“You’re a damn fool, Sam,” Callen accused, rising to her feet, “if you assume facts without knowing them.”
Sam flushed. “I know my father, Callen. He wouldn’t have done anything so foolhardy as investing on his own. He knew his limitations.”
“So my father’s to blame? Have you ever considered that your father may have made those decisions all by himself? That my father may be entirely innocent?”
Sam had refused to consider that possibility for several reasons. First, he knew how much his father had always relied on Garth Whitelaw to advise him on his investments. Second, if his father had made those decisions on his own, then it meant he was entirely responsible for losing his fortune, and that he had taken the coward’s way out by committing suicide and leaving Sam to face the consequences alone.
Sam didn’t want to believe that about his father. He needed to believe E.J.’s misfortune could be laid at Garth’s door, along with the responsibility for E.J.’s untimely death.
“Do you want me to call Ted and cancel the picnic?” Sam asked.
Callen thought about it a moment. She had made up her mind to attend the dinner with her parents at Hawk’s Way. If Sam held to his threats, she wouldn’t be seeing him again after that. The picnic with Ted and Natalie might be the last one they ever had together. She wanted that memory to take with her.
“Tell them to dress warm,” she said.
Sam couldn’t believe that Callen was sticking to her guns. The dinner with her parents was the following Sunday. If he couldn’t convince her to stay, he was going to have to let her go.
He was terrified of losing her.
He visited E.J.’s grave three times in the next week. He sat there with his back resting against the headstone and spoke aloud to his father, venting his frustration and asking for advice. He picked one of the fall flowers Callen had planted there and twirled it in his fingers. Then he began plucking the petals.
“She loves me…she loves me not…she loves me…she loves me not…she loves me. I really think she does, E.J. And I love her. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I think I’ve loved her for a long time. I don’t know how I’ll live without her. It’s killing me to do this. But I don’t know any other way to pay Garth back for what he did to you. And I promised you I’d give you that satisfaction, at least. It’ll hurt him for sure if he knows Callen is suffering because of him. And I think she will, if I force her to stay away from the Double L.
“But, oh, God, Dad. I don’t want to do it! It’s tearing me apart inside. Tell me what to do! Tell me how to make everything come out right!”
There were no answers from the grave.
THE DAY OF THE PICNIC DAWNED sunny and brisk. Sam produced a black leather jacket for himself and one for Callen. On the back in red lettering were the words Born To Be Wild.
“Where did you get this?”
He held it for her while she slipped into it. “I bought it for you. I thought we might start riding together.”
She kept her chin down and her lashes lowered so he couldn’t see her face as she zipped it up. Sam had bought this jacket when he thought they had a future together. If he didn’t change his mind, this might be the only time she ever wore it.
Callen had ridden horseback all her life, so she knew the thrill of having a lot of horsepower between her legs. But when Sam revved up the Harley and she sat down behind him with her arms circling his waist, she knew what it was like to fly without ever leaving the ground. She felt the wind in her hair and smiled, knowing the chance she was taking that she would end up with bugs in her teeth. It was glorious.
It took a lot of trust to sit behind Sam and let him direct their course. She felt the power of the machine and the man who controlled it. She would have followed Sam anywhere, she realized. She knew he wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But then, who was? Where it counted, when it counted, she knew Sam would always be there for her, loving her.
“Having fun?” Sam shouted over his shoulder. The wind caught the sound and sent it in all directions.
With a helmet on, Callen heard nothing. “What?”
“Having fun?” he repeated.
“Yes. I don’t ever want to stop,” she hollered back.
“What?” he shouted.
“Never mind,” she said in a normal voice. “I know the trip is almost over. I just want to enjoy what there is left of it.”
They ended up at the entrance to a deep canyon where there must once have been water since several cypress and cottonwoods had grown there. The weather was brisk, but there was no wind, and the bright sun made it seem warmer than it was.
Callen spread a blanket and the two women put out a picnic fit for kings. “Come on, fellows,” Callen called. “Time to eat.”
Callen and Sam never referred to his ultimatum once all day. They chatted with their new friends and discovered that all of them like to do the Texas two-step. They made a promise to go dancing together as soon as they could find a time when they were all free.
Sam and Ted talked about the weather and the price of cattle and whether interest rates were going to stay down or go back up again. Callen and Natalie talked about the weather and the price of food and whether health care reform would ever become a reality.
After lunch, when the sun was at its warmest, Ted and Natalie decided to take a walk down into the canyon.
“I’d rather rest, I think,” Callen said.
Sam looked sharply at her. His Callen resting? It was unheard of. “Are you all right?”
She smiled lazily. “I’m just fine. A little tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Sam knew at least one worry that might have kept her awake. “You two go on,” he said to the other couple. “We’ll wait for you here.”
Sam set himself down on the blanket with his back against a cottonwood and patted his thigh. “You can use me for a pillow.”
Callen scooted over so she could rest her head in Sam’s lap. “Thanks, Sam.”
They didn’t talk. Both of them knew it would have meant arguing. By tacit consent, they were determined to enjoy these last moments together before all hell broke loose.
To Sam’s surprise, Callen fell asleep only minutes later. He brushed her bangs away from her face, then smoothed his thumb across her cheek for the sheer pleasure of touching her skin. He wanted to hold her close and never let her go. He wanted to treasure her. He wanted to get his children on her. He knew he had created the tense situation between them, and that he had the power to end it.
Sam leaned his head back against the tree and stared up through the branches into the cloudless blue sky. How important was vengeance, anyway? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the Bible said. He needed to see Garth pay for E.J.’s death. Needed to know his father’s death had been avenged, so he could finally lay E.J. to rest. So he could go on with his life.
But what kind of life did he have to look forward to if he lost Callen in the pursuit of his almighty vengeance?
He convinced himself, sitting there under a leafless cottonwood, that in the end she would choose him over her father. After all, she loved him. And she wouldn’t want to hear her father say “I told you so.” She wouldn’t leave him. She couldn’t.
Sam hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep until he heard the quiet murmur of voices. Maybe he hadn’t slept so well himself last night. He slowly opened his eyes.
Callen was sitting nearby talking to Natalie. Ted was over by the cycles, polishing chrome. He realized Callen was talking about him, about their marriage. He quickly closed his eyes, curious as to what she would say.
“I can’t believe you actually went through with the wedding,” Natalie exclaimed. “If Ted had shown up looking like that, I’d have bolted for sure.”
“Sam isn’t the sort of man you should judge by appearances,” Callen replied. “It’s what’s on the inside that really matters. He’s kind. And hardworking. He makes me feel special. And he’s so very smart.”
Sam struggled not to wince at that. It was taking time for him to accept himself the way Callen insisted upon perceiving him. He remembered a boy struggling to make sense of confusion on a page. She saw a man with dyslexia who had accepted the challenge to read.
“And I know Sam will make a good father,” Callen said.
“Are you by any chance expecting?” Natalie asked.
Callen didn’t answer, and Sam held his breath. She must have gestured one way or the other with her head, but by the time he opened his eyes a slit, she had resumed speaking.
“There’s only one problem with Sam,” she said.
“What’s that?” Natalie asked.
Sam clenched his teeth. Well, this was it. She was going to tell Natalie about their argument, about his ultimatum.
“He drives way too fast on that motorcycle!”
Sam exploded with laughter.
“Sam! How long have you been awake?” Callen demanded.
“Long enough,” he said with a grin. He rose to his feet. “Come on. I think it’s time we headed back. I’m going to need lots of time to get home before dark, if I don’t want to drive too fast.”
He held out a hand and Callen took it. He dragged her to her feet and into his arms and gave her a lusty kiss.
Callen struggled only a moment before she kissed him back. When they finally separated, she scolded him. “What will Ted and Natalie think?”
“That I like kissing you. And you like kissing me back.”
Callen’s cheeks were tinged with rose by the time Sam finished kissing her a second time. “It’s getting dark, Sam. We’d better be heading back.”
Sam saw the sun was on its way down. This idyll, indeed, the halcyon days of their marriage, were nearly over. Whether Callen left him, or whether she stayed, things would never be quite the same between them again.
CALLEN SPENT THE ENTIRE WEEK LEADING up to the first Sunday in Advent arguing with Sam, trying to convince him that he was being unreasonable. But he was adamant. On the Saturday before she was to have dinner with her parents, she brought out the big guns. She let the tears drip in cascades from her eyes, even though she knew she never looked her best when she was crying. Desperate situations required desperate measures.
The tears almost did him in. Sam was torn in two at the sight of Callen’s tear-streaked face. He wanted to say the hell with it and let her go. Only he turned at that instant and spied a small stain on the hardwood floor where E.J.’s blood had soaked into the aged wood. He had covered the spot with a rug, but the rug had slid away to reveal the dark secret beneath it. His heart hardened. He had sworn vengeance against Garth Whitelaw. By God, he would have it!
At last the fateful day arrived. In the stark morning light, from the rumpled sheets he had shared with his wife the night before, Sam watched Callen dressing for dinner with her parents at Hawk’s Way. “So you’re going, after all.”
“Yes.”
She looked awful, Sam thought. Her eyes were red-rimmed from all the crying she had done, and there were shadows under her eyes that told him she hadn’t slept. Hell, neither had he. He wasn’t about to miss a moment of what might very well have been the last night his wife spent in his bed.
“I don’t want you to go, Callen.”
“Don’t you see I have to, Sam? They’re my parents. If E.J. were still alive, would you avoid him simply because I didn’t like him?”
Put that way, his request did seem unreasonable. But the whole crux of the problem was that her father was the reason his father was dead. And if he wasn’t able to keep Callen away from Garth, then he would have to put the other part of his plan into effect. He would have to do his best to make Callen miserable, and force Garth to live with the knowledge that he was the source of his daughter’s unhappiness. He had to cut Callen out of his life. He had to divorce her.
Sam could see she was ready to go. “If you leave this house, don’t come back,” he said in a voice that sounded like a rusty gate.
“You don’t mean that,” Callen replied in a calm voice.
Her eyes were full of love for him. He felt like a band was tightening around his chest, cutting off his air. He stopped breathing entirely when he heard what she had to say next.
“Because if I go out that door, never to return, so does your son or daughter.” Callen closed the bedroom door with a quiet click behind her.
The silence was deafening.
An instant later Sam was out of bed and had his jeans on. He zipped them halfway up and skipped the snap. They barely clung to his hips as he headed after her. “What did you say?”
Sam caught Callen in the kitchen and dragged her back around to face him. There were tears in her eyes again. He hauled her into his arms and held her there. She was going to leave him. He could feel it from the way she remained stiff in his arms, unyielding.
He hadn’t figured on a child. He had used protection every time. Except that once. Just once. And there had been dire consequences for his lapse.
Sam had a decision to make. Which was more important? Vengeance? Or a lifetime with Callen and the child she carried inside her?
It was far easier to put the burden on her. He let her go and stepped back. “Don’t go, Callen. Please, don’t go.”
“I have to, Sam.” The words were wrenched from her as she turned and ran.
Sam let her go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
GARTH AND CANDY WELCOMED THEIR daughter with open arms. They exchanged a look of concern over her head as they led her into the parlor to have a glass of wine before dinner.
“None for me,” Callen said. “Water will be fine.”
Candy poured a glass of sparkling water and added ice before she handed it to her daughter. “Sam isn’t coming?”
Callen shook her head. She turned to look out the window and blinked back a tear before it could spill.
“I can’t believe so much time has passed since you got married,” Candy said. “We kept expecting to see the two of you here at Hawk’s Way any day. Now it’s nearly Christmas.”
“Yes,” Callen said in a voice that was commendably calm. She had already bought one of Sam’s Christmas presents. She had signed him up for an audio book club, so he could listen on tape to all the books he had never read. “There was a lot to do on the Double L. Sam and I have been very busy.”
Callen was a married woman and soon to be a mother herself. If she had learned anything in the months she had been married to Sam, it was that there was no obstacle too great to be overcome. Look at everything Sam had survived. Surely there was some way to resolve this dilemma so they could all have Christmas together.
“Is Sam treating you well, Callen?” her mother probed.
“Obviously her husband isn’t treating her right,” her father muttered. “Otherwise she wouldn’t look like death warmed over.”
“I’ll thank you not to say anything disrespectful about my husband,” Callen said. “What goes on between Sam and me is our business.”
“I’m sorry he wasn’t able to come,” Callen’s mother said.
“I’m just as glad he didn’t,” her father countered.
Callen rose and confronted her father. “I mean it, Daddy. If you make one more remark like that about Sam, I’ll leave.”
“Please, Garth,” Candy said. “Let’s just have some dinner and let Callen tell us what she’s been doing since she and Sam got married.”
Callen saw the warning look her mother shot at her father and was grateful for the help in steering her father away from the subject of Sam Longstreet. But it was too much to hope it wouldn’t be raised again at the dinner table.
“So what have you and Sam been doing that’s kept you so busy you can’t—”
“Garth.”
Her mother’s warning cut her father off and gave Callen an opening to answer his question. She told them everything. How Sam had needed her fortune to save the Double L from foreclosure. How she had remodeled the house as best she could using ite
ms she had scrounged, or bought at a discount, or repaired with a little elbow grease and the sweat of her brow. How proud she was of the result. How she and Sam had painted the house together and how good it looked when they were done. How Sam had come up with the idea of training cutting horses and how successful they had been with a mare intended for a girl in El Paso. How she had discovered Sam was dyslexic, and how he was finally, at long last, learning to read.
Of the revelation about Sam, her mother said, “That’s unbelievable. I wonder why no one ever figured it out before.”
Because no one cared enough to find out the truth. Because Sam never let anyone get close enough to see how he was suffering because of it. Callen couldn’t say that to her parents. They wouldn’t understand. And really, it didn’t matter now. She was there to love Sam, to care whether he was happy. That is, if he let her come home to him after she had finished this dinner with her parents.
She didn’t tell them about the baby. She didn’t want it to be used as a pawn in the battle she could see was coming. Nor did she ask her father about whether he was the one who had advised E. J. Longstreet into so many bad investments. She knew her father well enough to believe he hadn’t done anything dishonest. If he had suggested some investments that turned out to be swindles, he had not done it knowingly. Besides, there was no way to change the past. What was done was done. It was Sam who had to forgive and forget.
Callen sought for a safe subject of conversation and found it. “What have you two been doing with yourselves at Hawk’s Way, now that all three of your young ones have finally flown the nest?”
Her parents exchanged a tender look. Her mother flushed. Her father grinned.
“To be honest,” her mother admitted, “we’ve had a sort of second honeymoon.”
“That doesn’t mean we don’t want to see our children as often as they can come visit,” her father said.
“I’m glad for both of you.” Callen ate the last bit of apple pie that Charlie One Horse had made because he knew it was her favorite dessert and shoved her plate away. “I’m afraid I’ve got to go now.”
Hawk's Way: Callen & Zach Page 10
