Callum looked ready to argue. “One song? A duet and then we’re out.”
She shook her head. “These rules are not open to negotiation. No songs or we’re not doing this.”
Callum’s sexy, smoldering stare down would break any other female on the planet, but Ellie wasn’t conceding on this. It was her reunion, her shot at seeing her ex-boyfriend again, and she needed the night to go as easily as possible.
“Fine. Deal.” Callum relented. He extended a hand and Ellie hesitated, staring at it, remembering the odd sensation that her previous touch had sparked.
“Please don’t make me regret this,” she said, reluctantly sliding her hand into his.
“I promise, you will not regret this.”
Then why did she kinda regret it already?
CHAPTER FOUR
AS THE REUNION got closer, Callum realized there was no way he was sticking to Ellie’s rules.
Ellie might see this reunion as a way to show Brent all that he was missing, and he’d certainly help her accomplish that, but he also saw it as a chance to connect with her on a different level. For two years they’d worked together, and she’d never taken him seriously. She thought he was joking whenever he complimented her and refused to take him up on his offers for dinner or a real date. This was his one shot to change that. Help her see that he truly was interested in her, that she was the only woman in a long time who had caught his attention.
Two minutes late for his shift, he entered the Wild River Search and Rescue station in time to see three of his fellow crewmates getting into gear. He immediately reached for his own jacket and boots stored on the rack on the wall beside his name. “What do we have?” he asked Reed, the search team leader, as he pulled on his jacket.
Reed glanced up from lacing his boots. “A group of campers called for assistance after one of them stumbled into their fire...”
Summer season was in full swing. Locals and tourists hit the campsites and trails as much as possible while the weather was nice and mild. But despite ideal conditions, the S & R team had plenty of calls to keep them busy. Lost hikers and minor injuries were most common. And a lot of them had to do with wildfires. “Alcohol involved?”
Reed nodded. “I would think so.”
Of course, if the group was underage, all evidence of it would have disappeared by the time they arrived. Callum suspected they’d waited until it was absolutely necessary before calling in for assistance.
Five minutes later, just before dawn, the crew hit the trails leading south along Snowcrest Peak, where the kids were camping, and Callum fell into step at the back of the group.
Diva, their four-legged team member, walked alongside him as usual. The husky seemed to always stick by him, almost as though sensing he was the one who might need her, being the least experienced member and the youngest on the crew. He liked the dog, but it was a little unnerving that she’d pegged him as the weak link.
“Hey, Tank, want to call your dog?” he shouted to the big six-foot-five dude at the front of the pack with Reed. The owner of the local watering hole was Diva’s handler after all. They were a certified team, so shouldn’t the dog be with the appropriately nicknamed man?
Tank turned and walked backward. “Nah, she’s got a crush on you...like every other female in Wild River,” he said teasingly before turning his attention back to the hike.
Diva glanced up at Callum with a smug expression on her gray-and-white face.
“What’s it going to take for you to trust me? I got this,” he whispered to the dog.
He’d been a member of the search and rescue crew for three years. He was currently a support member, but he took as many shifts at the station and went out on as many rescues as everyone else. He wasn’t quite sure what held him back from applying to be a full member, but he wasn’t ready to commit to the crew in a more permanent way yet as a full volunteer.
Damn, maybe he was drifting through life the way everyone assumed. He wanted to think that he still hadn’t figured out his life path yet and that it was okay to continue weighing his options and exploring things, but maybe at twenty-six, it wasn’t okay. Maybe he did need to decide on something...something a little more secure than a writing career.
As he trudged through the muddy trail toward the campsite, his muse chose that moment to talk to him. The sights and sounds and smells of the wilderness brought vivid descriptive imagery to mind as he watched the dark sky turn into the deep blue and purple hue of Blue Hour. This time just before Golden Hour, when the sun would break over the horizon, was one of the most beautiful times of day. This transition period from night to day cast a breathtaking natural illumination over the forest, dim enough to bring out the darkness, yet light enough to surround the forest in an almost surreal glow. Blue Hour never lasted long and most people never even noticed it, but those who paid attention recognized the powerful part it played in the breaking of a new day.
He grabbed a pen and paper from his bag and started writing notes as the thoughts came to him. Maybe it was the great outdoors, fresh air or just being away from the pressure of the keyboard and blank page, but he always did his best writing when he wasn’t sitting at the desk or the diner table but out living life.
“Whatcha writing?” Erika, Reed’s fiancée and one of his fellow crew members, asked, sneaking up next to him.
He tucked the paper out of sight. “Just remembered a few things I need to do, so I wanted to write them down, that’s all.”
She grinned, not looking entirely convinced. “Yeah... So all those questions you were asking me at The Drunk Tank the other night about the long-term effect of blocking out childhood trauma and abuse—that was all just out of curiosity?”
He studied the brilliant ER surgeon. What did she think she knew? Was it worse to let her think he’d been asking for personal reasons? He shrugged. “I find that stuff fascinating, that’s all,” he said. He liked Erika—she was a no-bullshit kind of person who’d give it to him straight if his writing sucked. But he wasn’t ready to tell anyone about his book yet, especially not the guys on the crew. And if he told Erika, she’d tell Reed and then everyone would know.
They wouldn’t give him shit over it. Worse, they’d all be supportive—too supportive. They might even want to read it, and that wasn’t happening.
“Okay, I’ll pretend to buy that,” she said, but she glanced at his right hand. More specifically, his right middle finger. “You know, I had a friend once who called bumps like the one you have on the side of your finger writer’s bumps...from constantly holding a pen or pencil.” She winked then walked on to rejoin Reed on the trail.
Callum absentmindedly ran his thumb over the bump as he climbed the incline on the trail behind the others. A writer’s bump. He may not have a finished book, but he’d consider the bump a rite of passage of sorts.
Arriving at the campsite moments later, he put the paper and pen away as the doused firepit came into view. Five teenagers—three boys, two girls—sat around it, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, drinking from thermoses as they waited. Three tents were set up around the perimeter of the camp. Luckily they were next to a lake, and they’d been smart enough to treat the burn with cold water.
Reed glanced at the group. “Erika, you want to take this?” he asked.
She glanced at Callum with a grin. “I’ve already proven myself to Diva. Maybe Callum should do it.”
“I’m on it,” he said, grabbing the medical supply bag. He was one of the more highly trained members of the team when it came to medical emergencies. He approached the poor kid, who looked a lot less upset than he’d expected given the extent of the burn on his arm. Wearing shorts, sandals and a T-shirt with the edges singed, he held a cold compress to the injured arm. “Hey, T.J., right?” He squatted down in front of him and opened the kit.
“Yes, sir,” the boy of about fifteen said.
&n
bsp; “These your friends?” Callum nodded around the group, all high school age. He’d been camping alone with friends at that age, so he couldn’t deliver the “you should have an adult present” speech without feeling like a hypocrite.
T.J. nodded. “And my brother A.J.”
A taller boy stood up and approached. “I’m his brother.”
“You were responsible for keeping an eye on him?” Callum asked the older boy.
The teen nodded. “Yes, sir.” He shot his younger brother a glare. “But I didn’t think he’d go do something so stupid,” he grumbled.
“I have a brother too, so I get it.” Though in his case, Sean was older, but it had never felt that way growing up.
He removed the compress and applied an ointment to the raw-looking wound that extended from the boy’s palm all the way to midway up his forearm. It was a nasty burn. The boy flinched and mumbled a profanity under his breath. “Why were you so close to the fire, anyway? Were you drinking?”
“No, sir.” The teen’s cheeks flushed, and his gaze shifted to one of the girls sitting on the log next to them. The pretty, petite blonde looked worried as she watched Callum treat the burn.
Ahhh...there was a girl.
T.J. cleared his throat. “Janeen dropped her charm bracelet near the fire,” he mumbled as Callum wrapped the arm in gauze.
The young girl smiled at him as she played with the bracelet on her arm. Obviously he’d retrieved it. “So, you decided to be a hero?”
“Says a dude that looks like Superman,” T.J. said with a grin.
The other teens laughed along with the other members of the S & R crew. Guess he’d walked straight into that one. “Well, next time, just buy her a new one, okay?” he told the teen, knowing he was wasting his breath. He’d walk into a fire for Ellie too. Men did stupid things to impress women.
He finished bandaging the burn and handed the boy some painkillers. “Keep it wrapped and take one of these every eight hours. No alcohol.”
The teen nodded. “Thank you.”
Callum gathered the medical kit and stood, then heading back down the trail, he turned to Diva. “We good now?”
The dog eyed him but then sauntered off toward Tank.
Looked like he’d finally passed the canine’s test.
* * *
“REPEAT AFTER ME... Hat, house, hammock.” Ellie paused and gestured for her student to repeat the words starting with H.
On her computer screen, the young woman from a small seaside town in Spain pronounced the words carefully. “At, ouse, ammock.”
“Good...okay, but remember the H makes a sound in English.”
“Muy confusing,” Raquel said over the background noise of the waves of the Mediterranean Sea behind her on the screen. The twenty-two-year-old Spaniard was secretly learning English to move to Ohio to be with a man she’d met online. Her parents didn’t know her plans yet. Ellie was desperate to ask how the two had formed a connection considering their language barrier, but she wasn’t sure she was quite ready to hear the answer.
Maybe love really did have a language of its own?
Ellie laughed. “Agreed—English can be tricky.” She checked the time on her wall clock. It was 2:58 a.m. Time to wrap up for the night. “Next class we will be focusing on verb conjugation for the verb ‘to be.’”
Raquel groaned and looked ready to argue, but an older man exited the house behind her and she waved and disconnected the Skype connection quickly.
Ah, young, forbidden love. How exciting for Raquel. But maybe Ellie should also focus on teaching her emergency words just in case she arrived in Ohio and lover boy turned out to be a serial killer.
Ellie yawned as she shut her computer. These late night classes were starting to catch up with her, but with the time difference between Alaska and Spain, they were the only teaching slots available.
Completing her ESL-teaching certificate the year before, she’d signed on with Languages America to teach English to Spanish speakers looking to immigrate to the United States, hoping it would help fulfill her desire to be a teacher. While she enjoyed it, she didn’t think it was the same as working in a school, in a classroom environment with eager children.
Her mother had always said that Ellie would make a great teacher. She’d told her stories about how Ellie had set up “classrooms” to teach her dolls when she was really little. How even then she’d liked the structure and discipline of the school system. Maybe that was why she’d enjoyed school so much. Children craved structure and support, and it wasn’t always that way at home.
She stood and her phone chimed with a new message as she climbed back into bed. Opening it, she read the text from Callum.
How was class?
He always texted on Friday nights after her class. He must really be bored on his night shifts at the station, and she was the only one he knew who would be awake this time of night. But it was kinda nice to know someone else was awake.
Pronunciation day. How’s the station?
Two small calls today. No major injuries. Have you decided what to wear to the reunion yet?
Nope.
And the reunion was the next evening. The last three weeks had been a blur with work and planning the event. Somehow she’d pulled it off so far. Deciding what to wear would almost be the biggest challenge. Everything she owned was too plain or too boring. But she hated shopping, so she dreaded having to go the next day to find something suitable that didn’t make her look and feel like a fifty-year-old spinster.
Should I send you a dress?
She smiled, knowing he was kidding.
We can go over some details to make sure we can convince people we are in love.
Details are boring. Can’t I just kiss you all night?
Her pulse quickened slightly at the thought. Remembering the odd sensation that had run through her the day in the bookstore a few weeks ago when she’d taken his hands in hers, the idea of a kiss had her sweating. She wasn’t sure they could avoid a kiss the entire night if they were pretending to be an item...but maybe they were just one of those couples who didn’t like PDAs. Maybe they liked to keep their relationship private.
She ignored his question as she responded.
Alisha is a nurse at the hospital and she’s been dating Nick, a lawyer, for several months.
Why do I care?
Ellie sighed. Why on earth had she agreed to this? If she hadn’t already RSVP’d a plus-one herself, she’d totally be reconsidering this decision. But Alisha had been curious, to say the least, about who Ellie was dating. Turned out everyone cyberstalked everyone...even the book nerd from high school, apparently.
Because if you and I are dating, I would have told you about my friends.
Friends. Were they really friends? She’d spent a lot of time with them in high school, but they were really Brent’s friends. After her and Brent’s relationship ended, she hadn’t seen or heard from any of them. They didn’t have much in common besides Brent.
Her phone chimed.
Okay, I’ve got a pen and paper, ready to take notes.
Ellie rolled her eyes at Callum’s text, but continued to give him the basic info she thought would be important to know.
Cheryl and Mitch are recently married. They have a six-month-old baby. A girl, I think. She’s a personal trainer and he’s some fitness guru with his own start-up...
Unemployed, you mean?
Ellie grinned. Quite possibly. Cheryl’s family were wealthy, so they really didn’t need to worry about money. She worked as a trainer because she enjoyed it and it gave her the flexibility to make her own hours. She’d already reduced her client list since having the baby.
Instagram influencer or something.
She still wasn’t quite sure what that was or how it translated to income. But Mitch seemed happy and he had a ton of f
ollowers.
Obsessed with his own muscles and wants everyone to worship him, got it.
If he was Cheryl’s usual type, then that sounded about right.
Another chime of her phone before she could respond.
What about Brent? What do I need to know about your ex?
Ellie stared at the phone. Where did she start? What did Callum need to know? He was her first kiss, her first sexual experience, her first love. He’d also been her first heartbreak.
But it was late, and she already sensed that Callum thought her hang-up over Brent was ridiculous. She was worried enough about seeing her ex again—with someone else. She didn’t need Callum’s opinion on the whole thing making her even more stressed.
I think we can wing the rest.
I thought winging it would lead to disaster?
Her gut told her that there were a million things that could go wrong the next evening. Least of all, their fake relationship could be called out as a hoax.
We’ll survive. Night, Callum.
Three dots as if he was typing, then...
Sweet dreams.
Ellie didn’t know about sweet. Despite her exhaustion, she suspected her anxiety about the next evening’s event would plague her with unsettling dreams.
* * *
CALLUM LAY ON the cot in the corner of the search and rescue cabin a few miles away from Ellie’s apartment, anticipation of the following evening making him sweat a little...okay, a lot.
Ellie wanted to impress her friends, wanted them to see that her life was as amazing as she saw theirs. He wished she didn’t feel the need to prove herself in any way, but he understood. There was a ton of societal pressure on people these days, women especially, to be a certain way, look a certain way...
Alaska Reunion Page 4