Chapter 45
The WHP had just left, and she was beyond exhausted.
Claudia and Zach had both finally been called away.
Em and Junie had the girls at Gil’s. Em had covered the shift at the thrift store, then Junie had had a shift at the diner, but Gil had been there to watch all the girls, until Sage had gotten there to help him.
Her cousin was an absolute godsend—Auggie was more and more convinced of that every day. And his wife was amazing.
She and the girls wouldn’t have gotten through the last five months without them. Thankfully, both Gil and Sage—and Claudia—were fully recovered from what had happened with Morris Preston too.
The good guys had won that day. Auggie had told herself that repeatedly over the last five months.
Then it was just her.
And him.
Calloway.
He hadn’t left. Even when she’d told him she was fine—he’d said he wasn’t leaving her to face any of it alone. And every time she’d looked up and needed him, he’d been there. She was still wrapping her head around that one.
It had been a long time since she’d depended on anyone other than Em, Junie, Sage and Claudia—and Gil.
And now…Cal.
She’d found time to shower earlier—while Cal had overseen the WHP.
She’d left him with a Weatherby on each side of him in her living room.
Three incredibly beautiful men, but Cal just stood out.
Maybe it was because she’d watched him get right between his sister and Ransom Weatherby instinctively.
Protectively. Or how he’d had to hug Markie and Tobi three times each—Tobi had insisted—before he’d helped them carry their bags to Em’s van.
How he’d tried to reassure Em, Jan, and Junie that everything would be okay.
It made her feel even more twisted up inside.
“So…I can drive you to Gil’s. Or follow you,” was all he said after Ransom and Rex Weatherby had taken off, after their little troops of arrogance had left. Rex Weatherby had had thirty patrolmen parked in her front yard. Fanning out.
Looking for her father.
As if her father was still on her land somewhere.
Her father wasn’t that stupid. She didn’t think.
And two hundred acres wasn’t that big. Not big enough for him to hide from that many cops.
No. Her father had most likely run to the end of the driveway, hopped into whatever car he had, and taken off hours before the Weatherbys had even shown up on her porch.
They knew that, too.
Today had been a gigantic waste of time. Or some sort of posturing. Poking at Claudia, Sage, and Joel for some reason. That was what Claudia thought, anyway.
“I may take you up on that.” She wasn’t going to be stubbornly stupid—the heroine left alone at night after the villain had been around usually didn’t work all that well in books and movies.
And she had little girls who needed her tonight.
“Not that I think he’ll be back tonight…
I’m sure this was all over town today. He’d be an idiot to come back here, tonight. ”
She wouldn’t put it past those Weatherby brothers not to have a patrol unit hidden somewhere along her driveway, for one thing.
“Probably. Why don’t I take you to dinner at the inn?
We’ll get everyone in town talking about something else…
Like talking about us and just what we are up to…
” Then he was next to her, right there in her living room.
And it was just them. Quiet, the lights were lowered, and it felt…
intimate. “Then, I’ll take you to your cousin’s, before going home to my lonely bed. ”
“Let me guess, where you’ll dream of me?” She’d read romance novels, after all. Her cousin Nikki adored romance novels. Em was almost as bad. Auggie knew how this worked.
Hot, sexy hero one hundred percent into the heroine…
Too hot for the heroine to resist…
“If you want me to. If not, I will tell my dreams to behave themselves.” His hands were on her waist and he was turning her to face him.
Just like that, she felt him all around her again.
“I can’t make any guarantees, though. Not…
where you are concerned. But I would like to finally have that conversation. ”
“You…I just don’t know how to take you. One day we were sworn enemies, now…Just what are you after, Calloway Ellis Grady?”
“You know my middle name?”
“I spent more nights at your house with Cloe when I was in high school than I did anywhere, other than Uncle Bill and Aunt Susan’s.
It was my safe place. I know your middle name.
I even slept in your bed once, when Cloe and I painted her room that time.
That weird yellow that lasted less than a year—remember that?
We both camped out in your room and went through your drawers.
I remember your mom yelling your middle name at you when I was a kid a few times. ”
“So you know all my secrets. And that yellow was hideous. Cloe has always been the weird one.”
He was lifting her. Not much, but more than he should be. Oh, the man was insane. “Put me down. I know you’re hurting.”
She’d seen him wince a few times today. She knew what hiding pain was like.
“No. I want my hands on you.” He looked at her, from eyes far darker green than his sisters’. “If…you are good with that?”
It wasn’t a casual question. She knew what he was really asking. “I’m confused. No denying that. I’m not good at…this.”
“How so?”
Well, might as well be honest.
“I have never fully trusted a man in my life. Not without being related to them first.” And even then, there was a hesitancy.
It had taken her a long time to get used to living with Derrick, Josh, Monroe, and Jace.
Deacon had only been four when she’d moved in, but the rest of her cousins had been in their late teens.
Derrick had already been twenty-one at the time, and working on the ranch he’d saved up to buy cheap from a neighbor a few years earlier.
He’d lived with his parents, in an apartment above their horse barn.
And had thought it was his job to watch over her, Em and Junie, until he’d driven her utterly crazy. “I am not sure I know how.”
“Well, maybe we’ll just figure it out together.
I’m not…so sure…sometimes, either. The last time I was seriously interested in a woman my father nearly killed her sister.
Kind of hard to forget that part. I haven’t dated a woman since.
And even with her…it wasn’t anything at all like what I feel for you. ”
She remembered. He and Meyra Talley had dated for a little while.
Meyra had really liked him, but she’d told Auggie herself that she wasn’t ready to be serious at the time, and she’d thought Cal would want that before she did.
Meyra was engaged now to a Barratt from Finley Creek.
Brandt adored her; the two were very much in love.
She’d seen them together multiple times—and she had always noticed how they’d looked at each other.
“See why that terrifies me when you say that?”
“Hell, yes. You, Augusta Dawn, terrify me just as much. I…hell, after what my father did—I shut down. Especially where romantic relationships were concerned. I think all five of us did, honestly. Especially Cadell and Claud. I’m still finding my way out.”
“Sins of our fathers. They don’t have to define us, but they definitely leave scars. No denying that.”
“No kidding. I just focused on…day to day. Fixing what I could fix. Dad, Cadell and I shared a few investments, that my brother and I had to untangle, and with the house—hell, I didn’t even want that damn house.
I still don’t want it. It’s not my style at all…
I just don’t want to lose the memories. It was our mother’s house more than his.
I remember them buying and remodeling it, how she angsted over every decision.
How much she loved that house. And…I wanted stability for the girls, if nothing else.
But it took me almost a damned year to get Cadell to even step foot inside.
Claudia will stay occasionally, but Cloe—dinner there, once in a great while.
I don’t even want that house—but…I’m stuck with it.
At least with Clancy there now, it doesn’t feel so empty and sad. ”
And he had been hurting, too. Maybe deeper than he even realized. Auggie slipped her arms around him, this time. Her heart hurt for his pain now, too. “I’m sorry he hurt you, too.”
Then his lips were on hers and she was just clinging.
As the man burned up her insides. There was no other way to describe it. He had burned her up completely. Probably the first time he’d really touched her.
Auggie just hung on tight while she could.
It just felt different with him than with any other man who had kissed her before.