by Jeannie Watt
She raised her gaze to the Hobart house across the lot. Nope. She was staying a while longer.
NATHAN RUBBED HIS FINGERS over his eyes, pushing his reading glasses up on top of his head before tossing them carelessly onto the desk.
It was late. He needed to get home. He’d forgone his evening bike ride to finish up at the office, and now his stomach was growling and he was getting a headache, though he couldn’t tell if it was work related or Callie related.
Seth called as Nathan was leaving the building. “I have your blind date set up.”
Nate shut the phone and shoved it in his pocket. It wasn’t going to do him much good in the long run, but perhaps he could get his hands on some aspirin or Scotch before Seth found him in person.
No such luck. Seth was parked in front of his house when he got there.
“Turning the phone off isn’t going to help. There’s nowhere you can hide.”
“I don’t recall giving the blind date an okay,” Nathan said, shouldering his way past his brother to unlock his door.
“You said, ‘Surprise me,’” Seth countered with a crooked smile. “Surprise!”
“Who is she?” Nathan dumped his day pack, which he used in place of a briefcase, next to the door.
“New girl at the mine. Her name is Gina.”
“Do you know her at all?”
“I’ve talked to her.”
“Then why aren’t you dating her?”
“She refuses to take me seriously.”
“I wonder why?” Nathan said as he went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Could it be the Gumby insignia on your hat?”
Seth shrugged as he accepted a beer. “Honestly, she’s not my type, and yeah, Gumby may figure into it. She’s more serious than the girls I date.”
“Why’s she at the mine?”
“She’s the new human resources person. And she is good-looking.”
Nathan twisted off the beer cap, took a long drink, watching his brother the entire time for some kind of tell.
“Brunette. Smart. Really good-looking.” Seth glanced away, then back at his brother, all playfulness gone from his expression. “It’s time, Nate. You need to get out, even if you don’t end up in the sack. You can’t use your leg as an excuse forever.”
“It took me a year to get used to it. How can I expect someone else to…” Hell, he didn’t even know how to finish the sentence. “It’s not an excuse,” he muttered, going to the table to flip through the mail. “But it is damned ugly.” And the last Nathan had heard, wild one-night stands were about attraction. The Igor leg would surely throw a damper on that kind of an evening. His wild one-night-stand days were over.
“Wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen it since it was bandaged up.”
“And you’re not seeing it tonight.”
“Rats.” Seth punctuated the word with a quick clench of his fist.
They went into the living room and Seth turned on the TV, watching the Food Network as he finished his beer.
“Man, I love Cat Cora,” he said as he tossed the remote over to Nathan and stood. “I need to find a woman who cooks. I’m getting tired of living on Oreos and canned soup.”
Nathan had dozed off during the final minutes of the Iron Chef, so he had no idea whether or not Cat had dominated. He also didn’t care.
Seth stopped at the door. “Here’s the deal about the date. It’s a group thing. The mine bought two tables at the Lions Club Crab Feed. You’re invited, and Gina will be there.”
“Anybody else showing up stag?”
“You’re not stag, Nate. You’re with Gina. You’ll show up?”
“I guess.” Maybe his brothers were right. Maybe it was time to get back on the horse. Or to at least spend some time in the pasture getting reacquainted with the animal.
JOHN MARCENEK WAS WORKING on his pickup when Nathan went to see him on Saturday after putting in a half day at work.
“Here to check on me?” John said from beneath the chassis, when he heard the footsteps come into the garage. He rolled out from under the truck on his mechanic’s board and sat up, wiping the grease off his hands with the rag he pulled out of his coverall pocket. “Thought you’d be at work. Isn’t it Seth’s turn to babysit?”
“Are you taking your pills?”
“Yes.” He looked shifty, but Nathan had no choice but to believe him.
“Then I’m not here to babysit. I thought you might want to grab a bite.”
“Can’t. Chester’s coming over.” John smirked. “That lets you off the hook and now you can go do whatever.”
Nathan hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “I’m not on the hook, Dad.”
John stared down at the wood he was sitting on for a long moment. “Look. I appreciate what you guys are doing, but back off, all right? I can take care of myself. I’m only sixty-five, for cripe’s sake.”
“Yeah.”
John got to his feet, his movements awkward because of his bulk. “I heard you’re sniffing around Callie McCarran again.”
His father had always been a master at changing topics. His favorite technique was to touch a sore spot if he could find one, thus putting his opponent on the defensive.
“Where’d you hear that?” Nathan asked evenly. Because if it was from Seth or Garrett, he was going to have to rearrange their faces.
“Around.”
“If it’s true, then it’s none of your business. And if it’s not…same thing, Dad.”
“I don’t want to see you make an ass out of yourself,” John grumbled as he walked over to the workbench and put the ratchet on its place on the Peg-board. “It’s one thing to do it when you’re eighteen. Another when you’re pushing thirty.”
Nathan clenched his teeth. He was not going to rise to the bait. It was one thing to get pushed around by your old man at eighteen, another to be pushed around at thirty.
“Besides that,” John said, his back to his son as he pumped waterless hand cleaner into his palm, “I don’t think she’s the kind that’ll take the leg well. It’ll take a special woman to deal with that.”
Nathan just stared at his father’s back. What the hell? That was pretty much the last thing he wanted to hear.
“Bye, Dad.” He headed for his rig. John said nothing, and Nathan figured his dad had gotten his wish. He was alone. No more babysitter. Had it been Seth who’d stopped by, they would have ended up playing cribbage. Garrett would have dived into the truck engine with him. Nathan got a lecture on why no woman would want him.
He went home, changed into his bike clothes and took off. Why did his dad still bother him so much?
His dad was his dad, and Nathan was going to have to live with the fact that he was not the favorite son. Or the second favorite.
He rode an extra five miles up the soft dirt of the river road, blissfully alone and out of sight of the highway, before he turned around at the party spot where he and his brothers had done things their sheriff father wouldn’t have been thrilled about. He came to the fork where the left turn led down to the campsite by the river, and the right one led up a steep hill to the highway. He started up the hill, glancing down at the river as he climbed, then stopped pedaling when he saw the bike lying on its side, abandoned in the middle of the campground.
It looked like Callie’s.
He coasted back down the hill. It was Callie’s bike. Lying on its side near the stone fire ring. He came to a stop next to it, looked around, his heart beating faster.
He laid his own bike on the ground next to hers, dropped the helmet beside it and headed for the trail leading to the river.
At first he didn’t see anything, but then he spotted her in the water, next to the rickety old fishing dock, her head tilted back and eyes closed, her hair floating out behind her.
She was safe and she was beautiful.
Callie had always been beautiful, maybe even more so because she’d always seemed unaware of it. Or perhaps she didn’t care. She’d rarely worn makeup wh
en they’d been together, did little more to her hair than pull it into a braid or a ponytail. Now it was shorter, more stylish, but except for the time he’d dropped off the bike, and the first meeting in his office, it had been tied back.
He stood perfectly still on the bank, watching her. Finally he cleared his throat. Startled, Callie spun around in the water. Her expression cleared when she saw it was him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, standing and wading closer to the shore. As she walked into shallower water, he could see that she was wearing her biking clothes—Lycra shorts and a body-hugging top, which, interestingly, was transparent when wet. He felt ridiculous standing on the shore fully dressed in long athletic pants, too hot for the weather.
“Come on in. The water is wonderful.”
“Normal people don’t swim in October,” he pointed out. The water lapped at her thighs, which were firm and fit from all that walking, biking and trekking she did in the line of duty.
“Thank global warming. It’s not usually this hot in October. Why’re you here?”
“I saw your bike lying on its side and got concerned.”
“It doesn’t have a kickstand so I had to lay it down.”
“Really?” he asked, as if receiving new and vital information. She hit the heel of her palm on the water, splashing him.
Nathan took a few steps toward the water’s edge, leaned down and picked up a flat stone. He tossed it and it skipped six times before sinking.
“You’ve lost your touch.”
“Think you could do better?”
Callie started toward him, water running in rivulets off her body. She stopped in the shallows, considered the pebbles at her feet, then leaned down and picked one up.
He really wished her tank top left a little something to the imagination. Nathan idly dropped his hand and did his best to arrange himself before she looked up.
She smiled at him once she had her stone, and it was hard to tell whether it was in answer to his challenge or because she was aware that she was turning him on. She pulled her arm back, then let the stone go. One, two, three, four, five, six…and a blip.
“I win.”
“That last one wasn’t a full skip,” Nathan said.
“But you didn’t have anything past six.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Do you have a shirt or something with you?”
“Why?”
“Your breasts are showing through your top.”
Callie glanced down abruptly, then looked slowly back at him, checking him out in the process. He hoped by some miracle she missed his hard-on. He knew when her eyes finally hit his face that she hadn’t. She smiled.
“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” she said.
“I thought you might not want anyone else to see them.”
“I have a shirt. It’s by the dock.” She took a step back. “Come into the water, Nate.”
Again he shook his head, knowing he was being invited to do more than simply come for a swim.
“You can strip down to your shorts like you used to. I’ll never tell.”
But she would see a whole lot more of him than he was willing to show.
“I need to get back to town.”
“Fine.” She took a few steps toward him, slipped and regained her balance without going under. She held out her hand for stability, and the second he reached for it he realized he’d just fallen for the oldest trick on record. The next thing he knew he was off balance and being yanked forward. He landed with a giant splash and then surfaced, spitting water.
Callie laughed. “Man, Nate. You need to sharpen your instincts.”
“Maybe I just let you do that,” he sputtered.
“I’d like to believe it.” She reached to cup his face, smiling up at him as tiny streams of water ran down from her hair. She was going to kiss him. She was going to see just how far she could push this moment.
He put his hands on her wrists before she could press herself against him, held her at a distance.
“I’ve felt wood before, Nate.”
Fine. Let her think he was being modest. Anything was better than her pressing her gorgeous thighs against his wet nylon pants and feeling his hard, twisted wreck of a leg.
Callie took a step back and he released her wrists. “You are going to have one hell of a lonely life, Nate, if you find yourself so unable to forgive. People make mistakes. I made a mistake. I’m damned sorry about it.”
“Me, too, Callie.” Because if she hadn’t made that mistake and hadn’t kept making it by refusing to answer his calls and letters, they might have settled down and had a family. Or they might have gone their separate ways, but with closure. And if one of those circumstances had prevailed, he had a feeling he’d be a whole man today—in every way.
As he walked out of the river, his hair and face were already drying, but the nylon clung to his leg. He hoped the damp fabric didn’t show too much, or that Callie was too pissed off to notice—which she might well be, since she stayed in the water.
Or so he figured, because he walked up the trail and around the bend to the campsite without looking back.
CHAPTER NINE
CALLIE SAT ON THE DOCK and dried in the late afternoon sun. It was past time to get to work on her research for the next article, but still she sat, hugging her arms around her knees, trying to contain an aching sense of loss that had come out of nowhere when Nate had walked away.
She was going to have to cry uncle on this one. It was beginning to hurt too much, beating herself on the rock known as Nathan Marcenek.
She’d honestly believed that, given time, Nate would come round to her way of thinking, that they could be friends. Maybe even more…in a friendly ships-that-pass-in-the-night sort of way. Except that Nate wasn’t going to let it happen.
Today she’d gotten a glimpse of the old Nate, the one she’d loved. A tiny peek, just enough to make everything she’d ever felt for him burst alive again, and then he was gone, leaving her emptier and more alone than ever.
Damn it, she was used to being alone. She thrived on it.
Or rather, she had. Alone didn’t feel so good anymore, and that bothered her. A lot.
She’d made some superficial friends since arriving back in Wesley—Denise Logan, Dane Gerard and some other teachers at the high school. Superficial friends were the only kind she ever had. They demanded nothing of her and she returned the favor.
But she had hoped for something different with Nate. She’d wanted him to be a real friend, as he’d once been, maybe a lover, as he’d almost been. And she’d wanted him to ultimately understand when she had to leave, to recognize that wanderlust was part of her and that she simply couldn’t stay put very long. Six months had been her record.
What she wanted was selfish, really, and she was simply going to have to give it up.
Callie rose to her feet, brushed the sand and weathered wood splinters off her Lycra shorts and started climbing the trail to where she’d left her bike. She’d call the real estate agent tomorrow, get the ball rolling on the house. The market was dead at the moment, so a sale could take a while. She’d have a place to live while she finished the articles for Vince Michaels—and they were for him, since Nate wouldn’t have bought them if she hadn’t gone to his boss first. Nate honestly wanted nothing to do with her and it had taken her this long to get the message, loud and clear.
CALLIE WAS WRITING THAT night, late, when she saw headlights pull into the carport at the Hobarts’ place. Lights went on inside the house before the car beams were turned off. Someone had been inside waiting.
Callie went to the window. Her living room was dark, the only light coming from her computer monitor, so she wasn’t concerned about being caught spying. Mrs. Hobart got out of the pink Mustang, wearing black pants and a white long-sleeved shirt, the casino dealer’s uniform, and climbed the stairs. The boy stepped out into the light, holding the screen door open for his mother, who seemed to be halfheartedly scolding h
im—maybe for being up so late. It was 1:30 A.M.
Callie went back to her computer, but didn’t put her hands on the keyboard. What was the best way to handle this? She didn’t want to hurt the family, but it was wrong for these kids to be alone at that age until this early in the morning.
The next afternoon Callie walked over to the Hobarts’ and knocked on the door. The car was still at the curb, so the mom must be working the five-to-one evening shift. Callie automatically reached for the doorbell, then remembered from her previous visit that it didn’t work. Instead, she knocked on the screen door. A dog started yapping, the noise getting closer as footsteps approached. The blonde woman opened the door, weary and far from welcoming.
“Hi. I’m Callie McCarran. Your neighbor across the lot.”
The woman nodded, waiting, the frown still pulling her overly plucked eyebrows together.
“I wanted to introduce myself.”
She nodded without offering her name, looking out from around the door as if it was a protective barrier. She wasn’t making this easy.
“I substitute teach and I’ve seen your kids at school and in the neighborhood.” This wasn’t going well, judging from the woman’s expression. “If you ever needed a babysitter or anything, I’d be happy to let them stay at my place while you’re working.”
“Why’re you offering to babysit my kids?”
“I just noticed that sometimes they’re home alone, and if they needed a place to stay while you were at work—”
“Have you been spying on my kids? How the hell do you know they’re home alone?”
Callie couldn’t help drawing back at Mrs. Hobart’s aggressive tone. Oh, yeah, this was going great.
“Look,” the woman continued, “you stay away from the kids and you keep your nose out of my business, or I’ll call the sheriff on you.”
And wouldn’t Garrett have a field day with that?
“My kids are just fine and I do have someone who baby sits them when I work—not that it’s any of your business. My mom is here!”
