Later that morning, after a sponge bath that had done nothing to eradicate the burning in his gut, Callum sat at Joe's old desk with his leg propped on an ottoman Iris had dragged in from the living room. The desk faced a large picture window and looked out over the fields he'd spent his teen years working in. The room still smelled of peppermint; Joe had carried the candies in his front shirt pocket everywhere he went.
He'd grown up here. Joe had cultivated the seeds of faith he'd needed so desperately in the last three years. Joe had taught him what it meant to be a real man, a real father.
This was where he'd fallen for Iris.
And now, this was a landing pad when he needed it. He had never in a million years thought he would end up here again.
Nothing could have prepared him for what Jilly had revealed at breakfast. He still felt broadsided by the news of her cancer. He hadn't been able to form words through the punch of grief he'd received, so he'd retreated to his room.
Jilly had been around when he and Iris had dated. Sometimes Iris and he would join Jilly and her friends to play cards around Joe's kitchen table. Back then, he'd thought of her as an older sister. Even though they hadn't spoken in years and it was obvious Jilly didn't welcome his presence here, it still grieved him to know she was in a battle for her life.
And it grieved him to know that Iris must be dealing with everything on her own. He'd been here more than twenty-four hours and hadn't heard as much as a peep from their father. No overheard phone conversation. The sisters hadn't once grumbled under their breaths about a text from dear old dad.
If everything hadn't gone awry, Callum could have been Iris's support. He couldn't imagine how difficult this had been for her, given that her mother had died from the same thing.
But if his path had been different, he wouldn't have the boys.
He shook his head, trying to dispel the uncertainties and gut-wrenching grief that remained. He couldn't change the past.
And Iris still didn't know about his part in Champ's death that night.
Head aching, he squinted out into the sunlight.
His cell phone rang.
The display showed a number he didn't recognize.
"Stewart, I heard you were back in town."
He recognized the voice instantly. Wade Tatum. Hate rose and threatened to choke him. He couldn't speak through the ugly emotion in his throat, but he didn't have to.
"I want you out of town."
Callum cleared his throat. "That's not going to happen. I'm partnering with Buck. Running a business now." I'm here to stay. But somehow the words stuck in his throat.
There was a loaded silence on the other end of the line. Then, "I thought you'd say that. Does your business partner know you wrecked the Town Hall building? Might be bad for business to have a negligent owner."
"That wreck wasn't my fault." And Tatum knew it. "It was a hit and run."
"You sure you didn't run the light? This ain't the big city." Tatum drawled the words casually, almost as if he were bored. "We don't got no traffic cameras here in little Redbud Trails."
"I had a green light. The black truck that hit me ran the red."
"Funny. Investigating officer can't find evidence of another vehicle." That couldn't be true, but as mayor, Tatum had always had the police department in his pocket. He was their boss, best friends with the Police Chief, and no one dared to challenge him.
"What about my crushed in front fender? That's not evidence?"
He could almost hear the other man's indifferent shrug over the open phone line. "Could've happened before you hit town."
"What are you going to do when a black truck shows up with a wrecked front end?"
Tatum chuckled. "It won't. You'll be hearing from the city's attorney."
The line clicked off.
Callum held his phone in a trembling hand, blinking sightlessly against the bright sunlight streaming in the window. He'd known Tatum would be difficult to deal with when he'd come back to Redbud Trails. But he'd figured with Iris in New York, Tatum would let him be.
Shows you what he knew.
Stress tightened his neck and shoulders. Back before the boys, he would've drowned his tension with alcohol. But when they'd been born, everything had changed for him. He'd joined a recovery program and gotten real about his past and his problems. Gone back to church, found the God that he'd walked away from when he'd walked away from Iris.
And found himself.
He wasn't the man who drowned anymore. He needed to think through this tension, and he needed out of this room to do it. He would've loved a long ride on one of Joe's horses, but his injury prevented it.
There was no outlet for the tension that filled him, nothing he could do to solve the ache in his gut.
The screen on his phone lit again, the display showing Buck's name. Gut tight as a stone, he answered.
Buck's deep voice filled the line. "We've got a problem."
Twilight fell as Callum stood at the corral railing. He'd intended to go into the barn and take a look at Iris and Jilly's horses, but residual pain had kicked in and by the time he'd gotten across the yard, he'd needed a place to lean.
Supper had passed in a blur of chatter from the boys and Iris's little dog begging, its paws propped on his knees.
Now stars peeked through the navy-gray sky. Cicadas buzzed in a lullaby as familiar as breathing. Soft sounds of the horses settling in for the night emanated from the barn, and a far off engine traveled down the state highway, then faded. Two animals whickered softly to each other nearby, their silhouettes barely visible in the darkness.
He felt worn and frail from a day spent immobile. And still upset by the phone call from Wade Tatum. The conversation with Buck hadn't helped. They hadn't been able to figure out a game plan to fight the man.
His leg aching fiercely, he couldn't face climbing those stairs tonight, so he'd read the boys a book on the living room couch and let Jilly take them up.
He was used to an active life. After only a few days sitting around, he was chafing against the inactivity.
And every minute spent in recovery was a minute he should be learning Buck's harvest business. The people, the routes, the customers...and here he was, stuck sitting on his butt.
But that wasn't what killed him. It was thinking about Iris, being the sole support for her sister as Jilly battled breast cancer.
Their dad might still be in the picture, but Callum knew Wade Tatum wasn't a compassionate, hold-your-hand kind of guy. He'd been a workaholic five years ago, with little time for his family. And manipulative, to boot. He'd tried every angle to get Joe to fire Callum from his job as a ranch hand, but Iris's uncle hadn't complied. And then that night...
After today's phone call, Callum surmised things hadn't changed one bit.
The weathered wood barn door creaked as it opened. Iris stepped outside. He hadn't seen her since supper. Had she been out here the whole time? No doubt the horses needed caring for.
Her little dog scampered out behind her, barking once and then running off into the darkness as she closed the door.
"Rowdy." The word was more of a sigh than an exclamation.
She still hadn't seen Callum, and she turned toward the corral with a sigh, propping her elbows on the railing. Across the yard, the porch light was on, but it didn't reach far enough out here to illuminate her. The stars did it for him, bathing her in dim silver.
Obviously she wanted a quiet moment alone, away from the invaders who had taken over her life. He would love to give it to her. But he was awkward and uncoordinated with the crutches, and with pain radiating down his leg, there would be nothing pretty in him dragging himself back to the house. The moment he moved it would sound like a herd of elephants out here.
"You okay?" he asked.
He heard the soft inhale of her gasp, and she straightened. Her arms wrapped around her middle. He'd wanted only to alert her to his presence, but something about her posture made it seem like she was barely holding herself together.
Seeing her like that pushed him back in time, back to when she'd been fifteen and he'd worked right here.
It had been harvest time, and Joe had sent him to the barn after something.
He'd been seventeen, sweaty, counting down to the end of the day, as he stalked through the barn proper to the tack room in the back.
And then he'd heard a sniffle.
He froze in mid-step and pivoted. There was no one visible in the barn—only two horses were indoors. One was a heavily pregnant mare that Joe wanted to keep an eye on, and another had come up lame yesterday.
Sniff.
There it was again.
He peered over the nearest stall door and then the one next to that. And found her in the fifth one.
A thrill that was more than simple recognition flashed through him when he spotted Iris's auburn head. She had her arms wrapped around her bent knees and was weeping almost silently.
He vacillated on whether to let her know he'd found her, but something must have drawn her attention, because she looked up, hear tear-streaked face tilting toward him before she gasped and ducked back down.
"Go away," she said, her voice muffled.
He had enough experience with his foster mom to know when he wasn't wanted, even if Iris had never made him feel that way before.
He started to, got a few steps away, but then turned back.
He slid down, his back against the outside of the stall door, so that they were on opposite sides. His heart thudded in his ears. What was he doing?
"You're still there, aren't you?" came her voice, still muffled.
"Yeah." He shouldn't be. She was two years younger than he was, pretty as one of the wild roses that grew at the edge of Joe's property. Way out of his league. Out of his universe.
"Do you want to talk about...what's wrong?"
There was a long, loaded silence, and then, "My mom."
Nothing else.
He knew her mom had died, but he hadn't heard any details. No one except Joe had ever cared enough to ask him about losing his parents. He wracked his brain, trying to come up with the words Joe had used, but the adrenaline pounding through him made it almost impossible for him to focus.
"What happened to her?" he finally asked, not knowing if it was the right thing.
"Breast cancer." He could hear the tears in her voice and fisted his hand against his thigh. He still hadn't made peace with why God would take his mom away. Why did Iris have to face the same thing?
And how could he comfort her when he felt so ill-equipped?
He swallowed against the sting behind his throat and fought for something, anything to say. And got nothing.
"She was really..." Iris's voice trailed off. "She loved baking. And reading. And movies. We used to have a girls' night every weekend and watch two or three movies all at one time."
He could imagine Iris and her sister Jilly, a year ahead of him in school, curling up under an afghan with their mom, all crying over some chick flick. It was such a normal thing, and he had to ignore a twinge of envy. His mom had died so young, and his father had been so dysfunctional, that he didn't have any memories like that.
But he bit back that ugly part of himself and asked, "What was her favorite movie?"
She answered him, and they had their first real conversation.
Fifteen minutes later, when Iris had exited the stall, she'd held herself like she was now, all these years later. As if by wrapping her arms around her waist, she could hold herself together.
He couldn't reach for her back then—hadn't earned the right to—and he couldn't reach for her now, either. Silence stretched between them, even more loaded than it had been back then.
"Are you all right?" she asked finally.
"Just restless."
The soft exhale she gave might've been a snort of laughter, or maybe just a sigh. "It's only been a couple of days."
"I know."
He couldn't leave it, not when the knowing had been simmering just under the surface all day.
"So what's the news with Jilly?" he asked. He sensed more than saw her go very still, though there were still several feet between them.
"She got diagnosed eight months ago. It's been a whirlwind of surgery, chemo and juggling meds." She said the words almost emotionlessly.
Eight months. More than half a year of worrying for her sister and helping manage doctor's visits.
"How bad was it?"
"They diagnosed her at stage three. But the treatments look to be working. I can't help but worry about her mental state sometimes, after what mom went through..."
"Has it just been you, dealing with things? With Joe gone...?" He didn't dare to ask about her father outright, though curiosity burned inside him.
She turned her head to the side, looking at the dark silhouette of the barn.
"Dad comes around when he can."
He'd just bet. But he couldn't say anything negative about her dad to Iris, even if the other man had just threatened him. He liked to think he was better than that, and he didn't want to hurt her more.
"Some ladies from church have sort of taken us under their wing. They bring us food, help drive Jilly to doctors' appointments if I'm on duty at the firehouse."
He'd found out inadvertently that she'd taken a leave of absence from her volunteer position, just to take care of the boys. He'd hated to hear that, but he didn't see any other choice in the matter, not with a social worker sticking her nose in his business.
"Jilly's doctor said the last round of tests results were encouraging, so that's an answered prayer. She's got another round of chemo to make sure it's cleared, but then she's done."
He wanted to ask more. He wanted to ask about the treatments she'd already seen her sister through, about what was to come.
But it wasn't his place anymore.
Iris remembered that ticking muscle in Callum's cheek. Even in the low light, she could see his tension in the set of his shoulders and the way his jaw was drawn tight.
He was still the same man she'd fallen for at fifteen. Emotion rose up in her, recognizing him, wanting to fall into the comfort she knew she'd find in his arms.
But even as she felt the tug to move closer to him, she fought it. The breadth of his shoulders, the features that had hardened into a man's instead of a boy's—even if she wanted to think he was the same as he'd been, she couldn't ignore that he'd changed. And hadn't her own dreams changed these last few years?
So she steeled her spine and kept her arms wrapped around her middle. She turned her eyes on the sky, like she'd come out here to do. Looking up at the stars always reminded her of the God who was big enough to create them all. She strained her ears but heard no noise from inside. She was learning that the boys lived full blast and when they finally fell into bed at night, they dropped off to sleep quickly.
She couldn't help the awareness that shivered down her when Callum's crutch scraped through the long grasses and he drew up at her shoulder.
She didn't want to feel anything for him, not after all this time, not after his abandonment. He hadn't shared his reason for leaving and she'd been hesitant to ask. Maybe it was better she didn't know, after all this time.
Her shoulder brushed his bicep, and she panicked, needing to put some distance between them. She took a step back.
"How did you meet the boys' mother?"
His posture went tight as a wire.
Then he sighed.
"We didn't exactly date. It was a one night stand, at first."
She didn't respond at first. Couldn't. The grief was fierce and visceral.
The Callum she'd known had been loyal, independent and aloof, and...well, not a one-night-stand kind of guy. On the other hand, what did she know? The Callum she'd known would never have abandoned her like he had. Maybe she'd seen him only through the rosy glasses of first love.
"Did that happen a lot?" Part of her couldn't believe she'd just blurted out the question, while the other, larger, part was curious enough to wonder if he would answer.
"No." There was finality in the word. "Most weekends, after my rides were over, I'd drink myself into a stupor. But there were a handful of times that I..."
He didn't have to say the words for her to understand. "Why? Why did you do it?" she whispered.
She saw his shrug, the shift of his shoulders even in the darkness.
There was a beat of charged silence between them, but she didn't retract the question. After how desperately she'd loved him, a shrug wasn't good enough.
"We shouldn't even be talking about this—"
"Why not?" she returned, spine straightening. "Is there something you don't want me to know? Were you sleeping around on me when we were together?"
"No! Never."
"So why—"
"I was lonely," he burst out. One of his crutches leaned against the fence and his hand pushed through his hair, a sign she remembered that showed his deep agitation. "I regret it. All of it. Except the boys."
Lonely.
The word deflated her righteous anger. She remembered the boy he'd been in high school—a young man on his own. Afraid to trust. Afraid to believe.
But remembering didn't erase the grief that still trembled through her. It didn't change things.
She gripped the corral railing until her knuckles went white. Bowed her head and squeezed her eyes closed until the wave of emotion passed.
"So if it was a one night stand, how did she find you?" she finally asked.
He sighed. Maybe relieved that she'd let the ugly parts of his past go for now.
"My movements weren't exactly secret—the rodeos always published a list of their top competitors on the web or in a news article. When she turned up pregnant, she hunted me down."
It wasn't a romantic story at all, not like she'd imagined.
"After what I went through as a kid, I wasn't going to let my son or daughter grow up without a dad. So Rachel and I got married."
The statement was flat, almost emotionless. No mention of being in love. It sounded like how he might describe a business transaction.
"Did you plan to come back to Redbud Trails?"
He laughed derisively. "No. I planned to stay on the circuit, but when she died, it changed everything."
"How did she die?"
"Complications in childbirth. There were two doctors on hand, plus all these nurses, and they still couldn't save her..."
His voice was soft but rang with finality.
And then he turned it back on her. "What about you? You're not married."
She shook her head.
"No boyfriend?"
She squeezed her arms tighter around herself and turned to face him head on. "I don't think that's any of your business."
He was closer than she'd thought, his shoulders blocking what little light reached them from the porch. The evening breeze carried his scent to her, simple smells of soap and man. He shifted his feet and grass crunched underfoot.
"It's not. I just want to know who's taking care of you." Her insides responded to the roughness of his voice.
Her eyes darted to his face; his gaze was stormy with emotion.
"I'm an adult. I don't need someone to take care of me."
The set of his jaw proved he didn't believe her words. He vibrated with tension.
And then he was leaning toward her.
Something inside her responded, and she found herself swaying toward him. A roaring filled her ears, blocking all other sounds.
His free arm came around her waist, possessive and familiar.
Heat streaked up her spine. She couldn't seem to help herself. She tipped her head back...
And his crutch slid against the fence railing and then banged against her hip. She jumped back, breathing like she'd just done a set of twenty fouettes, her equilibrium spinning.
He gripped the rail to catch his balance, consternation painting his features, his forehead creased like a thunderhead.
"I'm going to bed," she said, voice trembling as badly as the rest of her.
She escaped inside before they could do anything foolish.