CALLA

 

Calla wasn’t sure how it was possible to burn eggs. But as she poked at the eggs that were slightly charcoaled along the bottom, she had to admit that apparently it could indeed be done. The unappetizing evidence was right there on her plate.

“What the hell happened to these eggs?” Xavier asked, his booming voice echoing around the open lodge area. The big man stood by the heating tray on the sideboard containing the ruined eggs. Everyone else was gathered behind him, plates in hand. They’d insisted Calla go first since she was new. She’d been grateful. She was ravenous after the long morning of hard work. Or at least she had been until she’d seen what was in the trays.

“Xavier,” his wife Mel hissed, nodding toward the little boy she had cradled in her arms. “Language.”

“They’re not listening.” Xavier waved to the other side of the room where their two oldest boys played chase. The twin with blond dreadlocks, Reece she thought his name was, would run after the boys and catch one every so often to swing them around until they got dizzy and fell giggling to the floor.

“What the hell!” shouted the younger of the two boys as Reece caught him again.

Mel glared Xavier’s way and he tossed his hands up. “Blame whoever cooked this.” He gestured at the tray. “How am I not supposed to react to seeing that.”

“Sorry, guys,” Liam said, lifting a hand to the back of his neck. “I read on the internet and it said to cook protein slowly.” He frowned down at the tray of eggs. “But I guess I had the heat too high.”

“Just get the boys waffles,” Mel said, hiking the baby on her hip and heading toward her sons. “Hey guys, calm it down. It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning. You’ll have all day to roughhouse. But Mommy hasn’t had her coffee yet.”

“About that…” Liam trailed off when Mel jerked her head in his direction. “Well, the coffee was sort of the reason I forgot about the eggs. I remembered to set the timer on it last night, but I sort of forgot to put the carafe underneath it. So when I got back in the kitchen, the coffee had just spilled everywhere. I was trying to multitask and get it cleaned up while also cooking the eggs. Then I realized we were out of coffee and there wasn’t enough for another pot.”

“You can’t have coffee anyway, babe,” Xavier went over to her and lifted the baby out of her arms. Mel’s back slumped. “Dang it, you’re right.”

“Uh, is there something you forgot to tell us, Mel?” Jeremiah looked at Mel, eyes widening.

Xavier put his arm over Mel’s shoulder, a wide smile plastered across his face.

“We were going to talk to all of you about it this morning,” Mel said, a little flush taking over her cheeks. “But yeah, Xav and me are pregnant again.”

“You two Catholic or something?” Liam asked, looking from the two boys still screeching and horsing around on the other side of the room to the baby in Mel’s arms.

Jeremiah slapped him upside the back of the head.

“What?” Liam said. “Soon they aren’t going to need any of us around because they’ll have their own labor force.”

Mack came forward and landed a kiss on Mel’s cheek. “Congratulations, you two.”

“Yeah, congrats,” Jeremiah said, joining Mack’s side and reaching out to give Mel a hug.

“Thanks.” Xavier was grinning so wide it all but transformed his face. The burned half didn’t seem nearly so menacing when he smiled like that.

“It does mean that I won’t be able to compete in the Extreme Horse Makeover competition this summer, though.”

“The ranch signed up for three spots,” Xavier said, his gaze moving over all of them, even Calla who was the only one already seated. “Mack and Liam are taking two, but there’s a spot for one more if anyone’s interested in the third.”

Calla’s heart leapt in her chest. She’d wanted to do the horse makeover challenge ever since she’d first heard of it. One hundred wild mustangs the BLM had rounded up were divvied up among volunteers who then had one hundred days to break and tame the horses. There was a competition at the end of the hundred days to see who’d trained their horse the best. Along with cash prizes. Serious cash prizes. Last year the winner got a hundred thousand dollars.

Plus it was for a good cause—the horses were auctioned so people could bid on them to give them a home.

Calla watched as Jeremiah and Nicholas looked at each other. But mainly Calla’s mind was stuck on the cash prizes. With a hundred thousand dollars, she could start over. Buy herself a patch of land. Not a big one, sure. But still something she could call her own. Maybe get a loan and set up a little boarding and training place like Chris Mendoza had. Plenty folks were being forced to downsize and needed places to board their animals. She could—

“I’m still too busy with my online classes,” Jeremiah said. Calla’s eyes jerked back to the table. Damn, she was putting the cart before the horse. There was every chance one of these guys would want to snatch up the spot.

Nicholas shook his head. “Not this year.”

“What about you, Cal?” Xavier asked. “It’s fine if you don’t want to take on too much since you just got here—”

“I’d love to,” Calla cut in before he even finished his sentence. Then she felt her cheeks heat. “I mean, if no one else wants the spot, that is.”

Jeremiah just held up his hands. “Like I said, I’m too busy.”

[Nicholas nodded. “I’m out too.”]

“Looks like you’re on deck then, Cal,” Xavier said. “We head out to pick up the mustangs after breakfast, so eat up. Only one of the trailers is hooked up and we need to be there by three.”

Calla stared down at her plate. The excitement tingling in her chest felt so foreign. It had been years since she’d competed and almost as long since she’d had a new horse to train. She’d wanted to set up one of her dad’s barns as a boarding and training stable. But like all the other options Calla had raised as ways to bring in more income on the ranch, Dad had vetoed the idea.

After all, keeping the land as just a cattle ranch had been good enough for his parents and grandparents and he wasn’t going to go and ‘reinvent the wheel.’ Lord how many times had he stubbornly kept to that line? No matter how hard Calla tried to convince him they had to join the twenty-first century and accept that cattle ranching couldn’t go on as it always had. The land couldn’t take it.

But trying to get her dad to embrace sustainable ranching was like trying to convince an atheist there was a God—he wasn’t willing to even consider it and he’d only mock her when she tried. He wouldn’t have some green cowboy ranching his lands. He refused to hear her out about how they could be as much as tripling their profits if he would just get his head out of his ass. They could have at least tried some of the land management and revitalization programs that had turned some rancher’s fortunes around.

But then it was too late and they lost it all.

“Cal. Calla.”

Calla jerked her head up to Mel calling her name. “You want a waffle?” She gestured toward Calla’s untouched eggs. “If you don’t grab one now, believe me, there won’t be any left.”

Calla nodded and started to stand up but Mel just waved her back. “I got it.” She plopped two waffles on her plate and then came over and slid one off onto Calla’s.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Mel smiled. “We girls gotta stick together.” She sat down beside Calla.

Liam plopped his plate on the other side of her, hiking up one lanky leg to straddle the bench seat, body turned toward Calla.

“So, beautiful. Want to ride with me today on the way to get the horses?” He flashed a gorgeous smile. “I’d love to spend a few hours getting to know you better.”

Calla’s stomach flipped at having him so near. She didn’t know what the one-eighty in his response to her was about, but she couldn’t help being flattered by it.

Which was stupid. It was obviously Liam and Mackenzie had some kind of rivalry going on. Was Liam’s sudden interest only due to Mack’s attention to her last night and this morning? Or did he just hit on every female he came into contact with—and seeing her in only her sleep shirt last night had finally convinced him that she was, in fact, female?

Neither option was especially flattering, but the more Liam smiled and leaned in toward her, the less she cared about his motives.

She’d had a crush on this guy ever since she’d first seen him. He was the kind of boyish handsome that Hollywood celebrated. Maybe that was shallow, but her attraction wasn’t only about his looks. He always seemed to be the life of the party whenever he and his friends went out. His laugh was loud and contagious. He was everything her quiet, dour life wasn’t and she’d been surprised by how much she wanted even a little bit of that shine to turn her direction.

“I promise I won’t even bother ya by singing along with the radio. Unless a One Direction song comes on.” He bumped her shoulder. “Then all bets are off.”

Calla choked on a laugh, grabbing her water tumbler and sipping before her bite of waffle spewed everywhere.

“You a Harry Styles fan?” she asked, one eyebrow lifting.

Liam put a hand to his chest and pretended to pump it like a heart. “He’s just so dreamy. That hair. How can you not want to run your fingers through it?”

His eyes lit up when Calla laughed again.

“You’re a closet Directioner, aren’t ya? Don’t lie.” He held up his hands. “I don’t judge. I’ll even help you hang your posters later tonight.” He leaned in. “You don’t mind inviting me into your room, do you?”

“Jesus Christ, some of us are trying to eat here,” Mack said, finally sitting down at the table across from them with a stack of three waffles piled high, syrup making a pool on his plate. “Your sad attempt at flirting is turning my stomach. Oh wait, nope, that was your eggs.”

Calla covered her mouth with her hand and coughed to cover her laugh. Then she cleared her throat when she saw Liam glaring at Mack.

“Do you want a little waffle along with that syrup?” Calla asked Mack, gesturing toward his syrup-drenched plate. “And maybe some oars to help you wade through it?”

The tiniest edge of Mack’s mouth quirked up. “What can I say? I like things sweet and wet.” His eyes did a slow survey of her body as he cut off a huge bite of waffle and shoved it in his mouth.

Calla grabbed her water glass again as her stomach contracted at his words. She rubbed her legs together under the table. The way Mack was looking at her… dear God but that was sexy.

She was used to being around men—she’d worked with ranch hands all her life. This was a far more comfortable environment for her than say, a room full of gossiping women. But she usually disappeared into the background, just another one of the guys. Being the object of focus was an entirely new experience.

Liam had certainly noticed that she’d ditched her flannel when he’d first seen her this morning in the barn. Being objectified, it was supposed to be a bad thing. But for a girl who’d never been looked at that way, she couldn’t say she minded too terribly.

Was this what girls like Bethany felt all the time? No wonder women spent so much energy on their appearance. Cal’s hand went to her hair, pushing some that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. Did it look okay?

She almost rolled her eyes as soon as she had the thought. Dear Jesus, a couple guys looked her way and suddenly she was acting like Lady frickin’ Godiva. What, was she gonna go to the salon in town and get her hair put in rollers next?

She took another few bites of waffle, feeling quickly full. The fact that Mack’s intense gray eyes never left her might have had something to do with her nervous stomach. Liam was also impossible to ignore, his thigh brushing hers in a way she wasn’t sure was accidental. She was glad when talk around the table moved on to other topics and off of her. She was all in her head and missed some of the conversation until a small piece of toast came flying across the table and hit her instead of the intended target, which was apparently Liam.

“Oh. Sorry Calla!” Reece said. He was sitting in the seat Mel had been in moments before. Calla looked down the long table and saw Mel sitting with her boys as they dug into their breakfasts.

“But you can’t really think that,” Reece continued. “It’s so cynical.”

“What is?” Calla turned to Liam.

He held up his hands. “I was just saying that I think all of life is a series of transactions. We’re all using each other. We’ll give but only if we get something back.”

Calla frowned. “How do you mean?”

“In everything. From the biggest scale to the smallest. There’s the obvious.” Liam gestured around the table. “We’re giving time and energy here on the ranch in order to get money back. We pay taxes so the government will do shite for us. But even on the smallest scale. Say one woman complements another. It’s not just to be nice.” He put the last word in air quotes. “The one doing the complementing is trying to gain favor. Increase her social standing.”

Reece shook his head, scoffing. “What if she’s already the most popular girl there?”

Liam shrugged like it was no big deal. “Maybe it’s lonely there at the top and she wants companionship. Or she has a fear of not being loved or admired. Maybe she’s trying to create a comfortable atmosphere so she can manipulate the other woman more easily. People do shite for a hundred different reasons, but always because they’ve got something to gain.”

“That’s so cynical!” Reece said, getting worked up. Calla had to agree with Reece. There was a certain kind of logic to what Liam was saying, but it was an ugly logic.

“Okay,” Reece’s eyes lit up. “What about Mother Teresa?”

Liam waved a hand. “Easy. She either liked the endorphins she got from all that do-gooding or she expected a big tiara in heaven.” He shrugged, “Sure she was delusional about the heaven gig, but hey, to each their own.”

Reece was still shaking his head. “What about couples?”

“Pffff. You kidding?” Liam leaned in and lowered his voice. “Sex is the ultimate transaction. Tit for tat, if you know what I mean.” He winked and Calla felt her cheeks warm even though he wasn’t looking her way.

“I mean people in love,” Reece insisted. “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it is not self-seeking—”

“Are you quoting the Bible at him?” his brother Jeremiah turned to him, incredulous. “Aren’t you Buddhist?”

Reece shrugged. “I don’t like labels when it comes to the mysteries of the universe.”

Jeremiah rolled his eyes but then Liam jumped back in.

“Romantic love is the most selfish of all. Think about it.” He stabbed a finger on the table top. “What’s people’s greatest fear besides death? And taxes.” A few people laughed. Liam looked around the table. “Being alone,” he answered himself.

Calla shifted on the bench, poking at her half-eaten waffle with her fork.

“Think about it—it’s nuts. When people get married, they’re trying to contractualize their way out of one of our biggest fears. To make another person legally obligated to provide companionship to you? What a fecking joke.” He shook his head. “Of course, these days, you can just split when you stop getting what you want out of the deal. Is she not the pretty young thing she once was? Call the divorce lawyer. Is he still in the same dead-end job he had when you got married and you want to trade up? Call the divorce lawyer.”

Reece dropped his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers, propping his chin on his hands. He stared straight at Liam. “I feel sad for you.”

Liam laughed, grinning. “Don’t. I’d rather live with me eyes wide open to reality.”

But all Calla could think was: Did he get diagnosed with an untreatable condition that will ruin your life if you stay? Call the divorce lawyer. Maybe there was more to Liam’s theory than she’d like to believe.

She wasn’t hungry anymore. She stood to take her tray to the kitchen when Mack sidled up alongside her.

“You should ride with me today,” Mack said, voice only low enough for her to hear. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since last night.”

Her breath caught and she jerked her head sharply toward him. Was he making fun of her? She saw Liam still sitting at the table, frowning in their direction. Was this some sort of game between Mack and him?

She felt her blood heat. “Are you fucking with me?” She didn’t flinch from Mack’s gaze.

He glowered at her and she was almost sorry she asked. Still, she stood her ground. “What do you mean, fucking with you?”

God, was he going to make her explain? She pursed her lips and looked at her feet. “Is this just some… joke? Or prank between you and him?” She jerked her head over his shoulder in Liam’s direction.

Mack’s head whipped back and his jaw hardened. “Did he say it was? That son of a—”

Calla winced and shook her head. “No. God.” She took a step back from him. “Forget about it.”

She felt her face flaming and she turned to go. Mack put a hand on her arm to stop her, stepping close again. “Look, Calla. I’m interested in you. I think we could have some fun together.”

Her mouth went dry as she looked at him, absolutely floored. “You don’t even know me.”

“Well, isn’t that sorta the point? I wanna get to know you.” His grey eyes flashed. “And I know life’s too fucking short not to grab ahold of something good before it’s gone. And I think you and me could have something special.”

Have some fun. Special. Her heart pounded wildly as she tried to clarify. “You mean like… sex?” she whispered.

He burst out laughing. Several heads turned in their direction at the sound. Crap. She was making a scene. Calla Carter didn’t make scenes. She was about to get the hell out of there before her mortification reached truly epic proportions, but again Mack’s hand on her arm stopped her.

Her jaw worked as she looked at the floor. She could really do with it opening up right now to swallow her. “I don’t like it when people laugh at me.”

“Sorry gorgeous,” he said, his hand dropping to her hand where his thumb moved in little circles on her wrist. Oh wow, that felt nice. Really, really nice.

“You just took me by surprise there. You’re so fucking direct.” He ran a hand through his hair and laughed again. “It’s refreshing.”

Then he leaned down so that he was speaking right in her ear. She shivered at the warmth of his breath. “And I guess yeah, if I’m being honest I do mean sex.”

“Can I take your plate, Cal?” Liam’s voice was short as he stepped up right beside them. He flashed a glare toward Mack before his eyes gentled.

“Oh.” Calla blinked and handed over her plate of half-eaten waffles.

“Not much of an appetite,” Liam said, his gaze on her like Mack wasn’t leaned over, his face still inches from hers. “I can understand that. I didn’t find those waffles very appetizing either.” His eyes flicked to Mack for just an instant.

Mack scoffed. “Did you eat any of your eggs? No wonder. Pretty sure they would have put me off food all day long.”

Liam’s head snapped toward Mack.

Okay, as nice as it was to be squeezed in between their two big warm bodies, the tension between them was getting to be too much. She wasn’t interested in being the dog bone in some tug of war.

“I think this is my cue to exit stage left. See you two later.” She patted Liam on the chest and touched Mack’s arm as she took her leave. Then she called, “Mel?” toward the end of the table where Mel was cleaning up after her boys.

“What’s up?”

“Is there space in your truck to ride with you?”

Mel glanced at the two men beside Calla, a small frown crossing her face. “You bet.”

“Great. I’ll go help get the trailers rigged.”

Calla left the room without a glance back to either Mack or Liam.

***

“You just let me know if any of the guys get out of hand, okay?” Mel said as she and Calla drove down the highway toward Denver. They were alone in the truck—Xavier and Liam were riding in another and Mack in the third. “I don’t know what’s up with Mack and Liam, but the last thing in the world I want you to feel is uncomfortable while you’re staying with us.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Mel glanced over at her from the driver’s seat. “I’m serious. I’ll kick their asses.”

Calla couldn’t help grinning at the picture that put in her head. “I’d love to see that, actually.” She laughed. “But no, I’m fine. Believe me, I grew up around cowboys. I can do any ass-kicking I need to all on my own.”

Mel smiled but it didn’t fully erase the line of concern in her forehead. “I don’t doubt that.”

“So where are you from again?” Calla asked, changing the subject. “I think I heard Xavier mention once you were from New York.”

Mel laughed and shook her head. “About a million years ago, it feels like. But yeah. That’s where I grew up.”

“In the city?”

Mel nodded. “Lived there all my life till I was twenty-six. Moving here was a bit of a…” she paused before another slow smile crossed her lips, “a bit of an adjustment, that was for sure.”

“So how’d you find yourself in Hawthorne, Wyoming?” Calla asked, more than curious about the beautiful and obviously sophisticated woman beside her. Truth was, Calla had admired her from a far for a long time. Ever since news spread around town that Xavier Kent had got himself a wife, Calla had been as eager as anyone else to catch a glimpse of the woman.

Xavier had been the talk of the town since he took over the old resort. A giant of a man like that, especially disfigured as he was, taking over one of the town’s biggest properties was bound to make waves. The fact that he’d gotten it out from underneath Ned Cunningham’s fingers was just a bonus for Calla. But the town gossips really hit the roof when they learned he had a woman out there in addition to all those horses, that he’d married her and even renamed his horse rescue after her.

It all seemed so romantic. Something special in a town that was full of a whole lot of dull, hard living.

“That’s a bit of a long story.” The way her eyebrows lifted, Calla could just bet.

“I’ll take the CliffsNotes version.”

Mel flashed her a smile before moving her attention back to the road. “Let’s just say…” her voice dropped off like she was thinking of the best way to simplify something complicated. “Xavier helped my family out when we were in a rough spot. In return, I came out to help him with the rescue.”

“And then you fell in love?”

Mel laughed. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly a smooth transition. We didn’t get along at first. There might have been a few days that I wanted to gouge his eyes out. But we got there in the end.”

Calla felt her own eyebrow arch at this. “Now that sounds like a story.”

Mel grinned. “No doubt. Some other time. What about you? You got someone special in your life?”

For the umpteenth time that day, Calla felt her cheeks warm. She shook her head. “Hasn’t been much space in my life for that.”

Mel’s face softened. “I was so sorry to hear about your dad.” She reached out and gave Calla’s arm a gentle squeeze. “How is he? He has Parkinson’s?”

Calla swallowed and looked out the passenger window. Rolling hills covered in scrub brush whizzed by. “Huntington’s.”

“I haven’t heard of that.”

“It’s sort of like Parkinson’s,” Calla said, fidgeting with a fingernail. “He’s constantly got the shakes and is starting to get pretty forgetful.”

“I’m so sorry, hon. I might not see my dad very often, but we were close. I can’t imagine.” Her eyes were full of sympathy when she glanced at Calla again.

Calla swallowed and looked down at her hands. “Yeah, well. That’s life. What are you gonna do?”

“Just keep going,” Mel murmured, like she’d had some experience with the punches life could throw. “One day after another.”

Calla nodded. “Pretty much.”

They didn’t say anything for a long while. Just drove in companionable silence and watched the landscape roll by.

“So, Mack and Liam?” Calla asked, her mind always circling back to the two guys no matter how much she tried not to think about them. “What’s their deal?”

Mel let out a huff and rolled her eyes. “Lord knows. They’ve been like fire and ice since they first met each other. It’s funny too, because as different as their backgrounds are, they actually remind me of each other.”

“How?” Calla asked, more than interested. She pulled her foot up into her lap as she focused on Mel.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mel waved a hand. “Nicholas and the twins are pretty mellow. Well,” she amended, “Reece more than Jeremiah. But Liam and Mack,” she shook her head. “They’re both passionate guys. You might not think it when you first meet Mack, he’s so shut down all the time.”

Calla was surprised at that. “He hasn’t been shut down around me.” The total opposite, in fact. One of the things she liked about him was his bluntness. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.

Mel looked at her, a smile curving her lips. “That’s the other thing. They’re both these alpha tough guys on the surface. But they’ve got gooey centers. I’ve seen it.” Then she sobered, her hands shifting on the wheel. “I don’t think things have been easy for either of them in their lives. Sometimes I think about the ranch as our own little island of misfit toys, you know?”

“Well then I guess I’ll fit right in,” Calla joked.

“Welcome to the club.”

They were quiet again, just listening to the radio. Welcome to the club.

But what had all that self-sacrifice, putting everyone else’s needs over hers, ever gotten her?

A big fat wad of nothing, that’s what. She was a twenty-four-year-old virgin. She’d never even been drunk. Couldn’t risk having a hangover when there was always so much work to be done the next day.

Screw. That. She was done with living like a nun. She was going to have sex. A lot of sex.

Live each day like it’s your last.

Okay, universe. She was ready to listen. She was going to have sex, and get drunk, and she was going to learn what it meant to party.

If Liam and Mack were being genuine in their interest, well, goddammit, she was going to take one of them up on their offer.

It was time to let it all fly.

“There’s a big party tonight after the mustang assignments are handed out, right?”

Mel looked her way. “Sure. Most ranchers live so isolated that whenever we get together, everybody lets their hair down.”

Calla knew Mel had been speaking metaphorically, but her hand still went to her own hair. She didn’t know what else to do with it other than the awkward ponytail. She looked at Mel, who’s long hair hung in attractive curly waves.

“Do you think you could help me with… Maybe we could go shopping or something before the party? I’m not really good with, you know,” she waved down her body and the overalls that had become her uniform for, well…forever, “being a girl.”

“Sure,” Mel said, looking her way with eyebrows raised in surprise. “But I think you do a fine job at being a girl. From what Xavier says, you singlehandedly held onto your dad’s ranch for years, not to mention you’re a talented horse trainer. If I ever have a daughter, I could only hope she’d be half so dedicated, hard-working, and loyal.”

Calla looked down at her short grubby nails, embarrassed at Mel’s words. “Yeah, well, we lost the ranch. So what does that say about me?”

Mel’s face softened. “That you’re the kind of person who never stops fighting and sticks it out until the end.”

Calla gave a short laugh. She wasn’t sure that fighting her whole life for a losing cause meant much in the scheme of things. They were getting off track anyway. “So you’ll help me get ready tonight?”

Mel gave her a long look but then just nodded before grinning and putting her attention back on the road. “Those boys aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em.”