Chapter Thirteen
Grace didn’t know what she expected would happen next, but Callum took her to lunch without kissing her again or revealing thoughts that were better left as a secret. There had been no indication he had melted her to the wall and left her gasping.
What had she expected? It wasn’t as if he would hold her hand or something during a perfectly amicable lunch.
But she also hadn’t expected the way she was suddenly more comfortable around him.
They acted as if this were their normal routine.
One that was dripping with tension and chemistry. But incredibly, absurdly normal.
They ate lunch. They returned to Alicia’s home. They did everything they would have done had this been years ago, before she had met Dominic.
After lunch, Grace went back to work, but this time her creative block was gone, and she lost herself in the book cover project. She wasn’t sure how Callum spent the hours. They weren’t avoiding each other exactly. They were simply ignoring what had happened.
Except, even with an epic level of focus on work, she could practically sense him walking throughout the house. She held her breath anytime his footsteps neared the stairs, wondering if he would make his way into her bedroom and kiss her again.
Seriously, was she twenty years old? Stop thinking about him.
Argos and Toto barked in unison downstairs, shouting doggy joy that Alicia had returned. They noisily scampered from the front window to the front door, seesawing back and forth in a way that Alicia would never believe her well-behaved fur babies would act.
Would she tell Alicia that she’d kissed Callum? Hmm.
That would most definitely change Alicia’s opinion of him.
She had been impervious to Callum’s charm, and Callum seemed to like that about Alicia. Almost as if he were the one who had been charmed.
Alicia’s laughter boomed through the house, and Grace made her way to the kitchen filled with friendly banter. These two were so different from yesterday. She supposed that she and Callum were in a wildly different situation as well.
Callum was kicked back at the kitchen table with his long legs extended and his hands folded behind his head. A perfect picture of relaxation as he chatted with Alicia. “Hey, Grace.”
No sign he’d had her pressed to the wall earlier. Absolutely none. How was that even possible? “Hey, yourself.”
Alicia had her back toward them as she chopped chicken breast for Argos and Toto’s dinner. Her shoulders shook as she laughed. “You never told me about wanting to be a magician.”
Grace glared at Callum. “That’s because I was eight.”
“She’d do this disappearing act where she held up a sheet, would drop it, and duck into the hall.”
“I was eight.”
“Sometimes she’d get her dog in on the act. And no matter how bad, her stepmom would cheer and clap like Grace was Harry Houdini—wait, wasn’t that the name of your dog?”
Alicia didn’t stop laughing. “You’ve always been one for hiding.”
Grace’s heart squeezed. She would always miss Houdini. He was the best dog she ever had. “I was eight.” But she could hear the laughter in her voice. “Houdini was an excellent magician’s assistant.” Grace padded to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of lemonade. “How was the library?”
“Less exciting than it was yesterday.”
Callum snorted.
Yesterday morning, Grace had eaten breakfast, having no idea how her life would turn on its axis. Especially having no idea that Callum would kiss her into another universe.
Sherlock threaded in and out of Alicia’s legs, knowing that after the dogs were fed, she would top his food with the canned tuna.
Callum’s gaze locked on Grace and followed her every move. With the kisses fresh in her memory, she shivered and spared him a quick glance, immediately regretting it. Counter to his usual cool nature, the sexy gleam in his expression made clear he was also thinking about their kisses.
Grace was cognizant of where she stood, how she stood, how she folded her arms, then how she uncrossed them. Awareness ticked in her pulse, as if she were a woman starved for attention.
Seriously, she shouldn’t have kissed him.
Everything felt awkward and amplified, and she was as obvious as her eight-year-old self, showing off magic tricks of her disappearing act with her dog. Arousal flamed under her skin. Callum Hale was watching her. She wanted to scream.
Grace drank her lemonade and ignored him. Alicia put the dog bowls on their mats. Sherlock jumped onto the table and lifted his chin in an indignant show of impatience.
“You’d think there isn’t food sitting in his bowl right now.” Alicia swept Sherlock into her arms and ignored the dignified squirming as she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the container of tuna.
Sherlock purred his approval.
“Are we eating in or out?” Alicia added the tuna flakes to Sherlock’s bowl and petted the cat, who was devouring dinner like he hadn’t been fed in months. “I’m not in the mood to cook. Either of you want to play chef for the evening?”
“We went out to lunch earlier.” Grace never wanted to cook but would sous chef the hell out of whatever Alicia made. Not with Callum, though. They had enough heat to work with.
“Then you’re cooking for us?” Alicia pressed.
Nerves jumped in her stomach. She wasn’t good in the kitchen but had never cared if Alicia knew it. She shouldn’t care if Callum knew it. But she didn’t want him to see her fail at yet another thing, even if cooking dinner was low on the consequence scale.
“Yeah, I will,” Callum volunteered.
Alicia narrowed her eyes. “You cook?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Anyone can cook.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Grace added, with no natural ability in the kitchen beyond microwaving or following Alicia’s instructions.
Alicia scrutinized the oversized man in her cutesy kitchen. “Any good at it?”
His broad shoulders bunched again. “That’s subjective.”
Grace tore her focus from his form-hugging shirt and studied the pink KitchenAid mixer on the counter. It wasn’t the right time to notice Callum’s chest or the hard plane of his abdomen. Nor was it the right time to recall that was the same shirt she’d fisted a few hours ago.
“Wrong answer.” Alicia shook her head. “I’m too hungry to wait for anyone who doesn’t know how well they cook.”
He laughed. “I’m a good cook.”
“You can prove that to me later. What do we want for dinner, Grace?”
“I vote for ribs or tacos.” Any kind of food that required her to concentrate on how she was eating so that she wouldn’t fixate on Callum.
“Oh, same.” Alicia tilted her head at Callum and smiled. “You can vote for anything, but you’re automatically outvoted if you say something other than ribs or tacos.”
“I’m good with either.” His phone rang. Callum glanced at the screen. His smile flatlined. “Give me a minute to take this.”
Grace’s stomach bottomed out. His phone calls were never good news.
After Callum walked out the kitchen door to the backyard, Alicia whistled long and low. “Holy Mother Mary, what happened today?”
Grace sank onto the chair that Callum had abandoned. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me.”
“I don’t know why you’re giving me that look.” Except she totally did.
“So you and him…?” Alicia wriggled her eyebrows. “I thought you said there was no you-and-him. But obviously, you left some crucial details out.”
“There’s never been a me-and-him before. I told you that.”
“Honey, the way that man looks at you.” Alicia clucked her tongue. “You’re leaving out important details.”
“No way.” But she was certain her blushing cheeks gave her away.
“I know what I see.”
Grace pushed out of the chair but didn’t have anywhere to escape. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the lemonade again, topping off the glass that she’d barely sipped from. “Want some?”
“You’re telling me you two never ever? Never?”
Never ever didn’t mean kissing. “No. Never.”
“Well, what’s stopping you?”
That was an excellent question.
“See? Right there. That look.” Alicia hummed, nodding. “The way you want to protest but wouldn’t be stupid enough to say no. Nothing’s stopping you.”
“Alicia.”
“You’re not blind, so maybe just dense.” She shrugged, took the lemonade carafe out of Grace’s hand, and poured herself a glass. “I thought he noticed you at the library, but then I figured that was just the pepper spray.”
“It probably was.”
“But that growly, possessive way he watched you walk into the kitchen? Now that time I didn’t have to think. I know. I saw, double-checked, and saw again.”
“Can you really see that?” Grace could still feel his kiss on her lips. “No, whatever you saw was aggravation.” But was it? Kissing him could have burned the house down. “That’s not—”
Callum walked into the kitchen with his phone outstretched. “It’s Hayden.”
Hayden.
Talk about whiplash. From thinking about Callum like that to thinking about Hayden, who was one reason she shouldn’t think about kissing Callum.
God, wait a minute. She was a grown woman. Her brother should have absolutely nothing to do with her thoughts about Callum and wouldn’t keep her from kissing him again.
But that wasn’t the reason she wasn’t ready to talk to Hayden.
She didn’t know how much Callum had shared and didn’t want to admit to bouncing from one alias-rented house to another.
Now that Callum had forced her to slow down and talk about the decisions she had made, she saw how strange her life-after-fake-death looked.
“Grace?” Callum held out the phone.
She took it but didn’t press the phone to her ear. She needed a game plan, or at the very least, to sound confident in her decisions. Just because Dominic had found her didn’t mean she’d made the wrong choices.
“Callum and I will walk the dogs while you talk to your brother.”
A different type of panic sparked. If Alicia so much as breathed their never-ever conversation to Callum, Grace would fall over dead. She flashed her friend a pleading glance.