Chapter Sixteen
After the camper turned the corner and disappeared out of sight, Callie closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed. Of course she was sad to see them go, but she didn't need to cry about it. The rush of emotion that hit her had taken her by surprise.
Ollie tightened his arm around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder for a moment, enjoying the closeness.
It'd be all too easy to just slip back into it, but they needed to talk first. She still had questions, and she felt as though she owed him the truth about her own situation as well.
She hadn't been lying to him, but she was still lying to her parents, and that old saying about people who live in glass houses not throwing stones kept echoing in her mind.
"Are you okay?" Ollie asked.
She nodded and tightened her arm around his waist. She hadn't even been aware that she was holding onto him like that. After giving him a squeeze, she stepped back with a smile. "Yeah, I'm just sad to see them go. But it's not like I'll never see them again, is it?"
"I hope not." He gave her a small smile. "I hope you know you have a ride to Napa anytime you want to go. Just call me."
"Thanks." She blew out a sigh. "I want us to be okay, Ollie. Really, I do. But we need to talk, don't we?"
"Yeah. I'm not trying to avoid it, Callie. I want to explain myself, and I'll answer any questions that you have, okay?"
"Thanks. And I want to explain myself to you."
He raised his eyebrows.
"I'm not being totally transparent with everyone in my life either."
She turned to head back toward the cottage, and he fell into stride beside her.
"Well, I'm here for as long as you want me," he said. "Want to go inside and talk?"
"No."
She felt bad not inviting him in, and she knew that it wasn't rational, but she still had a weird feeling about him coming into her home.
He liked it. She knew he did. His reaction when he'd first seen it had been genuine.
But now that she knew he lived in that big house that the dogs had run off to when they walked on the estate — his estate — she was still feeling a little unsettled.
At least she didn't need to come out and explain that to him.
Instead, she said, "I thought we could go and walk on the beach.
I like to go down there when I need to untangle things in my head.
The wind and the ocean help." She smiled.
"I'll buy you a coffee on the way if that helps.
And if it's too cold or too wet, we can sit in the truck and just look at the beach. "
He glanced at the cottage as if he understood her reasoning. She was thankful when he said, "Yeah, let's do that. I enjoy the beach too."
When they entered the coffee shop, Kai greeted them with a smile. "Hey, Callie. Do you want the usual?"
"Please."
He turned to Ollie. "How about you? What can I get you?"
"What's the usual?" Ollie asked Callie.
"Just a latte for me. Nothing fancy."
She bit down on her bottom lip as soon as she said it. She didn't mean anything by it. Luckily, he didn't take it that way. He just smiled and said, "I'll take one of those, too."
When they came back out of the coffee shop, he took both the cups and held them while she drove them down to the beach. There were only a handful of people around, and Ollie scanned the beach appreciatively.
"I've always enjoyed it up here. I don't know why I don't come more."
"I think we all get caught up in the routine of our everyday lives, don't we?"
"I guess we do."
"That's why I decided to make the beach part of my everyday," she told him as they walked down to the water's edge. "I'd only seen the ocean a handful of times before I moved out here."
She glanced at him, wondering what he'd make of that. But he didn't comment.
They walked on in silence for a little while, the wind tugging at her hair, but at least the sun shone warmly down on them. He took a slug of his coffee and then stopped walking and turned to her.
"I want to explain myself, but I've been waiting for you — if you want to go first."
She smiled. "Thanks. I've kind of been doing the same."
"What do you think, then? Do you want to go first, or should I?"
She shrugged. "I don't think it really matters. Do you have a preference?"
"Yeah. If you don't mind, I really want to explain myself."
"Go ahead, then."
"Remember when I first came to pick you up to bring you to Napa for Jacob and Becca's wedding?"
"Yeah."
"You caught me off guard. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't you."
She gave him a small smile. "I felt the same way."
He smiled back, but then it faded as he added, "But the thing is, you were nervous about flying, and I already knew that you were nervous about everyone in Napa."
She frowned. "How did you know that? I'm not saying you're wrong," she added hurriedly, "but how did you know?"
He shrugged. "When we were arranging who was going to fly out here to pick you up and I offered, Jacob reminded me that you're from Kansas, that you're like Becca." He shrugged again. "Not used to... everything, you know, in Napa."
She nodded. It was fair. It wasn't as though she could deny it — or that she'd want to. A gull cried overhead, and she looked up, watching it speed away on a gust of wind.
"And the other thing is," he continued, "flying for a living, I tend to assess my passengers to figure out what's going to make them comfortable.
Not that I fly many people in the Cirrus, but in the jet with Reaves, you know, some people are nervous, some people are excited, so I want to make sure that they enjoy it.
And to other people, flying in the jet is no more out of the ordinary than riding on a bus.
But my point is that when I came to pick you up, it was obvious you were nervous.
You didn't like that I was going out of my way to come and collect you.
And you hadn't flown in a small plane before.
" He shrugged. "I don't know if I'm explaining this well.
I'm just trying to give you all the reasons that in my mind added up to you weren't like the other wedding guests.
Shit." He ran his hand through his hair.
"I think I'm making this worse instead of better. "
She smiled and touched his arm. "Don't be so hard on yourself.
It's okay. It's all true, and you're right.
I was nervous. I did feel out of place. I even thought to myself that since you were only a pilot, I could practice small talk on you.
You were still a different breed from what I'm used to. But at least you weren't one of them."
He blew out a sigh. "Yeah, and however I did it, I picked up on the fact that you were comfortable with me because I wasn't one of them, and I didn't want to make you uncomfortable with me," he said with a shrug.
The wind whipped a strand of hair across her face. He looked so earnest standing there, the ocean stretching out behind him, matching the color of his eyes.
"It was sweet of you," she told him. "You were being kind."
He shook his head rapidly. "No, I mean, yeah, I like to think that I'm kind to my passengers, but it wasn't about kindness.
" He made a face. "I really am making a mess of this, aren't I?
But the thing is, Callie, I was interested in you.
Attracted to you. I didn't want to scare you off. I wanted to get to know you."
She smiled. "And I'm glad you did."
"I am too. But then I shouldn't have let it go on."
Her smile faded. "No, you shouldn't. But you know what? I get it. I understand why you did." She frowned. "I'm not thrilled about the outright lying, though." She let out a short laugh. "I was judging you hard for keeping Peanut and Butter in an apartment like that."
"And I knew it. I felt like everything I did was making things worse.
And honestly, Callie, when I said we could take them out to a place where they could run, I was intending to take you to my place and to tell you that it was my place and to tell you what I'd done and why.
But then as we were driving past the estate, I was trying to figure out exactly what I was going to say when I pulled up to the gates, and that's when. .."
She sighed. "Me and my sense of timing, huh? I had to choose your place as the one I pointed out to say I could never fit in with the people who lived there."
He let out a breath. "Yeah. When you said that, I panicked and kept on driving."
She started walking again, and he fell in beside her. The wet sand was firm beneath her feet, the tide creeping closer with each wave.
"So, when the dogs ran off, they were running home, weren't they?"
"Yeah." He gave her a wry smile. "I should have known they would. And even then, I was going to tell you, really, I was. I was going to explain why they'd run off to the house. And I was hoping that you'd come in and I'd be able to show you around and it'd all be behind us."
"But then Rosa came," said Callie, "and I thought she owned the place."
He nodded. "And I didn't know how to explain without making it all even worse."
"I can see that."
He stopped walking again, and this time he caught her hand. "I'm sorry. I was an idiot. All I'll say in my defense is that I did the wrong thing for the right reasons."
She took his other hand and drew him closer. "And I was shocked and hurt when I found out." She smiled. "But it's done now. We're over it. If you want to be."
"Hell yeah, I want to be."
He came closer and leaned down to rest his forehead against hers. She could hear the waves rolling in behind them, steady and unhurried.
"Can we start with a clean slate?"
She held his gaze as she said, "I'd like to, but I need to be honest with you first as well."
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
"No, Ollie, I do. You were right that I wasn't honest with Alara about Reaves and his Friend Finder. I still haven't told her that I called her because he was worried about her."