to spend the night in a motel. Won’t that be fun?”
His daughter’s big blue eyes, mirror images of her mother’s, widened with excitement. “Wif a swimming pool?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” There were plenty of hotels with pools, but he’d wanted to find something small and off the main thoroughfares. Maybe he’d get lucky and find a small motel with an outdoor pool. After all, it was mid-June, warm enough for outdoor swimming. He was eager to gain whatever ground he could with his daughter. “But first you have to finish your dinner.”
“Okay.” She grinned saucily and popped another chicken bite into her mouth, smearing ketchup across her cheek. He was glad to see she was growing more at ease with him.
He reached for his napkin but Noelle was quicker, already wiping the red stain away. He curled his fingers into a helpless fist.
And couldn’t help wondering if Noelle was really trying to help. Or if this was a subtle way of sabotaging his relationship with his daughter.
* * *
Noelle finished her sandwich about the same time as Caleb. She gathered all the trash into a neat pile on the tray while they waited for Kaitlin. When they’d first entered the restaurant, she’d considered asking one of the patrons for help, but there weren’t many people inside. And what if they simply looked at her as if she were crazy? Technically, Caleb had legal custody of his daughter, while she didn’t have any right to the child. For now, she’d decided to go along with pretending to be a family.
The stark longing in Caleb’s eyes as he gazed at his daughter made her wonder if she’d misjudged him. Clearly he loved Kaitlin and during the course of the meal she found herself torn between wanting to get as far away from him as she could and wanting to help him repair his relationship with the daughter who barely remembered him.
She couldn’t imagine who’d tried to shoot him, but at least now the black truck that had trailed her for days made sense. Whoever was driving it must have been waiting for Caleb to arrive. If Caleb was truly innocent of the crime he’d been accused of, why would someone still want him dead? Was it possible he had really been framed? Or was that wishful thinking on her part?
“We need to go,” Caleb said.
“All right,” she agreed. Kaitlin was obviously finished with her food, so she quickly wiped off the little girl’s sticky fingers and then stood up. Caleb took the tray of garbage and headed over to the trash can. Then he waited for her by the door, holding it open for the two of them.
They walked toward her car and as Caleb opened the back passenger door, she caught a glimpse of a police car pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant. She froze, wondering if she could manage to capture the cop’s attention. Would the cop believe her story? Or would he run a check on Caleb only to find that he did have legal custody of his daughter?
“You’re welcome to leave, but you won’t take my daughter,” Caleb warned, clamping his hand on her elbow to prevent her from leaving. “So make up your mind, and quick.”
She hesitated, full of uncertainty.
“Just get Kaitlin into the car, all right?” he pressed.
“Uh, sure.” She lifted Kaitlin into the booster seat. Her fingers were shaking so badly that she had trouble buckling the girl in.
When Kaitlin was safely secured in the seat she shut the door and made her way around to the other side, trying to see where the cop car was located. The officer had pulled into the drive-through lane and had his window rolled down as he perused the menu.
If she started screaming like a lunatic, would he help her?
“Sit up front next to me,” Caleb said when she reached for the back door handle.
She felt trapped but since there was no way she was going anywhere without Kaitlin, she climbed into the front passenger seat.
When she glanced over to the police car, it was farther away, having moved forward to the next window.
Within moments Caleb drove back out onto the road, leaving the police car and any hope of getting help behind.
TWO
Noelle was grateful that after another two hours of driving, Caleb pulled off onto an exit that advertised a motel with a swimming pool.
The motel was small, but not so small that there weren’t other guests, at least based on the cars in the parking lot. She was berating herself for not taking a chance by going to the police.
Too late now. She’d agreed to stay with him for Kaitlin’s sake. Her own deep-seeded fears meant nothing compared to keeping the little girl safe from harm.
Caleb kept her close by his side, as if worried she might try something rash. She found his presence overwhelming. She wasn’t used to being so close to a man, hadn’t dated anyone in years. The three of them walked into the lobby together, and she knew he wanted to give the clerk the impression that they were a family, especially when he’d requested one room with two beds.
“How’s the water in the pool?” Caleb asked the older man behind the desk as he paid in cash for the room. The guy barely glanced at his driver’s license.
The guy shrugged. “Probably a bit on the cold side by now,” he said in a disinterested tone. There was a small television behind the desk and his gaze kept straying back toward the baseball game he had on.
“Thanks,” Caleb said cheerfully.
“Can we go swimming? Please?” Kaitlin asked.
“Soon,” he promised, taking the room key and then holding the door open for Noelle and Kaitlin as they made their way back outside. There were two levels of the motel but Noelle noted their room was on the first floor, closest to the outdoor pool.
The room was nothing special, but it appeared clean enough. Kaitlin disappeared into the bathroom. When the child was out of earshot Noelle turned to Caleb. “Now what?” she asked in a low tone.
His enigmatic gaze didn’t reveal much. “There must be spare clothes in that backpack that Kaitlin can use to swim in.”
“There’s one change of clothes, the rest is in her suitcase we left behind. And I don’t have any other clothes and neither do you. She’s too young to swim by herself.”
“There’s a strip mall a few miles down the street. We’ll stop by tomorrow to pick up a few things,” he said. “And the pool isn’t that deep. At the very least she can dangle her feet in the water.”
As annoyed as she was with him, she couldn’t help appreciating the way he was trying so hard to make his daughter happy. But at the same time, she also wished he’d simply let them go.
Was he right in thinking that the person who’d shot at him would use Kaitlin to get to Caleb? Or was that just a handy excuse? She wished she knew.
Kaitlin came out of the bathroom and jumped up beside her on the bed. “Can we swim now, Noa? Puleeze?”
Looking down into Kaitlin’s big blue eyes, she couldn’t bear to disappoint the little girl. “Sure,
