Chapter 19 Piper
PIPER
Tonight is the first night in a week that I’m not desperate to put the kids to bed. I spend some much-needed time with Sonny before dinner, and watch Caleb kick a ball around with him outside during sunset.
Ellie is putting her hair-styling skills to the test on me. I watch the two of them play through the window, the sun making their smiles look even more radiant.
“I don’t understand how you could enjoy kicking around a bit of plastic filled up with some air,” Ellie says.
“Beats me,” I chuckle. “Your father and Sonny probably don’t get the fascination with styling hair.”
“How can anyone not understand looking presentable?” Ellie pauses the braid for a moment, watching the boys outside with me. “I have to say—Dad takes much better care of his hair with you in the house.”
“Does he have visitors around much?”
“No.” Ellie resumes the braid. “Grace comes sometimes, but it’s only ever just been the two of us. Dad likes to call us inseparable. That word came up in spelling the other day and I was the only one who knew what it meant.”
“It’s a good word,” I say absent-mindedly, focused on Caleb’s smiling face as he plays with the son he still doesn’t know is his.
I can’t risk introducing Sonny to his father when Caleb has a track record of leaving.
Sometimes I get the urge to blurt out the truth.
Other times, I stay quiet and inwardly applaud myself for resisting the temptation.
I’m weak in other areas when it comes to temptation, but this is different.
My son becomes involved if I tell him the truth.
“Score!” Sonny shouts from outside, zooming through the lawn, mimicking either a plane or a famous soccer player with his outstretched hands.
He’s at an impressionable age, and everything is rubbing off on him. Including Caleb. Seeing them having fun soothes one part of me and breaks another.
“All done.” Ellie fetches the mirror and slots it in front of my face. “Ta-daa!”
“If you don’t set up your own salon when you’re older, I’m gonna be very disappointed.”
“You better be the first person to come in!” She beams down at me with the same onyx eyes as her father. They even sparkle in the sun the same way as Caleb’s.
I’m hit with a wave of grief, knowing that I’ll someday have to say goodbye to this gorgeous girl. Forever.
The boys wrap up with the game. As they come inside, Caleb kicks off his shoes, a tad breathless from the running around.
A bead of sweat drips down his delicious brow, his hair even more disheveled than before.
He’s wearing a simple tee, but the fabric sticks to his body in all the right places, outlining each one of his abs.
Even from the other side of the living area, I’m able to count each one.
“Bedtime!” Caleb announces, asserting his dominance. “I want the two of you in bed by eight thirty. The first one tucked up in bed wins.”
“What’s the prize?” Sonny asks.
“Bragging rights.” I mess up his hair and signal him upstairs.
“You know, some other kids in my class get to go to bed at nine.”
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” Caleb snaps his fingers in the direction of the staircase and doesn’t turn to me until the kids are in the bathroom brushing their teeth. “The station,” he tells me. “We’ll find time tomorrow and go together.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
I expected Caleb to be more mad about me not telling him sooner, but he seems to be taking this well. Better than I thought.
“James Taylor paid me a visit before you returned from work.”
Oh. Here we go.
The slightly grave look on Caleb’s face isn’t very promising. “Give it to me straight. How many days do I have left?”
“He’s not the one following you around, Hart.” Concern is etched into his face, deepening some of the fine lines.
“Of course he’s gonna say that.”
“It wouldn’t be in his interest to stalk you.
Think about it—he could lose his business, plus all of his money.
And I think it goes without saying that James loves to milk as many bucks from people as possible.
He’d be self-jeopardizing. As much as I hate the bastard, he’s smart and knows what he’s doing. ”
My stomach turns over. “Then who could it be?”
“Have you gotten into any other trouble over the years?”
“No.”
Ellie interrupts the conversation, calling for Caleb to come upstairs for something.
“Stay here,” he tells me. “We’re not done talking about this just yet.”
Talking isn’t something we’ve been doing a lot of recently…
not unless it involves sex. If Caleb isn’t texting me absolute filth throughout the day, we’re whispering it in each others’ ears at inconvenient times, like in the kitchen as we pass one another, or in the corridor we always find ourselves alone in.
A notification comes through. A voicemail—the number unknown.
My stomach turns over again as I lift my phone, checking out the voicemail.
It’s just been sent through—no call first. It has James Taylor written all over it.
Voicemails are the way to go when you don’t want the recipient arguing with you.
It’s the easiest way to get your point across, and we all know James loves to do that.
So I listen to the voicemail, phone raised to my ear as I anticipate an update from James on the case.
“Piper? It’s your father. Please give me a ring at your earliest convenience. It’s urgent.”
My stomach drops, so much that I could shit it out.
He has to be kidding. Nine-and-a-bit years of nothing, and now my father decides to leave me a vague-ass voicemail.
I clench the phone in my hand, careful not to shatter the thing.
I could use the energy from all of these emotions surging through me to obliterate both the device and him.
What is he doing? Has he finally turned a corner, or is he the same man as before, only ringing me up because he needs my help with something?
Feeling a pair of eyes on me, I turn toward the staircase and see Caleb psychoanalyzing me. “Everything okay?”
“Is it obvious that it’s not?”
He paces down the stairs and takes a seat opposite me, his eyes wide and staring. He’s impossibly attractive, as usual. But tonight I’m distracted.
My father is God knows where, requesting my help with something.
I say nothing, and play the voicemail on speaker.
Caleb scoffs. “Urgent? More urgent than what you have going on now? I highly doubt that.”
“I doubt that too—my father’s definition of urgent is very different to mine and yours. But I should ring him.”
Caleb lays a protective hand over my phone, stopping me. “You already have enough on your plate. Are you sure this is wise?”
“It’s just a phone call. After he left me to pay off the rest of the house, I’m well in my right to hang up and forget he exists. He hasn’t contacted me once in the past nine-ish years.”
Caleb looks at me cautiously and removes his hand. I raise the phone to my ear and wait out the intermittent ringing. I have a few more to go yet before he should pick up. And that’s a big if. He always used to answer at the last second, or never. Usually the latter.
He was the reason I always got stuck at school and made the teachers late getting home.
This evening, he picks up on the fourth ring.
Wow. It really must be important.
“I take it you got my message.”
“Where are you?” I frown into space, hazarding a guess. “Boston? New York? Fucking Japan?”
“Piper.” He sighs, one mixed with exhaustion and relief. “I’m back in town.”
“Town, as in Maple Crossing?”
“Yes. I need you to come and meet me as soon as possible. It’s urgent.”
How many times does he want to emphasize that?
“You’re gonna need to be more specific if you want me to meet you.”
“I’m staying at West Hill Motel. I’ll tell you everything in person. It’s risky over the phone.”
“Fine,” I grunt, ending the call in the same abrupt way he always used to when I was a teen.
My father needs a taste of his own medicine. And since his bees are all dead, the best thing I have right now is to hang up before he’s done speaking.
“You’re not going there,” Caleb says as soon as I end the call.
“I’m nosy.”
“You don’t know what he could be hiding.”
“I haven’t seen him in nine years, Caleb.”
“Which proves my point exactly. He could be hiding all kinds of shit. And I especially don’t want you heading out of town when there’s a stalker on the loose.
Not to mention the fact that you’ve got a sprained foot that’s still weeks away from healing.
You might not be so lucky next time to have me come and save you.
” He gives me a pointed look—fair point.
“What if the stalker and my father are intertwined?” I feel the cogs spinning in Caleb’s mind. “Ever thought about that one?”
“We’ll go first thing tomorrow as soon as we drop off the kids.” Caleb stands and heads into the kitchen to flick on the kettle. He already knows what kind of tea I want, coinciding with the time of day. “I’ll loiter in the parking lot while you go inside and find out what he wants.”