Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

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Wyatt

I have a perfect week before the outside world rears its ugly head and tries to wrestle my Callie away from me. It comes in the form of Bruce and her brother. The two visit us and tell me exactly who they think shot my sweet Peaches. The mother fucker worked on my security team for six months before getting shitcanned about a month ago.

I stare down at the picture the two men show me. Yeah, I recognize the face. But I don’t understand why he would do what he did. He got fired a month ago and all of this has been going on a lot longer than a month so it can’t be revenge for him losing his job. Why did he go to such lengths? Why try to hurt me, and especially Callie?

Eli starts running his mouth about the engagement story and Bruce lays it directly at my feet. I was the one who came up with the story and I was the one who told Bruce to put the story out there so everyone would know. It just causes the old feeling of betrayal Callie felt towards me and her brother to bubble back up again.

By the time the two men leave, Callie is practically vibrating with the urge to fight. “I can’t believe you would pretend to be engaged just to stop this thing. I mean, shouldn’t that be something special not a tool to draw this fucker out? And you just casually use it as nothing but press fodder.”

“That’s not what’s happening at all. I’m not using some story to draw this asshole out. I’m telling the truth. You’re fucking lucky I didn’t tell every damned body we’re already married.”

“What?!”

“And don’t even think that when this is all over, your little ass is going to just disappear on me. This is going to go one way and only one way.”

“Fuck off! You don’t dictate my life. You don’t get to tell me how to live it.”

“We’re marrying, peaches. Like it or not.”

She starts pacing and yelling and I finally tell her the thing that has been growing inside of my mind every day, the thing that started the first time we ever made love.

“What about the baby?”

“Baby?” She whirls around to look at me like I’ve lost my mind and not pacing anymore. “What baby?”

“The one that could be growing inside of you right at this moment since we’ve been fucking like rabbits and haven’t once used anything.”

She pales and gets a look on her face like she might pass out because of what I just said.

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want that to be the reason you agreed to marry me.”

“What?” Her voice isn’t very loud and she still has that lost look on her face.

“I don’t want you marrying me because of a baby. But I do want to marry you and have a baby - a family. A big one.”

“No.” She starts shaking her head and trembling. “No. No. No! How could you? How could I? What have we done? Why aren’t you freaking out about this? Why aren’t you…?” She pauses whatever it is she’s going to ask and spins on her heels. “I have to get some air.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No! I…I’ll stay on the porch or the back patio. I…I need air and some time.”

She’s gone so fast I can’t say another word before the door slams shut. I don’t like how final it sounds and even though she told me not to follow, I have no choice but to go after her.

But when I open the door it’s to find someone I wasn’t even thinking about, someone who shouldn’t be here at all. I pull myself up short, so I don’t plow into the last woman on Earth I want to talk to. Delilah.

“What the hell are you doing here?” It takes me a long time to spot the gun she is holding in her hand. “What the hell?”

“Why, Wyatt? Why can’t you just see we are meant to be together? Forever. Why can’t you understand what I would do to have you? Why don’t you understand how we are meant to be with one another?”

“I don’t know, you psycho. Maybe because you fuck everything with a dick, and you don’t seem to think there is anything wrong with that.”

“Don’t slut shame, Wy.”

“No!” I shout the word completely done with this and with her. “This goes way beyond slut shaming, you gaslighting bitch. This is about faithfulness and being one, instead of one and others. This is about love, Delilah, and I don’t love you. I love Callie.”

“Well, you’ll have to find someone new to love, Wyatt, after Charlie gets done with your little peach.”

Her words have icy fingers of fear wrapping themselves around my heart. I make a move to go around her, but she reminds me of the gun she’s holding.

“Uh uh uh.” She waves it around like it’s nothing more than a toy.

“You’re crazy if you think waving a gun at me is going to keep me from Callie. You’re gonna have to empty that thing in me and reload before I’ll stop going for the woman I love.”

Delilah narrows her eyes and cocks her head like she’s thinking about it before raising the weapon, “I’m okay with that. After all, if I can’t have you…”

She takes aim right at my chest but before she can squeeze the trigger, Callie comes through the window bringing the sound of broken glass and busted wood into the room with her. She hits Delilah in the back, taking both women to the ground. The gun goes flying across the room no longer a threat to anyone anymore.

Both women go rolling across the floor before Callie comes up over Delilah and punches her in the face. Delilah cries out and tries to grab her nose but Callie has a tight grip on her wrist keeping her from raising her hand.

“You can’t have him…because he’s mine, you heinous bitch!” She punches her again and this time Delilah isn’t moving anymore. "I guess I am possessive after all."

Delilah’s face is bloody from the two punches my girl delivered to her and I start to walk over to her so I can help her up off the woman who has seemingly gone absolutely psycho.

The front door bounces open before I reach her and the guard, I guess his name is Charlie if Delilah can be believed, steps over the threshold holding a knife in one of his hands. He’s just as bloodied as Delilah and a sense of pride swells in my chest at the thought that my girl kicked his ass too. He takes a step towards my Peaches and everything in my head shuts off.

This is the mother fucker who shot at the woman I love.

I grab his arm by the wrist and use my other to deliver a sharp strike to the back of his elbow causing it to break. The knife clangs to the floor but I’m not nearly done with this bastard. This is the man who broke in while my sweet woman was in nothing but a towel and tried to hurt her with another knife. He’s the son of a bitch who wrote all those letters to my girl. He’s a dead man.

I hit him twice in the face and end up behind him with his head in my hands ready to break his fucking neck like he’s nothing more than a fucking stick of wood when a sweet, soft voice calls out to me.

“Wyatt.”

I look over at her and see her brother standing beside her. She has a small scratch on her cheek and her shoulder seems to be bleeding again god damn it. The hate I have for this mother fucker rises up all over again.

“Think about the baby.”

I stop dead and drop the piece of garbage so that I can come straight to my Callie.

From behind her, I hear her brother speak up, “A lot of things are going to have to be explained here but let’s get the two of you checked out first.”

I cup her face in my hands and drop kisses on her upturned face, “You were such a badass, baby. You kicked so much ass.”

I wipe at the drop of blood under her eye and bring it to my mouth, even her blood is sweet, before I kiss her hard.

“You were so god damned beautiful when you come flying through that window.” I pull back to stare into her eyes. “But no jumping through windows when we’re sure you have a baby in there.”

She gives me a dazzling smile before she stands on tiptoe to press her mouth to mine. “I love you too, Wyatt.”

A huge grin splits my face as I realize she heard me say it to Delilah before she turned action star and broke through the window to save me.

“I have a proposition for you.”

She gives me a curious look, “Yeah, what is it?”

“How about you come on as my bodyguard full-time?”

Her face falls and she takes a step back -or she tries to but I end up just following her. “Oh.”

Before she can say another word, I go on. “And I’ll watch your body full time. So, we can both watch each other’s blind spot.”

She gives me a beautiful grin before giving me a nod, “Okay.”

“Of course, you’ll have to marry me. It’s part of the job requirement. I just happen to have a ring right here.”

"What?!"

I pull out the engagement ring I brought with us before we left for the award show and slip it on her finger.

“I can’t promise I won’t ever try to dictate your life, especially where your safety is concerned but I’ll be behind you supporting you through all your decisions, cheering you on, being proud, and most of all…loving you more and more, year after year. I can promise you; we’ll always figure it out, Peaches.”

She gives me a watery smile before kissing me breathless and pulling back just far enough to tell me, “Wyatt…I’ll take the job.”