Vickie Taylor - Keeping Caroline

He and Caroline had lived together in marriage for over a year after their son’s death, hardly talking, certainly never discussing things like blame. Yet now, practically on the eve of their divorce, the feelings and words rushed forth like water over a swollen dam. If one week here could leave him this beaten and bruised, how would he survive a month?

He’d decided the best approach would be to stay away from Caroline as much as possible. He refused to call it hiding out. It was just a…strategic withdrawal.

He felt a presence behind him. His stomach lurched and he looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Caroline. But instead of his wife’s soft caramel eyes, he met a sharp black gaze.

A teenage girl stared at him—more accurately, at his posterior—with huge, dark eyes. Her hair, just as dark, hung limply to her shoulders, brushing the straps of her clingy midriff top.

For a second she looked impossibly young, innocent. Then she hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her hip-hugger jeans, pushing the waistband well below the gold hoop piercing her navel, cocked her hips and puffed out her B-cup chest. Her gaze skimmed up the length of his legs, pausing importantly about waist level before slowly grazing over his bare chest and shoulders. By the time her eyes met his, she looked twice her age.

And Matt felt older than dirt.

He scooped his T-shirt off the ground, pulled it over his head and went back to work on the wall, sinking the hammer’s claws deep into rotten wood and ripping backward until the boards splintered satisfyingly. Behind him, he heard the girl shift closer and gritted his teeth. He’d been a cop long enough to have seen hundreds like her on the street. Every one of them was named Trouble.

“Whoever you are, go away,” he said. “I’m working.”

She sidled around him until he could see her out of the corner of his eye. Her lashes fluttered like the wings of a baby bird. “Gem Millholland,” she said. “And I’m pleased to meet you, too.”

“Fine. Now run along.” He didn’t hear footsteps. Bad sign.

“You’re Caroline’s ex, aren’t you?”

Matt tossed another rotted board onto the rubbish pile. “Not yet.” Not until he finished this damn house and she signed the papers.

Apparently Gem Millholland didn’t concern herself with legal details such as divorce documents. “Wow. That means you’re a free man.”

“More like an indentured servant,” he said, sounding more disgruntled than he meant to. “I have to earn my freedom.”

Gem clucked and sidled a step closer. Damn, he shouldn’t have encouraged her.

“Yeah, I heard she’s making you fix up the house.”

He ignored her, and to his surprise, she left. But thirty seconds later she was back, pressing something cold and wet between his shoulder blades. His back arced reflexively.

“Poor baby, working so hard. You’re hot, aren’t you? I’ll bet you could use something tall and wet.” She rolled the cold thing across his back while her other hand grazed his side and settled on his hip, holding him in place, then slipped around to the front of his jeans.

Biting back a curse, he peeled her hand from his waist and turned. Parched as he was, he backed away from the tumbler of iced tea she held, but he didn’t let go of her wrist. “No thank you.” He pinned her down with a hard stare. “On all counts.”

“Gem?” Caroline turned the corner of the house. Shocked at the scene she walked into, she swiveled her head back and forth between Gem and her husband. Gem stared at the ground while Matt’s flustered gaze and his grip on the girl’s wrist told Caroline all she needed to know about what had been happening.

Gem giggled. Matt let her go.

As surprise faded into displeasure, aimed at both Gem and her husband, Caroline decided to start with Gem. “You’re late again,” she admonished. “That’s twice this week.”

Gem made a Betty Boop “O” with her lips, for Matt’s benefit, Caroline was sure, and covered her mouth with her hand before she sashayed away.

Caroline turned to Matt. “And you. Go easy on her, would you? She’s had a tough time of it.”

Matt raised his hands. “Hey, I’m Mr. Easy,” he said, then muttered, “at least she seemed to think so.”

Caroline didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. “So what were you going to do? Get her in a wristlock and cuff her?”

“What was I going to do? She was the one with the roaming hands. And I don’t think it was the change in my pocket she was after.”

The lecture Caroline had been about to spout vanished from her mind, blown away by a single sweep of his tormented gaze.

Taking a good look at her big, sweaty husband, she couldn’t blame Gem for putting the moves on him. The sight of him, all hard muscle and bronzed skin, was enough to stir the hormones of a nun.

Suddenly, Caroline felt the need to giggle. “I’m sorry. Gem doesn’t exactly have a grasp of appropriate adult relationships.”

“Maybe that’s because she’s not an adult,” Matt rumbled.

“She’s seventeen, and she’s going to have to grow up fast. She’s got two little ones depending on her.”

Matt shoved his fingers into his back pockets, scowling. “The twins?”

Caroline nodded.

“Their father?”

“Not in the picture.”

“She’s seventeen and they’re fourteen months?” Matt shook his head. Math had never been his strong point, but even he understood how those numbers added up. Too much, too fast, too young.

Caroline stubbed the toe of her sneaker in the dirt. “Reminds me of myself at that age.”

“You weren’t saddled with two kids.”

Caroline’s eyes burned. She told herself it was just the dry wind that had kicked up. She would never consider a child a burden. “I could have been. I was younger than she is now when I fell in love with you. I got pregnant before we were married.”

Matt’s fingers rolled up into fists in his pockets. “Not when you were fifteen you didn’t.”

“No,” she said softly. “You made sure of that, didn’t you? Running off to play soldier as soon as things started getting serious between us.”

“I came back.”

“Five years later.”

“When we were both ready to make a commitment.”

“And then I was pregnant within a month, remember?”

“It’s not something I’m likely to forget.”

“We had a child between us, right from the start,” Caroline mused. “Maybe that’s why our marriage didn’t work when he was gone. We’d never really learned to live together, just the two of us. We didn’t know how. We still don’t.”

Matt never answered her. Straight-faced, he just picked up his tools and put them away one by one. Meticulous as ever.

Damn him, she knew what he was doing. He’d been here a week and she’d barely seen him. He was burying himself back here in the rubble of the porch he was deconstructing so that he didn’t have to deal with his life.

It was funny. As a negotiator, Matt’s job was communication. But little by little, after Brad’s cancer had been diagnosed, he’d shut down. At least at home. On the job he was sharp as ever, the best in the state at what he did. In the final months before their separation, it seemed his H.T.s were the only ones Matt could talk to. There were times she’d been jealous of them. At least they had his full attention when they talked.

Sometimes he even talked back.

Kicking a loose board and wishing it had been his shin, Caroline stormed off. At the kitchen entrance she jerked the rickety screened door open and let it slam behind her.

He wouldn’t get away with ignoring her. Not this time.

He was going to face her. Face the past.

He couldn’t avoid her forever.