“HEY, LITTLE GIRL. Have you been naughty?” Santa Claus called out to Shelby when she walked out of the parking garage and onto the sidewalk.
Santa—and that was just a generic label, of course—came toward her, his lumpy stuff-filled suit shifting and waddling with each staggered step that he took. She thought he might be grinning at her, but it was hard to tell since his beard had shifted and angled across his face instead of his chin. He spoke through the matted tufts of the sideways polyester hair.
“Would ya like to see something naughty?” Santa added, and his wink got stuck when some of the stray beard hair pasted his eyelashes together.
That didn’t stop him from turning his backside to her and mooning her.
As asses went, it was big and blinding white. She’d seen far better on some of the horses she boarded, but it was a reminder that she was in a big city where things like a mooning Santa could happen. A reminder, too, of why she lived in and loved Coldwater.
There was still a risk of a mooning Santa in Coldwater if Gopher Tate got liquored up enough and found something red to wear, but Gopher was more likely to flash than moon, and he wouldn’t actually be naked beneath whatever coat he was wearing. And besides, Gopher fell into the “colorful” category. This guy was just a drunk perv.
It was all about perspective.
Shelby debated if she should just ignore the perv or dole out an insult, suggesting that he purchase some butt rash cream at the local pharmacy, but she didn’t have to make a choice. Two uniformed cops came running up the sidewalk toward them.
“Bob!” one of the cops called out. “What have we told you about pulling stunts like this?”
A mooning Santa named Bob. It didn’t hold a candle to a flasher named Gopher.
“Sorry about this,” the cop said to her. He latched on to Bob and hiked up the Santa pants. “Did Bob bother you?”
Shelby shook her head. She was only bothered by one thing right now, and Bob wasn’t it.
“She’s gonna be naughty,” Bob slurred as the cops hauled him away.
Well, that might work better than being nice—which was her default approach to anything that might not go her way. Like this meeting with Callen. Heck, being nice was her default approach, period. She had plenty of mean thoughts—naughty ones, too—but they rarely made it to her mouth in any kind of impressive, cohesive way. And that was the reason everyone thought of her as a nice, good girl.
Perspective, indeed.
Just once, she’d like to be the mooning Santa or the naughty one. For now, though, she’d settle for convincing Callen that he needed to return to the town that he hadn’t even glimpsed in his rearview mirror. Buck wanted him there, and whether she had to go naughty, nice or somewhere in between, Shelby would make it happen.
Because of the shadow.
Shelby no longer thought of that as something mysterious, not when it came to medical tests. She’d looked up the term on the internet and had learned that it was often associated with a tumor.
And with cancer.
There weren’t many things that could have caused her to drive four hours to Dallas to see Callen, but that did it.
Thankfully, his address hadn’t been hard to find. Neither had info about him. She’d got fourteen pages of hits with her internet search on him. Photos, too. Callen owned and operated Laramie Cattle and had been darn successful at it.
Something she’d already known.
Shelby had no intention of telling Callen that she’d kept cyber tabs on him over the years. Even when she’d still been with Gavin, she hadn’t been able to resist typing Callen’s name in the search engine and poring over the details of his life, both business and social.
He apparently preferred brunettes.
Ones who shopped in the 34D section of fancy underwear stores.
No, best not to mention that. She would just plead her case to try to get him to change his mind about coming to the wedding, and then she would take her 34Bs and go back home.
Shelby went up the street to his office building and, following the directions she’d jotted down, she took the elevator up to the fifty-first floor. She’d taken some time to dress for the occasion. Nothing fancy, but she’d put on her good black jeans, a red sweater that’d been a gift from Rosy, and she had made sure there wasn’t any manure on her boots.
When she stepped off the elevator and onto his floor, she realized she would have still been underdressed had she worn a pricey designer suit. This place was high-end with its white marble floors veined with the silver that was mirrored in the sleek reception desk and wall art.
Since it was Saturday and the weekend after Thanksgiving, there weren’t as many people milling around as there likely would have been, but there was a woman at the desk. A busty brunette in a winter-white dress and silver high heels. Perhaps it was some kind of strange requirement that her clothes match the decor.
“I’m here to see Callen Laramie,” Shelby greeted her.
“Is he expecting you?” According to her name tag, she was Tiffany, and Shelby didn’t miss the stink-eye and once-over the woman gave her. Tiffany also turned up her perky nose, making Shelby wonder if she’d been completely successful with the manure removal from her boots.
“Yes, he’s expecting me. I made the appointment through his assistant.”
Which had been intentional on Shelby’s part. Yes, she could have called Callen herself since she had his number, but she’d been worried that it would be too easy for him to say no—again—over the phone. This time if there was a no, he’d have to say it to her face.
Tiffany tapped the keys on the laptop in front of her—also silver—and she motioned to the hall off to the right. “Suite 5101.”
Steeling herself up and still debating how to pull off a naughty approach, Shelby made her way there. The door was open but no Callen. However, there was an orange-haired woman in a flamingo-pink suit seated at a desk. The moment she spotted Shelby, she got to her feet.
And she smiled.
Not a trace of stink-eye, but the woman’s lids were covered with what could have been a kilo of green shadow and liner.
“I’m Havana, and you must be Shelby McCall,” the woman said.
Shelby nodded and would have maybe shaken hands with her if she hadn’t continued.
“Daughter of Buck McCall,” Havana went on. “And someone from Callen’s past.” She came closer, leaned in. “Callen moans out your name during sex.”
“What?” Shelby jerked away, ready to go a couple of steps past stink-eye, but then Havana laughed.
“Just kidding,” Havana insisted. “I have no carnal knowledge about my boss. I’m just trying to break the ice a little from the frost Tiffany would have no doubt given you.”
Well, she had indeed felt some of that frost, but Shelby wasn’t sure she liked Havana’s attempt at humor, either. Callen’s still moaning over me? I haven’t moaned over him in years, was what Shelby wanted to say, but she settled for, “I’m here to see Callen.”
“Yes, I know. He’s on the phone right now, but I’ll take you in as soon as that little light turns green.” She tipped her head with the piled-up hair to the landline on the desk. The light was red.
“So, of course I did a quick background check on you,” Havana went on. She helped Shelby out of her coat. “In the six years that I’ve worked for Callen, you’re the only visitor he’s ever gotten from his hometown. Needless to say, I was curious about you.”
She recognized the questioning inflection in Havana’s voice that invited her to spill why she was there. Shelby had used such inflections herself, but for this she stayed quiet.
“I figure this is about the armadillo wedding invitation,” Havana threw out there.
So she’d seen it. Hard to miss it, and, yes, this visit was sort of about the invitation since that was what had triggered her father’s saying he wanted to see Callen. But the shadow trumped the armadillo.
“Callen said he’d send the wedding gift himself,” Havana continued. “Know how many times in the past six years he’s actually sent a gift himself?” She didn’t wait for an answer but instead made a zero with her thumb and index finger. “Again, that’s why I was curious about you.”
As she’d done with her Bob the Santa response, Shelby debated what she should say. Something snarky, maybe about how small Havana’s nose was for her to be sticking it in so many places. Or perhaps it was time for another moaning reference.
Or she could go with a Bob tactic and moon her.
But then Shelby saw it. The concern in Havana’s eyes. Concern that Shelby detected even beneath the unnaturally violet-colored contacts and magenta mascara.
“Whatever you’re here to do, I’m on your side. Six years is too long for anyone to hang on to bah humbug,” Havana said, verifying the concern and lining the path to the possible beginnings of a lifelong friendship with a woman she’d just met.
On the desk, the light on the phone flashed to green.
“Showtime,” Havana announced. She patted Shelby’s back as she led her toward the massive double doorway. “Be brave, and never underestimate the power of a good French kiss between old friends.”
With that, Havana pulled open the door and nudged Shelby in. It felt a little like being thrown to the wolves. Well, one wolf, anyway.
Callen was standing at the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that had an incredible view of the downtown. His back was to her, but then he turned.
And she turned into a melting puddle.
Good thing Callen wouldn’t get a visual of that because she doubted it was pretty, but Shelby could feel the flush of heat make its way from her mouth to the center of her body.
Oh my. He still had it, all right, and that “it” included but wasn’t limited to everything she saw. Because Shelby was reasonably certain that Callen would look just as good out of those clothes as he did in them.
He wore cowboy clothes. Jeans, a casual white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, cowboy boots. But this was no ordinary cowboy with that thick black hair and those smoky gray eyes. And the face. Yes, there was another “it.” A strong jaw, nice angles, complete with some dark desperado stubble. He would have looked at ease at a poker table in a Wild West saloon. Maybe a high-noon shoot-out.
And he would have looked especially good naked in her bed.
There was a reason she’d spent so much time fantasizing about him.
Shelby tried her best not to look as if she was still weaving her fantasies and got her mind back on what it should be on. Convincing Callen to come home. She had just about regained her mental footing when he pulled out a big gun in his hotness arsenal.
A smile.
Not a full-fledged one. Too ordinary for a man like him. No. Only the corner of the right side of his mouth lifted. Just a slight hitch that caused a dimple to flash in his cheek. And the puddling returned.
“Shelby,” he said. Of course, he didn’t just say it. No ordinary accent for him, either. It was a Texas drawl so smooth that it could have qualified as long, slow foreplay.
“Callen,” she managed to say right back. Nothing smooth about her voice. Too much breath, which was somewhat of a surprise since it felt as if she’d forgotten how to suck air into her lungs.
How could this happen after all this time? Yes, the heat had been there when she’d been sixteen, but she was a grown woman now. Strangely, that seemed to make the heat even worse. Her sixteen-year-old self wouldn’t have known what to do with Callen Laramie.
She knew now.
Shelby shook her head to clear it, squared her shoulders and prepared to launch into the argument she’d practiced on the drive. Callen disarmed that, too, with more of that drawled foreplay.
“You ventured to the big city,” he said.
Yes, and met a mooning Santa and a clever assistant who likely knew the depths of both their souls. Shelby settled for a still-too-breathy yes.
The silence came. Not exactly awkward since his gaze was skimming her entire body. Heck, hers was still skimming his, too, and she figured it was too much to hope that he wouldn’t notice.
Callen finally broke the gazing, half-smiling silence by motioning to the chair. “Have a seat. You want something to drink?”
Probably best not to ask for a shot of whiskey and ice packs to cool her down. “Water if you have it.”
He went to the far side of the room to a wooden panel, tapped it, and when it slid open, she could see a full bar. Callen grabbed a bottle of water, a glass and a napkin and came to her side to set the items in front of her.
When his body brushed against hers, she caught his scent and dragged it in as if she were a starving woman. “You smell...expensive,” she muttered, her voice dreamy now. But since this wasn’t a dream, she quickly yanked herself back. “Everything in here smells expensive,” she amended. “You’ve done well for yourself.”
There. That was the grown-up, nonsexual thing to say.
He nodded. No smile, though, and it was as if it took some effort for him to tear his gaze from hers. He turned and went behind his desk to sit. She doubted he’d missed the symbolism of putting some distance and a barrier between them, but she couldn’t figure out why.
Unless he still thought of her as hands-off.
She considered mentioning that she’d known about her father’s threat to de-ball any boy who touched her, but it was best if she steered away from the old sexual stuff and any mention of severed male anatomy.
“So, what’s it like to be Callen Laramie these days?” she asked.
“Good.” No hesitation. He jumped right into that answer, something he’d had a knack for even during his teenage years. Of course, maybe he was fast on the reply because it didn’t take much effort to give an answer that didn’t really say anything. “How about you?”
“Good.” She frowned because she hadn’t intended to play his quick-fire verbal game. And besides, it wasn’t true. If she’d been “good,” she wouldn’t have driven here to see him.
“Married? Engaged?” he went on.
She shook her head and took a much-needed gulp of the water. Shelby nixed mentioning that she had been engaged as recently as three months ago. She didn’t want to deal with the sympathy she’d see in Callen’s eyes when he found out she’d been dumped.
“How about you?” she said. “Married or engaged?”
“No.” He didn’t offer any details, but considering her response had been a headshake, she supposed that made him the chatty one here.
He didn’t continue the chat. Callen just kept those made-for-sin eyes on her. Waiting. And now that her nerves had quit jangling like a tambourine, Shelby geared up to do what she’d come here to do.
“You mentioned on the phone that you’d gotten Buck and Rosy’s wedding invitation,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”
He made a sound that indicated he’d figured as much, but Callen couldn’t have known about why she’d actually come to see him.
“Is something wrong with Buck?” he asked.
Okay, so maybe Callen did know. She considered asking him why he thought that, but instead Shelby nodded and tried to put reins on all the emotions that she crowded together in her head, heart and body.
“He won’t tell me specifically what’s wrong with him, or how serious it is,” she explained. “I asked. He gave me a thin reassurance that it was just something that showed up on an X-ray. Nothing to worry about, he said.”
Callen stayed quiet a moment. “Maybe he’s telling the truth.”
“I don’t think so.” Since reined-in emotions made her feel jittery, she got up and went to the window. Plus, this way she didn’t have to look at him while she talked. “I believe it’s serious, and I think that’s why he proposed to Rosy. And why the timing of this wedding has become so important to him.”
“You’re considering that he wants to...what? Get married while he can? Spend some time with his fosters? Say goodbye?”
Maybe all of the above. But Shelby prayed it wasn’t the last one. “The only thing I know for certain is that Buck wants you there. It could be for a goodbye. Or possibly because he’s always had a soft spot for you.” That was Rosy’s theory, anyway.
She waited for him to snort or make some other sound that the soft spot wasn’t true, but he didn’t. “Buck’s not a liar, and he’s not one to play games. If this wedding is some kind of gathering because of a health scare, he’d come out and say it.”
“You’d think,” she agreed. “But he’s pale these days. And he has this cough. I’m pretty sure he’s also having dizzy spells.” She turned back around to face him. “Could you just reschedule your business trip and come to the wedding? Or if you can’t reschedule, just come to Coldwater and see him?”
There. The ball was in his court. His silent court. She could see his jaw muscles stirring around that fashionable stubble, but he wasn’t saying anything. Despite his lack of words, she guessed what was going on in his head.
Going back to Coldwater wouldn’t be easy for him. In fact, it would probably sling him back to all those dark places inside him.
Six years is too long for anyone to hang on to bah humbug, Havana had said, but it’d been a lot longer than that. Broken and beaten, Callen had come to them. However, Buck had been good to him. He’d been a wonderful father to Callen. Just as he had been to her.
“I’ll call Buck,” Callen said. “If there’s something he wants to tell me, then he’ll have a chance to do it.”
Buck didn’t want to tell him. He wanted to see him.
She went back to the chair, sat and faced him. “You might think it’s selfish of me to put his wishes above yours, but I can be selfish when it comes to my dad. Buck wants you there. You don’t want to go. I’m asking you to go.”
And she waited.
And waited.
The seconds started crawling by. Silence had a special way of making her crazy. Usually she started babbling, trying to spur the other person to do their part in this two-way conversation. If Callen was going to say no, then she just wanted him to get it out there so she could start changing his mind.
He was definitely going to say no.
She could see it. Practically hear the words coming out of his perfect mouth. “Would a French kiss make you change your mind?” she threw out there.
Callen blinked.
Shelby shrugged. “My attempt at levity. Failed attempt,” she amended when he just stared at her.
In her rehearsed argument, she’d said a lot of pleases, smiled at him a lot and reminded him of things like “it’s just one day” or “you wouldn’t have to stay long” or “do it for old times’ sake.” In her rehearsed argument, she’d been downright eloquent and persuasive. That made her French-kiss offer sound even more ridiculous.
Maybe Havana and she wouldn’t become lifelong friends after all since Callen’s assistant had been the one who’d put that crazy suggestion in her head.
Sighing, Shelby stood. “All right. Call Buck, then.” She turned, ready to leave, hoping she didn’t get another Santa mooning. Or cry. God, she hated crying. Hated failing even more.
Callen didn’t say anything else until she’d made it all the way to his door. “I’ll be there Monday,” he said. Then paused. “You can give me the French kiss then.”