Page 26 of The Agent
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MARLEY DID ONE LAST SWEEPof the living room, making sure she’d dropped the clutter level fromthis chick is a slobtoorganized mess. She’d opted to serve Caleb dinner in the living room, since the kitchen reeked of paint. The Chinese food she’d ordered would be arriving any minute, and she’d already rid the coffee table of the paperback novels that usually resided there.
Now she stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of comfy black pants and her favorite stretchy green T-shirt. Butterflies danced around in her stomach.
“What am I doing?” she mumbled to herself, sinking down on the couch cushions.
She’d told Gwen she wasn’t ready to get involved with anyone new, yet she seemed to be going out of her way to do just that. She pictured Caleb’s face, wondering what it was about him that captivated her. Patrick had won her over with his easygoing smiles and almost youthful enthusiasm. He had a lust for life, charm that just poured out of him.
But Caleb…he was more intense. A little awkward around her, too, which she found kind of adorable. And whenever she thought about his hot kisses and lazy caresses, her body tightened with awareness.
Her head jerked up at the sound of the doorbell, immediately followed by the sound of her pulse drumming in her ears like the beat of a club song. She drew in a breath, willed her heartbeat to slow, then went to the door.
When she opened it, she found Caleb on the porch, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved navy-blue shirt, and holding two large paper bags with steam rolling out of the top. “I intercepted your delivery man at the door,” he said.
Marley glanced past his impossibly broad shoulders, and saw the retreating headlights of a beat-up white Honda with Mr. Chow’s logo on the side.
“I’ll grab some cash and reimburse you,” she said.
He shook his head. “No way.”
“I said it would be my treat.”
“I chose to ignore you.” His deep voice brooked no argument as he entered her house.
“How very last century of you,” she said sweetly.
He smiled—God, she loved it when he did that. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She led him into the living room, where they began laying out steaming hot cartons of food. Marley had already brought out plates and utensils, as well as a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She and Caleb got settled on the carpet, and she dug in immediately, too hungry to worry about the fact that she was stuffing her face when they’d barely said hello. She hadn’t eaten a thing all day, thanks to another hectic shift at the hospital without a break and then because of the nervous flutters in her stomach at the prospect of seeing Caleb again.
She felt so drawn to the man, even though she still didn’t know much about him, save for the fact that he was devastatingly handsome and kissed like a dream. Maybe tonight he’d finally open up to her a little.
“This is delicious,” she moaned, popping another bite of sesame chicken into her mouth.
Caleb bit into an egg roll. “I haven’t had Chinese food since I left New York. Back there, I live on this stuff.”
“Is that where you call home?”
“I usually go where the job takes me,” he answered.
She furrowed her brows. “You mean, for research?”
“No, I only started writing recently.” He took another bite of the egg roll, then focused on the task of spooning chicken fried rice onto his plate. “I was doing construction before that, and the company I worked for did jobs all over the country.”
“So you took time off to write?”
He nodded.
Marley picked up her wineglass, studying Caleb as she took a sip. He seemed completely uninterested in talking about himself. Patrick, on the other hand, had been all about his own ego, constantly regaling her with stories where he played the starring role. None of them true, of course.
Which did she prefer? A man who talked up a storm and only told lies? Or one who refused to talk at all? Still, she wasn’t a quitter, and she was determined to pry some details out of Caleb.
“Does your family live on the East Coast?” she asked.
His face became shuttered. “I don’t have any family. My mother died when I was five, and I never knew my dad.”
She leaned closer, studied his face. “No aunts, uncles, grandparents?”
