37. Callum
THIRTY-SEVEN
CALLUM
The sky was the color of old pewter, streaked with the watery light of a sun not quite ready to rise.
I couldn’t sleep.
I hadn’t, really, for two nights now, stuffed into a bedside chair as I sat with Wes in the hospital.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Wes’s face—his expression slack with pain, his voice a whisper through gritted teeth as they wheeled him past me in the hall.
I saw Hayes, too, pale and too still in that hospital chair, his hands shaking when he thought no one was watching.
For Wes, the road to recovery would be long but he wasn’t going to walk it alone. I finally came up for air when the nurse told me I stank and insisted I get at least one good night’s sleep away from the hospital.
And a shower.
Back at the inn, the dark sky hung heavy. Damp. Still. In the distance, the lake was quiet in a way that felt sacred.
I had needed that shower more than I realized.
After I’d let the water run cold, I pulled a T-shirt over my head and shoved my feet into my boots, not bothering with laces.
The screen door of the inn creaked open behind me as I stepped into the thick early-morning air, my breath forming ghostly clouds in front of me.
Everything was silvered with dew—the grass, the fence posts, the lower branches of the trees, like the world had been dipped in silence and sealed in glass.
I didn’t have a destination in mind. Just a pull. Like if I kept walking, I might find something worth holding on to out there. Stan walked the land every single morning he was alive, and something about that called to me, so I set out walking.
The orchard stretched ahead of me in neat, winding rows.
The fog hung low between the rows, thick and unmoving, like grief with no place to go.
The damp air clung to my skin. It didn’t smell like apples yet—not quite—but the earth was sweet with the memory of last year’s harvest. All around me, it felt like everything was holding its breath.
Every scraggly tree felt familiar now, even though I hadn’t planted them. They’d been Stan’s, then Elodie’s. Maybe someday they’d be someone else’s, but for the moment, in the haze of dawn and grief, they felt like mine too.
My boots left dark prints in the grass, wet with dew and regret.
I thought about Wes—strong, loyal Wes—hooked up to machines, unaware that his entire life had just shifted sideways. I thought about the way he’d looked out for me in the Army. The way he still did, even when I didn’t ask.
He hadn’t hesitated.
He’d just shoved Hayes out of the way and taken the hit himself .
I stopped walking, swallowing hard, and leaned a hand against the closest tree.
It was never supposed to be this way. Wes was supposed to be invincible.
I remembered him crouched beside me in the dark, desert wind whipping through a busted-out window in Kandahar, his voice low and even as he dressed a bullet graze on my side.
“You’ll be fine,” he’d said, steady as hell. “You’re too stubborn to die.”
And now? He was in a hospital bed while the rest of us fell apart. Wes was steady. Reliable. But my friend would never be the same.
None of us would.
I tilted my head back and stared up at the starless morning sky. The fog clung to the air like it belonged there.
I thought about Levi and how he’d looked at me when I told him what had happened—scared but steady.
He hadn’t said much when I told him. Just nodded, jaw tight, eyes wide and haunted.
I caught him watching me when he thought I wasn’t looking, like he wasn’t sure how to be a kid when the adults around him couldn’t promise they’d keep standing. That scared me more than anything.
I thought about the Drifted Spirit, how hard I’d worked to keep it afloat. And I thought about the restaurant. The big dream. The one that had kept me moving all this time.
But it didn’t shine the same way anymore.
Not since her.
Not since Elodie Darling and her hideous green boots and oversize shirts and the way she looked at this land like it was something holy.
I wondered whether Elodie had slept. The crunch of gravel behind me was soft but certain. I didn’t need to turn to know exactly who it was.
Her scent hit me first—floral and lemon and something sweeter underneath. Then came the warmth of her presence, the subtle shift of air as she stepped up beside me.
Elodie didn’t speak but instead held out a steaming mug. Her fingers lingered against mine, just long enough to make the air between us buzz. She looked up at me like she wanted to say something but didn’t trust her voice, so she let the heat from the mug do the talking.
I took it without a word, letting our fingers brush. Her hands were cold from the morning air, but mine were colder.
We stood there for a long minute. Shoulder to shoulder. Two silhouettes in the fog.
The coffee burned my tongue, but I didn’t care.
“You okay?” she asked, her voice soft and low.
I thought about lying and giving her a nod and a smile and telling her everything was fine, but I was tired of pretending.
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
She exhaled quietly. “Me neither.”
We stood like that, not talking, not moving. Just breathing. The fog was starting to lift, the orchard slowly taking shape again in the early light.
I glanced sideways at her. She was wearing a hoodie that swallowed her whole, bare legs peeking out from beneath it, the toes of her boots damp from the grass.
Her bare legs were dusted with dew, and the curve of her neck disappeared into the oversize collar.
She looked like a dream painted in muted watercolors—and all I could think was how badly I wanted to keep her safe.
To keep her.
Her curls were pulled back into a loose knot, and there were smudges under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept much either .
“Didn’t expect to see you out here,” I said finally.
She sipped her coffee. “Didn’t expect to find you either. But ... I sort of hoped.”
That pulled something loose in my chest. Something I hadn’t realized I’d been clinging to.
The words hovered behind my teeth, burning for release. I almost said them then— I love you —but it didn’t feel right. Not yet. Not until I was certain I could give her everything she deserved.
“El,” I said, and my voice broke a little. I cleared my throat. “I’ve been thinking a lot about ... everything.”
She didn’t interrupt, but tilted her head toward me, listening.
“I keep looking at all the versions of life I’ve tried to build,” I continued. “Levi. The inn. The restaurant. I thought if I could just get one thing right, everything else would settle.”
The breeze stirred the leaves above us, a low rustling sound that felt like it was listening too.
“But my time with you? That’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel ... alive.”
Her breath hitched and fuck it , I was too exhausted to keep denying it.
“I love you,” I said.
Her head whipped toward me, eyes wide, mouth parting like she hadn’t been ready for it. She swayed slightly, like I’d knocked the wind out of her with three little words. Her lips remained parted, breath shallow, and her fingers went slack around the coffee mug.
“I’ve been holding it in,” I said, the truth catching in my throat.
“Every time you laugh. Every time you fight like hell for this place. Every time you look at me like maybe I’m enough.
I’ve been falling, Elodie. I love you and not in a someday, maybe kind of way.
Not if things work out or when the timing’s better. I love you now. Completely.”
I turned to face her fully.
“Even if all I get to do is bring you coffee and fix fences, Elodie, I’m in. I’m all in.”
She blinked. Once. Twice, and then her coffee slipped from her hand into the grass, forgotten.
My heart pounded like a war drum. I’d said too much. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe I’d broken something that had only just started to heal.
I started to step back—to apologize—when she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her cheek to my chest like she needed to hear the truth in my heartbeat.
I held her there, fingers curling into the fabric of her hoodie, burying my nose in her hair.
The orchard stretched out around us, glowing gold with the morning light.
She clutched the front of my shirt like she was afraid I’d disappear.
Elodie’s voice was flooded with emotion.
Her voice shook. “You wrecked me, Callum Blackwood. And I don’t even care.
I love you so damn much I can’t see straight.
” Her eyes blazed as they searched mine.
“I got the money. I don’t know how or why, but it’s happening.
I can’t stand the idea of some stranger taking it away from us.
” Her words ran into one another as she rambled.
“But I don’t want you to think that I’m taking this lightly.
I know what it means for you to not have the restaurant, I?—”
My mouth found hers and I squeezed her tight, willing the moment to stretch on forever. No matter what came next, that moment was special. It was ours. Everything else could be figured out later.
For the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like I was standing in someone else’s story. I felt like I was home.