Allison Leigh – A Child Under His Tree (страница 6)

He ignored his sister and answered his far more agreeable niece. “Maybe I’ll just wait until you’re grown-up and marry you.”

That elicited peals of laughter. “You’re my uncle. I can’t marry you!”

Far be it for him to explain the finer aspects of blood relations. “Then I’ll just have to stay single,” he drawled.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Sure. Blame your loneliness on an innocent child.”

Shelby’s brow knit with sudden concern. “Are you lonely, Uncle Caleb?”

“No,” he assured her calmly. “Your mom’s just teasing. How could I be lonely when I have all of you around?”

To his satisfaction, everyone seemed happy to let the matter go at that.

He was wrong to think the reprieve would last, though.

Two hours later, after he’d told Sunny two bedtime stories and played two games of checkers with Shelby, Caleb was ready to leave. But Lucy trailed after him as he headed to his truck. “You never answered the question.”

He set the container of leftovers she’d packed for him inside the cab before climbing behind the wheel. “What question?”

Coatless, she hugged her arms around herself, dancing a little in the cold. “What it was like seeing Kelly again.”

“It wasn’t like anything,” he lied. “We broke up nearly ten years ago. She even married someone else, remember?”

“One of my students’ moms works for Tom Hook, and she says there doesn’t seem to be a husband in the picture. If Kelly’s little boy were a few years older, he could’ve been yours.”

“For God’s sake, Luce!” If he hadn’t known better, he’d have wondered himself about that boy. But even as impetuous as that night had been, they hadn’t been irresponsible. He’d used a condom. They’d always used condoms. From the first time until the last.

“Hey!” His sister had lifted her hands innocently. “Don’t blame me for what other people find interesting topics of conversation. So...no sparks between old flames?”

“It was just another appointment, Luce,” he said smoothly. “Thanks for supper. Tell Beck I’ll be in touch about the house plans.”

“Have you decided where you want to build?”

“Not yet.” He nudged her out of the way so he could grab the truck door. “It’s freezing. You’ll catch a cold.”

“You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to know that being cold and catching a cold aren’t related.”

“Tell that to Mom. She still thinks wearing a scarf during winter keeps a cold away.”

Lucy smiled and lifted her hand, heading back to the house while he drove away.

Lucy and Beck lived on the outskirts of Weaver, on the opposite side of town from the condo he’d been renting since he’d moved back home. Since he had nothing and no one waiting for him at home once he got there, he pulled into the hospital parking lot on his way. He didn’t have to be there, but he also didn’t have to be anywhere else. Might as well look in on the newborn he’d examined first thing that morning.

His presence didn’t raise many eyebrows as he made his way to the nursery. The staff there were pretty used to him by now, ever since he’d joined Howard Cobb’s practice. When Caleb entered the nursery, he washed up and pulled on gloves.

“Come to rock the babies, Dr. C?” Lisa Pope, one of the swing nurses, gave him a friendly smile over the minuscule diaper she was changing.

“Any who need it?” He glanced at the clear-sided bassinets. The majority of them were empty. It was a slow night in the nursery.

“Babies always need rocking.” As if to prove her point, she cradled her freshly diapered charge and sat in one of the wooden rocking chairs lined up against one of the walls. “But none of them tonight are missing a mommy or a daddy.”

“So a slow night and a good night.”

Lisa smiled over the tiny head cradled against her pink-and-blue scrubs. “Pretty much.”

He took his time looking over his newest patient—an eight-pound little guy who sported a head full of brown hair and a serenely sleeping face. Caleb didn’t mind the nurses knowing that he came in sometimes just to rock the babies. Some didn’t have mothers in good enough condition to rock their restless infants. Some didn’t have any parents at all. Others had been born to perfectly normal moms and dads but were feeling outraged at finding themselves abruptly in a cold, bright world and didn’t like it one bit.

He’d never particularly felt a need to let the nursery staff in on the real secret—that rocking those babies soothed something inside him, too. Truth was, most of the nursery staff probably felt that way themselves.

But he wasn’t going to disturb the little guy’s slumber just because he was feeling restless. He wasn’t that selfish.

He said good-night to Lisa, disposed of the gloves and headed back out of the hospital.

What had it been like for Kelly when she’d given birth to Tyler?

Had she been alone? Or had the man she’d found—the husband Georgette had told Caleb about all those years ago—been by her side?

He walked briskly toward his truck, shaking off the pointless wondering. Whatever had happened between Kelly and Tyler’s father—was still happening, for all he knew—it was none of his business. Just because she wasn’t wearing a ring and she and her boy went by the name of Rasmussen didn’t mean she was single again.

Available.

And even if she were, chances were she still wanted nothing to do with him.

Why would she?

They’d been high school sweethearts. They’d been each other’s first. Even though they’d been just kids, it was a history. A history that had ended badly.

His doing entirely, and one he took full responsibility for.

But the last time they’d seen each other? When she’d told him flat out that she’d wanted to rock his world once more, simply for the pleasure of walking away from him afterward?

That had been all her.

He’d broken her heart once, and she’d proven just how well she’d recovered.

He could even understand it. Some. After Melissa had dumped him, he’d gone out of his way proving to her that he was over her, too. Last he’d heard, she’d married a thoracic surgeon out in California. Caleb wished them well. Was glad, even, that she’d been smart enough not to marry Caleb when he’d proposed. They’d been all of twenty-one at the time. She’d known what he hadn’t, though—that they weren’t going to last.

In the busy years since, he’d thought more about the girl back home whom he’d pushed aside in favor of Melissa than he had about Melissa herself.

“Which makes you sound about as lonely as Lucy thinks you are,” he muttered as he got into his truck. He pulled out his cell phone and checked the signal. Near the hospital, it was pretty strong. Around Weaver, a steady cell phone signal was never a foregone conclusion. But whom to call?

His cousin Justin Clay and Tabby Taggart had gotten married six months earlier. When his cousin wasn’t working at the hospital lab, he was practically glued to Tabby’s side.

It would be revolting if it weren’t so annoyingly...cute, seeing his two oldest friends so stinking happy.

He tossed his phone on the dashboard and drove out of the parking lot. He didn’t need company. For one simple reason.

He wasn’t lonely.

If he wanted a date, he got a date. There was never a dearth of willing women when you were single and had the initials M and D following your name. They usually didn’t even mind all that much when they came a distant third behind his studies and his patients. And if they did mind, they soon parted ways. No harm. No foul.

Definitely no broken hearts.

He’d learned his lesson well enough not to repeat it.

He drove down Main Street. Even on a weeknight, the lights were shining brightly at Colbys Bar and Grill. He abruptly pulled into the lot and went inside. “Hey, Merilee.” He greeted the bartender as he slid onto an empty bar stool. Considering the crowded parking lot, the bar was pretty calm. Only two pool games going and nobody dancing on the small dance floor. “Grill must be busy tonight,” he commented when she stopped in front of him.

“Have a school fund-raiser going on in there,” she told him. “What’re you having tonight?”

Restlessness in a bottle.

“Just a beer,” he told her. “Whatever’s on tap tonight.”

She set a round coaster on the bar in front of him and a moment later topped that with a frosty mug of beer.

“Jane not working tonight?” Jane was the owner. Married to another one of Caleb’s cousins.

“Thursdays?” Merilee shook her head. “Do you want a menu?”

He shook his head. “Just ate.” He glanced around again. The beer didn’t really hold any interest. Nothing in the bar held any interest. Not the trio of young women sitting at the other end who were nudging each other and looking his way. Not the hockey game on the television mounted on the wall.

The door opened, and Caleb automatically glanced over, then wished he hadn’t, because the woman walking in looked straight at him. Pam Rasmussen was a dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. She had been around forever and was one of the biggest gossips in town.

And she was married to one of Kelly Rasmussen’s cousins.

He looked down into his beer, resigning himself to being courteous when she stopped next to him at the bar.

“Evening, Caleb. How’re you doing?”