There were some beautifully carved oars in one corner that could have been hung on the wall as art. She ran her fingers over them and marveled at how smooth they were. Her mother had probably put Danny in touch with a local craftsman.
A rack of pamphlets hung on the wall above a couple of wooden chairs along with framed evidence of proper certification. Next to them were several framed photographs. She took a step closer and recognized one of Elliot.
It was the one that had hung in her brother’s room. That day eight years ago when she and Danny had worked side by side to pack up Elliot’s things, Callie had given him the picture knowing he would appreciate it more than anyone else ever could.
And now it hung in the outfitter that had been the dream of both young men. It was fitting, she decided, her eyes misting. And touching.
“Can I help you?”
Callie turned around, blinking to rid her eyes of the tears that threatened. The brunette was off the phone and was hastily scribbling a note down on paper. “I’m looking for Danny McCutcheon. Is he here?”
The girl checked her watch, sunlight from the window glinting off highlighted streaks in her hair that looked more like they came from a salon than from the sun. “He should be back soon from the last trip. Do you want to wait, or is there something I can help you with?”
She could just leave the money and go. Then again, that might seem strange, to drive out all the way from town and not linger long enough to say hello. “I’ll wait.”
“Have a seat. Are you a friend of Danny’s?”
Callie settled into one of the wooden chairs. “From years ago. Callie Sorenson?”
The girl looked blank and shrugged. “Danny doesn’t talk about his personal life much. Great guy, though.”
She was tempted to ask the girl how well she knew Danny, but was afraid it would come out sounding jealous. So she smiled through tight lips instead and waited silently while the receptionist got back to her paperwork.
When the front door opened, she nearly jumped. She was wound far too tightly lately. Danny walked in, his hair and clothes soaked from the river. “Sorry I’m late, Em,” he told the girl, unaware of Callie’s presence. “We had a little hang-up with one of the life vests. Wish I’d had my camera.” He wrung some water from his shirt, and Callie caught the briefest glimpse of his back, muscled and tanned.
The girl, Em, pulled out a brown bag from a mini-fridge beside the desk and stood up. “No problem. I’m taking lunch down by the big rock today, if you need me.” She nodded behind him on her way out the door. “You’ve got company, by the way.”
Danny turned around and blinked in clear surprise. “Callie?”
The wet t-shirt clung to him like a second skin. Living and working on the river had chiseled him like few other things could. She swallowed, unable to think of something to say. “Mom asked me to come,” she said finally, wincing inwardly. She thrust the handful of bills at him. “For groceries.”
He stared at her with a bewildered look on his face, and then slowly reached out for the money. “You could have just given it to me the next time I came by.”
“It was Mom’s idea,” she repeated, wanting to slap herself.
“So you said.”
She stood up, fumbling awkwardly for words. “Well, I guess I should get out of your hair.”
“Stay,” he invited, gesturing toward the chair in which she had just been sitting. “I mean, you drove all this way. There’s juice, if you want. Chips.” He reached into the mini-fridge. “Apple okay?”
She took it from him, careful not to touch his fingers with her own. “Thanks.”
Danny leaned back against the desk and took a long swig from his own bottle. “Sorry,” he said, with a glance down at his drenched figure. “I’m a mess. Just came off the river. I’ve got another group coming in a few minutes.” He gave her a speculative look, and she thought there was a glimmer of mischief in his face. “You up for a trip on the water while you’re in town?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Let me know if you’re interested.”
There was a lull during which neither of them seemed to know where to look. “Mom seems to be doing well,” Callie offered finally. “She’s getting awfully good with that walker. She insisted on seeing the store yesterday.”
“She see your window display?”
“Yep.”
He grinned. “Did you get a dirty look?”
“Oh, yeah. Totally worth it.” That smile of his was intoxicating. She got up from her chair in order to escape from it and wandered closer to the photos on the wall. “I see you kept it,” she said, nodding toward the picture of her brother.
“It seemed like the best place for it.”
“You’ve really turned this place into something great, Danny. Elliot would have loved it.”
“Thank you. I think he would have liked it, too.”
She heard emotion beneath his words and turned her head to look at him. He held her eyes with his, and she thought the distant look she’d seen so often in them lately faded.
One or both of them should have looked away by now, but neither did. She turned her body to face his more directly, her pulse speeding up. He watched her, his gaze never leaving hers, and she took a step closer. In another moment, she was going to do or say something stupid, she could feel it.
She was saved by the front door opening.
“Snyder, party of three, reporting for duty!” A stocky young man with a blonde crew cut and a bad sunburn staggered in through the door. “Let’s get this freakin’ thing started! Yeah!”
He hooted loudly, and was answered by the cheers of two other young men on the porch behind him. Then he stumbled and nearly fell before he caught himself with the door handle, laughing.
Callie’s lip curled in disgust. They reeked of alcohol.
Danny had noticed, too. Although his expression was neutral, she saw the tension appear in him at once. He moved casually, but Callie knew it was no accident that he put his body between hers and the newcomers’.
“Can I help you?” he asked with a level look.
“You can if you run this joint. We’re your one o’clock, buddy. And we are ready for a little whitewater action!” He cheered again, and his friends responded in a similar manner with a gesture that Callie associated with surfer dudes.
Tourists, she thought. Looking to live on the edge a little and full of plenty of liquid courage.
“You boys have been doing a little partying already, haven’t you?” Danny said amiably, sizing them up. He put a hand on Callie’s arm and gave her a barely perceptible shove in the direction of the back door while he pretended to look at some paperwork on the desk. “Yeah, here it is. One o’clock. Brian Snyder. That would be you?”
“Yes, it would.” The jock’s eyes lit on Callie. He grinned at her. “Hiya, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
She did not smile back.
When Danny spoke again, his voice was cordial but firm. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t take you out today, fellas.”
The man turned his attention back to Danny. “What?”
“I’d love to take you down the river, Mr. Snyder, but I can’t do it unless everybody’s sober. Too risky. Against the rules.”
Brian Snyder’s bloodshot eyes struggled to focus, and it took a few moments for Danny’s words to register in his brain. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t take you out on the water when you’ve been drinking.”
“But … ” The man sounded like a petulant child. His lips even formed a pout. “We drove a long way for this!”
Drove. They had gotten behind the wheel like this? Memories flooded Callie’s mind of the night Elliot had died, and her gaze darkened.
She glance
d at Danny and saw the muscles of his hands twitch as if he was resisting the urge to form them into fists. He was resisting for her, she suspected, because these men were drunk and therefore unpredictable, and some drunks got mean. He motioned behind his back for her to leave, to go through the back door, wherever it led.
And go where? she thought. Who was she supposed to run to for help? Em? Callie had left her cell phone in her purse on the chair that was now effectively blocked by three angry men. It hardly seemed to matter. No cops would get here fast enough, even if she could call 911. If something were about to happen, it would be over long before they got there. Danny was trying his best to diffuse the situation before it really began, but it was too soon to tell if it was working or not. Brian Snyder was an awfully big man. So were his friends, she realized, as they stepped inside.
Did he really expect her to just run away and leave him?
• • •
Why wasn’t she leaving? Danny cursed inwardly.
“Hey, man, we’ve been really lookin’ forward to this,” one of Snyder’s friends protested, his voice slurring. “So we had a few beers. No big deal. Let’s saddle up, amigo, and get going.”
It was not the first time he had had to turn a customer away for being under the influence, but it was the first time he’d had someone else’s safety to worry about besides his own. And of all people, it was Callie. Every muscle in his body felt taut. “Can’t do it. Someone could get hurt. You guys don’t want to spoil your day like that, do you? Ruin the buzz? Why don’t you kick back and relax in the shade for a while instead. Take a dip in the water.”
“You freakin’ kidding me, man? We didn’t come all the way out here to go wading.” The man threw out a string of expletives.
Snyder got a knowing look in his eye and reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. “Okay, okay, I get it.” He pulled out some cash and held it under Danny’s nose. “How much more’s it going to take to bend the rules, huh?”
“I don’t bend the rules. Time to go.” It was unlikely that he would be able to talk them into handing over their keys. He would have to call the cops once they were outside. They would get pulled over before they had a chance to hurt anyone. Right now he didn’t want to set them off any more than necessary while Callie was in the room.
Snyder got right in Danny’s face, staggering slightly with the effort to stand upright. “A real boy scout, aren’t you?”
Danny stared back, his face like granite. The time for words was rapidly coming to an end. Why wasn’t Callie getting out of there?
“Think you’re too good for us?” Snyder’s voice was low, which might be more dangerous than if he was shouting. “Lookin’ down your nose at us. I’ve known your type my whole life. Think we’re second-class. Punk.” He glanced again at Callie. “You ought to come with us, sweetheart. We’re a hell of a lot more fun than this guy.” He tried to reach behind Danny as if to grab Callie’s hand.
Danny’s self-control snapped.
He grabbed Snyder by the collar and slammed him back into the man behind him, causing both men to stumble. “Get your hands off her, you drunken son of a bitch!”
The last man had enough reflexes left to jump out of the way, and now he bellowed and charged at Danny while his two friends tried to regain their footing.
“Callie, get out of here!” Then Danny grunted as the third man struck him headfirst in the chest and sent him careening back into the desk, and he had no chance to see if she did as he told her.
He hadn’t been in many fights since he was a young kid; there hadn’t been any need for it. Some of the reflexes came back to him, and he smashed his fist into the other man’s throat hard enough to make him drop to his knees and gasp for breath. But Snyder was ready for him this time, and he threw a punch into Danny’s face before he could block it.
The world was an explosion of light and stars. Going on instinct more than sight, Danny threw a punch of his own and connected with the other man’s jaw, and then his gut. Then the sound of shattering glass made him wheel around to see the third man holding up the jagged end of a juice bottle.
The drunk took a menacing step forward.
Then he fell as a wooden paddle connected with the back of his head. Callie stood behind him, her eyes wide with anger and her lips in a hard line. She raised the paddle, ready to swing it again.
Snyder started toward Danny, then thought better of it. His gaze darted back and forth between Callie’s paddle and Danny’s fists.
“Your keys,” Danny said, tasting blood in his mouth. “Leave them. You’re walking back to town.”
The other man’s face turned purple. “You can’t — ”
“Leave them!”
Cursing, Snyder pulled a key ring from his pocket and flung it on the floor.
Danny picked them up. “You’ll find your car in the empty lot at Third and Plum tomorrow, after you’ve sobered up. Keys’ll be under the front seat. And then you’d better go back wherever you came from, because if I see your car in town again, I’ll call the cops.”
The man he had punched in the throat had finally gotten some air back, but the fight had gone out of him. He stooped over the one Callie had knocked out and began to haul him upward.
Brian Snyder finally made a good decision and helped the other two back out the door. Danny followed them out onto the porch and watched as they stumbled down the road in the direction of the highway.
“Stupid fools could kill somebody.” He spat blood onto the ground and flexed his hand. The knuckles were bleeding.
“Are you all right?” Callie’s voice was shaky.
He turned around to see her standing in the open doorway. “I’m fine. You?”
She nodded.
Unconvinced, he cupped her chin in his good hand and tilted her head to one side and then the other to check for any cuts or bruises.
“I said I’m fine, Danny. You’re the one who’s bleeding.”
It was hard to tell where adrenaline left off and relief began. “Callie, if I tell you to get out, you need to get out. You could have been seriously hurt.”
“Would you have left me?”
“Of course not, but — ”
“It would have been three against one. You would have gotten the crap beaten out of you.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said dryly.
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re not seriously going to nurse wounded pride over this, are you?”
“No,” he said softly. “No, I’m not. You’re sure you’re okay?” A beating he could take. Seeing her get hurt would have been far worse.
“I’m fine. Sit down, would you? Where’s your first aid kit?”
He sat down on the top step and let her clean the cuts on his lip and his hand. The tips of her fingers guided his face upward to allow her better access as she dabbed at his injured mouth, and he tried not to stare at her lips, so close to his. They were nice lips, even though they were frowning at the moment. He had been tempted by them before, a few years ago when she had come home from LA to visit and he had realized she was far more woman than child now. His attraction to her had unsettled him and made him testy with her. Distant. He did not trust himself to get too close.
“Nice moves back there,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Where did you learn them?”
She turned her attention to his hand. “You don’t get mugged twice without deciding it’s time to learn a little self-defense.”
He laughed incredulously. “Paddling 101?”
She glanced up at him and grinned before focusing on his hand again. “It’s all in the attitude, not the weapon.”
God, he’d missed her.
“Should we call the cops?” she asked as she finished up with his hand. “I mean, those guys really could hurt somebody.”
> He forced his attention away from her fingertips on his skin and back to her words. “I’ll take care of it. I know a patrolman who’s really good at putting the fear of God into guys who like to get behind the wheel drunk.”
“Really?”
“Not my first time with people like that.”
“Oh.” She wadded up the wrappers from the Band-Aids she had put on him. “Are you okay?”
He flexed his newly bandaged hand. “Right as rain, now.”
Her voice was soft and hesitant, and the hardness he had seen in her so much since returning home was all but gone. “I meant — stuff like this. Does it take you back? To Elliot?”
Every time, he thought with a pang.
But he only squeezed her hand in his. “Let’s not let what happened with those idiots ruin any more of our day, okay?” He frowned, a sudden thought occurring to him. “And maybe we shouldn’t mention any of this to Liddy. She worries.”
“Agreed.” Callie stood up and reached for her purse, then looked at him as if she wanted to say something else.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She started down the steps and toward her mother’s car. A moment later, she turned around and came back. “Got plans for dinner?”
Something flickered inside him that he knew he ought to stifle, but he wasn’t sure he could. His eyes settled briefly on her lips before he was able to force them upward again. He couldn’t tell if she noticed. “Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“I do now.”
A slow smile spread across her face, and it was as if all the awkwardness between them had vanished. “Pick me up at seven.” Then she got in her mother’s car.
He watched her drive away, a dangerous glimmer of desire growing inside him. He was playing with fire here, and he would have to be careful.
The sound of footsteps on gravel made him turn his head.
Em stood with her empty lunch bag in her hand. She was staring at his bruised face. “Uh … did I miss something?”
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