by Erika Kelly
“You don’t actually think I’ve dated those women, do you?”
She raised a brow, Haven’t you? But, of course, she knew he hadn’t dated all of them.
“I’ve had one girlfriend in my life. Don’t believe what you read.”
“Well, that’s pretty much the issue right there.” She thought of all the stories she’d read, and it really all boiled down to a lack of communication. “Maybe the relationship meant nothing to you, but it obviously meant something to Traci. She wouldn’t have thought it was serious if you hadn’t led her to believe it was.”
He held her gaze. “I never dated Traci.”
Theo swiveled around, angling himself so he could put both hands on Fin’s jaw. “Show me Mommy and Daddy.”
“Yeah, buddy. I’m on it.” Fin clicked out of Instagram and opened up a map application.
While it loaded, she said, “My point is that it might have been nothing more than a hookup to you, but to her it was more.”
“Callie?” His tone meant business. “I never touched Traci Allen. The whole thing is bull—crap.”
Theo nudged him. “Daddy.”
Fin typed in directions from Calamity, Wyoming to Catalina Island. “We’re here.” He traced the thick blue line to Los Angeles. “Yesterday your mom and dad got on an airplane and flew here. Then, they took a taxi to the ocean in a town called San Pedro. From there, they took a ferry.” He skimmed the distance between the coast and the island. “To here. This is called Santa Catalina Island. Do you want to see pictures of it?”
Theo shook his head, color spreading across his features.
With Theo’s back to him, Fin couldn’t have seen the little boy’s reaction, so she had no idea how he knew to set the phone down and hug him tighter. “They’re gone for fourteen days. It’s been one already, so that went pretty fast, right?”
With wide eyes, Theo looked up at Fin with pure trust.
Her heart squeezed because she didn’t have that kind of relationship with her nephew.
“Come here, buddy.” Fin lifted the boy, turning him on his lap. Theo straddled his thighs and smashed his face into Fin’s chest, holding on as tightly as if they were about to sky dive in tandem.
Fin closed his eyes, one big hand engulfing the back of Theo’s head.
She knew exactly what that felt like, the comfort of being held in those big, strong arms.
And she missed it. “I’ll give you two some time alone.” She grabbed her phone and headed out the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fin breathed in the scents of kid shampoo and Cheerios.
He didn’t do it a lot, but every now and then Theo clung to him like a barnacle, and it shredded Fin’s heart.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Callie gather her purse and car keys and move quietly across the room. The door creaked closed.
Dammit. He didn’t know what had happened—or why—but for a second there her attitude had definitely warmed. He wanted more of it. He wanted her to stay.
Theo let out a deep shuddery breath, his body relaxing against Fin’s, and Fin shut out everything else. “I got you, my little man. I got you.”
When those little fingers gently patted Fin’s shoulders, he about lost it. The boy giving him comfort? Yeah, this kid was something else. Sweet, smart…and full of compassion.
Bare feet padded across linoleum, and Sherry bustled into the room with a big smile. “Okay, Theo, lunch is ready.”
The boy slowly pulled back, blinking those big, baleful eyes at him.
It had to be scary to have your parents gone for two weeks. Fin would do whatever he could to make it easier on him.
Sherry headed back into the kitchen. “You staying for lunch, Fin? We’ve got my world famous chicken fingers.”
“Nope.” Though lunch with his boy sounded a whole lot better than a court appearance. “How about I come back later this afternoon and we do some fishing? Sound good, little man?”
“Can we get ice cream?”
“You bet.” His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to find a text from Will.
Don’t forget your court appearance.
“Yeah, yeah.” He pocketed the phone. “Your uncle Will’s being bossy again. I gotta go, kid.”
Theo scrambled off his lap and climbed onto the chair next to him, the one with the booster seat.
“I’ll be back in a few hours, yeah?”
Theo nodded.
Fin smiled and walked out the door. As he trampled down the porch steps, he shoved his sunglasses on and got a whiff of a feminine scent.
Callie leaned against the hood of her dad’s truck, phone in hand.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
Looking polished and elegant, she gave him a cool smile. “Of course. Just responding to some texts.” She yanked the door open. “See you.”
Her tone sprayed him like highway grit, and it made him want to dirty up her fancy shirt. That would wipe away that placid expression. “You in a rush to get somewhere?”
“Actually, yes, I am.”
“Yeah? You got a job?”
“No.”
“So then what’s the rush? Gotta straighten your hair? It’s looking a little…” He made a motion at the side of his head just to rile her. “Messy right here.”
She drew in a breath, a clear attempt to compose herself.
But he’d gotten to her. He saw it in the clamp of her jaw. He grinned. “That oughtta eat up a whole hour. What else you got going on? Gotta polish your pearls?”
“Actually, it only takes twenty minutes to blow dry my hair, but your interest in my time management skills is noted.” She flashed him a fake smile. “Well, this has been fun. I’ll just be on my way now.”
He was getting pretty damn sick of Calliope. “On your way where, exactly? I know you’re not working in the diner, and the Museum of Taxidermy’s not hiring right now, so what’s the plan? You gonna hole up in your parent’s house all summer and use your rich boyfriend’s credit card to do some online shopping? Obviously nothing for you to buy here in Wyoming.”
Slamming the door so hard the truck shook, she whirled around to face him. “Do you know what I’ve been doing while you’ve been gallivanting around the globe pissing off unsuspecting women? Working my ass off. And, other than school loans, I’ve never taken anybody’s money, you jackass. I’ve been working two of those menial jobs you apparently think I think I’m too good for, while putting myself through school.”
There she is. He didn’t like upsetting her, but he didn’t get why she had to be all hoity-toity to be part of the New York City art world. Callie was awesome. Any museum would be lucky to get her as its curator.
“And the only thing I got from my rich boyfriend besides a place to live for the past month was his relationship to the board members at the MoCA, which I’ve lost now that he’s broken up with me. So if I’m a little preoccupied, it’s because I just spent two years and money I don’t have a hope in hell of paying back for a graduate degree that might turn out to be a gigantic waste. I have things on my mind, Fin, and they don’t have anything to do with you.”
Damn, she was hot when she got all fired up like this.
Never, not once in his life, in all his travels, among all the people he’d met, had he ever felt this kind of attraction to any other woman. Only Callie called to him at the deepest, most primal level. He wanted his hands on her warm skin, fingers scraping all that silky hair off her face. He wanted to shut that sexy mouth with a kiss he knew—he fucking knew—would pop her bindings and unleash the wild woman she was so damned determined to keep on lock-down.
She raised her arms in a gesture of, What? “Stop staring at me like that. I’m not some stuck-up city girl who forgot her roots. I bought these clothes for the internships I did at museums and art galleries. Which I worked in addition to my jobs and school work. So stop trying to make me out to be some snob just to make yourself feel better about dumping me.”
&nbs
p; Anger whipped up so fast he found himself two inches in front of her without knowing how he got there. “I didn’t dump you. I would never have dumped you.”
“What do you call it when you show up at my house three hours before our flight to announce you’re not going to New York with me? I don’t know what you’ve been telling yourself all this time, but just so we’re on the same page, it’s called breaking up.”
“We were supposed to stay together no matter—”
With both hands, she thumped his chest so hard he had to take a step back to brace himself. “I am not having this conversation. You want to know why I haven’t talked to you? Because of this. I’m not going to listen to your twisted version of why you had to bail on me the day we were supposed to go to college together. There is no justification for that. The only thing on my mind right now is getting my life back on track.”
“And you’re doing that here? In Calamity?”
“I don’t…” She growled. “You don’t get it.”
Of course he didn’t get it. She wouldn’t talk to him.
She tipped her head back and blew out a huff of frustration. “Nobody becomes a curator out of graduate school. You have to spend at least ten years as an archivist or in research, and since Julian’s parents pretty much assured me I’d get the fellowship, I didn’t bother applying for a job, but now I don’t know where I stand with them, and my student loans became due the day I graduated a month ago, and Julian kicked me out of his apartment, which means I couldn’t show up to work for either of my two jobs today.” She narrowed her gaze on him. “So stop looking at me like I’m some pampered princess who can’t decide whether to summer on Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons.”
“All of that sucks but, damn, I’m glad to see you. I wondered what’d happened to my wild thing.”
She charged him. “You happened to her, you asshole. This woman with a stick up her ass is a product of you. This is what happens when you change your mind at the last minute and jump on a jet with your family instead of going with your girlfriend to college like you’d planned. Who does that? Only privileged assholes with billionaire fathers can take off on a private jet to Mount Everest.”
Why don’t you give me a chance to explain? But she was right. He couldn’t justify what he’d done. He’d known the moment he’d agreed to go on the trip that he’d messed up. Every mile that had ticked on his truck’s odometer that terrible morning had tightened the chokehold around his throat. By the time he’d reached her house, his limbs had felt leaden.
And yet some instinct—survival?—had pushed him to her front door, past her confused father, and down the stairs to Callie’s basement bedroom.
But he didn’t want to provoke her anymore. He just wanted to talk to her. “Alaska.”
“What?”
“We started in Alaska. They’d been planning the trip for months.”
She looked wild-eyed. Betrayed. “Months?” She turned away from him, hands covering her mouth. “Your dad had been planning it for months, and you never bothered to tell me?”
“No. My dad and Coach planned it for Will, but they wanted me to take a gap year and go with them.”
But she clearly hadn’t heard. “You are unbelievable. Why would you play me like that?”
“I didn’t play you. I never planned on going.”
“Oh, my God, you let me go on and on about apartments and classes. I researched all the places where you could snowboard. I even talked to the president of the Ski Club, and you never had any intention of coming with me.” Her eyes glistened. “Why would you do that? Why didn’t you say anything? I knew you shouldn’t go to New York. I wouldn’t have broken up with you. I would’ve understood.”
Fuck, he loved her honesty. That was one thing about her that hadn’t changed.
She stood there in her slim black pants and those stupid fucking pearls, her heart bleeding out her eyes, and he had to get through to her. He had one shot to find the right words.
“I didn’t tell you because I had no interest in going with them. It was Will’s graduation present. Coach thought big mountain skiing would be the best training for him. The only reason they wanted me to go was to stop me from going to NYU with you. But I never considered it. Not for a second. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d give my dad a piece of your mind, and I’m telling you right now it wouldn’t have gone down well. My dad would not have been kind.”
Underneath the crease of confusion around her eyes, he saw hurt. “What does that mean? I thought your dad liked me.”
“He did, but he thought you were pushing me to go to NYU, and that it’d be the biggest mistake of my life.”
He’d expected her to get right back in his face, offended at his dad’s unjust assumption. Instead, she looked guilty. “I—” Her jaw snapped shut. She looked away. Guilt settled into a sad resignation. “He was right.”
His protective instincts for her surged, and he shook his head. “You didn’t. It was my choice.”
“No.” Her voice had gone flat. “Every time I brought up MSU, I was only saying it so you’d reassure me that you weren’t going to choose it. Even though I knew how horrible it would have been for you, I still wanted you to come with me. Your dad was right.”
“I wanted to go with you.”
“No, you wanted to be with me. You never wanted to go to New York.”
He couldn’t argue. He didn’t belong in a big city.
“But if you’d just told me what was going on it wouldn’t have hurt so badly. I’d have been prepared for it.” Her tone changed, grew more forceful. “You had a full ride from MSU for skiing. Of course you should have taken it. Fin, I wouldn’t have broken up with you. We would’ve seen each other at every break.”
“Yeah, I think we both know how that would’ve worked out. You just told me what your life’s like, working two jobs, internships, and a full load of classes. You’d have built a whole other life.”
“I loved you. New York might’ve been my dream, but you were my world.”
He reached for her hand, and the thrill of touching her sent an electrical current up his arm. It’s still there. Everything between us…it’s so fucking alive. “Don’t you get it? You were my dream. I wasn’t letting go of you. Not for anything.”
Hurt gripped her features, and a tear spilled onto her cheek. “But you did let me go. And so here we are.”
“I didn’t think you’d break up with me. I knew you’d be pissed. I figured you’d yell at me, maybe ignore me for a few weeks, but I never thought you’d fucking block me. Why would you do that? I screwed up. I know that. But I loved you. I wanted to be with you. Do you know what life is like without you? It sucks. We were together every day for most of our lives. You were everything to me. And then you just cut me off.”
Her eyes narrowed. “But it wasn’t too hard, though, right? Because, from what I’ve seen on social media and the news, you’ve been having plenty of fun over the last six years.”
Not this crap again. “Are you talking about the damn meme? Traci’s not my girlfriend. I haven’t dated anybody since we broke up. My life’s about training, planning my trips, and traveling. That’s it. I haven’t dated anyone.”
“Here’s what I know. While I was curled up in the fetal position all alone in New York City, you were traveling the globe, hooking up with women at every stop along the way.”
“Hooking up? I was with my dad, Coach, and Will. Jesus, Callie, you’d just shut me out of your life. Why would you think I was laughing?”
“I saw you. That’s why I blocked you. Because your hookups tagged you in all their selfies. You want honesty? Then give it back. We have nothing to lose at this point. Just own what you did since I saw the pictures.”
“You blocked me because you thought I was fucking around?” Whatever reasons he’d come up with, he’d never considered that. Cutting him off for something he’d never done? Fuck that. “You knew me, Callie. You fucking knew me. What, you thought overn
ight I’d just turn into a horndog? You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted. You knew that.”
“Come on. You’d only ever been with one woman. Of course you wanted to have some fun.”
How the hell had she ever gotten that impression? “You were enough, Callie. Jesus, you were enough for me. I have never wanted anyone else.” And I never fucking will.
Color splashed across her cheeks, and he could tell she wavered, so right before she fell onto the side of mistrust he got a hold of her. Cupping her cheeks, he held her gaze, letting her know with everything in him that she lived in his bones, his blood, in his heart and in his soul.
He waited for her to get it, that he’d never wanted anyone else. He held his breath as emotions battled across her beautiful face. It’s us, Callie. It’s always been us, and it always will be.
But, still, she stood there, lips pressed together, eyes uncertain.
She was killing him. Trust me, goddammit.
When her hands closed around his wrists and her features softened, his knees went weak with the flood of relief. Her lips parted, and the tip of her tongue peaked out to moisten them.
He felt that lick deep in his gut. Lust stirred, and his cock hardened.
She let out a shaky breath, eyes filled with resignation. “We blew it.”
Yeah, they’d blown it, but they could recover. They would recover. Did she get that?
But she just lowered her hands and looked away. Opening the door, she hoisted herself onto the truck’s seat. “I’ll see you later, Fin.”
He stood there, watching his heart take off down the driveway.
When she’d loved him, her stubbornness had been a good thing because it meant she’d never give up on him. Now, though, it meant she’d never forgive him.
He watched until the dust settled, and her truck turned onto 191.
He watched the empty driveway until his heart, covered in the sludge of loss, regret, and guilt, started beating with the rhythm of determination.
Because it wasn’t over. Not by a longshot.
In fact, it was just beginning.
******
