CHAPTER 8
BLAIRE
I ’d spent all day trying to talk myself out of it.
A reasonable person would have already called Colt by now and claimed food poisoning, a migraine, anything to get out of going to dinner at his parents’ house.
I came back to Willow Grove with only one certainty. I needed to avoid Colt Calloway at all costs. Yet three days in, I was on his parents’ porch with a giant bowl of banana pudding in my arms while June knocked on their door.
The arguments I’d made for why this was a mistake hadn’t been enough.
Not when all I could think about was Ruby’s little hand in mine as she leaned in, eyes bright with hope.
I could have disappointed Colt, who I was sure didn’t actually want me here, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of letting her down.
Coming tonight wasn’t about Colt. It was about walking back into the life I left and choosing what I wanted from it.
I wasn’t prepared to meet Ruby’s mother. I’d built her in my mind in a hundred different ways—soft and steady enough to ease Colt’s edges or wild enough to keep pace with him.
Either way, I hated her for it, and I hadn’t even met her.
Ruby hadn’t spoken of her mother at all while we were swimming.
We’d spent the afternoon in fits of giggles, with Ruby showing me all her moves in the water and her cannonball off the end of the dock.
She’d surfaced with a smile that scrunched her nose and showed her dimples.
When her small fingers found mine underwater, I didn’t stop her.
Her hand wrapped around mine, small and trusting, as if we’d been friends for a lifetime instead of only a few hours.
I’d expected it to be awkward, maybe even a little forced, but I genuinely enjoyed her company. Her quick wit and silly questions disarmed me, but I shouldn’t have been surprised by how charming she was for a five-year-old.
She was a Calloway, after all.
Questions burned on my tongue. There were so many things I wanted to know about her life and her father, but I had no right to ask them. And what if she had said something I wasn’t ready to hear?
I’d let the questions fall away, and Ruby and I swam and laughed and floated side by side as we argued over the shapes we found in the clouds.
When I’d walked back into June’s still damp from the lake, I had swallowed every question clawing at my throat.
“I assume that means Colt found you.” June waved her cell phone.
“I tried to call you, but this damn thing had no service.” Her lips curled in a knowing smile I’d seen a thousand times before.
I knew she was baiting me, dangling information about Colt and waiting for me to ask.
But June and I were cut from the same cloth, both too stubborn for our own good.
I should have swallowed my pride and begged her for every detail, so I would’ve had some armor against whatever I was about to walk into.
The Calloways’ door swung open, and goosebumps raced up my arms. June stood just in front of me, and I took a deep breath as I looked past her and into the doorway.
All at once, I was fifteen again, standing on these same weathered floorboards while waiting for Colt to hurry down the stairs so we could disappear into the sprawling acres of the ranch until sunset called us home.
“Don’t let Blaire get hurt!” His mom would yell the same thing after us every single time, but we’d barely heard her.
Lou Calloway had always worried about us, and she was just as I remembered her.
She stood in the doorway, barely over five feet tall, and she’d pulled her dark hair back out of her face with a clip.
There were more streaks of silver there than I remembered, but those piercing blue eyes that both Colt and Ruby had inherited were exactly the same.
A smile spread across her face as she looked up at me, and she radiated that same kindness that had once made this house feel more like home than my own.
“Blaire.” She said my name as she wrapped me in a hug so tight I nearly dropped the pudding. She squeezed me into her as if she were trying to make up for all the lost time in one embrace. “Lord, I’ve missed you, my girl.”
Guilt flooded me, yet, “I’ve missed you too, Lou,” passed through my lips as I melted into her.
She finally let go and cupped my face, thumbs gentle along my cheeks as she studied me. “Prettier than ever.”
“Let the girl in the house, Louise!” I heard Mr. Calloway’s voice from deeper in the house. “You can smother her in your love and questions once she’s inside.”
“Oh, hush!” Lou hollered before rolling her eyes and pulling me in the door behind June. She took the pudding from my hands, but she hadn’t stopped smiling.
“This looks good, June.” She closed the door. “Owen’s been asking for your famous banana pudding.”
She ushered me forward, her hand pressed to the small of my back, and the smell of vanilla, roasted meat, and warm rolls were so familiar that I couldn’t stop the longing that crept through me.
The Calloway house looked almost exactly the same as it did a decade ago, down to the hooks by the door that were covered in hats and the small bench that sat above a line of worn boots.
“As long as his doctor says it’s okay, I’ll bring whatever the man wants,” June laughed.
“Come on, Blaire. Everyone’s out on the back porch. They can’t wait to see you.”
I followed her down the hallway, past the wall of family photos, and my steps faltered as I spotted a faded picture of me, Colt, Hunter, and McCoy down by the lake. We were all gangly limbs and carefree smiles, and the photo still hung in a wooden frame exactly where it had always been.
We crossed the living room into the kitchen, and Lou set the pudding on the food-packed island as we passed.
Through the glass doors that framed the porch, I saw them already gathered.
Hunter had his boots propped on the railing as he talked to his father, who was leaning back in a faded rocking chair.
McCoy was opening a beer and smiling down at the yard, and I followed his gaze as we finally stepped outside.
Ruby was barefoot and her hair was flying behind her as Colt chased her through the grass.
They curved around Lou’s flower garden that was filled to the brim with flowers of every color, and Ruby squealed as Colt closed the distance between them.
She ran toward the porch, but then she spotted us at the threshold.
“Blaire!” she shrieked, never slowing as her arms spread wide and she launched herself at me.
I dropped low, bracing for impact, and she collided against me, her weight nearly knocking me off my feet. I caught her, curling my arms around her small body, as she squeezed her arms around my neck.
“I’m so happy you’re here.” She pulled back, and her cheeks were flushed. “Look what I made you!”
She lifted one of her hands between us, revealing two bracelets, one snug against her wrist and the other barely hanging on. She pulled the large one off before she slid it on mine. The bracelet was a riot of pink beads of every shape and size, and I loved it.
“They’re friendship bracelets. I didn’t have any letter beads, but Daddy said they don’t have to have letters to be friendship bracelets.
And both of our favorite colors are pink!
” Ruby’s words tumbled out in a breathless rush, and my gaze drifted over her head to find Colt standing at the edge of the porch, catching his breath, his hands on his hips as he watched us.
His hair was a mess from running, one lock falling across his forehead, sweat making his white T-shirt cling to the cut of his shoulders, and I forced myself to look away from him and back to her.
“Thank you, Ruby.” I spun the bracelet on my wrist, taking in all the different beads. “I’ve never had a friendship bracelet before.”
Tonight, I’d planned to be careful with her, not to get too close, but she’d already made that impossible in under a minute.
“Neither have I.” Ruby grinned as she ran her fingers over her own beads.
“You did a wonderful job picking out the beads,” I whispered, lowering my voice like it was a secret just for the two of us. “We both know that pink is the best.”
“Daddy helped me pick them.” Ruby reached forward and traced her finger over my wrist. “This one’s a strawberry. And see this yellow one? It’s a sunflower. Daddy said we had to put it on even though it’s not pink because it’s your favorite.”
My fingers ran over the beads she pointed to, the misshapen red oval with its green cap passing for a strawberry, and beside it, that little yellow sunflower. Something caught in my throat as I ran my thumb across each uneven ridge and smooth plastic curve, memorizing their shapes beneath my skin.
“He did good,” I whispered, the words nearly lost in the sudden tightness of my chest.
I brushed the hair out of her eyes as she beamed at the bracelet, but I was acutely aware of the Calloway family on the porch behind her. Lou stood to my left, watching us carefully, and when I scooted Ruby back a step, I rose to my feet to face them.
Hunter was the first to break the silence. “Well, hell. I was a little worried you might run out on us after the other night.” He grinned with his eyes full of mischief.
“What happened the other night?” Lou asked, and Hunter’s grin only widened.
“Blaire had all the cowboys in an uproar. Right, Colt?” Hunter winked at me.
“That’s not true,” I answered before Colt could.
“I think Hunter is getting confused because I had to watch your son here—” I motioned to Hunter “—act like an idiot while he pined after my friend, Maggie. You would think his game would get better with age, but somehow, he’s still resorting to being a jerk if he likes a girl. ”
“Hunter Owen Calloway,” his mother scolded, and I couldn’t stop the smirk spreading across my face as I watched his eyes widen. “Maggie, as in Ella’s sister?”