Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
CALLIE
M ack towers above me at a ridiculous height, scowling and rugged, a thick beard hiding the lower half of his angular face and a cowboy hat atop his head.
A cowboy hat? I wasn’t expecting this from my burly, redheaded mountain man.
“Mack?” I ask breathlessly.
The man eyes me morosely. I strain to read his expression. A tumult of emotions pulses beneath the surface. But what they mean, I have no clue.
A deluded part of me expects him to exclaim, “Callie!”
Instead, he sets his mouth at a somber angle. “You’ve done your hair differently.” His voice has a slight Latino accent.
“Do you like it?”
He nods.
I thought I was his breath, his sunshine, his very soul. But this man looks apprehensive … as if he doesn’t want to see me.
My eyes dart past him into the living room. Another unfaithful man, maybe? Some women are into serial monogamy, but I’ve managed the excruciatingly painful art of attracting serial cheaters.
“Callie.” He grunts out the name like a caveman, unceremoniously turning on his heels and walking away. I wait for a sweeping gesture of the hand, a nod of his head, something that indicates he wants me to come inside.
Nothing.
Instead, he paces back and forth, grumbling, “If ever there was a time I wanted a stiff drink, it’s right now.”
I knit my brows, standing in the doorway as my heart shatters into a million pieces. I played out countless scenarios for how today would go. This was not one of them.
“So, that’s it?” I ask, stepping into the room, anger seizing me. “Months of love letters? Countless promises? And this is the reception I get?”
He crosses his thick, corded arms over his barrel chest, and my throat tightens. I may be pissed as hell at Mack’s reaction, but I can’t deny how gorgeous he is. Animal magnetism pours from him, singeing the air and crackling the space between us. Doesn’t he feel it, too?
“You deserve better,” he says flatly.
I wait, but nothing follows. No explanation. No apology, no questions about what I’m doing here.
My voice trembles as I recite from memory, “ I taste you in my dreams. Sunshine and the sweet warmth of summer rain. Your fragrance invades my senses, seducing and alluring me, making it impossible to think. Callie, in a word, I’m OBSESSED …
And yet all you have to say with me here in person is that I can do better? What the fuck?”
He looks away, his turquoise eyes searing the wall in front of him. I half expect smoke to rise from the cabin at the intensity of his gaze.
Shaking his head, Mack says, “I got carried away in the letters.”
“Got carried away? What is this? A bad joke?”
“No.” He growls. “I fell in love with your picture, your personality. I couldn’t help myself. But one look at you in person, and I know you can do so much better.”
“Mack,” I whisper, crossing the distance towards the big, rugged man. “Is there another woman here that I need to know about? A girlfriend? A wife?” The words burn my tongue, my voice caustic. My eyes plead with him as I add almost inaudibly, “Tell me now if there is.”
I don’t know what I’m thinking beyond making the least scene possible. Especially if there are children here, too.
“No, Callie, it’s not like that at all,” Mack reassures, his eyes finally snapping to mine. They simmer as he stares at me, sparking a need so dangerous that I clench my thighs together beneath the long, black-and-white floral sundress I wear with a distressed denim jacket and strappy sandals.
“Are you mad at me for showing up unexpectedly?” I ask.
He shakes his head, his expression downright gloomy.
“Then, what’s the matter?”
He inhales slowly, and I wonder if he’s buying time, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to say. His tongue darts out, wetting his bottom lip, and I’m a goner.
How can this man look like he was cut from sin’s cloth? Fashioned for danger? And capable of the letters he wrote me simultaneously? I can’t leave here until I figure this out.
“I’m a broken man, Callie. Something the letters never conveyed to you. I’m sorry for that, but it was outside of my control.”
I feel dunked into a tank of cold water, barely comprehending the conversation. “Could you maybe slow down for a second? Greet me politely. Take my coat like a gentleman and offer me something to drink? I drove nearly four hours, and I could use some manners before we dive into a breakup.”
Mack looks convicted by my words, his countenance torn as he steps closer to me, gesturing for my coat. I turn around, shrugging my shoulders to help as he removes the denim, sparks somehow igniting between us despite the thin layer of fabric separating our flesh.
I wonder what it’d be like flesh to flesh with this man, nothing in between. My clit throbs, the juncture at the top of my legs tightening despite his rude reception and grumpy mood.
He saunters towards the rack, hanging up my coat as I eye him ravenously. I kind of expected him to be fifty pounds heavier and fifty years older. I thought there had to be a catch. But I was so very wrong.
Instead, my eyes absorb a wall of muscle, his ass round and tight in his Wranglers. Never in my life have I considered dating a cowboy. Even now, I thought I was getting a forest poet, a silver-tongued lumberjack. But this brutish cowboy mountain man is sexy as hell despite his offish demeanor.
Reason flies to the wind as my eyes devour him. Suddenly, he turns, catching me in the act. His cheeks darken along with his eyes.
The subtle recognition makes the heat in the room even more brutal. I fan myself, pulling at the collar of my sundress, though the temperature in his air-conditioned cabin doesn’t warrant such a display.
“A drink?” he murmurs.
“Yes, please.”
He arches an eyebrow as I take a seat on the couch, done with standing on ceremony and waiting for his manners to kick in.
I ask, “What do you have?”
“Water, tea, juice. No booze. I’ve been sober for about a year and a half now. No soda, either, because that shit’s poison.”
“Do you have coffee?” I ask.
“You want coffee? Isn’t it a little late for that?” His gruff, unexpected concern catches me off guard.
“No, I just want to make sure for the morning.”
He grimaces, and I feel like an idiot. After this reception, how in the world could I possibly think I would spend the night here?
Simple. In one of his last emails, he offered to let me stay at his place anytime I was in town. I extended the same invitation were he ever in San Francisco. It seemed like a fair enough trade-off for grown-ass adults discussing marriage …
Off-the-charts chemistry floods the space between us, a vicious current that threatens to drag me under. By the look on Mack’s face, he feels the same way, whether or not he’ll admit it.
“Tea sounds good. Thank you.”
“Iced or hot?”
“Iced, please.” I continue fanning myself to drive home the point.
“Sweet or unsweetened?”
My eyes dart to his, surprise written in my face. “Well, sweet, of course. I’m surprised you have it. It’s not a beverage I encounter much on the West Coast.”
He shrugs. “Years in Georgia will do that to you.”
“With the 75th Batt,” I say with a sweet smile.
His face clouds. “How?”
“You told me in your emails,” I remind gently.
“Emails? Oh, yeah,” he says, turning on his heels and heading for the kitchen. “Let me grab you that drink.”
The giant Ranger disappears, and I strain to catch my breath. I can’t.
Between his mouthwatering looks and his grumpy personality, I’m in a quandary, feeling too many things simultaneously.
Especially when I let my mind wander to his romantic letters.
Such a strange dichotomy exists between this flesh and blood man and his inner musings.
I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it out, let alone him.
He takes so long in the kitchen that I stand up, creeping toward the entrance to peek in. I find him frantically texting on his cell phone, and my heart drops. If he’s messaging another woman, so help me. I’ll officially lose it. I can’t take another cheater.
Mack glances up, catching me staring. He looks furious, and it puts a cold shiver down my spine. Maybe Felicity was right. Perhaps I should have vetted this man more thoroughly. Maybe I should leave now before things get any weirder.
But my gut nudges me to relax, give him a chance to adjust to my presence before I make any rash decisions. After all, finding a rugged, though secluded, cowboy mountain man capable of writing love letters isn’t something that happens every day.
Perhaps he deserves a little more leeway as a sensitive, emotional warrior poet. “Is something the matter?” I ask gently.
He shakes his head, his face hard. “Just texting a friend of mine. My AA sponsor. The bastard backstabbed me. Something I never expected.”
“Oh,” my hand goes to my mouth. A wave of sadness washes over me as I stare at this hulking man, obviously in the throes of some betrayal. And from his AA sponsor, no less? I can’t imagine. “I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like to talk about it?”
He shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. In this pose, the massive mountain man looks like a redheaded version of Thor without the dumbass costume or the hammer.
I notice a scar running across his left cheek, wondering what other injuries he may have incurred from his time in the service.
While he never spoke much about it in his emails, I can tell, even on a first meeting, that this man is all warrior. Brave, fierce, deadly.
“Suffice it to say, he dragged me into something without my foreknowledge, and I’m going to pay the price for it for a long, long time. Maybe forever.” His voice softens unexpectedly over the last sentiment as he eyes me warmly. “You’re so fucking beautiful, it hurts me to look at you, Callie.”
Finally, a slight peek at the man from the letters. My cheeks burn, and I timidly drop my eyes to the cabin floor before forcing myself to meet his gaze.
You’re a twenty-three-year-old woman, Callie.
Time to stop acting like a grade schooler with a crush.
“Thank you,” I say confidently. Swallowing loudly, I add, “You’re gorgeous, too, you know.
Even more … handsome in person than any picture could do justice.
” At the last second, I swap “mouthwatering” for “handsome,” trying to play it cool.
He removes his hat, stabbing his hand into his scarlet locks before replacing it.
I wonder what my fingers would feel like running through his vibrant curls.
Contrasting the red is olive-complexioned skin, no doubt from his Latin side.
In emails, he briefly mentioned being biracial, half-Scottish and half-Mexican. The combination is arresting.
Clawing my thoughts back to something other than fifty ways to taint and be tainted by this man, I pant. “What about that sweet iced tea?”
“Oh, yeah.” His face looks sheepish as he locks the phone’s screen, setting it on the kitchen counter and rummaging through a cabinet for two sturdy glasses with blue stripes. Mack fills both cups with ice from the door dispenser before retrieving a glass pitcher from the fridge and filling them.
“Thank you,” I say, closing the distance to grab a sweating glass.
He reaches for the same one simultaneously, and our fingertips brush.
Electrical sparks arc between us as I watch his eyes darken two shades, from turquoise to a deep teal like the Gulf on a stormy day.
His nostrils flare, and his breath comes faster than it should.
For my part, I pant like a marathon runner, though I don’t know why.
Couldn’t we put whatever misunderstanding is going on between us aside in the name of a good, old-fashioned afternoon delight?
The words tease my lips, but it’s well past afternoon, so dark outside, I hear the serenade of crickets, muffled through the thin glass of the cabin windows.
“What are you thinking?” Mack asks darkly.