Just like it had her mother.
* * *
Callen didn’t say anything the entire way back to the bed and breakfast. He was too damn mad over the entire situation. Mad at himself and mad at the woman he asked to marry him seven months ago. Here he believed he could fix it, and they had a chance. This whole thing was a mess.
“Give it time to settle, Cal,” Elizabeth said from beside him.
It was like she knew what he was thinking. The woman beside him just got into his head and heart and lived there.
“I’m trying,” he snapped, parking the Escalade and hopping out. “I’m going to go up, shower and go to bed. I worked all last night to come home today, and I’m beat and in no mood for this shit.”
Elizabeth watched him stride ahead of her and just let him go. Once inside she stopped at the front desk.
“Yes?”
Elizabeth smiled. “We got so tied up sightseeing and visiting friends that we didn’t get to have dinner. Are there any pizza places that deliver?”
The woman pulled out a menu from the local place and Elizabeth looked it over. “Great! Beer too!” She pulled out her phone and ordered a pizza and beer and handed the woman the money. Can I leave the cash with you? I want to run up and shower.”
“Sure thing,” she said, watching her guest run up the stairs.
Tourists were just plain weird.
* * *
Callen stood under the hot spray and let all the tension ebb away. He had to let it go and not let it tie him up in knots. If he wasn’t focused, one of them could get seriously hurt. That was completely unacceptable to him, as Elizabeth’s family and an FBI agent. He took a few deep breaths and then finally turned off the shower.
Drying off, he slipped into his drawstring pajama bottoms and dropped onto the bed in the Gardenia room. It was a decent room to have to stay in, and at the moment he was trying to forget that he was a little rude to Elizabeth in the car. Callen was in a foul mood and used her as his whipping boy.
Now, he felt bad that he’d made her a target for no reason at all. Elizabeth was the last person who deserved his anger at the moment. Callen let out a sigh, knowing she was a really great best friend because she took the hostility without kicking his ass like he probably deserved. He could hear the TV in her room and decided that misery indeed did like company, and she’d either tell him off or calm him down.
Knocking on the adjoining door he waited for her to answer.
“It’s open, Cal.”
Elizabeth knew he’d eventually calm down and want to get it off his chest. If anything, he was just like his brother. Blackhawk men had a few things in common. They had tempers that flared and then fizzled, stubborn streaks, and huge hearts. You took the good with the bad, and in her opinion they were mostly good characteristics to have. She had a few of them herself, so how could she fault them?
Opening the door, Callen hesitantly glanced into the room to make sure he was indeed welcome there.
Elizabeth had pulled down the bedding and was sitting there in a pair of shorts and tank top. It was the same things she wore to run every day, and it was some of his favorite attire she owned. Sue him, he was a man.
“You gonna be okay, darlin?” she asked, patting the bed and turning the volume down on the TV. “Want to talk about it?”
Callen shrugged and entered the room, dropping down on the bed beside her. Immediately she started soothing him, like he knew she would. Her hand took his and they linked fingers. “She really broke my heart, Lyzee.”
“I plan on kicking her ass tomorrow, so you can watch.”
He snickered and looked into her eyes and then went serious again. “I get the impression her grandmother doesn’t like Indians, and that’s why she didn’t tell her about me.”
“I’ll ass kick the old hag into the swamp too.”
Whitefox grinned at the visual. “What do I do? I don’t know how to work my way through this,” he said, softly.
Elizabeth tucked his hair behind his ear and it reminded her of another conversation at a different time. The man was back to being broken inside and she felt responsible. She’d told Timothy that Desdemona wouldn’t hurt his grandson. Wow, looks like she needed to tell Timothy she was wrong on this one. Strike one on leading the family.
“I’m taking the blame on this one.”
Whitefox looked up confused. “How is this your fault?”
Elizabeth sighed. “How isn't it? Your fiancée obviously has issues with us, Cal. I asked her in the beginning if she was going to be okay with us being close, and she lied. I knew that she looked me in the eyes and lied, but I honestly believed if I made her my friend, she’d trust me. She doesn’t, and in any relationship with someone of the opposite sex, there has to be trust.”
“I told her too, Lyzee. I warned her that family mattered.”
“I also told Timothy she wouldn’t hurt you, and I’m so sorry I was wrong. If I could go back and redo all this, I would. I’d rethink it and possibly step back more, so I wasn’t in your life like I am now.”
That crushed his heart. “You’d abandon me too?” he inquired, devastated at her words.
“Callen! I’d never do that to you. You know I love you and want to keep you and your heart safe. I might just not be so lovey-dovey with you. It obviously makes Desdemona uncomfortable.”
He relaxed once he knew she wasn’t going to toss him aside. Now he needed her more than anything. He just had his heart betrayed by a woman he erroneously believed wouldn’t hurt him. Right now, Callen needed the one who he knew wouldn’t ever damage him. Elizabeth would be the Band-Aid to stop the ache he was feeling, so he could continue on with life.
“I love you. I can’t stop what I feel, so Desdemona has to come to grips with it or it’s on her Lyzee, not us. Not once in the last seven months have you ever crossed a line. Yeah, we tease Ethan and each other, but there’s trust between us.”
“Did you ever tell her about what happened between you and Ethan?”
“No.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Don’t.”
Now he was laughing too.
“You’ll get through this, I promise. I’ll be right here by your side until we figure it out and you decide what you want in life. If you still love her and think it can work, then I support you. But I can’t change who I am. I can’t pretend that I don’t have a big ol’ soft spot in my heart for you. For Christ’s sake, we named our son after you.”
There was something he had to know. “I need to ask you something, and I need the absolute truth.”
Elizabeth looked him in the eyes, ready for anything he had to say to her. “Go ahead, Cal. You know I won’t lie to you.”
“It’s not me, is it? I have some redeeming qualities in life to make a woman love me, right? My mother never cared, the woman I slept with were just a way to forget and now Desdemona just crushed me. Is it me, Elizabeth?”
Her heart broke for the man. “Cal, it’s not you. You're smart and damn funny. You have a huge heart and are a really good man.”
“I need to ask this now too, and don’t take it the wrong way please.”
“Go on.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly and supported his need to ask anything of her.
“If you weren’t married to my brother, could you ever see yourself with me?” Just asking her that question felt like he was betraying Ethan, but now he doubted himself, and he needed to know the truth. Elizabeth didn’t lie. “Would you even look twice at me if you passed me on the street, Lyzee, or do you only see me because I’m Ethan’s brother?”
The pain in his voice was tearing her heart to pieces. The man was so wounded inside that it made her want to weep for him. “I absolutely would be with you in a heartbeat. You're a very sexy man, Mr. Whitefox. You make me laugh, and you have this ginormous heart of absolute gold.”
He touched her cheek and fell even harder for her, if that was possible. “Thank you, Lyzee.”
“But I’d have to test you out
in the sack first, just to be sure. A few times at least,” she grinned. “You know, test drive the Indian around the block a few times.”
Whitefox started laughing. This was why the men in his family loved her. She went from serious to crazy in a heartbeat and took them all with her.
She was about to add more when there was a knock on the door of her room.
Callen went on alert. No one should be knocking on their door at this time of night. “Give me your gun,” he demanded, and then looked over as she started laughing uncontrollably.
“Cal,” she kissed him on the mouth, and laughed more. “Relax, it’s okay. I was expecting it.”
Whitefox trusted her again and relaxed, as she hopped off the bed, walking to the door. When Elizabeth opened it, he started grinning. She had ordered them dinner and the owner of the bed and breakfast had brought it upstairs. It wasn’t lost on him that she looked past Elizabeth, to him on the bed. Thank God that he decided to come into her room and lounge there.
“I brought up two plates and two glasses for the beer. Housekeeping will get them tomorrow,” the owner said, smiling once she saw the man in bed waiting for dinner. Now she could relax, they obviously were telling the truth.
“Thanks,” said Elizabeth taking the food and beer, and closing the door with her foot.
“You ordered me dinner?”
Elizabeth laughed. “Cal, I know you and your just like your brother. You get mad, you get quiet, you talk it out and then you get hungry.”
Whitefox went over to Elizabeth, hugging her to his body. “I love you. Thank you for listening to me.”
Elizabeth nodded and patted his cheek. “I think we should grab the pizza and beer, sit in bed, watch a movie, and gorge ourselves on fat and grease.”
He laughed. “If you think that I’d ever turn down pizza, beer, and bed with you, then you’re insane.” He looked around, suspiciously.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, confused.
“Ethan. This is like my dream night and I’m waiting for him to jump out.”
Elizabeth started laughing and opened the pizza box and inside was a meat covered pizza. “Since Desdemona is at the swamp, you and I are having dead everything on a cheese covered grease fest.”
“God, I am so in love right now.”
She grabbed the pizza and he grabbed the beers, and they hopped onto the bed. When he joined her, Elizabeth smiled. Apparently the storm had passed, because he was flipping through the channels looking for something to watch.
“Scary movie?” he asked, stopping on some gory slasher flick.
“Cal, remember the pit with the dead corpses and the body soup?”
He shuddered. “How can I forget?”
“That’s living a scary movie. You want to scare the shit out of me, put on a romantic comedy. Death I get. Girls pretending they don’t like food to get the guy, terrifies me every time.” She winked at him as she twisted the cap off her beer and his.
They clinked them together.
“To slasher flicks, pizza covered with dead things, and people that you love.”
“Here here!” Both of them chugged the first beer and then laughed as they finished at the same time.
Callen handed her pizza on a plate and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.” He didn’t need to tell her why, or what she did to fix him. That was the best part of her being his best friend. She just always knew.
Elizabeth was going to comment when her phone rang. It was the ring for her husband, and she put it on speaker phone. “Hey baby, how are you?”
“I’m having dinner alone in my office.” There was nothing worse than being away from his wife. He wished he could hop a flight there immediately. “What are you doing?”
“I’m having dinner with your brother.”
Whitefox wanted to tease him. “Pizza and beer.”
“Damn, and here I’m having just pizza and no beer.” He was glad his brother felt better, he was worried. “How did it go?”
Elizabeth broke it all down and updated him. When she got to the gun to the head part, he wasn’t entertained in the least.
“Your wife took down the sheriff deputy in two seconds, in the dark, by the swamp, and without making a sound. It was pretty impressive. I would have clapped, but I had my hands in the air and a double barrel pointed at my head.”
Elizabeth laughed. “We weren’t really dealing with master criminals. The deputy is green and worse than Callen.”
“Hey!” he protested.
Blackhawk laughed.
“The old lady is a witch. I’ll write this off as she used magic to sneak up on him. I had the deputy out cold and his gun in the back of my jeans before he knew what hit him. He should be ashamed of himself as a man.”
“Yes he should,” snickered her husband.
“What’s happening there?” Elizabeth doubted he called to tell her he was eating pizza. “Why aren’t you home?”
“Dad is with CJ on the Rez at granddad’s. He’s still not feeling well, so he took our son there. I called Julian and he’s on his way here. I’m going to get him on a flight in an hour or so, and then book him with you both there. He’s going to pretend he doesn’t know you, so play along.”
“That works for me. The bed and breakfast is pretty empty.”
“How is it?” Ethan hoped his wife wasn’t holed up in a roach coach, or Ginny was getting an ass chewing on Monday.
Whitefox spoke, “It’s actually nice. Great view from our window, there is a slasher movie on TV, and the bed is comfy,” he said, bouncing until the bed squeaked.
Blackhawk went silent.
“You still there?” asked Elizabeth, starting to laugh.
“Why is Callen grinning and using singular words when plural ones should be used in their place, like windows, beds and TVs?”
Elizabeth snickered.
“I’m in bed with your wife, Ethan.” Now, he was teasing his brother just to get a rise out of him. “Her, me, beer and pizza on our hot date.”
“Is she wearing the lingerie that she had on under the dress today Cal? Because it was spectacular.” Now, he rubbed it in right back, because it’s what brothers did.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “No, she’s in shorts and a t-shirt.”
“Well then, carry on.”
Elizabeth loved the men in her life. “I love you, Ethan.”
“I love you too, baby. Be careful tomorrow, okay?” That was directed at his brother. He hoped he got the message. Then he remembered what he needed to tell them about the mail room and what happened on the phone with Chris Leonard.
“Did you recover it?” asked Elizabeth.
“Yeah, the tech team is going over it for me, and scanning anything you need that’s pertinent. Then I’m going to courier it over to you. It should be there by Monday morning to the bed and breakfast.”
“Are we going to tell Desdemona that we found it?” Whitefox didn’t know how he felt about her trying to circumvent her bosses and all the lies, but he didn’t know how he felt doing it right back to her.
“I think that’s going to depend on two things. What the book says and if Desdemona is willing to play by the rules. Her running around haphazardly is a bad idea.”
“I agree, Ethan.” Elizabeth sided with her husband. If Desdemona played with the team, then she’d get the information. “Can you live with that Cal?”
“Yeah. I happen to agree.”
“Okay, you two enjoy your pizza. I’m going down to the tech lab to see what they have so far.”
Elizabeth blew her husband kisses. “Ethan get some sleep tonight on your couch,” she snickered, knowing he’d remember what happened on the couch that morning.
“Oh, I will, don’t you worry about it.” There was laughter and lust in his voice as he reminisced about their office adventure. “Watch each other’s backs and call me before you go out tomorrow.”
“Will do, Boss,” answered Whitefox. “Back to our pizza and slasher flick.”
Elizabeth thought about it. “Ethan, check your right jacket pocket. I love you.” Then she disconnected the call, laughing.
“What’s in his pocket?”
“Part of the lingerie,” she answered honestly, and then winked at her brother-in-law.
Callen thought about it, and figured it out pretty fast. “Lucky bastard,” he muttered, and chugged another beer trying to not dwell on it.
Elizabeth’s cell chimed and she knew what it was. Reading the text message she replied.
“He found it huh?” Whitefox inquired.
“Yep,” said Elizabeth, letting him assume that was what the text said. In actuality, Ethan Blackhawk wanted to know how bad Desdemona Adare hurt his brother. Elizabeth told him the truth.
“PRETTY DAMN BAD .”
~Chapter Four~
Saturday Morning
It was the soft whisper of lips moving across his body that woke him. They were slowly exploring every inch of his torso. The sensation heated his blood and hardened him to the point of pain. The lips were now joined with tongue and teeth, and it was driving him mad and crazy to the point he never wanted it to stop.
Callen was confused as to who was waking him up this way, so lovingly, so delicately and completely. The technique didn’t feel familiar, meaning it couldn’t be Desdemona. This was completely different sensation, and immediately his heart began hammering in his chest and ears. Praying, he opened his eyes to see the familiar black curls sliding across his body erotically, and he knew he was screwed.
“Lyzee,” he muttered, unsure if the woman had lost her damn mind. “What are you doing?” he asked, tensing as she stroked his erection with her fingertips.
“Waking you up, Callen,” she answered simply, and continued her exploration with hands and mouth.
“We can’t do this,” he begged, but the words fell on deaf ears, as she took him in her mouth. Oh God, her very warm mouth! With just that simple motion, his body bowed, wanting more.
Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four) Page 10