Callie knew the flipside of the coin too. She knew she was petrified to feel this spiral of emotions for a man like Brian. It meant risking her already fragile heart, bargaining with it to remain calm as she fought off her battered self-esteem and her bruised ego from her marriage to Frank. It meant committing to something she could lose at a moment’s notice because she’d have to trust that Brian wouldn’t lie and cheat on her.
She wasn’t willing to take a shot at that.
Not even for Brian.
Because Callie liked her fucking hole. She’d dug it herself and it was warm and safe and no one could fit in it but her.
Brian was too big to fit in her trench. Brian was too everything and Callie knew if he dumped her it would hurt far worse than anything the freak Frank had ever done to her.
Callie turned quietly and left Katherine, sitting in her chair with anger in her eyes over Callie’s choice to remain afraid—to slink back off to her hole.
Her warm, safe, emotionally bereft hole.
Katherine watched the stiff back of her freaked-out best friend leave her own office just to avoid being pinned to a wall. Well, bullshit on that, Katherine thought.
She was going to do something she’d only do for Callie. Because this meant too much to Callie—it meant too much even to an old relationship cynic like Katherine. She wasn’t going to let this pass Callie by, and after Frank, Callie deserved one last shot. One good shot and Katherine wanted that for her friend, more than she wanted to let Callie’s pride and fear of rejection get in the way. Callie had suffered in so many ways with Frank, silent ways that had made Katherine go home some nights and cry for her friend because Callie couldn’t talk about it, because she wouldn’t talk about it and when she did she never defended herself. She gave up and remained silent.
Frank had steamrolled her like she was the last old toy on a due-to-be renovated playground.
Callie had finally let Frank have it all. Her possessions, her self-esteem, her dignity, her last will to fight back, but this time, Frank couldn’t have this.
Not this, and not if Katherine had the chance to stop it in any way she knew how.
Katherine was more afraid to allow Callie to continue to run away than she was to do what needed doing and risk losing Callie’s friendship. Callie never had to speak another word to her as long as she was happy and the happiness Brian brought her—might bring her long-term—was far more than Katherine could have wished for Callie even on her best day.
Katherine scanned Callie’s address book on her computer and set out to make this debacle salvageable.
Take that, Callie Winston…
* * * *
Later that night in her bedroom, Callie clicked her send/receive tab on her e-mail, Nothing, not a fucking thing. Two days and not a word more from Rambo after he’d left a message on her cell phone that he’d made it home safely.
Not even a thanks for the fuck-fest, but it’s over.
Fine, just fine. Frickin’ peachy.
Brian taking her up on her suggestion to never contact her again.
Callie had hoped against hope after Katherine had reamed her a new one, but she should have known.
She’d been used.
It was now official. That worked for her. She’d used soldier boy right back. He was, after all, da bomb in bed. Why not use that? Hell, given the chance she’d do it again…and again and again.
Okay, so he was incredible.
So what? Lots of guys were incredible in bed. Some not as incredible as Brian was out of the horizontal position, but he was a mercenary. Wasn’t his job to blend into any situation to keep from getting himself killed while he hunted his prey? To mold himself into whatever someone needed him to be? He’d blended just fine into her, now hadn’t he?
And she’d molded right back. Like friggin’ Play Doh.
Jesus.
Now it was time to be a big girl and take her licks just like every other single loser out there. How many women had fallen for stuff like Brian had pulled? Wooed by words that were meaningless to the wooer? Words used with plenty of others before Callie had come into the mercenary’s life, she assumed. There were millions of walking wounded and she could just add herself to a long list of stats.
Callie dropped her head to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut to fend off the hot sting of tears.
No, no, she would not cry. Going into this she’d known what could happen. Granted, it had been pretty low on her list of things that could happen and maybe that made her delusional, but her reasoning had been that she’d survived an ugly divorce, she could certainly survive Brian and a three-day affair.
Was this surviving? It felt more like hanging on by her teeth and she didn’t like it. She’d had a life she lived before Brian Benson of the Harry Connick Junior dulcet tones, and she’d have one after him.
In spite of him.
Callie didn’t want to play The Dating Game anymore. It was time to end her dating career. She began to delete the e-mails that continued to flow to her inbox with abundance.
Death to Writer66.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Callie stared blankly at her computer screen, as if staring at it would will Brian to e-mail her, or call, or just fucking tell her he didn’t want her like he’d claimed he did.
Players didn’t do that. They played and then they scurried off to find a new playground.
Obviously, Brian had done just that—gone off to find a new set of swings. A younger set—which was exactly what someone his age should do. Find a nice twenty-eight-year-old sliding board.
A vision of her body tangled with Brian’s flashed through her mind’s eye, and Callie gripped the arms of her office chair to ward it off, gritting her teeth. She could still feel the hard length of him pressed to her, the warm caress of his breath against her face as they panted after a round of lovemaking.
Callie’s breath caught in her throat as she remembered his amber-brown eyes, staring into hers and asking her to tell him what she was thinking.
Well, Brian. I’m thinking I was taken for the proverbial ride. You fucked me senseless, let me believe this was something more to you too and dumped my ass. You’re a real hero, but thanks for reminding me I still have working hormones.
How’s that for what I’m thinking?
If only she’d had the courage to say as much to him in a scathing e-mail, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t… Callie Winston didn’t beg to be noticed anymore. Even if what she really wanted to do was just that.
It was what she’d wanted to do before he got in his stupid redneck truck and driven off and out of her life for good probably. Cling to his big body and beg him to explain what had just happened. What it meant. If it meant anything more than what she had been so worried it didn’t.
Callie mentally patted herself on the back for her hindsight. She’d behaved like a mature new-millennium woman who’d just spent the best three days of her life schtupping.
No commitment, no promises.
A very “sex and the city” attitude indeed.
Who needed Brian Benson anyway? As she scrolled her mouse one last time over the e-mails from Heavenly Hook Ups, Callie realized she didn’t. She could have a date every night for the next two years and never need Brian or his southern, rich honeyed tones and expert hands again. She could have a social life to rival Paris Hilton’s. Whodathunk average Callie Winston would be the answer to a bunch of male mid-lifers who needed a date to the senior prom?
She could just go out with someone else. Someone equally as good at raking her over the coals.
Callie cringed and her stomach twisted.
No, she couldn’t do that. They wouldn’t be Brian and for right now, he was all she could see.
Brian Benson.
Mercenary.
Gone for months at a time, playing hero.
Too young for her.
Too smooth for her.
A liar.
A consummate lover in her limited line of lovers.
Complete.
Dumped.
Callie reached out and clicked on Brian’s picture that he’d sent, highlighting it with her mouse. The sun had set she realized as she gazed at his grinning face. The glow of the computer screen gave Brian’s eyes that boyish glint to them. The same glint that had taken in every inch of her body with apparent pleasure, moaning approval as he brought her to secret places she’d never known existed. His shortly cropped, wavy dark hair blended with the nighttime background of the picture. He looked boyish and carefree despite his Iraqi location. A Hummer gleamed over his right shoulder, reminding her that Brian’s mercenary life was better left to him alone.
No attachments, no fuss, no muss.
Callie traced the line of his strong jaw with her forefinger one last time as a fat tear, refusing to be denied, slipped out of her tired eyes and down her cheek.
She said a quick prayer—to whoever was up there listening—for Brian’s safe keeping when he went back to Iraq.
And then, Callie clicked delete.
Chapter 24
“Christ it’s hot here, Kath,” Callie bitched. She really hated the heat and bugs and everything else that was out in this damn jungle. Brian liked the jungle and ruins and all sorts of steamy stuff. Callie squeezed her eyes shut.
Shit. No Brian thoughts.
Callie couldn’t believe she’d let Katherine talk her into this jungle bullshit. Who toured a jungle as a form of relaxation? For fun?
Well, besides she and Brian and their vivid imaginations over Mayan temples on an instant message conversation that she needed to just friggin’ forget.
Katherine had said she needed a break and God knew Katherine was right. Callie was beyond emotionally fried a week after Brian Benson. He’d haunted her every waking moment and popped up in her dreams each and every bloody night.
It had to end or she’d never sleep again. So when she’d submitted her article for the column and it was sewn up, Katherine suggested Mexico and a jungle tour—Cabana boys. Callie didn’t have the energy to deny her and Katherine had no way of knowing what she and Brian had cooked up in that first instant message. So Callie had agreed because her friend was trying so hard to reach her and Callie knew it was Katherine’s way of helping her try to achieve balance again.
“Yeah, it is hot, but look, there’s water,” Katherine pointed to a kind of mucky looking pond through the bushes. “Go wade or something productive while I talk to Paco here and find out what’s next on Survivor.”
Callie was skeptical. “Are there bad things in the pond? I mean there might be alligators or whatever the hell floats around in the jungle. I’ve been chewed up enough the past couple of months. I sure as crap don’t need some alligator gnawing on me.”
“No, no, Senorita. Ees fine. Sweem, we will wait.” Their guide Paco, as Katherine fondly called him, assured her.
Katherine swatted at the buzzing flies and wiped her brow with the handkerchief knotted around her neck. “Didn’t we talk about bitter, darling? Let go of the Brian analogies. You didn’t play fair with Brian.” Katherine looked pointedly at Callie. “Go cool off. I’ll make sure Juan Valdez doesn’t peek.”
Callie nodded gratefully and headed toward the bushes, peering once more over her shoulder to be sure Paco wasn’t looking. She stripped off her white T-shirt and lace bra, chucking them on a nearby tree she couldn’t identify, then stooped to unlace her hiking boots.
Christ, her feet felt like hot pokers as she peeled off her white socks and next her panties and khaki shorts, flinging them on the tree too. Naked wasn’t something she fretted over much since Brian. Damn, he stalked her every last thought.
Enough with the Brian shit.
The sun beat angrily down on her head, making Callie dizzy, yet hesitant to enter the water for fear of anything icky.
But it looked so inviting…
Taking a deep breath, Callie waded slowly into the warm water. It was more like a sauna, but at least it was wet. Pulling her hair out of her ponytail she shook it loose and wrapped the band around her wrist before she took a quick dunk under. As she came back up, Callie caught sight of a stone structure, gleaming brightly in the sun.
Her heart clenched, it looked much like something Brian had described when they’d talked about their fantasies of exploring a Mayan ruin.
Callie winced. No Brian, no Brian, no Brian. Because thinking of Brian was just as freshly painful as living through it all over again. A week had passed since she’d last seen or heard from him. He’d taken her advice and gone with her suggestion of no obligations. She was trying to adjust to not hearing his voice over her cell phone, but she missed him most when she remembered their whispered conversations—the intimate moments she’d never shared with anyone else, late at night in the darkened cool of her bedroom.
You’ve been dumped, Callie Winston. It’s not the first time rejection has knocked on your door, now slam the fucking thing shut already and get over it.
Cupping the water, Callie drizzled it over her arms and splashed it on her face, letting it cascade over her breasts as she rose and stood waist deep, dribbling it over her heated skin too. A rumble sounded in the distance and she cocked her head, sticking her finger in her ear to release the water in it. Callie’s eyes looked skyward. The moment she thought crap, was the moment the rain began in a deluge, followed by vicious claps of thunder and would you just look at who was standing in the water?
Naturally.
Why wouldn’t she next be hit by lightning after everything else that had happened? Wait, shouldn’t there be like a wild, rampaging pack of monkeys next or something?
Jesus Christ in a mini skirt.
Callie made a run for it, tearing out of the water and running for her clothes—which were gone. Oh, for hell’s bells sake! They must have scattered as the wind tore at the limbs on the tree and she certainly didn’t have time to run around and gather them now. Vicious streaks of light ripped across the sky, panicking her further.
Did it get any better than this? Naked in the jungle in the middle of a freakin’ monsoon. Where the heck was Katherine? Paco? Surely they’d had to run for cover too.
Callie searched frantically for the stone structure she’d seen and chosen to ignore because it reminded her of Br—stupid head…damn him. He even brought her trouble when he was thousands of miles away.
Making a break for it, she stumbled as her bare feet took a beating on fallen branches. She made it to the entrance of the ruin just as another sharp clap of thunder erupted.
Shivering and blinded by her soaking wet hair, Callie pushed strands of it out of her face and gasped for breath. She trembled violently. It was cool and damp in the ruin and as much as she’d enjoy playing National Geographic’s explorer on any given day, she sure as fuck didn’t want to do it naked and freezing.
A rustle of something shot her head up as her eyes adjusted to a dim glow. Rubbing them, she looked again. A fire. Nice, this must be where Katherine and Paco ended up.
And she was naked.
Good.
Great in fact.
“Kath? Did you take my clothes?”
Nothing but silence and the faint echo of her own voice.
Hookay, so who made the nice fire if not Katherine and Paco?
A native tribe of cannibals? She just knew it. They were going to saw her leg off and roast it.
Really good.
“Katherine?” Callie heard the shaky squeak her voice made on the way out, but cared little if she sounded like the pansy she was. As her eyes adjusted further, Callie moved with tentative steps toward the warmth of the fire, holding her hands out and letting the heat suffuse them.
Callie tilted her head again at the faint rustle of something crisp and slippery. Well, of course, it was the natives rubbing their hands together in anticipation, as they got a gander of her thighs.
Plenty of thigh to go ‘round, boys.
And then she felt it, rather than
saw it. A presence, looming behind her, thick and tangible, pulsing, swirling in her ears, clutching at her rapidly pounding heart. Callie squeezed her eyes shut. Did death hurt less if you closed your eyes? Her fleeting thought was it really sucked that they were going to whack her from behind—seeing as her behind was in kind of crappy shape.
Columnist dies in bizarre cannibalistic ritual.
How humiliating.
A fitting end to the most degrading chapter of her life.
Chapter 25
She was going to die.
Poor Aston would be left with Barbie in the dream house and the piss-poor excuse of a man that Frank was. At least Aston would have a couple as a role model.
I’m sorry, Aston.
Her heart throbbed in her chest and Callie instinctively brought her arms up over her breasts, covering her eyes with her hands, waiting for whatever was behind her to finish her off…
And next, she was enveloped in warmth, silken and smooth against her chilled skin.
“Sweet pea…” a thick voice, laced with honey and Harry Connick Junior, said.
Callie stopped breathing. She was obviously hallucinating now because she was hearing Brian call her the endearment that set her heart to racing while she waited for death. She was one sick puppy. It was lack of food and sleep that had done this to her.
She really needed a Valium.
A Prozac perhaps.
A kamikaze of meds, please, so that she could numb this gnawing ache of a delusion.
“Turn around, Callie,” the native who sounded just like Brian said as he draped the silken cloth around her trembling shoulders. Large hands gripped Callie’s shoulders and her feverish fingers took a handful of the material wrapped around her and fingered it.
It was the color of Brian’s poncho liner…the light green material of the poncho he’d had since he first began working as a mercenary. The one he’d brought to the hotel and they’d wrapped themselves up in.
No, no, no. She was losing her God-damned mind now!
“Sweet pea, turn around.”
Callie heard the pounding of rain and the rumble of thunder in her ears, throbbing and crashing in her head. Oh, God, if she turned around and it was just her imagination gone wild, then what? Callie licked her lips and swallowed hard.
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