Chapter Twelve #2
With no hint of another soul around, I start to head back to the barn, only for my gaze to snag on a small pile of stones by the water’s edge.
They’re all the same size and shape, flat, smooth, and perfect for throwing, and I pause as the childish part of me begs me to throw one.
So I do, rubbing one clean before launching it into the lake.
It skips a respectable three times before vanishing into the water, and I crouch back down to get another.
“Watcha doing?”
“Jesus!” I jump, straightening from my crouch to see Callum standing directly behind me. “Don’t sneak up on people!”
“Don’t follow people through the woods,” he counters, and I say nothing because that’s exactly what I was doing. I just didn’t know he knew that’s what I was doing. I turn back to the shore instead of answering, watching him from the corner of my eye when he joins me.
He’s in his jeans again, as well as a dark green jacket that he’s zipped up tight. His headphones loop around his neck, but I can hear no guitars coming from them.
“No music today?” I ask, and he shakes his head.
“Audiobook.”
Huh. “Which one?”
“ Crime and Punishment ,” he says, only to laugh at my unimpressed look. “It’s a thriller. The murdery kind.”
“Wow. What a great choice to listen to while walking alone through the woods,” I say dryly, and he grins, his gaze flicking between me and the lake.
“You need to twist your wrist better.”
“What?”
“You’re twisting at the beginning of your throw,” he explains, nodding at the stone in my hand. “You need to twist at the end.”
“You’re critiquing my stone skipping technique?”
“Yep.” He crouches down, examining the pile before plucking out a few chosen ones. “Want to make a bet on how many jumps I can get?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you look really confident,” I admit, and he smirks, tossing a stone into the air.
“I’m going to say… twelve.”
“ Twelve ?” Twelve skips? Now he’s just cocky. The best I’ve ever managed is eight. “Fine. Bet made.”
“Yeah?” His eyes light up. “What do I get if I win?”
“Your pride.”
“Deal.” He doesn’t even hesitate. He catches the stone one final time, and then flicks it in. It grazes the water in swift, elegant bursts, and my mouth falls open as it moves so far away that I can’t even count them anymore.
“What the hell? How did you do that?”
“Incredible skill,” he says, and sends another in. It goes even farther.
I grab one of my own, not to be outdone, but only manage two skips this time before it slips into the lake.
“You’re turning too much,” he says. “Here.” He tosses me another from the pile, and I’m so preoccupied with catching it that I don’t realize he’s moved closer until his hand wraps around mine. I still instantly as he opens my palm, revealing the flat stone inside.
“Hold it like this,” he says, placing my thumb on the top and my middle finger on the bottom. His index finger trails a path along my own, straightening it out to wrap against the edge, until I’m clasping it in a loose grip.
His touch is warm and rough, hinting to the callouses he’s earned from years on the job. I become hyperaware of the pleasant scrape of them as he moves me about until he’s satisfied, and then he steps behind me, not breaking his hold as his hand slips to my wrist, encircling it easily.
“Bend your knees a little,” he says, drawing my arm back. “Palm up. Elbow by your side.” He brings it forward again, almost like he’s showing me a golf swing, and I catch a hint of his scent, earthy, and warm, and oddly familiar.
“Twist at the end. Not at the beginning.”
“’Kay,” I say, only to hate myself at how high my voice sounds.
Callum doesn’t seem to notice, though, stepping away so I can do it myself, and I stare at the water, trying to remember what he told me while also what hands are and how to use them.
In the end, I give up thinking altogether, throwing the stone in, and flicking like he showed me. It skips seven times before it drops, almost matching my glorious record.
Well.
“Okay, so you’re an incredible teacher,” I say, and he cuts a bow. “They’re yours?” I add, looking back at the depleted pile of stones beside us.
“Yeah.”
“You come here a lot?”
His lips twitch at the suspicion in my voice. “I do. There’s not much else to do around here. And I got to thinking about what you said in the car. About the lake. The forest. You were right. It’s beautiful out here. I stop by nearly every day now.”
“You do?” I ask, confused. “Where do you even live?” I’d assumed he was in the city like the rest of the workers, but he just nods back to the village.
“In that farmhouse near the lavender fields.”
“Mr. Rankin’s old place?” I frown. “No one’s lived there for years.”
“Is this where you tell me it’s haunted?”
“It’s where I tell you I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“He’s letting me stay there for cheap if I do it up,” Callum explains, and I remember what he said to me in the garden the other day about renovating. “And what are you doing out here?” he asks before I can press for more. “Shouldn’t you be matchmaking or something?”
I open my mouth with an excuse when a crash sounds from the direction of the barn, and Callum looks behind me with interest.
“What’s over there?”
“Nothing,” I say, suddenly panicked. I don’t want Glenmill knowing anything about what we’re planning, but he’s already walking away. “Callum, wait.”
“Why? What is it?”
“It’s for the festival,” I blurt out. “And it’s top secret, so you can’t see it.”
“Top secret?”
“Yes.”
He wants to laugh. I can see it on his face, but he stops at the flustered expression on mine. “Okay,” he says, holding up his hands. “I won’t snoop. But it sounds like you’re building a rollercoaster.”
“And if that’s the rumor you want to spread, then by all means, go for it. But I’m—”
“Katie!” I freeze as Nush calls from nearby, her voice echoing through the trees.
Shit.
“You have to go,” I tell him, and his eyes widen.
“Seriously?” he asks. “What? Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“You want to know who the first person to put Jack’s face on the dartboard was? It was that girl. She does not like Glenmill.”
“She doesn’t even know who I am.”
“She’ll know you’re not from Ennisbawn, and she’s a smart cookie. She’ll put two and two together. It’s for your own safety.”
“Now that sounds a little dramatic. Just introduce— okay, okay.”
Nush calls again, even closer this time, and I push him up against a large oak tree, hiding him from view.
“I’ve never been a dirty secret before,” he says, laughing, and as Nush emerges through the tree line a little way up, I slap my hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.
Big mistake.
His laughter stops immediately, his attention zeroing in on me in a way that makes me feel like I’m the prey in this situation, and not the person who just manhandled him against a tree.
“Katie!” Nush calls. “Marco!”
She pauses by the lake, waiting for me to answer before giving up and heading back to the trail. I turn my head to the side, ignoring the feel of Callum’s gaze on my cheek and try to listen in case anyone else has come looking.
“Okay,” I say. “I think we’re—”
My eyes dart back to his as his lips part, his warm breath hitting my skin for half a second before I drop it.
“Don’t do that,” I tell him.
“Why not?”
“Because.”
He nods like I’ve made a compelling argument, but before I can step away, he hooks a finger through one of the belt loops on my jeans. It’s a small movement, and an easily breakable hold, but the gentle tug of it sends a bolt of heat straight between my legs, locking me in place.
“Can I do that?” he asks, when I don’t move.
I don’t trust myself to answer.
Standing together like this, we’re as close as two people can be without touching. And I suddenly, desperately want us to be touching.
Whether these thoughts are clear on my face or Callum can read minds, I don’t know, but he brings his other hand to my hip, and when I don’t move away, he pulls me in a step until our stomachs brush.
We stay like that for the longest time, and I know he’s giving me the opportunity to say no.
To back out. To march dramatically away.
But I don’t. I don’t do any of those things.
I just stand there with my dry mouth and my little crush, and his head dips down, so close to me that I can count his eyelashes and—
“I have to get back to work.”
His grip tightens against my waist as he pauses, his lips a hair’s breadth from mine. And then his fingers slip from my waist and his hand drops from my hip, and he straightens, resting the back of his head against the tree as he puts distance between us again.
“Guess I’ll see you around then.”
It takes a second to get my legs to move. When they do, they’re stiff and not my own, and I have to force myself away, mumbling a goodbye as I head back into the trees. I don’t look back until I reach the barn, where Nush is literally tapping her foot as she waits.
“Didn’t you hear me calling?” she asks, when she sees me.
“That was you? I thought it was a ghost.”
“Just come on,” she grumbles, towing me back inside. I don’t know whether her urgency is a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m too relieved she didn’t catch me with Callum to care.
“You found her,” Gemma calls from where she sits with Adam on some folding chairs.
“She was skulking.”
“I was walking ,” I say. “Like I was told to, and I…”
I stop just inside the entrance, all muddled thoughts of Callum vanishing as Nush lets me go, spreading her arms wide in a big ta-da motion. Sometime in the last few minutes, the guys have removed the last of the debris from the far corner and swept away the dirt in the sides and…
“It’s ready?”
“It’s ready,” Gemma confirms, as I step further inside. “It still needs electricity and furnishing and a hundred other things. But the hard part’s done.”
The hard part is done.
I mean, the barn is still empty, yes. But it’s clean. Clean and big and bright and full of possibility. Now, all we need to do is dress it up. The hard part’s done.
It’s done .
“I’ve been researching Jacuzzis,” Nush says seriously.
“There’s a spot outside that would be perfect for one, and I know it might be a little out of budget, but I was thinking if we set up a VIP package, we could—” She cuts off with a laugh as I squeeze her to my side and even Gemma’s smiling when I spin her around.
“Is that a yes to the Jacuzzi?”
“It’s a no,” I say. “It’s a firm no.”
“But—”
“One thing at a time, Nush.” I bring us to a stop in the center of the room, dizzy from the movement. “One thing at a time.”