Chapter Ten Callum #2
Mom looks Lexie over, sizing her up, before turning to look at me. I give away nothing, even when Lexie’s questioning eyes look to me with brows raised. When Tara’s lips twitch in a smile, she might as well have pressed her stamp of approval on the pretty pink nurse’s forehead.
She likes her.
“Alright.” Mom nods, keeping a straight face when she turns back to Lexie and the man she’s been tasked with fixing up. “Let’s see this work of yours.”
Lexie backs away from Ricky, allowing everyone in the room to examine her needlework. My father, Marcus, and Lucciano, who followed my mother and me from the office, step forward to get a good look too.
Just like with Kellen’s hand, Lexie’s work is clean and tight. I’ve seen a lot of gunshot wounds, and there’s no doubt Ricky’s arm will heal quickly and with barely a scar. The caliber of work on this wound makes the other scars marking his body look crude and sloppy.
Lucciano remains silent, but the look in his eyes when his gaze cuts to me acknowledges he was wrong to doubt my judgment. My father starts sputtering in Italian, his voice dripping praise. Marcus, however, admires her work openly, boldly.
Too fucking boldly.
“Damn, that’s impressive,” Marcus says. “What’s your number?
I might need you to stitch me up one of these days.
” I’m about to tell my brother to shut his fucking mouth and stay away from her—that he doesn’t get her phone number because she’s not his to talk to or think about—but Lexie beats me to it.
“I work for Callum. You know how to reach him.” Her answer soothes some of the hostility raging inside me, and my shoulders relax slightly when she glances up at me. That one look calms me considerably. “Can I finish bandaging him up now?”
“Go ahead, Doc,” I say, nodding towards the made man.
Ricky’s been surprisingly silent since I walked into the room. He can keep glaring at me as long as he keeps his mouth shut. I’ll be talking to Roscoe to see how well the trigger-happy prick behaved himself when I left.
Lexie looks at me for another second as she takes a deep breath, a flicker of vulnerability crossing her face.
The way her eyes pull away from me to glance around at the other people filling the space is the only sign she’s given that she might feel overwhelmed.
But it’s gone as quickly as it came, and she’s back to work wrapping Ricky’s arm in sterile gauze.
As soon as Lexie’s finished cleaning up and giving Ricky care instructions—that go in one ear and out the other without penetrating his thick skull—I have Roscoe take her back out front to the car. My mother takes the opportunity to get me alone.
“Come with me,” she demands, rolling ahead of me to the front of the shop. “I cooked yesterday.”
It’s all she has to say to get me to follow. She leads me to one of the coolers, where she starts pulling out a stack of food containers, four in total.
“Lexie does good work.” I already see where this conversation is going, but I humor her anyway. “She’s way fuckin’ better than that asshat Tony.”
“I agree.” She bats my hands away when I reach to help, forever the independent woman, and stacks the containers into a large paper bag.
“Be careful with her though. She’s still got that light in her; I’m not sure she’s cut out for the life you’re leading her into.”
“I know the risks,” I state simply. I weighed the risks and benefits before writing up the contract, I know what I’m getting myself into, even if Lexie hasn’t seen the full picture yet. Mom places the bag on her lap and forces me to look her in the eye.
“I don’t get to see you much anymore unless someone gets a hole blown through ’em, so I’m gonna take my opportunity now that I have it.
” I brace myself for the lecture coming my way.
“You might not be involved with the Family business anymore, but I know enough about what you get up to. You’ve got it in your head that emotions get in the way of every decision, and you’re almost right.
But sometimes acting on your feelings is the difference between staying alive and living. ”
Holding back my frustration, I pull in a deep breath as I formulate a response.
Telling her to keep her opinions to herself like I would my father and brother isn’t an option.
But I have no interest in having a one-on-one therapy session with my mother about following my heart.
So instead, I give her a response that ends the conversation without being harsh. “I hear you.”
Mom lets out a humorless laugh. “I don’t think you do, but I’ll let you leave anyway,” she scoffs, holding out the bag of food for me to take. I accept it with thanks, leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek before heading to the exit.
Settling back against the seat in the car, I can’t focus on the email displayed on my phone when my eyes keep straying to the woman sitting next to me. Feeling my eyes, she turns from the window to meet my stare head-on—something she does a lot.
She doesn’t get flustered or cower under my gaze. Instead, she stares right back.
“What?” Her brows knit together slightly in confusion.
“What are you thinking?” The need to know what’s running through her mind is too strong to resist. Reading the emotions as they cross her face isn’t enough.
“That I usually make a guy at least take me to dinner before I meet his parents,” she teases good-naturedly, making me suppress a smile.
“You’re handling this really well.”
“You know, you have a habit of sounding surprised when you compliment me, Callum. Someone with a smaller ego might find that offensive.” She’s not offended.
“I would never want to offend you, Dewdrop,” I assure her with an amused smile. “One of these days I might need you to stitch me up.”
Noticing an errant hair on her cheek, I reach up to gently brush it from her fair skin. Lexie’s eyelids flutter as she stills against my touch, her breath hitching ever so slightly. When I remove my hand from her face she blinks a few times before speaking again, not the least bit flustered.
“You’re right, it’s never a good idea to insult the person with the scalpel,” she agrees. “Smart man, always one step ahead.”
“You have no idea.”
She doesn’t, but she will soon.