Whiskers, rough and delicious scraped against her ear as those big hands pulled Callie against a broad chest. “Baby…it’s okay, turn around for me,” the lips whispered, low and sweet.
Callie chose to lean into the hard frame, even if it wasn’t Brian and she’d lost her ever lovin’, she didn’t care. It sounded like him, felt like him. That was all she needed, all she cared about now. Just that Brian would want her enough to come get her.
Come rescue her from herself and her fears.
That Brian would be her hero, even if she’d said she didn’t want to be saved.
Because she didn’t mean it.
She’d lied, and she wasn’t ashamed to say she had in this moment of imminent death. Callie was ready to admit that even though Brian Benson was probably a liar, she wanted him anyway. She was ready to admit that no matter who came after him; her standards would always be held to that of Brian. Nothing beat what he did to her inside and out, even if it was all a lie.
She’d never settle for less of a man as a result of meeting Brian.
Callie clung to the poncho, as those sinfully big hands that felt just like Brian’s caressed her upper arms in firm strokes. He even smelled like Brian. The light scent of his cologne drifted to her nostrils as heat enveloped her spine. Callie sunk into the heat, pressing urgently at her back, letting her eyes slide closed.
“Sweet pea, talk to me. Are you okay?”
Was she okay? Hell yeah she was okay. Brian was here, what wasn’t okay about that?
Um, he didn’t call you for a week?
Oh, yeah. That wasn’t okay.
Nope, that was decidedly un-okay.
Callie’s semi-satisfied state was now frayed around the edges, followed by the final shattering of her one last nerve. Yes, that had definitely sucked.
Callie looked over at the fingers that gripped her shoulders. Whew, she was good at this delusion thing. It beat the shit out of any damn drug she could have gotten her hands on because they sure looked like Brian’s fingers.
“Talk to me, Callie.”
Tipping her head back, she decided to peek and see if this delusion even looked like Brian and if he did she could scout out the local nuthouses. Find a suitable place with four padded walls. Three squares, television privileges, the occasional rousing game of therapeutic chess and finally rest in peace via the aid of doctor prescribed drugs. But not before she asked for the “I love me” jacket.
Ooooh, he did look like Brian.
This was bad, very bad indeed because it meant that Callie Winston had dropped right over the edge of kinda whacky and directly into the depths of insanity.
Warm, amber-brown eyes stared back at Callie, making her dizzy.
Okay, so if delusional were the goal here, she could say whatever the fuck she wanted, right? She could let this delusion have it. It was, after all, her delusion, yes?
Warm breath fanned her face and her delusion asked again, “Are you okay?”
Finally, Callie decided to humor her rampant need to fixate on all things Brian and murmured, “Okaaaay? Why no, no, sweet pea, I’m not okay,” her voice began to take on a slow boil of steam, rising with each word she spoke. “As a matter of fact, I’m not at all okay, sweet pea,” Callie threw his pet name for her back into the still air of the ruin on a sneer.
Whipping around, Callie tore from Brian’s grip and faced him for the first time in an agonizing, heart clenching, damn near killed her week. She tightened her hold on the poncho, wrapping herself in it and focused on what she was now sure was no longer a delusion, but the living, breathing, walking, fucking lying through his teeth reality that was Brian Benson.
Callie’s hair hung limply about her face in long strands of tangled clumps, but she’d be fucked and feathered if she cared that she wasn’t looking much like his fantasy chick right now! Her eyes were wide as she took in Brian’s big frame.
Oh, and to top it all off he looked good too and why wouldn’t he? He hadn’t suffered one God damned iota since they’d parted!
His big chest all covered in a tight, khaki green T-shirt, tucked into jeans that hugged his thick thighs, defied her not to rest her head on it. The dark, wavy hair that she’d gripped in passion, neatly combed while she looked like shit? Noooo that certainly wasn’t okay, GQ man! Who the shit did he think he was, looking like he’d just stepped off the cover of Mercenary Hottie while she looked like she’d just done a photo shoot for Haggard Weekly?
When Callie finally found her voice it ripped from her throat in one long, screaming sentence. “Wow, Rambo, funny meeting you here! I should have known I could find you in the nearest jungle! So whatcha doin’ out here? Foraging for damsels in distress?”
Brian’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “No, ma’am, just one damsel, thanks.”
Callie sucked in another breath that grazed her ribcage it was so deep and then, she exploded. “Oooooh! Take a good look around, Brian, no damsels in distress here! I don’t need to be saved, you—you GI Joe wannabe! I, unlike some in your world, don’t need a God-damned hero! So ride off on your tank, mercenary man—or whatever the fuck it is you rode in on, and go—away!”
“No tanks, sweet pea. Just you and me and a Mayan temple,” Brian said, all calm and serene as if two weeks of hell had not just passed before her.
The mother fucker.
Callie shook with a week of pent up anger, the sadness that had gnawed her innards into tiny pieces. Her chest heaved as she blew out another string of words. “You can shove your temple up your mercenary ass, Brian Benson!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “So far up your ass, I hope it comes out of your mouth. Oh, and don’t call me sweet pea. I’m not feeling very sweet right now. I am ‘peed’ though, p-ohed at you. So—go—away!”
Brian shook his head and stared her down.
Mercenary motherfucker that he was.
“No, Callie. I won’t do that. I’m never going to do that. Not now, not ever. So adjust.”
Callie’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but her lips couldn’t connect with her brain. Thoughts swirled around in her head. They just wouldn’t form cohesive sentences now that she’d spent her whole paragraph of rage.
Brian took a step closer to her. “Do you hear me, Callie? I meant every word I said to you during those three days and I always stand by what I say,” he crossed his fingers over his heart.
Callie wavered, digging her toes into the sand beneath her feet.
Oh. Well, then in that case…
Another step—closer still. “I love you. I’ve never loved anyone before, but I love you and I’ll be fucked and feathered if I’m going to let you get away from me. So suck it up, Callie and live with it.”
Hoo rah.
Brian took another step—bigger than the last. “So what are you thinking, Callie?”
She might consider manning up as an option?
Another step—smaller. “Are you thinking that maybe you just might want to take a chance on me?”
Maybe…sorta…
Then, there were no more steps. “Look at me when you answer me, sweet pea.”
The heat of his muscled body dragged her toward him, pulling her as she swayed and Brian’s gaze penetrated hers, looking beyond the eyes that he’d claimed called to him from a picture on an online date site. “May—may—be,” Callie said through trembling, cracked lips.
Brian held out his hand, strong and tanned. “I’ll hold your hand if you stand in the door and jump.”
Tears, fresh and hot stabbed at her eyelids, but Callie took Brian’s hand and clung to it as he yanked her forward, burying her face in the solid wall of his chest. His arms went around her, strong and safe, cupping the back of her head and threading his fingers through her tangled, wet hair.
Callie sighed deeply, inhaling Brian’s scent, letting her cheek rest against the hard, insistent beat of his heart and she didn’t care if what he’d just said was a lie.
She didn’t care because nothing mattered but this.
/> This big man who’d appeared out of nowhere in an e-mail and had robbed her of her ability to hide from what he stirred so deeply in her that Callie couldn’t touch the depth of it if she had a hundred yardsticks.
Why this man had chosen her would be an endless journey for Callie, but she had to take the boat to get there and right now, she wanted to do that more than she wanted to hide away. There had to be something between them for him to have come this far to find her.
No man went to these lengths to hunt down some pussy and that had to mean something, didn’t it?
So Callie decided to just ask why, because she had to start asking now. She had to stop letting her fear of being dumped like day old bread go. Asking why was a small beginning, but one she would take in order to heal what she’d let Frank have without thought to her own well-being, without thought to her own desires, without thought to what it would do to her heart. He’d taken her ability to trust her own instincts, to ever give another person a chance to be allowed access to the inner circle that was Callie.
Frank just couldn’t have that anymore.
No, Brian wasn’t Frank and her silence would only give Frank back what little power she had left. The power to take control of her donation to this relationship that Brian wouldn’t give up on. If Callie gave up on it first, she was being just as much of a coward as Frank had been when he’d been unfaithful. He’d never expressed why he’d cheated—he just did and Callie could never ask why because to do that would be to hear an answer she didn’t think she could handle. Frank never had to atone for anything because Callie never made him. She’d deserved so much better than Frank had ever been, but she’d been too afraid it was she who’d given permission to Frank to cheat on her and so it was easier to be alone than to risk not being enough for someone again.
But that assessment of who Callie thought she was no longer held water.
So Callie asked Brian, clearly, and without remorse for the asking. “Why are you here, Brian? Where have you been?” Callie whispered into the wide expanse of his chest as tears welled in her eyes and she waited to hear his answer.
“Hey.” Brian nudged her head with his shoulder. “I’m here because I got your e-mail and I’m also here to tell you, bullshit. I didn’t answer it because I wanted you to have time to figure out it was bullshit on your own. I knew you were scared when I left—I just didn’t know how scared.”
Callie hiccupped on a long sob she could no longer contain. “I just want—I wanted you to—to—”
“To know you’d decided what was best for me because it was a safer choice for you?” Brian interrupted. “Thanks, I’m thirty-six now. I think I can make my own choices and I choose you.”
Callie shook her head against him, as tears fell to her clenched fists and dripped off onto Brian’s T-shirt. “Yeah, then why didn’t you choose me a week ago?” she croaked. There, it was now out in the proverbial open and she couldn’t take it back. Callie bit her lip hard and scrunched her eyes shut, waiting for impact.
“I did or I tried to anyway before I left, but you didn’t believe me and then, I got your e-mail and was going to respond, but I didn’t know how to tell you—prove to you my intentions were real. I’m not nearly as good as you at the written word, Callie and I was at a loss. I knew you’d reached your limit and I wanted to let you breathe, but I had no intention of letting you go without a knock-down drag-out fight. I also had some things for work that I had to take care of. It was an opportunity to let you have some space. I didn’t want to, but I was willing to wait a couple of days until you came to your senses, if you didn’t, I was going to come knock some into you,” Brian chuckled. “I knew what you were saying in that e-mail, Callie—once I had a day to think about it. I’ll dump you before you dump me so I don’t have to face rejection, before ever giving me the chance to say differently. I read all of your excuses and I knew you really bought into what you were writing, but then, I got an e-mail from Katherine and I knew you weren’t okay. Then Katherine helped me a whole lot in understanding this.”
Oh, God. He and Katherine had been talking about her? How could Katherine have let her suffer like this? “I can’t believe you both let me suffer this long,” Callie said against his chest, muffled and watery.
He chuckled, low and rumbling against her ear. “Hey, I suffered too. I wondered for a brief moment, when the initial shock wore off from that e-mail, if you were dumping me. I just couldn’t believe I was that far off the mark in understanding how you felt about me. Katherine helped me understand that too. I had to handle some things from work, Callie in the middle of all of this and those few days after I left were a jumble of e-mails between Katherine and me while I sorted things out in Iraq. It took a lot of conniving between the two of us to set this up.”
Callie shook her head because if and when she ever saw Katherine again she was going to yank her frosted blonde hair out, even if she had told Brian the truth on Callie’s behalf. She’d also let her suffer for a damn week. “I’m sorry I sent that e-mail. I was afraid—and I thought once you had the chance to think about it you would decide it was a fling and then it would be over and…” God, those were hard thoughts to admit, but they didn’t sound nearly as horrible as she’d once imagined they would.
Brian tucked a finger under her chin and lifted it to bring her eyes to meet his. “So you dumped me first, right? It doesn’t matter now, Callie. Katherine is an incredible lady. She said to give her some time to work you over, arrange time off for the both of you and while she did, we cooked this up. We e-mailed a lot in the past week to get this right. I didn’t call because I trusted Katherine knew what she was doing with you and she made me promise to let you try and find some kind of understanding on your own. I didn’t want to pressure you, but not hearing your voice every night was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
Brian stroked her back in slow, soothing circles. “It nearly killed me not to talk to you, sweet pea. I’m not sure if I’d have made it without Katherine coaching me. She kept reassuring me that you were miserable, but her hope—mine too—was that you’d contact me…sort of resolve this fear you have about abandonment, but it doesn’t matter, you’re here now. When we realized you weren’t going to come around on your own, we set this up.” Brian kissed the top of her head. “I honestly hoped you’d see that I meant every word I said, but Katherine told me plenty more about Frank and I guess, if I were you, I would’ve been pretty freaked too. There were a couple of times I wanted to come storm your castle, but Katherine kept me in check.” He sighed against her hair. “I missed you, Callie,” he murmured, “and I’m just glad you’re here now because it’ll never be right if you aren’t.”
Callie wondered about the “here now” thing. How did Brian get here? “How did you know I would be here, like here in this exact spot?” she asked as she finally lifted her head to gaze at him, her eyes a red, watery mess.
Brian smiled, his dimples flashing and that mischievous glint in his eyes winking at her as he wiped her tear stained cheeks. “Katherine, how else? She did a lot of research on this after I gave her a location. Why do you suppose she’d drag you off to the jungle? I get the impression Katherine is more a Club Med kind of girl, versus a sweaty jungle tour.”
Of course, dumb question. She’d wondered why Katherine was so insistent on taking the jungle tour instead of lying on the beach with the local Cabana boys. Callie giggled, soft and breathy, but who gave a shit? “You set this whole thing up with her…” But wait, that meant Katherine knew what they’d fantasized about. Oh God, Katherine would think she was a total and complete slut. Callie stiffened in his arms.
“Callie? I just told her that we’d talked about exploring ruins in Mexico. I think she secretly got the picture. I had her bring you here and she left the rest up to me. She knew I’d be waiting here in the ruin. She suggested you cooling off in the water because I told her to. Originally I was going to just show up and ambush you. Katherine didn’t know you’d take you
r clothes off, neither did I, but I was damn glad when you did,” Brian snickered. “Only the good Lord above could have planned the thunderstorm. It sent you right to me,” he said on another chuckle.
Callie took a deep breath. “What did Katherine say in her e-mail to you, Brian?” She had to know how many of her lame excuses had been revealed as farce.
Brian kissed her nose. The nose no one noticed because her supposedly sexy lips and eyes were everyone’s focus. No one but Brian that is. “She said you were a chicken shit and she had to tell me that or she couldn’t call herself your best friend. She told me why you are so afraid, the real why—not the one you shrug off as unimportant. Katherine understands you only too well, Callie and she spent a great deal of time explaining it to me. That’s how it began and it continued until as late as yesterday before you left for the airport.”
Callie’s arms wrapped around his waist and she buried her face in his chest again. Yep, she was a chicken shit. A chicken shit who was going to kill Katherine. Later, much later. “I’m not very good at stating my case, Brian, so I rush in to protect myself before I can be hurt. I can’t get the words out.” Callie sighed as a rush of thoughts began to tumble from her lips. “I don’t know how to just say it like you do. I don’t know how to ask what I need to know because I’m afraid of what I’ll hear. Frank did that so much in our marriage. I would think everything was just fine and then he’d have an affair to remind me it wasn’t.” Callie’s heart pounded with the memories of Frank’s multiple betrayals and it hurt to relive it now.
“It got to the point where I began to think, if I didn’t ask—he couldn’t tell me there was someone else he was screwing or I was doing something wrong.” It all sounded so damn ridiculous when she put it into words, but in her head she had been safeguarding herself from more humiliation.
Callie continued because suddenly owning up to it was important and letting go, more important still. “Katherine calls if my ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’, but I’m also not very good at telling people I care about them either because I’m always sure it’ll be thrown back in my face in the same way Frank threw it in mine. After so many years of keeping my mouth shut—it only became harder for me to talk about anything to anyone. It gets all twisted up in my head and then, my mouth doesn’t cooperate and I—I—fumble…” and wow, Cal, way to explain yourself. That was a whole lotta thoughts in one big spew, eh?
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