Callie reached up, framed Lily’s face and then smacked her noisily on the forehead. “God, I love you.”
She heaved herself up and planted her feet on the floor. “What time is it anyway?”
“Eleven. You’ll need to hurry if we’re going to make lunch.”
Callie pushed herself up and staggered toward the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, feeling somewhat human again, she came back into the living room where Lily was sitting in the armchair.
“Ready?” Lily asked.
Callie nodded.
Lily looked dubiously at Callie. “Want me to drive?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Lily asked once they started down the road toward town.
Callie grimaced. “Not much, I’ll admit. Thinking too much.”
“Did you come to any groundbreaking conclusions?”
“Just that Max has a hold on me that months of separation and anger haven’t managed to break,” she said bleakly.
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
Callie’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. She held her breath as she turned down Main Street and drove past the hotel where Max was staying. Only when they were beyond did she acknowledge Lily’s statement.
“There’s a part of me that’s happy. Really, really happy. Like that bubbly, giddy feeling you get when you’re really excited about something.”
“And the other part?”
“Like I’m worried I’m standing on railroad tracks with a freight train bearing down on me.”
“Well, that’s an image,” Lily muttered.
Callie chuckled. “Best I could come up with on such short notice, but it fits.”
They drove in silence for a few moments longer. Callie turned onto the road that led up the mountain to her parents’ house and deftly navigated the holes, the switchbacks and the loose dirt.
“It’s my pride,” she finally admitted. “I can’t get beyond my pride. It sounds so stupid. I feel stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, Callie. Pride is important.” Lily reached over and squeezed Callie’s knee. “It’s going to be okay. Just remember you don’t have to be pressured into anything you don’t want. This is your turf. He has to come to you. You aren’t at a disadvantage here. He is.”
Callie smiled and rounded the corner to the turnoff for her parents’ cabin. She shot between the tall pines and rolled to a stop behind Seth’s truck. Then she checked her watch. “Made it with fifteen minutes to spare. Now Mom won’t gripe because the food got cold.”
“Like she’d know.” Lily snorted. “Your dads are the ones getting the food on the table.”
Callie broke into laughter. “Yeah, so true.”
The both got out and hurried up the steps. Callie opened the door, stuck her head in and yelled, “We’re here!”
To her surprise, when she walked in, her parents—all four of them—and her brothers were sitting in the living room, their faces set in determination. And they were all staring at her.
“Uh-oh,” Callie murmured to Lily.
Lily shot her a look of apology and turned her palms up as if to say she had no idea what was up. Callie let out a small groan. D-day. The day her family was no longer going to be put off.
She knew those looks. Saw the worry in her mom’s eyes. Saw the grim set of her fathers’ and brothers’ lips. Yeah, she was going to get it from all sides. She was tempted to turn around and run like hell, but she wasn’t a coward.
She took a step forward and wiped her palms down her jeans. “Hey guys.”
“Callie, come sit down,” Adam said in a low voice.
She winced. It was that tone that brooked no arguments. Even at twenty-three years old she wasn’t too old to heed her dad’s order. He didn’t give them very often, but when he did, he meant business.
With a sigh, she flopped onto the couch next to Seth. Seth was her ally. Always had been. Only now he didn’t look like much of an ally. He looked as determined as her other family members to make her talk.
Ryan leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. He stared at her with those blue eyes so like her own. “What’s going on, baby girl? Don’t you think it’s time you told us what’s wrong?”
“You’ve been moping around here for months now,” Ethan cut in. “You came home like a wounded animal and I don’t see that it’s gotten any better.”
Tears pricked her eyelids, and the people she loved so dearly went bleary in front of her. Lily came to stand beside her and put a soft hand on her shoulder in support.
“Callie, we’re worried,” her mom said. “You just aren’t yourself.”
She scrubbed a hand over her face and heaved another sigh of resignation. “I met someone while I was in Europe.”
Adam got this pinched look on his face like he did when he wanted to kick someone’s ass. Lord but this wasn’t the way she wanted to introduce Max to her family.
“His name is Max. We had a…misunderstanding.”
Seth snorted beside her. “What kind of misunderstanding? Is it the type of misunderstanding that I need to track the son of a bitch down and kill him?”
She twisted her hands nervously in her lap and peeked back up at her fathers. “He’s here. In Clyde, I mean.”
You could have broken a brick on their faces. Ethan’s eyes narrowed and Ryan scowled.
She held up a hand. “I want you to meet him.”
“Maybe you need to explain this misunderstanding first,” Adam said.
Holly got up from her position between Ryan and Ethan and moved over to where Callie sat. With a flick of her hand, she motioned Seth from his seat and then settled next to her daughter.
“What happened, baby?”
Oh Lord but she wished her mother had stayed across the room. Callie’s lips trembled and her nose drew up and stung as tears burned her eyes.
It was all over with the moment her mom pulled her into her arms. She buried her head against her mother’s chest and allowed some of her misery to pour out.
Holly rocked her back and forth and stroked a hand through Callie’s hair. Several long moments later, Callie gained control of herself and immediately felt like an idiot.
“God,” she groaned against her mom. “Make them go away, Mom. This is humiliating.”
Holly chuckled. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with them.”
“Lily can stay,” Callie said mournfully.
“Callie.”
Ryan’s voice reached her ears. It was a soft command. Full of love. She looked up, unable to deny her father.
“If you really want us to go, we will. We love you. It’s been hard watching you hurt and not being able to do a damn thing about it. We only want to help.”
Callie smiled and wiped at the damp trails on her cheeks. “I don’t want you to hate him.”
“I can’t promise to like him if he hurt my baby,” Ryan said evenly.
“He wants us to be together,” she said.
“And what do you want?” Adam asked.
She drew in a deep breath. “I want us to be together too. If I can forgive him, I want you to be able to forgive him too.”
Holly squeezed Callie’s hand. “I’m sure we’ll love him.” She shot a challenging look in her husbands’ direction. “We have to meet him first, of course. And I have to be sure he’s someone I can trust my daughter with.”
The sharpness in Holly’s tone made her sons snicker. She silenced them with a look.
“Did Max have anything to do with what happened the other night at the bar?” Dillon asked.
Callie shot him a glare. “Who told you?”
Dillon stared balefully at her. “It’s my bar, Callie. Did you think no one would say anything?”
She scowled and pressed her lips together.
Her fathers’ collective sigh echoed in the room.
“It was nothing,” she said defensively. “I might have hit Max when he showed up at the bar. I wasn’t expecting him. I was pissed.”