14
Late that night, Iris set her laptop on the coffee table, stretching her arms above her head. She blinked rapidly, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room instead of the bright screen.
She could hear her mom's reprimand as clearly as if the woman were standing next to her: you'll ruin your eyes reading in the dark.
In the chaos of the days leading up to her dancers' show, Iris hadn't had time to log on and view the videos from Melody's shop. Until now.
The boys had been in bed for an hour, long enough for her to get the dishes done and pick up the building blocks spread across the living room floor. She really needed to vacuum, but that was a worry for tomorrow.
She'd struck out with looking for other video sources. There were no other security cameras in town. She'd been out of luck when she'd spoke to the other business owners who operated on Main Street. Because of the rain, they'd all been focused inside, and there had been little foot traffic on the sidewalks.
Melody's security system sorted the videos into dates, but they were in eight-hour segments. And Iris was afraid of missing the exact moment when the truck had hit. She felt she was close.
She scrubbed her hands over her face, closing her eyes against the bright screen in the darkness, just for a moment. Beside her, Rowdy slumbered on, stretched out across the couch cushion, snoring softly.
Standing, she realized that what she really needed was a good stretch. Although she got plenty of exercise chasing Callum's boys all day long, she couldn't afford to get out of her normal routine, or her back would tighten up.
She moved into the center of the living room carpet, only tripping once on a toy monster truck she'd missed earlier, and bent from the waist, letting her hands rest flat on the floor. She exhaled deeply, closing her eyes, and imagined that she expelled all of the stress and ugly emotions along with her breath.
Moving to kneel on the floor, she attempted to shake off the deep exhaustion that surrounded her. She bent one knee and extended her opposite leg behind her, then leaned over her bent knee in a simple stretch, staying in the position for long moments as she tried to corral her thoughts.
She couldn't give up. It wasn't in her nature. And this was Callum. He'd been treated unfairly throughout his childhood, not because of who he was, but because of his parents, his circumstances.
Changing her position to favor her other leg, Iris stretched forward again, bowing her head.
Years ago, she had hated the favoritism the prominent kids her age and Callum's had received.
She couldn't let her father blacken Callum's reputation, no matter what secrets were between Callum and him.
Movement from the hallway brought her head up.
But it wasn't one of the boys on the bottom step, peeking around the corner. The shadow had Callum's bulk.
The side table lamp clicked on as she rearranged her legs to a more normal position, sitting cross-legged.
"What are you doing?" His hair was rumpled. Either he'd already been in bed, or he'd been running his hands through it.
"Stretching."
Emotion crossed his face. "You used to do that in the barn."
She shrugged. "Stretching is something you can do anywhere." And back then she'd spent every spare moment in the barn, hoping he would come by.
Tension spiraled between them.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "Do you need something?"
His expression smoothed, the memories or whatever that had been there moments ago disappearing. "I don't need anything."
She rose and returned to the couch, putting distance between them.
The words were an echo from his teen years, when the boy he'd been had snarled the same at her, turning his back so she couldn't see the black eye he'd sported.
He'd been so fiercely independent, not wanting to need help from anyone. Her uncle had seen through him. He'd offered him the job on the ranch.
She'd seen through him too, befriending the boy who was older than she was, maybe out of her reach.
Was still out of her reach. Tonight, she was too tired to batter herself further against his walls of I don't need you.
Except instead of backing into the hall and disappearing into Uncle Joe's room, as he'd done so many nights, Callum moved into the room with her. All the way to the couch.
And sat down.
The laptop screen blinked to black as he used his hands to hoist his leg onto the coffee table.
She couldn't help staring at him, hoped her mouth wasn't hanging open in her shock. He'd approached her.
He laid his head back against the couch, opening his tanned throat to her view. His broad shoulders and the planes of his chest were outlined by the navy T-shirt.
"The boys had fun today," he said to the ceiling.
Really? He'd come in here to talk about the boys?
"Brandt is a natural," she said. "And Levi's a ham." She curled her legs in front of her and held on.
Shy Tyler had stood in the back of the formation, but he'd gotten up on stage, and she'd praised him effusively for it all afternoon.
Callum rolled his head toward her, leaving it still pillowed on the back of the couch. His eyes pierced her in the low light from the lamp. "Maude was there."
Her breath stuck in her chest. She hadn't invited the other woman, though they'd texted a few times since Callum's blow up, mostly inane things about whatever the boys were doing that day.
"She watched the boys dance and then left." His voice held a tone of question, but she didn't have answers for him. She had seen the depth of love Maude had for the boys and knew how much she wanted to be back in their lives. But Iris hadn't orchestrated this, not this time.
"Did you report her to the police?"
He shook his head slightly. "She left before I could figure out what to do."
Part of Iris urged her to show him the video. She had a gut feeling she was close to the time when the accident had happened. But she didn't want him to get angry that she was in his business again. And what if the footage was corrupted or something? It might be all for nothing.
So she kept her mouth closed.
Awkward silence. Since everything that had happened, the kiss, the blowup, the distance between them, she didn't know how to talk to him.
"You were pretty amazing up there," he said.
"Hmm?"
"On stage," he qualified.
"Oh. Yeah, I enjoy being with the little ones." She enjoyed it so much that she'd put plans in place to open her own studio. No one knew about it, not yet. The dream was still new, but teaching at the YMCA had fueled the dream.
"Not them," he said. "You."
And suddenly his glittering eyes saw too much. She let her eyes slide down to where she was fiddling with her sleeve.
"You should be in New York or...I don't know, Europe or something. Not stuck here in small-town Oklahoma."
"I'm right where I want to be," she said firmly, looking up steadily, then back down. "And besides, you don't have anything to compare my dancing to. You've never seen me perform before—"
"Yes, I have." His immediate statement drew her gaze back up to his face, and suddenly he looked uncomfortable. He leaned forward in his seat.
"You didn't come...that night." A week before her eighteenth birthday. He'd been rodeoing, but he'd said he'd try to get there to watch her dance Swan Lake. She'd peeked through the curtains probably a dozen times, and he'd never been in his seat.
"I was there." His Adam's apple bobbed, but he didn't break his gaze. "I made it just as you came on stage. Stood in the back the whole time. You were mesmerizing. Even more than today, but I can see your talent hasn't gone anywhere, even if you're not using it."
Her chest felt tight, like she couldn't breathe. She shrugged off his words about her talent and went back to the heart of the matter. "You didn't attend," she said, and even she heard the faint overtone of desperation in her voice. Because if he'd seen her dance, and then left her...No. She wa
s about to shatter all over again.
She stood up, and he did too, moving close. He clasped her hands, which had suddenly gone cold, surrounding her with the warmth of his touch.
Her heart beat against her ribcage, painfully, each beat bringing back more memories of that terrible night.
* * *
Callum hadn't meant to admit to watching Iris dance on that night. He'd never dreamed it would come up.
He saw that he'd hurt her, saw the frantic beat of her pulse in the hollow at the base of her neck.
His hands clasped hers by instinct.
"Hey."
He'd meant to calm her, but she threw off his hands.
"You just..."
She couldn't even catch her breath. Was she angry or just upset? This was one of the things that had never been worked out between them. Maybe it was time to come clean, at least with this part.
"I saw you dance up there, and I couldn't figure out what you were doing with a nobody like me."
Now her eyes came into sharp focus, right on his face. He fisted his hands at his thighs, since she didn't seem to want him touching her.
"It was effortless for you. I know how much time you put into it, but it didn't look it. You just...shined. You were miles better than everybody around you. And I knew..."
He couldn't say it. Tried to swallow the words, but she suddenly thumped his chest with her fist, and they just spewed out.
"I knew that I was just going to hold you back. I didn't want to pull you in two directions, trying to be married to me and live your dreams in New York, too. It would never have worked."
Her lips trembled, and he was afraid she was going to burst into tears. He should've known better.
She pushed against his chest with her fists. Hard. "So you just decided—on your own—that we would be better off going our separate ways?"
Her ambition and future plans had been rattling around inside his head that night. But he hadn't made a final decision until the accident and her father's threats.
He didn't know what she saw on his face, but she pounded his chest again. "What was it then? You saw me dance, you had second thoughts...and what?"
He couldn't tell her. His inattention had killed the animal she'd loved best—and her father had put the nail in the coffin. Whatever illusions he might harbor about having a chance with her wouldn't survive that confession.
"Tell me!" she begged, pounding his chest once more for good measure.
He couldn't. He caught her hands in his and yanked, just hard enough to pull her close. He captured her lips. A kiss as an apology. A kiss for comfort when he couldn't tell her the truth.
She met him sweetly, tasting of orange and a hint of coffee. And salt.
He eased back, cupping her cheek in his hand and brushing his thumb over the tears on her cheeks.
Her eyelashes swept down, clumped with tears, covering her eyes. Hiding her thoughts.
And then she pulled away completely. "I can't do this again."
She swept out of the room, her bare feet nearly silent as she climbed the stairs.
He dropped his head into his hands, shaking from head to toe. He shouldn't have done that. She was right to pull away. The physical connection that snapped to life when they were close only muddied the waters.
She wanted answers. He couldn't bear to give them to her. He was both ashamed of what had happened, and afraid she wouldn't be able to forgive him. And he was hurt. All these years later, he'd never gotten over the fact that her father hated him.
Callum had come from nothing, and by twenty, he hadn't made much of himself. But he'd promised he would never end up like his father. Why couldn't Iris's father believe that was enough?
They'd agreed on one thing and one thing only: Iris was going places, and she didn't need Callum hanging like a millstone around her neck.
He should never have come in here tonight. He'd seen the light from Iris's computer and wanted to know what she was doing. He'd wanted to share his confusion about seeing Maude earlier in the day.
He still couldn't figure that one out. There was no question that she and Jackson had tried to steal away the boys. After the police had run them down, they'd freely admitted it.
The restraining order was to protect the boys, but if Maude had had a change of heart and just wanted to see them, and nothing else...He couldn't blame her. They were the last part of her deceased daughter. Maybe the best part.
But that didn't mean he could trust her.
Just like Iris couldn't give him another chance. There was too much water under the bridge.
Wasn't there?
* * *
After staring at the ceiling most of the night, Iris crept downstairs in the wee hours of the night to grab her laptop and tote it back upstairs.
As she tiptoed down the hallway, she couldn't help but peek in at the boys. They were sprawled together, a tangle of limbs in the double bed, moonlight shining through the cracks in the blinds.
Levi had one arm wrapped around Tyler's shoulders. Brandt had kicked off the covers, and one of his legs hung off the side of the bed.
Emotion closed her throat as she looked in on them. She envied their closeness. She loved them.
And she was afraid she was falling in love with their father, all over again.
Hearing that part of the reason he'd disappeared had been for her had both hurt and not surprised her. He was protective of those he loved—fiercely so. The fear and intensity she'd seen from him when he'd believed Maude's video chat was a threat was just one example of that.
If he'd thought he were protecting her, she could understand how he would've left.
But that wasn't all of it. Something else had happened that night, she was sure of it. He just wouldn't tell her what.
Tyler shifted in the bed, and she silently backed out of the doorway and slipped into her room across the hall.
She switched on a lamp, squinting in the sudden brightness, and sat cross-legged on her bed, the laptop before her.
She'd cracked the window earlier, and a light breeze rifled the curtains, sending them swaying.
The computer woke from its inactive state, and she brought up the web browser, ready to play the video forward.
What would she find? This was her only shot at changing things for Callum.
The video played for several minutes, just the normal pedestrian and occasional vehicle traffic. The shot wasn't great, showing part of the intersection and the Town Hall building.
And then she saw it. Callum's red truck entered the screen and a black truck with custom raised wheels ran through the stoplight and smashed into him.
Her breath caught in her throat as she watched in horror all over again. She paused the footage and grabbed a scratch pad from her bedside table, then quickly made a note of the exact time in the footage.
She ran the video back a few seconds and expanded it to full screen on the laptop. Watching it closely, she could see the stoplight was red as the black truck ran through it, pushing Callum's truck up onto the sidewalk and into the building. The driver of the black truck wasn't visible, but surely there weren't many trucks in the county of that make and with tires that big. That was something for the police to go on, right?
Except she remembered how dismissive Mike had been when she'd made her statement.
As she waited for a copy of the footage to download onto her laptop, she stared into the dark corners of the bedroom and contemplated what to do with this information. Should she take it to the police? Or the district attorney?
If her father were impeding the investigation, and if the district attorney found out about it, he could get into trouble.
But if this weren't handled correctly, Callum could end up losing his reputation, his share of the business he'd bought into, and the community he so desperately needed to raise his sons.
When he'd chosen to desert her rather than figuring out a future that worked for both of them, Callum had thought he was putting her first.
Could she put him first now, even if it shredded the last threads holding together her relationship with her father?
15
The next day, Callum's doctor approved a walking boot. Within twenty minutes, he was freed of the huge, ugly cast. The relief he felt was immense as he was able to walk—hobble, anyway—out of the doctor's office without crutches.
It might be awkward, but if he could get around, he could take the boys home. He'd spoken to Buck yesterday and would join the crew by the end of next week.
Sam dropped him off in the drive, and after he thanked his old friend for the ride, he headed inside. The house was empty. And he didn't bump into the wall or snag his crutches on anything. The freedom he felt moving around the ground floor buoyed his spirits. Where was everybody?
The backyard was empty as well, but he heard voices chiming from the barn.
That's where he found Iris and the boys, who were wrestling in a wide, empty stall that had been filled with hay bales. One of the bales had come undone, and hay spilled across the floor, cushioning them against the dirt-packed ground.
Iris had one arm around both Tyler and Levi and was reaching to tickle Brandt at the same time.
"Daddy!" Tyler screamed, launching himself at Callum.
And without the crutches, Callum easily caught his son. Pieces of straw stuck up from his hair and clung to the back of Tyler's shirt.
Callum was so glad for his healing and walking cast that he gave a playful roar and dumped his son back in the hay.
Brandt and Levi shrieked, making to duck out of his reach, but they weren't fast enough. He grabbed one in each arm and took turns nuzzling his nose into the back of their necks with a playful growl as they struggled to get away.
He set them on their feet, and they scrambled away, laughing and shrieking some more. He hoped most of the horses were out to pasture and not getting nervous from the horseplay that was going on in here.
"Iris! Rescue us!"
Levi ducked behind Iris, who'd remained where she'd been sitting, watching.
Secondhand Cowboy Page 13