The 39-Year-Old Virgin Read online

  “What?” he finally bit off.

  “‘Your own way,’” she clarified. “Is it working?” Before he could say anything, she answered the question for him. “I don’t think so.” Her eyes held his for a long moment. “You haven’t moved on.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to move on,” Caleb grounded out through lips that were barely moving.

  He turned from her and she found herself addressing his back. “Again, you don’t have that luxury. You’re not going to forget her if you stop spending a chunk of each day silently railing at God for His injustice. Some of that pain that’s eating you up inside is always going to be there, but it can be managed if you try. I’m guessing that Jane wasn’t the kind of woman who would have wanted you to let your pain fester and suck out your soul.”

  It didn’t matter what Jane would have wanted. This was how things were. Caleb blew out a ragged breath. “Sometimes, you have no choice.”

  Claire put her hand on his arm, silently letting him know that he wasn’t alone. That she was there for him whenever he needed to talk. Whether he wanted her to be or not.

  “You always have a choice, Caleb. And you’re lucky enough not to be alone.” He turned to her. “You have a wonderful boy in there and he needs you very, very much. Be there for Danny. Really be there for him.” A fond expression slipped over her lips as she let her mind drift back across the years. “The Caleb that I remember was a joyful boy. Most likely,” she guessed, “that was probably what attracted Jane to you in the first place.”

  He leaned against the railing, crossing his arms before him as he gazed out into the slowly descending twilight. “You know, it’s really ironic. Here I am, a vice detective. Danger’s built into the job. Every day, I run the risk of not coming home.” He felt his throat threatening to close up on him. “And she’s the one who got shot. She’s the one who was killed.”

  “How did it happen?” Claire gently prodded.

  First there was silence. It stretched out so far that she thought he was ignoring her question. Just when she was about to give it one more try, she heard his voice.

  When he spoke, it was to the growing darkness, not to her. “She was a social worker. And fearless, utterly fearless. She insisted on working the worst cases, going into neighborhoods that cops didn’t even want to go into without backup. When I asked her not to, she said—” his mouth twisted cynically “—she said her guardian angel would look out for her.”

  He blew out a breath, bracing himself for the rest of it. He felt Claire’s hand on his arm again, and in some strange, odd way, it gave him strength.

  “Well, her guardian angel must’ve been taking a lunch break that afternoon. Jane got caught in cross fire. Two rival gangs trying to lower their numbers. Instead, they killed her. They didn’t even know it until the homicide detectives caught up to them.” His voice shook with rage he didn’t even bother trying to suppress. “She was that insignificant to them, to those bastards she was trying to help.”

  “She wasn’t insignificant,” Claire insisted with feeling. “Jane was making a difference.”

  That was such a load of crap, he thought angrily. He glared at Claire accusingly. “She could have made a difference somewhere else. She could’ve just stayed home and made a difference here—” he hit his chest with his fist “—in my life. In Danny’s.”

  Claire realized that there were tears in Caleb’s eyes, tears that instantly ripped her heart out. Compassion welled up within her, spilling out all over. Knowing no other way to comfort a soul in anguish, Claire did what came naturally to her. She put her arms around him.

  At first, Caleb resisted, trying to pull back. Claire continued holding on to him, blocking his resistance. She surprised him with her strength.

  And then something just broke inside him, shattering into a million pieces. He felt everything crumble within him.

  He hadn’t talked about Jane’s death, not with anyone. Not with his partner, Ski, or even with Jane’s father when he had to call the man to tell him that Jane had been killed. He had just given her father the bare details, remaining stoic, struggling to keep from falling apart himself.

  Jane’s father had blamed him for her death, saying it’d been up to him as her husband to talk her out of taking those kinds of risks.

  Her father’s accusation just made him feel that much guiltier.

  Though he’d tried to shrug her off at first, Claire refused to be pushed away. Refused to let him turn away. She just held him tighter. And then she felt him heaving with sobs that he had refused to set free.

  Standing there, on her toes, she continued to hold him, stroking his hair and murmuring words of comfort just as if he were still the boy that she had taken care of so many years ago.

  With all her heart, she wished there was something more positive she could do for him.

  Even as she made the wish, she knew it wasn’t possible. She held fast to the positive note that she’d gotten Caleb to open up, something she was fairly confident that he hadn’t done up until now. Maybe it was the first step toward healing.

  At least she could hope.

  When she thought about it later—and she did, at great length—Claire really had no idea just how it actually came about.

  No idea how an embrace meant to convey compassion and sympathy turned into something else. One moment, she was empathizing with the pain she knew Caleb had to be feeling, the sense of loss; the next moment, the close proximity between them created a feeling that went beyond compassion. It heated her from the inside out as well as from the outside in.

  She’d been so removed from the secular world, so uninvolved in the intense kind of feelings that could erupt between a man and a woman, that she honestly didn’t realize what was going on until it had already taken her to another level. Her romantic experiences before she’d joined the order had been grounded in youthful fantasies and imaginings.

  She’d never even been kissed.

  Until now.

  She didn’t even know how his lips had found hers.

  Until they did.

  Anything she might have imagined as a young girl didn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

  The closest she could compare it to was one of those amusement park rides that turned you upside down and shook you every which way before returning you to your original spot.

  She felt disoriented and yet there was this wild rush inside her. And electricity. A great deal of electricity, crackling and humming between them. It took everything she had not to just fall into the kiss and remain there.

  But she couldn’t. It wasn’t right. Gathering her strength to her, she forced herself to pull back.

  Her breath felt trapped in her throat. And she was dizzy. She, who had never once been lost for words, now felt as if she’d suddenly been struck dumb.

  It took him more than a moment to pull himself together. Even so, when Caleb lifted his head, he looked at the woman before him in stunned wonder. A second ago, she’d been hugging him and something had just given way inside him. He was the last word in stoicism and control, yet this one time he had allowed a sob of raw anguish to tear free and make its way up his throat.

  The pain he had been harboring had been so high, so wide that he hadn’t realized until just this moment that something else was going on at the same time. Something as basic as pain but a great deal more stirring. And, in its final analysis, a great deal more pleasurable, as well.

  The physical attraction he’d suddenly become aware of had blindsided him. Twenty-two years ago he’d had a crush on the girl, but this was the woman before him and it wasn’t a crush, wasn’t some fleeting infatuation. He was leagues beyond feelings so shallow. What he had just felt, what he was still feeling, was far more powerful. Too powerful for a man as ultimately vulnerable as he was to resist. It was almost as if it had a mind of its own.

  Before he could stop to analyze what he was doing, before he could stop himself from acting, Caleb had turned and brought his mouth down
to hers.

  And kissed her.

  The second their lips touched, it was as if some kind of explosion had gone off inside him. His emotions were no longer all bound up, no longer mummified. They were ripping free of their shackles. He couldn’t begin to describe or explain exactly what was going on, only that something very basic, something very sweet, was sweeping him away to an opened space with no walls, no ceilings, no barriers of any kind.

  There was no way to define it except for the sensations bounding through him.

  Caleb cupped the back of her head, as if he needed to anchor himself in place. While it lasted, he wanted to absorb the electrical impulses shooting off, right and left, jolting his system to a state of alert wakefulness that had been denied him this past year.

  Startled, afraid of the intensity she was feeling, it was Claire who ultimately separated them from each other.

  Once Caleb’s lips left hers, she realized that she’d been very close to suffocating. The air she was drawing into her lungs arrived there in something just short of deep gulps. Her pulse was beating so frantically it took her more than a full moment to get her bearings. She became aware that Caleb was saying something to her.

  The words felt as if they were just floating by her head. What had just happened here? Was this normal? It felt too good not to be bad, and yet, how could something so wondrous be bad?

  She had to concentrate hard in order to make sense out of what he was telling her.

  He seemed upset. No, concerned, she amended. She took in another deep breath. The fog around her brain began to lift.

  “I’m sorry,” Caleb was saying. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Upset? Was that what she was feeling?

  No, she didn’t think so. Disoriented, confused, dazed maybe, but not upset. Taking care not to hyper-ventilate, she slowly took another deep breath, willing her pulse to slow down to the speed of sound rather than light. Satisfied that she was decelerating to that level, Claire looked at him. The word wow started to pulse and throb through her brain like an over-lit neon sign.

  “Did I look upset?” she asked him.

  Caleb appraised her for a long moment, silently upbraiding himself for getting so carried away—although he had enjoyed it. A great deal. Which made it all the worse.

  “No,” he finally said, the oppressive guilt he’d momentarily experienced mercifully receding. “You look how I feel.”

  “And that is?” she prodded.

  “Confused.”

  She nodded. That would be one word for it, she thought. Another would be bewildered. More words floated through her brain. Words like bewitched, bedazzled. Belatedly, she became aware that she was drifting into an old song from the fifties.

  But that was just it, she realized. He’d made her whole being sing.

  Claire inclined her head in an affirmative motion. “I’ll accept that.”

  Caleb continued to look at her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her again. And again. And not stop until—

  He dragged his hand through his hair, looking away. What the hell was happening here? “Oh God, Claire, nothing makes sense anymore.”

  She said to him what she would have said to anyone. What she’d told herself when qualms of insecurity assaulted her. “Give it time, Caleb. Just give it time and it will.”

  To her surprise, he turned to look at her, a challenge in his blue eyes. “How much time?” he asked. It seemed to him that the confusion, the pain, was only getting worse, not better.

  The laugh that left her lips was dry and so not typical of her. “If I knew that, Caleb, I could probably make a great deal of money.”

  The tension slipped away. His mouth curved as he shook his head. “No, not you. You’d probably give it all to charity.”

  He sounded as if he had her right up there with Mother Teresa. There was a world of difference between them, Claire thought. She smiled, shaking her head. “I’m not exactly a saint, Caleb.”

  Without meaning to, he pressed his lips together before responding. The unique, sweet taste that was her came to him. Making him smile.

  Granted, it was a small offering, but very reminiscent of the boy who, Claire firmly believed, still lived somewhere within the man.

  “No,” Caleb allowed, “I guess maybe you’re not quite a saint.”

  She struggled not to blush. No way was she going to comment on what he’d just said. Instead, she turned to the matter of his well-being. “Are you feeling a tiny bit better?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know about ‘better.’ Shell-shocked might be more appropriate.” And then he grew serious again. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He watched her for a long moment. Their relationship had never been anything but honest. One of the reasons he’d liked her so much was because she never talked down to him, never treated him as if he were a child to her “adult.”

  “When you were babysitting me, I always wondered what it would be like to kiss you,” he admitted.

  Her pulse jumped again, surprising her. “Now you know,” she said quietly.

  Another woman would have fished for a compliment, or coyly asked how she measured up. But that wasn’t Claire, he thought. He found that oddly comforting.

  “Yes,” he said just as quietly. “Now I know.”

  Chapter Eight

  In the days that followed, the kiss preyed on her mind at moments when she least expected it.

  In all honesty, she didn’t know what up-ended her world more, that she, the former Sister Michael, had passionately kissed a man, or that the man was five years younger and someone she used to babysit.

  Well, isn’t this part of why you left the order? her mind demanded. Because you weren’t satisfied with your life, weren’t fulfilled anymore, and you thought there was something more outside the strict ramifications of your life? Maybe this was it, maybe the male-female-marriage thing is what you ultimately want and need.

  All well and good in theory and on paper, Claire thought, absently staring down at the French toast she was making for her mother. The French toast that was, even now, swiftly on its way to becoming a cooled, thin brick. But reality had a whole different feel to it.

  She was elated. She was upset. She was frightened of her own feelings.

  In a word, she was confused.

  Careful what you wish for, right?

  Who would have ever thought that the first man she’d ever kiss would turn out to be Caleb McClain? She removed the French toast from the frying pan and put it on a plate. Reaching for the powdered sugar, she drizzled it over the toast.

  Had she summoned the courage to walk away from her work in God’s arena only to rob a cradle?

  What was wrong with her?

  And what in heaven’s name was she going to do with all these strange, unidentified feelings zigzagging through her?

  Was she so out of control that she had to jump up and seal her mouth to the first man she came in contact with in her newly reclaimed secular life? Granted, Caleb was the best-looking man she’d seen in a very long time, but looks had never been important to her. Ever. She never judged by what she saw, only by what she knew to be inside.

  Inside, she silently jeered at herself. What had been “inside” at that point had been the crackle of chemistry, the spark of lightning traveling through her veins.

  Moreover, she wanted it to happen again.

  Oh God, how was she ever going to face him again?

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to. But that would mean turning away from Danny. And besides, avoiding Caleb was tantamount to running. She couldn’t allow herself to do that. It wasn’t her way.

  Secular life wasn’t any easier than life as part of the Dominican order, she thought with a heartfelt, inward sigh.

  Margaret looked down at the plate her daughter placed before her. Drawing it to her, she reached for the maple syrup.

  “You’re awfully quiet this morning,” Margaret commented, pou
ring a slender stream of syrup over the French toast. “Is something wrong?”

  Claire took her own plate and brought it over to the table. “Wrong?” she asked in her best innocent voice, sitting down opposite her mother. “No. Why?”

  Margaret cut a small piece from her serving. “Because you’re usually so talkative and cheery, you make Chatty Cathy sound like she took a vow of silence.”

  The reference went right over Claire’s head. “Chatty Cathy?”

  A faraway, reminiscent smile filtered over her mother’s lips. “A doll I used to have. You pulled the string at the back of her neck and Chatty Cathy would talk and talk.”

  “Hence the name.”

  “Hence the name,” Margaret echoed. She studied her daughter’s face. Something was wrong. She knew it, Margaret thought. She knew it would only be a matter of time. It had just taken longer than she’d initially assumed. “What’s bothering you?” she asked for form’s sake. Leaning over the table, she placed her hand on top of Claire’s. They were now the same size. She could remember a time when Claire’s hand was so small, hers could swallow it up. Margaret deliberately lowered her voice, as if whispers could somehow bank down the shame that she felt was attached to the words. “Are you having regrets about leaving the order?”

  Claire looked down at the hand covering hers, thinking to herself how safe that same hand had once made her feel as it stroked her hair, or touched her cheek, silently conveying the thought that whatever adversity they had to face, they would get through it together. She loved this woman who didn’t always see things her way, loved her with such fierceness.

  Her mother was her first priority, Claire reminded herself. Anything else was merely a distant second.

  Reclaiming her hand, she used it to wave away her mother’s speculation.

  “No, Mother,” she assured her softly, “I don’t regret leaving the order.” She shrugged lightly, dismissing the matter. “I’m just having some adjustment problems.”

  Margaret guessed at the most logical cause for her daughter’s troubled appearance. “Are the children giving you trouble?” When Claire eyed her quizzically, she elaborated, “The class you’ve taken over for that pregnant teacher. Are they giving you trouble?”