by Eliana West
Dax blew out a deep breath. “Reid, I—”
“You’re the reason I didn’t.”
Memories of his brother always sitting at the dinner table the same way he was sitting now with his head bowed and his fists clenched in his lap flashed through his mind.
“Don’t think you could have done anything,” Reid said, as if he could read his mind. “You were just a kid—it wasn’t your job.”
“I regret everything that happened when we were growing up, everything that I did.”
“Is that why I’m here, so you can apologize?” Reid asked.
“That’s part of it, yes.” Dax picked up a peanut from the pile on the table and threw it back down. “I’m not really sure where to begin. Do you remember Callie Colton?”
“Richard and Minnie Colton’s granddaughter? The little girl you used to call names and throw rocks at?”
“Yeah,” he said flatly, “that’s just one more thing in a long list of regrets.” There was no going back, only forward, so he took another swig of his beer and continued. “You left…no, that’s wrong, you were sent away after the first summer she came to stay with her grandparents.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“Callie moved here a couple of years ago, after her grandparents died. Mom has been trying to run Callie out of town ever since she came back and then I came home and things have escalated.”
Reid frowned. “Explain what things have escalated means.”
“I think Mom is involved in attacks on Callie.”
Dax told Reid about the bike, the broken window, and how their mother had been running off contractors, watching his brother’s anger grow with each incident. “You’re the security expert. What do you need me for?”
“I want to try one more time to talk to her about her attitude, and her actions. I don’t know, pull her back from the point of no return. I guess I’m hoping if we make a united front, we can get through to her before she gets into real trouble.”
Reid drained the rest of his glass. “She’s not going to listen to anything I have to say.”
“Reid, this is serious. She’s going to end up getting arrested—hell, the only reason she hasn’t had harassment charges filed against her is because Callie won’t do it and Mom’s got the sheriff backing her up.”
“What set her off?”
“Well…” He crumpled a peanut shell until it became dust. “Callie and I have kind of been seeing each other.”
“Kind of?” Reid’s eyebrow arched.
When Dax didn’t reply Reid leaned toward the bar.
“I’m going to need more of that bourbon, Mr. Wallace,” Reid shouted toward the bar. Mr. Wallace nodded and brought another glass and a bottle over to their table.
“I’m sorry, Dax, but I don’t think I can do anything to help.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but if you could stay around for just a little while, I’d like to have a chance to be a better brother.”
“You weren’t a bad brother Dax, we’re just…different.” Reid shrugged. “You were always trying to make Mom happy. You were so eager to do whatever she asked and I wasn’t.”
“I didn’t want her to yell at me the way she always yelled at you. I thought that if I did everything the way she wanted I could keep both of us out of trouble. When you were sent away I was afraid if I didn’t agree with everything she said or wanted she’d send me away too. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. If Uncle Robert hadn’t come back and straightened me out, I hate to think about the kind of person I’d be today.”
“I haven’t seen Uncle Robert in years. I have to give him credit, he reaches out from time to time. I haven’t been very good about staying in touch.”
“You have your reasons, maybe you’ll share those with me someday.”
“Why did you come back?” Reid asked.
“In spite of everything, this is home. I spent enough time traveling around the world, to learn that no place is perfect.” He hesitated, brow creasing. “What’s that saying? Home is where you make it? I want to help Colton. There are good people here.”
“And Callie Colton is one of those people?”
“She is.”
“How did you get her to forgive you for all of the shit you did?”
“I apologized, over and over again—” Dax hesitated and then put his cards on the table “—just like I’m going to apologize to you until I prove to you that I want you to be a part of my life.” Reid’s jaw ticked. “I’d like it if you stayed long enough to meet her,” Dax pressed.
His brother sat back, rubbing his hands over his face before letting out a heavy sigh. He glanced toward the bar. “I guess I can stay for a day or two.”
“It’s pretty sparse at my place, but I know that Uncle Robert would love to have you bunk with him.”
“Thanks for the offer, I’ll think about it.” Reid rubbed his temples. “I suppose Mom will know that I’m here.”
“She probably knows already. I don’t suppose you want to see her.”
“Let’s be real here, she doesn’t want to see me, and I don’t want to see her. I won’t see her unless we need to have some kind of intervention.”
“Hoping it won’t come to that.”
“So, no, I won’t see Mom, but…I would like to go by Dad’s gravesite.”
Reid’s revelations about their father had left Dax feeling like he was standing on shifting sand. Everything he thought was true wasn’t the reality. The one truth he could hold on to in that moment was that Reid was here because he asked him to come. “I’d like to come with you if that’s okay.”
Reid stared down into his empty glass. “I think Dad would like that.”
Dax filled both of their glasses and lifted his. “For Dad.”
Reid tipped his glass against his and they both downed the contents. Reid chuckled when he sputtered and coughed.
“I don’t know how you can drink this stuff. The first time I tried it, I couldn’t catch my breath for an hour.” Dax wheezed.
Reid chuckled. “That’s because you weren’t drinking the good stuff. This has aged twenty years.” He pointed toward the bar. “That man is a master craftsman.” He rolled the glass between his palms. “Primus has offered to teach me his recipe.”
“Primus? Are you talking about Mr. Wallace?”
“That’s his name.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. I think you might be one of the only people who knows his name.” Dax looked from the old man at the bar and back to his brother. If Mr. Wallace could tempt his brother to stay for a day or two, he was all for it. “I didn’t realize you were so interested in bourbon.”
“It was something Dad and I used to do together. He bought me my first glass of bourbon when I turned twenty-one. We used to go to whiskey bars around Chicago when he would visit.”
All this time Dax believed his brother had been denied a relationship with their father and it turned out Reid had a closer relationship with him than Dax ever did.
“I’m sorry,” Reid said.
“I’m glad you had those times with him.”
“And I’m sorry you didn’t. I didn’t realize… Here I thought I got to be the only messed-up kid in this scenario. I think that’s why I’ve been avoiding you. I didn’t want to hear you talk about how great your life was growing up with Mom and Dad.”
“At first, I thought it was. I got tired of being the town bully in high school, but I didn’t know how to stop. It was easier to live up to my reputation than try to change it. Thank God Uncle Robert came back.” Dax laughed quietly. “He took one look at me and had a dyin’ duck fit.”
Reid smiled. “I would have liked to have seen that.”
“Believe me, I’ll never forget it. I’ve never seen him so mad. He caught me and some of the other boys making plans to try to ambush Callie the next time she rode her bike into town. I’d just gotten a new BB gun and was bragging I could use it to make her
pedal faster when Uncle Robert came up behind me and grabbed me by the collar, and dragged me back to his cabin. He threatened to horsewhip me until there was nothing but a bloody pulp left, but then he did something that to this day I’m thankful for. He sat me down on the front porch and started talking and he made me sit there until I began to listen.”
He talked to Dax for three days before he began to understand the consequences of his actions. His mother pitched a fit, but it was one of the rare occasions where his father put his foot down and let his brother take Dax into his care. Dax spent the rest of the summer working on Robert’s farm, the physical labor strengthened his body and his talks with his uncle strengthened his soul.
Reid looked at him. “Where do we go from here, Dax?”
A small flicker of hope burned in his chest. Reid wasn’t shutting him out; they were talking. If he could keep talking the way Uncle Robert had kept talking to him all those years ago maybe they might have a chance to heal the breach between them.
“I don’t know… You’re here and that means a lot to me. I want you to get to know Callie. I hope the two people I care the most about can be friends.”
“I’d like that, too.”
*
Reid followed Dax to the library and just as he hoped his brother and Callie hit it off.
“You’re head over heels for this girl, aren’t you?” Reid commented as they made their way over to the Barton Building.
“I am, she makes me want to be a better man—” he stopped and faced Reid “—and a better brother.”
“A partner in life like that is worth…everything.”
Reid craned his neck, looking up at the façade. “I always loved this building. There’s just something about it.” He turned to Dax. “Mother must have pitched a fit.”
“There was no way I could have moved back home. It would have been suffocating. Mom put so much pressure on me about being the head of the house after Dad died it was…it was too much. I hated every moment I spent in that house after that. I can come home to Colton, but I can’t go back to pretending that house is my home.”
Dax led Reid through the main floor of the building and through the partially finished apartments on the second floor before taking him up to the recently finished loft space. HIs phone buzzed in his pocket while Reid took in the view.
“Hello—”
“Your brother doesn’t have the manners to visit his mother. I have to hear he’s in town from a friend,” she said in a terse voice.
“By friend I’m assuming you mean Sheriff Crosby.”
“It doesn’t matter who it is; your brother still hasn’t learned how to show the proper respect. What will people say? It’s an embarrassment.”
Dax moved out of earshot from his brother. “Why do you care? You wouldn’t have welcomed him home anyway. Just keep doing what you always do and pretend he doesn’t exist.”
“Daxton Madden Ellis, how dare you speak to me like that?” his mother hissed. “Your brother has been here for only a few hours and already his bad manners are rubbing off on you.”
“When you are ready to show the proper respect and welcome both of your sons into your home the way a mother should, we can talk. Until then I’m not going to continue this conversation with you.”
Reid came over to stand next to him. “Dax, I don’t want you to give up—”
Dax held up his hand. “I’m not giving up anything. I’m getting my brother back and that is more valuable to me. I’d hoped I could have a relationship with both my mother and my brother but if I have to choose I’m going to choose you. It’s hard to accept it but clearly, Mother isn’t going to change.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I’m going on a date with Dax Ellis.” No matter how many times she said it out loud the woman in the mirror didn’t look like she believed it.
Callie reached up and fingered the ruffled sleeve of the floral-print blouse she wore. Dax sent her a text that afternoon telling her to dress casual for tonight. She didn’t tell Mae about the date so that meant she was on her own trying to figure out an outfit. She glanced at the pile of clothes on her bed with a wince. Casual wasn’t as easy as it sounded. She turned her attention back to the mirror. After an hour of indecision she ended up in a blouse, jeans, and her favorite cowboy boots, the soft brown leather embroidered with colorful flowers and vines. Mae had been horrified when Callie ordered them from a custom boot maker in Texas, but she loved them and saved them for special occasions, which meant that tonight was only the second time she had ever worn them.
She smoothed the hem of her shirt. Should she change back to the pink T-shirt?
The doorbell rang. “I’m going on a date with Dax,” she told herself one more time. Large gray eyes filled with a mixture of excitement and just a little bit of trepidation stared back at her.
One look at Dax standing on her doorstep and her brain couldn’t come up with a coherent sentence. Clean-shaven and wearing a blue plaid shirt under a dark gray sweater with jeans and work boots, he smiled down at her.
“Evening, Callie.”
She smiled back and the two of them stood there grinning at each other. If she read this scene in a book, she would have given it a one-star review.
“I’ll just get my sweater. I wasn’t sure what to wear. I hope this is okay for whatever we’re doing.”
Dax took her hand, tucking it into his arm as he guided her to his truck. “You’re perfect,” he said as he opened the door for her. She climbed in and he gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek before he closed the door.
He started up the truck, heading away from town with Lucas Monroe playing on the radio.
“I love this song,” she said, tapping her fingers on her leg.
“It’s one of my favorites too.” Dax reached for the dial and turned up the radio.
Through every season.
Down every country road.
You’re waiting for me with open arms.
I’ll always come back to you.
“His songs always tell a story.” She sighed.
“He has a lot of stories to tell.”
“You said you served with him, didn’t you?”
“I did. I give Lucas a lot of credit for opening my eyes.” He frowned slightly. “He taught me you shouldn’t make assumptions about people just because of the way they look or the things they say.”
Callie thought about her conversation with the reverend back at the cemetery. “People do that to me all the time. They assume things about me because I don’t look ‘Black enough—’” she used air quotes “—or they expect me to want to go into the music business because my father is a producer.”
“That’s not you.”
He really sees me for who I am, her heart sang. Dax turned off onto a narrow road leading out toward the old Colton Plantation house. She glanced at Dax. He smiled and took her hand. He drove a little bit farther and then he pulled over and turned toward Callie.
“Do you think you can trust me?” he asked.
For the first time there was no doubt that she did. His eyes crinkled in the corners as he searched hers and she realized the hands holding hers were trembling. “I trust you,” she said in a whisper.
He pulled out a bandanna. “Will you put this on?”
“Isn’t this how someone gets murdered in every scary movie, on a country road in the middle of nowhere and the guy blindfolds her?” she laughed.
Suddenly, his warm soft lips pressed against hers in a gentle kiss. “I promise, you can trust me.”
A funny, light, floaty feeling came over her as the truck started again. There was something freeing in the trust. They drove for another five minutes and then he must have turned off the road because the ride became bumpy and she had to grasp for the door handle as she bounced around on her seat. The truck came to a stop and then there was nothing but silence around her.
“I need you to give me just a few more minutes,” Dax said dropping another quick kiss on her l
ips. Callie listened as he opened the door and got out of the truck. She held her breath, listening, trying to figure out what he was doing.
Her door opened and he guided her out of the truck. He put his arm around her and led her a few steps before he stopped and reached behind her to untie the bandanna. Callie kept her eyes closed, taking in the smell of sweet grass and the crickets chirping. “You can open your eyes now.”
They were standing in a field. Dax had mowed a patch of overgrown grass and stretched a large piece of canvas between two cottonwood trees. He’d pulled around and parked the truck so that the bed faced the canvas. Callie turned; the truck bed was filled with blankets, pillows, and a picnic basket. Two lanterns sat of the top of the truck’s cab, casting a soft glow.
“We don’t have a movie theater so I thought we could make do with this.”
“This is incredible, I can’t believe you did this for me.”
He reached up and cupped her cheek. “I wanted to do something special for you. I thought about taking you for a fancy dinner in Nashville but—” he swept his arm over the homemade drive-in he’d created “—this just seemed like…us.”
Us. “I like the idea of us,” she confessed.
“It’s all I think about,” he said, reaching up to cover her hand with his, nuzzling her palm.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of cut grass that mingled with the sandalwood cologne that he wore. She wound her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his again. He made a low rough sound deep in his throat, the sound vibrating in his chest, making her toes curl. When they finally broke apart his eyes were dark with desire and they were both breathing heavily. Kisses from Dax were so much better than any of the fictional kisses she’d ever read. His lips were firm and his hands gentle—she was quickly becoming addicted to them. She grew bolder with every contact, wanting more. She pressed her hands against his chest, reveling in the feel of hard muscle under her palms.
Dax closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, before pulling her hands away. “You are making it very hard for me to be a gentleman.” He slipped his hands around her waist and lifted her into the back of the truck. “Ms. Colton.” He wagged his finger at her. “I am taking you to dinner and a movie, and at the end of our date I’m going to escort you home and we might sit on your porch for a spell before I kiss you good night. No matter how much you tempt me, I am going to court you like a proper Southern gentleman.”