Chapter 19 Callum
NINETEEN
Callum
My body ached, and I was covered in dried sweat and soot. What a hell of an afternoon. And evening.
Fuck, what time was it anyway?
We’d gotten the alert around midday, calling any available volunteers to a fire off Copper Road. The initial attack was always a rush, working in tandem to anchor the fire and establish control lines.
By the time most of us were released, close to midnight last I checked, I was beat. We’d spent the last several hours mopping up and cold-trailing. Checking for hotspots. A crew had stayed behind to monitor the site overnight.
A job well done, and that felt good. Now, I just couldn’t wait to crawl into bed. I was too tired to even think about Z.
Okay, maybe not that tired.
Darius drove with me in his passenger seat. Niko was a few minutes behind us. Connor hadn’t responded to the fire, apparently busy with something else tonight.
As Darius pulled onto our street, all was quiet. Yet immediately, something seemed off.
A car I recognized was parked in front of our house, but it wasn’t one I’d expected to ever see here. Not after what happened on her last visit. And in the storage room at Hearthstone the day after.
“Hey, isn’t that Zandra?” Darius asked.
Fresh worries churned in my stomach. I’d checked my phone already, letting my siblings know I was safe. I hadn’t seen a single message from Zandra after the few we’d exchanged about her taking my shift.
She’d been avoiding me the last several days. Upset about our mutual orgasms in the storage room. Which was frustrating, though I didn’t know what to do about our situation either. I didn’t date. Wasn’t a relationship guy, and that hadn’t changed. I didn’t even know how to do relationships.
All I knew was that I still wanted her.
And the thought that something bad had happened set off a chain reaction inside me, my adrenaline racing like I was back at the fire again. If it was that douchewad Ian…
“Stop here,” I said. “Let me out.”
“We’re almost to the driveway.”
“Right now.”
Darius cursed, braking hard. “Let me know if I can help.”
“I’ve got it.” My friend was being a solid guy, but the instinct that leaped to my throat was, Keep your distance. She’s mine.
Not really true. Not helpful either, but damn, that was what my gut told me.
Z’s mine.
I jumped out and headed for Zandra’s car. If she needed me right now, then nothing else mattered.
She was slumped in the front seat with a thin blanket wrapped around her. I panicked for a moment, tugging on the locked handle, but as soon as I knocked on the window, she startled and sat up. Hurried to unlock the door. I had to back up for her to push it open.
And then she lunged for me, wrapping her arms around my middle.
“You’re okay,” she said.
“Yeah, I am. Are you okay?” I held her close, breathing in the familiar scent of her hair. This was unexpected. But felt so fucking right. “What happened, Z?”
“Everyone was talking about the fire. I downloaded an app. It finally said the fire was contained, but that was after… And I didn’t know…”
“Hey, slow down. I’m just fine. Okay?” I stroked her hair. “I’m fine.”
“Your roommates? And the other firefighters?”
I nodded toward Darius, who’d pulled into the driveway. “Dare is over there. Niko is heading home, and Connor was elsewhere. No injuries. It all went well.”
She nodded, still clinging to me. “I know I’m being ridiculous. I’m sorry to show up like this.”
“I don’t mind. We should go inside, though. I’m getting dirt all over you.”
“I know I’ve been avoiding you. But when I heard you were in danger…” Her fingers lifted to trace my jaw, clearly unconcerned about how dirty I was, and my heart did some kind of dance inside my rib cage.
I had never seen Zandra like this before. Made me wonder if something else happened, beyond just worrying about me.
“Don’t stress about it. Come on. Let’s just go inside, and we can talk.”
Z glanced at her car. “Maybe I should…”
I held her chin, gently turning her head to face me again. “Don’t even think about leaving here. If you do, I’m just gonna chase you.”
She blinked, making a sharp sound with a quick intake of breath. I felt the movement of her chest against my torso. The aliveness of her, like something soft and beautiful in my hands.
“I’m so confused. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
That honesty slayed me. “Baby,” I murmured, lips brushing her hairline. She shivered.
“You shouldn’t call me that.” But there was zero conviction in her voice.
“Just come inside, and I’ll make everything better. If you let me.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Good.”
Whatever this was, whatever was happening between us, we’d figure it out. But I was not going to let her go.
With that settled, I picked up her purse from the center console and the keys from her hand. When I twined our fingers together, she came willingly, that thin blanket still draped around her shoulders.
Inside, I led her straight to the kitchen. Darius had already beaten us there. “I was putting on some coffee. Figured you might need it.”
“Thanks, man.” I tugged Z closer, arm going around her waist. “You can jump in the shower, Dare. First round of hot water is yours.”
In other words, give us some privacy, I said with my eyes. But my friend didn’t get it.
“You sure?” He glanced between us. “Zandra looks pretty shaken up.”
Her head dipped, hair falling in front of her face.
“We’ll be fine,” I insisted.
As soon as he’d walked off, leaving us alone in the soft glow of the kitchen lights and the gurgling of the coffeemaker, I turned Zandra to face me.
Grabbing the edges of the blanket she was wearing, I tucked it tighter around her.
The fleece was well worn, with a cartoon pattern of paw prints along the border.
“Is this Chloe’s?”
“I keep it in my car for her when I take her to the vet,” Zandra said quietly. “I didn’t have a jacket, and it’s a cold night.”
“It is. You came here straight from Hearthstone?”
“Yeah.”
The thought of her sitting outside in the cold, worried about me, twisted in my chest. I hated that she’d been scared, but a part of me liked it too. Suggested she might’ve been thinking about me the past few days as much as I’d been obsessing about her.
And I just wanted to wrap her up all warm and snug, tuck her into my bed with me, and never ever let her leave. Was that wrong?
“You sit right here, and I’ll make us coffee.” Moving her to a barstool by the island, I nudged her to take a seat, still making sure the blanket was draped around her.
I would’ve preferred that I was draped around her, but I needed a couple more sets of arms.
Also, I was still pretty grimy, so my first stop was to the kitchen sink for a perfunctory scrub of my face and arms. After that, I opened the fridge to take out the carton of oat milk. The coffeemaker beeped right on cue.
“I’m surprised you have non-dairy milk,” she said, watching me pour.
“Bought it at the market a couple days ago.” I handed her the mug across the island. “Just in case you came back.”
“But I was avoiding you.”
“I’m an optimist,” I replied, settling onto the stool beside her with a mug of my own. I watched her sip the coffee, noting how her hands still trembled slightly around the warm mug. “Z, is anything else bothering you?”
“How can you tell?”
“I might be just a little obsessed with you.” I held up my thumb and forefinger, holding them slightly apart.
The beginnings of a smile curved her lips. I wanted to kiss her to feel the shape of it.
Then she pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket. “This was under my windshield at Hearthstone tonight when I left.”
I unfolded the paper, and red tinted my vision. Not just because of the garish ink.
“What the hell is this?”
The most prominent thing about the sheet of paper was the word “murderer” scrawled across it in red marker. But that wasn’t all. Still visible beneath that accusatory word was a printed notice for a candlelight vigil, dated sixteen years ago.
A vigil for Jessa Mackenzie.
I hardly knew where to begin. “Who would still have a copy of this?”
“Anyone could. The flyer for the vigil is still online. Someone printed it out.”
“You don’t have a theory about who would do that?”
She shook her head, dark eyes downcast. “Not really. But just before I found the note, I saw Tommy Pickering hanging around the parking lot. He…said some things.”
My gaze narrowed. “Like what?”
“I’d rather not repeat most of it.”
“Z.”
“Him being a creep doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. Matters if I need to beat his ass. Which, it sounds like I do.” I hadn’t even confronted Tommy about that nonsense he’d said to Zandra about me in high school. And now he was skulking around her in the parking lot at night?
“Tommy mentioned Jessa to me tonight. I just want to know if he left the note on my car. And if he did, why.”
I tossed the note on the counter. “We have cameras around Hearthstone now.” We’d installed them after the broken window. “Maybe they show if it was Tommy or someone else.”
Zandra took another sip of coffee. “I checked. The camera’s view didn’t reach that part of the parking lot. It’s focused on the perimeter of the building, windows and doors.”
“Then we need more cameras.”
“This is small-town Colorado, not New York City, Callum. Cameras are expensive, which is why we didn’t get a million of them in the first place to cover every inch of the Hearthstone property. You know I’m right.”
“Maybe. Still don’t like it.” I tugged her stool closer to mine, my legs bracketing hers. “Pisses me off that you were scared tonight, dealing with Pickering and that note, and I wasn’t there.”
“You were fighting a fire. I’m just your coworker.”
“Z, you have never been just that to me.” I reached up, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Maybe you were right, and we shouldn’t fool around again.”
“Probably.” The look she gave me was pained. Yet it made me hope, so I kept going.