Never Say Never

by Donna McDonald

  “Yes, ma’am. I agree that your mother is a saint,” Cal said contritely, but with a smile blooming on his face.

  He wanted to be angry at Ann’s smart-ass daughter, but all he could do was laugh at her urgings for him to fix things. This could be much worse. They could both have just hated the idea of him and her.

  “My being a wimp about your mother has nothing to do with the branch I served in. I just got cold feet when I saw her dancing with those rich guys.”

  Megan snorted. “If Mom wanted a rich guy, she could have dated Trudy Baxter’s brother.”

  “Chef Baxter?” Cal asked. Everyone in Cincinnati knew the woman.

  Megan nodded. “It was several years ago. Mom wouldn’t even meet him for coffee. That’s when David and I knew she’d shut down about men. There’s been no one. That’s how I really know you’re the reason she’s digging holes.”

  Cal leaned forward on his knees and dropped his hands between them. He should have listened to Dr. Colombo… well, he did in a way. That was the reason he ended up here.

  “I was the one who broke it off. Getting her back is going to require a full out assault, not one of those ease into it things. I walked away from her. She’s going to do the same to me… maybe more than once. I need to pull out the big guns right away to keep that from happening.”

  Megan stared at the wall. David stared at the desk.

  Cal stood. “I’m going home and put on my uniform because I’m going to need to look too good for her to refuse. One of you needs to meet me at the house in an hour. Your job will be to let me in and then scram before the fireworks start. Sound like a plan?”

  “Sounds like a suicide mission. Mom’s had a few days to build up her emotional walls,” Megan said.

  “It’ll be okay,” Cal said, trying to think positively. He grinned at the two of them. “I’ll bring my tool belt and big hammer with me for those walls. Maybe I’ll impress her with my man skills again.”

  David’s wicked look at him was followed by a snicker, which earned him a hard smack from his frowning sister that nearly knocked him out of his chair.

  Cal chuckled and gave a head shake. “I don’t know how you two work together.”

  “Neither do we,” David said, laughing as he stood and shoved Megan into the nearest wall.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ann lifted the shovel and stabbed the ground with it. After the four hours of watering she’d done last night, the blade cut right through the dirt. She told herself the hard work made up for missing yoga and not taking walks. She told herself that it was soul reviving. Now she just needed to believe it.

  Her thoughts kept roaming around without her permission, trying not to dwell on what had happened Friday. But it was hard to remember the last time she’d been this disappointed with her life.

  Her husband’s sudden death by a heart attack ranked at the top of the list, but right below that was a host of other things. Like maybe she should have found the money to enroll Megan in those advanced ballet classes she’d shown some interest in. Maybe her daughter would have turned out a bit more feminine, not that Nicolas seemed to mind Megan’s assertiveness.

  And wouldn’t Megan have been more like her than she already was?

  Well, screw that. She was glad her daughter was a hard-ass Marine. If Nicolas had sauntered away from Megan after she’d slept with him, her daughter would have gone after his insensitive ass and kicked it.

  So why hadn’t she gone after Cal? She’d raised two tough, aggressive teenagers, and mothered the tough friends they’d both brought home to her. Why was she afraid of demanding Cal give her another chance?

  Sweat ran everywhere the harder she thought. She pulled at the back of her shirt and then at the front. Even though she wasn’t hot, her bra was soaked.

  “Stop it, Ann Lynx. You didn’t go after him because Cal is as plain-spoken as you are. If he said he was done, he meant it. So stop mooning over the man and get your planting done. You’ve been putting the tough things in your life off for far too long.”

  The shovel hit the ground again, scooping out the wet dirt. Fortunately, she only needed a few more. She would finish what she started as soon as the hot tears streaming down her face and over her hands stopped falling.

  Two heads stared helplessly out the window, watching their mother dig into the ground with a viciousness anyone in their right mind would have dreaded facing off with.

  “Oh shit. Look at her now. She’s been working on this all week. There must be twenty or thirty holes out there.”

  “It’s only fifteen, Megan. Stop exaggerating.”

  Shaking his head at their bickering, which was far worse than his girls had ever done, Cal stepped between them and peered out the window too. He swallowed hard when he saw Ann stop and swipe at her eyes. She was filthy and crying… and he knew it was his fault.

  The guilt that tugged at his chest had to be true love. Nothing else explained how low he felt for causing that sweet woman any kind of pain or hurt. He’d have rather taken a bullet. Instead, he’d fired an unexpected one at her in a moment of blind emotional panic.

  Megan turned her head to stare at him. “You look good in your monkey suit. Are you scared?”

  “Thank you… and yes,” Cal said truthfully. “I hope your mother thinks I look good. I’ll need the distraction.”

  “She will,” Megan said, turning back to the window. “We have similar tastes in men.”

  David glanced at him, grinned, and shook his head. They’d each gotten a little of their mother, but David was the most like Ann in personality. His calmness was watchful and caring. Ann’s son might wait to see what played out, but the man would be there if needed. Of that, Cal had no doubt.

  Putting his hat on his head, he straightened his shoulders and drew in a deep breath.

  “Wait,” Megan said, rising to stand.

  She brushed invisible lint off him and patted his shoulders to straighten the line of his jacket. Cal’s heart contracted when Megan threw her arms around him afterward and hugged tight.

  “I hope she keeps you. It will be nice to have another military person in the family.”

  Cal’s arms came around her without thought, hugging her back. Now he saw it. Megan loved as hard as her mother did. “That means a lot to me,” he whispered, barely getting the words out.

  As if nothing emotional had happened, Megan pulled away to return to her post at the sink. “I’m not going to call you daddy though. You can forget that shit if it crossed your mind.”

  “It didn’t. I figured you’d just keep calling me Cal,” he said to her back.

  “Yeah, that works.”

  David’s snickering over his discomfort irritated him, but he’d have to live with it today.

  Shaking his head, Cal pushed open the back door and headed outside.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ann had moved on to another hole before she noticed the uniformed soldier walking determinedly towards her. His eyes weren’t showing much under the hat pulled so low, but she knew who he was.

  And she knew who’d sent him here.

  She snorted when Cal assumed a parade rest position about ten feet away.

  “I left something here. I came to retrieve it,” Cal said sharply, using his best no nonsense tone. He hoped it worked on Ann as well as it had on the men who’d served under him.

  His hopes were dashed when she just calmly went back to digging.

  “You didn’t leave anything when you spent the night. I know because I checked. Why are you really here, Calvin?”

  “I didn’t specifically come to start an argument with you, but I will have to disagree with that statement. I left my heart here. I left it with the woman I’m in love with.”

  Ann laughed. “Brent pay you to tell me that? Or offer you some job guaranteed to keep you in new sports cars?”

  Cal relaxed, dropping his arms and the pose. “No, he didn’t pay me. It looks like you have as poor an opinion of Dr. Colombo as I
do… or rather, as I did. I don’t feel like that anymore. I wish I’d listened to him. I admire his balls for tracking me down.”

  “Your nobility is wasted on this, Calvin. Brent only came after you because Georgia gave in and promised to go out with him.”

  Cal shook his head. “I don’t think Dr. Colombo would have tracked me down personally if he didn’t genuinely care. He could have paid someone to come in his place, but he didn’t. Frankly, that man doesn’t seem like the type to do anything that doesn’t suit him.”

  Ann snorted. “All men are that type. They make up their minds and that’s it. The woman they’re involved with might as well step aside. She could be crying her eyes out and he would just keep on going.”

  “I’d always heard that same thing about vindictive women,” Cal ventured closer, pacing a few steps. “I want you back, Ann. I want you to forgive me. I want another chance.”

  “No.”

  Cal swallowed hard at her flat answer, feeling genuine fear. “Couldn’t you have at least spent more than two seconds thinking about it? I need a little hope here. That sounded pretty final.”

  “So did your poetic goodbye speech Friday night when you dumped me with no discussion of the matter. I’m not planning to listen to that kind of thing again—not tomorrow, and not five or ten years from now when you figure out I’m just some boring old lady. I think more of myself than that.”

  Cal paced back the other direction, but he refused to retreat. “You’re not boring. You’re everything but boring. A woman who drinks imported beer and belly dances will never, ever, not even when she’s a hundred, be boring.”

  He waited for the explosion, but it never came. Laughter over his praise would have been acceptable too, but Ann just kept right on digging. Her anger was impenetrable. It reminded him of his wife’s adamancy about wanting a divorce. She’d been right too, but… damn.

  Had what he’d done really seemed so callous to Ann? It hadn’t felt that way at the time. He’d honestly thought he’d been doing the right thing.

  “The men in Mariah’s folder who are waiting to date me were equally impressed by my talents. Getting a date is not my problem anymore. Trusting a man again, though? Now that’s going to take a little while. Apparently sleeping with a guy doesn’t mean what it used to mean. That’s on me for not understanding that a sexual relationship didn’t entitle me to a discussion of any sort before breaking things off. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Ann…”

  “Why are you here, Cal? You thought your thoughts, made up your mind, and walked the hell away. Why are you back?”

  Cal hung his head. “I came to apologize… to ask you to forgive my panic. It was my ego screaming that I couldn’t give you the kind of life those guys can.”

  “Right… and you still can’t,” Ann said stiffly, scooping out dirt. “Guess it must seem like they have nothing better to do with their cash than fork it over to meet women like me. Right?”

  “I don’t know why they do it,” Cal admitted. “Guess it wasn’t crazy for the ones in your folder that you dated. They met you.”

  Ann nodded. “Yes. They saw a video of a woman wearing six pounds of makeup and a short dress with heels. They heard her infer things about her sex life with her deceased husband that sounded appealing. They heard her admit she loved dancing. That’s what they know about me. Not that I prefer beer to wine. Or that my idea of a perfect date is nachos and dancing in my kitchen, followed by great sex.” She dug viciously, pushing the shovel deep. “Men see what they want to see and think what they want to think. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve always known that.”

  “I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. I didn’t understand our relationship. You kept going out with other men. I was living on hope.”

  And he hadn’t understood, Cal realized. He hadn’t gotten what she was doing until he saw her doing it. Now he was standing there watching her dig and he didn’t really get her distress either. It felt hopeless all around.

  Ann shook her head. “You know what’s really strange? In the end, no matter how much money a guy spends with someone like Mariah, it’s the woman they meet over a freaking toilet that actually means something. For me, it wasn’t the guy with the hot balloon tour business. It was the guy fixing my pantry that I chose to sleep with because it just felt right… he felt right.”

  She ploughed her shovel through the dirt. “Cupid is more than stupid—he’s a sadistic jerk. Mariah’s just working the odds he throws in front of her. Brent’s paid a fortune to meet women, but grumpy Georgia Bates is the woman he wants. Whatever she puts him through will serve him right for wasting his money.”

  “Look… I acted stupid because I was jealous. You’re the only woman I want—the only one I’ve cared about in ages,” Cal said firmly.

  Ann grunted. “Really? Then why did you give me up so easily? You didn’t even ask how I felt about you.”

  “I told you. I panicked. Men do that when they’re scared of losing something.”

  “No. You gave me up because you couldn’t give me time to get to the same emotional place about us. I thought dates with those two nice guys were enough experimenting for me to trust what I found with you. I certainly don’t think that anymore. I’m planning to meet the other nine or ten in my match folder just to see if there’s any magic to be had outside of Calvin Freaking Rodgers. Maybe I’ll beat the odds. Maybe I’ll find someone who makes me feel just as young and happy as you did.”

  “Ann… can’t you cut me a damn break? I feel bad enough as it is.” He started towards her, stopping only when she lifted her shovel in defense. “Now that’s just mean.”

  “Yes. I’m mean. I’m old. And I’m too smart to let someone like you break my heart a second time. So go, Calvin Rodgers. Walk away again. You’ll look very handsome doing it in your uniform. I’m sure the people at the dance thought the same thing before I dashed into the bathroom to sob. Now go away.”

  Cal drew himself up tall. “No. I’m not going away. I’m not giving up. I did that and the righteousness wore off in the first hour. Stop digging those damn holes and come into the house with me so we can talk. I brought enough imported beers to get us both drunk. Maybe then we can move past this.”

  Now she felt violated even further. Ann gripped the shovel like a ball bat. “Who let you into my house?”

  Cal swiped the hat off his head so he could glare better. “I didn’t break in. Damn it, woman. Your children let me in—Megan and David. I went to see them to find out how you were.”

  The shovel fell from her suddenly limp fingers. “You told my children about us?”

  Cal narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I did, but only the PG rated version. I’m not completely uncouth. I knew I had screwed up royally, but I was worried about you. Worry and concern was something Colombo made sure I felt before he left.”

  He paused for a moment, then figured he might as well spill it all.

  “I told your children I loved you. The first chance I get, I’ll tell your friends too. Now my father? Well, I’m going to have to ease into breaking the news to him that I hit on one of his favorite clients. It might help if we’re engaged when I have to come clean. You won’t want to be around when I tell him though. Dad’s going to be extremely mad at me for a while.”

  “Calvin. How could you do that?”

  The crazy fool. He’d told the world about them—well, most of it. Ann turned her back and lifted her arm. Her dirty sleeve didn’t do much to stifle her new sobs. She’d forgotten how annoying and stressful and wonderful love was.

  What was she going to do with Cal if she did forgive him? As if he’d heard her thoughts, Cal was suddenly there to answer the question, spinning her around and tugging her body close.

  She punched his chest with both fists. “You hurt me. I fell in love with you and you walked away. It hurts to lose someone you love that much.”

  “I know. I’m sorry… so, so sorry. I love you too, Ann. I swear�
�I love you. Please be the better person and don’t send me away. I promise you—I’ve learned my lesson.”

  Her arms finally came around him and Cal all but fell against her in relief. He gripped Ann’s dirty chin in one hand and closed his mouth possessively over hers. How had he thought he was going to forget this? She was his perfect match in every way.

  He vowed that never again would he be the cause of those salty tears running down her face. Knowing they still had a lot of talking to do, Cal finally let her ease away from his grip. He put his forehead against her dirty one.

  “You have to forgive me for my moment of stupidity. I know for a fact that marriages don’t work out when your wife stays mad at you all the time. And for the love of all that’s holy, woman, please stop dating other men. My ego isn’t strong enough to deal with thinking about you kissing those other guys.”

  Ann’s sighing head nod said she understood his rant, but it wasn’t a verbal yes or an agreement. Needing to believe they were in the process of making up though, Cal chose to believe it was a good sign whatever the nod meant.

  “No, no.” He gripped Ann’s arms tighter when it looked like she was starting to bend over. “If you pick up that shovel and start digging again, Megan is going to turn me into her personal punching bag. I have a healthy sense of self-preservation, so I can’t let you do that. Your children are both worried sick about you.”

  Despite sniffling back another river’s worth of tears, Ann chuckled. “Can’t a woman dig a few holes in her own backyard? I was just going to plant some shrubs.”

  “Why don’t you wait until your new deck gets built? You can plant them around that. I’ll help you dig next time.”

  Her watery gaze went to Cal’s. “A deck? With a built-in barbecue?”