Cold feet(50)
Author: Brenda Novak

"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.

CALEB 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?"