The 39-Year-Old Virgin Read online

  They had talked about the class, but only about the amusing events, nothing serious. She wanted to make her mother laugh, not be concerned.

  Claire shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. Teaching the children at this school was a piece of cake when she compared them to the native children she’d taught in Africa. There she’d had to compete with the elements, the animals and, in some cases, parents who didn’t want to have their children educated by an outsider.

  “No, they’re delightful. It’s nothing, Mother, really.” Claire followed up her statement with the largest smile she could manage. “Now eat your breakfast before it gets too cold.”

  “Too late,” her mother murmured. However, she continued eating.

  But it wasn’t nothing, Claire thought silently. It was something. A huge something.

  To you, the voice in her head insisted. But not to Caleb.

  Because Caleb had remained out here, in the secular world, doing secular things. Like kissing and all the things that came after that. Like having a relationship. Most likely he’d had a great many relationships before he’d gotten married. For him what had happened was nothing out of the ordinary. She was certain that by now Caleb had probably forgotten all about the other night.

  But she wouldn’t, Claire thought in the next heartbeat. She was pretty sure it was hard forgetting the moment when you thought you were going to go up in a puff of smoke.

  Claire glanced at her watch. Dear Heaven, how had it gotten so late? She needed to get rolling. Pushing her plate away, she rose to her feet.

  Margaret looked at her in surprise. “You’re not going to eat?”

  Claire shook her head. “Not hungry.” And it was true. She’d thought she could eat, but her stomach refused to unknot. All she’d managed to get down this morning was some coffee. And even that sat heavily.

  Margaret watched her suspiciously, her mother antennae up. “You’re not going to come down with bulimia, are you?”

  Claire laughed. “Not to worry, Mother. Besides, people don’t ‘come down’ with bulimia. It’s a condition that’s usually developed by pubescent girls who want to be model-thin.”

  Margaret was not about to back off just yet. “Do you?”

  There were no dissatisfied images flashing through her head when she looked at herself in the mirror, no critiques as to how her body could appear better. She was what she was and it was fine with her. She hadn’t even put on any of the sexy undergarments that Nancy had gotten her. They were still nestled in the back of her bottom drawer, where they would most likely remain for a very long time. They didn’t go with her self-image.

  “Not in my wildest dreams. This is me, Mother. When I have I ever been swayed by a trend?”

  “Never,” Margaret admitted, but then she looked at her pointedly. “But things change.”

  Her mother was back playing that same one note, Claire thought. “Not some things,” she assured her. “I’m just running a little late, that’s all.” She wiped her mouth with the napkin. The slightest hint of pink came off on it. She still hadn’t gotten used to wearing lipstick. But she was getting there and she did like experimenting with makeup. Like a little girl let loose in her mother’s vanity, she mocked herself.

  “Be sure to call your doctor and reschedule your appointment for four o’clock,” she reminded her mother. This was a new doctor, one who specialized in patients with leukemia and came highly recommended.

  Margaret nodded her head, but she didn’t appear happy about it. “It’s just another doctor, Claire. I’m perfectly capable of going by myself.”

  “No one said you weren’t, Mother,” Claire replied diplomatically. She carried her plate and empty coffee cup to the counter. “I just want to make sure that there’s nothing we haven’t covered.”

  “Other than me when I die, no,” Margaret replied cryptically. “I think everything’s ‘covered.’”

  Claire paused and looked down at her sternly. “You’re not going to die, Mother.”

  “Everyone dies, Claire.”

  “Granted,” Claire allowed philosophically, “but that’s someday. Not soon.”

  Margaret laughed softly. “Got a handwritten guarantee in your pocket?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Claire countered, kissing her mother’s forehead, “I do.” She picked up her purse and briefcase from where they were leaning against the wall. “Not in my pocket, actually, because He’s still using stone tablets to write his words on and they’re really heavy, but I’ve got it.”

  These days, that was the only thing she did pray about, that her mother’s disease would go into a lasting remission. She didn’t feel she had the right to ask for anything for herself.

  She would have to hit all the green lights if she didn’t want to be late, Claire thought, picking up her pace. “Now be good, have a good day and call your doctor. And afterward,” she promised, “we’ll go out to eat or do something special.”

  “Just having you home is special,” Margaret said, surprising her.

  Claire doubled back and gave her mother a quick, enthusiastic hug. “I love you, Mother.”

  “I love you, too,” Margaret said as she watched her daughter fly to the front door. She was gone in an instant. “I love you, too,” Margaret repeated more softly.

  Sitting in the unmarked vehicle, coming up on their third hour of surveillance, Caleb noticed his partner, Detective Mark Falkowski, shifting uncomfortably.

  Maybe lunch wasn’t sitting so well. There was still a faint scent of hot pastrami sandwiches within the interior of the car, but mercifully, it was fading.

  In the last half hour, the sound of crinkling aluminum foil as it was removed from said pastrami sandwiches had been practically the only sound that was heard.

  Ski had already tried to strike up a conversation three times since they’d parked here. “Y’know, my pet rock talked more than you did,” Ski said.

  If Ski was trying to make him feel guilty, he wasn’t succeeding, Caleb thought. He didn’t feel like talking. Even more than usual. Losing Jane had sent him to a dark place. Communication was not a part of it. Besides, if he started to talk, to think, he would have to deal with what had happened the other evening with Claire. And he didn’t want to. Not yet, maybe not ever. The last thing he needed was more guilt.

  Instead, he focused on the man they’d been tailing for several days now. Their quarry was a middle-of-the-ladder pimp who dealt in the flesh peddling of minors. He wanted to bring the man down so bad, he could almost taste it.

  Unfazed, he glanced at Ski. “Maybe you should start bringing it along.”

  “Maybe.”

  Obviously frustrated, Ski blew out a breath and tried again. “Want to talk about what’s wrong?”

  Caleb gave him a dark look in response. When Ski continued to wait for some sort of reply, he bit off a “No,” thinking that would be the end of it.

  He underestimated Ski’s stubbornness.

  “Well, something’s sure sticking in your craw,” Ski complained.

  Caleb glanced away, focusing on the building across the street, the one their quarry had disappeared into. “Maybe what’s ‘sticking’ in my ‘craw’ is a partner who’s giving me the third degree.”

  “It’s not Danny, is it?” Ski asked, pushing the point. “He’s not sick or in any kind of trouble, is he?”

  The same stoic tone answered him. “No.”

  Ski was far from satisfied. “Would you tell me if he was?”

  Caleb squelched his irritation and caught himself giving way to a glimmer of a smile instead. His partner was finally catching on. If he’d had his choice, he would have preferred to work alone. But as far as partners went, Ski wasn’t half-bad. He knew the man always had his back and in the long run, that was the most important aspect of a partner.

  The ability to mind his own business ran a close second.

  “No.”

  Caleb did not want to talk about what was nibbling away at him at odd moments. That
he was caught between feeling unfaithful to Jane and wanting to kiss Claire again. Definitely not something he was about to disclose to Ski. He already knew on which side the man would throw his vote.

  He spared Ski a glance. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

  “You’re my partner. What you feel affects the job.”

  The reply drew a scowl from Caleb. Never once had he allowed what he was feeling to spill out onto his work. Not even when he’d felt as if his very heart had been ripped out of his chest.

  “When have I ever let anything interfere with the job?”

  Realizing his error the moment he’d said it, Ski was ready for him. “I didn’t say ‘interfere,’ I said ‘affects.’” He paused, waiting. Again, Caleb said nothing. So Ski pressed the point home. “So then everything’s okay with Danny, right?”

  Caleb ground out the word. “Right.”

  “Then it’s something else that’s bothering you. Anything I can do?”

  “Yes,” Caleb said tersely. “You can stop asking questions.”

  Ski merely smiled in response. “I would if you told me what’s wrong.”

  Why was he surrounded by people who wouldn’t let things be? He’d always been a private person to some extent. In the last year, he’d all but become an emotional hermit. And still Ski wouldn’t take the hint. “And I would if it were any of your business.”

  If he thought that would make Ski back off, he was sorely disappointed. Instead, Ski began with round two.

  “Okay, we’ve officially established that there is something wrong,” he declared with a note of triumph. Obviously noting that Caleb was about to say something and judging that it was probably unflattering, Ski was quick to counter, “And for your information, since you’re my partner, your business is my business.” Pausing, Ski thought for a moment. “It’s not the anniversary of Jane’s death, that was a month ago.” Caleb looked at him sharply. “I keep track of these things,” Ski informed him in a tone that told Caleb that Ski shared his pain whether he wanted him to or not. “Is it that? Are you still having trouble moving forward? Did something happen to make you ambivalent about staying in place?”

  In response, Caleb laughed dryly as the wheels in Ski’s head turned faster.

  “Or, are you moving forward and that’s what’s bothering you?”

  The last guess was way too close. It caught Caleb off guard, and he stared at his partner in surprise before he managed to slip his poker face back into place.

  The moment’s hesitation was all that Ski needed.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You met someone, did something, felt something,” Ski declared, honing in. “Oh, c’mon, McClain, I’m right and you know it. Help me out here.”

  Caleb remained unmoved. “You’re not doing too badly on your own.”

  Ski leaned back in his uncomfortable seat. “You felt something,” he repeated. He rolled his small brown eyes heavenward. “Hallelujah. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

  “I don’t know about Santa Claus,” Caleb said in measured, even tones that were still fear-inspiring, “but there’s not going to be a you if you don’t start backing off beginning right now.”

  “I’ll wear you down, you know. Like a steady stream of water hitting against a rock, I’ll wear you down.”

  The door of the building across the street opened and their target exited, holding a briefcase that, from the way he was carrying it, seemed heavy. Caleb instantly sat up, alert.

  He hit Ski’s shoulder with the back of his hand as if to pull him out of a self-induced trance. “Okay, ‘Water,’ looks like we’re on. Time to do what they pay us to do.”

  The questions vanished; Ski’s expression hardened. Right before Caleb’s eyes, his partner transformed into one of Bedford’s best vice cops again.

  Chapter Nine

  Caleb really wasn’t sure why he drove by Claire’s house. Maybe it was because Claire had aroused something within him, something that bore a passing resemblance to a glimmer of feeling. Or maybe it was nostalgia. A longing for the time when life was simpler and still full of promise. Promise he could, in his naiveté, believe in.

  The trip down memory lane was almost involuntary, set off because Claire was living in the same house she’d lived in twenty-two years ago, the same neighborhood.

  His old neighborhood.

  He’d driven Jane here once, when she’d insisted on seeing where he’d grown up. She was pregnant with Danny at the time. He hadn’t been back since.

  This old house looked different now, he thought as he slowed down. Someone with no taste had painted the outside a startling shade of rust with deep yellow trim and the owners had had some remodeling done on it. The house seemed wider, like a squatting rabbit, and the balcony on the second floor was gone. The space had been used to increase the footage of the room that used to lead out onto the balcony.

  A pity, Caleb mused. He could remember standing up on his toes, leaning over the balcony railing and looking up at the stars.

  Stars had been forfeited for extra space. Didn’t seem like a trade-off to him.

  Most of the houses, he noted as he continued to drive, had all had some sort of work done. New roofs, additions, expansions, new driveways. Landscaping that looked bright and fresh.

  But not Claire’s.

  He eased his foot off the gas pedal as he came closer to the building. When he’d dropped her off the evening he’d come to her rescue, he really hadn’t taken stock of her house. For one thing, it had been dark, for another, he was overdue home. But now that he looked at it, he could see that at least several things needed to be done. At the very least, the house was in dire need of repainting.

  Caleb wondered why it had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Claire wasn’t the type to let things slide.

  And how did he know that? How did he know what her “type” was? He hadn’t seen or heard from her since she was in her teens. People changed over the years.

  God knew he had.

  For once, his radar failed him. Caleb didn’t realize that the cherry-red Mustang was behind him until the vehicle passed by, pulling up into the empty driveway.

  Claire.

  He’d lingered just a moment too long, he realized, annoyed with himself. It was too late to turn around and go. The expression on her face as she got out of the car told him that she’d seen him.

  Claire called something out to him, but he couldn’t hear her. His windows were rolled up and the radio was on. It was on too low for him to actually make out the words, but there was a low hum being emitted. He turned it off. When he glanced up, Claire was crossing to him, mimicking someone rolling down windows. She eyed him expectantly.

  Cornered, he obliged her.

  “Lost?” she asked pleasantly, bending down so that her face was level with the open window.

  When she’d come up behind him, she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her. She really hadn’t expected to see Caleb for a long time, not after he’d been so vulnerable with her. And certainly not after they’d kissed.

  She’d hoped to see him, but she certainly hadn’t expected to. She wondered if this was God’s way of testing her—or was He being nice?

  In either case, Caleb was here. Further proof that she didn’t understand the male of the species.

  Caleb shrugged. He wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself. “Just thought I’d take a look at the old neighborhood in broad daylight.”

  Well, she supposed that made sense. Suddenly, she felt a little foolish for thinking that she might have had something to do with his appearance. She was giving herself way too much credit. Was this what it was like in the secular world? A thousand insecurities plaguing you at every turn?

  “What’s your verdict?” she asked.

  “It’s changed some.” He glanced toward his former house. “Not always for the better.” And then he nodded toward her house. “Looks like yours could stand to have some work done.”

  He watched as amusement
bloomed on her lips and in her eyes. Watched and felt a rustling within him that should have remained dormant. And yet, he couldn’t quite put a lid on it. Or look away.

  “So now you’re given to understatements.” Claire glanced over her shoulder again. She viewed the house with love, but she wasn’t blind to its shortcomings. “It could stand to have a lot of work done. Unfortunately, with just a teacher’s salary to work with, it’s going to have to wait a while longer.” She didn’t add that right now, any excess money went toward medical bills. Her mother had a small insurance policy, but there were huge gaps in what it covered and what the actual bills were. Even though the oncologist and the hospital, Blair Memorial, had reduced their charges, the bills were still staggering. “I’m just hoping that the roof holds up through the rainy season.”

  The rainy season was still a couple of months away, but when it decided to hit—and there had been several dry years in a row—it could happen anytime from November through March. He could remember one February when Bedford was all but an island unto itself for several days. It had rained so hard the five-gallon trees his father had planted in their backyard the previous summer all went down beneath the lashing rains. He and his parents worked all day getting them back up and staking them into the ground.

  Since he was here, Caleb thought, he might as well get out. Doing so, he shoved his hands into his back pockets and took a closer look at the house. To cut costs, he’d done all the repairs and updating when he and Jane had bought their house. It had been a learn-as-you-go experience, but eventually, he got the hang of it.

  “Shouldn’t be that expensive just for the materials,” he finally said.

  “No,” she allowed, “but the men who know what to do with those materials are.”

  He turned to look at her. “I’m not.”

  Caleb’s response surprised not only Claire but himself, as well. He hadn’t known he was going to make the offer until the words were out of his mouth.