met his gaze, the smile in her eyes settling him. “I guess.”
“I think she does. How about we offer her a ride home?” Tom asked her.
His pint-size passenger shrugged. “Okay.”
Tom didn’t need any further encouragement. He slowed the car to a crawl and pulled up to the curb, lowering his window at the same time.
Caitlin looked back, a frown line creasing the smooth skin of her face, and picked up her pace.
Damn. He’d done exactly what he’d hoped not to do. Tom leaped from the car and called over the hood, not wanting to frighten her any more than he already had.
“Caitlin!” he called. “You need a ride home?”
This time when she turned the beaming smile was back. Tom hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he saw that, was pleased she’d recognized him straight away. She held her bag clutched under one arm, was holding her hair with the other to keep it from her face.
“You scared me before.”
He walked around the front of the car and gestured to the passenger side. “Can we give you a ride? It’s too cold to walk.” Tom could tell she was thinking about it. “Please.”
He’d negotiated enough to know when someone was about to say yes, but he still didn’t take it for granted. Tom turned his back and opened the door.
“Scoot, kidlet,” he said to Gabby.
She obliged, scrambling into the backseat and leaving the front free.
He rocked back on his heels and smiled. Didn’t find it so hard to do this time because it came more naturally. “Jump in.”
Caitlin nodded, before walking briskly to the car. She paused, looked nervous, before slipping past him and onto the seat. “Thanks.”
Tom shut the door behind her and walked around the back of the car this time. Took a moment to touch the cool metal of the trunk as he sucked back a breath and prepared to get in the car with a woman who was doing strange things to him. Making him yearn for things that weren’t within his grasp any longer.
But this was just a car ride. This was just him taking his niece’s teacher home. Nothing to get all hot under the collar about. Even he wasn’t capable of screwing this up.
Tom jumped behind the wheel and buckled up. “Do you always walk home in the freezing cold?”
She responded with a laugh that settled every bone in his body.
“No,” she said, leaning back into the headrest and angling her face to peer back at Gabby. “My car’s at the shop and I thought the exercise would do me good. Are you sure it’s no problem to drive me?”
He took his eyes off the road for a beat and glanced at her. “No problem. The last thing I need is Gabby coming home and telling me her teacher is off sick because I was too careless to stop and offer her a lift.”
Caitlin grinned at him before brushing her fingers over his arm in the most casual of ways. As though she was used to touching him, as though it was something she did often.
Tom kept his eyes on the road and wrapped his right hand tighter around the wheel. He wasn’t used to contact like that. Aside from Gabby, and maybe his sister-in-law, no one usually touched him. Almost all his adult life he’d had to be strong, physical, brave—and with that came a solitary life most of the time.
“Well, it was very kind of you to stop.”
He’d stopped in more way than one. Her skin against his had near stopped his brain from processing.
Caitlin tried to relax but her heart was skipping erratically. She hoped Tom didn’t pick up on it.
Hadn’t she heard something about guys like him, trained so carefully for special operations? That they could feel a heartbeat and know instinctively whether someone was lying or not? If they were dishonest? That’s what the kids had told her, years ago, in one of her past lives. She’d moved so much as an army kid that she found it hard to remember sometimes.
She wasn’t lying about anything, but the thumping of her pulse racing was signaling that something was affecting her. And she didn’t want him to know her nerves were on edge.
“So tell me how you ended up staying with your uncle Tom?” Caitlin decided it was safer to direct questions at Gabby. She’d be in less risk of getting hot and bothered.
“Mom and Dad are away.” Gabby’s voice was like a lullaby, a soft melody that spoke only of happiness. Caitlin loved teaching children like Gabby, when she knew instinctively that they were happy at home, that they were safe and loved.
Tom caught her eye, before he was focused on the road again. “They’re on a second honeymoon.”
Catlin laughed at the way he rolled his eyes. “Did they renew their vows?”
Gabby piped up then. “Daddy gave Mommy her rings back, plus a special new one that’s all sparkly, and they keep kissing. All the time.”
Tom and Caitlin both laughed out aloud.
“Okay, what?” she asked, suddenly not quite so nervous of making eye contact with Tom.
“Believe me, it’s a long story, but the short version of it is that Penny came back from serving overseas and Daniel did everything he could to prove that he was worth coming home to.”
Caitlin had questions, but she wasn’t going to ask now. “Sounds romantic.”
She watched as Tom flicked the fingers of his left hand against the wheel. “Yeah, they’re kind of cute.”
Caitlin watched him, suddenly unable to stop staring at him.
“If they don’t make you sick first with all the loved-up antics,” he added.
She laughed. Truly laughed, liking the way his mouth kinked up when he grinned back at her, as if he was trying to be serious and struggling.
“So that’s why you’re looking after Gabby?”
She watched as Tom’s lips parted, only to be interrupted by his niece. “Grandma is away already and so they weren’t going to go, but then Tommy came home and he said he’d have me.”
Caitlin got the feeling that Tom didn’t mind being spoken for. He was friendly, sure, but he wasn’t exactly bursting to talk. Was probably more comfortable being the quiet guy.
“Well, aren’t you lucky having an uncle to look after you?”
Tom looked serious, but she could tell he was comfortable in his role as uncle. Probably liked playing protector. Maybe she’d lumped him into the same category as other military-type tough guys too quickly. Perhaps he was kind, and didn’t misuse his physical strength or abilities. He sure seemed fond of Gabby; that kind of behavior was impossible to fake. She’d been around children and parents enough to know that for sure. Not to mention the way Gabby treated him, as if he was her placid Labrador puppy, jumping to her every command.
But still, it didn’t change the way she thought. There was no room in her mind or her heart to take any risks where men were concerned.
“Hey, Tommy?” Gabby asked from the backseat.
Caitlin watched as his eyebrows rose, waiting for the question that was sure to follow.
“Yeah?” he asked back.
“I think you promised that I could have ice cream before dinner tonight.” Gabby was giggling now, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
Tom put on a stern face. Gabby was still laughing, but Caitlin wasn’t convinced, and didn’t know what was going on.
He pulled over, before turning in his seat and staring long and hard at Gabby.
“Did I or did I not tell