me?”

  Her lips parted but no words immediately emerged.

  “I know you’ve already eaten, but the company would be nice.”

  “I can’t,” she finally managed to blurt. “Tyler—”

  “—would be perfectly fine for an hour.” Caleb gestured toward the line of children waiting their turn at the apple-bobbing booth. Behind them was a line of parents watching. “Lucy’s there. Leandra’s there. They’re not going to mind keeping an eye out for one more for a little while. Hell, there’s my mother, even.”

  Sure enough, Belle Buchanan had joined the adults. As if she’d heard her son, she looked their way, smiled and waved.

  Kelly exhaled. “I don’t think so.”

  “What’re you afraid of?”

  Her head jerked back. “Nothing! Just because I don’t want to leave my son—”

  “Go with me, you mean.”

  She closed her mouth, exhaling carefully. “It’s not a good idea,” she finally said.

  “Why not? Is there someone in Idaho?”

  “What?”

  “Not the guy who never proposed. But someone else?”

  She huffed. Her face felt flushed. “No, there’s no one in Idaho.” There’d never been. Only him.

  “Then I fail to see the problem.”

  “Oh, for cryin’—” She broke off. “Why are you making an issue about this?”

  “Why are you? We used to be friends.”

  She let out a snort. “Just because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other doesn’t mean we were friends!” Her words suddenly sounded loud in the room, and she flushed even harder.

  “We were friends,” Caleb said evenly. If he felt embarrassed by the attention they were drawing, he hid it a lot better than she did. “And we were a lot more.”

  “Until you decided I wasn’t what you wanted after all.” Her throat suddenly ached. Which was infuriating, because she’d told herself she had stopped crying over Caleb Buchanan years ago.

  “We were young,” he said. “And young people make mistakes all the time.”

  So do adults.

  She suddenly just wanted to gather Tyler up and go home.

  Not to her mother’s house and the difficult memories waiting for her there.

  But to Idaho. Where her life was orderly. Where nothing unexpected ever occurred. Where she wasn’t bombarded with her past everywhere she turned and it didn’t feel as though she had to second-guess every decision she’d ever made.

  The crowded gymnasium felt like it was closing in on her. She could feel a bead of sweat slowly crawling down her spine. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Right now? Or ever?”

  Ever! The word silently roared in her head. She could see Tyler still waiting in line. He and Lucas were tossing a plastic pumpkin back and forth.

  “Kelly—”

  She shook her head, turning away from the hand Caleb put on her arm, and hurriedly made her way to the gymnasium doors, skirting around the booths and the people who stood in her way. But even when she made it out the doors and into the hallway, there were crowds of people there, too.

  Had everyone in the entire darn county turned out for the carnival?

  She ducked her head and made her way around them, too, until finally, she burst through the double doors leading outside.

  Fresh air coursed over her hot cheeks, and she drew in a long breath. There was a couple approaching with three kids dressed like little pink pigs, and Kelly moved out of their way as they went inside, leaving the well-lit sidewalk altogether for the shadows alongside the building. She leaned her head back against the cold brick and slowly battled down the cloying, nauseating sense of panic.

  She heard the distinctive sound of the doors and knew, even before she saw him, that it was Caleb.

  He stopped on the sidewalk beneath one of the light poles, hands on his jeans-clad hips. She didn’t make a sound, but that didn’t stop him from turning her way.

  He left the sidewalk for the shadows. “Are you done running?”

  “Are you a bloodhound on the scent?”

  “Maybe.” He took a few more steps toward her.

  She leaned her head back once more against the bricks. The clear sky they’d enjoyed so briefly that afternoon had been overtaken by thick, obscuring clouds, and the harsh bite of impending winter was in the air. Even though Kelly knew the weather wouldn’t be that different back in Idaho Falls, she wished she were back there. “Why do you care, Caleb?”

  He was silent for so long she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. She pushed away from the brick. “I need to get back to Tyler.”

  “I’ve always cared.”

  His words washed over her. Instead of feeling like a balmy wave, though, it felt like being rolled against abrasive sand. “Right.” She stepped around him.

  “Dammit.” His hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

  She tried to shake him off. “Let go.”

  “You asked and I’m telling you. So now you’re going to walk away?” He let her go. “I swear, you’re as stubborn as your mother.”

  She flinched.

  He swore again and thrust his fingers through his dark hair. “I didn’t mean that.”

  Why not? Sure, she adored her son. She didn’t regret his existence for one single second. In that, she was very different from her mother. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t Georgette Rasmussen’s daughter with all the rest that that implied.

  “I have to go.” She tried stepping around his big body again.

  “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I was always sorry, Kelly. Always.”

  She looked up at him. “But you did it anyway.”

  “And you’re going to hate me forever because of it? It was nearly ten years ago!”

  When he’d dumped her for another girl.

  And only six years had passed since she’d impetuously, angrily put her mouth on his and set in motion a situation she still couldn’t change.

  Which was worse?

  His actions or hers?

  Her eyes suddenly burned. Because she was pretty sure keeping the existence of his son from him outweighed him falling in love with someone far better suited to him than simple little Kelly Rasmussen.

  He made a rough sound of impatience. “If you’re gonna hate me anyway—”

  She barely had a chance to frown before his mouth hit hers.

  She went rigid with shock, then yanked back. But she only got two inches away. Maybe three. Just far enough to stare into his dark eyes while her breath heaved in her chest.

  Then his mouth was on hers again, and she wasn’t sure if she’d moved first. Or if it had been him.

  But what did it really matter?

  Because they were once more standing in the shadows by the side of the high school, Caleb’s weight pressing into her while his hands raced down her sides, delving beneath her short
leather jacket. And she felt devoured by his kiss.

  Why was it always that way? He put his lips on hers and she forgot all rhyme or reason. She’d forget every single thing but the taste of him, the smell of him, the weight of—

  A burst of laughter accosted them, and they pulled apart. It was hard to tell who was breathing harder.

  “Some things don’t change, eh, Caleb?”

  Kelly’s cheeks burned. She turned her face away from whoever it was who’d noticed them, tugging her jacket back into place.

  “Shut up, Marvin.”

  She cringed. Marvin Towers had been annoying when she was fourteen. So much so that she’d run her bicycle straight into a cement curb to get away from his incessant teasing about her crazy mama.

  It was the day she’d gone over her handlebars. And Caleb had picked up the pieces.

  Marvin, though, didn’t take the hint. “That is you, isn’t it, Kelly?” He walked closer. “Heard you were back in town. Couldn’t wait to hook up with your old boyfriend, I see. Maybe you ought to think about getting a room, seeing how the bleachers aren’t available tonight.”

  Her shoulders stiffened. She couldn’t look at Caleb’s face again, so she turned on Marvin instead. “Maybe you ought to think about crawling back under your rock. You were a pain in the butt when we were in school. You want to talk about things not changing? Look in the mirror sometime, why don’t you?” She shoved him out of her way and stomped back inside the gymnasium.

  The sooner she and Tyler could leave Weaver, the better off they all would be.

  Chapter Nine

  The day after the carnival, Caleb did something he’d never done before in his life.

  He had the office reschedule an entire afternoon’s worth of appointments.

  One way or another, he was going to have it out with Kelly.

  But when he went to her mom’s farm, the place was deserted. House locked up tight. Dusty car with the Idaho license plate nowhere to be seen.

  He didn’t want to think that she’d up and left town again, but he’d had the same knot in his gut when she’d done it before. Only back then, the knot had been caused by Georgette Rasmussen slamming the door of her house in his face after lying to him about her daughter being married.

  What the hell kind of person did that? Who made up some damn pointless lie the way she had? It was as if she’d been afraid he’d go after Kelly or something.

  Wouldn’t you have?

  It wasn’t the first time the question had sneaked its way into Caleb’s thoughts.

  He’d never given it serious consideration, though. He’d been too focused on med school. Then his residency.

  Yeah, he’d made a few stabs at locating her. But he hadn’t tried hard enough. If he hadn’t been so career driven, would he have tried harder? Fought for her?

  He sat down on the front porch steps. While the puppy yanked on her leash, he stared at the land around him. The wind blew pretty constantly in these parts, and that afternoon was no different. It was kicking up little whirlwinds of dirt, flattening the weeds down against the sparse brown patches of grass and rattling the weathered wood of the abandoned coops.

  When he and Kelly were teenagers, the farm hadn’t looked this way. There’d been the chickens, of course. But there’d also been rows and rows of whatever crop was growing that season.

  He scrubbed his face with his hands. Now the only thing surrounding him seemed to be the echoes of Georgette’s dissatisfaction with life.

  Which Kelly herself must have felt much more strongly.

  Would it be any wonder if she’d had enough and had bolted?

  Particularly after what had happened the evening before at the carnival?

  And if she’s gone back to Idaho now?

  He suddenly yanked out his cell phone, startling Bingo into yipping. “Relax, dog.” He reached out and rubbed his hand over her silky head while checking the signal on his phone. One bar. But it was enough, and he dialed the office. “Mary,” he said when the receptionist answered, “I need you to pull Tyler Rasmussen’s record for me. I need his mother’s contact information.”

  “Sure. Hold on a second.”

  The nice thing about Mary was that she wouldn’t pepper him with questions like some of the other people working for Doc Cobb. She was back in seconds. “She left a mobile number.”

  Thank you, God. “Text it to me, would you please? And I’ll see you in the office as usual tomorrow after I’m finished at the hospital.”

  “You have three appointments here before your rounds,” she reminded him. “Had to fit in those reschedules.”

  “Right. Thanks, Mary.” He hung up. A moment later, the text arrived and he dialed the number.

  It went straight to Kelly’s voice mail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

  “It’s Caleb. Call me.”

  Not that he had any expectation she would just because he’d asked.

  He pushed to his feet and pocketed his phone. “Come on, Bingo.” The puppy trotted after him to the truck, and he lifted her inside. She immediately hopped onto the passenger seat, propped one paw on the armrest and scratched at the window with her other.

  Even though it was barely forty degrees out, he opened the window for her and drove away from the farm.

  Not finding Kelly left him with an afternoon to fill. But if he spent it hanging around downtown, someone would be bound to notice and wonder why. Particularly if the rescheduled appointments started talking.

  Pretty annoying when a man couldn’t choose to take a break from work for an afternoon without people asking questions, but he’d known that was what he was getting into when he’d decided to come back to Weaver to practice.

  In the end, he took refuge at his brother-in-law’s office. Fortunately, Beck didn’t ask questions the way Lucy would have. After raising his eyebrows a little at the unexpected sight of Caleb in the middle of the day, he filled a container of water for the dog and gestured for Caleb to sit in one of the office’s cushioned chairs. He didn’t ask questions about the black mood Caleb was in but just pulled out the latest version of his architecture plans.

  After an hour of tweaking, Beck rolled the plans back up. “Would help if you’d decide where you want your house built. That’s going to lead to some changes, too.”

  “I’ve got it narrowed down to a few spots.” They’d been having this particular discussion for over a month.

  “The Johansson place is your best bet,” Beck told him. Which was also something he’d been saying for over a month. “Good location. You’re looking at renovations versus a new build. Has the best view.”

  Caleb knew the Johansson place inside and out. It was perfect for the reasons that Beck said. He just hadn’t been able to commit to it.

  “Wait too long and someone’s likely to buy it before you,” Beck added.

  “Yeah. I know. My Realtor’s warning the same thing. I’ll decide soon.”

  After that, Caleb gathered up Bingo and went back to his truck. He called Kelly again. And once again it went straight to her voice mail. This time he didn’t bother with the message. She’d be able to see well enough that the calls were from him.

  He was still sitting in his truck when someone banged on the window.

  Pam Rasmussen.

  He swallowed an oath and rolled down his window. “Hey, Pam.”

  “Just wondered if everything was all right. Saw you sitting here and all.”

  “Doing fine.” If fine was feeling like he was standing at a train stop waiting on a train that no longer ran.

  “S’pose you heard about all the excitement out toward Braden way.”

  The last thing he wanted was a dose of her gossip. “Nope.” His voice was a little too curt.

  Her eyebro
ws rose. “You haven’t heard from Kelly?”

  Why would he? “Pam—”

  “Pretty bad accident.” She kept speaking right over his visible jerk. “We had to send out the helicopter—”

  He wanted to reach through the window and clamp his hand over her mouth. “What accident? Is Kelly hurt? Tyler?”

  “Oh.” Pam shook her head quickly. “No. No, I don’t think so. But she was there. Rode with one of the victims in the helicopter. Pretty sure Tyler wasn’t with her—”

  He shoved the truck into gear. Pam had the good sense to back away quickly, or he might have run over her toes.

  He didn’t need to question where the helicopter would be heading. There was only one hospital in the region, and Weaver was it.

  It took scant minutes to get there. As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, he could see the helicopter sitting in its usual spot. He left the dog in the truck with the window rolled halfway down and went straight in through the emergency entrance.

  Courtney was on duty, and she gave him a surprised look.

  “Where’s Kelly? She came in with the helicopter.”

  “Ah.” Comprehension dawned, and she gestured toward the curtained cubicles behind her. “Eight. Gown up first,” she called after him as he strode across the tiled floor.

  Halfway there, he snatched up a gown and a mask and yanked them on before he reached the eighth cubicle. He recognized what he was hearing even before he stuck his head around the curtain.

  The woman in the bed was well into childbirth. Dan Yarnell was attending her, and Kelly was standing behind the laboring woman, holding her hand.

  That wasn’t the sight that rocked him.

  It was seeing the blood on Kelly’s pale blue gown that did that.

  Aside from the first quick flare of shock in her eyes when she spotted him, she didn’t give him another glance. All of her concentration was on the woman. “Come on now, Maria. You can do this. You’re almost there,” Kelly said through the mask covering half her face.