Brett watched Callie climb into her truck as he stood on the front porch of the ranch house and answered the endless stream of questions from Sheriff Hunter DeMassi.
He’d wanted to talk to her, but the gunfire had woken up the entire bunkhouse, as well as Pappy and Karen. The house had been wide awake and blazing when they’d walked in, and so he hadn’t been able to exchange even a few words with her before the sheriff had given her permission to leave with the others.
At the same time, he had no clue what to say. She’d caught him off guard tonight. And while he’d been damned happy at the surprise, he knew where that left them now.
They’d done it. They’d replayed that night, he’d made up for his biggest regret, and now it was over.
The thing was, he wasn’t so sure he wanted it to be over.
Oddly enough, he didn’t feel the least bit satisfied. Not like he usually did after a few hours of raw, breath-stealing sex. He felt … empty.
Needy.
Hungry.
“… heard anything like that before?” Sheriff DeMassi’s voice pushed into his thoughts. “I talked to the ranch hands and they said they’ve heard the occasional shot but they just figured it for nearby hunters. Your place backs up to the Walker property on the other side of the creek.”
Brett nodded. “But the Walkers don’t hunt. Mr. Walker has bad cataracts.” At least that’s what Karen had said when she’d met them on the porch after the first shot. “And Mrs. Walker is a PETA supporter. She won’t even wear a leather belt.” Theirs had been the classic country-boy-meets-city-girl romance back when Brett’s pappy had been young. The old man had told the story every time they’d seen the couple in town or at church. They were opposites, but then that was the point, Pappy had said. It wasn’t about what you had in common when it came to the opposite sex. It’s about what you felt.
The way he’d felt about Brett’s grandma.
Like he couldn’t catch his breath if he didn’t see her. Like he was going to die if he didn’t catch a whiff of her perfume. Like he was going to climb the walls if he didn’t get just one more kiss.
Like Brett himself at the moment.
He ditched the thought and focused on the sheriff and the all-important fact that they had poachers on their land.
“I’ll get in touch with the local game warden. Between him and my deputies, we’ll get someone out here to keep an eye out the next few nights. See if maybe we can’t figure out who’s trespassing.”
And stealing his cattle.
While Brett had no proof that the gunshot had anything to do with his missing steer, he had a tingling in his gut that told him the two were connected.
Whoever had fired off that gun had something to do with the thousands of dollars Brett had lost out on.
And the missing contents of the safe?
He didn’t know, but there was only one way to find out. “I can post a few of the hands down near the east end where the shot came from.”
“I’d rather you let us take care of it. If someone is poaching your land, I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Brett wasn’t the least bit comfortable sitting around doing nothing, but he respected the sheriff enough to concede. Brett had gone to school with Hunter and his two brothers. They were good men. Upright. If the sheriff said he’d get to the bottom of it, Brett knew he meant it. He nodded. “I’ll have Pepper brief the men and let them know you’ll be patrolling the area. They’ll move what cattle we have left over to the west pasture and steer clear so the east end is all yours.”
Hunter nodded and clapped Brett on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you home.”
“Yeah, well, it’s only temporary. Just until Pappy is back to his old self.”
Hunter didn’t give him the Alzheimer’s speech like everyone else did. Instead, he nodded before glancing over his shoulder at the spot where James Harlin’s truck had sat only minutes before. A grin tugged at his lips when he turned back around. “So you and Callie pick up where you left off?”
“We’re just friends.”
Hunter shrugged. “That’s what I meant.”
“Sure it was.”
“Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying to get the gossip straight.”
“And what’s the gossip saying?”
“That you’re just friends. The close encounters kind of friends.”
“Well, the gossip is wrong,” he heard himself say even though the old Brett would have simply smiled and left his reputation intact. But damned if it didn’t bother him that people were talking about Callie. Possessiveness blazed through him and he had the urge to haul ass into town and set the record straight once and for all—Callie Tucker was a good girl. She always had been and she always would be, no matter how many times she did a striptease for him down by the creek.
That had been for his eyes only.
She was for his eyes only.
The notion struck as he watched the sheriff climb into his black SUV and pull down the drive.
Callie was his.
Then and now.
And he was the sonofabitch who was going to break her heart again by walking away.
But she knew that this time. She’d come to him with her eyes wide open, with full knowledge that nothing between them would last. Their relationship was temporary, physical, and she was okay with that.
And damned if that didn’t bother him even more than the fact that there really was someone stealing cattle from Bootleg Bayou.
* * *
Callie left a voice mail for Mark Edwards asking to meet as soon as possible and then set her cell phone on her nightstand. She eyed the jar of moonshine she and Brett had uncovered in the attic. A nearby lamp cast a glow through the pale amber liquid and she thought of all the jars just like it she’d seen over the years. A few in the corner of James Harlin’s room. Out in the barn. The shed. Under the seat of the pickup. None had ever looked this clear or pure, as if this jar held something a cut above any she’d seen in the past.
The real deal.
Texas Thunder.
Her heart skipped a beat and she tried to remember that it might not be the original shine. There was no way to know without a complete analysis. Until then, she wasn’t getting her hopes up.
She sat the jar next to her cell phone and shifted. Her thighs ached with the small movement and awareness rolled through her. The sensitive tips of her nipples rubbed against the soft cotton of her T-shirt and she caught her lip against the sensation. A memory of Brett leaning over her, into her, whispered through her head and she stiffened.
Over and done with.
That’s what she tried to tell herself.
Picking up her alarm clock, she set the buzzer for eight a.m.—two hours later than her usual six. But it was already after two in the morning and while she did have to work on Saturdays, it wasn’t the usual office hours tomorrow. They had only one open house, which meant she would have a lighter day than usual. Plenty of time to meet with Mark and stop off at the post office.
Her gaze went to the samples of her work stacked near her laptop. Before she could think better of it, she sank down at her desk and reached for the brown manila envelopes she’d picked up ages ago for just this thing. She opened her drawer and reached for the stack of inquiry letters she’d done months ago, on those late nights when James was on a bender and the urge to get the hell out of Rebel had eaten her up from the inside out.
Pressing the button on her phone, she cued an upbeat Luke Bryan song to kill the oppressive silence of her room. She grabbed a letter and a collection of tear sheets.
Over the next half hour, she fed the envelopes one by one until she had thirty. The mailing labels came next. Over and over, she peeled and stuck until everything was ready to go and there wasn’t a single thing left to do but stop at the post office.
Which is what she fully intended to do first thing in the morning because no way was she going to stick around Rebel and waste her life away, regretting the past. The present.
It was time.
That’s what she told herself as she killed the music, crawled into bed, and tried to forget Brett Sawyer and the way he’d touched her so tenderly and held her so tightly, as if he never meant to let go.
As if.
He would let her go and then he would walk away, but she didn’t care because she was walking away, too. No staying behind, regretting what could have been.
She was through with regrets. She was moving forward.
Even if the notion didn’t excite her half as much as it used to.