Page 17 of Untouchable

“I guess the one was enough for any lifetime.”

A brief cringe shuddered through Caleb at the words.

“It wasn’t a trauma.”

“Yeah, it was. One that lasted more than a year.”

Caleb sat in silence, his whole body tense for a moment before he made himself relax. This was why he hadn’t wanted to make this call, why he hadn’t touched base with Wes for so long.

His friend knew everything—his entire history—even things that didn’t need to be remembered.

Caleb wasn’t that helpless boy anymore. He’d constructed a life to ensure he wasn’t. And he didn’t like to be reminded of who he used to be.

“Well, maybe I can catch you when you’re in town,” he said at last.

“Still the same old Caleb. The minute it turns real, you’re out.” Wes sounded resigned, not annoyed. “But thanks for calling anyway.”

After saying goodbye, Caleb set down the phone and tried to focus again on his email. His father had died in his sixtiesand his mother a few years ago. He had a lot of family still in Baltimore, but he’d never really felt connected to them. There was no one left who really knew him anymore. No one but Wes.

He brushed away the thought—and the memories it evoked—so he could work. He had other things to focus on now anyway.

And a date tonight he was looking forward to.

Caleb had a long-standing habit of working in the office on Sunday afternoons.

He usually took Saturdays as a break, except for email and the occasional phone call, but by Sunday morning he was itching to get back to all the work waiting to be done in the office. So years ago he’d given up on the pretense of a weekend and just started going in.

His staff technically had the weekend off, but a lot of them ended up coming in on Sunday afternoons anyway.

It made things easier for him, so he never tried to stop them.

He’d been in the office for five hours already, since eleven that morning, and he’d completed the project he’d wanted to get done today. He wasn’t meeting Kelly until seven, so he’d started to go through some of his email before he’d called Wes.

His inbox was a bottomless pit. Anytime he got even close to clearing it out, it would pile up again in less than an hour. Even with Linda culling through it several times a day, they never made any progress.

Sometimes he was tempted to just delete his account and tell everyone to contact him by mail or phone. He was in charge here. What could they do? There were plenty of executives who demanded companies adapt to their eccentricities. Maybe refusal to use email would be his.

Even as he stared at the screen right now, at just after four on a Sunday afternoon, three more emails came in, and he felt the familiar tightening at the back of his skull at the thought of all the email still waiting for him.

He was replying to one of the messages Linda had tagged as priority when she tapped on his office door and walked in. She was a plain, quiet woman in her fifties. She’d been his assistant for fifteen years, and she was always in the office when he was.

“Here’s the information you wanted on Miss Watson,” she murmured, placing a file in his inbox. “And are you available for a call from Richard Helms?”

Caleb made a face but nodded his affirmation as he reached for the file Linda had just put together. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

When Linda left his office, he opened the file to find a picture of Kelly, standing with a friend of hers outside a stone building. She wore jeans and a fitted T-shirt, and her hair was pulled into a long ponytail. She was smiling broadly, as if she’d been laughing.

She looked different in the casual clothes, but she had the same fresh beauty—glowing with a kind of innocence that was impossible to ignore. As if she wasn’t jaded and corrupted by experience with the world.

She’d said that appearances could lie, and he knew it was true, but he still felt that pull of attraction and curiosity. Like she was a quest that must be undertaken.

He genuinely hadn’t known if she would agree to a second date with him. He’d believed her when she’d said she didn’t do seconds. He was a little disappointed that she’d given in so easily, but another round of sex like the first one they’d had would do a lot to ease that disappointment.

He glanced through the information on her that Linda had collected. Twenty-seven. The only daughter of Mel and Irma Watson, who had obviously had her very late.

She’d gotten through high school without any honors and then had gone to an expensive art school. She’d started building her business as a pet artist immediately afterward, and nearlyeverything available online about her was connected to her work.

She’d never been married. Never been arrested. Never done anything particularly noteworthy.