Caleb (The K9 Files Book 11) by Dale Mayer (sneezy the snowman read aloud TXT) 📕

up. He called back ten minutes later, just as she plated the scrambled eggs. “I thought you would talk to him,” she said in exasperation. “I’m trying to get us out of the house.”

“So am I,” he snapped. “I was wondering if you could meet me a little earlier.”

“Why?”

“So I could talk to him,” he said.

She wondered at the sensibility of doing this now, but, if Jackson was determined to have that conversation before he got married, she wasn’t sure she could do anything to stop it either. “Maybe,” she said. “Will you be at the venue early?”

“I have to,” he said, “but I would suggest we get there, say, ten to fifteen minutes earlier, and meet in the parking lot.”

“Fine,” she said, “but I’m telling him first.”

“Will he show up?”

“I hope so,” she said, “but I don’t really know.” And she didn’t. She hung up her phone and turned to see Caleb, leaning against the doorjamb, looking at her. “What did he want this time?”

“He wants to see you before the wedding, ten minutes early at the parking lot.”

At that, his eyebrows shortly rose. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I guess he can’t get married without saying something to you.”

He just stared at her with a flat look in his eyes.

“I don’t know if he’s looking for forgiveness or your approval,” she said, “but he’s really stuck on it. He’s already called me twice.”

At that, his gaze flared with surprise.

She nodded. “So can we just do whatever we need to do and get past this?”

“Well, it’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” he said quietly.

“Yeah, it would,” she said. “Come on. Let’s have breakfast, and then I guess we’ll need to leave a little early.”

He shook his head at the whole mess.

She smiled and said, “Just think. Nothing messes us up more than family.”

He snorted at that.

“You can hardly argue with that,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “Just how sad is that?”

“It’s pretty bad. I did want to make sure that he would show up for the wedding.”

Caleb stopped his fork midair and said, “Seriously?”

“Yeah, this odd tone to his voice made me a little leery.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “I really don’t want to go there if he won’t even show up.”

“I told him that too,” she said with a half smile.

He looked at her and smiled. “You think you’re pretty smart, huh?”

“Nope,” she said. “Otherwise, I would have told you a long time ago how I felt about you.”

He stopped and stared. “Do you want to tell me more?”

“After you married Sarah,” she continued calmly, “I married Paul because I figured I’d lost you forever. I didn’t figure that out beforehand though,”—she shook her head—“so it does seem like I’ve wasted most of my life pining for something I could never have.”

He put down his fork.

She laughed, giving him a self-deprecating smile. “Not the smartest decision I’ve ever made.”

He just stared. “I had no idea,” he murmured.

“Neither did I,” she said, shrugging. “That doesn’t make me feel any better either.”

He started to laugh.

“It is pretty funny,” she said, “but not in a good way.”

“Maybe not,” he said, “but it does make me feel better. Because there’s always been something between us, but we somehow kept it just in that friend zone.”

“And I figured the friend zone was because you didn’t see me that way, so, when you got married, I knew you didn’t see me that way. I just said, Anybody will do, and I really feel guilty for ruining Paul’s life too.”

“Wow, that just conjures up the wrong image for you.”

She chuckled. “Hey, it’s the stupid things we do.”

“Well, I didn’t really see what I was doing myself,” he said. “I won’t say that I was in love with you back then because I don’t think I was. I loved you, but it was a different kind of a thing.”

“Exactly,” she said. “What I didn’t realize was, my feelings had grown into something different for me by the time you married. So whatever,” she said. “Now we’re here, and we’ll go meet your brother.”

“But it does make me wish we didn’t have to go the route we did and waste all that time.”

“Well, if it brought us where we are now,” she said, “I’ll take it as time well spent.”

He laughed. “I can see that.” He stood, and they quickly cleaned up the dishes.

Laysha said, “I’ll get dressed. Be back in ten.”

Caleb nodded and forced himself to get dressed as well.

True to her word, Laysha was back in ten minutes. As they walked outside, she stopped, looked at him critically, and said, “You look good.”

He stopped in surprise. “Thank you. I don’t dress up much.”

“No, we don’t have too many reasons to. I do like to see a man in a suit, but I also like to see them in jeans and without a shirt,” she joked. “That’s pretty damn fine too.”

He burst out laughing at that, hooked an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her into a hug. She went willingly and buried her face against his neck. He held her close and whispered, “Thanks for always being there.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, “but, after this, if we split up, I won’t be doing it anymore.”

He nodded, his tone grave as he said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t ever come to that.”

She smiled, and the two of them headed out to face whatever the day would bring.

Caleb wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into when he pulled up to the church early. He hated all this damn drama stuff. But no doubt he had to deal with the fact that what was coming was coming, and he couldn’t stop it. And did he really want to? Or was it just up to his brother to live his life the way he wanted to and damn the rest of it?

As he hopped out, Caleb turned to look at Laysha, already out of the vehicle. He realized he hadn’t really even seen her until just now. He stopped and stared. “I’ve never seen