Chapter 23 Caleb
Caleb
I moved across the room to where Emma stood watching us boneheads be boneheads. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey back.” She wore faded Levi’s, beat-up sneaks, and a T. Swift T-shirt that showed off the sweet curves I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Yet it was those big emerald eyes that drew me right in and made me forget I was a smart guy. I had no idea why, but she’d been crying.
“Do you guys always fight like this?” she asked.
I pleaded the Fifth, but Tucker and his big, fat mouth said, “That wasn’t anything close to a fight, but yes.”
I knew that our crazy familial dynamics probably seemed foreign to her. “My brothers like to make my life hell.”
“I make your life hell?” Tucker asked dramatically. “What about the time you and Ry stole Dad’s whiskey and made me drink it with you to hide the evidence?”
“You’re the one who couldn’t stop hiccuping and got us caught,” I said, still holding Emma’s gaze. “Thanks to you, we had to dig holes in the backyard for punishment.”
“How could I forget?” Tucker asked. “Ryder’s drunk ass fell into one, and then we fell in trying to save him and had to spend the night in that muddy hell. I got bitten by a black widow five times and nearly lost my hand.”
Emma gasped. “Oh my God.”
“He was fine,” I said dismissively.
“After a night in the hospital!”
I smiled at Emma. “You can see why we nicknamed him Drama.”
She made my day by laughing.
“Speaking of drama…” Tucker cocked his head, staring at us. “Do you two know?”
Emma and I looked at each other warily. “Know what?” I asked.
“That the air kinda crackles between you two? It’s chemistry,” Tucker said, shoving chips into his mouth like it was his job. “Brought on by the Legend of Star Falls.”
I groaned, and Emma stared at me. “You’ve seen the three falling stars?”
“I mean…kinda sorta, but it was an accident.”
Bill gasped theatrically.
I slid him a look. “Don’t tell me you believe in that shit.”
Bill shrugged. “Okay, I won’t tell you…”
“It’s not the stupid Legend,” Hawk said, nabbing the very last chip. “It’s animal magnetism.” He pointed at me and then Emma. “You two should go out.”
“Don’t let Ryder hear you say that,” Tucker warned.
“Boss man’s great, but even he can’t control animal magnetism.” Hawk raised his chip like it was a beer. “Date, date, date,” he chanted, like he was saying, Chug, chug, chug.
I turned to Emma.
“We already decided we’re not dating,” she told the room.
“Chicken?” I asked, and everyone in the room, including my dogs, stared at me in shock. But I already knew my mistake. I’d just issued a challenge, and Emma Sumner never backed down from a challenge.
Sure enough, her eyes narrowed. “I’m no chicken.”
“Then…?” I raised a brow, baiting her. It was a cheat, and I was an asshole for using it as a chance to get her to go out with me. But I was tired of fighting my feelings, and Ryder could fuck off; I wasn’t nearly as stupid as I’d used to be. Hopefully. “Why not?”
The utter silence in the kitchen—with the exception of Klein, his hind end on the dog bed, his face on the floor, snoring loud enough to rattle the windows—was so delicate and tenuous that I stopped breathing.
“Why not?” she finally squeaked. “Because one…” She leaned in to whisper, “One, what happens in the storm stays in the storm, and two, we don’t even like each other.”
“I like you.” I gave her a long look as I thought about the things we’d done that night. When she nibbled on her lower lip, I knew she was thinking about them too.
Miguel made the sound of a chicken. “Brock, brock, brooooooock…”
Everyone laughed, even Tucker, though he shook his head at me, silently asking if I was crazy.
And since the answer was yes, I ignored him.
Emma stared at me. I didn’t know what she was searching for exactly, but I did my best to look like someone she needed in her life.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she finally said.
“But it’s not a date date. We’re going to work.
” She gestured to her laptop on the counter. “I’ve got things to go over with you.”
“See?” I said to Tucker. “It’s work.”
“It’s your funeral, is what it is,” he muttered. “I’ll take the boxer boys home with me, but if they eat my remote again, you’re buying me that seventy-five-inch screen I want.”
“What does them eating the remote have to do with the actual TV?” I asked.
“Nothing, I just want a bigger one.” He snapped his fingers, then said, “Come.” Calvin and Klein excitedly jumped up and followed him out of the kitchen without a backward glance at me.
Traitors.
“I’ve got a couple of hours of work I have to do here,” I said to Emma. “We could go after that.”
She shrugged. “I have stuff to do as well.”
She started to walk off, but I managed to catch her hand. “Hey, we don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
The three words felt like a balm to the soul that I hadn’t known I needed. I started to smile at her, and my phone buzzed. “Shit.”
“What?”
“It’s Kiera FaceTiming me.” I always felt a flash of panic because for two years, Kiera had been so mired in her grief of losing her husband that we’d all despaired of getting her back again. I quickly connected the call and saw only a chocolate-smeared mouth. “Hey, Ab.”
“Unca Cal Cal!” Abi whispered. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“Alex won’t let me talk.”
“Aren’t you talking right now?” I asked.
A second chocolate-smeared mouth appeared. Alex. “She’s always talking,” his mouth said.
“Pop Pop farted really loud, and Mama had to light a candle,” Abi said. “She said pop pops do that, and so do her brothers.”
Kiera had Hank for me today. To everyone’s collective shock, Pop Pop, a.k.a. Hank, had become a twin favorite. Even more shocking, Kiera didn’t mind having him around.
“Everyone farts,” Alex said.
“No they don’t!” Abi cocked her head at me. “Do they?”
“Yeah, baby. Everyone farts.”
“But I don’t,” Abi said.
“Liar!” Alex yelled.
I heard Emma laugh softly. She thought I was cute. Actually, she probably thought the kiddos were cute, but a guy could hope.
The phone wobbled, and then the screen showed me Kiera’s living room floor and Kiera’s cat eating what might have been a Cheerio.
“I’m gonna tell Mama you dropped her phone again,” came Abi’s voice.
Alex snatched the phone, and given that the background was now a blur with Alex’s face jiggling up and down, he was on the run.
“Unca Cal Cal, come over,” he whispered breathlessly.
His face kept flipping upside down as the camera tried to adjust. “’Member you told me to tell you if Mama cried, and you’d come here? ”
My heart sank. “Yes. Is she crying now?”
“No. She’s laughing. Can you come anyway?”
I let out a breath of relief. “Yeah, bud, real soon.”
“Are you on my phone?” I heard Kiera call out. “Tell me you didn’t call nine-one-one again to talk to your Uncle Tucker—” Kiera’s face appeared on the screen. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Aw, nice to see you too.”
Kiera sighed. “You know what I meant. And, crap, you’re at work, sorry.”
“No, I love it when they call,” I said. “You look…”
Her eyes narrowed, and I smiled. “What? I was going to say nice.”
“Liar.”
“I mean it.” The dark smudges of grief and exhaustion under her eyes were fading.
She’d done something to her hair. A cut, and highlights, maybe.
Signs of life. I was so relieved, my throat got tight.
“I could take the rug rats to the zoo tomorrow. I mean, they belong there anyway, right? Hank too.”
She smiled. A real one. “Yes.” Her attention was diverted. “Hey!” she yelled. “I said no more climbing on the countertops!” She glanced at me. “Gotta go.”
I slid my phone back into my pocket and took a deep breath.
“Everything’s okay?” Emma asked.
“Yeah, I’m just…” I shook my head, short on words. “She seemed good. She’s had a rough few years.”
She nodded in understanding, and then one of the guys called my name. Emma gave a let’s do this shrug. “And so the day begins.”
She wasn’t kidding. I got the guys going, but someone always needed something clarified, a callout of the plans, or new specs, or vendor info… When I could finally get away for the day, I went in search of Emma.
I found her in the barn, on her knees, inspecting the hinges on the side door, muttering to herself and making notes in her laptop. She had a streak of dirt down the side of her shirt and one on her jaw.
“Hey,” I said. “Whatcha doing?”
She swiped her forearm over her forehead. “Well, I really had my heart set on waking up rich today, but since that didn’t happen, I’m working.”
I smiled. “You need more time before we leave?”
She blinked. “Leave?”
“For our date.”
“You mean work date.”
“Ah, so you do remember.”
She rolled her eyes, then hesitated. “Just food, right?”
“Unless you want something else…” I knew my smile turned wolflike by the way she bit her lower lip. “You’re tempted,” I teased.
“I’m also tempted to try skydiving. Doesn’t mean I’m adventurous enough to actually do it.”
“You think I’m out of your comfort zone.”
“You’re so far out of my comfort zone, I can’t even see my comfort zone.
” Then she laughed, and damn, it did something deep in my chest—which meant Tucker was right.
I was in deep shit. The deepest shit. And suddenly I felt bad for ever mocking Ryder when he’d fallen like a cement block for Penny.
I got it now. It was both heavy and amazing. Exhilarating and debilitating.
“Am I still ‘Don’t Even’ in your phone?”
She stood and slid her laptop into her bag. “You’ll forever be ‘Don’t Even.’”
“Another challenge.”
“It’s not happening.”
She sounded certain, but there was a light of amusement and possibly affection in her gaze as she stood and walked past me, chin high, expression dialed to 100 percent sass.
Damn, I was so done for.