She knew enough from listening to him talk to his friends about Navy SEALs to realize what he intended to become would put him in incredible danger. “How could you do that?” she cried, slapping his chest.
Derek reached out his hands, but she dodged backward. He’d stood, brows drawn and raked a hand through his hair. “I thought you’d be happy. You know I don’t want to go to college, but this could mean everything to us. We’ll travel—”
“You’ll travel. I’d be stuck in the desert in California or on the East coast while you…” Her voice broke, causing her to pause and suck in a deep breath. When she had herself back under control, she leveled a narrow-eyed stare on him. “Have I ever once said I wanted to travel?”
His dark brows furrowed in a deep frown. “Well, yeah, you dream about goin’ to Paris.”
“For a week.” She glared, all her anger there for him to see. “How could you do this to me?”
His mouth firmed, and his expression closed. All the sparkle in his blue eyes dimmed. After that, the last days of high school had been a misery because he’d barely spoken to her.
Which only reinforced what she’d always known. Love never lasted. And his love of adventure was stronger than anything he felt for her.
Still, they hadn’t been able to completely break their bonds. Their mutual attraction was just too strong. They’d entered another phase of their relationship and seen each other off and on over the ten years he’d been away, even going on a dates when he was in town, which they’d both enjoyed. She’d written letters and sent him care packages filled with homemade cookies when he’d complained about mess hall food. “Met” his buddies through their correspondence, telling her how much they enjoyed her cookies and through the Skyped conversations they loved to interrupt with friendly shoves and wide grins. She felt she knew them. After all, this on-again, off-again connection had been going on for a few years.
The last time Derek had leave, he’d been a constant fixture on her doorstep. But once again on the last day before he caught a plane back to Virginia, he’d asked her to think about marrying him.
“Callie, I love you, have loved you for so long,” he’d said, holding both her hands. “But we’re not kids anymore. We both deserve more. Marry me. You don’t have to see the world—be my world. The rest will all work out.”
She’d swayed toward him, mesmerized by the heat in his eyes, her body still humming from his lovemaking. But she’d shaken her head and slowly pulled away her hands. Maybe out of habit. She wasn’t sure, because dear God, that time she’d been tempted to say yes.
The moment she’d withdrawn, she’d seen his jaw tighten. He’d given her a small smile. “Baby, I can’t do this anymore,” he’d said, his voice raw. “I won’t bother you again.”
Seeing him turn to walk away filled her with panic, and her breath lodged painfully in her chest. “Derek, I’ll write.”
“Don’t,” he’d said over his shoulder, a hand dropping as though he were tossing something away.
That had been five months ago, and she still heard that single, bitter word repeat in her dreams. Now, it was too late for anything but regrets.
The doorbell rang, and she closed the screen just as Derek ended the song and stared one last time into the camera. She’d frozen that moment dozens of times to read his expression. There was a hint of a promise, a firmness in his jaw. He’d made up his mind about something. He’d known even then he was going to move on if she didn’t give him the answer he longed for. The song he’d chosen, Broken Road, had said it all.
What had he expected? She’d told him on a dozen different occasions that they had no future, because he was the boy who wanted to see the world and she was girl who wanted to plant deep roots. But at last, he’d taken her at her word.
The doorbell rang again. She glanced down and grimaced. Today was her day off, and she was still dressed in her pajamas and a tatty old robe. It being the first week of December, the morning air would hold a little frosty bite. But what did it matter?
“Coming,” she called out, pasting on a polite smile. When she swung open the door, Margie the mail lady was waiting there, a friendly grin on her broad face, which exposed a gap from a missing tooth. Something that always caught Callie’s eye. Hadn’t the woman ever heard of partials?
“I have a package for you. It was too big to put inside your mailbox.” She handed the box to Callie. “You got big plans this weekend?”
Holding the package against her chest, Callie snorted and hoped the other woman wouldn’t linger long on her stoop. “This is Two Mule. Unless I hit the lottery, it’s gonna be the same ole, same ole.”
Margie gave her a wink. “Well, maybe you’ll have a better weekend than you expect,” she said, her smile turning sly. “How’s that handsome boyfriend of yours doin’?”
“Not a clue.” Callie shook her head. “Derek and I broke up a while ago.”
The older woman sighed. “A damn shame that. He’s a good-lookin’ man.”
Callie’s smile was getting stiff, but at last, Margie waved and backed off the porch.
“Thanks for delivering this…” she called after the postal lady, “…whatever it is.” She closed the door, eyeing the return address. There wasn’t one.
After heading to the kitchen counter, she dug for scissors in a drawer, then slit the packing tape to open it. Inside was a large book, an album, she realized. She pulled it from the box and flipped the cover back, only to draw a deep, sharp breath. The first photo was of her and Derek at the prom, both looking so young and in love. She flipped more pages and realized this album was Derek’s, because every page was filled with pictures that chronicled his life—his time with her in high school, his years of training, each graduation, pictures of his friends looking dusty and tired, sitting in some tent or barracks, interspersed with more pictures of her—ones she’d sent of her life, ones he’d taken when they were together. The album spoke of a disjointed life, but one that included the things that were most important to him, her, and his new military family.
Callie burst into tears. It was all too much—the melancholy that had lingered ever since she’d watched the video—now this? Her heart broke into little pieces as moisture tracked down her cheeks and her nose began to run. She wanted to pitch the album into the nearest trash can so she didn’t have to look at it again, but she kept it open, held at arms’ length so her tears wouldn’t spot a glossy page. Why had he sent this to her?
The phone rang and she hiccupped, wiped her face with the back of one hand, and closed the album, slipping it under the seat of the sofa as she headed to the phone. With a sniff, she lifted the receiver to her ear.
“How are you doin’ today?”
Macy Pettigrew’s whisky-flavored voice had Callie straightening her shoulders. Her boss and best friend was the least sentimental woman she knew. She didn’t call employees or her friends to simply ask them whether they were well, so the fact Callie had been wallowing in self-pity wasn’t something she was prepared to share. Macy would only tsk and tell her to she’d made her bed—without Derek—and now was the time to pull up her big girl panties.
“Do you need me for something?” Callie asked nonchalantly, an effort that was spoiled by her breathless delivery.
“Do you need me? You sound upset.”
A frown drew her brows together. “Really?” she muttered. “Who is this? Did aliens steal my boss’s body?”
“Ha-ha. Your voice sounds funny. You gotta cold, hon?”
“Allergies,” Callie said, wiping her eyes one last time. “That why you called me? You worried I won’t be in to work on Monday?”
Macy chuckled. “Margie’s already been by your house. Said you looked a little down, and wondered if you were moonin’ over some fine man you kicked to the curb.”
Slumping against the nearest wall, Callie rolled her eyes. The gift of a small town was also its curse. The grapevine was short as hell. Had someone had seen her watching Derek on her computer?
“Am I really so predictable?”
After a long pause, Macy cleared her throat. “Saw his mama yesterday in the grocery store. She says he’s comin’ home. Be here any day. You gonna see him?”
Derek’s coming home? Callie gripped the handset hard. No wonder Margie had been grinning. She must have known. “I already told you; we broke up the last time he came home. He hasn’t contacted me so I don’t know his plans.”
Macy cleared her throat. “Still, the fact he’s back so soon has to mean something.”
“Maybe he just misses his mom. The last time he left he made it clear we were done.” Callie closed her eyes against a new welling of tears.
A sigh drifted over the line. “You need a pick-me-up? We could meet at Shooters for drinks.”
“I don’t feel much like company.”
“Well, if you need a shoulder to cry on…”
“Thanks, Macy.” Callie let her gaze stray to the computer monitor where Derek’s stare seemed to meet hers across the distance. “Macy, did I make a mistake?”
“I can’t tell you that, hon. You had your reasons. Sorry-assed ones, if you ask me. But Derek’s always known what’s important to you. And he knows you don’t trust easy. If he got tired of tryin’ to prove to you that you can trust him, can’t say as I blame him.”
Why did hearing her perfectly legitimate reasons for saying no make her decision sound stupid? Callie sniffed. “Sure you don’t need me this weekend?”
“No properties to show. Stay home. Get stinkin’ drunk if you have to. He will show up in town, and you need to be ready.”
After Callie hung up, she glanced down at her ratty robe. She’d had her cry. And Macy knew she wasn’t much of a drinker, but Callie got her point. She’d spend the weekend memorizing Derek’s photo album and pouring through memories—one last time before she delivered it to his mother and moved on. Had he sent her the pictures as his way of purging her from his past? Derek was lost to her. She’d been the one to let him go, and she had no one but herself to blame for that choice.
The doorbell rang again, and she rolled her eyes. If her mother was standing on her step, ready to tell her to go after her man seein’ as he was coming home…
She opened the door. Sunlight blinded her but outlined the tall frame of the man waiting on her porch. Not that she needed to see his features to know who he was. Broad shoulders seemed to span the doorframe. A taut abdomen and narrow hips drew her hungry glance. He wore blue jeans, a tee that stretched over his muscled torso, and his old scuffed cowboy boots. His feet shifted.
He reached out a finger and tipped up her face. An achingly familiar gesture she’d missed. “Mornin’, Callie,” he said softly.
Meeting his blue gaze was pure torture—mostly due to her traitorous racing pulse. “Hi, Derek.” He was looking so good her entire body melted, and she leaned against the doorframe. “Didn’t know you were back in town.” So what if she was lying and he likely knew it. News like this traveled faster than a wildfire in drought-dry grass. But she needed a moment to regroup her scattered thoughts.
“Arrived this mornin’. Mom cooked me breakfast. Thought I’d hit all the stops.” His shoulders lifted. “Funny thing is, first place I had to be was here.”
She swallowed. His voice held a note of reticence, like he wasn’t sure he was welcome. But she could hardly invite him inside. Not when his face was plastered in pause mode on her computer screen. Waving a hand the length of her body, she cleared her throat. “I’m not dressed.”
“I can wait.”
“You can’t come in.”
His head lifted, his jaw tightening. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No.” And even though she knew giving in was a mistake, that being anywhere near him was sure to unleash all the raw, hurtful feelings she’d been carrying around since the last time she saw him, she couldn’t let him leave like this. “Just let me get dressed.”
His eyes narrowed, and a small smile tilted up one corner of his mouth. “I’ve seen you in less.”
Her heartbeat skittered, and her mind raced for another excuse. “My house is a mess.”
“Always is.”
This time, she squinted up at him, irritation beginning a slow burn, something she was grateful for because now she could face him with her backbone intact. “Five minutes.” She stepped back and shut the door, and then sagged against it, her forehead softly banging against the sturdy oak.
She drew a deep fortifying breath, and then began to grin. He was here—the first place he’d come after seeing his mama. That had to mean something. But then she remembered the album, and her breath caught in her throat. Was he here to finish unloading old memories? To tell her face to her face that he’d found someone else?
Backing away from the door, she let that thought linger for about two seconds. He wasn’t wearing a ring, something she’d noted when she’d been caught staring. So, the man was still fair game. Lifting her chin, she headed toward her bedroom, stopping by her desk to shut off the monitor to kill the damning picture.
For the first time in five months, she experienced a thrill in her heart. Sure, nothing had been resolved between them. He was still stubbornly hell-bent on roaming the world, and she had a life here, filled with friends and work she enjoyed. But maybe, this time, they could find some middle ground. She’d be open this time. Really listen to his hopes and dreams. She wasn’t her mother, and Derek wasn’t like any of her loser stepdads. After that last fight, she’d come to the realization of how wrong she’d been to paint him in the same light. Dead wrong to limit her dreams based on her mama’s history.
One thing she’d learned in all this these months alone was that a life without Derek was no life at all.
Dreaming by the Sea (an erotic paranormal short story) Page 3
