Chapter 19
Nineteen
EVIE
F rom everything to nothing in a heartbeat.
Hot to frigid cold. That’s what Callum and I are like.
He’s not saying it, but something is holding him back.
Something has him all up in his head about this.
Us. If there is such a thing as ‘us.’ I don’t know what happens at the end of my time here, but I want to spend my days with him while I can.
I tug my shirt over my head and pull on my shorts.
Slipping my boots on, I push through the door of the hut.
Wandering toward the sound of waves, I find him on the beach, sitting on a large dark granite rock, tossing pebbles into the angry waves.
The ocean breeze whips my hair around my face, and I scramble to tame it back as I reach him.
Sitting beside him, I stare into the stretch of water as if searching for the same thing he seems to be looking for. His gaze doesn’t break from the waves as I nudge his shoulder with my own. “Need to talk about it?” I ask, feeding his own words back to him.
After a long moment, he tilts his head and looks at me. “You ever make a decision thinking it’s the best one, only for it to implode your world in ways you could never have imagined?”
Heavens, that’s deep.
The more I think it over, the more it sounds like the words T wrote.
Accusing me of making choices that led to Joshua’s death.
For a brief slip of time, I believed it.
Running through the darkened forest amid the storm, I believed it.
Laying down, wanting to give up, I believed it.
But when I woke up this morning, warm and safe in the company of one of the best men I have ever had the blessing to spend time with, I realized protecting myself was not a choice.
T is wrong.
In so many ways.
“You sure it’s the choice that was the cause?
Maybe there’s more to it than you think.
More complicated than we like to think,” I offer, staring at the ocean as the words spill over my tongue.
They’re far too wise for my age, but I earned them.
In every moment of grief, every day I survived after the accident.
Every time I held those threatening letters in my hands and decided not to give them life.
“Evie—” His hand slides underneath mine, resting on my thigh.
“Callum?”
He huffs a strained breath before sucking in his next inhale like it’s the last parcel of oxygen left for humankind. “Never mind. We should hunt.”
I can’t take my eyes off his face.
The burn of whatever he left unsaid sends a swell of emotion into my chest. “Sure,” I finally whisper. “Show me your hunt, Tarzan.”
He chuckles and presses a kiss to the back of my hand.
He’s off the rock a second later, pulling me down with him.
We gather buckets, two very blunt-looking knives, and something I think is supposed to be a spear.
Walking in a comfortable silence, we work our way around the rock pools, filling our buckets with tiny morsels the ocean offers up.
A school of small fish darts through one of the larger pools.
“Stab a couple, will you? Breakfast.” Callum nods to them.
“I’m not doing that.”
“Yes, you are. No help, no eat.”
Caveman.
No help, no eat, I say as pompously in my head as possible, giggling as I adjust the stick in my hand. He glances at me, his hands working an oyster loose from the rock as his eyebrows quirk up.
I must look like a madwoman. Spear in hand, cackling as I line up my next unwilling sacrifice.
Mwah ha ha ha.
Now I lose it, doubling over, and the spear clatters to the rocks.
“Care to share with the rest of the class?” Cal says with a chuckle.
“I—” Laughter steals the words forming in my mind. I clutch at my side. My belly aches before I can suck in a fresh lungful.
Callum darts from the rock and rushes me, sweeping me off my feet, spinning me around.
My head falling back over his arm, the clouds spin above me.
Happiness slices through every vein, every inch of me.
The rumble of his laughter murmurs against my ribs, and I shift my gaze to his face.
The happiness captured there—a grin so wide it stretches his features and blue eyes lit like neon flame—is stunning.
My laughter peters out.
My world stops spinning.
My feet touch the ground and hands cup my face.
The warmth of his forehead presses against mine.
A rough chuckle slips past his lips as I palm his jaw, working the soft bristly beard under my fingertips.
I’m mesmerized as it moves under my touch.
Running a thumb over his bottom lip, my breath hitches as his lip drags under my touch.
Flutters are set in flight in my belly, giving way to a delicious warmth as I huff out, “Huh.”
“Evie, fuck . . .” His face turns pained.
I swallow hard.
“Fish,” I whisper.
“Fish.” His jaw feathers, and his hold softens.
Slipping from his embrace, I walk back to the rock pool in a daze.
I swipe up the spear and try to focus on the task at hand.
My mind loops on the tiny slice of happiness we found.
The bridge of my nose prickles, and tears bloom behind my eyes.
This man—this island—has brought me back to life.
I thought grey would only ever be the lens I looked through. Now, color is weaving back in.
Something moves below me, and I remember the spear in my hand.
I throw it at the movement.
Miss.
Hunt. Eat.
So very Eat, Pray, Love .
The Fire Island version... Hunt, Eat, Happiness. My stomach grumbles. Leaning down, I swipe up the spear and double down on my efforts. I squat down and still, poised and waiting for an unsuspecting slip of a fish. We’re going to need a few.
I stab the quick fish that dares to dart by. The sharp barb pins him to the rocky wall of the pool.
“Shit! Oh god. I’m so sorry, buddy.” I cringe as it flops helplessly.
A warm hand slides behind my neck as Callum moves into my side. “You did good.”
“Ah, not sure I’m the hunt them, eat them type.”
“Own it, baby girl. Take life by the balls. Lest you want it to find yours?”
“Ugh, fine. But for the record, I hate this.”
He dots a kiss to my temple before tugging the spear up and plucking the fish off and tossing it into the bucket. “Next one.” He hands me back the spear.
With a sigh and a hunger that’s now burning a hole right through my belly, I narrow my focus to the quick little fish. I line up another, making sure to stay as still as possible. That seems to help.
I snag one, tossing it into the bucket myself. This Jane doesn’t need Tarzan’s help.
My heroines never need assistance. Why should I?
I decide right there and then to channel my inner heroine from this day forward. When another oyster hits the bucket, I glance over to see Cal wink at me. I chuckle and shake my head at him.
“Winking? Really, old man?”
The joy leaches from his face, and he pushes to stand.
Marching to where I am perched on the side of the rock pool, he grabs my waist and hauls me up onto his.
His teeth nip at my breasts through my T-shirt.
I lean back, a soft moan slipping past my lips.
The delicious assault pauses, and I look back down.
“Who you calling old, brat?”
I’m dropped to my feet as he swats my ass and returns to his oyster hunt.
I’ve never been so turned on in my life from such a short interaction.
I like this version of me. The way this feels, being here. Being squared away on this island with Callum.
But this isn’t my life—it’s a temporary solace to ensure my productivity is restored. And it is. I’m grateful.
But I can’t help thinking, now that I’ve found all this...
How will I ever go back to the city? To a world Callum’s not a part of.
So many buts .
With a full belly and a fire blazing in the small wood stove, I sit on the blankets, Callum beside me, drinking the only drop of alcohol he brought.
It’s whiskey, and it’s harsh. It warms me from the inside as it slides down, and my body tingles.
I look around the hut, wondering why he came out here.
There is even less here than back at the house in his little shack.
And at least that has running water in its tiny sink.
His attention is lost to the flickering amber flames.
“Penny?” I ask.
He drops his head and huffs out a breath. “You don’t want my thoughts, baby girl.”
I can’t help but smile at the pet name. Cal looks up at me, and my smile melts with the sadness reflecting in his blues, so I offer, “Maybe two, then, because it looks like the thought oughta come out.”
He nods, a shallow movement. “Possibly.”
I wind my arms around my knees and rest my head on his shoulder. “We have all night...”
The words are no better than a whisper. The hint of permanent longing flickers to life when I think of all the ways we could spend an entire night. The heat from the fire is suddenly overwhelming. But I don’t move from his shoulder. I don’t want to.
I don’t want to move from here.
“Was thinking about the last time I was here.” His voice is rough.
“With your family?” I ask softly.
“No, after that.”
What does that mean?
“Oh?” I lift my head, tilting it, desperate to get a glance of what’s written on his face. But he continues, and I drop my gaze to the fire.
“It was after Ava. I was in a bad place. This hut’s always been a kind of solace for me. Like the only place I want to be when life implodes on me, you know?”
My thoughts drag their knuckles back to the accident. The whir of sounds, the heartache barely dimmed by time. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“Nobody—” He clears his throat. “The town, they didn’t like the idea of me and Ava.
She was the golden girl, the mayor’s only daughter.
Adored by every single person.” He shifts on his seat with a strained swallow, and I sit up and slide my arm through his as he continues.
“I was a bad influence after I lost my parents. Went off the rails. Iris almost disowned me, I’m sure of it.
Then Ava walked into my life and it was like something just clicked.
We were inseparable. So many folks tried to talk her out of dating me.
We were young. She was seventeen. I was twenty-two.
Didn’t help that I rode an Indian.” He huffs a strained noise that sounds like amusement.
Excuse me?
“An Indian?” I ask, an eyebrow raised.
“An Indian motorcycle. A ’99 Chief. Black, leather. She was a beauty.”
“You don’t have it anymore, I guess . . .”
“Actually, it’s sitting in the shed. Hasn’t run for years.”
“Oh.” So that’s what the big bulky item was in the chained-up shed.
He runs a hand through his hair, focus drifting back to the fire.
“Keep going,” I whisper.
Calloused fingers tangle with mine. “We got pregnant. That sealed the deal for the town. They hated me even more for stealing her future from her. Least that’s what Iris relayed to me.
By the time Ava told me, I was away. God, I loved her, and all I wanted was to make sure they were nothing but taken care of.
With nobody willing to give me a job locally, I’d enlisted. ”
“Oh, Callum.” Breath lodges in my airway at the heartbreak lacing his words, and I know where this is leading.
“She wrote me every week. And I her. We missed each other something fierce. I asked her to marry me in the last letter I sent. Shipped the ring I’d bought to her.
Things were going well with the pregnancy.
The ba—” His hand slips away as he slams his palms into his eyes with a groan.
“I never got to say goodbye. They both died. She was barely six months along.”
Tears course down my cheeks with his grief.
I snuggle into his side, taking one of his hands back between my two.
“You couldn’t have known. You sorted your life out for her, sacrificed to take care of her.
If the town can’t or won’t see that, that’s on them.
” Heat courses through my veins like the flames in front of us as my anger rises.
How could they be so narrow-minded? So cold? He and Iris lost their parents.
So much for small towns taking care of their own.
“So you moved to an island?” I whisper.
“Ava’s parents had the funeral without me, then moved clean across the country. The second I landed back here, no one would look at me.” He sighs, shaking his head. “It’s easier this way. I still have Iris and Em, but I don’t have to deal with the town.”
If I could undo the years of hurt this man’s been put through, I would. In a heartbeat. Nobody should be punished for choices they made eons ago, let alone be judged for their past mistakes when they work so hard to better their life.
“You have me, too. For a little longer.”
He moves, eyes studying my face. I can’t help myself when my hands brush over his beard. The wounded young man in those eyes, I know now, is what I have mistaken for broody old guy all this time. The overwhelming urge to make Callum feel better catches me in its intoxicating grip.
His warm hands curl around my wrists. “Eve?—”
I shake my head. “Tell me something.”
He tilts his head, a mix of wonder and confusion dancing in those blues.
“Where would you go if you could be anywhere?”
His brows furrow, his gaze dropping to the spot between us that’s shrinking by the second as he hesitates. “This island. With you.”
God above, my heart’s completely melted.
Its puddly remnants drip through my rib cage.
I open my mouth. I should respond, but nothing forms. Callum rises to his knees, capturing my face, pulling my mouth to his.
He devours me like I’m the last good thing left in his life.
Like at any moment, I too could slip away.
I tear at his old work shirt, feral to touch him. Heat blazing through my core, I scramble to my knees before climbing into his lap. Rough hands slap onto my ass, gripping tight. The tender mewl that breathes through my lips detonates his hunger.
“Fuck, Evie. Fuck, nighean bhrèagha.”
I’m flipped onto my back on the pile of blankets a heartbeat later.
I’m caged in by Callum hovering over me, propped up on all fours, before I recover the breath that huffed from my lungs.
I trace a finger over his jaw, then his lips.
He nudges my hand with his face, planting a kiss to my palm before closing his eyes.
“Where would you be, baby girl, if you could be anywhere in this world?”
His eyes open when the question lands.
Blue, the depths of the deep ocean, now searching for an answer.