STUPID.
That was the most common word repeating through Callen’s head as he took the turn off the interstate to Coldwater. Stupid to have made a trip that could be resolved by a phone call.
Probably resolved, anyway.
Stupid to have rearranged important business meetings to fly to San Antonio, and then rent a car to drive the half hour to a place he didn’t want to be. And since he was tallying up the “stupids,” Callen could top the list with that French-kiss remark to Shelby.
Her visit hadn’t been a joking matter. Then again, maybe the offer of the kiss hadn’t been, either. In that incredible stupid moment, he’d just wanted to say something to get her to turn back around.
Hell, who was he kidding? He’d actually wanted to kiss her. Still did. But first he needed to get to Coldwater, talk to Buck face-to-face, kiss Shelby and then get back to the airport to make his six o’clock flight.
Head ’em up, move ’em out.
Then he could go back home and hope that the nightmares didn’t follow him. Nope, no joking matter.
Even though Callen knew the way, he still had on the GPS just in case some of the roads had changed or been closed. After all, Coldwater wasn’t exactly on anybody’s beaten path. It was a small ranching town, technically part of the scenic Texas Hill Country, but no one would consider it exactly scenic. Well, other than the acres and acres of pastures dotted with livestock.
As a cattleman, Callen found that somewhat appealing, but with every mile he drove, he did battle with the memories of the first time he’d come here. He’d been fourteen. A cast on his arm and leg. Three broken ribs. He had been alone in the truck with Buck since his younger brother, Nico, was still in the hospital, and his two older brothers had been in a different home, waiting for the paperwork to clear so that Buck could foster all of them.
And that was all he allowed himself to remember before he buried it and kept driving.
The town sign was new. Red, white and blue, sporting not only the Texas flag and the town’s name and population—an even thousand, which he figured was padded—but there was also a slogan on the sign.
“Welcome! If you’re here, you might be lost, but consider staying anyway,” complete with a smiley face.
Callen figured there’d been long discussions and poor judgment when they came up with that particular slogan.
Main Street wasn’t far from the welcome sign, but he’d have to drive all the way through town to reach Buck’s place. Not a long trip, only about a mile, but it would be at the poky thirty mph speed limit.
At first glance Callen didn’t see anything else new. Same old grocery store, bank and two churches. A bakery—that was new. Patty Cakes, and they were apparently having a sale on Root Beer Cupcakes. The police station that was right across from the Gray Mare Saloon, which he supposed deterred drinking and driving.
He kept driving, past Rosy’s taxidermist shop—Much Ado About Stuffing. Callen slowed to try to get a glimpse of her, but there was a Be Back Soon sign in the window.
Next up, he drove past the town’s jewelry store/gift shop simply called Ted’s. He wasn’t sure how it’d stayed in business because it seemed to have the same display as it had years ago. Callen was certain he recognized the gold necklace on a headless mannequin surrounded by even creepier Russian nesting dolls. The only new addition was a For Sale By Owner sign just behind the biggest of the dolls.
“Good luck with that,” Callen grumbled.
Next up, Callen passed the library, school and diner—before he ran into a roadblock of sorts. There was a longhorn bull in the middle of the road, and several people were trying to shoo it off to the side. The longhorn looked bored and totally uninterested in moving, and because the street was so narrow, it was impossible to get around him.
The sports car right behind Callen got in on the horn honking. Finally, the driver got out. A woman wearing a bright red coat walked past Callen and the two other cars to the bull and tried her hand at shooing. The longhorn ignored her, and when the woman looked around, probably for help, her attention landed on Callen.
Silla Sweeny.
Callen had expected to run into people he especially didn’t want to see, and Silla was one of them. Former cheerleader, daughter of a well-to-do rancher and a snob. Callen had also had sex with her when they’d been seventeen. When the “romance” had run its course, Silla had turned batshit crazy on him, complete with stalking, spreading rumors and generally making herself his own personal pain in the ass.
It was somewhat cowardly, but Callen eased down the brim of his black Stetson in the hope that Silla wouldn’t recognize him. That didn’t happen. She came toward him, squinting and peering until she reached his rented Jeep Wrangler.
“Well, I’ll be. It’s Callen Laramie.” She didn’t add the other labels she’d given him after he’d ended things with her. Breaker of Hearts, Stone Cold SOB. And Dookie Head—the one he’d hated the most because it was just so dumb.
“Silla,” he said as a way of greeting, and he wondered if he could physically pick up the longhorn and get it out of the way. Backing up was out because there were now two other trucks behind Silla and him.
“Is the bull likely to be there for long?” he asked.
She shrugged, causing her coat to dip off her shoulders, and she kept looking Callen over. “He belongs to Esther Benton, the librarian. He’s always breaking fence and getting out. I’ve already called your brother Kace, so he oughta be along soon to get it moving.”
Callen didn’t want to imagine the duties that were normal for the sheriff of a small ranching town, but Kace was someone else he didn’t want to run into just yet. If at all. It was possible that Callen could get his business done with Buck and kiss Shelby if he couldn’t muster up enough willpower to stop himself. Then he could get out of town without getting a lecture from Kace or risking castration from Buck.
“I heard you got all rich and stuff,” Silla went on. She leaned against the Jeep, and while she did smile, it was as if it had an oily film over it. Maybe she was plotting revenge.
“And stuff,” he answered. She would either see it for the snark that it was or ignore his attempt at bad humor.
She didn’t have a reaction either way. “So, you headed out to Buck’s?”
He nodded and got out to see what he could do about the longhorn. Silla trotted along behind him, her very high-heeled boots clomping on the asphalt. “You’re here to help Shelby?” she added.
That didn’t cause him to stop, but Callen did look at her from over his shoulder. “Shelby needs help?”
Silla gave a hollow laugh as if the answer were obvious. “Well, yeah.” She stretched that out a few syllables. “Broken heart and stuff. My brother, Gavin—you remember Gavin, right?”
Another nod. Gavin had taken it upon himself to try to beat the crap out of Callen for wronging his sister. Gavin had failed, but then most had. When you had two older brothers as Callen did, you had a lot of experience with adolescent fistfights.
“What does Gavin have to do with Shelby?” he asked. And broken hearts?
“Gavin and Shelby were engaged, and he broke it off with her a few weeks ago. Poor girl, she’s just crushed. I’m not sure she’ll ever get over it.”
Callen hadn’t seen anything in Shelby’s expression to indicate a broken heart. Worry, yes, for Buck. But she hadn’t mentioned a word about Gavin and an engagement. That was even more reason to skip the much-thought-about French kiss. Even if it was done for pure fun and pleasure, which he was sure it would be, it was best not to interfere with heart mending.
Though it riled him that Shelby had planned to marry the likes of Gavin Sweeny.
Callen approached the longhorn and gave it a swat on the butt with his Stetson. The longhorn tossed him a look of mild annoyance before it started to amble away. The handful of people who’d gathered for the bovine roadblock all cheered and got back in their vehicles.
All except Silla.
It was clear she intended to carry on a conversation that Callen hadn’t wanted to start in the first place. Callen wouldn’t say he panicked, not exactly, but he did get the engine started and quickly hit the accelerator. Thankfully, the vehicles ahead of him did the same, and while he wasn’t especially proud of it, if there’d been any dust on Main Street, he would have left Silla in it.
All right, he was a little proud of it, and leaving her standing there, gawking, was some petty revenge for her spray painting Dookie Head on his locker.
Callen was smiling as he sped away. But the smile pretty much ended when he heard the siren and he saw the police cruiser coming up fast behind him.
Hell.
He’d blown that thirty mph speed limit to smithereens and by doing so had drawn an audience. One that was even bigger than the one waiting for the longhorn to move.
Cursing, Callen pulled to the side of the road, the cruiser coming to a quick stop behind him. And then Callen saw yet someone else he’d hoped to avoid seeing.
Judd.
“Welcome home,” Judd snarled as he approached Callen’s window.
And his brother proceeded to write him a speeding ticket.
* * *
WITH JUDD’S SIGNATURE still wet on the speeding ticket, Callen pulled into the driveway of Buck’s ranch. His head ’em up, move ’em out plan hadn’t got off to a smooth start, but maybe now he could get back on track.
The pint-size blonde on the porch had him slightly concerned about that, though.
The girl was about twelve or so and had her arms folded over her chest. She wasn’t actually tapping her foot, but Callen was pretty sure that was impatience he saw on her face. Maybe with a dash of annoyance.
“Did you really beat up a cow?” the blonde demanded the moment Callen was out of the Jeep.
“Uh, no.” He approached her with caution, the way he would a crazy person.
“Well, Jenny said you did. I don’t know her that well. I just met her yesterday, so she’s not like a bestie, but I don’t think she’d lie. Her mom owns the diner in town, so she was there, watching, and Jenny said you hit Miss Benton’s cow-thingy.”
Oh, that. And Callen seriously hoped that cow-thingy didn’t refer to balls or such. He didn’t want talk about that getting around. “The longhorn. I swatted it on the butt with my hat so it’d get out of the road.”
The girl’s mouth opened in outrage and sputtered out a few garbled sounds before she actually formed words. “First, all the poop. Then the bedsheets. Now this. What kind of place is this?”
Apparently, she didn’t expect him to provide an answer to that since she threw her hands up in the air, turned on her heels and stormed inside.
Callen didn’t follow her. Instead, he stood there and posed the same question to himself. What kind of place was this? Well, it was a big-assed trip into that time machine, that was what it was.
Like Main Street, there’d been few changes here. A fresh coat of yellow paint on the large two-story house. When he’d lived here, it’d been white. Other than that and the addition of a second barn, the place looked the same. Ditto for the small cabin just a stone’s throw away. Callen scowled at it because he knew his ticket-writing brother lived there.
There were some horses milling around the white-fenced pasture. That was also the same. Buck always liked having horses around to give the foster kids the responsibility of taking care of them. Riding them, too. That made the chore of mucking out the stalls in the barn more tolerable.
Callen walked closer and spotted a dark-haired boy probably around the same age as the blonde girl. Apparently, he’d got egg-gathering duty since he was by the chicken coop.
When Callen reached the porch, he saw that someone had already started hanging Christmas decorations. There was a wreath with red berries and holly hanging on the door.
A door that immediately flew open.
“You’re here!” Rosy squealed, and the woman was a blur of motion when she launched herself into Callen’s arms. Her own arms came around him to give him something else that hadn’t changed—a very hard hug.
“You’re here,” Rosy repeated when she let go of him and stepped back. Her eyes were a little wet with tears, making Callen feel both guilty and welcome. Rosy had a way of doing that.
“Come in,” Rosy insisted, tugging at his hand to pull him inside the house, and Callen immediately got slammed with the smells of roast beef, onions and fresh bread. Yet something else that hadn’t changed. Rosy always had some good stuff going on in the kitchen, and he thought that under the roast beef and bread he could smell dessert.
Chocolate cake.
His favorite.
He glanced around, getting another shot of the guilt when he saw the framed picture on the mantel. Buck, him and his brothers. It wasn’t tucked into the rows of the others on the shelves that flanked the fireplace. It was front and center. A place that Buck had reserved for family since it was right next to one of Shelby and him.
Callen was cynical enough, though, to wonder if Shelby had moved it there as a way of showing him just how important this visit was to Buck. If so, the maneuver hadn’t been necessary. Callen had already figured that out. Buck wanted to see him, and now Callen could figure out why. Then he’d do what he could to help and head back to the airport to catch his flight.
However, Callen thought the image of that perfectly placed picture might stay with him for a while.
“Sorry that I didn’t hear you drive up,” Rosy went on, helping him out of his coat. “I had on headphones, listening to music choices for the wedding, and had the volume up a little high. I didn’t know you were here until Rayna came stomping in saying the cow-abuser was here.” She patted his arm. “I know she’s exaggerating.”
“She’s pissed at me. And about poop and sheets, too.”
Rosy sighed. “Fitted sheets. She couldn’t figure out how to fold them. Best not to get into the whole poop thing. Don’t worry—Rayna’s going home tomorrow, so she won’t be around to complain. She won’t spoil your visit.”
Callen was about to clarify that his visit would be a short one, definitely not lasting into tomorrow, but before he could say anything, a chicken ran into the room. A gangly dark-haired girl was right behind it.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Rosy huffed. “Rayna,” she added in a grumble. “She let the chicken in the house again because she thinks it’s too cold for them outside.”
Since the chicken was heading right toward him, Callen scooped it up so he could hand it off to the girl. But the girl came to an awkward stop, bobbling to keep her balance. She took one look at him and slunk toward the stairs. There was no other word for it. She slunk.
And Callen knew slinking when he saw it.
Heck, he’d done it himself when he’d first come here. It was a good way of not having to interact with anybody that might look at you and see the hell and back you’d been through.
“Lucy,” Rosy said with another sigh. “Wide berth, time and peanut butter cookies.”
Callen figured that was Rosy’s prescription for helping the girl get over whatever the hell it was she needed to get over. Judging from the slinking and her stark expression, the whatever was bad and there’d been lots of it.
Rosy took the chicken, tucking it under her arm and catching onto his hand to lead him to the kitchen. He’d been right about the cake and spotted it under a glass-domed lid on the counter. Rosy put the chicken out the back door and motioned for him to sit at the table.
“Cookies and milk?” she asked, making him wonder if that was her prescription for him.
“Coffee, if you’ve got it.” Though he would have preferred a beer or some other form of alcohol to steady his nerves, but unless things had changed, there wouldn’t be booze of any kind in the house. Buck’s rules. He hadn’t wanted something like that around for the fosters to sneak.
Rosy poured him a cup of coffee—and cut him a big slice of the cake, setting both in front of him. “Don’t let the sugar spoil your appetite, though. I want you plenty hungry for dinner.”
Again, he was about to tell her that dinner was out and ask to see Buck, but he got another distraction.
Shelby.
She came rushing in the back door. “I just thwarted another attempt from Rayna trying to get the chicken back in the house. And I gave her a new chore. I told her to learn how to knit little sweaters for the hens.”
Shelby’s cheeks were pink from the cold, and she had a big smile on her face. A smile that just sort of evaporated when she saw him. Like the slinking, Callen recognized that look, too.
Lust.
Oh yeah, and he didn’t think he was projecting since he, too, was feeling some high levels of lust.
Hell in a handbasket. He didn’t need this, and he especially didn’t need the “I know what’s going on here” glances that Rosy was giving both of them. Callen suddenly felt fourteen again and braced for Rosy to rattle off chores for him to do. Chores were Rosy’s cure for lust.
Shelby saw those looks as well, and she put her hands on her hips.
“Why does he get cake?” Shelby asked. “You said you weren’t going to cut it until dinner tonight.”
Rosy eyed them again as if she might not buy the cake distraction ploy, but then she smiled. “It’s a special occasion. Callen’s home. Now, why don’t you sit with him while he has his snack, and I’ll go and find Buck.”
“He’s in his workshop in the barn,” Shelby provided.
“I’ll get him.” Rosy wiped her hands on her apron and gave them another glance. “You two behave while I’m gone.” Not her scolding tone. More of a tease.
That made Callen feel even more uneasy than a good scolding would have.
Shelby was smiling a little, too, when she sat in the chair across from him. And, yeah, the lust was still there mixed with something else. Relief, maybe.
“Thanks for coming. I wasn’t sure you would,” she said, sounding oh-so serious while she had that little gleam in her eye. Lightning fast, she reached out to snag the cake.
Callen was faster, as he’d always been, and he stood, shifting the plate to his side so that it was out of her reach. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Am I going to have to French-kiss him to get that cake?”
She frowned. “Actually, that was what I was thinking. I never seem to be able to say things like that, though, before someone else gets the chance.”
That made sense to him. He had always been able to see the wheels turning in her head even when she wasn’t speaking. But her being on the same French-kissing page with him wasn’t a good thing.
Callen silently repeated that to himself.
Flirting with Shelby was more than just playing with fire. Especially now that he knew about her broken heart because of Gavin. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t actually see signs of that brokenness. If there was any chance it was indeed there, he didn’t need to be playing around, flirting or lusting. That was why he put on his adult face and handed her the cake.
She frowned again. Then eyed both him and the cake with suspicion. For a moment, he thought she might refuse it and launch into a lust-deflecting conversation that he didn’t want to have. But she shrugged, picked up his fork and started eating.
“Mmmm, that is so good,” she said, making him wish that he’d opted for the French kiss instead of surrendering the cake. But her mmm-ing and eating paused when she looked at him again and then made a sweeping glance around the room.
“A lot of memories here for you, huh?” she asked. She took another bite of the cake—a huge one—and then slid the plate back across the table to him.
He made a sound of agreement and occupied his mouth with finishing the cake instead of getting into details he didn’t want any more than the lust-deflecting conversation.
“Dad kept your memory box,” she went on. “He’s got it in his workshop.” She helped herself to a gulp of his coffee.
The gesture seemed, well, sort of intimate—sharing a cup, sharing a fork. The shift in conversation just sounded like one more thing he didn’t want to talk about. But, yes, he knew what box she meant. It was something Buck did for all his fosters. He built them a small wooden box and gave it to them with one simple instruction.
Put only good memories in it.
Sappy but thoughtful, and Callen figured it was supposed to be some kind of healing/therapy tool. It probably worked a lot of the time, too, but Callen had never been able to open his.
A therapist would have had a field day with that. Callen, however, knew the answer was much simpler. Good memories were rare, and he hadn’t wanted them in a damn box when they worked just fine in his own head. And now he was face-to-face with one of those good memories.
Shelby, the reason for lustful thoughts and unplanned hard-ons.
Maybe it was the sugar high he was getting from the cake or the fact that she was sitting right there across from him, but Callen wondered if—once she’d got over her broken heart, that was—well, he wondered if—
The back door opened, and the lustful thoughts of getting Shelby in bed vanished when Buck and Rosy came in. Callen automatically stood, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets. A therapist would have a field day with that, too, saying it was his way of avoiding a hug. If so, that didn’t deter Buck. He went to Callen, gave him that hug and patted his back.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Buck said, and no one could have doubted that it was genuine.
Callen, however, had never understood it. He was so far from being special and lovable that he wasn’t even on the special meter/lovable scale, had there been such a thing. Yet Buck had always looked at him as if he’d seen good things that no one else did.
Not even Callen.
Heck, maybe Buck did that with all his fosters. Maybe that was why he was the best of the best at fixing kids that others had so carelessly broken. Well, the best of the best except with Callen. Buck had never quite been able to fix him.
When Buck stepped back, Callen gave him the once-over. Not in a blast-from-the-past kind of way but to see if he could pick up on any of those concerns that Shelby had mentioned. His stomach tightened when he saw it. Buck’s paler skin. The tired eyes. Of course, maybe the paler skin was just because he was getting older. And for that matter, the eyes could be because he was indeed tired.
Callen’s gut told him otherwise, though.
“I’m fixing all of Callen’s favorites for dinner,” Rosy announced, and she began to rattle off things that made his mouth water, along with jogging his brain about what he needed to tell them.
“I have a six o’clock flight back to Dallas,” Callen explained. “I’ll need to leave for the airport by four.”
He looked at his watch even though it wasn’t necessary. He knew the time. It was just past two. But he wanted to give himself a second to brace for the disappointment or whatever else he’d see in their eyes.
And the disappointment was there, all right.
Rosy made an uhhh sound. Shelby frowned, sighed. But Buck just smiled.
“Good. Then you’ve got time to come out and see the new mare. Her name is Georgia.”
That was all that was needed for Rosy to volunteer to get Callen’s coat, and she hurried back toward the living room.
“Shelby trained Georgia,” Buck went on. “She was going to sell her to some fella up in Austin, but I took one look at her and figured she’d be a good one for my kids.”
My kids. Not fosters. Not something less than the highest label that a father could give.
Callen put on his coat when Rosy brought it to him, and he headed out the back door with Buck. Rosy stayed behind, no doubt sensing that this needed to be a private conversation. Perhaps hoping, too, that Buck would be able to change his mind about staying. Shelby didn’t go with them, either.
The wind had a bite to it. Not unusual for this time of year. Of course, nothing was usual weatherwise for late fall and winter in central Texas. They could get anything from an ice storm to eighty-degree temps. Today, it was cold and crisp, and Callen took in the scent of the pasture grass, the livestock and the old leather from Buck’s jacket.
“He beat up a cow,” Callen heard Rayna call out. She was behind the house and had a chicken tucked beneath her coat.
Buck’s eyebrow winged up when he looked at Callen. “Did Esther’s longhorn break fence again and muck up traffic?”
He wasn’t sure how Buck managed to deduce all of that from Rayna’s cow-beating accusation, but Callen merely nodded. “I got it moving, and then Judd gave me a speeding ticket.”
Callen hadn’t meant for that to sound sort of whiny, but hell, that stuck in his craw. Nobody could hold a grudge like Judd.
“Maybe you can see your brothers while you’re here,” Buck went on as they walked toward the barn. “Not Nico, though. He’s off in Abilene for the rodeo. But Kace’ll be at the police station until five or so.”
Callen just nodded again, though both of them knew Kace wasn’t on his visiting list. No grudge holding for the oldest Laramie brother, but there was that whole lecture thing that Callen intended to avoid.
“So, exactly how did Shelby convince you to come back?” Buck came out and asked.
Best not to mention the French kiss.
“She said she thought it was important that I talk to you, that it might do you some good,” Callen settled for saying.
He waited for Buck to press him for more on that. He didn’t. In his slow, calm way he just kept walking to the barn, and Callen got another look at the teenage boy he’d seen earlier. His dark features were enough like the slinking girl that he suspected they were siblings.
Something stirred in Callen. Not lust or a sugar high. But a slam of the memories so bad that he got an instant reminder of why he’d left. Why he’d avoided coming back here.
“That’s Mateo Garcia,” Buck said, following Callen’s gaze to the boy who was sitting on the corral fence and feeding a bay gelding a carrot. “He’ll need some time.”
Callen truly hoped that time was all that it would take, but just as he’d recognized the slinking, he noticed the damaged look on the kid’s face. It didn’t help, either, that this Mateo was probably around fourteen or so. The age Callen had been when he’d first come here.
“Mateo’s sister is Lucy,” Buck added. “Two years younger than he is. She’s just as spooked.”
They kept walking, the ground beneath his boots wet with what had almost certainly been frost that morning, and they finally stepped into the barn. So few changes here, too, and he got confirmation of that as they went through to the back doors and to the fenced-in pasture where Callen spotted the four horses.
“Georgia,” Buck said, tipping his head to the blue-black mare. It was what folks called a nonfading since the color was pure without any brown fading caused by the sun.
“As in ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’? Or ‘Georgia on My Mind’?” Callen asked.
Buck smiled, pushed his battered hat back on his head. “The first one. You remembered that I named all the horses after songs.”
He did. That was why during Callen’s time at the ranch, there’d been Wichita for “Wichita Lineman,” Sue for “A Boy Named Sue,” Maggie for “Maggie May” and the somewhat embarrassing “Achy Breaky.”
“Georgia’s a gentle one but a little skittish,” Buck went on. “I figure I can eventually get Lucy to start taking care of her. That’ll help both of them.”
Callen wondered if Buck knew that this was as much therapy as Rosy’s chocolate cake and peanut butter cookies. Probably. He suspected there wasn’t much that got past Buck. Which meant he might know about Shelby’s kiss offer.
Buck leaned against the barn and continued to look out at the horses. “How much aggravation would it cause you to change your flight and stay the night?”
The knot tightened in Callen’s gut. He had steeled himself up enough to hear whatever bad news Buck might dole out, but this... Well, this was a rock and a hard place. It would be an aggravation, a little one, because Callen would have to reschedule some meetings, but Callen suspected the staying the night would fall way out of the aggravation zone and into things he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with.
Buck was probably going through the same thing—dealing with things he didn’t want to deal with. Things that had made Buck tell both Rosy and Shelby that he needed to talk to him.
Buck gave him another pat on the back. “If you can swing it, stay for the night. I think it’ll do all of us some good.”
Callen silently cursed. Added some silent groans, too, and a not-so-silent sigh that he wasn’t about to swallow. He wasn’t so sure about that “doing us all some good,” but Callen took out his phone to call Havana.
Apparently, the time machine was going to be on pause for a while.