“What did you have in mind?” she asked, coming into the room and sitting down on the end of the sofa.
He shrugged. He hadn’t gotten further than thinking about wanting to get out of the house.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“We could go see a movie.”
“Nah. I can watch a movie at home. What do you want to do? Go dancing?”
“I don’t dance.”
He frowned. “At all? You never went out to a honky-tonk on a Saturday night?”
“Bruce was always either in school or working. I was always working or home alone. There was never time. Besides, if you go dancing with me you might end up breaking both your legs and both arms and be out of commission for the next six months.”
He laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
She shrugged. “It’s easy to do when your life is pretty boring.”
“You are not boring, Katie.”
The buzzer on the stove sounded. Katie got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen. He watched as she grabbed a potholder and opened the oven door.
“Is that what you thought?” he asked.
“What?”
“Did you really think that working on the chapel was going to give some spice to your life?”
He heard the faucet running and the sound of cups being moved around the sink. When she returned to living room, she stood by the doorjamb and leaned against it, crossing her arms across her chest.
“I don’t know what I thought,” she said. “All I know is I didn’t want this.”
“What? Being here with me?” His tried to hide his surprise and sudden feeling of dejection. “You don’t have to babysit me, Katie. I’m fine.”
Her face showed panic. She placed her hands on her face as her cheeks flamed. “Oh, no. I don’t mean you. I enjoy being with you. Oh Lord, I really put my foot in my mouth with my bellyaching this time.”
He laughed. “Is that what you call that?”
“Don’t say you haven’t noticed. It’s become a habit. Ever since Bruce left and took everything I had with him, I’ve felt as if I needed to prove something. Do something in order to convince myself that I hadn’t wasted ten years of my life for nothing. And it’s not just because of Kas being so successful. I know it seems like I’m trying to compete with my brother. But it’s not that at all. It’s what I thought that I would have in my life.”
“You wanted out of Sweet,” Caleb said quietly.
She came into the living room and sat down at the end of the sofa, curling her legs under her as she turned to him. “Did you ever think of leaving Sweet? I mean, there really isn’t anything to do around here except rodeo, dancing at the bar, or going to another potluck.”
“Small town doesn’t suit you much, does it?”
She shrugged. “I just didn’t think I’d end up back here at twenty-eight years old with nothing more than what I started with when I left.”
“People have setbacks. Things happen. You can plan for things and then something happens to change those plans.”
He found himself lost in thought, thinking about some of the people he’d known in the army. Good people from places all over the United States. Some were very different from him and what he thought life should be. But at their core, they were all the same. They wanted to be happy, and they wanted to go home and live their life with people they loved. It didn’t really matter what living life consisted of.
Caleb hadn’t known when he’d left for the army that he’d end up going into law enforcement. It was only when he got home and started searching for Julie that the idea of going to the police academy became a goal. He’d blamed himself for leaving Sweet and leaving Julie behind. If he had been here…
Katie snapped her fingers a few times. “Earth to Caleb.”
He caught Katie staring at him. “Sorry. I was thinking.”
“Yeah? It would be nice to talk about something other than me for a change. What were you thinking about?”
“Julie.”
Warmth filled her expression. “I can’t believe you haven’t talked to Julie at all. That doesn’t sound like her.”
He shrugged. “It’s as if she’s fallen off the face of the earth. And if I hadn’t gone into the military, if I hadn’t wanted to leave Sweet to see the world, well, then maybe I would’ve seen what was going on. Maybe she wouldn’t have left.”
“Or maybe she would’ve left anyway.”
There were days that Caleb had wondered that very same thing.
“I get this obsession you have.”
She chuckled. “Oh, is that what this is?”
“Yeah. I have it, too where Julie is concerned. She wasn’t the type of person to just leave family behind without even so much as sending a Christmas card or note to say, hey, I’m okay.”
Katie’s face was soft and sympathetic and her eyes filled with emotion that he found hard to turn away from. “You’re in law enforcement. Isn’t there anything you can do to search for her?”
His mouth twisted into a frown that made Katie chuckle. He loved the sound of that laughter. It touched him some place deep in his chest and spread warmth throughout his body.
“You’ve already tried, haven’t you?” she asked.
Caleb nodded. “Against rules, but yeah.”
Katie’s mouth dropped open. “See? I always knew you were a rebel.”
He chuckled at that. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself a rebel.”
“You’re getting there.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You haven’t arrested me yet. Lord knows you had plenty of opportunity.”
He shrugged.
“Let’s just get out of the house, okay?” Katie said. “We can’t go skiing. But you do have your condo up in the mountains.”
“With a hot tub.”
“Hmm. I can wrap up that huckleberry coffee cake in the oven and take it with us.”
“If it even makes it to the condo. I can smell that bread from here.”
“Where is it? I mean, you probably shouldn’t be in the car for too long a drive,” she said.
He groaned, impatient with being
