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Folding her arms, she raised her chin. “There’s nothing he can say. This is my house. I make my own decisions.”
That was good news, at least. The last thing he needed was to get into another fight. “Then maybe I should go with the two of you—”
“Rest.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “If you’ll go back to bed, I’ll make buttermilk pancakes for breakfast when I get back.”
He was hungry. And it’d been forever since he’d had a home-cooked meal. His father had had a girlfriend once who could make the best pancakes he’d ever tasted. He missed her, like he missed some of the others who came and went. Pancakes shouldn’t have been much of a draw, but Callie couldn’t have offered anything that would’ve tempted him more.
Well, maybe there was one thing. It had been a long time since he’d had that, too. “Buttermilk pancakes, huh?”
Her lips curved into a smile. “You’ve never had better.”
He studied her, trying to figure out why she was being so nice.
“What?” she said, sounding a bit self-conscious.
“Why aren’t you in more of a hurry to get rid of me?”
Her smile faded. “Maybe it feels good to focus on someone else’s problems for a change.”
* * *
“Let’s go over your plan.” Kyle Houseman, one of Callie’s best friends and part of the clique she’d grown up with since grade school, drove his work truck slowly along the road where Levi said they should be able to find his bike.
“My plan?” Preoccupied with searching the shoulder and the ditch that ran alongside it, Callie wasn’t paying a lot of attention. “What are you talking about?”
“Once we get this vagrant’s bike back to your place. What then?”
She was fairly sure the motorcycle was gone. If not, she would’ve spotted it by now.
“Callie?” Kyle prompted when she didn’t answer.
“Go slower, would you?”
“I’m barely creeping along as it is!” he complained but did as she asked.
“It has to be here.” Pressed up against the harness of her seat belt, she gripped the window ledge as she searched. “If it’s not...I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“He’ll pay a hefty impound fee,” Kyle said.
Would some guy with only the clothes on his back have the money for that? “Someone other than the police could’ve taken it. Maybe it’s been stolen,” she mused. But she thought that would be the worse of the two possibilities.
“If so, his insurance will cut him a check. If he has insurance.”
Kyle had spoken her concerns aloud. She doubted Levi carried any more insurance than was legally required, and liability didn’t cover theft. “I don’t want him to lose his bike.”
Easing the truck over to the side, Kyle waited for a car coming up from behind to get around them. “Why are you so concerned about this guy?”
His surprise irritated her. Having a liver that no longer functioned properly made her look at certain issues differently. For the first time, she wondered how people could be so callous about certain things.
“Why are you not more concerned?” she countered. “We’re talking about a human being who was attacked by dogs. He’s already full of stitches. Doesn’t seem fair that he should lose his only mode of transportation.”
Kyle scowled at the censure in her voice. “There’s no need to overreact. I just don’t think you should get personally involved.”
She blinked at him. “What should I do, then? Throw him out?”
“Why not? He isn’t your responsibility. For all you know, he’s an ex-con. Even if he’s not, he could rob you blind—or worse!”
Before her diagnosis, both possibilities would’ve frightened her so much she probably wouldn’t have taken the chance. But she didn’t feel that way anymore. It wasn’t that she didn’t care to enjoy what time she had left. It was more that she wanted to take the opportunity to do good before she was gone.
“He’s not dangerous,” she said.
“You don’t know that, Callie. Even if he isn’t violent, or a thief in the usual sense, he could take advantage of you in other ways—play on your sympathies, sponge off you.”
“He’s not the type.”
“You can recognize the type?”
Levi had been far too eager to handle his own problem with the bike for her to believe he expected her or anyone else to look after him. On the contrary, he gave her the impression that he was determined not to need anyone.
“I won’t have trouble getting rid of him when the time comes,” she insisted.
“You don’t know that, either.”
She met Kyle’s gaze. He cared about her well-being. She trusted that—but there were other issues at play here, too, including, possibly, some jealousy. While trying to help him recover from his divorce a year ago, she’d gotten a little too close and wound up in his bed. After a few isolated incidents, they’d agreed to end all sexual activity. They didn’t want to ruin their friendship. So far, that friendship had lasted more than twenty years.
But since moving to the farm, and knowing she was probably facing the end of her life, Callie had been so terribly lonely she’d slipped back into sleeping with Kyle a few times. “Stop acting like a jealous boyfriend, okay?”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“Sounds like it.”
“Some would say I have that right!”
She swatted him on the shoulder. “Oh, come on! You don’t love me in that way, and you know it. You’re still in love with Olivia.”
“Since she’s married now, it doesn’t do me a lot of good.”
Only the fact that she’d married his archrival—who was also his stepbrother—made it worse. “Regardless, I can’t replace her. Even if we both wish otherwise, we’re not in love. We’ve already gone over this.”
“Fine. The motorcycle’s not here. Let’s go back.”
She’d offended him. Sometimes he wanted more from her than other times. She understood. She waffled, too. They cared so much about each other that it was natural to question why they couldn’t be even closer, why that added romantic element had never been there, especially since they’d turned out to be so sexually compatible.
“I want to keep looking. Could you please make another pass?” she asked.
Clearly not happy, he swung the truck around and began creeping down the road again. When they reached the Gruper rental, Callie peered into the yard, hoping to see the pit bulls Godfrey had mentioned and whether the animals showed evidence of having been in a fight. But the house looked empty of both man and beast.
Kyle broke into her thoughts. “How old is he?”
“Who?”
“This guy who showed up at your house last night. Who else?”
She’d been thinking about the renters. “His name’s Levi McCloud.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m guessing he’s our age. Why?”
“Just curious.” He turned down the radio. “What does he look like?”
He was handsome. There was no question about that. But Kyle wouldn’t want to hear it. Not in his current frame of mind. He had to be going through a difficult period if he was acting so possessive of her. “He’s about six-two, has blond hair slightly on the long side in front, hazel eyes and a few military tattoos. What does it matter?”
“I’m wondering if attraction is part of whatever you’re feeling about him.”
Another comment that seemed motivated by jealousy. She ignored it. “Can you pull over?”
“Here?”
“At that house we just passed.” She indicated the rental.
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask if anyone’s seen a motorcycle on the side of the road.”
“Who lives here?” he asked as he backed up.
“According to Godfrey, a couple of guys who’ve come to Whiskey Creek to do some prospecting for the summer.”
“You’ll just go up and knock?”
“Why not?”
“Because it seems to me that we’ve done enough.”
She covered a yawn. The night was catching up with her. These days she didn’t have a lot of strength to begin with. “This won’t take long.”
Kyle pulled into the driveway and let the engine idle.
Before leaving the safety of the truck, Callie whistled, just in case. When no dogs came running, she climbed out and approached the dilapidated porch.
The blinds were down, so she couldn’t see inside. Listening for sounds of movement, she knocked.
No one came to the door.
They were gone, as she’d guessed. She was on her way around back when Kyle called out to her.
“Callie, come on! No one’s home.”
She raised a finger to signal that she’d be just another second. She wanted to see if these men might have taken Levi’s bike and rolled it out of sight. But she found no sign of that. She even checked in the detached, one-car garage.
Nothing, except the dredging machine they must have purchased from G. and buckets upon buckets of sediment and rock.
Disappointed, she was walking back when she spotted some bloody paw prints leading to the mudroom.
Aha! She’d found the offending dogs, after all—or where the offending dogs lived.
Eager to tell Kyle that she’d accomplished something, she almost missed the dirty, chewed-up backpack partially hidden by bushes. It appeared to be military issue, which made her think it had to be the one Levi lost when he dropped his bike.
“Are you coming?” Kyle called.
After scooping it up, she returned to the truck and tossed it in the bed. “Let’s go.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her as she got in. “Did you just steal that?”
“I’m guessing it belongs to Levi.”
“But you don’t know.”
“We’ll see soon enough. I can always return it.”
* * *
The second Levi joined them in the living room Kyle could see that he had indeed suffered a traumatic dog attack. He had stitches in both arms, even in one leg. But Kyle couldn’t feel much sympathy. He was too worried about the threat this man might pose to Callie. Judging by the wariness in Levi’s eyes, those bites weren’t the only injuries he’d ever sustained. Kyle was willing to bet he carried some significant battle scars on the inside, too.
Callie had said he’d been in the military. Maybe he’d seen some action. Kyle supposed he could be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He wouldn’t be the first vet to struggle with what he’d been through.
“Levi, this is Kyle Houseman.” Callie gestured between them.
Lean but sinewy, Levi offered his hand. He was an inch or two taller than Kyle and, Kyle guessed, two or three years younger. He seemed brooding, watchful and a bit standoffish, even while wearing Callie’s bathrobe, which should’ve made him look ridiculous. Instead, the pink terry cloth created a stark contrast between her size and his, her optimism and innocence and the cynicism of a jaded warrior. It also reminded Kyle of the wolf donning Grandma’s mobcap in Little Red Riding Hood.
Would he have to play the part of the woodcutter?
“Nice robe,” he said.
Levi lowered his hand when Kyle didn’t accept it, but he didn’t scramble to explain or apologize, as most guys who were so out of place probably would. “Would you rather I went without it?”
Kyle wasn’t pleased with Mr. McCloud’s response. But he was the one who’d set the tone. What had evolved between him and Callie put Kyle in a difficult situation. Their relationship was so complicated that he often lay awake at night, trying to figure out what should happen now that they’d slept together. “I’m wondering where your clothes are.”
Levi jerked his head in Callie’s direction. “Ask your friend.”
“They were torn and bloody!” Obviously rattled by what had already been said, Callie could hardly find her voice. “I’m washing them.”
Kyle grinned as if he’d been joking the whole time. “Right. Of course. Then it’s a good thing that robe fits as well as it does.”
A muscle flexed in Levi’s cheek. “I’m not after your woman, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
His blatant honesty took Kyle off guard. “She’s not my woman. But I care about her. I want to be clear on that.” He also wanted to put McCloud on notice that she wasn’t as defenseless as it might seem, even though she was keeping Rifle outside in deference to what her guest had been through.
“All I want is my bike.” At that point, Levi turned to Callie. “Did you find it?”
When she shot him a dirty look, Kyle knew she wasn’t pleased with how he’d handled the situation.
“No. Sorry to say I didn’t,” she told Levi. “We’ll have to call the police, see if they impounded it.”
“But you brought my backpack.”
She stepped out of the way so he could get to the tattered canvas pack Kyle had set inside the front door. “Yes. It was at the house closest to where you said you were attacked. But it’s filthy. I think the dogs took out their residual anger on what you left behind.”
While bending to pick up his belongings, McCloud glanced at them from beneath the hank of blond hair hanging in his eyes and Kyle was again struck by the fact that this was not your typical vagrant. He was too handsome, too young—and he seemed very capable.
Kyle could only hope he wasn’t capable of violence.
“I thought it had to be a neighbor’s dogs,” Levi said. “I couldn’t have walked too far from where it happened.”
“Those dogs don’t belong to my neighbor, exactly,” Callie said. “They belong to whoever is temporarily staying in that house. Godfrey told me two guys are renting it. He said they have pit bulls.”
“That explains a lot—about size and strength.”
“You certainly weren’t dealing with poodles,” she said.
The way she seemed to be pandering to him bothered Kyle.
“Did you see them?” Levi asked her.
“I didn’t. But I discovered some bloody paw prints. That’s what tipped me off.”
There was blood on the bag, too. Kyle had ascertained that much when he carried it in. “Did you injure either of the dogs?” he asked.
Levi shrugged. “I tried. It was me or them.” He unzipped his pack and pulled out a pair of jeans and a
T-shirt. “Good news, Mr. Houseman.” He held them up. “I can get out of your girlfriend’s robe.”
“I’m not his girlfriend.” Callie’s words reiterated what Kyle had already said, but Levi ignored them. When he turned, presumably to go change, she stopped him. “Why put those clothes on over your stitches? You’ll just get ointment on them, and that stuff won’t come out easily. You need to eat and go back to bed. You can dress later.”
He gave her a pointed look. “Thank you, but I’ll decide what I need to do,” he said, and disappeared into the bedroom.
As soon as he was gone, Kyle guessed he was going to get harangued by Callie, so he went on the offensive. “That was rude what he just said to you.”
Grabbing his arm, she dragged him into the kitchen. “What he said? You started it!” she whispered. “You were all but banging on your chest.”
Kyle lowered his voice. “Maybe I could’ve been friendlier. But you’re being friendly enough for both of us. That man has issues, Callie.”
“Most vagrants do!” she responded. “That’s why they don’t have homes, why they aren’t with their families!”
“Exactly! So don’t tell me you’re still going to let him stay!”
She released his arm. “What else can I do?”
“Have him go somewhere different...”
“Like?”
He considered his own circumstances. “I’ve got my sister and her kids at my place.”
“I doubt he’d be willing to go home with you, anyway. It’s not as if you were nice to him!”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he grumbled.
When she tilted up her chin, he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “He hasn’t asked for anything—except some bandages to stop the bleeding. The rest has been my doing.”
Kyle felt bad for not having more sympathy. He should’ve at least shaken hands. But, homeless or not, McCloud wasn’t the type of man who inspired pity. He was too remote, too mysterious and probably too angry. “He’ll be fine.”
“He has nowhere to go until he gets his motorcycle fixed.”
“So I’ll pay for a room at Little Mary’s B and B for a few days. That’ll solve it.”
She got the buttermilk from the fridge. “He won’t take your money.”
“How do you know?”
“Try offering and see for yourself.”
He didn’t answer because he believed her.
“Anyway, there’s no need to go that far,” she said. “We can manage right here.”
Kyle came up behind her. “He looks strong, despite his injuries, Callie. Doesn’t that intimidate you?”
“I have to go sometime, Kyle.”
Had he heard her correctly? She’d never said anything like that before. “That’s a weird comment. How can you be so cavalier?” He slouched into a chair. “Do you realize how much damage a man like that could do to a woman like you if he decides to cause trouble?”
“A woman like me?”
“Someone who weighs barely one hundred pounds?”
“He’s already had several chances to hurt me. He could’ve broken in last night instead of knocking on the door. He could’ve attacked me after I found him in the bathroom. Or maybe not—he was pretty hurt,” she said. “But if he was intent on rape or murder, he could’ve stopped me before I called you this morning. He was feeling stronger by then.”
“Just because he hasn’t hurt you yet doesn’t mean he won’t. Maybe he has a low frustration tolerance. Maybe you haven’t done anything to piss him off.”
“He’s in pain. From the dog attack and possibly other things. Something sent him out on the road. I get the feeling that all he wants is to be left alone.”
Kyle glanced over his shoulder to make sure they still had their privacy. “Fine. But it’s summer, plenty warm out. At least have him sleep in your uncle’s old room in the barn.”
She nodded. “I’ll have to. I only have one bed.”
“And once you find his bike and get the damn thing fixed, send him on his way!”
Standing on tiptoe, she reached for the flour. “I don’t think I’ll have to ask him to leave.”
A noise made them turn. Levi was there, wearing the clothes he’d pulled from his backpack, which looked clean. “I guarantee it,” he said.
4
Breakfast was awkward. Callie wished Kyle would go home. She didn’t like the skeptical way he kept looking at Levi, and she was sure Levi didn’t like it, either. He bowed his head over his plate as he ate. Then he thanked her and asked if he could use her phone.
After she handed him her cell, he walked into the living room and she and Kyle cleared the table.
“Don’t worry about the dishes,” she said. Levi’s voice carried back to them but they couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“I’ll help.”
She guessed Kyle was feeling contrite for behaving so boorishly. “What’s up with you today?” she asked. “You glared at Levi all through breakfast.”
He squeezed her shoulders. “I know. I couldn’t seem to stop. It’s because I was already worried about you—and now this.”
Pretending to be absorbed in her work, she averted her gaze. She hated lying to those she loved but wasn’t ready to handle the alternative. “I don’t know why you’d worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Fine? You haven’t been yourself since you moved here.”
“Of course I’ve been myself.” She’d done her best to go on as if nothing catastrophic had happened but, of course, there were bound to be changes. Hearing that she had only six months left, that this summer would be her last, still wasn’t easy to cope with.
“No. You’re quieter. Reflective. Withdrawn. You don’t spend much time at the studio anymore, and you were there all the time before. I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said firmly. “My assistant is taking care of Reflections. That gives me a chance to live here, on the farm, like I’ve always wanted to, before my parents sell it. It’s my way of saying goodbye to the place.”
He obviously wasn’t convinced. “You loved living in town, loved being in the middle of everything. And you were so determined to build your business. Then you went...AWOL.”
“I haven’t gone AWOL. I’m tired of doing weddings. I want to be able to photograph nature and help my parents, too. This is my opportunity.”
He studied the black-and-white photograph mounted on canvas that hung on her wall. She’d managed to capture a large, hairy spider spinning a web out in the barn. The texture of the old wood came through so clearly. And she loved the shadow of the web on the ground. It was competition material. She knew it. Finally, she was taking artistic photographs—but she wasn’t sure she’d be around to reap the rewards.
“So how are you making a living?” he asked. “I know your parents are giving you a little to get this place shaped up before they list it, but that can’t be enough to cover your monthly expenses.”
“Actually, the studio’s booked for the season and I no longer have to pay rent on my old apartment. I’m better off than before.”
“The business hasn’t suffered without you there?”
“Not as much as you’d expect.” Autumn might prove to be a different story, but autumn might not matter. One day at a time... “Tina’s talented. I trained her well.”
“If she’s that talented she’ll break out on her own someday.”
She wouldn’t have to. Callie planned to leave her the business. And she planned to leave Kyle her dog. Those were the only two things she had to give away, except her SUV, but that came with a monthly payment. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“So you’re happy?”
The way he looked at her begged her to be honest with him, so she almost came out with the truth about her liver. She didn’t want to hurt her friends and family by dying suddenly when she could’ve given them some warning.
But neither did she want to trade her final months for what sharing her secret would mean. Once everyone knew, she’d be the recipient of their pity. She’d have to live with their sadness as well as her own. And she’d have to respond to all that grief and concern with some polite phrase that showed courage in the face of bitter disappointment. She wasn’t sure she was capable of being as brave as that required. Not yet.
Besides, her mother would want to take care of her, would pressure her to move home, and she wasn’t ready. The doctors had given her until the end of summer. She wanted to enjoy as much of that time as possible.
Chances were good she wouldn’t die suddenly, anyway. First she’d become too ill to take care of herself. At that point, she’d come out with it. But right now, the medication her doctor prescribed kept her fairly healthy, if she was careful to eat right, get plenty of rest and manage her stress. It even kept her from looking jaundiced.
“I’m happy,” she insisted.
“So it’s not me. It’s not that we’ve...been together?”
“No.” She smiled as she touched his face. “I know you’d marry me if I wanted you to. You already married another girl just because you slept with her.” She was teasing. Their entire group teased Kyle about Noelle. First she’d used her pregnancy to get him to propose. Then she’d aborted the baby without consulting him when he wouldn’t buy her the mansion she wanted. It was the most astonishing act of spite Callie had ever seen. She still couldn’t bear to look at Noelle, who was once again working at A Damsel’s Delights, a clothing and handmade-jewelry boutique in town.
Fortunately for Kyle, that episode of his life was over. Callie thought it was also fortunate for him that she’d given up on love and marriage; she had no expectations where he was concerned. She didn’t have time to start a family. Even if she found the right man, she wouldn’t want to get romantically involved, wouldn’t want to hurt a partner by dragging him through what could easily turn out to be her death.
“The change in you...it happened about the time we first slept together,” Kyle pressed.
No, it had happened precisely six weeks after. They’d both drunk a little too much and slept together on New Year’s Eve. During the next four weeks she’d begun feeling poorly—tired, nauseous, feverish. She’d assumed she had the flu but the symptoms wouldn’t go away. Then she became jaundiced and, before people could start to remark on it, she’d decided to drive to Sacramento and get checked out at a twenty-four-hour medical center. She must’ve had some inkling that it was serious, or she wouldn’t have gone to such pains to avoid the local doctor. Still, it was a bombshell when, on Valentine’s Day, a physician from that clinic called with the news.