by Kate Hardy
Lori just laughed. “You’d do the same for me,” she said with a wave of a slim hand.
I hope I never have to. But Callie didn’t say the words—just smiled, because it was true.
The day moved along pretty quickly, and Callie was grateful to get off her feet at the end of it. Her color appointment had run over—which she’d expected—and it made her even later. The boys were happy to see her, but dinner was going to be a rush affair if she wanted to avoid the breakdowns and tears from overly hungry kids. Seeing how quickly they were approaching the critical point, she called The Pie Shack and ordered a pizza. The wait wasn’t bad, since it was a weeknight. Plus they’d deliver.
Not a great mom day, she thought as she shoveled laundry into the washer. But you couldn’t win them all. And Callie was smart enough not to try.
The bell rang for the pizza and she opened the front door to pay the delivery guy—but it was Matt on her step, holding her steaming and fragrant pizza box. She blinked and took a step back. “Whoa. I thought—wait. You’re the delivery boy?”
He flashed her a wicked smile that had her face immediately heating. “Only for you.”
Flustered, she reached for her wallet. “Well. Okay—”
“I got it, Callie. I caught the kid in the driveway. It’s all set.”
She turned around, her wallet clutched tightly in her hands. “Oh, no. I can’t do that. Let me pay you—” But the boys came tumbling in then, asking about Aldo, and her words were lost. She stepped aside with a little sigh. “You may as well come in.”
He stepped in and two little boys attached themselves to his legs. He handed the pizza to her with a smile and she carried it to the table, not wanting to see him roughhousing with the kids. When would she get used to it?
She got plates out in the kitchen and took a moment. Maybe she needed to relax a little. Not read anything into it or fight this and it’d just go away on its own. Understandable that she might overreact the first time she was attracted to a man. It’d been so long.
He came into the kitchen then, Eli and Liam in tow.
“Are you staying?” she asked him, in a voice that was just a little too bright.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t want to impose.”
“Please stay,” Eli implored, and Liam smiled his big baby grin. “Pizza is yummy.”
“Ah.” Matt threw a helpless glance Callie’s way. “Yes, it is.”
She gave in. “Do you have any other plans? If not, you’re welcome to stay.” She nearly swallowed her tongue. What had made her issue the invitation? Just good manners, or something more?
Just good manners, surely. After all, he’d paid for the pizza.
But as he accepted the plate she held out, she knew it was more than that. The kids lit up when he was around and they didn’t do that often. So she would swallow her awkwardness and let him visit occasionally with the boys like this. She’d adjust.
“So, Matt, why did you come back here to live?” Callie asked when the boys cleared out post pizza, leaving the two of them alone. It seemed like a pretty safe conversational topic.
He paused. “Brice and Marley made me an offer,” he said finally. “They knew I’d been looking at doing something like this, once I—once I retired.” The tightness of his jaw indicated maybe retiring hadn’t been his first choice.
“Why did you retire? Jason always said you were well suited to the army.” She was genuinely curious.
Matt didn’t meet her gaze for a minute. “It was time,” he said finally. “I’d just seen too much. Kind of catches up to you after a while.”
“I understand.” She knew all about sore spots being prodded, and would leave his be. She changed the subject instead. “So, what is it you guys do?”
She saw him relax. “It’s an adventure company. Out There Adventures. We do things like white-water rafting, mountain biking, all over the Midwest. We meet the tour at the site.” He’d lit right up as he talked about it, even as her heart sank. Then she felt—what, exactly? It couldn’t be disappointment, could it? No, it had to be a feeling of relief. This was what she wanted, right? A concrete reason to avoid him. To shore up her defenses when she got those—feelings.
Even if she’d ever been interested in him, she wasn’t going to get involved with a guy who took those kinds of risks with his life on a regular basis. Period.
“Problem?” Matt’s voice cut through her thoughts.
She refocused. “Oh, no. Not at all. I was just thinking it’s kind of cool you and your friends could start a company like that.” It was true. She did think that, even if it was all wrong for her and her family. “There’s a lot of risk involved.”
He misunderstood what she meant by risk, and she let it stand. “Yeah, but there is in starting any business. We talked about it and researched it for a long time. Well, I did what I could from Afghanistan and they did a lot here.” He shrugged. “Time will tell if it will pay off. But we’re booking tours hand over fist and that’s a good sign.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It is. So you’ll be gone a lot?”
He reached down to grab a stray toy truck and she tried not to notice the way his shirt pulled across his chest. She averted her eyes and rubbed at a crayon mark on the table instead. Goodness. “We’ll trade off. But yes, it will mostly be a few days at a time. We’ve got four other guides, so we’ll rotate. That way no one has to be gone for several consecutive trips.” He gave a short laugh. “Unless they want to be, of course.”
“That sounds very sensible,” she murmured. Was it good or bad to have him gone for periods at a time? She wouldn’t have to worry about running into him accidentally. That was a bonus. Right?
He flashed the grin that did disturbing things to her insides. “Yeah. I’m pretty stoked about it. It’s a great fit. I’m not an office kind of guy. After twenty years in the army I’m not sure I could transition to a desk job.”
Liam came up to her then with two big Lego blocks that were stuck together. As she worked them apart she asked, “What happened with your fiancée?” Horror shot through her. “Oh. I’m so sorry. That was awfully rude. Forget I said anything.”
He chuckled, which she didn’t expect. “No harm done, Callie. It just didn’t work out. Better all around.”
Callie wanted to ask him exactly what he meant by that, but she understood the nonanswer. After all, she’d given plenty of her own over the past year and a half. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “These things happen.”
He didn’t seem particularly broken up about it, but there was a definite shadow in his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t completely over his ex, after all. It was another reason this attraction to him was a bad idea. A hopeless cause was another kind of risk entirely.
“Well.” She stood and picked up her plate. “Good luck with your new venture. I hope it takes off for you. But don’t—please don’t say anything about all your extreme sports to the kids. I’m trying to keep that sort of thing off their radar.” She planned to keep them as far from anything that could hurt them as possible.
Matt didn’t say anything, but her comment rocked him. She was afraid of something happening to her kids. He got that. But she couldn’t hide them from life forever. He knew all about wanting to protect someone. Thing was, people had a way of making choices and decisions on their own. Like walking into places where the threat of death was a constant companion. But who was he to point that out to her? This friendship was still pretty tenuous and he really didn’t want to spoil it now by falling out with her.
He followed her into the small kitchen and found her bent over, rearranging things to fit the pizza box in the fridge. The view was fantastic—and wrong—so he forced himself to look over her head at the milk carton as he grabbed the door, which was swinging slowly back toward her.
“Will it fit?”
She stood up and spun around, and he saw the second she realized she was trapped between him and the fridge. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was caught in the caramel depths of her eyes. He definitely saw a spark of what burned in him reflected there. If he leaned in just a little bit he could take her mouth. Just. A. Little. Bit. Closer.
Her intake of breath was audible and her hand visibly shook when she put it on his chest. “Matt. I’m not—I can’t—”
He stepped back, when what he wanted to do was step forward and pull her in, kiss her until the shadows fled from her caramel-colored eyes and she only saw him. The light caught the diamond on her finger. The icy flash was as good as a cold blast of water to the face. He reached out and touched the rings and saw her eyes go wide. There was nothing more to say.
As long as those rings were on her finger, there’d always be a third party between them. He had no say in that, and he respected it, and what they represented. She would move on in her own time—or not. He also realized he was all wrong for her. She deserved someone who could give her everything. All of himself. He wasn’t that guy. He’d been alone for too long, as his foray into the world of the almost-married had proved. He could handle a dog, not a ready-made family. “I know. I know you can’t.” He fisted his hand so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch her face. Wrong for her or not, he still wanted to touch her, chase the shadows from her eyes.
It was time to go.
He moved away as she turned and fiddled with something in the fridge. He stepped back even farther, recognizing her nervousness and wanting to give her the space she needed.
He swallowed as the kids came back in. He said his goodbyes to her and those cute boys of hers, and walked back across the street to his dog. He couldn’t resist turning to look back at her house, all brightly lit and warm and inviting.
He could see her silhouetted against the door. She gave him a quick little wave and shut it, and he started walking again.
It was really too bad neither of them was in a place to pursue this mutual attraction. But he knew he should just stick with Aldo. A dog wasn’t complicated. No game playing, unless you counted fetch. Loyal. No backstabbing. You knew where you stood with a dog, unlike with some people.
Matt flicked on the kitchen light and headed for the dining room table, stopping to rub Aldo behind the ears. Time for paperwork. It didn’t keep Matt warm at night, but at least it didn’t twist him up in those stupid knots, unlike Callie’s haunting caramel eyes.
* * *
Callie released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding after Matt left. She’d watched him walk across the street. It was silly but she couldn’t seem to pull her eyes off him. He took up so much space and made it so hard for her to act normally. She wanted to burrow into that broad chest—except at the same time she didn’t. She fiddled with her rings. She wore them as a shield; she knew that perfectly well. They deterred men, but not, apparently, herself from noticing Matt. Ironic.
She never thought she’d need to protect herself from, well, herself. She’d had everything under such tight control, she’d never expected to have issues like being attracted to another man. That another man might do for her what Jason had. And that said man would be a friend of Jason’s.
Wasn’t that a betrayal of her marriage somehow?
Callie turned back toward the living room. That was silly and she knew it. She’d even been to counseling, where the woman told her it wasn’t any such thing. Jason had been gone more than a year. Closer to two, really. He would never expect her to spend her life alone. But Callie had accepted it. That she’d raise their kids and then sort of see where she was when they left home.
Nice and vague.
But her mom had made an equally valid point the other day—that the boys would try to take responsibility for Callie at too young an age, and she didn’t want that, either.
She went in her room to grab more laundry, and sat down on her big bed for a minute. Oh, she didn’t really want to be alone for years and years on end. No one did. Raising two rambunctious kids was going to be tough by herself. But if she did look for a man it wouldn’t be a guy who ran an adventure company and did dangerous stuff like white-water rafting for a living.
And never mind she’d once loved that same kind of sport. In fact, it was how she’d met Jason—on a white-water rafting trip. She knew all about the risks he was taking. Had embraced them once, even.
She couldn’t take them anymore. Not after Jason’s death.
Sure, Matt also did kind things like play with the kids. Buy her pizza. Shovel her driveway. And apparently, take in strays like Aldo—from Afghanistan.
Make her feel all fizzy inside.
Callie tipped over onto her pillow and let out a frustrated roar. All tied up in knots over a man and she hadn’t even seen it coming. If that darn dog had just stayed in the right yard, she wouldn’t be in this situation. She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. Eventually they’d have run into each other. He lived across the street from her. It was inevitable.
“You okay, Mama?” Eli’s voice startled her from her ridiculous musings.
She sat up and smiled at him, holding out her arms for a hug. “I am. Thanks, honey.” As she drew her little boy in, she closed her eyes tight, wishing she could just shut the rest of the world out.
* * *
The next day, Matt kept his thoughts off Callie, but it took far more effort than it should have. His day was busy, but she still crept into his head when he didn’t expect it.
“There’s a word my grandma used to use,” Marley said conversationally. “Woolgathering. For moments like right now, when it’s clear the person you’re talking to is off someplace far, far away, mentally.”
Caught. Matt winced. “Sorry, Marley. I’ve just got—a lot on my mind.”
“Of course you do,” she agreed. “But you’re not a woolgatherer. So it’s a woman, right? Your neighbor, Callie?”
He was not discussing Callie with Marley. “I’m just tired and busy.” Both true, but Marley was spot-on with her assessment. Far too much so, in fact. So he’d be more careful not to wander off mentally and give himself away. But he still couldn’t seem to put Callie too far out of his mind.
“Well, the next step is mooning over her.” She gave him a smug little smile. “I give you a week.”
Matt tipped his chair back. “You’re pretty funny.” There was no way he’d moon over a woman. Ever. He’d never even gotten moony over Trina, and he’d been planning to marry her. Of course, she hadn’t been the type you got that way over. She wouldn’t have liked it.
Neither would Callie. He dropped the chair back down. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her away. Not for his sake, but for what he hoped he could share with her boys. Jason’s boys.
Yeah, Jason was really the focus here. Or should be.
Marley snapped her fingers in front of his face. “There you go again. Boom, you’re gone. Is there something going on with Callie, Matt?”
Annoyed, he rubbed his hands over his face. He couldn’t deny anything, which annoyed him further. “Marley. Drop it. Please.”
She sighed. “Why does it have to be a bad thing?” Before he could answer, she held up her hands. “But okay. Consider it dropped.”
“What’s dropped?” Brice stepped up behind his wife and kissed her neck.
She reached behind her to pat his face. “The subject of Matt’s new woman, honey.”
Matt groaned. Brice lifted his head and met Matt’s eyes, his own full of humor. “Ah. I see. Who’s the woman, Matt? Callie?”
Hell. “No one. No woman.” Matt ground his teeth together as he stood up and moved around them.
“Definitely Callie,” he heard Marley say triumphantly. “Nothing else would make him so touchy.”
“
Leave him alone, Mar,” came Brice’s amused reply.
Matt went into his office and resisted the far-too-teenage urge to slam the door. Great. Just great. Marley was on the trail now and it’d be hell to get her off it. And Brice would let her pick at him, unless Matt said something. And then he’d get knowing looks from Brice, too. But it was still probably worth the trade-off.
So he’d say something and hope his friend called his wife off the scent. Or maybe if he introduced Marley to Callie, she’d see there was nothing between them.
But that was kind of playing right into her hands, wasn’t it?
CHAPTER SIX
CALLIE DIDN’T SEE Matt for the rest of the week. She caught glimpses of lights on in the house or saw his truck in the driveway, but Aldo didn’t show up once on her porch.
She told herself she was relieved, not disappointed. At all.
If she kept thinking it, it would be true. Right?
Either way, she was packing for her kids’ overnight stay with Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow. Miracle of miracles, she’d gotten all the laundry done, so she could cross that off her weekend list.
The TV in the living room was tuned to the evening news and the meteorologist was talking about some storms that were coming in off Lake Michigan. Not snow this time, but wind and rain. Very likely severe in nature.
Callie sighed as she dropped clean undies in Eli’s bag. Of course they would be. She hated storms, and knew how bad they could be here in the spring, but tried very hard to hide it from her kids.
The day had been unseasonably warm—hence the coming storms—and Callie had left the front door open. She heard a scratching and a whine and realized her earlier thoughts about Aldo had been too soon. Hoping the kids wouldn’t notice him, she hurried to the door, but then the dog started barking, bringing out the boys.
“Doggie,” Liam cried, and Callie bit back a sigh.
“Yep. There he is.” She put her hands on her hips and stared down into Aldo’s upturned face. He was watching her intently. She rubbed his head and he gave another bark, a sharp one, his eyes not leaving her. She snatched her hand back, but his tail was wagging.