Chapter 30 Zandra
THIRTY
Zandra
We snuggled under Callum’s blankets as the fire died down. He probably would’ve thrown another log onto it if I’d asked, but I didn’t want to move from this perfect cocoon of warmth.
I’d never seen a more ideal summer night. Not even back in my childhood days in Silver Ridge. The sky was totally clear, a blanket above us woven with stars. I’d missed those stars in Chicago.
But they’d never looked more breathtaking than right now, with Callum.
Today had been a lot. First getting to know his family and friends better, feeling like I could actually be a part of their circle. And then the field of sunflowers. The fire and feeding each other s’mores and everything we’d talked about.
My heart was still scraped raw about losing Jessa.
All these years later, and I hadn’t fully healed.
But Callum made me think I could. I’d never talked as openly about Jessa as I had with him tonight.
I’d opened up to Callum in ways that I never would’ve been able to imagine with anyone. Certainly not with him.
All the things he’d said, and how sincere he had sounded… I wanted to believe all of it. Wanted to trust his confidence that this would all somehow work out.
In the afterglow of spiked cocoa and orgasms, it was easy to be an optimist. To hope that falling in love with him wasn’t the huge mistake I’d feared it could be.
Now that I’d realized it, it was so obvious how much I loved him.
“Do you think it would’ve been like this if we’d gotten together in high school?” To my shock, I had asked that question. Clearly I was feeling wistful.
Jessa was gone, and nothing could ever bring her back. Yet would it do any harm to imagine, even for a few minutes, what it would’ve been like if things were different? If Callum and I had connected back then?
He pulled me closer, rubbing his nose against my hair. I was fitted into his side with my leg draped over his thighs, my head in the divot where his chest met his shoulder. “Would the sex have been that hot when we were eighteen? Obviously, the answer is yes.”
I laughed. “You’re just naturally that good?”
“Don’t expect me to argue.” He twirled a lock of my hair around his finger. “But honestly, I wasn’t ready for anything like this back then. Not even close.”
“Because of your commitment phobia?” I didn’t mention the fact that his reluctance to have a relationship had lasted until, let’s see, a day or two ago. Give or take.
“It’s not that,” he said in a low voice. “It was my family. Things going on at home.”
I lifted my head. “You mean your dad leaving?”
“Yeah. That was rough. But then Grayden and Ashford left for the Army. By senior year, it was just Grace and me, and she was still in middle school. Our brothers were sending money home to us. Mrs. Landry—Teller and Piper’s mom—could sign stuff for us if necessary, but she didn’t actually care.”
“So Grace was your responsibility. I’m sure you did a great job, but I’m so sorry you went through that. None of it’s fair.”
“It’s okay, Sunflower.”
He could smile through anything, but it just wrecked my heart to think of how unfair things had been for Callum growing up. He’d said he would do anything to fix what I’d gone through. But the same was true for me.
It hurt so much to think of him hurting. And that was love, wasn’t it? Ugh, it kinda sucked.
“You don’t have to act okay if you’re not,” I said softly.
Now his hand was on my cheek, thumb caressing. “You’re so sweet to me, baby.”
“I’m not sweet.” No one before Callum had ever accused me of being sweet.
“You are. Sweet in the exact way I like. You don’t know how addicted I am to you. I could eat you up.”
There was a lump blocking my throat. I’d thought I had loved Ian, but it had never felt like this. So consuming. Such a mix of every emotion until everything was just a blur of him.
“Will you tell me what you and Grace were talking about earlier? At the brewery?”
He sighed, clearly not wanting to. But he still did.
“That was about Grayden. About a year after high school graduation, we got word. He’d been arrested by military police and was going to be court-martialed.
The process took a while, but he was convicted of manslaughter and sent to military prison. ”
He’d said all of that in a monotone. Nothing like his usual vibrant voice.
I sat up all the way, holding the blanket to my chest. “What? Callum, that’s awful. Clearly you know that, but it’s… I don’t know what to say.”
“You didn’t hear about it? I assumed every person in Hart County did.”
“I was off at college, and I wasn’t exactly close to anyone we’d known in high school. Nobody in my family mentioned it.”
He nodded, expression stoic, yet the dark cast of his brown eyes was telling.
“I was already planning to join up myself, but after Grayden destroyed his life, sullied our name, it was like there was a fire under me. I wanted to get out there and help Ashford prove the O’Neals were worth more than a dishonorable discharge. ”
“And you did.”
“Did our best. That’s part of why, no matter how much Ashford and I fight, we’ll always have each other’s backs.” He smoothed his hand over my head.
“Did Grayden ever tell you his side of the story?”
“He wouldn’t talk to us. Barely even defended himself. Why else would he do that unless he was dead-to-rights guilty? All we knew was he killed someone, whether or not it was intentional, and he was out of our lives. Then Grace got back in touch with him last year. Dane tracked him down for her.”
“Wow. That must’ve been another shock.”
“It was. Ashford refuses to hear anything about Grayden. But Grace wants me to talk to him, listen to what he has to say, and I just don’t know. Gracie’s better than the rest of us, I guess. More forgiving.”
I nestled against his chest again, feeling the rapid thump of his heart. That heartbeat betrayed just how deeply this conversation was affecting him. “You’re a forgiving person. But you’re allowed to feel like he doesn’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“But does he? How do I know that, Sunflower? Not only that, how can I get over the way it ripped me apart when I heard my big brother, the guy who’d been more of a father to me than our real dad, was completely disgraced?
Ashford had always seemed fallible. But not Grayden.
It was like…like I couldn’t count on anybody I looked up to because they would just let me down. ”
I did my best to wrap my arms around him, holding him as tightly as I could. I love you, my heart said. As if love was a balm that could fix everything, though of course it wasn’t.
When Callum spoke next, it sounded like the words were scraping over gravel. “There’s something Grace and Ashford don’t know.”
He took a few more breaths. I glanced up at him again and he was staring at the starry sky.
“When Grayden was released after he’d served his time, he tried to come back to Silver Ridge.
This was after I’d left active duty. Somehow he’d figured out where I was living, and he came to me first. Probably because he knew I wouldn’t be as angry as Ashford, and he didn’t want to upset Grace.
He said he was sorry and wanted to explain what really went down with his arrest, and I… ”
“What happened, Callum?” I whispered, then pressed a kiss to his jaw.
“I looked my brother in the eye and told him to leave. That we didn’t want anything to do with him, and all he would do was hurt us if he stayed.
If I’d yelled like Ashford would have, Grayden probably would’ve waited for things to cool down and tried again.
But I was stone fucking cold, Z. So he turned around and went.
I think it broke Grace’s heart that she never heard from him, and she has no idea that was my fault. ”
“You were trying to protect your family.”
“But she’d be so fucking pissed at me if she knew. They’re talking again, and it’s clear Grayden didn’t tell her.”
“Maybe he doesn’t blame you.”
“But do you? I didn’t do what you thought I did, but you accused me of being cruel. I turned my back on my own brother when he came home asking to talk. What’s crueler than that?”
My hand stroked his stubbled jaw. “Nothing about you is cruel, baby boy. That’s just impossible. You don’t have it in you.”
Callum’s eyes were doing something complicated. I didn’t know if it was the dying light from the fire, or the stars overhead. But his eyes went from sad to thoughtful, then seemed to glow from within.
“Z, did you just call me baby boy?”
Oh. Shit. I had. “I don’t know where that came from. It slipped out.” Didn’t matter how cold the night air was. My face was burning up.
Callum rolled us so he was on top, smirking down at me. “You did. I’m your baby boy, huh? I just turn you to mush inside from how much you’re into me.”
“No.”
“It’s that old boy-band fixation of yours.”
“Callum…”
“Oh, girl, you want me so bad,” he sang off-key, gyrating his hips. Which, considering we were naked, was getting us both excited.
I laughed, pushing at his chest. “This is not okay. We were having a serious conversation.”
He stopped to pepper my face with gentle, affectionate kisses. “We were. I’ve never told anyone the things I just told you. Just know I’d love to be your baby boy, because you’re my Sunflower, and if that’s wrong I have no interest in being right.”
I wasn’t sure my heart could survive this. Survive him.
So I did the only thing I could think of to shift our focus to safer territory.
Sitting up as much as I could, I reached over to grab his baseball cap and put it backward on my own head. Then propped my elbows behind me to push out my breasts.
Callum’s lips formed an O shape. “My eyes are having an orgasm right now.”
“Show me again how I’m yours? I think I forgot.”
He took me from behind with us both on our knees, my arms braced against the ledge of the truck bed and holding on for dear life while I wore his hat.
The whole truck was rocking. The night filled with the scandalous sounds of our bodies meeting, Callum’s grunts, my moans.
Something in the distance hooted, and something else howled.
I wanted this night to last forever so we’d never have to deal with what was coming next. The job we were competing for, my parents and their judgments, Callum’s heartache over his brother. The person still out there, somewhere, who wanted to punish me for Jessa’s death.
For tonight, I wanted to pretend none of that would change what Callum and I had. Even though our pasts were still haunting us. And our future was inescapable.