Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Callie was upset by what had happened at Zeke’s house. Her feelings weren’t hurt at how he’d spoken so sharply and ordered her to leave. She was worried about him. She could see in his eyes how she’d stumbled upon something painful, something that had damaged him in some way, and she felt awful. She’d give anything if she’d never walked into his bedroom.
She’d thought they’d gotten to a deeper place of trust than he was ready for. But his secrets had kept her from understanding how far they had to go. She should have been able to read him better and not make assumptions. His protection of his past was something she should have respected. Why did she always push too far and learn lessons too late?
The worst part was that in hindsight, she’d noticed something like this from him prior to that day. She’d caught flickers of it, these fleeting glimpses that had him going quiet and disappearing even though he was physically right there. But Callie wanted to kick herself. Mainly because she’d never pieced two and two together until it was too late.
She’d never imagined that a substantial portion of Zeke’s personality might come from some sort of past trauma.
She shouldn’t have been snooping. She shouldn’t have meandered into his room as if she’d had the right to. Sure, she’d thought they’d progressed a little further than they obviously had in the last few months, but that didn’t excuse her ill-conceived decision-making. Nothing did. She wasn’t a stalker, yet she was acting like one. What in the world had kept her from being logical and thoughtful?
And now she may have caused a rift to form between them that she might not be able to bridge.
After going home that night, she’d sat up most of the night reliving that handful of moments inside his room over and over. His midnight blue eyes had been in turmoil and shock to see her there, and she’d been so stupid. Just picking up those picture frames like she and Zeke were some lifelong friends just catching up.
Because that wasn’t how it was between them. They were new, and they’d been heading—she’d thought—for something great. Something lasting.
Before she’d blown any chances right out of the water, anyway.
Even now, her brain burned with curiosity to know who exactly that pregnant girl in the photograph, a girl Zeke had looped an affectionate arm around, had been. Clearly someone important. Someone who mattered.
Maria.
Maria had looked to be around Zeke’s age, so it’d likely been a love interest. She hadn’t had the time to see if she’d been wearing a ring or not. If she’d been wearing Zeke’s ring or not. Did Zeke have an ex out there somewhere? A child he never spoke about? Maybe a child he rarely if ever got to see?
Yet how could she ask these questions after what had happened? Wouldn’t she ever learn?
Looking back, her obnoxious curiosity had gotten her into trouble more than once. One time in school, Callie had access to her teacher’s laptop and had peeked at her grades, getting caught in the process. She’d been lucky to not be expelled. As it was, she’d had detention after school for a month. And that teacher—Ms. Parsons, her favorite—had never treated her the same again.
That should’ve taught her any lessons she’d needed to learn in that area, but apparently, it hadn’t. She was hard-headed and mulish, and now it’d bit her where the sun didn’t shine. Callie understood that whatever she and Zeke might’ve been building was probably lost forever.
After not sleeping all night, she paced around her little house the next morning feeling lost and ashamed of herself. Maybe if she apologized to Zeke… But no. Why would he listen to her now? Why ever trust her again after she’d so thoroughly breached that trust?
She didn’t know what to do.
Ultimately, with it being a Sunday, she knew her bestie would be off work today and decided to call her. Daisy had often been the voice of reason when life quit making sense in the past.
“Hey there, lady, long time no hear,” Daisy greeted her, and even though it was her typical welcome, Callie burst into tears.
And with those tears came her blubbering nonsensical explanation. “I’ve messed up, Daze. I’ve messed up bad.” She related the whole sordid mess to her best friend, relating to her every aspect of what had transpired between her and Zeke.
“Sweetie, it’s probably not as bad as you think it is,” Daisy soothed her.
“Yes, it is. I’ve destroyed all our chances, and I’ll never even know what’s been troubling him or why.” There she went again, letting her need to discover people’s personal business override her reason.
“It’s natural to be curious about those we have feelings for. You’re not an evil person for doing that, so stop beating yourself up. I’m sure you’ll be able to talk to him about this after he’s had an opportunity to think about things and calm down a little.”
“I don’t know,” Callie told her, a sinking feeling consuming her gut. “Tim warned me not to date him or go after him in any way and…” She trailed off, thinking about that warning.
Why had Tim warned her about staying away from Zeke? Had it truly been about being an overbearing big brother or had Tim known something about the man’s past that he’d wanted her to avoid?
“Wait,” Daisy spoke up when Callie didn’t continue. “Zeke is Tim’s best bud, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you asked him about this?”
“No, of course not. Zeke and I have been keeping our dating purposely under the radar where my brother is concerned.”
“Well, if it were me, I’ll give it a week to see if Zeke contacts you. It might just all blow over, and you’re freaking out over nothing.”
“And if I’m not freaking out over nothing?” Callie asked, feeling in her heart of hearts that Zeke contacting her at this point had some pretty long odds.
“You can either reach out to Zeke yourself or try another avenue.”
“What avenue?”
“The Tim avenue. You could fess up to your brother and ask to know what the deal is with his best buddy.”
But Callie had to counter that with another possibility. “What if he’s keeping Zeke’s confidence?”
“Then, that conversation might go nowhere. Or he might blow up at you for going against his wishes. But that’s not okay, either. Tim shouldn’t have ever attempted to forbid you from dating his friend without a good reason in the first place. Not that you couldn’t probably pick his brain without him realizing it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You could prod your brother for intel as long as you’re careful about disclosing too much. Or you could just spill the beans and tell him you’ll date whoever you want since you’re thirty years old.”
Daisy had a point. But it was having the options all laid out in front of her that Callie liked the most.
“So,” Callie ticked the ideas off on her fingers just to reestablish her equilibrium. “I reach out to Zeke after a week. And if that doesn’t work, I tell Tim what’s been going on in a roundabout manner and squeeze him for answers. Or I’ll come completely clean and ask him what the deal with his best bud truly is.”
“Yeah, something like that. Only you might not use the term squeeze since it sounds like a mafia hitman. Maybe go with vocabulary that’s less violent.” Daisy’s giggle highlighted how much of a dark cloud she’d been under since all this had gone down. She knew her bestie would help her analyze the situation and put everything in order again.
Despite feeling somewhat better now that she had a plan, following through with said plan felt like torture to Callie. It didn’t bode well to her that she’d seen neither hide nor hair of Zeke in all that time. She hadn’t heard from him, either. Not a call. Not a text. Not an email.
Nothing.
She’d tangled everything up between them beyond recognition, and she had to square with the fact that Zeke Knight might not want to have anything to do with her anymore.
It would be disappointing, amazingly so. But it was still a very real possibility.
On the seventh day—she couldn’t bear to wait any longer and the suspense was killing her—she called Zeke and left a message. She watched her phone like a hawk for the rest of that day, knowing Zeke would be busy at the ranch. But the pediatric office happened to be a little slower that morning, so Callie fidgeted.
Tim, Mr. I Never Notice Anything himself, actually noticed.
“Why are you so… twitchy today?”
“I’m not,” she denied, then thought better of it. “Don’t worry about it.”
Normally with Tim, that would be enough. But despite the iffy timing for this particular go-round, he decided to pry.
Figured.
“Just say it. Is it me? Did I do something wrong with Erika or Julie again?”
Callie blinked. That was downright insightful and self-reflective of him, two things she definitely couldn’t call strengths of his.
“Um, no, that’s not it.” Then to cover her verbal stumble, she patted his elbow. “This is a me issue, not a you issue. I promise.”
At first, he looked relieved. But then, his mouth cinched up on one side. “Tell me, then.”
“What?” Tim didn’t tend to ask questions about her. He was protective, but not like this.
“Confide in me. I’m your brother, right?”
“Of course you’re my brother.”
“Well, we had a cancellation, so I’m all yours for…” He peered at his watch. “The next fifteen to twenty minutes. So shoot.”
Daisy had instructed her to go to Tim about this. It was simply a matter of how much to divulge.
“I’ve been dating someone new from out of town,” she fibbed. Callie still thought of Vancouver as her hometown, so by the barest of margins, she could tell herself this wasn’t technically a lie. “Things have been going well, but I just found out something about him that I don’t think he wanted me to know. He’s shut down all communication between us ever since. So, lay it on me from the male perspective. What should I do?”
Tim lifted both of his hands as if creating dual stop signs. “Wait, wait, wait. I’m going to need more information. What did you find out exactly? That he’s cheating? That he’s doing drugs? That he running an illegal dog-fighting ring out of his basement? What is it?”
“Well, that’s part of the trouble because I don’t know. Not exactly.” She had to tread so cautiously here. If her brother knew the specifics, he’d be able to identify Zeke as soon as he had the right number of details. “I think he might have some trauma in his past, that he might still be suffering over it.”
“Why?”
Dang it. Why must he keep digging?
“Because I found evidence that he might not have lived alone all his life like I originally thought.”
Zeke had given off that vibe, mainly by purposely separating himself from others. Until she’d happened across that image, him being with anyone else hadn’t seemed high on the probability charts. Callie hadn’t been given much time to study that second pic, but he’d been younger. Quite a bit younger. That girl could’ve just been another family member or even friend of the family.
Yet Zeke’s reaction made Callie feel like it was a much closer and more intimate connection.
Maybe it was tacky of her, but she’d actually been looking at all the teenagers that came in as patients searching for signs that they might belong to Zeke biologically. There had been a boy with dark blue eyes that had come in for a sports physical that she’d stared at for long enough that he’d given her a confused look. Only that had made her glance away again.
Callie had kept her eyes peeled for the pregnant girl in the photo, too, but since at least a decade or so had probably passed since then, she wasn’t sure she could even identify her if she did run into her. If the girl—woman—was even still in town.
Despite everything, she felt desperate to know.
She’d been so distracted by her own musings and constructing stories about what may or may not be that she hadn’t noticed her brother narrowing his gaze at her.
“What kind of evidence did you track down?”
“Photographic,” she sputtered, off-guard.
“And?”
“And what?”
“What was in the photograph, Callie? Don’t make me guess.”
“It was him and another woman looking happy.” It’d been the happiest she’d ever seen Zeke.
“What we’re they doing in the picture?”
“Smiling.”
He frowned at her, and when he spoke, his tone was layered in sarcasm. “You’re really giving me high marks for intelligence, aren’t you? Yeah, I’d gathered that much. What else?”
“They were young and dressed up. It might’ve been a formal event.” She hadn’t allowed this particular notion to fully develop in her mind, but what if that picture had been from a wedding? The girl had been wearing pink instead of white, but not all brides liked to wear what tradition dictated. And some couldn’t afford to go all out for a big fluffy white dress.
“Like a prom? That young?”
“Maybe,” Callie conceded. “But I’ve been wondering if it could’ve been them getting married.”
“So you think this guy might’ve been hitched before and—” Tim cut himself off. He lasered in on her. “Was the girl expecting?” The question wasn’t something she’d anticipated since she’d deliberately left that detail out, but she could see the switch behind his eyes that flipped over the instant he realized. “Have you been dating Zeke ?”
She could’ve denied it. She could’ve attempted to continue with the charade and the omissions she’d been maintaining up till now. But as her brother’s jaw tightened, she could see that it was too late for that.
“Don’t be mad, Tim.”
“Mad?” He marched across his small office to lean his back against the door, his arms crossed like a tourniquet over his ribcage. “Upset that you expressly went out of your way to do something I expressly asked you not to?”
“I’m a grown woman, and he’s a grown man. Your opinion on us being together was unsolicited.”
Tim barked out a laugh that had zero amusement built into it. “I suppose you’re right, Callie. But in the future, when I ask you to do something, recognize that I’m doing it for your own sake.”
“What are you saying? That Zeke’s a bad man? A bad person?”
“No,” his volume had been rising but he lowered it. “What I’m saying is that Zeke’s not all right when it comes to relationships with women. He hasn’t been for ages. That’s the last kind of man that you would ever need, one who’s too damaged to handle things and refuses to get the help he needs.”
“But—” Callie began, but Tim interrupted her again.
“But you don’t listen. You never have. Even— especially —when I’m trying to look out for your best interests. But whatever, Callie. You do you.”
He opened the door with a loud creak and bounded through it. She hurried to catch up to him and ask him where he was going, but he’d already vanished through the series of corridors to the exit that came out the other side of the building. One she’d never used or even known about. But when she attempted to follow him, she discovered that it’d locked automatically from the outside. She’d have to find another exit.
Ultimately, she found herself all alone with the only thing remaining of her brother’s presence the dust settling from where his vehicle had left the parking lot. She’d really done it this time. If Zeke had been so angry that he’d abandoned her at his office…
Good thing she had a set of keys and the code to the alarm system so she could arm their security for the night.
Tim avoided her for the rest of the next day, which proved quite the feat since there were only limited options for someone to go in such a small clinical practice. But somehow, he managed.
And rather than being enlightened by a fresh perspective, she now had her brother as annoyed at her as Zeke was.
Talk about the situation going off the rails. If anything, she’d made her circumstances worse. Far worse. And as far as Zeke went, she was right back at square one.
Perfect.