Long Way Home

by HelenKay Dimon

  “I certainly hope so.”

  ***

  Callen didn’t move as Grace let the door bang behind her. He sat on the top step of the back porch, facing the wide expanse of land in front of him. In addition to the main house, there were other buildings. Structures Grace couldn’t identify, but that all looked to be under construction of some sort.

  Then there were the holes dug in the ground, some filled in and others not, with piles of dirt in a random pattern all around the open space before the grass met the trees.

  She had no idea what that was about. Didn’t know much at all about Shadow Hill other than the brothers had inherited it, and a bunch of debt, when their grandmother died.

  She sat down on the step next to him, with her palms balanced on the deck on either side of her thighs, and joined in the staring. “How far back does the property go?”

  “Beck is handling some boundary issues, but the space is about twenty acres.” Callen spun the water bottle he’d set between his legs.

  “So, all those trees and then way beyond.” She was just talking nonsense now. But the words rolled out and she didn’t fight them. Not until she could figure out the rights ones to say.

  “Yep.”

  Callen wasn’t exactly helping with the staccato answers. “And what’s with the holes?”

  He turned to face her. “Is this what you really want to talk about?”

  Apparently the guy didn’t understand the concept of stalling. She blurted out the other topic on her mind. “You’re drinking water.”

  He lifted the bottle, as if studying it. “I limit myself to water and coffee these days.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.” There were days, right at the beginning of them dating, when he woke up and hit the bottle before his feet touched the floor. He never got falling-down drunk or mean, but he’d keep the alcohol flowing all day. Would go from hard liquor to beer then back again without getting sick.

  A friend referred to the ability as being a functional drunk. The tag sounded pretty awful to Grace, but living through it had been worse. He’d fought off headaches with handfuls of aspirin but always dragged his body up and out to work. Some of his construction jobs were dangerous, and she worried every minute he was out of the house and out of sight.

  She knew he didn’t drink for the taste or because he liked it. He drank to numb the pain, and when she had begged him to stop, grabbing his arms and pleading for him to pick her over the bottle, he did.

  “I stopped drinking while we were together. You know that,” he said in a low steady voice.

  “I worried that . . . it doesn’t matter.” But it was the nightmare scenario. That he’d raced right back downhill, only this time he wouldn’t put the brakes on.

  After he’d left she’d feared looking for him and finding him passed out somewhere. A body could only take so much, and he punished his with hard living for a long time.

  “That I would dive into a bottle once we broke up?”

  “I’m not sure that’s how I’d describe what happened to us, but yes.”

  He’d insisted he could stop, and he surprised her when he actually did. Not that it had been easy. Those detoxing days had stretched on and on, and the nurse who lived next to them helped. He went in and out of the outpatient services at the hospital and took the prescribed drugs to lessen the effects of the comedown.

  And there were so many. Shaky hands and insomnia. His temper flared and he got sick, throwing up for what felt like days at a time. But he worked his way through it, and the days that were so rough at first got easier. But she wasn’t in his head and didn’t know how much he craved the alcohol even now.

  He nodded as he twirled the water bottle in his hand. “I thought about it.”

  “Drinking again?”

  “But I didn’t.” He exhaled. “I figured Beck and Declan deserved more from me than that.”

  Callen always did that. Pointed to the others in his life worth living for, but never put his own name on that list. “You deserve better.”

  “Right.” He stared at the nearest pile of dirt.

  She didn’t push, because he still wasn’t ready. She loved him and found him worthy, and for now that would have to be enough to get both of them through this. “You still attending meetings?”

  “Once a week I make the long roundtrip.”

  Unless something had changed, she knew he’d never been big on the program aspects of recovery. “Does your family know?”

  “Nope.” He glanced at her again. “Yes, I know that’s not how you heard it operates. Not being all that mainstream religious, and not particularly good at following a bunch of rules, I tried this alternate thing called Smart . . . well, the name doesn’t matter. Point is it’s not perfect but it works for me.”

  She didn’t care about the name or what rules he followed so long as he kept the bottle away from his mouth. Truth was the news she was about to hand him might push him in that direction again. “Well, I’m proud of you.”

  “I did it for you.”

  “You did it to be healthy.”

  He thumped the bottle against the deck, and the hollow sound echoed through the quiet wooded area. “Not at first.”

  She sat there and inhaled the fresh air. The crispness suited her. Heat gave her that sticky clothes-are-too-tight squirminess. The cool breeze combated the kick up in body temperature she’d experienced since week two of pregnancy.

  Soon this total battle with her body would end. Reading all the books about expecting made her head pound. She’d stopped paging through them so she could hold on to the I-got-this fantasy running through her head.

  The quiet continued, and the sound of the woods filled in the empty space. Rustling leaves and the creaking of wood from one of the buildings. The hypnotic sounds promised calm and relaxation even though she felt neither.

  He blew out a long breath. “It happened after you had the flu, right?”

  “What?” Her head snapped back, and then she followed his gaze to her stomach, where her hand rubbed over her shirt. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  She almost smiled. Of course he knew. The fear and worry she expected in broaching the subject never came. Quite the opposite. His matter-of-fact delivery warmed her. Comforted her as much as the oversized top she pulled close around her body. The opening line made it possible for her to sit there without shifting around and searching her mind for the right words.

  From the way he studied her, she guessed he’d been turning the news over in his mind, dissecting and analyzing. He wasn’t shouting or blaming. He just sat there, almost deadly still with an unreadable expression. Not angry, not happy . . . not anything obvious in the lines of his face or curve of his lips.

  She couldn’t read his mood at all, but some of the pieces came together in her head. “That’s why you were upset when you got home last night.”

  There was a strange squeaking noise as he squeezed the water bottle too tight and the sides crumpled in. “Stunned might be a more appropriate word.”

  “Horrified?” She wouldn’t be angry if he said yes. She’d struggled with the news and had raced to the store for a third pregnancy test before she believed her usually regular body had a reason for running off schedule.

  “I’m not sure what I feel, but not that. At least I don’t think so.”

  “That’s where I started. Did a lot of why-me thinking and whining.” She also got all spun up about suing the birth control maker. “All rational thought abandoned me back then.”

  “Really?” He sounded amused by the idea.

  None of this rolled out the way she expected. She thought she’d tell him and he’d lose it. Instead, they went back and forth as if they were talking about where to go get a burger. It was surreal but also touched off a wave of relief. It flooded through her, wiping out some of the churning anx
iety that had her head spinning before today.

  “You thought you’re the only one who got hit with a buttload of dread at the idea of being a parent?” He looked like he might say yes to her question, so she explained. “Difference is, I’ve had fourteen weeks to get used to the idea, though I still wake up every morning convinced that stupid stick was all part of a weird dream.”

  “Fourteen weeks.” He wiped a hand over his face. “Damn. Definitely when you had the flu.”

  “Me throwing up the birth control pills.” She’d been so sick. Like, days and days of being sick, until she threw up yellow bile. Little did she know those days draped over the toilet would be good practice for the pregnancy to come.

  “Me sleeping on the couch so I didn’t catch it and miss work.” He set the water bottle down. “Yeah, I remember how wound up I was and how much I wanted you by the time you felt better.”

  “Me, too.” He’d been all over her, and she’d welcomed every kiss, every touch. Those first few times amounted to a frenzy of hands and mouths. Kissing, rolling across the mattress, slumping onto the floor and she took him in deep.

  Yeah, she knew exactly how this happened.

  “What are the chances . . . ?” His control never faltered. He just sat there talking and shaking his head and generally looking like he’d been hit by a runaway truck even as his voice stayed steady. “Fuck me, I couldn’t hit the lottery if I tried, but we scored this jackpot.”

  “At least you’re not insisting it’s Walker’s.” That had been the big fear. Denial.

  Callen opened his mouth then snapped it shut. It took another few seconds before a sentence popped out. “I’ve been a dick on that score, but I know the baby is mine.”

  The last of the tension left her body. Emotions bombarded her. First gratitude, then confusion. They came faster than she could separate them or process them. “Thanks for not fighting me.”

  He turned so his knees aimed in her direction and he met her eyes face-to-face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned. “Grace, tell me.”

  “I threw up for something like ten solid weeks, but I finally turned a corner and now I want to eat anything high in salt, fat or sugar.” Emotionally she was a great big bumbling mess, but she kept to the easy-to-explain stuff. “Be forewarned, I may weigh nine hundred pounds by the time this kid pops out.”

  “Alone.”

  Not really a comprehensible response in her head. “What?”

  He picked up her hand and wound his fingers through hers. “You did it, the hard shit at the beginning, without me.”

  There was no way to sugarcoat it. And, really, maybe a part of her wanted him to realize how his actions had consequences, and how she had to face all of them without him. “Yeah, all alone.”

  “Why didn’t you—”

  She pulled away from him then. No amount of touching could soften this accusation. “Do not ask me why I didn’t tell you sooner or I will lose my mind and cause a scene that Declan and Leah will be talking about when they’re eighty.”

  “Right.” Callen didn’t exactly sound convinced she’d do it but smartly backed off.

  “For the record, I tried. I called and texted. You’re the one who changed telephone numbers.”

  He blew out a breath, then did it again. “In retrospect, not my finest hour.”

  “I looked for you. Tried talking with the guys you worked with and for. Even went to the old bars you used to frequent.” The words spilled out of her, and with each one she relived the dragging loneliness and utter panic that came from being in such a vulnerable place without a safety net. “Nothing.”

  “I’d already left.” His gaze searched her face, and it looked as if he was struggling to find the right words. “If I wasn’t going to be with you, I wasn’t about to stick around and see you with anyone else.”

  “So you ran.” Her least favorite Callen trait.

  “I didn’t—” She just raised an eyebrow when he started to wave her off. “Fine. Okay. Yes, I ran.”

  Maybe that counted as progress. The Callen she lived with wouldn’t have accepted that charge. This Callen looked resigned.

  “I called in some favors at the FBI and . . .” She stopped, because this part sounded like stalking or investigating or something that might tick him off and send this whole civil conversation spiraling down the toilet.

  “What?”

  “You wrote a check to pay off the outstanding mortgage payments on this house, and everything fell together after that.” She closed one eye and waited for the explosion.

  “But you didn’t come right away.”

  “Intel said you were living with a woman.” The words made her ache. She rubbed a hand over her stomach but really needed to put pressure on her chest and every other part that felt like it might rip open and spill something on the porch.

  He shifted, and the water bottle fell. Tumbled right down the steps. He didn’t bother running after it. “What are you talking about?”

  The confused reaction looked real, but Grace had seen the photos and read the reports her friend and former colleague had collected. “I couldn’t really handle seeing you move on so quickly, not while I heaved up every meal. So, the plan was to feel better, then come find you.”

  He leaned in closer. Desperation poured out of him. In his jerky motions and the pleading in his eyes. “There was no other woman, Grace.”

  “I saw photos.” Not exactly how she wanted to deliver that information, but Grace figured she was committed now. “Yeah, the FBI keeps a file on you and your brothers. Don’t act surprised. It’s standard operating procedure when so much property and money is still missing thanks to your dad.”

  Callen shook his head. “I don’t care what the file says. It’s wrong.”

  The pale face and stress playing on every line of his face had her doubting, but . . . “A brunette. Long hair, and really pretty. Younger than you.”

  His expression changed in a flash. Color flooded back in, and he smiled. “Sophie.”

  Little did he know he was two seconds away from a hard shove down the stairs. “So there was a woman. Good memory there, slick.”

  “Sophie as in Beck’s girlfriend.”

  The words didn’t go into Grace’s brain at first. She had to turn them over and think it all through. “Beck?”

  “He was pretty much all over her from the first day.”

  The words finally sunk in. A dizzy relief hit her. Grace tried not to smile. Tried and failed—so she looked at her hands where they were folded on her lap. Then she switched to a conversation guaranteed to suck the life out of her. “While you settled in here and your brothers paired off—”

  “That was pathetic to see.”

  “—I made the important decisions.”

  “What does that mean?” The amusement seeped out of Callen’s voice, and the wariness crept back in.

  “Deciding whether to have the baby and if I could be a single mother. All the money questions and trying to wade through the realities of what my life would be like with a baby to take care of.” Grace tried to race through this part. Those days had been so long and filled with so many questions. Keep the baby, give it up for adoption, end the pregnancy. No answer had sounded right and she fumbled her way through it all. “If I could raise it when you hated me and refused to talk.”

  “I never hated you.”

  She wasn’t ready to believe that. “Felt that way.”

  “Is that why you debated even telling me?” There was no judgment. No comment on her decision either.

  She had no idea what to make of that, but he did get this last part wrong. “No, that never happened. I didn’t hide this.”

  “I don’t blame you. I really don’t.”

  He wasn’t begging, but the intensity of his tone and the way he leaned f
orward with every word made her believe. “Good, because I’m not apologizing for any decision I made. But the truth is once I decided I was keeping the baby I doubled my efforts to find you. There was never a point when I thought to keep the baby from you.”

  He dropped his head and massaged the back of his neck with one hand. “Shit, I can’t believe this is all happening.”

  “We messed up, but that’s over, and we can’t take it back.” She was about to touch his hair when his head popped up again.

  “You mean I messed up.”

  “Don’t be a martyr. We were both in that bed, Callen.” They shared the blame. Them and the birth control, the world and the stupid flu, but they were in this together, and she refused to see it another way.

  He did smile then. “Oh, I remember the sex part. Figures we’d just stopped using condoms and relied on the pill alone when this happened.”

  “Not our brightest decision.”

  He nodded. “But fun at the time.”

  The heated gleam in his eye threw her off for a second, but she couldn’t let her mind wander there. Not until they got through all of it. “You’re taking this better than I expected.”

  “How did you take it?”

  “Lots of throwing up and cursing. Some feet stomping and a lot of denial.” That was the short version, but she really didn’t want to relive all of it.

  “Sounds reasonable. It’s not that different from how I’m doing on the inside.” He gaze went back to the yard. Raced across the wide expanse and into the trees.

  “Want to share?”

  “I can’t even process it.” He stretched his legs out and down the steps.

  “But something is scratching at your insides and you’re not telling me what it is.”

  He winced. “Do you have any idea what my gene pool is like?”

  Grace had seen this one coming. “I like your mom.”

  He wiped a band through his hair. Brushed the palm back and forth as if lost in thought. “Yeah, that’s a whole different disaster.”

  As if she knew how to parse that sentence. “What does that mean?”