CHAPTER TWENTY
Pen in hand, Fin stared at the contract. He should sign it, but…he liked his own crew. Bram knew him, could anticipate his moves, so he didn’t really want a new production team.
Maybe he’d check with him, see if he wanted to work for Braverman.
His phone buzzed, and he picked it up so fast it flew out of his hands. Callie?
But, no, it was Nolan. “What’s up, man?”
“You were right.” His friend sounded like a skeptical kid who’d just tugged Santa’s beard and found it was real.
“Yeah? About what?”
Marcella bustled into the kitchen, grabbing a pot holder and opening the oven door. The smell of roasted sweet potato filled the air.
“I thought for sure you were just wasting my time. But I did it. I kept the log, and it’s like you said. I didn’t even realize the shit I was doing.”
“Like what?”
“I thought I was just having an occasional beer, but we’ve had people out to the house all summer. Romer and Gwen spent a long weekend, and Janey’s folks came out for a week. So between the food and parties, I’ve been drinking a lot more than I thought.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes,” Fin said.
“Janey’s been cooking for everybody, so I’ve snuck a few pancakes, pasta, cookies and shit. It adds up. So, yeah, man, you’re right.”
“Good. That means it’s an easy fix.”
“You gonna look at my film now?”
“In a month. Lay off the shit, keep training, and then send me your footage.”
“Damn. Wish I’d listened to you months ago.”
“You’ve got plenty of time before the season starts. You’re good.” After he disconnected the call, he shook his head. Now Nolan got why he and his brothers were so disciplined.
Marcella pulled the sweet potatoes out of the oven. “How is your skin not orange?”
He stared at his phone, willing it to buzz. If Callie wanted to do a better job breaking up with him this time, then she’d won the gold. He hadn’t heard from her since she’d left the hotel with Hilda yesterday.
How did he prove to her that he was done putting his brothers first? That he didn’t need to go chasing their respect because he already had it?
What really struck him was that if his brothers hadn’t been so influenced by their competitive Dad, they’d all be backcountry boarders just like Fin. It was in their blood to ride free. But that damn trophy room. He ought to just go in there and rip everything off the shelves. Turn it into a weight room.
A hand waved in front of his face. “Hello?” Fingers snapped.
He focused on Marcella. “What?”
“I asked you if I can at least make a sweet potato pie. You look like you could use the sugar rush right now.”
“I don’t care.”
Her hip popped, and she gave him a questioning look. “Fin Bowie doesn’t care if I serve pie for dinner?” She smacked the side of his head. “What’s the matter with you?”
He’d just gotten in a few hours ago. No one knew what had happened. “Callie broke up with me.”
“What happened?”
“I…” He didn’t want to rehash it. “Whatever. It’s done. I’ve lost her.”
She flicked her kitchen towel at this chest. “Okay, drama queen. Skip the theatrics and spit it out. Tell me what happened.”
“When I changed my ticket at the last minute to go with Will to Chile, she dumped me. I didn’t think she’d care, since she didn’t have anything important going on.”
Marcella cringed.
“No, I mean like an event.”
Marcella held his gaze, telepathing her message that he was too stupid for words.
“Yeah, I know. I get it. They need my help, and I drop everything. I get it now. And I get that Callie thinks she can’t count on me.”
“She thinks she can’t count on you, huh?”
He straightened. “No, you’re right. She can’t count on me. But I’m not going to do it again, and I don’t know how to prove that to her if she’s not talking to me.”
“She doesn’t want to hear your words.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“She wants action.”
Fin set the pen down, all his senses narrowing to the answers he saw in her eyes.
She picked up his contract. “How do you feel when you look at this?”
“It’s cool. Braverman only offers contracts to the best.”
“Uh huh. So you feel proud that he chose you?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re going to sign this contract because it makes you feel like a badass? Like it legitimizes what you do?”
An uneasy feeling came over him. “I guess so.” But the urgency to get Callie back—be the man she needed him to be—pressed him to think harder, go deeper. “Yes. That’s why.”
“Because your brothers will finally approve of what you do? Be a little envious?”
His muscles clenched, releasing a torrent of fear. Was he still not getting it?
What could Marcella and Callie see about him that he couldn’t? “Yes.”
“Son…”
Emotion slammed him, like a punch to the chest, and he had to look away. His mom had left when he was six, so he didn’t have a lot of memories of her. She’d shouted at them a lot, railed to their dad about them, but mostly she’d been gone. Either out of town because she hated the “whole cowboy scene” or out with her friends. Her attempt to “civilize” them in New York had ended disastrously when they’d crashed through the ice in Central Park’s Pond. They’d learned the hard way that it didn’t get quite as cold in New York as in Wyoming.
When they’d come home, Marcella had been waiting for them. From day one, she’d asserted herself in their lives, never hanging in the background. She’d been hired to cook and clean, but she’d been so much more.
Fin loved her. But in all seventeen years of knowing her, she’d never called him her son.
She brushed the hair out of his eyes. “Sweetheart, you know what makes you special? What makes you stand out from your brothers?”
He waited, because other than the fact he was a freerider and loved Callie, he didn’t have a clue.
“Your bravery.”
Fin barked out laugh. “Have you seen the monsters Gray rides?” His brother didn’t just surf—he was a big wave surfer.
She gently tapped his chest. “I’m talking about here. Your brothers have never risked their hearts, but you? As you boys like to say, you go balls-out. And that makes you the bravest of them all.”
He’d never thought of it that way, but before he could let the words sink in, connect them to winning Callie back, Marcella continued. “You’re a special man, Fin, and Callie knows that. I have no doubt she wants you as much as you want her, but she’s out there making her dreams come true. She knows what she wants and she’s going to get it. So, if you want her, then you come to her as a man. Not the boy who’s driving himself nuts trying to be what everyone else needs him to be.”
“That’s what I’m doing. That’s why I didn’t go with Will.”
“No, you didn’t go with Will because you’re done fighting to be included.” She drew in a breath. “What do you want to do with your life?”
“What I’m doing now. Freeriding.”
“Yes, that’s something you enjoy. But what do you do? Every day? What’s your life’s work?”
Something tugged inside his mind—like a song he wanted desperately to recall or a smell he couldn’t quite place but that connected with a powerful memory.
“What articles do you read?” she continued. “What thoughts go through your head as you’re brushing your teeth or running the trails? What consumes you?”
He read articles on nutrition. He reviewed footage coaches and friends sent him. He looked at training equipment, evaluating its merits.
He thought of Nolan. Of Will.
I rely on you because no one else has your vision, your knowledge, your intuitive understanding of our sport.
“I train.” And the idea that he’d become a trainer was an insult. “You want me to work at some gym? Be a trainer?”
Snatching the towel off the counter, she actually rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you ten seconds to Bowie-size that idea.”
Warmth spread across his body, and a deep sense of satisfaction filled him.
If he took that damn trophy room out of the picture, eliminated his need to impress his brothers, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. What he should be doing.
And while it didn’t involve Callie right now, it would most definitely make him the man he was meant to be. He’d already waited six years for her; if he needed to wait ten more, he’d do it. As long as it took, because there would never be anyone else for him.
Only her.
******
Amidst the hum of conversation and the wait staff delivering canapés and champagne on silver trays, Callie stood in the lobby of the MoCA for the welcome party for this year’s fellows.
Her phone pinged again, and she discreetly checked the message.
What do you want me to do with it? Stan had accepted delivery of one half of a brown corduroy couch, and since they weren’t expanding the museum, he wasn’t sure if they should still take donations.
Her heart gave a fierce tug. She’d been gone three weeks, and her exhibition hadn’t slowed down one bit. In fact, donations kept pouring in, and they had a wait list for their classes. She typed back a response.
Why don’t we open the—
She stopped herself. Deleted the last three words. It’s not mine anymore.
She tried again. Do you want to rent a storage facility and turn the second floor into a display room?
Stan responded immediately. We’re happy to keep the lights on, but we wouldn’t know where to begin setting up a room.
Callie thought about the next holiday, Thanksgiving. She worked all day Wednesday, and it took a full day of travel to get there since there were no direct flights to Calamity. So maybe over Christmas?
Realistically, though, she had no business considering an expansion.
Expansion? What was she thinking? It was a pop-up exhibition, not a museum.
Her phone pinged with another text from Stan. We’ll put out the word that we’re no longer taking donations.
She responded immediately. Keep taking them.
Oh, hell. Why had she written that? Because she couldn’t quiet the ideas that kept popping up. More classes, new displays. She wanted one called Hope, where people could share their journey to healing. What worked; what didn’t. It would give encouragement and direction.
What do I know about healing? Since leaving Fin in the lobby of the hotel, she’d barely been able to eat. Restlessness kept her up most nights. When she’d left Calamity, she’d thought she had a choice to make between living with an unreliable man and half a heart.
She’d been wrong.
There was no choice. Living with half a heart was intolerable. And no amount of work or social life covered for the fact that life without Fin was just going through the motions.
You’re in my DNA. Well, it was true. And she didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
Focusing on Stan, she tapped out a text. If interest doesn’t die down by December, I’ll see what I can do with the second floor next time I’m in town.
That comment Fin had made in the hotel lobby? I get it now. It had roused the relentless beast called hope. The least she could’ve done was hear him out, because she really didn’t think she could go another six years without him in her life.
Maybe she’d cut out early and give him a call. She needed to hear what he had to say.
Callie glanced up from her phone to watch Mrs. Reyes chatting with a group of fellowship recipients. The woman had made a point to talk to everyone but Callie.
She hadn’t seen that kind of behavior since middle school.
Whatever. She’d gotten the fellowship because she’d earned it. And Mrs. Reyes had gotten her due when she’d tried to use the system to squeeze out her son’s ex-girlfriend.
The lights in the room flicked on and off, and someone tapped Mrs. Reyes on the shoulder. She took two steps up the staircase and then lifted her champagne flute.
Conversation quieted down, as everyone turned to face her.
“Good evening, everyone. On behalf of the entire board, we’d like to welcome you to the fall program. As you know, the selection process is extremely competitive, which means everyone in this room is a shining star.” She beamed an approving smile to someone in the crowd. “Dahlia, who comes to us from Lasalle in Barcelona.” Her gaze sought someone else out. “Lyndon, from the Sorbonne.” She called out several others, looking delighted and proud, until her gaze turned brittle when it landed on Callie “And, of course, Callie, dear, who showed us that old Wild West frontier spirit of manifest destiny in claiming her fellowship.”
Her blood turned into a roiling cocktail of hot and cold. Manifest destiny? What, somehow Callie thought she was so special she could snatch the job away from someone else? The shocked gazes trained on her lit her up like spotlights.
“I’m certain by now you’ve all seen the exhibition she created from my son’s idea.”
Heat shot up her neck, spreading like a fever throughout her body. Embarrassment ignited into outrage—Julian had never had an original thought in his life. Why would he when his parents orchestrated his every move?
Satisfaction gleamed in the old bat’s eyes, and an odd sense of calm and clarity took possession of Callie.
She stepped forward, clearing the crowd in front of her. “For a moment there I was confused when you credited your son for the Exhibition of Broken Hearts but, come to think of it, if he hadn’t dumped me the day after he proposed in the middle of my brother’s rehearsal dinner, if he hadn’t tossed me out of the apartment we’d shared, leaving me homeless, I would never have come up with the idea to start my own exhibition. So, in that respect, I guess I do have your son to thank for forcing me to think outside the box and come up with some way to salvage my future.” She raised her glass. “So please thank him for that. Tell him he’s responsible for the best thing that ever happened to me.”
A tense and horrible silence filled the room, but Callie didn’t give a damn.
Because she’d finally figured out her bliss.
With a two-hour layover at the Salt Lake City airport, Callie wandered into a book store, tote on her shoulder and phone tucked against her ear. “What’s all that noise?” she asked her dad. She was used to the incessant buzz of conversation in her parents’ diner, along with the periodic outbursts of singing, but it sounded like a convention was going on in the background.
“There’s a lot of activity going on at the Bowie place,” her dad said.
Fin. She hadn’t called him after leaving the reception. Once she’d made up her mind to go home, she knew she had to have the conversation in person. They had to resolve things one way or another. She’d thought a lot about what he’d said, about her shutting down instead of unleashing on him the way she used to. And he was right. Once he’d decided to go to Chile, she’d shut down. Slipped right back into Calliope, when she should’ve let him know what she was thinking. How his decision had impacted her.
But what if they couldn’t work things out? She’d have to live in Calamity with him right there. She’d have to see him with a woman. A girlfriend.
A wife.
Carting a kid around on his shoulders—a little boy with his messy dark hair and blue eyes. The pain had her closing her eyes and turning away from a wall of books.
No, that wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. A world without Fin and Callie didn’t make sense. “What does that have to do with the diner?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Fin and I broke up, Dad.” Strange how saying the words out loud felt like lying. “We haven’t talked.” A sense of urgency hit. She needed to get home and talk to him. She needed to be with him. What if he left town? He could be gone for a month.
“I thought he’d tell you about his plans.”
Her pulse quickened. “No.” Plans? What plans? “What’re you talking about?”
“Between him and Brodie, they ought to bring a lot of business to Calamity.”
What could that mean? The Braverman contract would have Fin on the road half the year. “How would Fin bring business?”
The PA system drowned out her dad’s voice. She hurried out of the store. “I didn’t hear you. Can you say that again?”
“I said he’s building a state of the art training facility. He’s already got athletes signed on. Big names, too.”
“How can he do that and make his films?”
“He tore up the contact. He’s training instead.”
But would that make him happy? “Really?”
Her dad chuckled. “Took him long enough to figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” She had to practically shout over the next announcement.
“What he’s meant to do.”
“Do you know why?”
“Sure I do. He stopped by a couple nights ago. Never seen him so sure of himself. Said he—”
Another garbled message came on. Jesus, was she standing under a speaker? “Wait one second, Dad. I can’t hear you over these damn announcements. Just wait.”
Only this time something caught her attention. “…information desk. Calliope Bell, please meet your party at the information desk.”
“Dad?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“They’re calling my name. I hope nothing’s wrong with my flight.” She just wanted to get home.
“No, doll, nothing’s wrong with it. Go on and take care of business. I’ll see you in an hour and a half.”
“If my flight’s on time, I’ll be home in three hours.” But he’d already disconnected.
Callie hustled along the concourse until she found the information desk. A few people stood in line, but a woman dressed in black pants and a short-sleeved black shirt looked up from her cell phone. She smiled at Callie and tucked the phone into her back pocket.
“Callie?” As the woman reached out a hand, Callie read the patch on her shirt. AirTrans Pilot.
“Yes. Hello.” They shook hands. “What’s going on?”
“I’m your pilot. Joanne Riley. Why don’t you come with me?”
“I don’t understand. I have a flight. It leaves in less than two hours.”
“I think you’ll prefer my mode of transportation.” She tipped her head. Come on.
Callie gestured behind her, at the gate. “But my luggage.”
“Everything’s taken care of.” She laughed again. “Believe me.”
Callie followed the pilot through a door for Airport Personnel Only.
“Can you tell me where we’re going?”
But the woman kept up a brisk pace down a long hall, before punching in a code and then pushing the release-bar of a door that led to the tarmac. “Here we are.” A blast of hot air and the roar of engines hit Callie as she stepped outside into the blinding sun. Joanne headed toward a sleek gray jet.
Her parents couldn’t afford to charter a flight, so a Bowie had to be behind this.
And then black boots hit the steps. Callie shielded her eyes with a hand to take in the jeans-clad legs that followed. A navy blue T-shirt covered a muscular chest and biceps.
And then that smile. He’d come for her. She’d told him to stay away but, of course, he hadn’t.
Because a world without Fin and Callie didn’t make sense.
Callie took off at a run, her heart full to bursting. “Fin.” She slammed against his hard chest, and her body thrilled at the feel of his strong arms wrapping around her. Home. She was finally home. And this time she’d never let go. “I’m moving back to Calamity.”
“I know, wild thing.” His arms banded around her and lifted her off the ground as he held her tightly to his chest.
When he started to pull away, she tightened her hold. “Don’t let me go.”
“Never gonna let you go again.”
She tucked her face into his neck.
“We’re gonna get it right this time,” he said. “You believe me?”
She pulled back. “My dad said you’re going to run a training facility.”
He nodded. “I finally figured out how to be the man you deserve.”
“I think I figured out how to be the woman you deserve, too.”
“What about your dream of being in the New York art world?”
“My job at the fellowship was about raising money for an installation that I didn’t care about. I mean, there I was at the reception, texting Stan and Barbara, coming up with new ideas for the exhibition, and it struck me. I’m already a museum curator. I love what I do.”
“That all you love?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I love you, Fin Bowie. With everything in me, I love you.”
He smiled, pressing a kiss on her mouth. “You gonna be happy in Calamity?”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” She wanted her time with Theo and her parents. She wanted her friendship with Megan.
And most of all… “I want to wake up with you every day of my life.”