“Jerry meet Dean,” he said in a tight voice. “Dean is here as Cassie’s guest. He’s her date for the wedding.”
Jerry assessed me, his lips drawn in a tight line, before finally throwing me a halfhearted wave. “Nice to meet you.”
“You as well,” I said as he made his way to the other side of the wobble deck to speak to Braden and Billie.
“Dude’s got it bad, huh?” I asked Callum as we watched him from the far end.
“I see it as a rejection thing,” Callum said, removing his protective gear and I followed suit. “Cassie broke up with him and the guy can’t get over himself. Doesn’t make much sense since he’s got plenty lined up to take her place.”
“Maybe he knows she’s special,” I said, and something shuttered in Callum’s gaze as he watched me. “Just because you’ve got lots of options or even opportunities doesn’t mean they all feel right.”
“For sure, “ Callum said out of the corner of his mouth, thinking something through. I was desperate to know exactly what it was in that moment.
“Still,” I said, motioning to the other end of the deck. “Dude’s got to move on.”
“Just ignore him,” Callum said, as he packed up our supplies and made his way down the stairs toward a small wooden shed. Guess my target practice was over.
12
Callum
I could not believe I got an erection at the gun range. Damn, the way Dean smelled. All masculine with a hint of his shampoo, some kind of grapefruit I would’ve guessed.
He didn’t even attempt to pull away from me. It might’ve been my imagination or he was simply embarrassed for me.
But his harsh breaths and the sound he made in the very back of his throat. Maybe he was…fuck, I don’t even know. My emotions were all over the map.
Why was I drawn to this man? I’d seen plenty of hot guys over the years, but I didn’t get a boner over all of them. Maybe it was because he seemed so deeply opposed to our way of life and I wanted to prove him wrong at every turn.
After some necessary trimming of hedges, the rest of the day was spent around the cabin, cleaning up after the last group and prepping for our relatives. Cassie had brought Dean over to see the rooms and she pointed out the sawmill near the vegetable garden when he asked who had made some of the storage sheds on the property.
“Callum constructed all of these chairs and tables, too,” Cassie said with a lilt of pride in her voice and I felt a funny twinge in my chest.
“Seriously?” Dean asked with awe in his voice. “They’re amazing.”
“Yep,” she said. “He loves working in the woodshop and even sells some of the pieces in town at Aunt June’s furniture store.”
Aunt June was my mother’s sister, so she might’ve just been doing me a favor, but according to her my pieces sold like hotcakes, and she was always harping on me to make more. If only I could find some extra time without having to burn the midnight oil.
I felt Dean’s eyes on me but I kept my gaze fixed on the hardwood floor as I swept along the baseboards. Guess he didn’t see me as some big dumb hunter after all. He said as much to me this morning. And damn if that didn’t make my brain short-circuit.
“There’s a smokehouse too?” I heard Dean ask after I stepped outside to sweep the porch. He was standing at the screen door looking outside as I moved the rocking chairs out of my path.
“Right,” Cassie said. “Grammy smokes fish that we catch from the lake. But we can smoke meat as well.”
“What kind of meat?” he asked, and I could just picture him holding back a cringe. “The quail and deer from your property?”
“For your information,” Cassie said in a sing song voice, as if they had these kinds of debates all the time. And maybe they did, though I still suspected something was off about their relationship. Or maybe I just wanted to see it that way. “Deer overpopulate and cause accidents out on the road. Instead of the county sending out their sharpshooters to control the excess, true hunters will use that meat to feed their families.”
“Aren’t there more humane ways?” he asked. “Like…the other day I read about a medical procedures vets can do on the females so they can’t reproduce.”
“It’s called sterilization,” Cassie said, rolling her eyes at her scientist boyfriend. “There would still be human intervention in that method. Plus cost involved.”
“True,” Dean said, sighing in resignation. “What did the deer do before humans came along to help them handle their own population?”
I couldn’t even stop myself. Every time I heard his voice, some imaginary button was triggered deep inside, making me want to interact with him. Shake him. Yell at him. Kiss the shit out of him. Fuck. I really shouldn’t have been this attracted to some guy my sister brought as her date.
“They would get taken out by larger species. Life cycle. Survival of the fittest. That was before there were highways, train tracks, houses, and businesses,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “You can’t have it both ways. Either you’re in favor of progress or you want to go back to living in the cave man days. Give up your fancy smart phone and fend for yourself.”
“Well said,” Dean mumbled. Instead of getting angry and coming back with an offhanded remark his features tempered. “Still doesn’t explain why humans need to eat the meat of an animal or use their coat to create things. It’s barbaric.”
“Says the man who probably owns a pair or two of leather shoes. So you want us all to run around eating nuts and berries and tofu. You’d have the farmers give up their livelihood—the cattle and sheep trade,” I said in exasperation. “Farmers are probably our most important resource in this country, and plenty of people forget that.”
“There are other ways—”
“What kind of vegetarian are you anyway—“ I said, shoving my hand in my pocket before I throttled him. “You still eat dairy?”
His face had turned tomato red like he was going to explode at a moment’s notice. “I try not to, not if I can help it, but—”
“Callum!” Cassie started in on me, but I held up my hand.
“I’m done,” I grumbled, replacing the broom and heading to my truck. “Guess you won’t be trying Billie’s homemade ice cream tonight.”
I buried myself in the office with paperwork until suppertime while I listened to a ball game on the radio. Or maybe I was just hiding. What was it about Dean that got under my skin? I understood vegetarians in principle. I actually couldn’t consume any gamey meat myself. I didn’t have the palate for it.
But I didn’t want Dean to have the impression that we were savages or something.
By the time dinner rolled around I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
When I entered the kitchen, Dean and Billie had their heads bent over some game on the iPad. Dean was wearing his sexy black frames, probably so he could see the smaller screen.
I wanted to grab him by the shirt and kiss him senseless. Then give him head while he wore only those eyeglasses.
The two of them were chuckling over something on the monitor and I felt a pang in my gut. My brother was seen as different and fragile to the outside world. But Dean had marched right in and warmed to him instantly.
“Anything I can help with, Grammy?” I asked, avoiding eye contact with Dean. I’d admit I was embarrassed about how often I spouted off at him. I’d blame it on sexual frustration if I knew that was the only reason.
“Dean and Billie helped set the table,” Grammy said. “But how about you get everybody’s drink orders? Right after you ring the dinner bell.”
“I want to do it!” Billie jumped up and rushed past me out to the porch.
Grammy and I watched him from the screen door and I felt Dean move in beside me.
“How long has that bell been in your family?” he asked.
“At least a hundred years,” Grammy said, smiling as Billie yanked on the substantial gold chain. “My mother used to come from the fields by the sound of those chimes.”
“That is amazing.” Dean turned to look at her and I felt his soft breath against the side of my face. “What was in the fields?”
“Sugar cane and citrus crops were my family’s highest producers at that time,” she said, with a hint of pride in her voice. “They were also in the cattle trade. Even had some off-shore export deal with a farm in Cuba.”
“I saw some orange trees out there,” Dean said. “Why did your family abandon the cattle trade?”
“Not sure I know the real answer,” she said, watching Billie as he waved to Cassie. “The next generation decided to go in a different direction. I suppose they weren’t true farmers, so they moved on to other things.”
As my family began filing in for dinner, I took drink orders. My father always saved hard liquor for after dinner, so I knew he’d ask for some milk. But Billie and Braden always requested soda. I expected for Dean to ask for water, same as Cassie, who had come in from fertilizing some of the newer perennials we had planted in the front garden.
So when Dean requested diet soda, my eyebrows knit together. He held his tongue as if ready for a new debate. But I couldn’t pick a fight with the sexy man about everything—even about choosing to put synthetic chemicals into his body—just because I wanted him in my bed so badly.
Not only could you not change somebody’s views or misconceptions overnight, you absolutely were hopeless at attempting to change anybody’s sexuality. If only the naysayers in this conservative town realized that.
“What does your family do, Dean?” Grammy asked, once we were all situated around the table.
“My father is an advertising executive in New Jersey,” he mumbled, his cheeks coloring. Why did that embarrass him? Was it because it sounded so pretentious?
“Why didn’t you join the business?” This question came from my father.
Cassie was trying to throw Daddy some big eyes, but he ignored her while he devoured his pork tenderloin dinner. Braden’s eyes were slightly glazed over, never really giving Cassie’s friends any real attention, unless they were going to stick around for a while. Either that or his mind was on his list of chores, which was plentiful.
“I just…” Dean said, bracing his fork until his knuckles turned white. “Sometimes you can have completely different interests than your parents do.”
Dad grunted at that over his glass of milk and I noticed how Cassie reached for Dean’s hand beneath the table. Must’ve been a sore subject for him. When Dean adjusted his legs, I felt his foot skim absently over mine, seeking room, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Man, I needed to get a grip.
“And different relationships as well,” Dean continued as he glanced around the table, making eye contact with everybody but me. “You guys are lucky. It feels so comfortable and authentic here.”
“Even if I’m serving meat at this table?” Grammy asked, chuckling. “Don’t worry I made an extra vegetable for you. Those green beans are straight from our garden.”
“I appreciate that,” Dean said, biting his lip, and suddenly I felt terrible for my earlier comments. What in the fuck was wrong with me? That wasn’t how you treated a guest in the house. My mother would’ve been ashamed of me.
“I have homemade ice cream for dessert,” Billie said excitedly. “French vanilla.”
He loved trying new recipes with the secondhand ice cream machine he bought a couple of years ago off a dairy farmer.
“Maybe you should have Dean try your homemade granita instead?” I offered the slushy dessert as an alternative, knowing it was only made with simple syrup. Both Grammy and Cassie’s eyebrows shot up, understanding dawning that I was attempting to arrange a truce.
Dean stared at me, gratitude and something else I couldn’t identify in his eyes. “Actually, if Billie made that ice cream, I’d love to taste it.”
Dean and I shared a private smile across the table, both raising our imaginary white flags.
13
Dean
I had stayed up late last night playing X-box with Billie who babbled on about everything under the sun. He let it slip that Callum was the gentlest brother, and that he rarely left the preserve for long, and that information had thrown me for a loop.
He also spouted off about how Braden’s girlfriend wasn’t so friendly to him, how his dad worked too hard, and how Cassie promised he could visit her in the city.
If I wanted to know all about the Montgomery family, Billie was my go-to guy.
At one point, Callum stumbled out of bed to pour himself a glass of water from the kitchen sink.
“You guys are still up?” he asked in a groggy voice while rubbing the sleep out of his bleary eyes.
I ignored the fact that he only wore a pair of navy boxer shorts. Holy shit, that body of his. “Do you realize that your brother produced a replica of Yankee Stadium?”
“I do,” he said, yawning. “I helped create part of it.”
I inhaled a breath. I didn’t know what I was thinking; maybe that Callum wouldn’t have the patience to sit with Billie for hours on end.
“Callum loves baseball, even played it in high school,” Billie said. “He always has a game on the radio.”
I stared at Callum, imagining him in tight polyester pants. “Do you have a favorite team?”
Before he could get his answer out, Billie jumped in. “Obviously it’s New York.”
I should’ve guessed from the vintage looking ball cap he sometimes wore. The team colors were blue, grey, and white, so the black had thrown me off. I suppose they were made in plenty of shades as long as they sold.
“But we never finished building the ballpark,” Billie said. “So Dean agreed to help.”
Callum studied the screen. “Looks good.”
I tried not to stare at his bare skin. At the line of freckles across his collarbone and the smattering of hair down the center of his chest. How his shoulders were wide but his waist was narrow. I longed to trace my tongue along every delicious inch.
As if he could read my thoughts, his nipples tightened into stiff knots. He turned suddenly, rubbing at the back of his neck, as if realizing for the very first time how he was dressed in front of a houseguest.
“Not much longer, Billie,” he said over his shoulder as he practically fled the room. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“We’re about done here,” I said, shifting to adjust myself. “Didn’t mean to keep him up.”
“Please,” Billie whispered conspiratorially. “Callum is all about following the rules. We’re fine.”
Billie spoke of Callum as if he was a parent figure. It made me snicker. This family’s dynamics were certainly interesting.
* * *
My alarm woke me out of a deep sleep. For a second I didn’t remember where in the hell I was.
I finally rolled out of bed, numbly slipped on my clothes, and headed for a quick bathroom trip where I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face.
I padded toward the kitchen and quietly slipped out the door.
“You’re late,” Callum said, stretching on the grass. Seeing him waiting there both thrilled and infuriated me at the same time.
“I told you I don’t need a babysitter,” I muttered.
“Never said you did,” he said with a hint of haughtiness in his tone. “Besides, I could use another run.”
I watched as Callum gritted his teeth working his hamstrings. He was sore, which either meant he pushed himself too far, or wasn’t a regular runner. I didn’t know what to make of that.
My heart thrashed in my chest as I considered him. I was completely attracted to Callum but I wanted to throttle him at the same time. I was nearly desperate to know what his story was, especially since he got a hard on at the shooting range when pressed up against me. But I also needed to keep my distance because I was supposed to be here as Cassie’s guest.
“Suit yourself,” I grunted while extending my calve muscles.
I skipped the other warm up exercises and headed for
the trail, not giving Callum a second glance. I wasn’t sure what his motive was but I was ready to hit the ground running, if anything, to burn off this pent up sexual frustration.
In another minute Callum caught up to me and we ran side-by-side for a while. I figured he’d razz me for taking off without him, but he merely stared straight ahead, getting his breathing under control.
A yawn burst from my lips and I attempted to cover it up with the back of my hand.
“You guys stay up much longer?” he mumbled.
“About thirty minutes more,” I said, recalling how it was me who had called it a day. I suspected Billie could’ve stayed up all night, and then slept all morning. But I imagined Callum grumbling if he knew his brother hadn’t gone to bed, so I sent us both packing. Why his opinion mattered to me, I didn’t quite have a handle on yet.
“You’re really good with him,” Callum said in his side view.
“He’s easy to like,” I said, quirking my shoulder. “I was close with my brother, Shawn, before he died from Leukemia.”
Callum’s feet faltered. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve have years to come to terms with it,” I said. “My family handled it all weird, though. My dad threw himself even harder into work and my mom volunteered for all of these charities to keep herself occupied.”
“What did you do?” he asked, studying me as the trail veered east.
Nobody had ever asked me that question before and I had to consider my answer carefully.
“I got brave, I guess,” I said, wondering if he would think my response sounded lame. “Told myself I was going to be me, no matter what.”
His breaths became more ragged as he looked toward the shrubs. I didn’t know if my reply had triggered something for him, but I continued with my revelation anyway because it was enlightening for me as well.
“I did what made me feel good. Like going back for my master’s,” I said. “Not what my dad wanted.”
The Deepest Blue (Roadmap to Your Heart #2) Page 7
