Chapter Twenty-Six
Lydia
I should have stayed back.
I knew that.
I’d seen Callum from the tree line, kneeling at the grave like something inside him had come undone. Even from a distance, the weight rolling off him was unmistakable.
And then I saw the name etched into stone.
Lucy Lynn Carter.
His wife.
The truth of it hit harder when it wasn’t just whispered in a coffee shop or told secondhand by someone who cared. It hit when it had a birth date. An end date. A patch of ground carved out of the world where a love story once bloomed and died.
And he was still kneeling in it.
Still breathing it.
I stood frozen, my hands trembling, my chest so tight it barely let the air through. When he looked up, just for a second, and saw me, his eyes darkened like I’d stepped into someplace sacred without permission.
Maybe I had.
Drew said something low to him and stood up, brushing his hands off on his jeans. When he passed me, he gave me a small, tight nod. The kind that said good luck and be gentle, and this might hurt all at once.
And then it was just me and Callum.
Still kneeling.
Still not saying a word.
I hesitated at the edge of the path, my feet digging into the soft earth.
Then I moved.
Not quickly.
Not loudly.
I just walked until I stood a few feet from him and folded my arms like armor over my chest.
“I didn’t follow you here,” I said softly.
“I know,” he muttered.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
He finally looked at me. Really looked at me. And it nearly shattered me.
Because there wasn’t hate in his eyes.
There was sorrow.
There was fear.
There was a man who was desperately trying to hold the past and the present in both hands without letting either slip.
“You can say it,” I added. “If you hate me. If you’re angry, I didn’t leave when I saw you here. If it’s too much.”
He rose slowly, brushing the dirt from his knees. His face was hard. His jaw set.
But I could see it.
The storm brewing under the surface.
“We can’t do this, Lydia.”
I swallowed.
“Whatever this is,” he continued, “it can’t happen. Not like this. Not with you.”
Something in me snapped at that. “Why not with me?”
“Because you deserve better than this,” he ground out. “Better than a man who’s still bleeding all over the place. Better than someone who kisses you one day and ends up at his wife’s grave the next.”
I blinked hard. “You think I don’t know that?”
He looked at me sharply.
I felt my throat tighten. “I know about Lucy.”
Silence.
“I didn’t mean to,” I added quickly. “Riley told me. I didn’t ask, and I didn’t pry, but she thought I should know. And maybe she was right, but I should have told you that I knew. I should’ve been honest.”
Callum stared at me, unreadable.
“And then I kissed you,” I said, my voice wobbling. “I knew what you’d lost and still kissed you like I had a right to. Like it wouldn’t hurt you. And I am so, so sorry.”
His breath came out hard with no words.
“I didn’t mean to cross any lines. I just… couldn’t stop myself.”
The truth of it burned in my chest.
Because I hadn’t kissed him to win a fight. I hadn’t done it to prove a point or to claim some sort of petty power.
I kissed him because I wanted to feel alive.
And maybe, so did he.
He took a step closer, eyes locked on mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Callum—”
“I mean it,” he said, his voice low. “You didn’t force your way in. You didn’t break anything that wasn’t already cracked. I kissed you back because I wanted to. Because I’ve wanted to since the moment you marched into my bar with that look in your eyes like you were going to dismantle my world.”
“You thought I’d ruin it,” I said.
“No,” he admitted. “I thought you’d ruin me. ”
God.
His words hit somewhere deep, sharp, and aching.
“And now?” I asked.
He looked down at his hands. At the ring still threaded on the chain around his neck.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I know I feel things I haven’t in years when I'm around you. Good things. Hard things. Real things.”
“Isn’t that worth something?”
“It is,” he said quietly. “And that’s the problem.”
My throat ached. “Because it feels like you’re betraying her?”
He didn’t answer.
But he didn’t have to.
Because I saw it in his face.
“I’m not asking you to forget her,” I whispered.
He met my eyes again.
“I’m just asking you not to forget yourself. ”
The wind stirred the trees. The graveyard around us felt suspended in time. He stood inches from me, heart locked behind a door he didn’t know how to open.
I didn’t try to touch him.
I just stood beside him, the weight of grief and want tangled in the air between us.
He looked toward the grave one more time. And then, finally, back at me.
“Let me walk you away,” he said quietly.
And I knew then…whatever we were?
It wasn’t over.
But it would hurt like hell before we figured out what it meant.
He helped me into his vehicle.
The truck ride back was quiet.
Not tense. Not angry. Just… full. The kind of silence that buzzed like static in your ears, every second heavy with things we hadn’t said.
Callum kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gear shift like he kept himself grounded. His profile was unreadable with jaw tight, lips a firm line, brows furrowed like he was trying to solve a problem with no clean answer.
I didn’t try to fill the quiet.
I couldn’t.
Every time I opened my mouth, something sharp tried to claw its way out, and I didn’t have it in me to bleed again. Not right now.
He pulled into the back lot of the Rusty Stag, his headlights cutting a familiar path across the gravel, and parked in his usual spot without a word.
I hesitated, hand hovering near the door handle.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said, my voice thinner than I meant it to be.
He nodded once. “You sure you’re okay?”
No.
But I nodded anyway.
He didn’t stop me when I climbed out. Didn’t offer to walk me the block to my place. And that was fine.
Except it wasn’t.
I stood there for a second under the flickering security light, watching him disappear inside the bar. My chest ached with the weight of everything unsaid. And the idea of going back to my apartment alone with peeling paint, unanswered questions, and a bed too cold made my skin crawl.
So instead, I followed him.
The Rusty Stag was almost empty, and a few locals tucked into their usual booths. The low hum of conversation, clinking glasses, and the distant croon of something old on the jukebox warmed the space. I didn’t know if I wanted comfort or to be numb, but I sat at the far end of the bar anyway, the one closest to the kitchen.
Drew spotted me before I even opened my mouth. His smile was easy, full of something softer.
“I’m starving,” I admitted.
“Chicken tenders?”
“Please. With fries. And… something fizzy.”
“You got it.”
He gave me a little wink and walked off, and for a moment, I could pretend things were fine. That I hadn’t just stood at a stranger’s grave and poured my heart out to someone who made me want things I wasn’t ready for.
The food came fast, greasy, golden, and perfect. I ate like I hadn’t had a real meal in days. Which, now that I thought about it, might’ve been true.
Drew kept checking in, topping off my water, asking questions about the coffee shop reno, nodding like he actually cared. And maybe he did. He had kind eyes and that same quiet steadiness Callum had, just wrapped in warmth instead of walls.
But every time he smiled, my eyes strayed to the far side of the bar.
Where he was.
Callum.
I could feel him.
Even though he hadn’t looked my way once since I sat down.
Until I set my fork down on an empty plate.
That’s when I felt his presence again.
He came out of the kitchen holding something wrapped in a paper napkin. Pie. Of course.
He slid it in front of me without a word, then took the stool beside me like he hadn’t been emotionally exorcising ghosts thirty minutes ago.
“Apple,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, staring at the flaky crust.
It looked like something my mom would’ve made. Not fancy. A little crooked. A little too golden around the edges. But full of love.
I didn’t take a bite.
Instead, I asked quietly, “Do you ever wonder how much one moment can change everything?”
He didn’t answer right away. But he didn’t walk away either.
So I went on.
“I lost my mom seven months ago,” I said, voice barely above the hum of the bar. “It was… fast. Cancer. One minute she was helping me hang wallpaper samples in my shoebox of an apartment, and the next, I was emptying her medicine cabinet.”
Callum didn’t speak, but he turned toward me, his body angling like he was really listening.
“She was my best friend. The only real family I had. And when she was gone, I didn’t know who I was anymore.”
I swallowed hard. My fingers curled around the edge of the napkin.
“I thought maybe if I did something big , I could outrun it. Buying this building felt like… I don’t know. Purpose. Like maybe if I fixed something broken, I’d stop feeling so broken myself.”
Callum exhaled slowly. “That why you came here?”
“Partly,” I said. “It was her dream, too. To see me use my degree. To create something that felt like mine. Prepare for the future.”
I finally looked up.
He was watching me.
And it wasn’t pity in his eyes.
It was recognition.
“Why Reckless River?” he asked quietly.
“Because it was far enough from the city that I could breathe again,” I whispered. “And small enough that I hoped I could start over.”
He nodded slowly, something shifting in his expression.
I looked down at the pie again.
“I’m not trying to ruin your bar,” I added.
“I know.”
“And I’m not trying to replace anyone.”
His jaw tensed, but he didn’t pull away.
“I don’t need you to be anything you’re not, Callum,” I said. “But I’d like to know who you are underneath all that armor.”
For a long time, he said nothing.
Just reached for the fork and cut off a small bite of pie. He held it out to me, balanced on the tines like a peace offering.
I took it.
Sweet, warm, cinnamon-rich.
And for the first time in days, something settled in my chest.
Not peace exactly.
But maybe the start of it.