Chapter Seven
Tom
No matter how many times Tom looked at Leila, no matter how many times his eyes traced the features that mirrored his own, he still couldn’t quite believe it. That was his daughter, asleep there in the backseat. His flesh and blood. The girl he had wondered about since before she was born, the one he had known only as a slight swell of her mother’s belly.
She was even more perfect than he had imagined.
As he caught another glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, a fierce burst of love and protection welled up in him. How could it take nothing more than the sight of her to bring out all his fatherly instincts?
She let out a soft snore, and he smiled. He was glad she was able to sleep, after everything she had been through over the past few days. She looked unharmed, thankfully, her face and limbs free of bruises. He only hoped her mind came out of this trauma as unscathed as her body.
Tom reluctantly pulled his gaze from her to study the street behind them. “We should be able to go home now,” he said, after a moment of thought. They had spent the past hour weaving a complex pattern through the streets of the city for long enough now that the sun was beginning to peer over the horizon. It had been Callum’s idea, in case anyone was following them. Tom had only a layman’s understanding of how to spot or evade a tail—despite what Callum seemed to think of him, he had only been a soldier, not some kind of super-spy—but none of the cars behind them looked anything like the cars that had been there ten minutes ago.
Callum took the turn that led to Tom’s house, and in another few minutes, they were home.
As the car stopped, Leila’s eyes fluttered open, and she sat up. She blinked out at the house. “Where are we?”
Tom’s breath caught at how much her voice sounded like Carrie’s—not the way Carrie had sounded when he had gone to see her yesterday, but the way she sounded in his memories. “This is where I live,” he answered. “You’ll stay here for tonight, and go back to your mother tomorrow.” He would call Carrie as soon as he got Leila settled inside; she deserved to know their daughter was safe. But just in case he had been wrong about whether they were being followed, he didn’t intend to lead any dangerous people to Carrie’s door.
Tom led a yawning Leila inside, and Callum followed. While Callum brushed dust and grime off his clothes, Tom led Leila to the spare room, where Aidan used to sleep before he had moved in with Liam. “You’ll have to sleep in your clothes,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry I don’t have a set of pajamas for you, or a spare toothbrush, or…” He trailed off as he realized that he didn’t own a single thing a small houseguest would need. It wasn’t as if he could have expected this, but still, it didn’t make him feel like the greatest father to know he couldn’t offer his daughter so much as a toothbrush.
“Would you like a glass of water?” he asked. That, at least, he had in abundance.
Sitting down on the bed, she shrugged.
“Hey,” he said gently, taking a seat next to her. “Are you all right?” What kind of a question was that? She had just spent the past few days as a prisoner.
But she nodded, her lips tight in a determined line. “I’m okay.” Her voice didn’t even shake as she answered.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
She shook her head.
“Is there anything I can—”
“I don’t need anything,” she said. She gave him an attempt at a smile. “But thanks.”
Despite the smile, he felt like he had been dismissed. Should he push it? Was she more afraid than she was letting on? Or would insisting that she talk to him only make her pull away? Was she just feeling the aftereffects of what she had gone through, or was she angry with him for his absence from her life?
He had dreamed of meeting his daughter for so long, but now that she was finally here, he didn’t have the first idea of what to say.
“You should try to sleep,” he told her. “It’s been a long night.” He stood. “Goodnight, Leila,” he said, even though by now the sunrise was streaking the sky with red. “I love you.”
“Wait,” she said, almost too quiet to hear, as he started to leave the room.
He turned around.
She looked down at the floor, as if she was ashamed of the worry in her voice. “Are they going to come back?”
“I won’t let them take you away again,” Tom answered. “I promise.” After a second’s hesitation, he pulled her into a hug. She clung to him fiercely, her fear coming across in the grip of her arms as it hadn’t in her face.
“I brought you some tea,” said a voice from across the room.
Tom drew back and looked up to see Callum standing in the doorway, a steaming mug in his hands. “Chamomile,” he said, addressing Leila. “To help you sleep. Do you like tea?”
She shrugged again. But when Callum put the cup down beside the bed, she took a sip, and another faint smile crossed her lips.
“If you need me,” said Tom, “come get me, all right? No matter what time it is.” He waited for Leila’s answering nod before he left the room with Callum and closed the door.
Callum turned to Tom. “I hope it’s okay that I raided your tea cabinet. I was looking for something to keep myself awake. I’ve never seen someone with so much tea and no coffee.”
“There’s coffee in the pantry,” said Tom. “I never drink it, but I keep it around for guests. I’ll make you some, if you’d like.”
Callum shook his head. “As much as I need the energy, my nerves are already shot. Caffeine wouldn’t help. What I really want is to know how you manage to get through the day with no coffee in your system.”
Tom smiled. Aidan used to ask him the same thing. “Practice. I’ve been getting up at five in the morning for years.”
Callum shuddered.
“It’s better than it sounds,” Tom assured him. As he spoke, he could feel his body relaxing, letting go of the last of its adrenaline as the mundane conversation brought him back to ordinary life. “I can watch the sun come up on my morning run.”
Callum shuddered again, more theatrically this time. “The only time I want to see the sunrise is if I’ve been up all night.”
Thinking about the reasons Callum would be up all night—after all, didn’t most criminal business happen after dark?—helped remind Tom of just who he was talking to. This man wasn’t as unassuming as he seemed. He was dangerous, however little he might look it. The people he worked for, even more so.
But he had also saved Tom’s daughter. That had to count for something.
“If you don’t want coffee, why don’t I make us both some tea?” asked Tom, already heading for the kitchen. “I’m sure we could both use something to settle our nerves.”
Callum followed him into the kitchen. He opened the cabinet, where Tom’s herbal tea collection spanned three shelves. He picked some kind of raspberry lemongrass blend that Tom hadn’t even remembered he owned. Tom chose a bitter sage mix.
“It’s rare to find another herbal tea fan,” Tom commented as they waited for their tea to steep. It wasn’t what he would have expected from a man like Callum. But then, the man’s gentle voice and small, delicate frame weren’t what he would have expected from a career criminal either. Callum was a bundle of contradictions.
And those contradictions weren’t his to untangle, he reminded himself. They would share a cup of tea, and then Callum would go on his way. Tom would be left alone to focus on what was important—his daughter, and keeping her safe.
“I like… flavor,” said Callum. “I like interesting tastes.”
For a second, Tom struggled to put context to the words, until he remembered what he had said.
“I know to some people every variety of coffee tastes different,” Callum continued, “but I’ve never been able to get past the bitterness. I have to drown it in cream and sugar just to get it down. With tea, though, if you don’t want it to be bitter, you drink a kind that isn’t bitter. If you want something that tastes like raspberry, you can have it, without going to Starbucks and having them put all kinds of fancy bits and bobs into it. I don’t have to make it into something else in order to enjoy it. I hardly ever drink tea—mostly it’s coffee for me, just so I can stay awake—but every time I do, I’m glad I did.”
Tom had never thought about it that way, but he found himself nodding as he blew across his cup to cool it down. He took the first sip, and smiled as the flavors hit his tongue. It was exactly what he needed, and perfect just the way it was, like Callum had said.
“You know what I really miss, though?” Callum asked.
“What?”
“Hot chocolate.” A faraway smile crossed his face. “Piled so high with marshmallows that they spill over the top. When we had a snow day, I used to sit in the living room window with a mug of hot chocolate and watch the storm. Nothing you drink as an adult can give you that same kind of comfort.”
Tom closed his eyes against a sudden wave of… of what, exactly? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he wanted to give Callum hot chocolate with marshmallows, and warmth, and comfort. He wanted to see the tension disappear from the man’s face. He wanted to see him smile without those shadows behind his eyes.
“Even booze doesn’t really do the same thing,” Callum continued, seemingly unaware of the conflict going on inside Tom’s head. “It doesn’t make you feel safe and warm like hot chocolate does. It just makes everything blurry enough that you don’t care quite so much about whatever is bothering you.”
Tom opened his eyes only when he was sure he could look at Callum without his feelings running away with him again. “I don’t drink.”
Callum raised his eyebrows. “Not at all?”
“Don’t worry—I’m not one of those people who thinks alcohol is the work of the devil. If other people want to drink, that’s fine with me. But I don’t do it anymore. Self-discipline is important to me, and it doesn’t go well with drinking.”
“Self-discipline.” Callum nodded as if that explanation made sense to him. “Is that why you keep your house like this?”
Tom looked around. “Like what?”
“Like this.” Callum waved a hand in a circle to indicate the space around them. “Everything is so… clean, and spare, and uncluttered. There’s nothing here that doesn’t have a purpose, and everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be.”
Tom had never thought about his house that way. He looked around with new eyes, only now noticing what Callum had seen. His counters were clear, his kitchen tools hung neatly by the stove. The chairs were tucked neatly in their places under the table, and there wasn’t a scrap of dust hiding anywhere, not even in the corners.
“I’m not as much of a clean freak as I look,” he assured Callum. It wasn’t as if he was regimented about keeping everything neat and clean; it was just habit. He found the routines almost soothing.
“No, it’s nice,” Callum assured him. “It’s like… one of those Zen gardens, with the rocks. I felt a little calmer as soon as I walked in here.” He smiled.
The smile drew Tom’s attention to the man’s lips. An image flickered through his head before he could stop it, of his tongue tracing the lines of those lips. Would Callum taste like lemongrass?
Tom took a long, deliberate breath. Despite the casual subject matter, this conversation was becoming much too intimate. He needed to pull back—now. Before this drifted into dangerous territory.
He set his cup down. “Thank you for helping me save my daughter.”
“I couldn’t be a part of what my father was doing,” Callum answered. “I’m glad she’s home safe now.”
“Where are you going after this?” Tom asked. Would he be able to go back to his people, and make up some excuse for what had happened? Or did they already know he was responsible? If he couldn’t go home, Tom owed him something for everything he had risked on his daughter’s behalf, everything he had given up. He had to repay that debt somehow—he just didn’t know how.
Callum shrugged. He clearly wanted it to look casual, but his body betrayed more tension than he wanted to show. “Away from my family. It doesn’t really matter where. Someplace they’re not likely to find me.”
Tom didn’t miss the fatalistic note in Callum’s voice. “You sound like you think there’s not much hope of that.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about leaving. I could never imagine a scenario where they didn’t track me down eventually. But I don’t know how much of that was just my own fear talking.”
“You’re welcome to stay with me for a while.” The words left his mouth before he knew what he was saying. Half of him told him he was making a mistake, inviting a criminal to share his home. The other half reminded him of everything he owed Callum, and where Leila would be right now if it weren’t for him.
“Thanks, but it’s not necessary,” Callum replied. “I should leave as soon as possible, to get a head start.”
He knew he should feel relief, instead of this hollow disappointment. “Are you leaving now, then?”
Callum hesitated. “Do you think I could crash here for a few hours?” he asked shyly. “I should try to get some rest before I run.” A smile flashed across his face. “Especially if I’m not going to drink that coffee.”
“Of course. That would be fine.” He was about to offer Callum the spare room, before remembering that it was taken. “You can have my bed,” he said, and before his body could get any more ideas, he added, “I’ll take the couch.”
Callum smiled again, a little less hesitantly this time. “Thank you,” he said, while Tom tried not to look at his lips.
“It’s the least I can do after what you’ve done. Let me show you where it is, and then I’ll call Carrie so she can—” Tom stopped midsentence.
The smile disappeared from Callum’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Tom carefully shifted out of view of the kitchen window before he gestured toward that same window, where a car had stopped across the street. The headlights had turned off, but no one had gotten out of the car. Before he had moved, the glow of the sunrise had shown Tom the dim silhouettes of two figures, each of them staring directly at Tom’s house.
“They’ve found us,” said Tom. “They’re here.”