Bossy: An Alpha Collection

by Levine, Nina

  Callie moves out of my arms and smiles as Sean rounds the corner. “Callie!” He squeals with delight and flings himself into her arms.

  She pulls him up and wraps him close as she presses a kiss to his forehead. “Hey, mate. I missed you today.”

  “Daddy said we could have ice cream for dessert!”

  She laughs and meets my gaze. “Really? I bought a treat home that I thought we could have, but I guess we can have ice cream instead.”

  Sean’s eyes bulge. “What did you bring?”

  I lean against the counter and cross my arms. “Yes, Callie, what did you bring?” She knows I don’t allow dessert most nights, but I would never begrudge her giving him something special every now and then. I love the relationship she’s building with my son.

  She wrinkles her nose at me. “This is just between me and Sean. You’ll have to stick with ice cream, buddy.” Turning to Sean, she whispers something in his ear. The way his body moves with delight tells me she’s hit gold.

  “Yes, yes! I want that,” he exclaims.

  “You know you can’t have it and ice cream, right?” Callie says.

  Disappointment crosses his face, but only for an instant. He nods. “Yes.”

  Callie grins and lets him down before shaking his hand. “It’s a deal.”

  I lift my chin in the direction of the bathroom. “Go wash your hands, little man. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  After he’s gone, Callie eyes me. “You wanna know what you’re missing out on?”

  “I’m intrigued. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him pass up ice cream so fast.”

  She opens the paper bag to reveal cookies. “They’re from that paleo café near my work. Banana and dark choc chip cookies. Much healthier than ice cream.”

  The love I have for her expands. The fact she knows Sean loves bananas as much as he does shows how hard she’s worked to get to know him and gain his affection. Then to find a healthier dessert for him just takes the whole gesture to a new level.

  Reaching for her, I bring her close and press my lips to her forehead. I hold her there for a long few moments before saying, “Thank you.”

  She embraces me. “I’m just glad to have found something he’s keen to eat.”

  I shift back so I can look her in the eyes. “No, thank you for loving my son.”

  A smile touches her lips and I know my words mean everything to her. “How could I not? He’s part of you and I love every single part of you.”

  My response to Mrs Harper today flashes through my mind. I love Callie’s beauty, but it’s her heart I want to hold onto for eternity.

  It’s Callie’s heart and soul that make her the most beautiful woman I know.

  27

  Callie

  It’s amazing to me how someone can become everything to you in the blink of an eye. How you can go from knowing nothing about them to knowing so many intricacies you never imagined existed before. Like how I now know that when Luke sleeps, he has this tendency to bite his lip; and how he has this OCD habit of stacking cutlery in the dishwasher in groups with forks all together and so forth; and how when he drives, he weaves in and out of the traffic in an effort to reach his destination faster.

  We’ve been together for four months now. Luke’s the first person I’ve shared every single piece of my soul with. I’ve held nothing back—not my fears, my vulnerabilities and certainly not my faults. He knows them all and he loves me fiercely because of them.

  I love him just as fiercely. For the amazing man he is, as much as the vulnerable man he’s become since having his life ripped out from under him.

  It’s on a Friday afternoon, late November, that I begin to wonder about love. It’s just a whisper of wonder at first, but it quickly progresses into full-blown uncertainty. Is love ever really extinguished or do the embers glow forever, just waiting for the right moment to rekindle a fire that once burnt brightly? Is it possible to fall back in love with someone after you’ve stopped loving them?

  Luke calls me just before four. “Baby, I’ve got a huge problem for tomorrow and I need your help to fix it.” Luke never sounds stressed, but he kinda does right now.

  I balance the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I finish typing up an article for next week’s paper. “Sure. What’s up?”

  He starts to speak again, but the sounds of his bar muffle his words.

  “Luke, I can’t hear you over the noise in the background. Are you really busy this afternoon?” He doesn’t usually start to get busy until after five on a Friday.

  “Fuck,” he mutters. A minute passes before he says, “Is this better? I’m in the office.”

  “Much better. Now, what’s up?”

  “The woman rang about Sean’s party tomorrow. They’ve double-booked the party room, which means one party can’t go ahead. Because we booked it last, it’s Sean’s.”

  I sit forward in my seat. “That sucks.”

  “It’s a fucking pain in the ass, is what it is. If I wasn’t stuck at work all night, I’d have the time to come up with something else and let the parents know. That’s where you come in.”

  “Oh, shit, you want me to come up with an alternative for a five-year-old’s party? Luke, I am no mother. These kinds of things are not my forte. I can ring around parents no worries, but to make plans and execute them isn’t something I think you really want me doing.”

  “Callie, you’re amazing with Sean. And trust me, I have no clue on this kind of thing either. It was only because Glenda suggested that party venue that it was going to take place there. If it had been up to me, he would have been running around the park with his friends and some cake.”

  I consider what he’s said and realise he’s right. Surely Google will have ideas for me. “Okay, I’ll figure something out.”

  “Thank you. The list of kids coming and their parents’ phone numbers is on the fridge. I can try and find someone to do my shift tonight, but I’m fairly sure no one’s available at this late notice.” His relief is clear when he thanks me, so I decide to take this weight off his shoulders completely.

  “No, don’t do that. I’ll take care of this. It’s not a problem. You just focus on work and let me focus on Sean tonight.”

  I hear the breath he exhales. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, but I better go now so I can get cracking on this.” My mind is already spinning ahead trying to figure out party ideas. Pinterest is looking like a good option right about now. They have stacks of ideas on there.

  As we end the call and I type the Pinterest website into my browser, I suddenly remember it’s one of my colleague’s last days at work today.

  “Shit,” I mutter. I wanted to say goodbye to her and she told me to come by around four. I push my chair back and make a mental note to get back to Pinterest as soon as possible. I’m beginning to feel all kinds of nervous about this endeavour. What if I screw Sean’s party up? What if he hates it? Oh, God, the things a mother must go through in her life. No wonder most of the mothers I know drink copious amounts of wine as often as they can.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I say to Marion as I enter her office. She’s my favourite person here, so I’m really going to miss her.

  She smiles as she loads another file into the box she’s packing. Marion has been reporting on news and crime at the paper for fifteen years; she has a lot of files to pack. “I give it six months tops until they move you off events and start giving you juicier stories.” She picks up the next folder in her pile. “Like this one,” she says.

  As she holds it up, pieces of paper flutter out of the folder and onto the floor. I bend to retrieve them and freeze when I read the headline on the article. Looking up at Marion, I say, “Did you work on Jolene Hardy’s case?”

  She nods and opens the file. “Yes. That was an interesting case, that’s for sure. One I was never happy with.”

  I stand and pass her the pieces of paper from the floor. “Why?”

  She shifts her weig
ht onto one leg. “I interviewed her and I honestly believed everything she told me. But as much as I believed her, all the evidence stacked up against her. It was hard to put my faith in a woman who was supposedly a cold-blooded murderer when there wasn’t much evidence in her favour. Except for the old man who was her neighbour at the time. He swore she was home at the time the murder took place. It corroborated her testimony. But the prosecution slaughtered him on the stand.” She pauses. “I still wonder about her, though. Something didn’t feel right.”

  I’m rooted to the spot and my skin prickles with apprehension. “What felt wrong about it?”

  She pulls a face. “They painted her as this cold, calculating woman, but I didn’t pick up on the calculating part of her personality when I spoke with her. Sure, she can be cold, but I think that’s only when she feels threatened. Once we moved past her mistrust of me, she was anything but cold. She struck me as a very unhappy woman who felt trapped in a marriage with a man she struggled to believe loved her. Her childhood was full of bullying, abuse and a lack of parental love, so I don’t think she ever learnt how to love. But she was desperate for it underneath that bitchy coat she wore to protect herself from hurt. Her husband was amazing throughout the trial, always by her side, supporting her however she needed it. And yet, she couldn’t see the love he had for her. I think a calculating person would be more in tune with what other people are thinking. Smarter, you know?”

  My legs are weak and my head is spinning.

  Marion touches my arm. “Callie, are you okay? Do you need to sit down? You’re so pale all of a sudden.”

  I nod and take the seat she offers me. “Have you got any water?”

  She leaves me for a couple of minutes to find water. When she returns, I’m feeling a little better. “Thank you,” I say as she passes me the glass.

  Sitting opposite me, she says, “What happened there?”

  I take a gulp of water. “I know her husband.”

  “Do you know her?”

  I shake my head. “No. I only met him just over a year ago. My best friend works for him.” I omit that I’m in love with the man.

  “I feel sorry for him. Either way, he’s been screwed over.”

  I lean forward. “What does your gut tell you about the murder?”

  She exhales a long breath after thinking for a good minute or so. “Honestly, I’m inclined to think she’s innocent. I researched it for months but came up short. And I know her husband hired a detective, and he found nothing that helped. But I still have this doubt at the back of my head.”

  Oh, God.

  This is bad.

  Very, very bad.

  I bite my lip. “Would you consider leaving your file with me so I could keep looking into it?”

  She frowns. “I won’t leave the original documents here, but you could photocopy them now before I go.”

  “Thank you.”

  As I exit her office with the file to photocopy, she calls out, “I’m available anytime you want to go over something. Two heads and all.”

  At this point, I’m not even sure I want to go over the file, but my gut is screaming at me to at least get a copy of it so I can read through it.

  Maybe not today.

  But soon.

  When I work up the courage.

  Because if this is as bad as I’m beginning to think it could be, it will alter my future in ways I’m sure I can’t even imagine.

  I reach for the glass sitting on the table in front of me. Throwing back every last drop of vodka that’s left in it, I scrunch my eyes and then squeeze my eyes shut for a brief moment.

  What a day.

  It started off great and ended being so fucked-up.

  It’s close to midnight and I’ve spent tonight organising Sean’s party and reading over the file Marion had on Jolene. The party turned out to be far easier to put together than I originally thought. But that could be because Marion’s file hovered over me like a dark shadow making the party preparations feel uncomplicated.

  I’ve read the file from back to front, two times over. I’ve also spent an hour looking online for any articles I can find. There are a lot. And not one of them portrays Jolene in a light other than a calculating murderer.

  The prosecution stated Jolene’s motive was pure revenge for her mother, Penny Spiers, being a bad mother. They claimed she lured her mother to the motel on the night of the murder with the intent of killing her after they had a roaring argument earlier that day. Jolene admitted to the argument but held fast to her denial of murder. She also testified to a hard relationship with her mother. Jolene had trouble refuting anything the prosecution alleged about her relationship with her mother. Her sister, Glenda, also backed the prosecution.

  Someone either staying at the motel or someone close by heard an argument that night and called the police. When they arrived, they found Jolene standing over her mother’s body with blood all over her. Jolene swore she received a distressed phone call from her mother asking her to come to the motel, and that was the only reason she was there. Allegedly her mother was dead when she arrived. When they inspected her car, the police found rope that matched the rope used to tie her mother’s hands together.

  The police insisted they looked further afield for suspects, but Marion’s notes detail that as far as she could work out, Jolene was their only real suspect. All clues pointed to her. Except for the old man who lived next door to Luke and Jolene at the time. He swore he saw Jolene get into her car that night at the time the coroner declared the murder took place. He was emphatic about this, but the prosecution ripped his testimony apart on the stand, showing that his eyesight was atrocious and there was no way he could be sure it was actually Jolene.

  I lean back into my seat as I close the file again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to push the thoughts swarming in my head to the side. But I can’t.

  What if Luke’s wife really is innocent?

  What if Sean’s mother really should be home with him rather than rotting in that prison for a crime she didn’t commit?

  What if a woman, whose only crime was bitchiness, is sitting alone in a prison cell because the world believes in her non-existent guilt?

  I drop my head into my hands. The last thing I want to do is stir things up for Luke, but I know I can’t walk away from this. I need to at least research it some more.

  If I were innocent of a crime I’d been convicted of, I’d want someone fighting for me.

  28

  Callie

  “How the fuck did you pull this off?” Luke asks as he moves behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. Dropping a kiss on my collarbone, he adds, “And how did you know Sean would love a pirate party? I didn’t even know he was into pirates.”

  I grin as I survey Sean and his friends walking the plank I set up with a round kiddie swimming pool filled with water and a sturdy piece of wood that we set up across the pool, balanced on each end with buckets. I woke up early and hit the shops to round up all the supplies I needed to make decorations and food for a perfect pirate themed party that any five-year-old boy would love. Thank goodness for Pinterest and all the printable files I found, because there’s no way I could have pulled any of this off without those.

  Luckily, the party was scheduled for three o’clock, which meant I had most of the day to get everything ready. We made it just in time.

  I place my hands over Luke’s. “I’ve got the skills, dude. I’ve got you and your kid covered.”

  He nuzzles my neck and I suck in a breath. Luke’s scent is my favourite in the whole world, and right now, it’s causing all sorts of dirty thoughts in my mind. His lips on my skin are also causing havoc with my senses. This is totally not the right place for me to rip his clothes off, so I move out of his embrace and turn to face him. “You should not do that.”

  His lips curl up at the ends. “That’s not what you’re usually begging for.”

  I fix a mock glare on him. “Trust me, it’s not what I want to be begging
for. You came home so exhausted this morning that I didn’t want to beg for anything then, so you owe me a raincheck for that.”

  An expression moves across his face that I can’t quite pick. He reaches out to grip the bottom of my T-shirt and gently pulls it. His eyes hold mine. And he utters words that screw with any ability I have left to process things like a sane human. “I want you to move in with me and Sean.”

  My heart speeds up and my body hums with happiness. But no words come because I’m all kinds of flustered and can’t form a sentence, let alone open my mouth and say it.

  His voice deepens. “Callie.” So demanding. So freaking hot. Luke’s need for me turns me on so damn much. I practically live at his house already and spend most of my time in a turned-on, mind-scrambled state of bliss. Luke likes to have me close at all times and never hesitates with displays of affection. He’s always got his eyes, hands or lips on me. I’m fairly sure if he didn’t have a child in the house, I’d never escape him. Not that I want to escape him. Ever.

  “I’d like that,” I say quietly.

  He raises a brow. “Only like?”

  My happiness bubbles up and I grin. Leaning close, I whisper so no one else can hear, “I’d fucking love to move in. Then I can have your cock whenever I want.”

  As I lean away, his hand locks around my neck and he pulls me back. “Baby, that part of me is always available to you,” he whisper-growls.

  Oh, good God.

  He is too much.

  I take a deep breath and press against his chest to give us some much-needed space. “Right, you need to go hang out with your child and I need to go inside and fix a vodka. Or two.”

  He chuckles and jerks his chin towards the house. “Go. I’ll take this from here although Glenda seems to have these kids under control.”

  Ugh.