28. Callie
CALLIE
I drove to Wade's rented house in town braced for an excuse.
The house sat on a quiet street in town, tucked between two older homes with porches and flowerbeds that somebody actually tended.
His truck was parked in the driveway, the same black Ford he had driven for years.
I pulled in behind it and sat there with the engine running, my hands gripping the wheel hard enough that my knuckles went white.
A week had passed since the rodeo grounds.
He had given me his time. He had not pulled away.
But I had carried two things with me for weeks now, and I needed to know if they were true.
My stomach was in knots. I shut off the engine and got out before I could change my mind.
The porch steps creaked under my feet, loud in the quiet evening.
I knocked twice, my heart pounding so hard I felt it in my throat.
The door opened almost immediately, and Wade was there.
He was in jeans and a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
His hair was damp like he had just showered.
He looked at me, and something passed across his face that I could not name. Surprise, maybe. Or relief.
"Callie."
"I have questions," I said.
He stepped back and held the door open. "Come in."
The house was small and plain, the kind of place someone rented when they needed somewhere to land but did not plan to stay.
A couch, a chair, a table with papers spread across it like he had been working.
The kitchen was visible through an archway.
It smelled like coffee, strong and recent.
Wade gestured to the couch, but I stayed standing near the door, my arms wrapped around myself.
My pulse kicked up, and I hated how nervous I was.
Like I was the one who had something to hide.
"You want something to drink?" he asked.
"No."
He nodded and stood a few feet away with his arms crossed.
His forearms were tanned and marked with old scars I had memorized years ago, back when I used to trace them with my fingers and ask him where each one came from.
God, I was stalling. I could feel the weight of what I needed to ask sitting heavy in my chest. I took a breath and made myself say it.
"In the ranch office," I said. "Two days before your anniversary party. I overheard you in a meeting with your mother and Shelby. You said, 'I'd love to have you at the party, Shelby. It'll be good to have you there.'"
Wade's jaw tightened, and I saw the muscle jump under his skin. But he did not look surprised. He uncrossed his arms and rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture I knew meant he was about to say something he did not want to say. "You heard that."
"I did."
"You never said."
"I'm saying it now." My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was something. "So tell me what that meeting was about, Wade, because I need to know."
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on mine, and I braced myself for him to wave it off or tell me I had misunderstood. That I had blown it out of proportion the way I always did. But he did not. He looked right at me and said, "It was about the Bradshaw deal."
I blinked. "What?"
"The Bradshaw deal. Oil and mineral rights on land her father owns.
We were expanding the partnership, and it needed her signature on half a dozen documents before we could move forward with the next phase.
" He paused, his hands resting on his hips, and I saw the tension in his shoulders.
"My mother wanted her at the party so she could sign them there.
She pushed it. I told Shelby I would love to have her there because it meant the deal would close faster and I could stop chasing her around for paperwork. "
I stared at him. The words were so plain, so matter-of-fact, like he was explaining a chore he had been putting off. He was not hiding. He was not making it bigger than it was. And for the first time in years, I was not left standing outside the fence while he worked. He was letting me in.
"You never told me any of that," I said.
"I should have." His voice was rough, and I heard the regret in it.
"You told me how she treated you, and I gave you nothing.
I thought you knew. I thought everybody knew the deal was the reason.
But you didn't, and I left you guessing.
I left you standing outside wondering what the hell was going on, and that's on me. "
My throat felt tight, and I swallowed hard. The knot in my stomach loosened just a little. I did not say anything else. He had the look of a man who was not finished.
"There's more," he said. "My mother arranged for you to be outside that door. She made sure you were standing there when I said it." He said it plainly, and he did not look away.
I felt it land. He had known, and he was telling me without being asked.
His jaw worked, and he turned away and walked a few steps toward the window, his hands clenched at his sides. For a second I thought he was going to say something about her, blame her, tell me it was all her fault and he had been played the same way I had. But he turned back and shook his head.
"I'm not saying it to put it on her," he said.
His voice was flat and hard. "I said it.
Those were my words, Callie, and I own them.
I should never have made you feel like Shelby mattered more than you did.
I should never have let her take up that much space between us.
I don't get to hide behind my mother setting you up.
I said it, and it hurt you. So that's mine. "
The heat from his anger seemed to fill the small room, and I felt it like standing too close to a fire.
My chest ached. I wanted to believe him.
God, I wanted to believe this was real, that he was actually seeing what had been happening.
But there was still one more thing I had carried, the worst thing, and I could not leave it unasked.
I stayed calm and moved to my next question. My hands were shaking, so I crossed my arms tight to hide it. "I need to ask you something else."
"Okay."
I looked at him and said it flat, no buildup, no softening it. "Shelby told me she was pregnant. She told me it was yours."
Wade went rigid. He did not look like a man hearing it for the first time, but I saw fury cross his face in the space of a breath, hot and quick. "She said that to you?"
"She came to the rescue," I said. My voice was shaking now, and I could not stop it.
"She told me she was carrying your baby.
She said you were going to raise it together, and I needed to step aside so you could have the family you wanted.
" My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it.
I cleared my throat and made myself finish.
"So I'm asking you now, Wade. Was there a baby? "
"No." The word came out hard and immediate, like he had shoved it out with everything he had.
He crossed the room in two strides and stopped right in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat off him, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at his face.
"No, Callie. There was never a baby. There never could have been. "
I searched his face, looking for hesitation, for a flicker of doubt, for anything that would tell me he was lying or hiding something. But there was nothing. Just anger and something that looked like disbelief, raw and open.
"She lied," I said.
"She lied," Wade said. His hands flexed at his sides like he wanted to reach for me but did not let himself. "I never touched her. Not once. I never wanted to. There was no baby, and there never will be, because I have never been with Shelby Bradshaw. Not like that. Not ever."
The worst thing I had believed crumbled.
I felt it break apart inside me, piece by piece, and I did not know if I was relieved or furious or both.
My knees felt weak, like they might give out if I stood there much longer.
I stepped back and sat down hard on the arm of the couch, my hands braced on either side of me.
Wade crouched in front of me, his hands braced on his knees, his eyes locked on mine. "She told you that? At your rescue?"
"She did." I looked down at my hands. My left hand, where my wedding ring used to be.
The skin was still pale where the band had sat for ten years.
"I believed her. I believed you and Shelby had a baby, and I believed you wanted her at the party because you loved her.
I thought I had been in your way for ten years.
I thought you had been waiting for me to leave so you could have what you really wanted. "
"Jesus, Callie." His voice broke, and I heard the grief in it. He reached up like he was going to touch my hand, but he stopped himself halfway and let his hand fall. "You've been carrying that?"
"I have."
He stood and paced to the window and back, running both hands through his hair.
When he turned to face me again, his expression was raw, stripped of everything but the truth.
"I don't know what to say to make that okay.
I can't. You believed I had a child with another woman, and I gave you every reason to think it was true, because I never saw what was happening right in front of me.
I never saw Shelby for what she was. I never saw my mother pushing her at me.
I never saw you being pushed out. And I'm sorry, Callie. God, I am so sorry."
I stood, my legs steadier now. The anger I had held for weeks was still there, still burning in my chest, but it was not the only thing anymore.
There was something else underneath it, something that felt like the beginning of understanding.
I looked at him, at the man I had married ten years ago, and I said what I needed him to hear.
"I thought you didn't want me. I thought I was something you settled for because I wasn't her. I thought you looked at Shelby and saw everything I wasn't, and I thought you were just waiting for me to leave so you could have what you really wanted."
Wade flinched like I had slapped him. "That's not true."
"I know that now," I said. "But I didn't know it then."
The room was quiet. The coffee smell still hung in the air, stale and bitter. Outside, a car drove past, its headlights sweeping across the wall. Wade was watching me like he was afraid I would disappear if he looked away.
I took a breath and made myself say the rest. "The divorce is still going ahead."
His face fell, but he nodded. "I know."
"I'm not saying I forgive you."
"I'm not asking you to."
"I just needed to know," I said. My voice was steadier now, like saying it out loud had taken some of the weight off my chest. "I needed to know if the worst things I believed were true. And they weren't. So now I know."
Wade looked at me for a long moment, and then he reached into his pocket.
He pulled out my wedding ring. The gold band caught the light from the window, warm and familiar.
He held it in his palm, and I saw the way his thumb brushed across it, careful, like it was something fragile he was afraid to break.
I did not ask for it back.
"You still have it," I said.
"I do."
I looked at the ring, at his hand, at the worn gold that I had put on ten years ago and taken off about twelve weeks ago.
It was not on my finger. It was not going back on my finger.
Not today. Not yet. But he had kept it, and that meant something I could not name yet. Something I was not ready to touch.
"Okay," I said.
Wade closed his hand around the ring and put it back in his pocket.
He did not ask me to stay. He did not ask me to change my mind.
He just stood there in his rented house in town with the divorce still going ahead and the ring still in his pocket, and I stood there knowing the worst things I had believed were lies.
I looked at him one more time.
"Thank you for telling me the truth," I said.
He nodded. "Always."
Neither of us moved. Wade stood watching me, the way he had since I came in, and the room stayed quiet around us.
The divorce was still going ahead. But now I knew.