Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
CAL
N o more letting the app suggest our dates. When you knew someone like I knew Sabrina, sometimes you had an idea that nothing suggested by the app could match. I had put together a real date for us, and excitement had me whistling as I set it up.
Our love for each other had that special something that people dreamed about. Our love was the kind that stuck forever. All this time apart, and it hadn’t waned. Now I just wanted to say how I felt, out loud. I really wanted her to say it too.
Looking back, I realized that the day we’d had to share a horse and I’d told her what I wanted to do with her—to her—I hadn’t done it to scare her away. She’d been sitting there, her legs over mine, so close and looking at me with the bright-blue eyes of the Sabrina who loved me, and I’d been body-slammed with the realization that I’d missed her so damn much. Then she’d looked at me like that again at the community center, and it had all just clicked. We needed to start making new memories, happier ones, and working on dismantling our walls.
Sabrina was in my office, talking to LA about her documentary. She’d spoken to the director and was now on the phone with the actor. Things didn’t sound like they were going all that well. All the more reason to take her out and get her mind off the parts of our lives that were unraveling.
I stood outside the door, waiting for the right time to interrupt. These last few weeks had been a whirlwind, a complete one eighty in my life. In Peru, I certainly hadn’t wondered what came next and then pictured myself at the ranch, drafting a plan to win a woman’s heart.
I stepped into the office and caught her eye.
“Hang on, Nick.” She raised a brow in question.
“Thought maybe you might want to go see the waterfall near No Man’s Lake.”
Her face lit up. “Yeah, I totally do.” She glanced out the window. “Isn’t weather coming in?”
I nodded. “We’ve got time. But we have to leave now.”
She quickly ended the call. “Let me change, and I’ll meet you outside at the barn.”
I pointed to the stairs. “Go. No horses today. We’ll take an ATV. Mom’s packing some food for us too.”
She took off up the stairs with a laugh and the slightest of limps. I hadn’t been fully cognizant of how exhausting our constant push and pull had been until now. It was much easier to stop resisting. I went outside to prep the ATV, caught my sister as she was coming in, and admired a vase she’d just created.
Sabrina bounced out of the house a few minutes later and stopped short when she saw me. “Where’s the other ATV?”
“I thought we would just take one. It’s easier.”
“Where are you all headed?” Brynna smiled
“To see a waterfall,” Sabrina answered.
Brynna swung her eyes to me , and her smile widened “The one at No Man’s?”
I couldn’t look at my sister. She knew the falls were secluded and romantic, which straight-up told her my agenda. So I just nodded.
Brynna chuckled. “Have fun. Do all the things,” she called over her shoulder as she headed up the stairs.
Sabrina came to stand beside me. “We should post something. It’s been a few days since Cricket’s article came out. Let’s feed the fire.” She moved in closer and held out her phone. “Smile for the camera.”
I moved behind her, making her the little spoon, and snaked one arm around her waist to pulled her in tight. I rested my other hand on her hip. Then I bent and tucked my face into the crook of her neck.
“Smile for the camera,” I whispered as I nuzzled.
My breath made a path along the crook and onto her shoulder. She leaned fully into me like a limp noodle, and dang it all, holding her felt so good. Maybe the waterfalls were too far away. Maybe I should just take her into the woods, propose ravishing her, and see if she agreed. I had a feeling she would.
I stepped back, keeping one hand on her elbow to hold her steady, picked up the Stetson she’d dropped, dusted it off, then plopped it on her head. I tweaked her nose because I didn’t know what else to with my hands. Well, I did know, but I wasn’t going to do that without Sabrina’s consent or here in the yard for all to see. So nose it was.
Her nose crinkled up. “Well played, Calvin.” She adjusted her hat, and I noticed a slight tremor in her hand. I’d stuffed mine into my pockets so she wouldn’t see they were doing the same.
I dipped my head once. “Let them narrate that.” I climbed onto the ATV and patted the seat behind me. I liked rattling her. I liked being rattled by her.
“Hey, the waterfalls aren’t an option on the app’s dating suggestions,” Sabrina said.
“Yeah, I know. It’s my idea, not the app’s.”
“Well, you should tell the IT team to add a box for others to help the algorithm.”
“Reenie, this isn’t an app date. This is an us date. All I care to share about it right now is that picture.” I pointed to her phone, then patted the seat behind me a second time.
She blinked up at me, then bit her lip. “An us date, huh? What kind of stuff can people do at these falls, Cal?”
“Get on, woman, and I’ll show you.” I wagged my brows.
Sabrina laughed, but her expression said it all. She looked besotted and horny. Exactly how I felt.
SAbrINA
The drive out into the mountains had been fun. A shift had happened between us. A good shift—toward healing. I couldn’t put my finger on when it had happened, exactly, but after the night of airing all the truths, we were able to finally move forward instead of circling the drain like we’d been doing.
I didn’t think I’d fully processed what Morgan had said about my mom. On some level, it felt like she was talking about someone else because so much of it was new to me. And though my temper still flared when I thought about Cal making the choice he had that night in Vegas, I was coming to terms with it. Begrudgingly, I understood.
Cal himself was merging the two Cals I knew—the old and the new. And I liked this blended version of him. Besides the fact that he was galactically hot, the self-awareness and confidence he’d developed over this last decade were freaking intoxicating. He’d always been self-assured, but now there was an edge to him that he’d never had before. A fuck-around-and-find-out mannerism. Each day, the hurt from our past faded a little more.
Perhaps this was what forgiveness looked like. And that picture we’d just taken—yeesh, taking it had made me so hot I nearly burst into flames. I got weak in the knees and almost fell getting on the ATV. Cal with his damn swoony kiss.
I rested my head against his back and gave in to the moment, enjoying the now. Everything was perfect, even with all the bullshit going on. I looked over his shoulder at the vast stretch of land. It made me feel like a tiny dot in the Wyoming landscape, but not in a bad way. It was like the camera lens zoomed out, taking in more of the picture, which felt like a metaphor for our lives. Everything was about seeing the big picture.
I held on to his waist, my hands on his hip bones. He picked one hand up and kissed my palm, then worked his way down to my wrist. My nipples puckered with want. That was what this man did to me.
Cal pulled up to narrow path and shut down the ATV. He pointed to a dark cloud far in the distance. “We have a couple of hours. Let me show you the waterfall. I brought some food, too, so we can picnic.”
Cal was beside the ATV, the soft cooler in hand, by the time I removed my helmet and stood. He was stupidly handsome. All he had to do was flash me a grin and I became witless. I wanted to say something but didn’t know what. That I wanted to jump his bones. That the closeness of the ride out here had done it for me, revved me up. But he didn’t give me a chance to speak, tugging my hand to draw me onto the path, which narrowed quickly, the forest too dense to ride through. We didn’t talk until we broke through the trees to the opening of the falls.
I gasped at the sight. All the naughty thoughts that had been simmering fell away. A pool slightly bigger than a hot tub lay before us, with a waterfall about ten feet high dumping into it. We were in the valley of the mountains. Ponderosa dotted the landscape.
“It’s beautiful.” I touched his arm, and static electricity crackled between us, sending heat up my arm. Yeah, I was in trouble. If a touch was making me hot and bothered, I’d probably orgasm with just a kiss. I glanced at his mouth but looked away when he caught me.
“We just missed the crimson by a few weeks. It adds a lot of color here.” Cal pointed at the cloverlike ground covering.
“How do you not just want to stay here forever?”
Cal chuckled. “Mostly because I get hungry, and sometimes indoor plumbing is a perk. This is one of the best places to come and work out what’s on my mind.”
“If you duck under that swath of trees you’ll see some mini falls.” He held a hand up to his knees to tell me the height. “And there’s a hunting cabin about half a mile up the trail. If you sit quietly at the cabin, you can see all kinds of animals come to the falls. It’s magical.”
I swung my eyes to him. “Bears?” A few years back, Jace had been attacked by a sick bear.
Cal pointed to his pack, which was on the ground. “I have bear spray in there. And I have never seen a bear at the falls. Besides. any noise we make will scare off the ones that might be there.”
I did some rapid clapping to let the bears know we were here.
Cal laughed. “And now any animal within a half-mile radius has been scared off by that noise. Come on.” He snatched up his backpack and nodded for me to follow.
My phone vibrated in my vest pocket. “Weird. I’m getting a signal.” I took it out.
“Yeah, there are some parts that get service. Some cell towers hidden in the trees. You can never actually get away from civilization.”
Cricket texted.
His dad may have some media in his pocket, but the public opinion is on your side. Check out these comments.
She’d linked to an Instagram page. The page took much longer than normal to load, but when it did, the pictures were of the community center event. People were praising Cal and his work.
He stopped to look at me and the page, and I beamed at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re getting some love for what you do. People are finally coming out to defend you.” I tapped to access the Instagram notifications and saw there were already over a hundred comments. I scrolled through them. “Oh, hmm.”
“Okay, what does that mean?” He stepped closer.
“That picture we took earlier. Some haters have come out.”
“Haters?” He reached for the phone, but I pulled away and turned to keep him from getting it. “They’re sad that you’re dating me, they don’t think I’m good enough, and a lot of women have called you a snacc. With two cs.”
Cal’s brows knitted in question.
“Good enough to eat, you sweet morsel, you.” I slapped him on the shoulder. “It means they want to sex you up immediately, and, you know…” I gestured toward his boy parts.
“Considering the word is snacc, I’m guessing eating each other out is part of the sexing up.”
Instantly, my cheeks flared with heat. I slapped my palms to them to hide my blush.
Cal chuckled and then straightened like a peacock, spreading his shoulders wide, preening. “Good to know I’m such a hottie.”
His feigned arrogance quickly diffused my embarrassment.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head, or I’ll have to drown you in the falls.”
“Well, they’re wrong.” He relaxed his chest and smiled big.
“No, you are very much a snacc.”
“I meant they are wrong about you not being good enough. It’s me who isn’t good enough.”
He held my gaze, and my body went warm from the sincerity I saw. But I caught a glimpse of something else before he winked, then ducked away to spread out a blanket he’d taken out of his pack. Was that guilt?
“Cal, you are not your dad. What you do for others is amazing. No one’s life is free of mistakes or regrets. It’s what you do after those mistakes that counts. And you have done so much.”
He dropped everything onto the blanket and studied me. “Does this mean you forgive me?”
I glanced at the fast-moving clouds above us. “I think I forgave you when I found out about how we got to see one the best oncologists in the world because of you, or maybe it happened when I signed up to help. I dunno. Maybe this is forgiveness.”
He stepped up to me and placed his hands on my shoulders, his thumb gently caressing the area near my collarbone. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“I know.”
“I’ve never stopped wanting to be with you.” His eyes were a shimmering sapphire color, bright with earnestness.
This was it—the moment I’d thought about a million times over the years. It wasn’t closure I had wanted or revenge either. It was a chance to have Cal back. Maybe I was stupid or pathetic, but our time together had been so good. And though I told myself that what we’d had was over, I’d still been holding on to it all these years, never really letting go.
I missed him. I wanted him. And he was telling me he wanted me. Still. And my head was asking my heart if it was sure it wanted to take this leap again.
“Reenie?”
There I stood, half of my body numb, afraid, and the rest quivering with anticipation. And the response my brain came up with was embarrassing, but I let the words out anyway because I had nothing else.
“Cool. Great. Awesome.”