Chapter 39
Caleb stared at his inbox, filled with new emails flagged by his assistant for immediate attention, and couldn’t summon the energy to even begin reading them.
If possible, he hated email more now than he had before, and not even his work ethic could force him into beginning this morning.
For the past two weeks, ever since Kelly had come to see him in his office and asked him to make a different choice, everything in his life had a pall that nothing would remove.
Working in his office, going to meetings, driving his car, eating dinner, walking Ralph in the park—none of it was satisfying anymore. All of it had a gaping hole that simply wouldn’t be filled.
Kelly had done this to him.
He had done it to himself.
Both were equally true.
He turned his head when there was a tap on the door, and his assistant, Linda, stepped into his office.
“Hey,” he said, trying to sound friendly although he didn’t feel that way. “Is it still just eight thirty on Monday?”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid so. You’ll want to look at the message from George Farmer right away.” She nodded toward his computer monitor, where she could obviously see he’d not made any headway on the email.
“Thanks.”
He took the pages she walked over to hand him and glanced at them briefly before he signed each one.
He stared down at his signature on the last page for a long time, for no particular reason.
“I think it gets better,” Linda murmured when he made no move to hand the papers back.
Startled out of his reverie, he straightened up. “What does?”
She looked suddenly self-conscious and dropped her head. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s none of my business.”
He waved away her apology. “It’s fine. What were you talking about?” He knew, but he wanted to hear what she would say.
She looked like she wished she’d never brought the topic up, but she replied, “A breakup like you had. I think it does eventually get better. Not that I’d know.”
She was single and evidently had been all her life. Her world seemed to revolve primarily around working for him. Until the past couple of months, his schedule had been so rigorous she wouldn’t have had much time in her life for anything else even if she’d wanted it.
“Yeah,” he breathed out, hoping it was true but not really believing it.
His life wasn’t any different than it had been before he’d met Kelly.
His schedule was back to normal, and work had become his top priority once again.
He hadn’t fucked anyone since her, although he’d tried.
He’d had a call girl visit him last week, but for some reason it had felt wrong and empty, so he’d sent her away before she’d even stroked his cock.
Then last night he’d come on to a woman in a bar—hoping to feel more like his old self again.
She was beautiful and more than willing, but he couldn’t summon any interest at all, so he’d left without picking her up.
Otherwise though, his life was basically what it had been before Kelly. It just didn’t give him any satisfaction anymore.
That would change eventually though. Surely it would change.
Realizing Linda was still standing next to his desk, he said, “I hope so. Thank you.”
He never would have admitted any vulnerability at all to his assistant in the past, so that felt different too.
When she walked out, he stared back at his email, pulling up the one from George Farmer.
It was a crisis. There was always some crisis or another. He just didn’t care anymore.
When his phone rang, he was glad of the distraction, but he paused when he saw who was calling.
Wes.
His friend had tried to call several times in the past couple of weeks, and Caleb hadn’t picked up.
It wasn’t Wes’s fault. None of it was. He’d genuinely been worried and had been trying to help.
But it felt too closely connected to Kelly for Caleb to be able to have a conversation with him yet.
He didn’t have the energy to let it keep ringing this morning though, so he connected the call with a sigh.
“Hello.”
“Hey. Caleb. Thanks for picking up.”
“Yeah. Sorry I haven’t returned your calls. I’ve been…” He wasn’t sure how to describe how he’d been, so he concluded, “busy.”
“Are you pissed?”
Caleb thought for a moment before he answered. “No.”
“Are you… okay?”
Again Caleb had to think before he finally replied, “No.”
“Shit,” Wes muttered. “Did you… Were you able to take care of her?”
His friend had no idea what had happened after he’d sent Caleb the photograph of the company picnic. Caleb hadn’t told him anything. “No. I don’t really think I did.”
“Fuck, so she’s still going to cause trouble for you? I mean, about…” Wes trailed off, obviously hesitant to say it out loud.
Caleb had always been hesitant to say it out loud too.
He’d told Wes more than he’d ever told anyone—and only because he’d been drunk one night shortly after it happened.
He’d been so torn up about it back then that some of the story had spilled out.
Wes didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to know there could be trouble.
“No. She’s not. Her mother died last week, so there won’t be retaliation from that direction either. I think it’s just… over.”
“So why did she do this whole thing if she was just going to drop it?”
Caleb knew the answer to that. Kelly had told him herself. “She’s trying to let go. She says…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Wes waited for a long moment but then finally prompted, “She says what?”
“She says she fell in love with me. For real.”
He heard Wes’s quick intake of air. “Seriously? Do you think she means it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then that’s good, isn’t it?”
Caleb gave a dry little laugh. “Why is it good?”
“Because you love her too, don’t you?”
Of course he loved her. As far as he could tell, he would love her until he died.
“But that doesn’t change anything. She still used me.
I still used her.” Caleb cleared his throat, feeling the knot of dark guilt that just wouldn’t go away.
“And I still knew what happened to her father and did nothing. How can she not continue to resent me for that? Neither of us has ever been in a healthy relationship, so even without all the other stuff, the likelihood of making something work is slim. None of that is going to go away.”
“So it doesn’t go away. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing left at all. Does it?”
Caleb didn’t answer, but the question hit him strangely. Like it shocked something awake in his mind that had been in a coma before.
There is always more than one choice, Kelly had said. They weren’t living in a Greek tragedy where their lives were fated from the beginning. She’d said something like that too.
“Caleb?” Wes said, sounding worried. “If I screwed this up for you, I’m really going to hate myself.”
“It wasn’t you. It was never you. It was always me.” Caleb was muttering, speaking mostly to himself.
Wes evidently didn’t realize this because he responded, “Well then, I guess that means you can fix it. If you want.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said, his breath picking up and an excitement building in his body he hadn’t felt since Kelly had walked out of this office two weeks ago. “Yeah. Maybe I can.”
There was always more than one decision he could make. He’d been ignoring one possibility since it never would have been on his radar before.
Three months ago he never would have dreamed of doing it. He would have done everything in his power to stop it from happening.
But now he realized he could do it. He wanted to do it.
It was the only thing that could possibly change the end of this story they were living.
The following afternoon he’d done everything he needed to do, and he was waiting with Ralph in the park.
The same park where he’d met Kelly on that very first day.
He was ten minutes early, and he’d worked himself up into an emotional fervor, waiting and hoping and praying she hadn’t changed her mind in the past two weeks.
It was possible. He hadn’t treated her well. But she’d seemed to understand him and want him anyway.
Maybe she still did.
Ralph seemed to sense his excitement and was running in exuberant circles.
Caleb felt like a fool, but he couldn’t seem to help it.
Because he was watching for her, he saw Kelly five minutes later when she appeared at the entrance of the park.
She was wearing one of her pretty hippie outfits, and she looked lovely and golden in the sunlight.
She was searching the park, looking for the client she was supposed to meet here.
He was the client, but she didn’t know that yet.
He called for Ralph and started walking toward her, drawn by a kind of yearning in his heart he’d never experienced before.
It felt different than it had before—like it was partly unreal, like it was a dream come to life, like it was happening to someone other than him.
This was him. Caleb Marshall. And she was Kelly Watson, daughter of an honest accountant who had been murdered because he’d tried to do the right thing.
And they had both done what they’d done. But maybe it didn’t mean there was nothing left.
Maybe there was another choice.
Maybe there was something worthwhile to salvage in the wake of the destruction.
He saw the moment her eyes landed on his approaching figure. She froze even though he was still too far away to see her expression.
Ralph evidently recognized her and rushed over to greet her with panting joy.
She leaned down to pet the dog, but her eyes never left Caleb.
Soon he was close enough to see that she was pale and shocked and bewildered. But there was something small and hopeful underlying it on her face.
When he reached her, she stood up so she was facing him. “I was… I was supposed to meet a new client.”
“I’m your new client,” he admitted, having to hold himself back from reaching out to her.
She was exactly who he’d loved before—strong and vulnerable, loving and broken, golden with dark shadows underneath.
Deeply human, with a heart so much like his own.
She was panting visibly, and she wrapped her arms around her belly protectively. “You are?”
“I thought it would be a good idea to get a portrait done of Ralph, if you think you’re up for the job.”
Her eyes slipped down to the happy dog, who was bouncing slightly in a sitting position, but they darted back up to Caleb’s face. “I would love to paint him.”
“If you have room in your schedule.”
“I have plenty of room.” She took a shuddering breath. “Caleb, what is… what is going on? Is this… is this what I’m thinking?”
She looked so hopeful and fragile and confused that he could hardly resist pulling her into his arms. She was so close now. He almost had her now.
He simply had to get through the last steps.
“You were right,” he said, his voice cracking strangely. He was too emotional. It wasn’t like him. “There is always more than one choice to make. So I’m making a different choice.”
The realization burst out like sunlight on her face. She wasn’t smiling, but she was still radiating joy. “Really?”
He nodded, feeling a matching joy and an awkwardness at the same time. “Yes.”
“And all the rest of it, I mean, you’ll be okay with…” She could barely speak. She was hugging herself like she needed to hold the feelings inside.
“It wasn’t okay. I mean, we can’t just erase the past. So the choice I had to make was… was big.” He pulled out from his pocket a folded piece of paper he’d printed earlier. He opened it and handed it to her. “I’m submitting this tomorrow morning.”
She took the paper with a shaky hand and stared down at the printed words.
She stared down at them for a really long time. So long that Caleb was suddenly nervous.
Finally she lifted her eyes. “You’re…” She could barely speak. “You’re resigning?”
He nodded.
“Oh God, Caleb.” Her hand was shaking so much he was worried, so he took the paper and folded it back in his pocket. “I never would have wanted you to do something like that. I never would have expected… You don’t have to…”
“I do. I do have to.” He couldn’t stand the distance between them anymore, so he reached out to cup her cheek with one hand.
“Because you were right about what you said before. We’re not living in a Greek tragedy, but I’m still Claudius in this.
And his problem was always that he refused to give up what he’d gained through his sins.
I don’t want to live with that guilt around my neck my whole life.
I only have this position because your father was murdered—whether I was directly responsible—and I don’t want it anymore. ”
“You’re sure?” She’d raised a hand to cover the one he still had on her face. “Caleb, are you sure? I don’t want you to have to sacrifice something you love.”
“I was sacrificing what I loved before. I was sacrificing you. And you’re who I’m not willing to give up anymore. This is my choice. This is my different choice.”
She gave a little sob and threw herself on his chest, and he was finally able to wrap her in a tight embrace.
She was all feeling, all emotion, all depth and generosity and intelligence and courage and beauty.
And she was all his. He could feel it. He knew it for sure.
When she finally pulled away, tears were streaming down her face. “So what are you going to do?”
He gave her a little smile. “I thought maybe we could take a walk with Ralph.”
She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. “I mean for a job.”
He’d known what she meant. “I don’t know, Blossom. I really don’t know.”