Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel) (26 page)

She’d worn jeans and ankle boots, so she was well-protected, but no matter how often she told herself to relax, tension was making itself known in her lower back. Her hips and knees were just as full of complaints. She had to face it. She was not cut out to be a biker chick, or biker mama, or whatever the term was.

But she wasn’t going to have to worry about that, was she? Just like she wouldn’t be the one using the furniture he bought, or the one living in the house where the furniture would be delivered. The one to sleep in his bed, make him pancakes, drink the perfectly brewed cup of Sumatran coffee he handed her each morning.

And why wasn’t she going to be the one? Because she was scared to death that falling for Callum made her disloyal to Artie. That somehow it diminished what she’d felt for Artie. That she couldn’t care for Callum when Artie still took up so much of her heart. Two-year deadline or not, and no matter the promise she’d made, she couldn’t move on if it meant losing any of what Artie had been to her.

She was going to fail in his request of her; she just knew it. Culling their possessions . . . no, she didn’t need to keep what clothes of his she hadn’t cleared out of the guest room closet, and going through his tools hadn’t been as hard as she’d thought it would be. It helped that they would end up belonging to others whom she knew would get good use from them.

But the pictures, the books . . . the owls. She could store the pictures in the cloud and look at them from time to time. She could think about Artie turning the books’ pages as he read her his favorite parts. She could group the owls together on the bureau’s top and remember where each had come from, but she could never live without them.

Those thoughts had weighed heavily all day, while she and Callum had shopped, and along with repeatedly having to untangle her hair and shake out her aches, had made her less than the ideal shopping partner. Plus she was starving; they’d been at it most of the day, and it was nearly six.

“Can we call it a day now and get the hell out of here?” Callum asked as if reading her mind.

They were in a store that specialized in bedrooms: bunk beds and futons and sofa beds and mattresses with adjustable air technology.

Judging by the tone of his question, he wasn’t any happier to be here than she was. Not that she could blame him; after seven stores and too many attempts by salesmen to hard sell them, calling it a day sounded like a plan to her, too.

“Hey, this was your idea. Not mine.”

He answered with a snort.

So far, he’d outfitted Addy’s room, his man cave, and bought a kitchen nook table with a bench and four chairs. She liked the table a lot. And the chairs. All were made of a light, rustic pine, and the matching bench had a tufted red seat that made her think of a diner.

When they’d been shown the same bench with a seat of forest green, Callum had looked at her and shrugged. It wasn’t her house. It wasn’t her kitchen. But she loved red, so she’d made the suggestion. If he’d given any indication of leaning the other way, she wouldn’t have.

And maybe she’d been wrong to suggest anything. He was the one who’d have to live with the choice. She didn’t want him blaming her if he hated it. Green, being darker, would hide more sins—

“Just tell me which bed you like and I can knock out my bedroom. That’ll just leave the living room. And the dining room, I guess. And whatever the hell I decide to do with the extra rooms. Guests, maybe, or an office, or a playroom for Addy. Hell. Staying in the loft is sounding better and better.”

“It’s a little bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“As long as I don’t tell Addy about the house—”

“Callum Drake. You are not going to deprive your daughter of that house and yard.”

He muttered under his breath. “So which one do you like?”

“It doesn’t matter what I like. I’m not going to be sleeping in your bed.” The moment the words left her mouth she wanted to call them back. Not because they weren’t the truth, but because the idea of any other woman sleeping with him, especially in a bed she’d helped him choose . . .

She couldn’t bear it. She was going to Cinque Terre on a one-way ticket. Her familial ties to Hope Springs, to Texas, were gone. She could live in Italy as long as she wanted to. But now that she had all the time in the world, she didn’t want to go. Not when Callum, and Addy, would be here.

She grabbed for the bed’s footboard post and sank onto the padded bench butted up against it. Callum loomed over her, then moved to sit at her side, his legs spread, his forearms on his thighs. He toyed with the ring on his right hand, turning it around and around and around.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said, at the same time she said, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. I’ve never shopped for furniture before. I have zero taste when it comes to anything but chocolate. That’s the only reason I asked what you liked. I wasn’t beating around the bush, trying to get you into my bed. If that was the case, I would’ve come out and said so. I’m not exactly the most subtle guy, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I have.” And then because she absolutely could not help herself, she asked, “Do you? Want me in your bed?”

He laughed. Not loudly. Not with anything resembling humor. Not at her. Not even at what she’d said, it seemed, as much as at what was going on in his mind. Things no more suited to this time and place than her question.

She wasn’t stupid. The way he looked at her. The way he touched her. The way he’d kissed her. Yet not being stupid hadn’t stopped her from asking something that was.

“Callum—”

“Yes, Brooklyn. I want you in my bed, but you know that. I want to undress you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, the pitch low and hungry, making her ache. “I want to see you naked, and look into your eyes when I cover you and push into you.”

It took so little of her imagination to feel him between her legs, parting her, entering her, and she shivered with the sensation as much as with the realization of how much he wanted her. That he would say so to her here, in this store, where he could be overheard, as if the possibility was nothing compared to his needing her to know how he felt.

He laughed again, a deep, painful sound, a wounded sound, as if he were suffering. “Thinking about having you in my bed takes up way too much of my time. But what’s the point of starting something that’s going to make your leaving even harder than it’s already going to be?”

She closed her eyes because she was so afraid she was going to cry. How was she going to survive leaving him? How had her carefully made plans become so terribly unappealing? What in the world was wrong with her? “Sometimes I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“If I really want to go.”

He hesitated for a very long moment, as if his waiting would get her to repeat the words with more conviction, then finally said, “A little late for that now, isn’t it?”

“I do want to go,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I know that. I haven’t seen Artie’s family in far too long.”

“You’re just not sure if you want to stay and teach.”

“I thought I was sure,” she admitted, raising her gaze to his.

He moved closer to her on the bench, their thighs pressed together, and his eyes were so close, and his mouth, and she couldn’t help it. She lifted her hand and laid it against his face, cupping his cheek, then his jaw, stroking him with her thumb before letting him go.

Tucking her chin to her chest, she closed her eyes, still feeling the scruff of his beard on her palm. But before she could make a fist and hold it in, his hand was on hers, his fingers lacing with hers.

“From everything you’ve said, it sounds like this trip, for however long it lasts, is important to you—”

“It is important. I should never have let so much time lapse between visits.”

“Then it’s probably not the trip responsible for the second thoughts. More like it’s selling the house, or giving up your job here.”

“Well, I can’t be in two places at once, so the job had to go. As far as the house”—she shrugged—“renting would’ve been too much of a hassle with me living abroad. Even with a management company handling things.”

“Not the house, not the job, not the trip.”

Was he baiting her? Trying to get her to admit she wanted to stay for him?

“You’re giving up the life you’ve lived here for twelve years,” he finally said. “Of course there are going to be nerves and doubts and all sorts of what-ifs floating around in your head.”

She looked down at the scuffed and peeling hardwood beneath their feet, at the equally scuffed toes of his heavy black boots. “Did you have the same? When you decided to move to Hope Springs?”

“Ah, that was different,” he said, sliding his hand from hers and lacing his own together, his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward.

“How so?”

“For one thing, I had a newborn I needed to get the hell out of a crapfest of a situation. Coming here was about saving our lives.”

“Is that what you really think?”

“If we’d stayed in California? If I’d kept working for Duke? I don’t even want to imagine—” He stopped and cleared his throat, his voice quavering, the last word more of a strangled whisper than spoken. “The thought of Addy growing up in that environment . . . I can’t even imagine who she would be now. And she’s only six years old.”

He went silent after that, staring at the throw rug beneath the bench, or at his boots, or at hers. She kept quiet, too. They’d both said enough, and she had so much to think about and was ready to go home.

“I like that one,” she finally said, pointing to the mahogany suite in the alcove across from where they were sitting. “But that’s just me and my love for sleigh beds. You might like a different style.”

“I’ll definitely need something without a footboard. Even with a king-sized mattress I tend to wake up with my feet hanging off the end.”

Callum had four inches on Artie at least. “See? This is why asking me for furniture advice is a bad idea.”

“A bed? Maybe. The rest? You’ve been a great help.”

A great help. Yes, that was exactly what she wanted to be.

Once at the loft, Callum slowed his bike and pulled to the back side of his building. Brooklyn had parked behind his covered spot this morning, and he eased around her car.

She held on to his waist until he’d braked and shut off the engine, then she climbed off and handed him the helmet she’d used. If she were staying in Hope Springs, he’d buy her one of her own.

“You coming up?” he asked as she shook out her hair and smoothed it, her fingers catching in a tangle.

She gestured toward her car. “I should probably get going.”

“C’mon. Just for a second.” He tucked the extra helmet beneath one arm, held his in the same hand as he bounced his keys in the other, finding the one for his door. “I’ve got something to give you.”

Wariness crept into her eyes, but she nodded and said, “Okay.” The word sounded out with the same sense of caution.

Meaning he couldn’t do anything that would scare her off. For some reason, she seemed ready to bolt. He wanted to know why, because it had to be more than furniture-shopping frustration.

The freight elevator opened onto the hallway of the building’s second floor, where his loft took up the east side of the space, and another tenant’s the west. He turned in his direction, and she followed, though she did so a lot more slowly than he liked.

“Listen. I know it’s been a sort of rough day, but I promise I’m not going to make it any worse,” he said as he reached his door and waited for her to catch up. “So it would make me feel a whole lot less like a case of the mumps if you wouldn’t hang back like I’m contagious.”

That made her laugh, a cute snort of a sound, and when he opened the door she walked through, saying, “I’m afraid you are.”

Which was probably the last thing he needed to hear from her.

He closed the door, locked it, bounced his keys in his palm, then tossed them to the table that sat against the wall beside the door. They hit the surface and slid, knocking one of Addy’s
Frozen
figurines to the floor.

He snatched it up and crossed to his daughter’s room, giving Brooklyn time to relax and leaving the toy in the basket of things Addy had to earn back. She knew the rules. Toys belonged in their place. She could play with them in the big room, but they went back to their basket at bedtime.

Harsh, maybe, but as busy as the two of them were, messes in the loft would get out of control before he knew it if he didn’t stay on top of things. And with the new house being the size it was, he couldn’t have anything out of control. He’d never catch up. He’d never rein it in.

“I can see why you needed to buy furniture,” she said, looking from the futon he still used as a sofa, and ended up crashing on too often, to the bar stools he and Addy sat on to eat. “I’m guessing you don’t throw a lot of dinner parties?”

“This was only supposed to be temporary.”

“I think there’s something to be said for the scaled-down life. It will certainly make for easy packing.”

“Maybe I should ditch everything I bought today. Just keep what I have,” he said, instead of thinking about her going through the things of her husband’s she’d lived with all this time. “I don’t want the house to be all fussy.”