Laura Altom - Marrying the Marshal

“Hurry,” Caleb said, tugging Allie’s ashen-faced secretary and clerks into her office, then dead-bolting the door. He shut the drapes, then barked directions into the radio in his sleeve. “Everyone okay?” he finally asked the women assembled.

Allie nodded while her secretary fussed over wiping the blood with a tissue.

“Excellent,” Caleb said. “Looks like everyone in the courtroom’s all right, too. They’ve all been cleared. Francis is headed to his cell, and I’ve got a cleaning crew on the way.”

“Cal?” She was almost afraid to ask.

“Just called his detail. All’s clear. Per his teacher’s instructions, they’re at the kitchen table practicing multiplication by making macaroni necklaces.” Caleb shot her a grin. A wonderfully sweet, strong grin so out of place in their current situation, it made her burst into a relieved nervous laugh.

“I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—wow. That was—”

She was still-rambling when Caleb pulled her into his arms. Impossibly strong, capable arms. How long had it been since she’d been held? Since she’d had someone to lean on? Yet as good as leaning on Caleb felt, she couldn’t open herself to the hurt of falling for him again. It would be all too easy, losing herself in the good. Forgetting the bad.

“S-sorry,” she said. Releasing him. Backing away. Trying hard to look anywhere but at his face. Only that tactic landed her gaze squarely on his chest. On the rumpled white shirt he’d worn under his suit, now covered in blood. If she’d needed a sign to warn her to steer clear of the man she’d once loved, this was it in blazing neon.

Sure, this time the blood was part of a sick prank.

But what if next time, it was for real? What if her worst fears about Caleb being shot came true?

Somehow she managed to say, “I—I should clean up.”

Movements stiff and robotic, Allie locked herself in her small, private bathroom. Washed her hands and face, then sat on the closed toilet and prayed blood-balloons were the worst of Francis’s friends’ arsenal.

“GOOD,” CALEB SAID late that afternoon from the courthouse parking lot, hand lightly shaking as he held his cell up to his right ear. “I caught you.”

“Caleb?” his sister, Gillian, asked. “What’s up? I thought you were on assignment?”

“I am.”

“You got a cold?” she asked. “You sound weepy.”

“Weepy?” He hadn’t cried in like…a day? Just the previous afternoon, upon his first sight of his son, hadn’t he spouted like a sprinkler? “I’m, ah, outside. It’s damned cold.”

“Cut the whole defensive tough-guy routine,” Gillian said, “and just tell me what’s wrong. I thought over the past year or so we’ve gotten further than this. You know, like we could talk.”

“We can,” he said. “Which is why I called. Gil, you sitting?”

“No. But I can be. Just let me put the baby down for her nap. I’ll be right back.”

“’Kay.”

In rapidly fading daylight, drumming his fingers on the hood of his SUV, he grinned at the sound of his six-year-old stepniece’s cartoons blaring over the phone.

A few years back, his sister married a great guy, Joe. The marriage turned out to be healing not just for Joe, but also for Gillian, who’d carried a chip on her shoulder the whole of her adult life.

Caleb’s sister had never bothered to say anything to either her three brothers or their dad. He guessed she’d always felt as if they didn’t believe she could accomplish anything other than being a classic girly girl, and the men in her family went out of their way to shelter her. Or were condescending because she wasn’t their equal.

What they all knew was that hell no, she wasn’t their equal. She was better than any of them! Tougher, smarter, with a forked tongue a guy didn’t stand a chance of winning an argument against!

Good thing for them, since finally figuring out all of that for herself, she’d mellowed. Taken time from her crazed agenda of proving herself better than the guys to instead learn to appreciate her own unique feminine strengths and weaknesses.

“Hi, Uncle Caleb,” six-year-old Meggie said into the phone.

“Hey, potato bug.”

“I’m not a bug,” the girl said with giggle.

“Then what are those things sticking out of your head? I thought those were your antennae?”

“Those are my ears!” she shrieked.

“Oh, well, in that case,” Caleb said, “maybe instead of a bug, you’re just a Mr. Potato Head?”

“I’m a girl! I’d be a Missus Potato Head!”

“You sure? Let me ask your momma. You might be an imposter, and I’ll have to call the police.”

She giggled again. “You are the police!”

“Gimme that phone,” Gillian said in the background. “You big sneak.”

Giggling shrieks said his favorite little potato bug was getting tickled.

“All right,” Gillian said. “I’m back. The baby’s hopefully asleep, and your niece is getting popcorn crumbs all over my new sofa.”

“What was that?” Caleb asked. “My tomboy sister’s feeling protective toward a sofa?”

“Hey, cut me some slack. It’s a really comfy sofa. Perfect for making out on.”

“Ack.” He clutched his chest. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Hear it? Just wait till Thanksgiving when you’ll get to see it. Think you’ll be done in time? We’re doing turkey and a ham. Dad and Beau are coming. Joe’s former in-laws, too. I’m assuming you’ll be holding Adam hostage?”

Caleb sighed. Rubbed his forehead.

“Out with it, sweetie. Here I am going on about the holidays when something’s obviously bugging you.”

“All right, here goes. Remember Allie?”

“The girl who broke your heart?”

“Aw, geez, it wasn’t all that bad.”

“The hell it wasn’t. Adam said you didn’t get out of bed for two weeks. He also said she was pregnant, then told you in a letter she’d lost the baby after leaving town.”

“Adam’s got a big mouth,” Caleb said. “Anyway, the short of it is, she didn’t really lose the baby.”

“What?!”

“Gilly, I’ve got a son. He’s so damned handsome it hurts to look at him. He’s got my eyes.”

“God, I’d like to hug you right now. Congratulations, honey. I can’t wait to tell Dad—and Joe. I’ve got to see if he can wrangle time away from the office, then we’ll be right over.”

“Not a good plan.”

She laughed. “Just try keeping me away. I love staying home with Chrissy, but truthfully, I could use a little action.”

“Yeah, well, there’s too much action here. And Allie and my son are at the heart of it.”

“MOM,” CAL SAID at the dinner table that night, “I wish you’d let me go back to school. Sam called and said Kelly got her noodle necklace stuck up her nose. And then Miz Talbert came over to try yanking it out, and then the whole thing broke, and noodles were like, wham—” he swung his left arm for emphasis, in the process dumping his chocolate milk “—everywhere. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, sopping the mess without skipping a beat.

“Need help, ma’am?” The newest marshal assigned to protect them stepped in from the living room. She didn’t know him, but he seemed nice enough. Cal seemed fascinated by his size and smooth-shaven head.

“No, but thanks,” she said.

“Sure.” All eight feet of him ducked back into the living room.

“You mad?” Cal asked, munching on a carrot stick.

“Not even a little bit.” She tossed the milk-soaked rag in the sink, then joined him at the table.

“How come you’re not sayin’ anything?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Guess I’m just tired.”

“Then how come you’re not eating? I thought Great-Grandma Beatrice’s meat loaf’s your favorite.”