by Gina Watson
Cal pulled their bags from the back and motioned for Chloe to move toward the house.
At the front entry, Cal opened the heavy double doors and they walked through. He tossed their bags at the bottom of the winding staircase and they crossed the marble foyer to the kitchen. When they rounded the corner into the kitchen, Cal froze. Alyssa sat on one of the stools. Chloe greeted her and appropriately asked what Cal couldn’t get out.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m here with Cal.”
Alyssa eyed Cal coolly. No, coldly. Fuck! Cal knew he should have told Chloe about the bet. He’d started to a number of times, but things were going so well he wasn’t ready for the fight he knew they would ultimately have and that would be within her right to begin.
Alyssa shrugged. “And I’m here with Logan.”
“Logan!” Cal said a little louder than he intended. “What happened to Cory?”
“I wouldn’t know. I told you, I’m here with Logan.”
This was so not good. “So is Cory here then?”
“I may have seen him out on the lawn.” She waved at the wall of windows at her back.
He peeked out onto the lawn and did in fact see his father dictating directives to Cory and Logan. He desperately wanted to speak with Cory, but there was no way he was leaving Chloe alone with Alyssa. Alyssa seemed quite unhappy about something. He would guess things had not gone well with Cory and that she was in full retaliation mode and now poor Logan had been dragged into Cory’s no-strings-attached sex life. Cory was older than Cal by eleven months, but he could have been the youngest if they went by sheer maturity.
Feeling anxiety twisting his muscles, Cal turned to Chloe. “I guess we should go out back and say hello to my father.”
Chloe smiled. “Sounds good.” She jumped down from the stool she’d been sitting on and told Alyssa she’d see her around.
Alyssa replied, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
What an absurd line, given the circumstances. Chloe was nothing like Alyssa—to Cal’s utter relief.
They made their way out onto the lawn where the bandstand had been setup for the festivities. Cal looked at the handsome man with eyes so similar to his own. His father was tall and sported a thick head of nut-brown hair that had started to gray at the temples. He had big dimples and a large, toothy smile. Cal knew he would look the same in thirty years. As soon as his father saw him, he greeted him with a smile.
“Son, it’s been entirely too long since you’ve been home. What do you say we put our differences aside?”
His father reached an arm out and Cal went toward it. His father hugged him with ferocity, squeezing the breath from Cal. Cal choked up.
“So great to see you, son. And who is this you’ve brought with you? Is that little Klepto Chloe?”
“Dad!”
“Oh, come on. Chloe knows I’m joking.”
Chloe went into the waiting arms of Clifton St. Martin, and he squeezed her tight. “Don’t you, girl.”
Chloe smiled. “Yes, sir, but just for the record, I’ve told Mrs. St. Martin multiple times how sorry I am about stealing her tulips.” She clasped her hands and lightly lowered her head. “It’s no excuse, but they were exquisite.”
Cal’s dad threw his head back and laughed. “Chloe est tres belle.”
Looking at Chloe, Cal responded, “Oui pere, elle est tres belle.”
Chloe smiled and blushed. Cal was aware that Chloe knew enough French from living in these parts to know they were discussing her beauty.
His father regaled Cal with updates regarding his commercial contracting business and Cal realized he was genuinely excited for his father’s success.
Cory joined them and their dad put his arm around each of his youngest sons.
“Did you hear, our Corrigan’s got the entire town in an uproar? The women, that is.”
Cal hitched a brow at Cory. “I may have heard something about it. Did you know one of his most recent disastrous conquests is now sharpening her claws on Logan?”
More laughter erupted from Cal’s dad. “Oh, to be young and feel love’s sting.”
“I’m not so sure this has anything to do with love.”
Cory folded his arms across his chest and looked down his nose at Cal. “You don’t need to act so high and mighty. Sometimes what you do isn’t an act of love either. Wasn’t there some sort of bet you had going?”
Cal snarled at Cory and reared back to punch him, but Cory ducked.
“Fuck off, Cal,” Cory said.
“Cory, I need to speak to you in private.” Cal grabbed his brother by his upper arm.
Cory sighed heavily. “Whatever.”
Cal looked to Chloe. “Will you be all right out here for a few minutes?”
“Sure. I’m just gonna walk over to my house and say hey to my folks.”
A great idea. She’d be out of the way for a while. “You can take dad’s LSU golf cart,” Cal offered.
Cal retrieved the keys from his father, but he withheld them from Chloe until she returned his kiss.
As she drove off in the direction of her childhood home, Cal whirled to Cory. He looked around and then lifted his chin, indicating a spot away from other ears. When they were alone, Cal said, “What the fuck is going on? Why is Alyssa here looking as if she could spit nails?”
“Well, brother mine, it turns out Alyssa is bat-shit crazy. I’m talking Fatal Attraction crazy.”
“And yet you let her get her hooks into Logan.”
Cory looked to where Logan was currently setting up beer kegs at the bar area. “Poor bastard never saw it coming. I’m just as shocked as you to see her here. I’d no idea she’d been getting boned by Logan.”
Cal started rubbing his brow with his thumb and forefinger. “Shit, it’s only a matter of time before she tells Chloe about the bet in Vegas.”
“Dude, if I can make a suggestion… ” Cory rubbed his index finger across his upper lip and then snapped his fingers. “…Tell Chloe before Alyssa can get to her.”
Cal shook his head. “Gee, thanks, Cory, that’s profound.” He left Cory sniggering at him and wandered around, studying the setup his dad had commissioned for the party. He greeted Logan, but there was nothing for him to do. And he was only delaying the inevitable.
Cal took off to walk across the property. He stopped to play with a couple of puppies that ran after him, not wanting to rush Chloe’s time with her family, but he eventually ended up on Mills land. He planned to speak with Chloe regarding the night they hooked up in Vegas. It was time he came clean about the bet. He just hoped their relationship had come far enough that it could see them through this snag.
The obscenely decorated golf cart caught his eye as Chloe was heading back on the path toward St. Martin land. He waved to her and she turned in his direction.
“Hey, stranger.” She greeted him with a big smile.
“Mind if I join you?” Cal boarded the golf cart and told her to take them down to the lake.
Feet up and relaxed, they sat for a while looking out across the large lake that bordered both properties. It was like looking over the past and peering into their shared connections. They’d always been connected and now that he thought he was falling in love with Chloe, Cal longed to move forward in their relationship, forging new connections and making new memories. Hell, he thought he might be ready to talk marriage with her. Encroaching into his thoughts was Chloe’s soft voice, asking what was on his mind.
He turned to her and lifted her hand. “I need to tell you something about the night we hooked up in Vegas.”
Chloe tilted her head that way she had, the way that told him she was listening with her heart as well as her ears. “Okay, shoot.”
“Babe, I was quite intoxicated. You were intoxicated. I can’t say I’m sorry about any of it because I’ve grown to not only want you, but need you. You’re all I think about these days. I would never knowingly hurt you
. You know that, don’t you?”
Chloe sat up straighter. “Cal, you’re scaring me. What’s this about?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, but I wanted you to know there was a bet… a bet that had been made.”
Her forehead furrowed. “What kind of bet?”
“A bet involving you.”
Chloe pulled her hands from Cal’s grip. “Okay, I figured that, but just how does it involve you?”
Cal looked out across the lake. “I inadvertently bet Cory, Dean, and Bradley that I could get you in the sack that night.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed and her luscious lips tightened into a thin line. “The word inadvertently is a nice touch.” She angled herself toward the water and he could no longer see her eyes. “Then I’d say you won that one quite a few times over. Tell me, how much is my body worth?”
Cal leaned forward and searched Chloe’s face. Her eyes were filled with tears. He reached for her, but she pulled away. “Chloe, I didn’t collect.” Thank God he hadn’t.
“How much Cal?” Her voice was getting louder.
“Five hundred dollars, but as I said, of course I didn’t collect. I put a stop to it immediately.”
“Is that supposed to make it all better?”
“No.” What else could he say?
Chloe shook her head. “I knew it was too good to be true. I knew it. My sister said I was crazy for dating you after all the shit you did to me when we were young, but I told her it was different now. I said we really cared for each other, but obviously I was wrong.”
Chloe was on her feet and walking back toward her parents’ home. Cal leaped from the cart and ran after her. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and she immediately fought him with her fists. “Put me down, you bastard!”
“Not a chance. I need you to hear what I have to say.” He threw her over his shoulder caveman style and walked her back to the cart, setting her gingerly on the back seat. “I can understand why you are hurt, and I was wrong to do what I did, but you were right to tell your sister that things are different now. They are different. I’m different. I think I may have actually fallen in love with you. I think I want to build a life with you. You have to admit that you feel our connection too.”
He removed his hands from her shoulders and waited for her response. When she didn’t speak, he started to pace on the patch of grass directly in front of her. “Say something.”
Cal ducked just in time to avoid the nine iron that came at his head. It caught the fiberglass roof of the golf cart instead. Chloe didn’t stop there. She swung several more times at the cart. Or maybe at him. She was erratic, so it was difficult to know her intent.
She yelled, “Caleb Dean St. Martin, I’ll never let you touch me again! You think you want to build a life with me, you think you might love me! You don’t have sex with someone the way we do unless you know, know for sure.” She took another swing at his head. “I knew I fucking loved you, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, and now I know I never want to see you again!”
“Chloe, don’t do this!”
Her fists clenched and her eyes grew to narrow slits, as if she were looking out through a helmet. As if they were at war. “I didn’t fucking do it, you did. Tell me, Cal, why are you telling me about the bet now?”
“I wanted to tell you before you heard it from the others.”
“Right, but if you put a stop to it so immediately, why is it that you need to tell me before I hear it from someone else? Why does everybody know that you won the bet? Why would you even need to explain the reason you aren’t collecting unless you boasted about it at some point?”
Cal winced at her questions. God, he hated to think what she would do when he told her he actually did boast about it, drunk-texting the guys that they owed him five hundred dollars.
Chloe sneered. “Not so talkative now, are you?” Chloe threw his father’s prized Honma nine iron, now a mangled mess, into the lake and started to walk home.
“Please don’t walk away from me.” She didn’t stop. “Chloe.” He took one step after her. “Don’t go.”
She stopped and turned, her face red and angry. “Tell me how the guys knew you succeeded in your conquest.”
He dropped his head, knowing that at his admission, Chloe would be gone from his life forever, casting him into darkness. “I texted them sometime during the night.”
Gasping on a harsh breath and pulling herself up to her full height, she looked him square in the eye. “I hate you, Caleb Dean St. Martin, and I’ll hate you till the day I die.”
At those words, at her admission, Chloe turned and ran. The beauty of the landscape with its green and lush grasses, still lake, and ducks flying overhead was a stark juxtaposition to the events playing out in front of them. With Chloe gone, emptiness wrapped around Cal like a cloak. He dropped to his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face then tugged his hair as hard as he could. Through his own stupidity, he’d lost the only woman he had ever loved.
5
Chloe spent the rest of the weekend at her condo in her pajamas. She ordered a large brick oven pizza and in two days, managed to eat it all. She caught up on all her reality shows, what her mother referred to as trash TV. She cried until she thought she’d get dehydrated, and her head was so stuffy it hurt like hell.
She was mad. Not just heartbroken, but angry.
She knew the moment she’d seen forever in Cal’s eyes. It was when he’d said, “Where you stand is next to me.” In that moment she had sensed a change in him. A meaningful change. Unfortunately she’d been mistaken, and he hadn’t changed at all. She’d seen only a lie. She was still a source of amusement and entertainment. He didn’t care one bit about her.
When the doorbell rang Sunday evening, she was tempted to ignore it, but she needed a break from herself and her thoughts. She looked through the peephole and into familiar ice-blue eyes. Shit. What was he doing here? She pulled the clip out of her hair and ran to her room to slide on a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt. She ran a brush through her hair.
Another knock sounded at the door.
“Chloe, I know you’re in there; I can see your car. Plus I can hear the TV.”
Chloe clicked the television off and grabbed all the tissues from the coffee table and those peppering the floor around the couch. “Just a minute,” she yelled at the door. She took the pizza box to the kitchen trash and wrangled it down using her fists and feet to bend it into submission. She glanced around and was satisfied she’d gotten rid of the evidence of her pity party and crying jags. Except her eyes still felt puffy. She grabbed the frozen spoon she kept in the freezer for that very thing and laid the cool metal delicately under her eyes as she walked toward the door. When she was content with how her eyes felt, she twisted the lock and turned the knob.
“Damn, woman, what the hell? It’s hot as fuck out here.”
She offered him a sickeningly sweet smile. “My apologies, but I don’t remember inviting you here. What do you want?”
“What I want is for you to be reasonable and—” She tried to close the door, but Cal had wedged his food in the doorway. “Dammit, Chloe, I just came for the tapes.”
Chloe froze as she thought about their project. Of course he would still complete it; he’d known the LeBlancs too. That made sense to Chloe, and she was happy he was going to complete the video. “Okay, come in.”
He went to her desk and sat down. He looked like he planned to stay a while. Was he playing her again? She had to admit that he’d fooled her well and she no longer trusted her instincts when it came to him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’ve got to transfer the video footage I’ve already cut from your laptop to mine. It’s going to take a while.”
“Take it; I’ve got another laptop. You can get it back to me later.”
His scent of expensive cologne and starch assaulted her senses, conjuring unwelcome memories. She needed him to leave now, before
she became too weak to fight him off.
Too weak to fight herself.
“Chloe, it’s not a big deal. I’ll just transfer them to my hard drive.”
Chloe’s hands clenched at her sides, and her shoulders hunched. “I said take my laptop and get out.”
Cal’s shoulders tensed. A tic jumped in his jaw and he opened his mouth, but he said nothing. He sighed instead and pulled a box from his pocket, placing it on the kitchen counter. “I’m truly sorry I ever hurt you.” He hoisted the box of tapes onto his shoulder and picked up Chloe’s laptop. He started to walk out.
“Are you? How can I believe that? You’ve been hurting me my entire life.”
Torrents of tears ran down her face. Her breath was erratic, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Cal moved in on her, but she lifted her shaky hand in front of him and said, “Don’t touch me.” She wiped her eyes and then stepped close.
“It would be easy to forgive you, but where would it end? You’ve been treating me like your sworn enemy all these years when I’ve never done anything but love you.” As her tears grew heavy, she gasped for air. “Do you even remember the things you did to me?” Her voice was low and lacked inflection. She stared at a spot off in the distance. “There was that time I’d gotten into a fire ant bed down by the lake. I was thirteen. I quickly took off my clothes and jumped into the lake to wash off the ants. I’d been stung repeatedly and my legs were on fire. I was in the lake when you showed up with your brothers.” Her eyes grew glossy. “You took my clothes.” Her gaze narrowed as she looked to Cal. “It was cold in the lake. I begged you to give my clothes back. But instead of giving me my clothes, you humiliated me in front of your brothers.” Whisper quiet and with her head lowered, she said, “I had to step out of the lake naked. Yet you still wouldn’t give me my clothes.”
Cal’s eyes closed. He shook his head.
She held her head high. “Tell me what happened next.”
He choked off a sob, his eyes still closed, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.
“If you even remember.” She shrugged. “I’ve never forgotten.”