AS IDEAS WENT, Callen knew now that it had been a bad one to sleep in the same bed he’d had when he’d been a teenager. Clearly, his back had been a lot stronger as a teen, but his thirty-two-year-old body hadn’t fared as well. He was achy, sore and had had a sex dream that’d left him grouchy and on edge.
Definitely not a good way to start what would likely be a hard morning.
Still, he tanked up with some more coffee and went in search of Buck. Callen needed to have the “big talk” and get the man to spill his troubles. That way, he could try to figure out what he could do to help fix things. If he couldn’t, then he’d feel shitty about it but would leave. If there was something he could do, Callen would do it, then leave—and feel shitty about it.
Since he was apparently going to have a shit day no matter what, he kept looking for Buck and wasn’t surprised when he found him in the corral with Georgia. Buck was leading the mare through a few fancy steps while Mateo looked on from his perch on the top fence rail.
Buck waved when he saw Callen, motioned for Mateo to take the mare’s reins, and once the boy had done that, Buck headed his way. Callen had got good at reading people. A skill he’d had to cultivate since he was basically a salesman, and judging from Buck’s face, Callen wasn’t going to have to prod and poke to find out what was wrong. Buck looked like a man ready to spill all.
Callen hoped he was ready to hear it.
Buck joined him about fifteen yards or so away from the corral. A spot that wasn’t near the house or Judd’s place. In other words, nobody else was going to listen in on this.
“You want to work your way up to what you need to say?” Callen started.
“No.” Buck kept his attention on Mateo and softly repeated that one-word response. “But I want you to swear that you won’t repeat to anyone what I’m about to tell you. Swear it,” Buck added, and there was a fatherly order in it.
“I swear,” Callen agreed, even though he knew it was going to come back to bite him in the ass.
“The doc found a tumor on one of my lungs,” Buck said a moment later, “and it could be cancer.”
Even though Callen had known something bad was coming, it smacked him hard to hear it spelled out like that. Cancer. Yeah, Shelby had been right about there being something wrong.
“I’ll need surgery,” Buck went on, “and if it’s cancer, I’ll have chemo and maybe some other treatments. But I want to put it off until after the wedding.”
“No,” Callen snapped, and he didn’t have to give that any thought to know it was the right answer. He pushed aside the shock, the worry, the hard twisting knot in his gut, and he stepped in front of Buck so they were facing each other. “That’s stupid. If it’s cancer, you need to get the diagnosis right away. You can’t wait nearly four weeks.”
Buck shook his head. Not a weary “I’m mulling this over” kind of shake, either. It was a “digging my heels in” kind of one. “I love Rosy, and I want to give her the perfect wedding.”
“Your love for Rosy will be the same whether you marry her on Christmas Eve or wait until you’ve taken care of yourself.” Callen cursed, earning a stern warning glance from Buck. Callen gave him one right back. “You need to get the biopsy or whatever the hell needs to be done so your doctor can treat you.”
Since that argument clearly wasn’t working, Callen went with the optimistic approach, one that Rosy would probably use had she been in his place. “Besides, this could turn out to be nothing. Tumors are often benign. If you have a biopsy, you could get a clean bill of health. Think how much happier the wedding would be if you had that weight off your shoulders.”
Buck moved just enough to the side so that Callen was out of his face. There was no more eye contact. Buck put his attention on Georgia and Mateo. “It’s cancer,” he said, his voice quiet, almost a whisper, but it was practically a shout in Callen’s head.
“You don’t know that,” Callen snapped.
He glanced at Callen, smiled. Yeah, Buck did know that, and Callen could feel the knot getting tighter.
“You’ll never be able to keep something like this from Shelby,” Callen tried again. “She already suspects something’s wrong.”
Buck gave a quick nod. “That’s why she went to Dallas to talk you into coming. I’ll tell her that I’m a little anemic, that I just need a tonic or something.”
Callen groaned. “You’re going to lie to her.”
“I am anemic. The doctor said so, and he told me that’s one of the reasons I’ve been getting so tired.”
Despite the warning he knew he’d get, Callen cursed again. “Shelby will know if you’re lying.”
Buck lifted his shoulder, kept staring out at the corral. “I’ve kept other things from her. Well, one thing, anyway.” He paused. “Something even bigger than cancer.”
Callen couldn’t imagine bigger than that, but he’d bite. “What?”
Buck didn’t say anything for a long time. “You remember Shelby’s mother, Anita?”
“Sure. She died about a year after me and my brothers came here.” But that was seventeen or so years ago. Callen didn’t know what it had to do with now.
“She was killed in a car accident,” Buck explained, then paused again. “Anita was on the road that night and in that car because she was leaving me. Leaving us,” he amended.
Callen nearly blurted out “bullshit,” but then he picked back through the old memories to see if that was possible. Maybe. He hadn’t had a lot of interaction with Anita, who’d worked at the bank in town. She’d been kind but also sort of distant. Definitely not hands-on like Rosy.
“Anita said it wasn’t another man,” Buck went on, “that she just didn’t want to be married to me any longer. That she just didn’t want the life she had here. So she packed a suitcase, got in her car and died about thirty miles up the road when a semi lost control and hit her.”
Buck had spoken all of that like a student giving a book report, but when he turned and looked at him, Callen saw the emotion swirling in those faded green eyes.
Hell.
It must have torn Buck apart, but Callen couldn’t recall a single incident where Buck had been so overcome with grief that he hadn’t still managed to be there for his kids or to run his ranch.
“Shelby knows about the accident, of course,” Buck went on. “But she thinks her mom was going on a short trip to meet up with some friends. She didn’t know Anita had no plans to come back. Or to say goodbye to her.”
Well, that explained why Shelby had never brought up the subject. “Anita could have changed her mind. She could have come back.” Though he doubted that would give Buck much comfort now.
Buck shook his head. “I could see she meant it when she told me she was leaving. I could tell she was done with me and this life.”
That stirred something else in Callen. Something he would have preferred left untouched. “Was she done because of us, because of the foster kids?”
“No,” Buck quickly said.
But Callen put his BS meter to work and figured that was at least a partial lie.
“It wasn’t you,” Buck insisted as if reading his mind. “Not the rest of the kids. It was more the...whole package. Anita wanted a bigger life, one that didn’t remind her of here.” He smiled a little. “You know something about that.”
Yeah, he did, and that “bigger life” hadn’t been just a want but a need. Still was. A bigger life outran the shitty little one that he’d had for his first fourteen years.
Well, in theory it did.
Buck hadn’t outrun anything. Nor had he wanted to do that. After being in foster care himself when he was a kid, Buck had decided to play it forward and give a good home to those who needed it. Callen and his brothers had certainly needed it.
“Shelby can’t know any of what I’ve told you about her mom,” Buck said a moment later. “She’d had a big argument with Anita that night, and Shelby might blame herself.”
Crap. Crap. Crap.
Callen couldn’t recall an argument between Shelby and the woman, but, yeah, Shelby would blame herself for what happened to her mom.
“Sorry to dump all of this on your shoulders,” Buck added, looking away from him again.
Callen gave that some thought, too. “Why’d you tell me? Why me? Judd’s just next door—”
“Judd’s dealing with some stuff right now. Old stuff,” he amended when Callen just stared at him. “You deal with this sort of stuff better than he does.”
Like hell. But then Callen rethought that, too. He honestly didn’t know how his brothers handled the crap they’d been through, but since Judd was older, it meant he’d gone through that crap a year longer than Callen, before they’d got to Buck’s. Plus, Judd and he hadn’t always been in the same foster homes, so God knew what kind of hell his brother had experienced in those places.
Or on the job.
Not here in Coldwater but before, when Judd had been a city cop. He’d heard rumors of something going wrong there. Since Callen didn’t know the details, he wasn’t certain if it had actually affected Judd or not, but it could have been bad layers on top of the already-bad stuff.
“I failed with Anita,” Buck went on, drawing Callen’s attention back to him. “I couldn’t figure out what she needed or how to give it to her. It was the same with you. I failed you, and I’m sorry about that.”
For the third time during this conversation, or maybe it was the fourth, Callen cursed again. “Not you. You didn’t fail me. But everything else that came before you did.”
Even though Callen started slapping up those mental roadblocks, the memories bulldozed over him. Watery ones of a father who’d walked out on the family, leaving his kids with their junkie mother. Callen didn’t even want to think her name. Didn’t want the image of her clear enough to remember the rest. Ironic that he’d thought it had been crappy enough with her, but it’d got a whole lot worse once his brothers and he had been fed into the system.
Callen knew there were wonderful foster homes out there. Buck’s was one of them. But until Buck, Callen figured he’d managed to get sucked into the hellhole ones that had left him needing to outrun everything.
“My failure is the reason I wanted you to come,” Buck went on. “Call it an old man’s dream, but I wanted a second chance with you. A chance to make things right.”
Callen had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could speak. “You made things right enough.”
Buck gave him another of those thin smiles and a pat on the back. “Bullshit, but thanks for saying it.” He paused again and seemed to be swallowing a lump or two of his own. “When Shelby and Rosy do find out about the tumor and the treatment that I’ll need, they’ll be upset.”
“Damn right they will be.”
Buck made a sound of calm agreement. “That’s where you come in, and I’ll warn you in advance. What I’m about to ask you is big. A lot bigger than you’re gonna want to take on.”
This time, the tight knot moved to Callen’s chest. He didn’t ask. He just stood there with the winter chill seeping through him and waited for Buck to continue.
“Shelby and Rosy need help with this place,” Buck finally said. “Not the physical labor but finding someone who can take over things. It’ll need to happen pretty soon, right after the wedding.”
Less than four weeks. Yes, very soon. Sooner if Callen could talk Buck into going ahead with the biopsy and treatment. He wasn’t giving up on that just yet.
“I’ll also need help with the kids. Lucy and Mateo,” Buck added. “It won’t be easy to find, but they’ll need a new place to live. The right place. They’re...troubled.”
Callen had picked right up on that. “Abused?”
A muscle flickered in Buck’s jaw. “Yes. In some very bad ways. It can’t be left to the system to find them the right place. I’m asking you to help with that.”
“I don’t know anything about finding a home for foster kids,” Callen quickly pointed out.
“Shelby can work with you on that. Rosy, too.”
No, they wouldn’t because they’d be too worried about what was going on with Buck. Hell, he was worried about what was going on with Buck because this felt a whole lot like a man making final plans before he died. And he just might if he delayed treatment that could save his life. One way or another, he had to convince Buck not to wait.
“Will you help?” Buck asked him. Direct, simple and very much to the point.
Callen wanted to say no. Well, not really. He wanted to help the man who’d given him the chance to survive, but Callen knew that meant extending his stay here. It meant getting involved, which would almost certainly include—but not be limited to—dragging up the past.
“Take some time to think about it,” Buck offered but then stopped when they heard the approaching vehicle. Or rather vehicles. Callen spotted Rosy’s truck, and Shelby was behind her in her own vehicle.
“They’re back from doing wedding-cake stuff,” Buck said. He looked at Shelby when she stepped out. “I’m worried about my girl.”
Callen looked at her, too. “Because of her crushed heart from Gavin.”
“No. Because her heart didn’t get crushed when the man she was about to marry broke up with her.”
Callen frowned. Shelby really didn’t look upset over a failed relationship, but what the heck did he know?
Buck patted his back again. “That whole thing about castrating you if you touch Shelby... That’s off the table now.”
With that, Buck walked away, strolling toward the women.
Callen stayed put. Not actually by choice. His feet had somehow become glued to the ground. He stood there, trying to gather his thoughts, which were all over the place.
What the heck had just happened? Spilled secrets. Not one but two, what with the Anita confession to go along with the health stuff. Favor requests to keep said secrets and do things that Callen didn’t know how to do. He didn’t know how to fix broken kids. Or broken adults for that matter.
And now the castration threat was gone and Shelby didn’t have a broken heart.
For shit’s sake, what was he supposed to do?
He was still mumbling that question to himself, still cursing both himself and Buck, watching Buck greet Rosy and Shelby, as if it’d been days instead of hours since they’d been together. There was love, no doubts about that, and Callen knew that the love extended to him. He just didn’t know why. He’d never been able to figure that out.
Rosy went inside first, but Buck and Shelby lingered a moment longer before Shelby started toward Callen. As she got closer, he could see that she had the same dumbfounded expression that he almost certainly had on his own face. She hiked her thumb in the direction of the house.
“My dad just said he won’t castrate you if you touch me. What the heck kind of conversation did you two have?” she demanded.
“A very complicated one,” Callen settled for saying—though hearing that Buck had told Shelby that was another punch in the gut.
And somewhat distracting.
Of course, Shelby was the ultimate distraction since she was now standing right in front of him, and she smelled amazing. Like sugar and cinnamon.
“Did you just eat a cookie?” he asked, obviously surprising her. But then she’d likely expected him to say something that was at least remotely connected to the castration/complicated one comments.
“Yes,” she confessed. “It was a tough trip to Patty Cakes, and I needed a fix. Now, tell me why my dad gave you permission to nail me.”
Callen frowned at the “nail me,” but then he shrugged. Permission was exactly what Buck had given. Of course, it wasn’t anything that Callen’s own brainless body hadn’t already suggested he do to Shelby, but it was awkward to have such a frank discussion about it. Especially since there was a second part to this particular subject.
The why.
Shelby knew a concession like that from Buck wouldn’t just come from the goodness of his good heart. Nope.
“Taking castration off the table comes with strings,” Callen said. “He’s worried about you and thinks if you have mindless sex with me that it might help. Or at least that’s how I’m interpreting it.”
She stared at him. Specifically at his mouth, and Callen didn’t believe she was considering sharing a cookie with him. No. That was lust again.
“He’s worried about me?” she asked.
Callen didn’t groan, but it was close. That was what she picked out of what he’d just told her? Well, that wasn’t lust in her eyes after all.
“He’s worried about me because of Gavin,” she concluded a moment later. Then she huffed. “I can lift my own hay bales, you know.”
He couldn’t see the connection here. Unless that was some kind of sexual reference.
Which intrigued him far more than it should have.
She fired a few glances around and settled for kicking a rock. “He doesn’t need to be worrying about me. Not with him going through whatever the heck it is he’s going through.” She kicked another rock, her gaze snapping back to him. “What’s wrong with him, anyway? And don’t lie because I’ll know it.”
She probably would know. He dragged his mind away from hay bales and castration to consider what he should say. If anything... No, it had to be something. Shelby wasn’t just going to let him walk away from this.
“Buck’s anemic,” he told her. Not his best effort at responding, but sadly, it wasn’t his worst, either. And it was true.
She blinked. Opened her mouth, then closed it. Before the breath of relief swooshed out of her. Sugar, cinnamon breath, and there was so much of it that it must have made her a little light-headed because she sagged against him. Callen caught her in his arms because it seemed as if she might slide right to the ground.
“Anemic,” she repeated. The relief was in her voice, too. She repeated it a couple more times, paused again, and then she looked up at him. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“No.” He managed a straight face, too. “Buck really is anemic.”
She kept looking at him, processing that and probably trying to decide if it was true. “If it’s just anemia, then why did he want you back here?”
Okay, this would take some even-deeper semi-lying. He’d been right when he thought swearing himself to secrecy would come back to bite him in the ass. It would have been a much more pleasant experience if Shelby had been the one doing the ass biting.
Something that he wished hadn’t popped into his head.
Callen steeled himself up, looked her straight in the eyes. “The anemia is causing Buck to get tired. His doctor said so,” he added. Well, at least that much was true. Of course, he was withholding the biggest truth of all. A tumor. Possible cancer.
She kept staring at him as if trying to climb into his head. “Really?”
He nodded. “Buck wanted me here to help out with things,” Callen went on. Good. So far, the things coming out of his mouth had been the truth. That might quell Shelby’s BS meter. “He’s worried, what with the fatigue, that he’s not able to keep fostering Mateo and Lucy, and he wanted me to help find a good placement for them.”
Now her staring went up a whole bunch of notches. “I could have helped with that.”
Callen nodded again and carefully considered how to put this. “He’s worried you already have a lot on your plate.” And he left it at that.
“Gavin,” she snarled. “He thinks it’s because of Gavin.” She kicked another rock. Stopped. Paused. Stared some more. “Did you actually agree to help Dad? Here?”
The addition of here didn’t help the tornado that was going on in his head since it was a reminder that here was the place he didn’t want to be, doing things he especially didn’t want to be doing.
But Callen nodded.
Best not to try words right now since they might come out like a croak with his throat clamped shut like it was.
“You’re staying,” she said on a rise of breath.
Another nod. “For a short while.” And, yes, he croaked a little.
If she noticed the break in his voice or that he’d just told her a smidgen of the truth, Shelby didn’t show it. She smiled, and before he could suss out exactly what the smile meant, she came up on her toes and kissed him.
His brain turned to mush. Hot mush. And he sank right into that cinnamon-flavored kiss. Sank, and just kept on going until... Yeah, he made it French.
Oh man. It was good. The kind of good that could get him in trouble very, very fast. He didn’t remember that he was standing out in the open with their mouths fused together and their tongues playing around. Hell, he didn’t remember his own name.
But Shelby obviously did because she said it on that same silky rise of breath. “Callen.” Her mouth was still against his.
The next part wasn’t so breathy or silky, though, when she eased back. “We have an audience.”
Once he got his eyes uncrossed he glanced around and confirmed that Shelby was right. Rosy was watching them from the kitchen window. Rayna from upstairs. Mateo from the corral. Heck, even the mare was watching.
“Welcome home,” Shelby whispered, and she smiled again as she strolled away.