15
Darana
The wood creaks under my boots, country music blares from the dusty speakers, and the place reeks of everything a good Outback bar should reek of: beer, the sweat of ranch hands after a grueling day’s work, and that smell of wet earth that refuses to evaporate.
The air is sticky, almost as unbearable as the shitty day everyone has had.
In my case, it’s the beers that have made me momentarily forget what’s going on.
An indecent amount that would legally prevent me from controlling my own body.
But I don’t care. Because today, Birdsong Hills has been a damn apocalypse.
There were too many decisions to make, with things beyond my control.
And to top it all off, the source of all my other troubles is sitting at the back of the bar.
“Another one, Calloway?” asks the new bartender, nimbly snatching away my empty mug.
I nod, leaning on the bar with more pride than balance.
“Fill it to the brim, champ,” I tell him. “And don’t give me that look.”
Bert, who’s standing next to me, clicks his tongue and shrugs nonchalantly.
“Tomorrow you’re going to curse the day you were born. You know that, and your liver must know it by now.”
“I’ll figure out how to survive tomorrow. Right now, I just need to turn off the radio playing in my head.”
Bert walks away muttering something about the northern fences, but he knows full well that I’m not paying him a damn bit of attention. My eyes—treacherous and magnetic—return for the thousandth time to the table in the corner.
There’s Camila. Sitting with Lily, Ethan, and Kira.
She has a smile I haven’t seen on her all day: carefree, radiant—the kind that seems to take ten years off her and brightens your day…
even if you don’t want it to. She tosses her hair back with a devilishly natural gesture, bursts out laughing, and takes a big gulp straight from her bottle.
She looks comfortable. Especially when she’s far away from me.
I grip my mug so tightly that my knuckles turn white, and I feel the condensation trickling down my skin.
“You’re going to crack the glass,” Ricky says, appearing beside me and setting his own bottle on the bar, just a couple of feet away.
“Just drink and shut up, kid. Don’t give me a hard time.”
What I really want isn’t to break the mug—it’s to close the distance. It turns my stomach to see her there, so carefree, as if she hadn’t trampled all over my life when she left and turned my present upside down by coming here to study those damn storms.
“If you think you can tame a girl like me…”
“I’m just saying, you can tell from a mile away that you’ve got some weird thing going on with the scientist,” the kid adds, leaning toward me with a smirk.
I turn toward him, my eyes blazing as I glare at him.
“What did you say, smart-ass? Because the alcohol’s clouding my hearing, and it sounds like you’re trying to get me to make you clean up cow shit for two months straight.”
“Nothing, nothing. Must’ve been the music,” he defends himself, raising his hands with feigned innocence, though he doesn’t lose his smile. “But like you say, it’s not in our best interest to play with fire. Right? People around here are on edge with her.”
I snort, ignoring him completely, and take a long swig of my beer. The bitter liquid goes down my throat, but it doesn’t manage to cool the gnawing anger burning in my chest.
Just then, the pub door swings open with a sharp slam that makes the windows rattle and cuts off the laughter halfway across the room.
Sullivan walks in. A ranch hand from the neighboring property and a true local.
The guy’s already half-drunk; you can tell by his unsteady gait, his glassy eyes, and that smug little smirk of someone looking for a fight because his life is a drag.
And, of course, an idiot’s radar never fails. His glassy eyes go straight to Camila.
“Well, well! So the rumors are true…” Sullivan blurts out, raising his voice and earning himself a chorus of heads turning from half the bar. “Bennet, the great scientist who’s come back to tell us how to work with her little cloud gadgets.”
Every muscle in my body tenses. My stomach churns, and this time it’s not because of the beer.
“Don’t you dare get involved in this, you idiot…” I mutter through clenched teeth, setting my mug down on the bar.
But the guy is on a roll. He plants himself next to Camila’s table, invading her space with a cockiness that makes my blood boil.
“You come back here acting all smart and superior with those ideas… We don’t need traitors around here who run off and leave their families hanging. Right, Bennet?”
Camila’s smile vanishes instantly. Lily sits up straight and stands to face Sullivan, while Ethan—at nearly six and a half feet tall—and Kira look ready to punch him. But I don’t give them a chance.
Calloway pride and blind rage snap me out of my daze.
My barstool flies backward, crashing to the floor with a hell of a racket.
I cross the bar in three furious strides, shoving a couple of patrons aside without so much as an apology.
And moments later, I plant myself between Sullivan and the table, blocking his path and shoving my hat almost into his eyes.
“Shut that fucking mouth before I shut it for you, Sullivan,” I snap at him. My voice isn’t loud, but it’s enough to make my point clear.
The silence that falls over the room is so deafening you could hear a fly buzzing. The music is still playing in the background, but no one is paying any attention to it anymore. We’re standing in the center of a boxing ring.
The guy looks me up and down, blinking in surprise before regaining his smug little smile.
“Well, Calloway. Now you’re coming out to defend your ex-sister-in-law…? Didn’t you hate her to death?”
“This ‘smart-ass’—” I interrupt him, tapping him lightly with my finger right in the middle of his chest, which makes him take a step back—“brought the lights and water back to the main stables on my ranch this afternoon while you were scratching your balls in your trailer. So you’re going to turn around, get your ass out of this bar, and get the hell back to your fucking house before I drag you out by the scruff of your neck. Do you hear me, Sullivan?”
We lock eyes for a second. The tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. I feel Camila’s eyes fixed right between my shoulder blades, burning through my shirt, but I don’t budge an inch.
In the end, the alcohol isn’t enough to give him that much courage. Sullivan mutters an insult under his breath, looks away, and shuffles toward the exit amid the patrons’ murmurs. I feel a rush of pure, wild adrenaline, but it lasts only a breath.
Because when I turn around, Camila is giving me a look that doesn’t contain a shred of gratitude. Quite the opposite. She’s furious, her cheeks flushed and her eyes flashing.
Again.
“You’re welcome, Bennet.”
Without saying another word, I turn on my heel and dash out onto the porch.
I need some air before this rush ruins my night.
The night air lashes my face with a sticky heat that smells of eucalyptus and storms. I lean against the wooden railing, take deep breaths, and try to process the tremendous stupidity I’ve just committed.
My hands are shaking. Why the hell do I leap like a pit bull the moment someone dares to try to hurt her?
My questions can go to hell because the door swings open violently. I knew she was going to come out.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Calloway?!” The shout hits me like a lash.
I turn around slowly. She’s standing right in front of me, looking spectacular, her chest rising and falling a mile a minute, strands of hair tousled by the northern breeze.
“Is something wrong, Bennet?” I reply.
“You’re the one who’s got a problem!” she exclaims, taking a step toward me with her hands on her hips. “Stop doing this! One day you treat me like I’m some kind of infected vermin, and the next you jump in like a madwoman to defend me in front of the whole town. What are you trying to do?”
I clench my teeth, steadying my pulse. She’s so close I can smell the sweet scent of her skin mixed with the bitter hint of beer. A damn lethal combination.
“That jerk was disrespecting you on my turf, Camila. On the land that once belonged to Elijah. I wasn’t going to just stand by and do nothing.”
“Don’t give me that fucking family-pride bullshit!
” she cuts me off. She raises her voice and takes another step toward me, cornering me against the railing.
“This isn’t about Sullivan. It’s about how you treat me depending on what suits you.
Yes, I left here! Yes, I ruined Elijah’s life!
Just like I ruined yours! And yes, I regret every second of it! Okay?! Are you happy now?”
She gets so close that her chest almost brushes against mine. She’s breathing so heavily that her breath caresses my mouth.
And there, with the heat clinging to my skin, my Calloway pride goes straight to hell.
“I’m treating you like this because I’m sick and tired of you, Bennet!” I snap, completely losing my cool.
I don’t give her a chance to blink. I grab her by the arms—without any gentleness—shove her against the wooden porch wall, and kiss her.
Oh my God, what a kiss!
I find myself in a wild clash. Her mouth tastes of beer and an attraction so destructive it burns my eyelashes. For a second that feels like an eternity, I feel her hands clutching the lapels of my shirt with the same fury, returning the kiss with equal intensity, locking herself against me.
Obviously, my fantasy doesn’t last long.
Camila plants both hands on my chest and pushes me with such force that I stumble back two steps, almost tripping. Her lips are flushed, her hair is tousled, and her eyes are wide as saucers, staring at me with a mix of panic and indignation.
“No…” she blurts out, running the back of her hand over her mouth. “I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at, damn it!”
“Camila, I…” I try to take a step forward, my head spinning and my heart racing.
“Don’t even think about it!” she cuts me off, pointing a finger at me. “Stay right there. You’re crazy!”
And just like that, she turns on her heel with a snort of frustration and storms through the bar door, slamming it so hard it nearly rips the frame off, leaving me standing there with the taste of her lips and the silhouette of the desert in the background.
I lean against the railing, letting my head fall back as I exhale the breath I’d been holding.
My mouth is on fire, and the alcohol no longer numbs anything; on the contrary, it makes the monumental mess I’ve just gotten myself into crystal clear.
I kissed her. My ex-sister-in-law. The woman I’m supposed to hate. The woman I…
“No, you can’t do this,” I tell myself, shaking my head.
This is going to be a fucking nightmare.