style="font-size:15px;"> Did he resent their closeness? It certainly wasn’t her fault he’d been arrested.
She dug in the backpack for a pair of shorts and a top that Kaitlin could use in lieu of a swimsuit. “Because she couldn’t pronounce my name. Noa was as close as she could get to Noelle.”
“How is it that you became her foster mother?”
She had no intention of giving him her life story. Especially since that would include confessing her horrible past along with her more recent failures. Trusting him as much as she had so far had been difficult enough. Under normal circumstances she avoided men, especially macho, dangerous types like Caleb. She forced a casual tone. “I’m your daughter’s preschool teacher and happen to be licensed as a foster parent. I asked for custody and the state agreed.”
If he was embarrassed that he didn’t recognize her from the preschool, he didn’t show it. She wasn’t necessarily surprised that he hadn’t remembered her, because his wife had been the one who’d come in to drop off and pick up Kaitlin, at least 80 percent of the time. The few times Caleb had come, he hadn’t seemed to notice her.
She still remembered the last time she’d seen Heather, the day before she’d died. Caleb’s wife had come in late on that Friday, almost twenty minutes past closing. Heather had looked nervous and hadn’t been alone. There had been another man with her, who’d waited impatiently near the doorway.
It wasn’t until after Heather’s affair had hit the news that she’d understood what she’d seen that evening.
Tearing her thoughts away from the past, she turned her attention to helping Kaitlin change her clothes into a shorts-and-top set.
“But this isn’t my swimming suit,” Kaitlin protested with a frown. “My swimming suit has sparkles.”
“We left your swimming suit at home, remember?” she said patiently. “Do you want to check out the water or not?”
“I do! I do!” The little girl jumped up and down for emphasis.
“All right, let’s go.” She ducked into the bathroom, grabbed a towel off the rack and then came back out to take Kaitlin’s hand in hers.
Caleb silently held the door open once again. A criminal with manners, she thought, fighting a sense of hysteria as they walked over to the pool area. He unlatched the fence, and she was surprised and a bit disappointed to find there weren’t any other guests there.
Kaitlin ran over to the edge of the pool.
“Wait for me,” Noelle called out, quickly taking off her sandals. “We have to check the water first.”
She glanced over at Caleb, surprised to see he was taking off his running shoes, too. He then proceeded to roll his jeans halfway up his calves, which would have looked geeky on anyone else.
But there was nothing geeky about Caleb. He must have worked out while he was in jail because he was lean and muscular, without an ounce of fat to be seen. His dark hair was short and she wondered if that was by choice. Or if he’d been forced to get it cut.
Did they have barbers in jail?
He plopped down on the edge of the pool and put his feet in the water. “Come over and test the water, Katydid.”
Kaitlin hung back, staying next to Noelle. She urged the little girl over, taking a seat on the edge of the pool next to Caleb, leaving enough room between them for Kaitlin. The little girl sat down and then shrieked when she put her feet in the water. “It’s cold!”
“Probably because the sun is going down,” Caleb said. “I bet it will be warmer tomorrow. See that plastic cover rolled up over there? They put that on at night, and in the morning the sun shines through the bubbles to warm up the water.”
Kaitlin kicked her feet, giggling as she splashed the adults. Noelle tensed, but Caleb didn’t yell or tell Kaitlin to stop. In fact, he playfully kicked his feet, too, mimicking his daughter.
“Can I go in farther, Noa? Can I?” Kaitlin pleaded.
“You can if you hold on to me,” Caleb answered, holding out his hands in a nonthreatening gesture.
Noelle held her breath as Kaitlin silently stared up at her father. The lure of the water must have been more than she could resist, though, because she nodded.
Caleb gently lifted her up, as if she weighed nothing more than Kaitlin’s stuffed giraffe, and propped his elbows on his knees for stability. Slowly he lowered Kaitlin into the water, her tiny hands clutching his forearms.
“It’s c-c-cold,” she said, her teeth chattering.
“Do you want to get out?” Caleb asked.
“N-no, not yet.” Kaitlin wiggled around in the water, as if she could swim with her father holding her, and then scrunched up her nose when a bit of water splashed in her face. He grinned and lifted her up and down, like a bobber on the end of a fishing pole.
She watched Caleb play with his daughter, her reserve melting away. His smile softened his harsh features to the point it was difficult to imagine him doing anything as terrible as killing his wife.
“Okay, I think that’s enough, Katydid,” Caleb said, lifting her out of the water and setting her back on the edge of the pool. “Your lips are turning blue.”
“I’ll get the towel,” Noelle murmured, glad to have an excuse to put some distance between them. Why did she suddenly doubt the image the media had portrayed? An eyewitness had watched Caleb kill his wife and then flee the scene.
An eyewitness who’d disappeared. Why? What did that mean?
She hid her confusion by wrapping Kaitlin up in the towel. The little girl snuggled against her and yawned.
“I think it’s bedtime, young lady,” she said, glancing up at Caleb. He nodded, rose to his feet and padded across the concrete to where he’d left his shoes and socks.
As they made their way back to the room, she reminded herself that it was easy to believe Caleb’s father-of-the-year act because she hadn’t seen him angry. She’d suffered at the hands of an angry man in the past and the last thing she wanted to do was to find herself in a similar situation with Caleb. So far, she had not seen any evidence of his so-called hair-trigger temper.
And silently prayed that she never would.
* * *
Caleb stretched out on the bed fully dressed, and stared up at the ceiling of the small motel room. Noelle and Kaitlin were snuggled together in the other bed, the one closest to the bathroom.
There were a few things he wanted to do, but he didn’t dare leave until he knew they were both sound asleep. He was fairly certain Kaitlin was down for the count, but he sensed Noelle was fighting to stay awake. Finally her breathing deepened and he waited another hour just to be sure she was asleep before he quietly stood and made his way to the door.
He held his breath as he opened the door as silently as possible and slipped outside. Had the noise caused Noelle to wake up? He sincerely hoped not.
First,
