“It’s so good to hear your voice, Callie.”
Callie’s face heated with Brian’s words. She was blushing a lot lately which meant her circulation was still in good working order. “It’s good to hear yours too, Brian,” she practically cooed into the phone as she twirled a strand of her hair. “So how was your day?”
“I had you on my mind the entire time so it was great,” he replied easily.
Jeez, he was good at just saying whatever he felt, Callie mused. She had to envy that because she would never be able to reveal she’d done the very same thing. “Did you? Well, I thought about you too.” Here and there, not a lot, mind you…
“Yeah, I did. I can’t get you out of my head, Callie.”
Callie chuckled softly and pulled her pillow closer to her chest. “Well, I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
Brian’s voice became husky as he said, “What would make you think you aren’t important enough to fill up my day?”
Um, because I’m pretty damn boring? “I’m really sort of boring. I guess no one ever told me I filled their thoughts for an entire day before.”
“I guess that’s going to change because I could while away a day just thinking about you.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone, God he was so—so just everything. “Oh, thanks for the e-mail! It brightened my day, especially after the slew of e-mails I’ve been getting.”
Brian chuckled. “As long as my e-mail is the one that mattered, I’ll ignore the competition.”
The competition? Oh, no, no, no. No one could compete with Rambo. “I don’t know that they can be called competition, Brian. They’re research.” Callie didn’t know why she was reminding him that this had begun as a hunt for lab rats, not a boyfriend, but she was.
“Good, then I don’t have to eliminate them,” he said good-naturedly.
Ah, the mercenary man lives. “No, that could get ugly and I really don’t think the guy I went out with on my first date could handle anything more scary than a frost warning in Zimbabwe or something.”
Brian laughed again, sending shivers along Callie’s arms. “A really interesting guy, huh?”
Callie snorted. “To say the least. He was really sweet, but he got a little intense. More intense than one would expect over an Irish Cream Latte.”
“Kinda intense like us?”
Callie was treading water here in the shallow end of the pool, but Brian’s statement made her slip right into the deep end with a half-gainer off the back wall. She sighed into the phone, “Yeah, kinda…” and yes, that was her voice all breathy and giddy like some Marilyn Monroe knock-off.
Brian made a gravelly sound in his throat that sent a fresh platoon of chills up her spine. “What’s your last name, Callie? Mine’s Benson.”
“Winston. It’s Winston.”
“And you’re a Yankee, huh?”
Callie’s laughter bubbled in her throat. “Yeah, I’m a Yankee and damn proud of it. Can I ask you a question about your job or is it top secret and you’ll have to kill me after you tell me?”
Brian snickered, “Nah. Go ahead.”
“What’s it like to be gone for so long in a place like Iraq? It must be so lonely to be without things that are familiar. Don’t you miss your family?”
“Sometimes it is. I miss the craziest stuff at the craziest times, like French fries, but I’ve made some good friends in Iraq. People who’ve been in situations with me for a cause they feel is just. It’s not a nice place to be, but meeting the people there, learning what their lives have been like up until now has changed my view and given me a greater appreciation for my life here.”
Callie didn’t as a rule discuss politics, but this was about the people affected by politics and the human side of the story in Iraq gripped her heart. “Somehow, it makes me feel better that you have friends there.”
“I do and the experiences I’ve had there are something I wouldn’t trade. They have things that remind me of home too.”
“Really? Like what?”
“They have what we call cotton candy over there.”
“Really? Does it taste the same?”
“Yeah it does. They call it The Blessed Hair of Angels. We bought a bunch of it for some kids who were out playing one night.”
He liked children. Damn… ”That’s really nice, Brian. Have you spent much time with the children there?”
“Yes’um, I have. We play football and soccer. We bought them things to play with. They’re good kids.”
Callie could hear his grin. “I think we all forget sometimes that there are children involved. It hurts my heart to think they could be injured or maimed. They’re just babies.”
“That’s what makes you a good person, Callie. You have a good heart.”
Callie Winston had a soft spot in her heart for animals and children and no matter the nature of the politics it would never be okay for them to be hurt in the name of anything. “Thank you…I hate to see any kind of suffering, especially animals and children.”
“That’s right. You have a dog, don’t you? What’s his name?”
“Aston, he’s a beagle. I share custody of him with my ex-husband. I told you that, right?”
“That’s kinda bizarre, huh?”
Callie frowned, “Yeah it’s kind of bizarre and completely unnecessary, but Frank fought for him, so now Aston sees him twice a week.”
“Twice a week, does he get overnights and every other weekend too?” Brian teased, his tone light and easy.
Callie smiled into the phone. “No, just two days a week at the Barbie dream house.”
“The Barbie dream house?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, that sounded bitter didn’t it? I poke fun at Frank’s newest girlfriend. I call her Barbie…sorry.”
“Ahh, a bleached blonde?”
“Hah! How did you know? Yes, she’s the antithesis of me and it makes me wonder why Frank ever chose me in the first place.”
“He had a coupla brain cells back then?” Brian offered. “Frank chose you because you were easy to mold into what he wanted you to be,” Brian said rather astutely.
An accurate assessment for sure, Callie mused. Katherine said the same thing and when Callie wanted to grow and move ahead, do something that was all her own, Frank found another floozy to nail. Finally, it became a vicious cycle Callie had to break and she did, but not without plenty of heartache. Frank tortured her in the courts and then he tortured her some more for good measure. “Yeah, yeah he did. If Frank couldn’t be the focus of my everything then he went off and found someone else to make him feel like a man.”
Brian whistled into the phone, “I’m sorry, Callie. Like I said, he needs his butt whooped,” Brian’s tone bordered angry. It made Callie pause for a moment. Maybe he just hated all injustices in the world, but for the moment it left her feeling protected and safe, something she’d not felt in so long she couldn’t remember.
Her sigh was of resignation. “Really, why bother, Brian? I’m so much happier now. He’s off doing his bleached blonde of the moment and I don’t pace the floor every Friday night hoping he’s not at some bar getting laid.” Oh! Callie cringed as the words flowed from her mouth like a spilled bottle of water. Talk about too much information. What the hell was wrong with her? She was just spewing bitter and it looked and sounded resentful. Well, she was resentful that she’d allowed herself to be treated so badly, but that was like date-ten information, not your first damn phone call, Callie.
“He terrorized you. He conditioned you to believe you couldn’t manage without him, that’s why you didn’t leave to begin with.”
Yeah. There were moments when leaving Frank and trying life on her own overwhelmed her far more than his bimbos did. “That’s true. You’re right. Sometimes it was almost easier to stay with him because I really believed I couldn’t survive on my own, but when push came to shove, I hit a wall and I just couldn’t climb over it. So I filed for divorce and it was the ugliest thing I�
��ve ever gone through. Frank fought me for everything, including Aston. Finally, I let him have almost everything. I didn’t walk away with nothing, but I caved because it was just too much pressure. I’m not terribly good at confrontation,” she confessed. Just in case Brian was wondering if she’d ever stalk him or something.
Brian’s voice bordered angry when he said, “That kinda pisses me off, Callie because you deserved better. Frank’s stupidity is my good fortune though, so I won’t harp on it.”
A sigh, long and shaky escaped from Callie’s lips. Brian was so open with his thoughts and Callie envied that, true or not he said what came to mind and Callie would never be able to do that with the ease Brian had. “I think leaving Frank was the best thing I could have ever done. It was my good fortune. I don’t mind being single. It beats being married to someone who thought he was single.”
Brian laughed again. “I’ll bet he did. So tell me, where is your family? Do you have siblings?”
Callie sat up and crossed her legs, putting her pillows behind her. “No siblings and my dad died two years ago, but my mom’s here. She lives in a retirement village. She’s pretty great. Never nags me, never pressures me to give her grandchildren and she loves Aston.”
Brian chuckled in her ear and Callie found herself pressing the phone more closely to her ear, savoring the warm tendril of heat his laughter left behind. “Your parents are in Mississippi, but do you have siblings?”
“Two younger brothers.”
“Are you close to each other?”
“Yeah, we are.” There was warmth in his voice when he said it. “We’re all pretty close. I miss them, but I didn’t want to stay on a farm all of my life. So I joined the service and then became a mercenary.”
“So adventure’s your thing?” Callie asked, wondering if Brian wanted a relationship with someone or he just wanted someone casual to have a fling with. Callie wasn’t convinced that Brian wanted anything more than someone to play with on the occasional visit home. She didn’t know why that mattered to her either, it just did.
“Sure, I used to love the adventure of it. The travel and whatever, but I have no roots anywhere besides back home in Mississippi. I love my family, but there’s going to come a time when I want more. I dunno, lately I’ve been feeling sentimental about stuff, I guess.”
“That’s not something you’ve ever felt before now?” Callie was as sentimental as they came. She couldn’t watch a damn Hallmark commercial without bursting into tears, so she couldn’t imagine not feeling sentimental.
“Nope. I mean I miss things from home. I miss my family, but I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the bigger picture lately and it doesn’t always include Iraq—even though I know there are still things that need to be done there.”
Now would be the time to say, “Nice meeting you, Brian. You’re deep as the ocean is wide, but I don’t want to be someone’s some-of-the-time”. Brian was straddling a fence now and if he chose the side that kept him here it would have to be of his own accord. Callie was growing oddly attached to this man and she knew she couldn’t take it if something happened to him or if she pursued this and got hurt when the time came for Brian to skip off to parts unknown. Now was the time to say goodbye, but she clung to the phone like it was the last bag of sour cream potato chips on earth, wondering when this had become a possibility rather than a flirtation. “I suspect they’ll come a time when you can’t do what you do anymore, Brian, but you’ll know when that is. Only you can make that choice.” Callie would always stand by that conviction—no matter that it was Brian she was sharing it with. She understood Brian’s dedication and it had nothing to do with the money or killing people because he had a big gun. It had to do with his need to protect his loved ones here and the ones he’d come to love in Iraq. Callie knew that much about Brian Benson was the truth—she would never understand why she knew, but she did.
Brian was silent for a moment and then he said, “Yeah, I know. It’s those choices that are making life a whole lot harder these days. I’m away more than I’m here.”
Was this Brian’s way of letting her know this wasn’t something that she should ever expect? The warning sign Brian could remind her with later if they kept this connection up and he ended it? Her “I told you so”? Hang up the phone, Callie. Say, “Bye, Brian” just like that, then go back to your life and forget you ever talked to him. You’ll be hurt if this keep up and it will be painful. No more pain, Callie. Her alarm bells were ringing in her head, yet she couldn’t. Hanging up meant never being able to share a small part of this man’s life and for now, even that was good enough.
Hookay, the practical, pessimistic side of her brain warned her, knock yourself out, but when you’re cryin’ in your Häagen Dazs Raspberry Ripple, don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
Ignoring the better side of caution, Callie said. “You are gone quite a bit. But when you decide being here is what fulfills you more, you’ll be able to let go of the responsibility that ties you to Iraq Brian, and you’ll be ready to move onto the second half of your life.”
Brian’s sigh was filled with a mixture of frustration and what Callie sensed was longing. “I feel like there’s so much left to do, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to come home to someone every night. I’ve never done that.”
Callie smiled and remembered the comfort that once brought and then, the pain. “There is a certain amount of comfort in the same-old same-old, but I don’t know if it can beat doing something as important as what you do, Brian.”
“The same-old same-old has its own importance, Callie. It’s real and reassuring.”
“Sometimes it’s reassuring and then others it can be hell.” It was never reassuring that the same-old same-old would entail having your husband hook up.
“If the same-old same-old includes good things, things that are meant to be, then that’s not at all like hell to me. I’ve seen hell and it was never reassuring,” Brian said, his voice wistful and so warm Callie could feel it slither along the edges of her heart.
Callie had no words for Brian’s. Her bitterness seeped into everything she thought and did. It had jaded her. “I know what you mean, I do. I think for me it’s the residual effects of my marriage. Sometimes an adventure would have been a welcome thing or if Frank had less adventures and more of the same-old same-old, which was me. Sometimes it makes me seem very bitter. I’m not bitter about my marriage ending. That was a relief. I’m bitter that I didn’t do anything about it, that I let myself believe what he said when he told me he’d never do it again.”
“I’d be bitter too, Callie, but you learned from it, didn’t you?”
Oh, yes, she’d learned alright. She’d learned that no matter how long you knew someone—you never really knew them. “I learned that I’m not a very good judge of character. I don’t trust myself to make the right choices and that sounds bitter too, but it’s the truth.”
“No, Callie,” Brian denied her statement softly against her ear. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, but I’m glad you told me how you feel.”
Callie wasn’t glad at all. This phone call was turning into some form of therapy. Sort of like her own warning to Brian that she had issues with trust and they weren’t going away. “Wow, it’s getting late. You’d better go get some sleep,” she said lightly, but she didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to hang up the phone and let go of his warmth, the strength and power his words evoked.
“Well, I don’t want to, but you’re right and you’d better sleep too. Can I call you again tomorrow?”
A sigh of relief flooded her and she held the phone away to muffle it. “I’d like that, Brian,” Callie said, cool as a cucumber. Good, she was doing good at not sounding like a needy, whiny, clingy baby.
“Good, me too. Night, sweet pea.”
Callie’s insides began that damn boil again when he called her sweet pea. It did something to her. “Byyye,” she said kind of drawn out as a result of her breathlessness.<
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He chuckled into the phone, making her pause before she hung up. “Why are you laughing?” she wondered out loud.
“It’s the way you say goodbye. I’m gonna tell you the truth here. It does something to me.”
Ohhhh. Callie fanned herself. That she might have the power to affect this man with just her voice seemed simply unattainable, but she’d take it and keep it anyway. Callie giggled into the phone. “Night, Brian. Sweet dreams…”
“Same to you, Callie.”
Callie flipped her cell phone shut and lay back on her bed, barely breathing, numb, tickled flamingo pink, anxious, delirious, decidedly verklempt.
Callie Winston, you’re getting in deep.
And the water was just fine.
Chapter 10
As Callie prepared for her date with John/ZoomZoom, the movie lover, she decided it was rather unfair of her to go out with him when her thoughts were of nothing but Brian Benson.
Brian of the voice like hot butterscotch topping and totally melting her ice cream.
Brian, whom she’d spent six hours on the phone with last night, giggling into the wee hours of the morning like a high school girl.
Brian, who made her sigh and sent her pulse soaring to inter-galactic heights.
Brian, Brian—John, it’s John, Callie, her conscience reminded her. Remember? With the userid ZoomZoom?
John, yes, John—who’d worried she might not have all of her pearly whites. Callie swished some mouthwash around her gums and spit it out in the sink. John had nothing to worry about. She had all of her teeth.
She was beginning to feel like a horse.
As she gathered her purse Callie decided gathering her thoughts would be a good place to start. She needed to quit thinking about Brian and focus on her task.
John. Guinea pig number two.
Pulling into the parking lot of the theater she zeroed her gaze in on the front of the building, trying to pull up a picture in her head of what John looked like. A flash of Brian’s grin whizzed past her mind’s eye.
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