Chapter 3 Lara
Lara
“Coffee?” Calder offered, moving to the kitchen counter directly inside the massive camper’s front door.
“Sure. Thanks,” I said and scooted behind him into his mobile home. Another coffee would be good right now; I was long overdue for my second cup of the day.
Inside, natural light streamed through several small windows, illuminating the gray wood-paneled interior. The dining table had been converted into his workstation, his laptop closed on one side, folders and a notebook strewn across the top.
“French press or pour-over?”
I turned to my right, seeing the array of coffee makers, ceramic filters, and a digital scale positioned along the counter. And then Calder . . . rolling up his sleeves to reveal a rugged topography of strength and sinew.
My mouth parted, my eyes roaming greedily. If muscles and tendons were protected like mountains and trees, Calder Stone would be the first man honored for his anatomical beauty. And I would be the first person caught trespassing over boundaries I should’ve abided.
Crap. I snapped my jaw shut and hoarsely picked the first option. “French press sounds great.” The only question I’d ever considered when it came to coffee was How many cups?, and my answer lately had been Never enough.
Calder started the electric teakettle and then grabbed the glass press and a bag of grounds, scooping them into the container.
Get it together, Lara, I chided, diverting my gaze to the rest of the space—to anything that wasn’t Calder’s arms at work.
Beyond the dining area was a living space, followed by the bathroom at the far end.
In the living room, a couch faced a wall where a TV should’ve been but wasn’t.
Instead, a bookcase claimed the surface, the shelves lined with slim little notebooks.
I wondered whether they corresponded to each of his cases.
If so . . . My eyes widened at how many there were.
Abutting the bookcase were two frames. The first held a photograph of the Tetons, and on the second one below it, a hand-drawn topographical map, the word Stone was scrawled in the corner.
Looking closer, I saw distinct handwritten notes marking certain spots: Free Fall, Tree House, Watchtower, Lima Bean Lake.
The kettle beeped, and it had to be me, but the violent alert sounded just like our vital signs monitor in the hospital. I spun on instinct, an instant grip of panic around my throat. Calder looked at me, concerned, and I quickly buried the reaction.
“So, this is where you live?” I said, unsure whether it was a statement or a question or simply a distraction.
“You thought I lived at the house?” he rumbled, pouring the steaming water onto the coffee grounds and setting a timer on his phone.
Who knew making coffee could be as precise as surgery?
“Why wouldn’t I?” I countered, heading back toward the kitchen.
What struck me wasn’t the compact efficiency of the Airstream, but the unexpected sense of warmth it held inside its silver fist. The bookshelf.
The coffee machines. The map and handwritten notes.
And even on the table, a crossword sat on top of some folders, half completed.
It was all . . . Calder. All cozy ruggedness packaged in a perfect, hard shell.
I lifted my eyes and noticed the second door at this end of the camper that I’d missed when I’d walked in. Calder’s bedroom.
Rachel had never shared any details about that part of their relationship, but, standing here, I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was a ruggedness beyond that door, too.
“Fair,” Calder returned, and I faced him just as one corner of his lips twitched like he wanted to smile. “Yeah, I live here. Only Creighton and Colby, my two youngest siblings—and sometimes Colton, the third oldest—live at the house.”
I made a sound of acknowledgment. “Well, you have a really nice camper.”
Camping, to me, was a tent in the woods.
Growing up in Wyoming, sleeping in a tent was something Rachel and I had done plenty of times when we were younger, especially when Mom had dated Ronnie; he’d been a creep, and it felt safer to sleep in the backyard.
Thankfully, Ronnie hadn’t stuck around beyond summer.
“Thanks.” His timer went, and he shut it off, pushing the plunger of the French press through the liquid. Pronator teres, flexor carpi ulnaris, and flexor carpi radialis reported for duty.
Stop, Lara. Sister’s ex’s anatomy class is done for the day.
I sank onto the bench seat at the table and reached for the crossword puzzle—a new distraction—and scanned the clues for the few unsolved spaces. Number fourteen stopped my eye: the path between nose and lips.
“Here you go.”
I looked up as Calder put his hand on the back of the seat and set the mug in front of me, and my breath jammed in my throat.
The camper had felt pretty roomy until this moment. Until he stood between the table and the counter and tipped forward to deliver my coffee. Too tall. Too broad. Too close. Instantly, the space felt as small as a cell. And as hot as an oven.
It wasn’t the first time his proximity had stolen my breath or blasted goose bumps over my skin, nor would it be the last that he seemed oblivious to it.
“Cream or sugar?” he asked, like his closeness wasn’t causing me a cardiac event.
“Philtrum.” I blurted out the only word on my mind after watching his mouth trace over the words.
“Excuse me?” He cocked his head, a crease forming between his brows.
I pointed to the puzzle and read the clue aloud. “‘The path between nose and lips.’”
He leaned closer to look, and out of some instinct toward insanity, instead of pointing to my own philtrum to illustrate, I turned and touched his. My index finger landed flat on the valley between his nose and his upper lip, his skin rough from his short beard. Rugged but warm.
Calder’s pupils blew wide, and I felt his sharp pull of air like a hot blade along my finger. What was I doing? I choked back to reality.
“Sorry.” I jerked my hand back and pushed the crossword away, mumbling, “Philtrum. It’s the answer to fourteen.” And my excuse—explanation for touching him.
He said nothing and spun away, so I added, “No cream or sugar. Thanks.” Maybe the last thirty seconds could be erased if I just pretended they didn’t exist.
Get it together, Lara, I thought as I grabbed my mug and breathed in the strong aroma. Closing my eyes, I took a giant sip and dissolved into the rich taste. Wow, this was a good cup of coffee. Really good. Maybe the best.
Calder Stone. Anatomy specimen. Coffee-making god. And careless heartbreaker. That last was the one I really needed to focus on.
A throat cleared, and my eyes flipped open to find Calder seated opposite me at the table. Staring. Had I moaned out loud?
“Can I get Rachel’s phone number and address?” he asked.
After pulling up my sister’s contact, I slid my phone across to him.
“I’m going to have Callum see if he can get a location on her cell, if that’s all right?”
I nodded and watched him snap a photo. “It goes straight to voicemail, and has been for weeks,” I said. “At first, I thought she was declining my calls, but now I’m worried her phone is either off or dead.”
I picked up the warm mug again and clutched it close to my chest like it could buffer the chill from the word.
Rachel was alive. She had to be. Even with my science background and medical degree, I still held an unwavering belief that if something truly bad had happened to my sister, I would know it. Deep down, I’d know if she was dead. Wouldn’t I?
“If she went camping, she could also have no service.” Calder’s voice broke through my tangled thoughts. More than the suggestion, his soothing tone settled my unease.
I’d always appreciated Calder’s steadiness, especially for Rachel, whose emotions tended to swing wide.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t felt the same; his composure had only aggravated her, to the point where she did things only to try to get a rise out of him.
Lying. Partying. The more she did, the greater the wedge between them.
The greater the wedge, the more she did to try to make him fly off the rails to prove he cared.
It spiraled and it wasn’t good, and it had ended even worse.
Calder’s unwavering calm when he’d broken up with her, even in the face of her devastation . . . she took it as he’d never cared. Maybe if he could’ve fluctuated just a little, the damage wouldn’t have been so deep. So lasting.
“Can you still track it, if that’s the case?” I asked, shoving the past back into the recesses of my mind where it belonged. All that mattered now was finding my sister.
“Sometimes.”
Calder finished his message to Callum and set his phone down.
“I take it you’re not as averse to technology as your dad?” The work they did would be nearly impossible to do without it.
“He has his reasons—his rules for the way he is. For the way we grew up.” A shadow passed over his face.
I repeated his caution from earlier with a nod. “Any technology that can find you can be used against you.”
“Rule number seven.”
“He’s not wrong,” I murmured, willing to bet that if I opened any social media app on my phone right then, I’d be bombarded with ads for Airstream campers and French press coffee makers.
“No, he’s not. He’s also not wrong that a weapon you can’t or don’t know how to control is a weapon that controls you,” Calder stated simply, running his thumb along the handle of his mug. “Cassius refuses to accept the middle ground between those two things. The rest of us don’t.”
“You call him Cassius.” Not Dad. And for all the insight into Calder’s childhood, it was this that intrigued me the most.
“That’s his name.” And the only answer I was getting. “What can you tell me about the boyfriend? Brandon?”
“They’ve only been dating a few months, I think. At least, it’s only been a few months since she’s told me about him, though it couldn’t have been too much before that, because she broke up with her previous ex six months ago.”