Chapter 9 #2
"I love you." He says it again, steadier this time.
"I know it's fast. I know it's crazy. But I love you, Callie.
I love how fierce you are—with your patients, with your practice, with protecting what you've built.
I love that you're beautiful and have no idea how beautiful you are.
I love that you called me on my bullshit from day one and never stopped.
I love watching you work because you care so damn much about getting it right. "
His hands drop to his sides, no longer reaching for me. The fight drains out of his posture—shoulders curling inward, head dropping slightly. When he looks up again, there's no charm, no easy confidence. Just raw honesty.
"I love how you make me want to be better. How you look at me like I'm more than just a pilot with a ridiculous call sign. Like I'm someone worth choosing." His voice drops. "I've spent twenty years not knowing what I wanted. Then I met you and I knew. And I thought—I hoped—that might matter."
My throat closes. "Of course it matters."
"Then come with me." He reaches for my hands again.
I pull away. "I can't."
"Can't or won't?" His voice hardens.
"Both." I can't stop crying. "I can't uproot my entire life on thirteen days and a feeling. And I won't be punished for saying that."
"I'm not punishing you."
"Then why does this feel like an ultimatum? Come to Texas or we're done?"
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying, Dean? Because from where I'm standing, it sounds like you've already made your choice and you're just waiting for me to fall in line."
He runs both hands through his hair. "I don't know what you want me to do. I can't stay here. The Air Force isn't offering me Pine Valley as an option. It's overseas or Texas. Those are my choices."
"I know."
"So what do you want?"
"I want you to have asked instead of assumed. I want you to have had this conversation with me before you had it with Jake. I want—" My voice breaks. "I want this to be different than last time."
His expression shifts. Softens. "It is different."
"How?"
He takes a step toward me. "I'm still here."
I back away until I hit the counter. "For now."
The tears spill over. I swipe at them angrily.
"Callie—"
"You should go." I point to the door, my hand shaking.
"I don't want to go."
"I need you to go. Please."
He stands there for a long moment, hurt flickering across his face. Then he nods once, sharp and military, and heads for the door.
Biscuit lifts his head, watches Dean leave, then looks at me with an expression that clearly says you screwed that up.
"I know," I tell him.
The metallic thunk of his truck door echoes from outside. The engine turns over. Gravel crunches under tires.
I don't move. Can't move. My hands grip the edge of the counter so hard my knuckles go white.
The engine sound grows fainter. Fainter. Then nothing.
Just me and the too-loud silence and the fact that I'm shaking so hard I might fall apart.
Then I grab my phone.
Sophie answers on the second ring. "What's wrong?"
"How did you—"
"You never call. You always text. If you're calling, something's wrong." I hear rustling, movement. "Give me twenty minutes. I'm bringing wine."
"Sophie—" My voice cracks.
"Do you need me to bring tissues?"
I swipe at my face with the back of my hand. "Probably."
"Ice cream?"
"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know."
"Got it. Be there soon. Love you." She hangs up before I can respond.
I sink onto the couch, Biscuit immediately jumping up to plant himself in my lap despite being technically too large for lap-dog status. He licks my chin once—his version of comfort—and settles his considerable weight against my chest.
"I had to say no," I tell him. "Right? I had to."
He huffs. No judgment, just dog breath and warmth.
Sophie arrives in eighteen minutes, arms loaded with supplies. Two bottles of wine, a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, a box of fancy tissues, and—inexplicably—a bag of salt and vinegar chips.
"Talk," she orders, uncorking the wine with the efficiency of a field medic.
So I do. I tell her everything. The re-enlistment deadline. The Iron Creek offer. Jake already knowing. Dean's assumption that I'd just say yes. The fight. Tyler. All of it.
She listens without interrupting, refilling my glass twice, and doesn't say a word until I'm done.
"Do you love him?" she asks finally.
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Dean. Do you love him?"
"I've known him thirteen days."
"That's not what I asked."
The wine glass is cold in my hand. My other hand finds Biscuit's fur, stroking the soft spot behind his ears over and over. He leans into the touch, warm and solid and uncomplicated.
"I don't know."
"Liar."
"Sophie—"
"Your left eye is twitching."
"It is not—" I press my fingers to my eye. It's definitely twitching.
She reaches across the couch and takes my hand. "Cal. Babe. What are you actually afraid of?"
"That he'll leave when I say no."
"And what if he doesn't?"
I can't breathe. "Then I have to decide if I can trust that. If I can believe that this time is different. That he's different."
"Is he?"
I think about the lake. The way he remembered my coffee. The patience while I worked. The dog tags tangled in my hair. The way he looked at me yesterday morning like I was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
"Yeah," I whisper. "I think he is."
"So what's the real problem?"
"I want to go." I say it fast, before I can take it back. "That's what scares me. He said Texas and I thought 'maybe.' And that terrifies me."
Sophie squeezes my hand. "Why?"
"Because what if I say yes and he realizes I'm not worth it? What if I give up everything and six months from now he's bored or realizes this was too fast or decides actually, never mind, this was a mistake?"
"What if you say no and spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you'd been brave enough to try?
" Sophie leans forward. "What if ten years from now you're still here, still running the same practice, still safe, and you see some guy who reminds you of Dean and you think 'what if?
' What if you meet someone else and it's fine, it's good even, but it's not him?
What if the worst thing that happens isn't that you take a chance and it doesn't work out—what if the worst thing is that you never take the chance at all? "
The wine glass empties fast. "I hate it when you're insightful."
"Someone has to be. You're too busy being terrified." She tops off my glass. "For what it's worth, I don't think Dean's going anywhere. That man looks at you like you invented happiness."
"He didn't even ask, Soph. He just assumed."
"Which was stupid and wrong and very male of him." She takes a sip of her own wine. "But also kind of sweet? In a dumb, overconfident, 'I'm so sure you're going to say yes I already started planning our life together' kind of way?"
"That's not sweet."
"It's a little sweet."
"It's presumptuous."
"It's both." She shifts on the couch, tucking her legs under her. "Look, I'm not saying you should pack your bags tomorrow. But maybe don't shut the door completely? Maybe have another conversation when you're both less emotional and more rational?"
"I told him to leave." I pull my knees up to my chest.
"So call him back." Sophie holds out my phone.
I push it away. "I can't."
"Which is it? Can't, or won't?" She waves the phone at me.
I grab it and toss it onto the coffee table. "Stop using my own words against me."
"Stop being stubborn." She retrieves the phone and sets it pointedly next to my wine glass.
We sit in silence for a while, passing the ice cream back and forth, eating directly from the pint because we're adults and we can do what we want.
"He said he loves me," I say eventually.
Sophie nearly chokes on her wine. "What?"
"Tonight. During the fight. He said he loves me."
"And you said?"
"Nothing. I told him to leave."
"Callie Marie O'Connor."
"I know."
"That man stood in your kitchen and told you he loves you and you sent him away?"
"I panicked!"
"Clearly." She sets down her glass. "What do you want, Cal? Not what you think you should want. Not what's safe or logical or makes sense. What do you actually want?"
I lean back against the couch cushions, staring at the ceiling.
What do I want?
I want Dean's laugh. I want his terrible jokes and his patient hands and the way he looks at me like I'm the punchline he's been waiting for. I want more lake days and more coffee visits and more mornings waking up to his heart beating under my palm.
I want to not be scared all the time.
I want to believe that wanting something doesn't mean I'll lose it.
"I want him," I whisper. "God, I want him. And it terrifies me."
Sophie wraps her arms around me, and I let myself cry—really cry—for the first time since Dean walked out the door.
When I'm done, mascara smeared and tissues scattered around us like casualties, I feel somehow lighter. Emptier, but cleaner.
"What do I do?" I ask.
"I don't know, love." Sophie brushes hair off my forehead. "But you'll figure it out. You always do."
She stays until midnight, until the wine is gone and the ice cream is nothing but a memory and I've stopped crying. When she finally leaves, extracting promises to text her in the morning, the house feels too quiet.
The front porch is cool under my bare feet. Biscuit follows, nails clicking on wood. The night air is sharp, smelling like pine and spring rain. The mountains are dark shapes against darker sky, their snow-capped peaks barely visible in the moonlight.
Dean's truck is long gone. The road in front of my house is empty.
But I'm still here. Still standing. Still breathing.
Still terrified of how badly I want to say yes.
Biscuit nudges my leg, and I reach down to scratch behind his ears.
"What do you think, buddy? Am I making a huge mistake?"
He licks my hand. No judgment. Just dog love and the promise that whatever happens, he'll still be here.
The porch steps are cold. Biscuit settles against me, warm and solid, and I stare at the place where Dean's taillights disappeared.
Texas. I don't even know where Iron Creek is. Just somewhere in a state the size of three Colorados. A K9 operation that needs a vet.
And me, sitting here in Pine Valley, already knowing what I'm going to do.
Just not ready to do it yet.