14. Callie
CALLIE
Jolene's face was wrong when she opened the door.
Not startled wrong, or tired. Careful. Like she was bracing herself for something and trying not to let me see it.
She stepped back to let me inside without a word, and I followed her down the narrow hallway into the kitchen of the house where I'd slept two nights.
The house smelled like coffee and something baking, familiar and warm, but the silence between us had weight to it.
Something thick and uncomfortable that made my skin prickle.
I'd stepped over the creaking porch step on my way in without thinking about it. The furnace hummed low behind the wall, and the clock ticked over the kitchen table. Through the doorway I could see the quilt I'd slept under, folded on the arm of the couch, and the pillows stacked beside it.
I set my keys on the counter next to the coffeepot and turned to face her. "Why did you call me over?"
She picked up her mug, turned it a quarter turn on the table, set it back down again without drinking, and pressed her mouth into a thin line. God, she looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. Her eyes wouldn't quite meet mine, and my stomach started to tighten before she even opened her mouth.
"Shelby's been saying things," she said finally.
The name alone made my jaw clench. "What things?"
Jolene's expression hardened, and I could see the anger building behind her eyes — not at me, but at someone who wasn't in the room. "She's claiming you brought sick animals from the rescue onto the ranch. She says that's why there are animals turning up sick on Rutledge land."
I stared at her. The oven ticked. The clock ticked. The words didn't make sense at first, like hearing a language I almost understood but couldn't quite piece together. From the rescue. My rescue, the one I'd built from nothing when I was barely out of school, the one I'd handed to her.
"That's—" I started, then stopped. My hands were shaking. I folded my arms across my chest to hide it, digging my fingers into my ribs. "I didn't bring any animals to the ranch. I haven't taken anything from the rescue to the ranch."
"I know that." Jolene's voice was hard now, defensive.
She crossed her arms too, mirroring me. "But she's also saying you told people outside the family that the ranch's animals were sick, and that it hurt the Rutledge brand.
She's saying you went around town running your mouth about their good name.
She said all of it to Marlene and Travis.
It got back to me before it got to you."
The floor felt unsteady under my feet. I reached for the counter behind me, gripping the edge until my knuckles went white and the pressure bit into my palms. Shelby was lying. She was lying, and I didn't know why.
"I didn't tell anyone anything," I said. My voice sounded thin, like it was coming from somewhere far away. "Why would I do that? Why would she even say that?"
Jolene shook her head, her jaw tight. "You wouldn't. But she's saying it anyway, and Marlene's eating it up with a spoon."
Of course Marlene was listening. Marlene, who'd called my rescue a hobby to my face. I felt something hot and sharp rising in my chest, crawling up my throat. I wanted to scream, or throw something, or drive to the ranch and make Shelby say it to my face so I could watch her lie with an audience.
But all I did was stand there, holding onto the counter like it was the only solid thing left in the world. The oven ticked. Jolene's coffee sat on the table where she'd left it, and it had stopped steaming.
"Callie," Jolene said, softer now. She took a step toward me, her hand half-raised like she wanted to reach for me but wasn't sure I'd let her. "I don't believe a word of it. You know that, right? I know you didn't do this."
I nodded, but I couldn't get any words out. My throat had gone tight, and my chest felt like someone had wrapped a band around it and pulled.
A knock at the door cut through the silence like a blade.
Jolene glanced toward the hallway, then back at me. "You expecting someone?"
I shook my head. She hesitated, her eyes searching mine, then turned and disappeared down the hall. I heard the front door open, heard the low rumble of a man's voice, and my pulse kicked up hard and fast before I even recognized it.
Wade.
His boots came down the hallway slow and even, and then he came into the kitchen behind Jolene, and the room shrank around him the way it always did.
He filled the doorway with his shoulders and his height and the sheer space he always took up without meaning to.
He looked tired — his jaw shadowed with stubble, his hair a little too long, his shirt wrinkled like he'd pulled it on without thinking.
But his eyes found mine immediately, steady and intent, and something in my chest twisted so hard it hurt.
He didn't look at Jolene, who had come to stand just inside the doorway with one hand flat against the frame. He looked at me, and when he spoke, his voice was low and careful. "Callie."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat had gone tight again, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth I'd say something I couldn't take back — something desperate, or angry, or both. I just stood there with my arms wrapped around myself, staring at him like an idiot.
Wade took a step closer, and the kitchen floor creaked under his boots. I caught the scent of him. Leather and soap and something that was just him, something I'd know in the dark. I hated myself for noticing. I hated that my stupid traitorous body still responded to him when my head knew better.
"You've been here since the night I came to the door," he said. "I heard what Shelby's been saying, so I came."
He stopped an arm's length from me and pushed a hand back through his hair.
"I don't believe what Shelby's saying," he said.
Relief hit me like a wave, so strong my knees almost buckled.
He didn't believe her. He knew it was a lie.
For one stupid, fragile second, I thought maybe he'd come to tell me he was handling it.
That he was going to stand up to Shelby and his mother and the whole damn family and tell them to leave me alone.
I waited for him to say it. I waited for him to tell me he was on my side.
He shifted his weight. Behind him the window showed the driveway, and he stood square in the middle of the kitchen with his hands loose at his sides, his gaze steady on mine, and I saw something flicker in his expression.
Not doubt, but — calculation. Like he was working through a problem and trying to find the right angle.
"But until we sort this out, I need you to step back from the rescue. "
The words didn't land at first. They hung in the air between us, sharp and impossible, and I had to replay them in my head to make sense of what he was asking. Step back from the rescue. The place I'd built. The work I'd done before I ever met him.
"No," I said.
His brow furrowed, like he hadn't expected me to refuse. Like he'd thought I'd just nod and go along with it. "Callie, it's just temporary," he said. "Once we figure out what's going on?—"
"No." My voice was stronger this time, and I saw something flicker across his face. Surprise, maybe, or frustration. I didn't care. "I'm not stepping back."
Wade's jaw tightened. He glanced at Jolene, who was standing just inside the doorway, her expression somewhere between furious and protective, then back at me.
"This isn't about punishing you," he said, and his tone was so damn reasonable it made my teeth ache.
"It's about protecting the ranch until we know what happened.
If people are saying you brought sick animals onto Rutledge land, we need to show that you're taking it seriously, that you're cooperating while we get to the bottom of it. "
He stared at me, his eyes dark and unreadable, and I could see the wheels turning behind them. He was trying to figure out how to fix this, how to make me see reason.
But there wasn't a way. Not anymore.
I picked my keys up off the counter, next to the coffeepot where I'd left them, and closed my hand around them until the metal bit.
Then I turned toward the door, my vision blurring at the edges.
I didn't say anything else. There was nothing left to say.
Jolene called my name, but I didn't stop.
I walked past Wade, close enough that my shoulder almost brushed his chest, and down the narrow hallway past the couch, the quilt still folded on its arm.
I felt the heat of him even through the anger and the hurt.
It made my throat ache. The boards of the hallway felt longer than they had a minute ago, and I counted them without meaning to.
My left hand felt wrong. Too light. I glanced down at my bare finger as I reached for the door, and the absence of the ring hit me all over again. He had it. Somewhere in his pocket or his truck, Wade had the ring I'd worn for ten years.
The door shut softly behind me, and the cold air hit my face like a slap.
I fumbled for my keys, my hands still shaking so hard it took me three tries to get the right one into the lock.
I got into the truck without looking back, even though I could feel his eyes on me through the window.
I sat with the key in my fist a second, then pushed it in.
The engine turned over with a rough cough, and I pulled out of Jolene's driveway onto the narrow road that led toward the rescue.
His truck sat at the edge of the drive where he'd left it, and I kept my eyes off it.
In the mirror Jolene's house got smaller until the road bent and took it.
The cab was cold. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
My chest hurt. My eyes burned, but I blinked hard and kept them on the road, watching the yellow line blur past. Fence posts went by on one side of the road, one after another, and I counted them the way I'd counted the hallway boards.
I kept both hands where they were and drove.
Wade believed me. He believed I was innocent, that I hadn't done what Shelby claimed, that I hadn't hurt his family's name. But he wasn't going to stand with me.