Chapter 13

13

" N o baths!" Levi squealed later that night, darting around the couch before Iris could grab him.

Brandt jumped on the couch, laughing.

The sun was setting. It was later than Iris wanted it to be, but when she'd taken off the boys' shoes to wrangle them into their pajamas, she'd noticed how stinky their feet were.

"I thought you liked baths." She forced a sing-song tone when she really wanted to snap at the boy. After her lack of sleep last night, the confrontation with her father earlier, and her worry for Jilly, who hadn't come out of her room except to grab a late-afternoon snack, she had enough on her plate. She'd spent the day corralling ornery boys, and she was ready for bed herself.

"No bath night!" Levi darted around the ottoman.

"What's going on in here?"

Callum appeared in the hallway, leaning heavily on his crutches. He'd been on the phone, his voice low and intense, when she'd knocked to let him know supper was ready. He'd acknowledged her with a nod but hadn't come in for dinner. Now, tiny lines fanned from the corners of his eyes. Stress? Or pain?

She caught Levi on his fourth trip around the couch. He giggled as if he hadn't had this much fun in months. He wasn't winded at all, while she was trying to pretend she didn't have a stitch in her side.

"No baths night, Daddy!" the boy squealed.

"Yes bath night," she argued, wrestling him out of his T-shirt. There was a visible ring of sweat-dried-dirt circling his skin around where the neckline had been. The kid definitely needed a bath.

"Look at that dirt. I bet you've got bugs crawling behind your ears," Callum said.

Brandt dissolved into giggles on the couch.

She sat still for too long, and Levi slipped out of her hands, down to his undies now.

"I think Iris needs some help with bath night. Boys, behave. Can you get started, and I'll meet you upstairs?"

She started to argue that he didn't need to climb the stairs, but the boys ran up the stairs, stripping as they went, and she shrugged it off. If the stubborn man wanted to haul himself up the stairs, it was his business.

But she did pick up the clothes they'd left scattered on the stairs.

With both wriggly bodies in the tub, she was soaked by the time Callum came into the room, turning sideways to get his crutches through the door. His wide chest heaved, and sweat beaded his brow.

His presence seemed to shrink the room, making her aware of the close confines as he leaned back against the counter. The overhead light haloed his head.

She lathered up her hands with shampoo and reached for Levi, but the little booger evaded her, slipping across the tub like an eel.

"Nooo," the boy whined.

"Let's do it real quick," Iris said in her most convincing voice.

Levi shook his head, his hand whacking the water and splattering her with water droplets. Her temper started to fray.

"Didn't you guys teach Iris the special bath song?" Callum asked.

"That's for babies," Levi grumbled.

"No, it's not." Brandt bounced on his seat in the tub and clapped his hands, both actions spraying Iris with more water.

"What bath song?" Iris asked.

"Daddy sing it! Daddy sing!" Brandt chanted.

Iris worked at keeping her focus on the boys, not on the bubbles in her stomach that Callum's proximity caused. Kneeling on the tiled floor, if she leaned to the side at all, her shoulder would brush Callum's knee, and if she leaned backwards, she'd run into his outstretched cast.

"Hit me with this bath song, maestro."

Callum cleared his throat and began to warble in a goofy baritone that she'd never imagined he had in him.

The song worked to distract the boys—and Iris too. She dissolved into giggles as she scrubbed the boys clean. The more she and the boys laughed, the crazier Callum's song got until, finally, she was pressing her mouth into her shoulder to try and stifle uncontrollable giggles.

With her head turned, her gaze met Callum's. His eyes were dancing even as he tapped a beat on the counter.

She gained some level of control over herself—though she couldn't stop smiling—and dumped water over Levi's head. The boy spluttered and glared at her.

"Here."

Two small superhero toothbrushes appeared over her shoulder.

What? "They brush their teeth in the tub?"

She sensed more than saw him shrug. "Two birds with one stone."

She passed the toothbrushes to the boys, who happily took to that task—for a moment. Then they began waving the brushes like swords, and she had to confiscate them.

"All right, let's get out. One at a time!"

Levi hadn't wanted to take the bath but whined the loudest as she pulled him from the tub and stood his dripping body on the rug while she rubbed him dry with a fluffy towel. Callum gave Brandt his rubdown.

"Can we go back to see the p'liceman again?" Brandt asked, voice muffled under the towel.

Callum had swung his leg toward the hallway, presumably to exit, but tension shot through his body at Brandt's words, and he froze. His brows came together in a frown. "What policeman?"

After so much giggling, she now had to force her lips into a smile. "I had to stop at the station today to make a formal report about the accident."

" My accident?" He pushed out into the hall with his crutches, finally allowing her room to leave.

"I was there, remember?" She ushered Levi past him and into the bedroom.

He was silent as they worked together to stuff the boys into their pajamas.

From the opposite side of the bed, he looked up at her. "I thought I told you to stay out of my business."

She had a smart reply on the tip of her tongue—something about him asking versus telling, but Brandt and Levi tackled him, falling into his chest.

"Tuck us in, Daddy!"

He flopped back on the bed, his arms coming around the boys as they dissolved into giggles.

Iris backed away from the tender moment, moving into the doorway. She watched Callum press his jaw to Levi's temple. He settled the two boys against him and balanced a book in his lap.

Her heart leaped at the picture of them together. Callum's eyes met hers above the dark heads, and stuck. Her heart beat up in her throat until Brandt nudged him with an elbow.

"Read, Daddy!"

She didn't hear the words as Callum finished the book, only watched as Brandt snuggled deeper and Levi pointed to the pictures on the pages.

"Iris, come pray!" Levi said as they finished the book.

"Oh, I..."

She should have left minutes ago. But she hadn't.

She wanted to be here with them, so she slipped back into the room to kneel beside the bed.

Callum reached for Brandt, covering his son's head with his palm—but Iris's hand was already there.

The contact unnerved him. Her too, from the way her eyes darted up to his before Levi whispered, "You're s'posed to have your eyes closed, Iris," and she ducked her head back down.

But she didn't pull her hand away. "You're a good dad," she whispered.

And he had to close his eyes against the sting behind his nose.

This . This was what he'd dreamed about those nights on the road at the rodeos, sleeping in his truck because he'd been so broke, he couldn't afford a hotel room. All of his dreams had been about family. And all of them had been centered around Iris.

"Good night, bubba," she whispered to Levi. "I love you."

Callum struggled off the edge of the bed. He hated not being able to move freely and do the things he wanted, like carry his sons to bed or wrestle like they were used to.

He stood and watched his sons settle for another moment, trying to get a handle on his wild emotions. He felt like he'd been split open and was bleeding all over the carpet. And he was afraid Iris could see it.

"Here," she whispered, shoving his second crutch at him, the one that had fallen out of reach.

At the doorway, he lost his balance, and his shoulder banged into Iris's. Heat flared in his chest and face at the unexpected contact, but the lights were off. Maybe she hadn't seen.

Except in the dim hallway, lit only by two nightlights, she turned to him, blocking him from moving further down the hall. She was so close and he was so muddled?—

Maybe this was the answer.

He leaned one crutch against the wall.

She said, "I need to talk to you."

He snaked his arm around her waist and urged her closer. He saw the flash of surprise in her eyes just before his lips closed over hers.

Kissing Iris had always been both a delight and a torment. She tasted like home , like the sweetest wild strawberries and summer sunshine and a warm twilight sky. Kissing her always made him ache for more.

And she was right there with him. Her hand tunneled into the hair at his nape. Her lips parted, and she met his kiss with a passion that set him on fire.

Until a thump from the boys' room startled them both.

He didn't let go of her. He couldn't. Not yet.

Her breaths were loud in the stillness. There was no movement from the boys' room now. Probably one of them had rolled over and banged his fist on the headboard.

He really wanted to kiss her again.

But she'd gone perfectly still. She was looking over his shoulder, her face averted. "That might've been a mistake."

A mistake.

He crashed back to earth with a shattering intensity.

She'd kissed him back. There was no mistaking that .

But she thought it was a mistake? He didn't get it.

He let her go and reached for his crutch with a shaking hand. "Sorry."

"Cal."

The nickname made his gut churn. She'd always shortened his name in their most intimate moments, when they'd shared kisses and secrets and dreams.

Now, it was like twisting a knife in his gut.

He traversed the top step, hoping she'd leave him alone. Go to her room or, at the very least, not follow him.

Another painful step. His cast thumped against the floor. He bit back a curse. The stairwell was dark, and he had to squint to see where he was going.

"I still need to talk to you."

Crap. She was there, right behind him.

He started to sweat. Blamed it on the fright of walking down the stairs in the dark. Right.

"So talk." He was a fool. Thinking she'd be able to forgive the past. She was probably going to tell him to get lost.

She didn't say anything as he struggled down another step. Then two.

"I'd like to know more about when the boys were born."

Her words brought him back to the uncertainty he'd felt walking out of the hospital with a car seat in each hand. He'd thought, any second, the nurses will realize they can't send these babies home with me .

He'd been expecting to take them home with Rachel. And instead, barely after their first breaths, they'd already lost their mother.

"Why?" he asked. That was a painful time to remember, and Iris had just pulled away from him. He didn't particularly want to share right now.

"Did the Jamisons help you when the boys were small?"

The mention of his in-laws stole his concentration. He was in mid-step when the left crutch slipped off a stair, and he lost his balance. A flare of panic was all he had time for.

He let the crutch fall and grabbed for the banister.

"Cal!"

His casted foot came down on the stair, and he grunted as pain fired through the limb from heel to hip.

He couldn't hang on to the other crutch and it fell too, with a muffled thud that echoed the first.

And then he was falling. Iris grabbed his upper arm, but she couldn't slow his momentum, and she stumbled down two steps before letting go.

He crashed onto his side, his hip taking the brunt of it, then slid down the last two stairs onto the tiled floor at the bottom.

"Cal! Are you okay?"

He wasn't sure he could speak through the pain. Everything hurt. His side, his leg, his head.

The hallway flooded with light. It made his head pound worse.

She knelt beside him but didn't touch him. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

He groaned. "No." He wasn't going back to the hospital. Not going to give the social worker any more ammunition.

"You're hurt."

No joke. "Yeah, my leg's broken."

"Cal, I'm serious."

The adrenaline flooding through him eased the throbbing pain minutely, and he inhaled deeply. "Can you just grab my crutches?"

She crawled away to reach the first one.

"Why the heck did you bring up Rachel's parents?" He couldn't keep the anger out of his words.

Just the mention of them brought back the terror of those forty-eight hours when he thought he'd lost Brandt and Levi forever.

She pushed one of the crutches across the floor to him. He hadn't quite gathered the fortitude to sit up yet.

She didn't answer.

"Iris."

"Because I want to know!" she burst out as she shoved the second crutch across the floor to him.

She wanted to know. She would never know the gripping fear, the physical pain in his belly and his joints, when his sons had been stolen.

"They kidnapped my sons," he bit out. Happy now?

He pushed up on the cold tile floor, hissing when pain arced up his leg and through his hip. He couldn't tell if he'd caused more damage in the fall. If the pain didn't abate, he'd have to go back to the hospital.

"How?"

Why was she pushing so hard on this?

"The boys sometimes stayed with them when I had rodeos out of state. A day or two at the most."

He used the bottom step to lever himself up.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Iris reach for him, but he waved her off. He was angry with her. Angry with the Jamisons. Angry with the whole world.

"I drove to St. Louis for the weekend and when I got back, the Jamisons' house was empty. No lights, no car in the driveway. Their cell phones were shut off. They were just gone."

Recounting it brought back the metallic taste of fear.

"I called the police. It was almost two days before they caught up with them in a hotel in Kansas."

She made a soft sound.

He shook his head as if he could shake away the fear. He had his crutches under his arms now and pivoted slowly to face her. He probably looked as haggard as he felt. He'd relived the memory of those hours so many times since it'd happened. It never got easier.

Iris looked pale and haunted under the light fixture. "Why did they do it?" she whispered.

"Why do you care?" he demanded.

Her lips firmed into a line, and she turned her head to the side. He could see she was upset, but he didn't know if it was because of what he'd told her or because of the coldness in his tone. He'd never been cold or lost his temper with her, all those years ago. He'd always been careful to keep his darker side hidden.

She'd certainly seen it now. She might as well know the rest. "Brandt had a bruise on his cheek. Toddlers fall down. But Jackson got this wild idea that the boys weren't safe with me and decided to take the boys away. They were going to file for full custody. At least that's what they said."

He shook his head. He still didn't understand how they thought they were going to get away with it. It sounded crazy.

As crazy as he felt right now.

"Anything else about my life you want to pick apart?"

Iris stood in the empty foyer, facing off with Callum.

He was seething with anger and the hurt hidden underneath.

She should walk away. Too much had happened tonight. She'd asked about the Jamisons because she'd felt genuine compassion for Maude when she'd met the woman. What Callum had gone through... it was terrible. Something no parent should ever have to go through.

But instead of saying good-night, she found herself asking, "What happened the night of graduation? What made you leave?"

He flinched as if she'd physically struck him. His expression closed off; his eyes glittered with banked emotion.

"I think I deserve to know." She hated the way her voice shook.

He stared at her for a long, tension-filled moment. A muscle jumped in his cheek. "Let's leave the past in the past."

That wasn't good enough.

He must've seen in her face that she wasn't just going to give up. "We both know why I left."

"All I know is what the gossips said about you when you ran away."

Something shifted behind his eyes. She hated that this was hurting him, but, now that she'd started this, she had to know.

"What did my dad say to you?"

His gaze cut to her and away. He tried to walk around her, but she stepped in front of him. He couldn't get into Joe's office unless he mowed her over. "Iris. Let me by. We're not doing this."

"If you think whatever it was will damage my relationship with my dad, you should know that there's nothing left to damage. My dad and I haven't been close for a very long time."

He still wouldn't look at her. "Leave it alone."

"No!"

They both froze. She'd never raised her voice to him. Ever. Why was he being so stubborn about this?

"I have to know."

When he raised his gaze to hers, she saw that it was burning him up inside.

"Please."

"It wasn't your father. It was Joe."

His words were so foreign that she shook her head, not understanding.

He firmed his jaw and went on. "Joe found me after the wreck. Cord had told me to run. Joe found me about two miles away, walking back to the boys' ranch. Joe told me that if I didn't get out of town, he was going to make sure that I served time for underage drinking and DUI."

It couldn't be true. She wrapped her shaking arms around her middle.

"So what?" she said. "You have to know I would've stood by you."

For the briefest of moments, she saw his composure slip, saw his face crumple before he schooled it to a blank mask. She's been so in love with him back then, and she'd made no secret of it. Why hadn't he trusted her that they could survive whatever came?

He opened his mouth and closed it abruptly. He still wouldn't meet her gaze. And she had the sudden intuition that there was something else.

"What?"

"Let it rest, Iris. Joe's dead. We can't go back and change the past."

"Just tell me," she said. "I need to know."

He finally seemed to lose the tenuous hold on his emotions. "You really wanna know? Fine. Your uncle told me that if I didn't leave town, he was going to have charges brought against me. For…for assaulting you. Your name would've been dragged through the mud. I deserved whatever was coming to me, but I couldn't let that happen to you. You had your whole life in front of you. A career in ballet. So I left."

His emotion had cracked through the tough exterior he put on. His expression was haunted, his eyes dark with sorrow and something else—vulnerability.

She shook her head. "No."

His expression flattened. "You think I'd lie about this?"

"No, I…" She tried to breathe. "You could be mistaken. It was ten years ago."

"That was the worst night of my life. You think I don't remember every detail?"

His voice rose on every syllable.

"I think you're making accusations about a man who can't defend himself."

He couldn't be telling the truth. It wasn't possible. Joe was an upstanding guy, a loving uncle.

He would never have threatened Callum like that.

His lips twisted in a cruel frown. "I told you you wouldn't want to know."

She hiked her chin again. "I don't know what to believe." She had a sudden, ugly thought. "Was this the real reason you came back to Sutter's Hollow? Bought the ranch? To get revenge against Joe?"

His eyes narrowed. "Move outta my way."

"Fine."

She swept past him, practically ran up the stairs to her room.

She couldn't reconcile what he was saying with the uncle she'd known and loved. Dad, yes. Joe? No way. Joe had listened to her for hours when she'd been lost in grief over losing her mother. Joe had driven her and her friends to the drive-in to watch romantic comedies before she'd been old enough to drive. He'd been more of a father than her own dad was.

Why would Callum say what he had? He had to be wrong.

But Joe was gone. And she couldn't confront a dead man.

She couldn't tell Jilly. Her sister had loved Joe as deeply as Iris. There's no way she could taint the memory Jilly had.

But she also couldn't forget the bleak, defeated expression Callum had worn.

He'd expected her denial.

Which wasn't proof that he was making it all up, either.

What was she supposed to believe?