Chapter Fifteen
Callum
I didn’t mean to stop walking.
One second I was minding my business, hauling two crates of bottled beer from the back of my truck, thinking about how the bar's fridge was rattling again, and the next?
I was rooted on the sidewalk like an idiot.
Because I saw her .
Through the front window of Bean There, Done That , Lydia was inside the coffee shop—laughing, bent slightly at the waist, hair falling into her face as she helped Riley drag a table across the floor. The table legs scraped loudly against the wood, but she didn’t seem to care. She was all grin and hustle, waving a paint swatch in the air like it was a flag in some kind of adorable war.
And she was wearing shorts.
Tiny, cuffed, denim things that showed off miles of smooth legs and a pair of beat-up sneakers with splattered paint on the toes. Her T-shirt clung to her like it had known her for years, and there was a faint sheen of sweat at her temples, like she’d been at it for a while.
My brain short-circuited. Fully, completely.
I wasn’t a fool. I’d noticed Lydia was attractive. That was obvious the minute she’d blown into town and tried to raze the Stag with her smile and stubborn will. But this?
This was something else.
She looked like sunshine and trouble and something I didn’t have the defenses for.
And she looked happy.
Real, unfiltered, alive kind of happy.
I should’ve kept walking.
I should’ve loaded the bar stock and stayed in my lane.
But my feet stayed planted, my hands tight around the crate of beer, my eyes tracking her every move through the glass like I was watching something sacred and confusing and a little too tempting.
She taped a paint sample up near the counter, leaned back to assess it, then turned to grab another… and tripped.
Her sneaker caught on the leg of a stool that Riley must’ve pushed half out of the way, and Lydia went down in a scramble of limbs and a high-pitched, “ Oh crap— !” echoed onto the sidewalk.
The crate hit the sidewalk before I even realized I’d dropped it.
I was already moving, heart punching hard into my ribs like I’d been yanked by a string straight through the chest as I darted through the door.
“Lydia?”
She was already sitting up, tangled in her own legs, one hand braced on the floor, the other still gripping a paint swatch like it might defend her honor.
Riley stood nearby, wide-eyed but trying not to laugh. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Lydia muttered, cheeks flushed, brushing her hair out of her face. “I was just testing the durability of the floor. It passed.”
I cleared my throat.
Lydia looked up.
And blinked.
“Callum?”
I stepped fully inside, glancing down at her, unsure if I should offer her a hand or back away before my chest cracked open.
“You fell,” I said, because apparently my brain had turned to mush.
Her lips twitched. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“You hit anything?”
“My pride.”
I glanced at Riley, who just looked amused now.
“She’s fine,” she said. “More embarrassed than hurt, I suspect.”
I looked back at Lydia, who was still sitting on the floor and staring up at me like I was the weird one.
Maybe I was.
Because the sight of her on the ground—frustrated, flushed, real—had done something to me. Tugged at something I’d thought was buried under years of stubborn independence and self-preservation.
Without thinking, I offered her a hand.
She hesitated for a second, then took it.
Her palm was warm and a little sticky with tape residue, and her fingers curled around mine like she didn’t expect me to be gentle, but I was.
I pulled her to her feet, slow and steady, and tried very hard not to think about how close we were standing.
“Thanks,” she said, not letting go right away.
I didn’t either.
Then we both realized it at the same time and dropped hands like we’d touched a live wire.
Riley cleared her throat loudly and grabbed another chair.
“I’m gonna, um, go tape these up on the other wall. You two enjoy your… whatever this is.”
Lydia shot her a glare as she walked away. “Traitor.”
I tried to back up, reset, remember why I’d come in here in the first place.
Right. She fell.
And now she was standing in front of me with paint on her calf, hair sticking to her cheek, and a look in her eyes that knocked the wind right out of me.
“You don’t have to panic every time I enter a building you’re in,” she said after a beat.
“I didn’t panic.”
“You dropped a crate of beer in the street.”
“That was unrelated.”
Her mouth quirked. “Right.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, scowling. “You should pay attention to where you’re walking.”
“I did. I just didn’t expect Riley to weaponize her furniture.”
We stared at each other for a beat longer than we probably should have.
The air between us had shifted again. No more barking, no more flung sarcasm. Just this… hum. Low and steady. A pull I didn’t want to name.
“I should…” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder toward the door. “I’ve got responsibilities.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. And I’ve got a… bruise forming.”
“Put some ice on it.”
“I’ve got an entire freezer full of ice cream.”
I hesitated. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m always okay,” she said.
But her voice was softer this time.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
So I did what I always did.
I turned and left.
But the image of her smiling at me, cheeks flushed and paint-smeared and impossible not to notice?
Yeah. That one stayed.
Long after I picked up the crate again.
Long after I walked down the street.
And long after, I told myself to stop thinking about her altogether.
The crate of beer was back in my hands, but my head wasn’t in it. My feet slowed, stalled. And finally, I gave in.
I turned.
Through the front window of Bean There, Done That , Lydia was fussing with her shirt, trying to pull it back into place where it had ridden up during her fall. Her fingers smoothed the hem, then raked back through her hair as she blew out a breath and looked around like she needed something to focus on—anything but what had just happened.
I saw it.
The flush still on her cheeks. The way her weight shifted from one leg to the other, restless and full of something too tangled to name.
And then, like she felt me watching, her eyes flicked up and caught mine through the glass.
We both froze.
There was a beat—maybe half a second, maybe a lifetime—where neither of us looked away. Her lips parted slightly. I swear I saw her chest rise like she’d sucked in a sharp breath.
And suddenly, I wasn’t thinking.
I was moving.
I walked back to Lydia, pushed open the door, and let it chime.
Riley was at the far end of the coffee shop with her back turned, taping up color swatches. Lydia stood dead center in the floor, her arms crossed tight, like she hadn’t expected me to come back.
Truthfully? I hadn’t either.
But something had shifted.
I wasn’t here for banter or bickering or another round of backhanded compliments.
I was here because I couldn’t stay away.
“You okay?” I asked again, softer this time. “No sarcasm. No me being dick. Just, are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
But her voice was low and uneven, like maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been knocked off balance by all… this .
“I should’ve watched my step,” she added. “It was a dumb move.”
I took a step closer. “It wasn’t dumb.”
She eyed me. “You looked like you were ready to call 911.”
“You didn’t see how fast you went down.”
“I tripped, Callum. Not got hit by a car.”
“Still.”
Another beat passed.
The silence stretched, but it wasn’t awkward.
It was heavy. Thick. Charged.
Like if either one of us moved the wrong way, the whole damn room might explode.
She cleared her throat. “So… did you come back to tell me I’m a liability to the structural integrity of your beer crates?”
I let the corner of my mouth twitch. “Thought about it.”
Her gaze dropped to my mouth for a split second, and I felt it like a hand on my skin.
Dangerous.
This woman was dangerous.
“You got paint on your leg,” I said, because it was either that or tell her she looked good enough to drive a man mad.
She looked down, flustered. “Yeah. I’ve kind of given up fighting it. I’m half primer at this point. It’s from the hallway between the laundromat and nail salon.”
“It suits you.”
She blinked up at me.
I shouldn’t have said that.
I definitely shouldn’t have meant it.
But I did.
Every time I saw her, she was doing something…fixing, moving, building. And every time, I found myself more caught up in her than the last.
“You’re not what I expected,” I said quietly.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You thought I’d be some latte-sipping city girl who’d try to turn the building into an artisan wine cave?”
“I didn’t think you’d care about Reckless River.”
She looked away at that, toward the taped-up swatches. “I care too much, actually. That’s kind of my problem.”
I stepped a little closer. “Why’d you really come here, Lydia?”
She looked back at me. “Because I was stuck. Because I lost someone and needed to start over somewhere that didn’t look like my old life.”
That hit me like a punch to the chest.
Loss…
I didn’t know what I expected her to say, but it wasn’t that. Not something real. Not something that matched the ache I’d been trying to hide in myself for years.
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
And she didn’t fill the silence. She just stood there, watching me.
Open.
Honest.
Vulnerable in a way I wasn’t ready for but couldn’t ignore.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” she said finally. “I just want to build something that lasts.”
I let out a slow breath. “You picked the right town for it.”
Her smile was small and a little sad. “Not everyone agrees.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t agree.”
She arched a brow. “You sure had a funny way of showing it.”
I stepped in before I could stop myself, close enough to smell the citrus in her shampoo and see the freckles on her collarbone.
Her eyes widened just slightly.
“Maybe I just didn’t know how to say it.”
We were standing so close now that I could feel the heat coming off her skin. She tilted her chin up slightly to look at me, and I swear the entire room held its breath.
“You don’t strike me as someone who struggles with words,” she whispered.
“I do when they matter.”
Her mouth parted just a little.
I leaned in, just an inch, barely even a movement, but her breath hitched like it was a kiss.
It wasn’t.
But it could’ve been.
If I let it.
If I let her in.
And that was the part that scared me more than anything else.
So I pulled back. Just enough.
Just to breathe.
“You really okay?” I asked again, voice rough now.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
I turned then, before I could make a decision that I couldn’t walk back.
Before I could reach for her and give in to the thing that had been burning low and steady between us since the day she walked into my bar with that fire in her eyes.
But as I reached the door, I heard her voice behind me—quiet, teasing, but laced with something that went straight to the gut.
“You’re not what I expected, Callum.”
I paused.
But I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t.
Because if I did?
I might not leave.