Chapter 25
Dallas
I stop at Serena Oliver’s classroom to make sure she’s taken care of sending out the details of the field trip tomorrow, but the room is dark. Santiago empties her garbage can into his cart, tipping his chin at me.
Did she leave already?
I guess I’ll see her tomorrow. I don’t really want to see the caverns—again. Some babysitter took us when we were kids and Macon was off in the Marines.
But I would love to not be accessible to Callum for twenty-four hours.
I sigh and head back to my classroom, the irony not escaping me. I’m thinking about him in order to work out ways for him to think about me.
Stepping into my room, I spot Anna-Katherine sitting on the window ledge, playing with…
I peer closer, resisting turning on the lights, because she likes the candles. She twists a blade in her hand, touching the tip with her other finger.
Is that the pocketknife I gave her? I’d forgotten about it.
She must sense me, because she looks over, perking up.
I walk to my desk.
“Do you want this back?” she asks.
I open a drawer and remove my phone from the charger. “Do you want it?” I ask.
She seems enamored, and hey, I’m not against her having a weapon on her. Not at all.
Right away, she nods. “Peter Pan had a blade.”
Turning my ringer back on, I swipe for notifications. “Thieves, spies, assassins, ninjas…” I chime in.
“Pirates,” she adds.
Students aren’t allowed to carry anything dangerous on campus, but a pocketknife is a tool. And she’s not a student.
I don’t know how often her “episodes” happen or what she might do with a knife, but I don’t think I want to take it away from her. The world has taken enough.
“You seem even happier than usual,” I tease.
“Did you see Milo Price leave earlier?” she asks, studying the blade in front of her face. “Looked like his hands were broken.”
Milo Price? The muscles in my neck tense. Callum had him here?
But then the second part of what she said registers. His hands were broken?
“He hurts girls with his hands, you know?” she whispers.
I would’ve known if the police were here, which means they weren’t.
“My brother is so cool,” she coos, smiling at the blade.
Callum attacked him? Hm, looks like he has some balls, after all. Giving himself enemies on two fronts is stupid, though.
Anna-Katherine inhales a big breath and jumps off the ledge. “He says you’re supposed to give me a ride.”
She picks up her backpack and water bottle.
I tilt my head. “I am?”
Asshole knew better than to ask me, at least.
She takes my hand, tugging. “Come on.” I grab my car keys and slide my phone into my pocket. “Hurricane’s coming, didn’t you hear? He had to go tee off one more time, and the lady bartender at Fox Hill makes me the best virgin banana daiquiris.”
I follow her, confused, though. She knows the Wolfe Room is at Fox Hill Country Club. Perhaps she separates them in her head. Or maybe she forgot.
In no time, we’re coasting through the town, toward the golf course.
She lays her head out the window, letting out all of my air conditioning, but I can’t help smiling.
Her eyes are closed, her hair blows out of her ponytail, and it’s been ages since I did that.
In fact, I can’t remember ever doing that.
Maybe I just saw Trace doing it when we were growing up.
“Did you have fun with the girls yesterday?” I ask her.
“Uh-huh.” She pops her head up. “They made me laugh.”
Good. Not that I was worried when I came home and she asked if she could have the day off to go paint shopping with Liv, Clay, and Krisjen.
I thought maybe she’d feel out of place, though. Only rarely do I get glimpses of the woman she’s buried within herself, so I wondered if she’d related to the conversation.
“I wish you all lived here.” She lays her head back down. “I wish we lived there.”
“Do you have friends in St. Carmen?” I ask. “Or are they all at college?”
I know the answer without asking. Any friends she had, she lost. Another level to the suffering that wasn’t her fault. I just don’t want to think that she has no one.
But she smiles to herself. “I have you,” she states. “And Callum.”
As if we’re a team. A family.
I’ll grant her that, though. When it comes to her, I’ll be on his side, now that I know what he does to the people closest to him who hurt her. I can’t wait to see what happens to his father.
When I glance back over at her, her eyes are open, gazing at me.
I cruise up the drive to the country club. “What?”
“You have a nice family,” she tells me. “I wish Callum and I had that.”
“You have each other.”
She falls silent, dark strands blowing across her eyes. “Not really.” Her eyes close. “He’s all alone.”
I turn my head away, gazing at the green as we drive past. Would Callum be after my family if I’d never broken his heart?
I’d love to fucking believe he’d be how he is in any life, but I can’t help feeling that he and his stepsister are in league against the world and everyone who ever hurt them.
Do I blame them?
If Callum has the Bay, he’ll be unstoppable in St. Carmen. No one will be able to touch him, and if no one can afford to challenge him, then they better not touch her. It keeps them both safe.
I’m not responsible for his emotional immaturity, though, any more than he is mine. It’s not always about beating other people. Sometimes your only job is to survive them.
That being said, I’d probably be doing exactly what he is right now.
Anna-Katherine presses my phone screen, skipping the song, and I tug her ponytail. “No one touches the radio.”
She laughs, and I smile, pulling into a parking spot.
She points to the second hole, about fifty yards away. “There he is.”
I could just leave her, but I want to make sure Milo isn’t around. Or anyone who might stir up memories for her.
She seems alert, too, letting her hesitant eyes wander around, but the course appears empty. It’s almost a hundred fucking degrees.
As soon as we get closer, she skips up to Callum. “It’s too hot,” she teases.
Sweat mats the hair at his temples, his backward cap not doing a thing to shield him from the sun. He stands with Vincent and Jerome, all of their shirts already discarded. His long, fucking amazing body is tanned, darker than it was just last night.
He embraces her in a side hug, but she squirms away. “Sweaty.” She grimaces.
“Did you have a good day?” he asks, not sparing me a glance.
She smiles, her shoulders relaxing. She feels safe with these three.
“Therese is going to take you in.” He gestures to the beer cart girl sitting under the trees with her feet up. “Celeste wants to show you how to make your favorite drink.”
She leaps up, excited. “Can I drive?” she shouts, running to Therese Beltran and completely forgetting about me.
In moments, she’s speeding away with the beer cart, and I loosen my tie. I assume he wanted me to bring her instead of sending their driver because he has things to say.
“Thank you for bringing her,” he tells me.
“Didn’t have much of a choice.”
He nudges a ball with his club. “Well, you are getting free labor out of her.”
I won’t point out that I never asked for an assistant. I’m glad she’s there, and I don’t want her hearing otherwise.
He sets the ball down on the tee, measuring up. “Actually, we needed to speak to you.”
I drift closer, his friends draining their beers and leering.
“We’ve replaced Ms. Oliver’s chaperone for her trip to the caverns at Mariana,” Callum informs me. “You won’t be going.”
Holding back my smirk, I watch him take his shot.
“That’s fine,” I shout in his backswing.
His ball goes high rather than far, the tiny white sphere disappearing into the rough.
“Maybe I’ll go up there for dinner Saturday night, though,” I taunt. “My weekends are mine.”
“Not this one.” He strolls back to me. “You’ll be in jail.”
A round of laughter goes off, Watson stepping to the tee.
“Do you notice?” I lower my voice. “When I’m winning, I don’t need an audience to pat me on the back?”
Callum curls his mouth in a sly smile to hide the fact that he’s not strong on his own.
Sliding his golf club back into his bag, he picks up his beer and takes a drink. I start to leave.
“If you make it home Friday night,” he calls out. “I’ll call off the curfew.”
Friday night.
Tomorrow night.
Pivoting back around, I slide my hands into my pockets and wait.
“On one condition,” he tells me.
“I’m listening.”
He strolls up to me again, his friends flanking him.
“You play with our women,” he states. “Bring one for me.”
Excuse me? My brain shifts between knowing what he’s capable of after Liv and suspecting he’s not serious, considering his stepsister. What does he want a Bay girl for?
“Someone who can be patient with me,” he whispers.
And realization dawns. Someone who understands that he wants to look like he’s enjoying it.
“The one with the thighs.” He looks to Watson. “What’s her name?”
“Diaz,” Jerome says, zoning in on me.
Aracely?
Why her?
“And then if you both make it home,” Callum announces, “I’ll call off the curfew.”
So we’re upping the stakes. I give him the show he wants to put on in the Wolfe Room, and he’ll give us a chance.
His blue eyes play with me. “If you have the guts to bring her…”
“I won’t be able to stop her,” I tell him.
He has no idea what happens when anyone challenges Aracely Diaz to rise to the occasion.
Spinning around, I take off and head home, grinning damn near the whole way.
Until I remember that she’s for him tomorrow night. He won’t want her. He won’t like it.
But she might.
She’ll be kissing him, and it’ll be a look at what’s in store for him. Even a wife he isn’t attracted to will have a level of intimacy with him that someone he really loves won’t.
And Aracely is going to charge me for this. It won’t be money, but I guarantee I’ll have to fork over something I don’t want to give up. She loves to make Iron and me mad.
We weren’t the best boyfriends.
Heading into Mariette’s, I slip through the kitchen and stop at her office, where she manages everything to do with the restaurant and about a dozen other things my brother entrusts her with.
I lean on the doorframe. “So you know I’d do anything for you, right?”
She darts her eyes up, glowering.