Page 185 of Untouchable
Of course he loved her. As far as he could tell, he would love her until he died. “But that doesn’t change anything. She stillused me. I still used her.” Caleb cleared his throat, feeling the knot of dark guilt that just wouldn’t go away. “And I still knew what happened to her father and did nothing. How can she not continue to resent me for that? Neither of us has ever been in a healthy relationship, so even without all the other stuff, the likelihood of making something work is slim. None of that is going to go away.”
“So it doesn’t go away. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing left at all. Does it?”
Caleb didn’t answer, but the question hit him strangely. Like it shocked something awake in his mind that had been in a coma before.
There is always more than one choice, Kelly had said. They weren’t living in a Greek tragedy where their lives were fated from the beginning. She’d said something like that too.
“Caleb?” Wes said, sounding worried. “If I screwed this up for you, I’m really going to hate myself.”
“It wasn’t you. It was never you. It was always me.” Caleb was muttering, speaking mostly to himself.
Wes evidently didn’t realize this because he responded, “Well then, I guess that means you can fix it. If you want.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said, his breath picking up and an excitement building in his body he hadn’t felt since Kelly had walked out of this office two weeks ago. “Yeah. Maybe I can.”
There was always more than one decision he could make. He’d been ignoring one possibility since it never would have been on his radar before.
Three months ago he never would have dreamed of doing it. He would have done everything in his power to stop it from happening.
But now he realized he could do it. He wanted to do it.
It was the only thing that could possibly change the end of this story they were living.
The following afternoon he’d done everything he needed to do, and he was waiting with Ralph in the park.
The same park where he’d met Kelly on that very first day.
He was ten minutes early, and he’d worked himself up into an emotional fervor, waiting and hoping and praying she hadn’t changed her mind in the past two weeks.
It was possible. He hadn’t treated her well. But she’d seemed to understand him and want him anyway.
Maybe she still did.
Ralph seemed to sense his excitement and was running in exuberant circles.
Caleb felt like a fool, but he couldn’t seem to help it.
Because he was watching for her, he saw Kelly five minutes later when she appeared at the entrance of the park.
She was wearing one of her pretty hippie outfits, and she looked lovely and golden in the sunlight.
She was searching the park, looking for the client she was supposed to meet here.
He was the client, but she didn’t know that yet.
He called for Ralph and started walking toward her, drawn by a kind of yearning in his heart he’d never experienced before.
It felt different than it had before—like it was partly unreal, like it was a dream come to life, like it was happening to someone other than him.
This was him. Caleb Marshall. And she was Kelly Watson, daughter of an honest accountant who had been murdered because he’d tried to do the right thing.
And they had both done what they’d done. But maybe it didn’t mean there was nothing left.
Maybe there was another choice.
Maybe there was something worthwhile to salvage in the wake of the destruction.
He saw the moment her eyes landed on his approaching figure. She froze even though he was still too far away to see her expression.
