Turning he put on his clothes and, without another word, left the house.
16
“C
allie? Callie, are you okay?”
Rolling onto her back, she forced her heavy eyelids to open. Kyle and Baxter were leaning over her, their faces pinched with worry. Earlier, after Levi had hammered some boards over the broken window, she’d put on an old flannel nightgown, crawled into bed, and that was the last thing she remembered. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like a lot. It was getting dark outside.
“What...what are you doing here?” As if to underscore how long she’d been sleeping, her voice sounded gravelly from disuse.
“We came as soon as we learned about the fire,” Kyle said.
The fire was just this morning but it seemed like ages ago. “Who told you?”
“Some of the volunteers who helped fight it were talking at Just Like Mom’s.”
Because it’d happened out of town in the middle of the night, she hadn’t expected a burning barn to generate much interest. No one had been hurt, and the fire hadn’t spread. But there was some question as to the cause and that, naturally, invited conjecture. Or maybe the firefighters knew. Maybe that was what they’d been discussing.
“Was it arson?” she asked.
“One guy said it had to be,” Baxter answered. Kyle was too busy scowling.
Dragging a hand up to push the hair out of her face, she finally awoke enough to see that the bustier she’d bought for Levi’s benefit was lying in the middle of the floor, along with her silky robe. Kyle and Baxter had to step over them to get to her.
Shit...
“Levi didn’t have anything to do with what happened, did he?” Kyle’s voice and manner were just shy of accusatory.
“Of course not!” she replied. “He tried to put it out. Without him it would’ve done more damage.”
“Then where is he?”
This question gave her a start, a moment of panic when she realized that, if he’d left, she might never see him again. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised—or sad. This had been coming all along. But she felt so unprepared. “He’s not here?” she managed to say.
“When you didn’t answer the door, we walked around back. Rifle’s in the yard, but Levi’s motorcycle is gone.”
Suddenly desperate to fade back into sleep, to avoid this reality, even though she should’ve expected it, she drew a steadying breath. “I guess he decided to move on.”
“You didn’t
know?
” Baxter asked.
She scrambled for an answer that would cover at least some of her embarrassment, given what they’d seen on the floor. “Things have been chaotic because of the fire.”
“So that’s it?” Kyle said. “He’s out of your life for good?”
The relief in those words bothered Callie. Whether Levi stayed or went shouldn’t make any difference to Kyle. They were finished sleeping together. They’d spent months trying to feel just a fraction of the excitement and attraction she’d experienced so naturally with Levi, but trying to turn friendship into love hadn’t worked. As a matter of fact, it was such a poor substitute she knew she could never settle for something so diluted again, even if she had another fifty years to live. Which she didn’t.
“I told you he wouldn’t hang around forever. With the...with the barn burned, there’s no way he can paint it.” But he could’ve said goodbye....
Kyle encouraged her to scoot over so he could sit beside her on the bed. “What exactly happened last night?”
“I wish I knew.” She propped the pillows behind her back as she explained the sequence of events to him and to Baxter, who was standing to one side.
“Is there any chance Levi was smoking when the fire broke out?”
Baxter asked this. Callie shifted her gaze to him. “Levi doesn’t smoke. As you probably heard, the cause wasn’t obvious. Chief Stacy said he’d get an arson investigator out here.”
Kyle and Baxter exchanged a glance. “Why would anyone want to set fire to your barn?”
“I’m hoping no one did. That there’s another explanation. But...there is
one
person who has a grudge against me.”
Baxter barked a laugh. “No, there isn’t! Everyone in this town loves you.”
“Not Denny Seamans and Powell Barney,” she said.
“Who are—” Baxter started, but Kyle interrupted.
“The two guys who own the pit bulls that attacked Levi.”
“Oh, right.”
Kyle stood. “Damn it, Callie. This is what I was hoping to avoid! If you’d only stayed out of it—”
“I wasn’t trying to get involved!” she broke in. “What else could I have done? Turned Levi away when he was bleeding all over my doorstep? Told him he had to leave when his bike wasn’t working?”
“He’s a big boy,” Kyle grumbled. “He can take care of himself.”
Baxter nudged Kyle. “Come on, that was her choice.”
“Exactly!” she agreed.
“But look what’s happening because of it!” Kyle said.
Callie straightened the bedding. “Denny’s upset and he’s blaming me. That doesn’t make it my fault.”
Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets. “Maybe Baxter, Noah, Ted and I should go over and have a talk with Denny.”
“Don’t! I’d rather not have all my friends become their enemies, too,” she said, but Kyle wasn’t willing to back off quite that easily.
“They’d better not be responsible.”
She held up a hand in the classic stop position. “Let’s wait and see what caused the fire before we go off accusing people.”
“When’s the arson investigator coming?” Baxter asked. “Or has he already been here?”
“He hasn’t shown up to my knowledge. Stacy didn’t mention a time.”
Baxter took Kyle’s seat on the bed. “How are you feeling?”
There was an earnest quality to his voice that indicated he wasn’t only concerned about how she’d been affected by the fire. As the one person who knew about her liver disease, he was asking after her health. “I’m fine. Just...tired. I was up all night.”
Kyle stooped to recover the bustier and threw it in her closet, out of sight. “Have you eaten?”
She twisted around to see the clock. It was nearly eight. She’d slept all day. “Not yet.”
“You should have some dinner. I’ll go make something.” With that, he went to the kitchen, but Baxter stayed behind.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice low.
“I told you,” she said.
“I’m not talking about the fire.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about anything else. “What, then?”
He arched his eyebrows. “Are you going to pretend you didn’t have sex with your guest?”
“I didn’t.”
“Come on.” A skeptical grin tugged at his lips. “A girl doesn’t break out a bustier unless she’s got plans.”
She smiled that he could name that particular type of lingerie when Levi couldn’t seem to remember it no matter how many times she told him. “
I
had plans. It was Levi who called it quits.”
“What?”
“It’s true.” And now he was gone....
Baxter made a sympathetic sound. “You have the worst luck when it comes to men, don’t you?”
She couldn’t help chuckling. “That’s no joke,” she said, then sobered. “But I haven’t lost anything, right, Bax? I knew he was going to move on. And now he has. So...”
“So?” he prompted.
“Why am I sad?”
He shrugged. “There’s just something about this guy.”
That was true. She’d felt it almost from the start. “I wish we could choose who we want to love.”
“So do I!”
His expression suggested this was the understatement of the year and she knew that for him it was. She reached out to squeeze his arm, and he responded by lying down with her. “We’re pathetic, the two of us,” he said as they settled close.
“How long have you been in love with Noah?” she whispered. They could hear Kyle banging around in the kitchen as he cooked. It wasn’t as though he was listening in, but the seriousness of the subject seemed to warrant extra care.
Baxter hesitated so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then he took a deep breath and murmured, “Since forever.”
“What do you think he’d do if you told him?”
“I don’t want to find out.”
“He can’t get
too
mad. It’s a compliment.”
“You’re kidding, right? He’d probably start throwing punches.”
She rose up on her elbows. “Really?”
“You don’t agree?”
“I know he cares about you.”
This didn’t seem to please him. “
Caring
sounds so weak compared to my side of things.” He ran a hand over his face. “He’d feel betrayed,” he mused. “As if I was only pretending to be his friend all these years. As if I’ve been living a lie. And I have been. I make it worse every time he talks to me about a woman and I pretend to understand and agree and support him.”
What other options did he have? “I can see why you’re tempted to move away. Why not live in S.F. and find someone else, someone who can fulfill you?”
“Because I’d have to leave you and the rest of our friends. I could never replace what we have.”
She snuggled closer. “I feel the same.”
“And I’m afraid of what’ll happen to me there, how I’ll change.”
“You’d come out of the closet, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be able to stay in it, not in an environment where it feels safe to be who and what I really am. Maybe I could pull off a double life for a while, but...” His words faded before he regrouped and finished. “Noah would find out eventually. So would my parents.”
“Would that be so bad?” she asked. “Surely, they’d have to accept it.”
“Would they?” he challenged.
She couldn’t say for sure. She hated to encourage him to do something that wouldn’t turn out well, and yet she understood how difficult it must be to pretend.
“Noah would hate me,” he said. “So would my dad.”
She wished it didn’t have to be that way. “I’m sorry.”
He kissed her temple. “I know.”
* * *
As soon as Callie heard the sound of a motorcycle, she dropped her fork. The clang of it hitting her plate made Kyle and Baxter pause in the middle of their dinners.
“What is it?” Kyle asked.
She picked up her fork. “Nothing,” she said, but she felt giddy with relief. Levi wasn’t gone. She had no idea where he’d been all day, but he was back, and that made her far happier than it should have.
The motor she heard outside died. Then there was a quick knock and Levi poked his head into the living room. “Callie?”
“In here!” Instinctively, she shoved her chair back. She wanted to go to him, but he was already on his way, and she preferred not to reveal her own eagerness.
He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. The fact that he was covered in grease and wearing a blue Whiskey Creek Gas-N-Go shirt surprised her.
“You’ve been...at the gas station?” she asked.
He eyed Baxter. He had to have seen Kyle’s truck, but he would’ve had no reason to expect a third person. “All day. I was going to start cleaning up the mess left by the fire but figured that might not be wise—to touch anything before the arson investigator arrives.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “Of course. But you couldn’t have slept more than a few hours last night. Surely, you’ve got to be tired.”
He pulled his gaze away from Baxter. “I am now. But I needed to work.” He handed her a stack of bills. “That’s part of what I owe you.”
“They paid you in cash?”
“That was our agreement. It’s just day labor, whenever Joe needs me.”
Of course. At least he was still in Whiskey Creek. “Levi, this is my friend Baxter. He’s a stockbroker in San Francisco.”
“Nice to meet you.” Baxter played it serious, but then he flashed Callie an insider’s smile, as if to say he could see why she was so taken with this guy.
In an effort to keep Levi and Kyle from noticing, Callie hurried to divert them. “Have you eaten?” she asked, and stood to scramble some more eggs. Kyle had cooked egg burritos. She could easily assemble the ingredients for another one.
“I can’t eat yet. I’m too dirty.”
“The only soap I have that might be strong enough to get the grease off your hands is dishwashing liquid, which is right here. Go ahead and use that side of the sink. You can shower after.”
As he ran the water to get it hot, she cracked four eggs into a bowl.
“So...
Joe
hired you?” Kyle asked. “On the spot?”
Levi spoke above the running water. “He wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, if that makes you feel better.”
Kyle scowled. “It doesn’t make me feel anything. I’m just surprised.”
“Why, is he one of your friends? Was giving me a job some kind of betrayal?”
“Not really.”
“Joe is Gail’s brother,” Callie explained. “She’s the woman from that picture at my studio, remember?”
Understanding dawned. “The redhead who married the movie star.”
“That’s her.”
Baxter leaned back, holding his water glass. “If Joe wasn’t excited about the extra help, how come you’ve got his logo on your chest?”
“It’s Saturday. He was slammed. And he had a BMW that was giving him problems. Owner brought it back while I was talking to him, said there were still times it wouldn’t start, even after several attempts to fix it. I had a few ideas on how to solve that problem.”
“How’d you do it?” Baxter asked.
“They’d already replaced the fuel pump. It wasn’t the starter or the alternator. Far as I’m concerned, that leaves the central computer.”
Kyle pushed his plate away. “And was that it?”
Levi dried his hands on the towel Callie provided. “We’ve ordered one. We’ll see when it comes in.”
After hanging the towel on its hook, Callie poured the eggs into a skillet. “I thought...I thought maybe you’d gone.” She couldn’t look at him when she said this. She was too afraid he’d read the embarrassment she felt about what had happened between them earlier. Now that he was back, she wasn’t going to let things drift in that direction again. If she was careful, she could still enjoy the time she had left with him.
“I can’t go anywhere,” he told her. “Not until we find out how that fire got started.”
“You think it was Denny Seamans.” Kyle said this.