Evie composed herself calmly. “I just got done at the Songbird Café, and Joey told me someone toldherthey saw your truck at my place. Which you were, but I explained to her it was simply because of you helping me through a panic attack and mowing my lawn. But someone told her we had a full-blown stint together. You didn’t tell anyone anything?”
“Evie, why would I do that? I’d risk losing my kids in a custody battle if I did.”
She threw her hand up. “Right? That’s what I keep telling everyone.”
Caleb groaned hard and wiped his mouth. “So, you didn’t tell anyone?”
At first Evie felt like she wanted to scream at him for not reaching out to her sooner. “Is this why you’ve been ignoring me? Who’s been talking to you?”
He sighed and looked at the traffic going by. “Sandy at the nail salon in town told Ashley you and I were sleeping together. And Ashley blew a gasket with me over nasty texts and went all Danaerys Season 8 on my lawyer.” His voice shook a bit, which was odd for him. Caleb was always calm and composed. “You visit the salon frequently, so I assumed it was you. You’re always posting up your deep-seeded shit on Facebook, so I assumed you probably got caught up in the moment and told Sandy. I had to give my phone to my lawyer and let him comb through it for a whole week, as well as show my Facebook and social activity.”
Evie panicked. “Did they find anything?”
“No, I deleted your contact and all my sexually charged texts with you, as well as messages and all but two phone calls so it wouldn’t look so suspicious.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Caleb sat down on the porch of his worksite and watched the gardeners try to dig up the cold, hard ground. He felt insanely stupid. “I can’t believe you’re not going off on me right now.”
“Why would I? You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m so sorry the divorce has taken a horrible turn.”
Caleb rubbed his face. “Don’t be so nice to me. I essentially blocked you out without consultingyou first.”
“You answered my call. That’s all I care about. The rest of that shit doesn’t matter.”
“Evie?” he said slowly.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I appreciate your calling and telling me the truth. But I really can’t associate with you until after the divorce. This has fucked everything up so badly.”
Tingling came into her hands and her chest felt heavy. But not because of what he said, but because her nerves were just worked up, worried that she had caused a lot of unintentional grief for him when she had fought so hard to do the opposite.
He rubbed his face frantically on the other side. “And if you don’t want to wait for me, I won’t blame you. Ashley’s being difficult, and I don’t know how long this will go on for.”
Evie thought. “I have a question though. Wouldn’t you cutting off all ties with me make it lookmoresuspicious?”
“It’s the advice of my lawyer.”
There was nothing she could do. Evie smiled. “It’s okay. You’re the one in the harder predicament, not me.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop making this harder.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Evie, you hardly know me. I have no idea why you treat me like some savior that came strolling along and solved all your problems.”
Evie sat straight up. “Listen to me. I’m not doing this because of what you’ve done for me. I’m being this way because it’s the right thing to do, Caleb! You’ve seen how calm and neutral I am when Richard Bailey flies off the fucking handle at people for no reason on the discussion page. You’ve seen me try to settle tension down in fights. There’s nothing I can do. It’s not because you’ve done something so grand for me, even though you have. It’s because it’s the right damn thing to do!”
“You’re insane. You’re being way too nice to someone you hardly know.”
“Yeah, and you told me not to let anyone change that. So, I’m not.That’s a mouthful coming from the guy who was going to pay for my house inspection.”
Caleb tried to bridle the anger in his tone. “You need to stop acting like this and get over me. It’s not gonna work.”
