by Amy Andrews
‘He said he was tired, it had been a long day and a crazy few weeks. And he was right, it had been, and I was so happy…I let it go. Then the next night there was another excuse and the next until every night there was a reason not to make love to his wife. I didn’t know what to do. I tried everything that my inexperienced little mind could think of. I bought lingerie, I cooked dishes famed for their aphrodisiac powers, I…’
Callie stopped. Some of the things she’d done to get her husband to want her were still humiliating. She joined her hand with Cade’s, traced the network of veins there as she continued.
‘I hired some truly awful dirty movies. He was nice about it those first couple of months, apologetic, telling me it’d get better. But when it didn’t we started to argue. I wanted us to see someone about it. He refused, saying there was nothing wrong with him, that it was me. That I wasn’t sexy enough. That I didn’t do it for him.’
Cade could hear Callie’s voice thickening with emotion as she spoke and not even the night could cloak her troubled gaze as he absently rubbed his palms against her belly in a soothing gesture. That certainly explained why Callie had needed to have sex with him after dinner with her parents when Joe’s name had come up.
‘You have to know now that it’s not true, right?’ he murmured.
Callie nodded. ‘Oh, I’ve got a lot of years on me now that says Joe was wrong.’ But a part of her would never recover from his taunts.
‘Is he gay?’ Cade figured he’d might as well just come out and say it. ‘Because I don’t understand how any straight guy could have you willing and able in his bed and not take full advantage.’
‘You know, after I left I did wonder from time to time but, honestly, I can’t see it. He’d been with a lot of girls before me. Hell, you heard Mum—he’s currently got one knocked up, moved away from Broken Hill with her. You’ve got to understand—if you’re from the land you don’t just leave. He has to be utterly besotted.’
‘Was he…dysfunctional? Did he have problems getting an erection?’
‘Oh, no, he seemed to have plenty of five a.m. specials.’
‘But what about at other times?’
Callie remembered a particularly mortifying incident. ‘I caught him masturbating once. It looked in fully functioning order to me.’
Cade dropped a kiss on her shoulder. ‘That can’t have been easy.’
‘Nope. I was pretty pissed off about it.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said I should be happy he wasn’t going outside our marriage to find satisfaction.’
Cade winced. ‘Ouch.’ He dropped another couple of kisses. His own home life may have been a wreck but his sexual experiences had always been positive. They’d given him a good sense of himself. ‘So you left?’
‘No. He called it off. It caused a bit of a scandal. I was devastated, humiliated that I couldn’t make my marriage work and at having to move back home again. My mother was horrified. How was she going to hold her head up around town again? And then when word got out that Joe had gone for an annulment instead of a divorce, the speculation and gossip were rife. Thank God for Mr Barry. Getting out of Broken Hill was the best thing I did.’
‘Amen,’ Cade agreed. He didn’t say anything for a while and then something occurred to him. ‘So who did you lose It to?’
Callie looked at the ceiling. Another story she’d never told anyone. It must have been something about the darkness encouraging confidences because she found herself spilling this one, as well.
‘Some bar hook-up when I first went to Sydney. I don’t even know what his name was but he told me I was sexy and he looked at me in a way Joe never had. It was pretty sordid, really—in the back of his car parked out the front of the uni. But I was sick of feeling so gauche, pretending I knew what my friends were talking about when the conversation turned to sex, which it inevitably did.’
Cade propped his chin on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Everyone’s first should be special.’
‘I didn’t want special. I wanted it gone and he was more than happy to oblige.’
Cade watched the determined set of her jaw. He knew now why she liked to set the sexual agenda. He lifted a hand and brushed a stray strand of hair back off her forehead. Then he stroked a couple more times because he liked touching her.
‘What can I do to make it up to you?’
Callie pulled her eyes off the ceiling as his finger swirled around her belly button. Just looking at her like that, with sex and lust and desire in his eyes, made it up to her. Bolstered her sexual ego.
She palmed his cheek, smiling. ‘Just how dirty is dirty?’ she asked.
Cade grinned, his fingers trekking lower. ‘Open your legs and I’ll demonstrate.’
An hour later the urgent trilling of an alarm pierced their deep sexual exhaustion. Cade sat bolt upright in bed, displacing Callie who was disorientated for a second.
‘The bloody cake!’ he swore, leaping out of bed.
Callie was right behind him when he opened the bedroom door to the acrid smell of something burning. They hurried to the kitchen to find black smoke bleeding out from around the door.
‘Hell!’ Callie said, dashing to the oven door and yanking it open. A cloud of smoke billowed out, stinging her eyes and pushing her back.
Cade grabbed a cloth from the nearby bench as the smoke escaped. He reached into the oven and pulled out the cake, keeping his head averted as he rushed the burnt offering to the sink and threw it in then turned the tap on. Callie turned the oven off, coughing as her lungs protested. While Cade doused the cake she scurried to the sliding doors, opening them wider then flicking the nearby fan switch to high to dissipate the smoke.
When the alarm finally stopped ringing Cade turned away from the sink and looked at her surveying her apartment, hand on hip. They were both breathing hard. ‘I hope no one called a fire truck,’ he said. ‘We’re not exactly dressed for company.’
Callie looked down at her nudity then at his and laughed. The crisis had been averted and they did look kind of absurd.
‘Shall we go back to bed?’ he asked.
Callie paused. Anyone else she’d have asked to leave. She made a habit of never spending the night with anyone. But this felt different somehow. She’d opened up to him—they’d opened up to each other. She’d been as emotionally naked to him earlier as she was now physically naked. And she didn’t want him to go. She nodded. ‘Right behind you.’
Callie woke the next morning to her alarm clock at 6:00 a.m. Back home in Broken Hill she’d never needed an alarm clock. But she’d quickly embraced the city habit when partying and shift work had taken over her life.
She was disappointed to find she was alone.
A first.
The fact that she hadn’t suggested Cade leave after their rude awakening was also a first. Having been so scarred from her relationship with Joe, she’d spent a long time running from any romantic entanglements. She’d learned early that relationships often didn’t live up to their expectations and she’d doubted she could ever survive another disaster.
But she felt a connection with Cade. The same kind of kindred-spirit connection she felt with Alex—only more. She loved Alex as a friend but she already knew that Cade was never going to be friend material.
Maybe if they took their time through the remaining dates, if they took it slowly between the two of them, it could become something more?
Callie rolled out of bed with a smile on her face.
She tracked Cade down in his office an hour later. ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I bought you something.’
Cade looked up from his computer screen. Callie was holding a bakery box. He gave her a ghost of a smile. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
Cade had come into work early to check on Trudy. Satisfied all was okay he’d come back to his office to catch up on some paperwork. An email from Alex had been waiting in his inbox and he’d opened it eagerly. There had been the usual
stuff about Layla and work, but a mention that an L.A. real estate agent had let Alex know their old house was up for sale had been unexpected and taken the shine off yesterday and his night with Callie.
It had reminded him of a time when he hadn’t been a successful prenatal surgeon. When he’d been trapped in an inner suburban shoebox with a drunken, neglectful father. It had reminded him of a past he’d been running away from ever since. And that coming to Australia had been another escape. An escape from the mess with Sophie.
And that was what he was supposed to be doing.
His brother’s cheery Say hello to Callie sign-off had also grated.
It had been a general downer.
‘It was the least I could do,’ Callie said, sitting on the chair opposite him, ‘after promising you cake and not delivering.’
She waited for him to make some quip about just how well she’d delivered but it didn’t arrive. ‘You left early.’
‘Yes. I wanted to check on Trudy.’
Callie nodded. ‘I’m on my way there now.’ She asked some questions about Trudy’s progress but Callie got the impression that Cade’s mind wasn’t on the job. Was he regretting not having stuck to his eight-date edict last night?
When they’d exhausted the subject of Trudy, Callie tentatively stepped into the breach. ‘Cade…I just want you to know that I had a really great night last night.’ She smiled. ‘You sure know how to show a girl a good time. And the stuff I told you…I’ve never told anyone about Joe…about being married. Not even Alex knows.’
Cade’s breath seized in his lungs. You sure know how to show a girl a good time. The sentence reverberated around his head—they were the exact words that Sophie had used. And Callie had the same expression on her face and in her gaze—the one Sophie had got when she’d looked at him. Dewy-eyed.
And right in that moment Cade realised he’d made a terrible mistake. A massive error in judgement. That was exactly why he’d been keeping away from women and the dating scene in the first place. Things were getting into dangerous territory. Hadn’t he, too, told her stuff he’d never confessed to another living soul before?
This thing with Callie was now a fling, bordering on something else—the next thing, whatever that was. And he remembered way too vividly what had happened the one and only other time he’d had a fling. Sophie had wound up pregnant and then, when he’d been shocked and angry and unable to cope, she’d taken a handful of pills and a bottle of vodka, winding up in Emergency then miscarrying the baby.
A baby he hadn’t wanted. A baby he felt guilty about every day.
Of course Callie wasn’t likely to turn into a bunny boiler but he still felt the wild gallop of his heart as the walls started to close in on him. They were going too quickly and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t be responsible for Callie’s baggage. Her emotional or psychological wellbeing. Not when he wasn’t coping with his own.
Cade raked his hand through his hair. ‘I think we need to talk… .’
CHAPTER TEN
IT DIDN’T TAKE Callie long to figure out she’d got things horribly wrong. Way to go, Callie. Way to read a situation!
And that was before he’d even said a word.
He had that look. The same look she’d always employed when she was about to tell some hapless guy who hadn’t known the score or had thought he was going to be the one to change her that she really had meant only one night.
The whole it’s-not-you-it’s-me routine.
‘I don’t think we should keep dating,’ Cade said, starting out tentatively. ‘The only reason I said eight was to keep you away from my body as long as possible.’ He shot her a smile. ‘But I think after last night that’s kind of moot.’
Callie nodded automatically. ‘Of course.’
‘It’s just that neither of us do this kind of thing as a rule,’ Cade added. ‘In fact, we studiously avoid doing it, so we may as well just…quit while we’re ahead.’ Before something dire happened.
‘Of course,’ Callie repeated. ‘Absolutely.’
‘I came here to concentrate on my career and that’s what I really need to do.’
‘Yes…of course… . Couldn’t agree more,’ Callie said, hoping for the convenience of a hole to swallow her. She stood. ‘As you know, I don’t date at all so this was always an aberration for me.’
‘Callie.’ Cade stood, too. Callie was taking it as he’d expect from someone as relationship-phobic as himself. But he knew more about her soft underbelly now.
The insecurities beneath her tough exterior.
‘This isn’t about me not finding you attractive enough.’
Callie swatted her hand through the air at him. ‘I know that.’ She did. She really did. ‘I think you’ve more than proved that to me,’ she said, injecting light and bounce into her voice.
‘Yeah, but something tells me there’s part of you that will always see certain actions from men as a comment on your desirability.’
Callie shrugged. ‘Years ago maybe, but not today. I’m past that.’
Cade’s eyebrow kicked up. ‘And that night on the beach was…?’
Callie grinned, despite the situation. That night on the beach had been amazing. ‘Those were extenuating circumstances.’
Cade grinned back at her, the initial discomfort at the awkward conversation evaporating as he remembered Callie on the beach wearing nothing but sand.
‘So…’ He paused. ‘Friends?’
Callie nodded, still smiling. Looks like he was going to have to be friend material. Okay. That was fine. She could do friends. She could intubate/cannulate/resuscitate a twenty-four-weeker—she could do friends. ‘I’d like that. Just like me and Alex. Keeping it in the family,’ she joked.
Cade nodded also but he didn’t find it very funny. His and Alex’s relationship had been rocky but it had mended—grown and matured—and they were as close now as they had been as kids. But part of him didn’t want Callie to be friends with Alex.
And he wasn’t even going to think about how screwed up that was.
For the next few days Callie refused to let her mind wander into what-ifs. Cade had made his position clear and she respected that. She really did. Admired it, even. So few people said what they meant these days, particularly in the relationship part of their lives. If Cade wanted to be friends, then she’d make it work.
She was grateful to him, really, for getting her back on track. She’d made it to thirty-three as a respected, successful neonatal specialist. She led a rich, full life without the hassles and disappointments of romantic entanglements. She was exactly where she wanted to be.
And now she had a friend to share her accomplishments with. She’d missed Alex on the other side of the world and while they emailed and chatted on Skype, it wasn’t the same thing as having that easy camaraderie surrounding you on a daily basis.
And now she could have that with Cade.
Sure, it was bound to be a little awkward at first. More awkward than it had been with Alex because she and Cade had been more emotionally intimate right from the start. She and Alex had shared a one-time physical thing and their emotional closeness had happened gradually over the months that had followed. With Cade the emotional and physical had been heavily intertwined from the get-go.
But the awkwardness would wear away in time and their mutual respect and professional admiration would be a solid basis for friendship.
In the meantime, she was grateful to be too busy to think about it too much. The unit was full and they had some complex premmies who required very intensive care. She got home each night after fourteen hours on her feet and was just too exhausted to think about anything else other than her bed.
Of course, she couldn’t control what went on behind closed eyelids, which was frustrating, but her dreams were bound to lessen in time, surely?
On Monday morning, after no complications, Trudy was discharged from hospital. Callie hoped that they could get the pregnancy along as far as possible to give th
e baby the best start in life but, like her dreams, that wasn’t something she could control, either. Still, she’d be keeping a close eye on Trudy’s progress via Nikolai.
She went back to her office after popping in to say her goodbyes to Trudy and Elliot. She had a smile on her face, knowing that she’d been a part of an amazing journey in the couple’s lives. Thanks to Cade.
Thankfully her phone chose that moment to ring and derail the direction of her thoughts. She almost kissed it as she picked it up.
‘Dr Richards,’ she said. There was silence for a few moments on the other end. ‘Hello?’
‘Callie…it’s Joe.’
Callie blinked. Joe? Her Joe? Ex-husband Joe? Yep, that ought to distract her from thoughts of Cade.
‘Callie?’
She wanted to deny it. To call the person on the other end a liar. To yell and say, How dare you impersonate my ex-husband? But it was him. It may have been thirteen years since she’d heard his voice but it was still the same—deep and sexy in that broad-country-accent kind of way.
‘I’m here,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry to ring out of the blue like this.’
Callie didn’t know what to say. Several responses crossed her mind. Why the hell did you, then? Is that all you’re sorry for? And the forerunner: Go to hell, you misogynistic bastard.
But Broken Hill manners came to the fore. ‘What do you want, Joe?’
‘How have you been?’
Callie almost laughed. Bizarre had turned into surreal. ‘Joe, you didn’t ring me to ask me how I was and I think we’re way beyond pleasantries. I’m really very busy. Was there something that you wanted?’
There was a pause on the end of the line then she heard him laugh. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You grew some balls.’
‘Yeah. Thanks to you.’
Another pause. ‘It’s Raylene. She’s my…’
‘Your pregnant partner,’ Callie finished. ‘Yes, Mum told me.’
‘Right…Well, there’s been some problems with the baby. He was diagnosed on his nineteen-week ultrasound with an enlarged bladder. They told us that this often resolves spontaneously but we’ve had two ultrasounds since and it’s been worse on each one. They’ve diagnosed him with something called LUTO. That’s lower urinary—’
