Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

C allie pulled her car into her driveway and leaned back against the headrest.

Man, she was tired. She almost wanted to close her eyes right then and there. Screw the walk to her front door.

She’d spent the entire day in her studio teaching, working out, and deep cleaning the place…basically, doing anything and everything to keep busy after yesterday’s talk with Lock.

But had it distracted her? That was a big freaking no.

She looked up at her house. It was her first night back here. She’d stayed one more night in her father’s unit, telling herself she wasn’t hiding, which she knew was a damn lie. But there was something about being close to her father when everything felt wrong that just made her feel safe.

But she couldn’t hide out in his backyard forever. Besides, she missed Aspen. If there was anyone who could make her smile when smiling was the last thing she should be doing, it was her best friend, and man, did she want to smile.

As she was climbing out, a car down the street caught her eye. It was parked in front of the home of Mrs. Midson, an eighty-year-old recluse known for never having visitors.

Was there a person in the car? The windows were tinted, but…

Suddenly, the car lights turned on and it drove away.

Strange. A light chill skittered over her skin, and she walked quickly to her front door. Inside, she dropped her bag on the side table and stepped into the living room—only to stop.

“Aspen?”

Her friend sat on the couch wearing bright pink pajamas, with two tubs of ice cream on the coffee table and two spoons dug inside them. There were also containers of Chinese food and a neatly folded set of what looked to be more pajamas.

Aspen smiled. “Biscoff ice cream for you and chocolate brownie for me. Pajamas because comfort is a must. Chinese in case you feel like any sugar-free food, but that’s not mandatory. And Terminator 2 ready to go.”

Callie’s lips twitched. “That sounds awfully close to our breakup girls’ night.”

In fact, they’d had this exact evening eighteen months ago, when Aspen had broken up with her previous boyfriend, only it had been Callie on the couch ready and waiting for her friend.

“It’s our whenever either of us has experienced a colossal kick in the gut.”

“I kind of feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest too.”

“Well, get your butt over here, woman.”

Despite everything, Callie laughed as she crossed the room and lifted the pajamas. They were also bright pink, but with the word Queen underlined on the front. She dropped beside her friend. “Thank you.”

Aspen lifted the Biscoff ice cream and handed it to her. “How are you doing?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.” She swirled the ice cream around. It was the perfect in-between state of frozen and melted. “Remember when I told you I saw a therapist after I left Misty Peak?”

“Yeah, you said she helped.”

“She did…most of the time. But there was something she said that always stuck with me. She told me that instead of seeing our relationship as over, I should see it as complete.” Callie shook her head. “But that never made sense to me, because the end of our relationship didn’t feel complete. It felt messy and painful and…wrong.”

Aspen tilted her head. “Maybe you always knew you’d find your way back to each other.”

“I don’t know. It hurt so much when he left.”

“And now you’re scared that if you take him back, you’re vulnerable to him hurting you like that again.”

“Yes.” A thousand yeses.

“You will be vulnerable.” Aspen gave a small smile. “But…you might also get everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Her heart gave one of those giant kick-in-her-ribs thumps.

Could she? Could she and Lock finally have the future they’d once planned? “I don’t know how to let go of the past.”

Aspen leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You don’t have to forget what happened. That will always be a part of you. You just have to decide whether or not to let it control your future.”

“It’s a risk.”

“But don’t the greatest risks have the greatest rewards?”

The corner of Callie’s mouth lifted. “You want me to let him in.”

“No. I want you to be happy. What you went through was heartbreaking, but before that, you were happy together. Happier than I’d ever seen you. I would give the world for you to have that again.”

Callie pulled her friend into a hug. “Thank you. You’ve always been the best friend to me.”

Aspen’s arms wrapped around her. “Ditto.” They separated and Aspen cocked her head. “Now, I need you to get your skinny butt into those queen pajamas so we can eat ice cream and watch Arnie kick some ass.”

Callie chuckled, and God it felt good to laugh.

For the rest of the night, she ate way too much ice cream, followed by the Chinese—yes, dessert first. They watched the first two Terminator movies and belly laughed.

A few times during the night, Aspen’s phone lit up, but every time Callie asked about it, her friend waved it off as nothing until she eventually switched her phone off completely.

Which was strange behavior.

The second movie had just finished when Callie turned to look at her friend. “How are you and Dylan doing?” There was a visible flinch from her friend, which made Callie straighten. “Is everything okay?”

One look at Aspen’s face and she knew it wasn’t. God, she’d been going on about her own problems all night and hadn’t even realized Aspen had some of her own. Terrible. She was a terrible friend.

“Aspen, what is it?”

Her friend shook her head. “You’re going through—”

“We’ve talked about my problems, now I want to talk about yours.”

A heavy beat of silence passed. “We broke up.”

Callie gasped. “Oh my God, what happened?”

“Nothing. We just…we had a fight the night of the party, and I broke up with him.”

“The night of the party?” That was two nights ago. God, she felt like an ass. “What was the fight about?”

“Dylan…” She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Not while you’re in the middle of something so heavy.”

“Aspen—”

“I’m fine. Dylan and I were never a great match, and it just took me a while to realize that.”

“Still, you dated him for months. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Aspen laughed, but the sound was all wrong. “No. I definitely do not. But I do want to go to bed because I’m exhausted.” She leaned over and kissed Callie on the cheek. “I hope you feel a bit better. And remember, I’m fine. Better than fine, actually, because I’m a single pringle again. Have a good night.”

Her friend rose and headed to her room. Callie wanted to stop her. To ask a gazillion questions. But Aspen was an open book until there was something she didn’t want to talk about, and then she closed up tight.

Maybe she just needed a bit of time to process.

With a sigh, Callie cleaned up their mess and went to her room. She was about to climb into bed when her phone vibrated with a text. Her pulse picked up speed when she saw who it was.

Lock: Can I see you tomorrow?

She bit down on her bottom lip, Aspen’s words flicking back into her mind.

You might get everything you’ve ever wanted.

And she did want Lock. Even though she’d been fighting it. Even though their past was a mess. She loved him. Despite everything, that had never changed.

When a minute passed and she didn’t text back, another message came through.

Lock: Please.

Callie: Maybe. Can I sleep on it?

Lock: The ball’s in your court, Callie. I’ll wait for your text. Have a good night, honey.

Honey…gah.

She dropped into bed, her head hitting the pillow with a thud. But when she closed her eyes, she didn’t feel tired at all. Not even a little bit. Damn sugar overload.

Come on, Callie, sleep.

She squeezed her eyes closed and rolled to one side, then the other. Fifteen frustrating minutes later and she huffed before climbing out of bed.

Great. Now she had insomnia too.

Lifting her phone, she headed to the kitchen, where she grabbed a glass of water and downed it. Her gaze moved to her phone. She’d set it on the counter, but her fingers itched to pick it up again. Call him just so she could hear his voice.

She shouldn’t. It was late. He was probably in bed.

She wrapped an arm around her waist as if that could somehow stop her.

Ten more seconds passed.

Screw it.

The phone only rang once before his gravelly voice sounded over the line. “Callie?”

“What would you do differently if you got a do-over?”

There was a pause. It stretched so long that, for a moment, she thought the line had cut out. Then he spoke. “I still would have temporarily broken up with you, but I would have made sure you knew it wasn’t actually real. I would have made sure you knew I still loved you. I shouldn’t have done what I did right after hearing about Winnie. I should have waited, calmed down, and figured things out.”

She dropped her head, chin touching her chest. “You still wouldn’t have been able to answer my call that night.”

“I would have. Because if you knew what we were up against, then I would have known you’d only call if it was important. Really important. And I would have gone to you. Next time you need me, I will go to you.”

She swallowed before opening her mouth…but before she could respond, a flash of movement in her backyard caught her attention.

Frowning, she turned to glance out the window. It was dark. Almost pitch black out there.

She was about to turn away when she saw it again.

Gasping loudly, she stumbled back a step.

“Callie? What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s in my backyard.”

Lock pressed his foot to the floor of his truck, but he wasn’t moving fast enough, dammit.

Someone was in her yard . The same person who’d written her those creepy fucking notes? It had to be. And it meant they were escalating.

He should have stuck close to her. He should have camped out on her street and refused to leave.

When he finally reached her house, he slammed the truck into park and ran to the door. He was halfway across her lawn when another car pulled up in front of the house.

Eastern. Lock had called him the second he’d gotten off the phone with Callie.

He didn’t wait for his brother, instead pounding his fist on the door. The couple of seconds he waited for her to open it felt like a damn lifetime. Then the door finally opened, and Callie stood there, hair down over her shoulders, pajamas on, and skin too pale.

He didn’t care that they weren’t together, that they had a past so complicated they weren’t sure they’d ever find a way forward, he still stepped into her house and cupped her cheeks like she was his.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. We both are.”

Aspen came up behind Callie, squinting behind Lock. “You called Eastern?”

“Of course.” Eastern didn’t follow him inside, but then, Lock hadn’t expected him to. “He’ll check out the yard. Can I come in?”

Callie stepped back. His hands dropped, and all he wanted to do was touch her again.

The lights were on in the living room, mugs sitting on the kitchen island.

“I was making coffee for everyone to help keep us awake,” Aspen said, arms wrapped around her waist. She cleared her throat. “I’ll make another for Eastern.”

“Thank you.” Lock didn’t take his eyes off Callie. All he’d been able to think about on the way here was, what if the asshole had gained access to her house? What if he was too late?

“It’s not safe for you here,” he said, barely keeping the growl out of his voice.

“They didn’t get into the house. They didn’t even try.”

“If they had tried, it wouldn’t have been hard to break a window.”

“If they broke a window, the neighbors would hear, and someone would call the sheriff’s office. Plus, with Aspen here, there’s two of us.”

Two untrained women against an unknown threat wasn’t reassuring. “One minute. Maybe less. That’s all someone needs to gain access and take you. Eastern or his deputies wouldn’t have time to get here and save you.” He wouldn’t have time to get here and save her.

Her skin paled further.

Fuck . He didn’t want to scare her, but he needed her to understand the situation. “Callie—”

The front door opened and Eastern stepped in, locking the door behind him before moving into the living room. “There’s no one out there, but I did see some footprints in the flower bed by the back door. Large ones. Men’s footprints.”

Callie visibly tensed, and Lock slipped an arm around her waist, praying she didn’t pull away.

She didn’t.

Aspen handed everyone a coffee before Eastern continued.

“Did you get a good look at him?”

Callie shook her head. “It was dark. I just saw a shadow. My first thought was that it was a man, maybe because the shadow looked large. Tall. As soon as I got off the phone, I ran to wake Aspen, and by the time I got back, I couldn’t see him anymore. I’m sorry.”

Lock tightened his arm around her. “It’s not your fault.”

“Lock’s right.” Eastern took out a notepad and wrote something down before looking up. “You did the right thing in waking Aspen so you were both alert. Have you received any more notes?”

“Not since I made the report.”

“Okay. This could be the same person. They have your address. They’re interested in you. Their behavior could be escalating.”

Lock’s thoughts exactly.

Callie nibbled her bottom lip. “There was a car on the street when I got home.”

He frowned. “A car?”

“Someone was in the driver’s seat, but when I stopped and looked at them, they drove away.”

What the fuck?

Aspen frowned, looking worried. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I’m sorry. It slipped my mind once I got inside.”

“Make? Model?” Eastern asked, remaining so much calmer than Lock.

“Um, it was blue, but I’m not sure of the make. Sorry. I didn’t even think to notice.” She scrubbed her face.

“Don’t apologize,” Eastern said. “A color is better than nothing.”

Aspen cleared her throat. “Dylan drives a blue car.”

Everyone looked her way, but it was Eastern who asked, “Who’s Dylan?”

“My boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “He, um, didn’t take the breakup too well.”

“What do you mean by that?” Eastern asked.

“I could just tell he wasn’t happy.”

“I’ll need his details,” he said.

While Aspen shared her ex’s contact information, Lock lowered his head to Callie. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “No, I’m not leaving Aspen.”

“She can come too.”

“No.”

“Yes. Callie—”

“I’m not being scared out of my home.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. Damn, she was stubborn. “You need more security on this house, and if you won’t stay with me until you have it, then I’m staying here.”

“Lock—”

“He’s right, Callie,” Aspen said, drawing their attention. “We’ll be safer with him in the house. He can sleep on the couch.”

Finally, someone seeing some fucking sense.

Callie sucked in a long breath before looking up at Lock.

Come on, honey. Trust me to look after you.

“Okay.”

The air rushed from Lock’s chest.

“You can stay on the couch. Thank you.”

It was a step in the right direction. Hopefully one of many.