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  Only instead of jumping into his arms at his compliment, she was now staring at him like he was a Peeping Tom.

  Callie hopped off the swing like it was on fire. “Sorry. I just needed a minute alone.”

  “You do that a lot,” he said, taking a step toward her.

  “What?”

  “Want to be alone.”

  “So?” she said irritably. “What’s wrong with wanting a little privacy?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . . when you spend so much time on your own, you start to get lonely.”

  “Why do you care if I get lonely? You want nothing to do with me, right?”

  He kept getting closer to her. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did, and I’m sorry to have bothered you—”

  “Do you know why I holed up in my house with a book I’ve read at least a dozen times instead of having fun with my family and the rest of my hometown?” He had her nearly backed up against the tree and wanted to press himself into her and feel her soft curves.

  “Because hayrides and haunted mazes creep you out?” she asked quietly.

  “Hmm, no, I actually like Halloween,” Everett said.

  He was a foot away now, close enough to touch her.

  “Then what?”

  Everett leaned over her, his arm against the tree. He ignored the bark biting into the flesh of his arm and the warmth of her body calling him closer and said, “Because I was afraid if I saw you, I’d forget everything I know and everything I’ve been telling myself about you.”

  “Like what?” Her small, pink tongue darted out to lick her lips, and his cock grew heavy with need.

  “That you’re bad for me. That if I get involved with you it will destroy me.”

  He saw something flash across her face before her expression shuttered. Hurt? Longing?

  “Then leave me alone.”

  He should. He should turn around and head back into his house, locking the door on her and his desire.

  “I can’t. I can’t stop. You get to me, and I’m not strong enough to walk away.”

  A soft cry escaped her just before his mouth came down, claiming hers.

  God, she tasted like fresh honey. His tongue slipped inside to sweep along hers, delving into her warmth as his hand came up and tangled in her hair. He wanted closer, wanted to surround himself with her scent, her body, and push all of the doubt from his mind.

  Everett came out of his fog of desire when Callie shoved at his chest, turning her head away from him. She was breathing hard, panting.

  “I am not a plaything. You keep saying that I’m not what you’re looking for, but the truth is, I wasn’t looking for you either. You popped into my life and sought me out. Then you learned something you don’t like about me, and suddenly I’m this toxic thing you have to resist?” She pushed him hard, and he backed off. Every word was true, and it made him feel like an asshole.

  Because he was acting like one.

  “I’ve got a newsflash for you. Being self-righteous and judgmental doesn’t make you a good person. You don’t know me or what I’ve gone through, and yes, I’ve made some bad choices, but they were mine. I’ve taken responsibility for my addiction and changed. And that’s all anyone can do, but I don’t need you telling me you want me or that you’re better than me.”

  In the distance, someone began calling her name, and Callie turned without saying anything else.

  He couldn’t let her go, not with that statement hanging between them. In three strides he was behind her, his hand on her arm. Callie stopped but didn’t turn. Everett moved closer until the top of her head sat just under his chin; then he gently pulled her unruly curls back over her shoulder. She was still as a statue, even when he leaned down to whisper against her ear.

  “You’re right about everything, and I’m sorry. I’m a self-righteous prick, but I don’t think I’m better than you. You just scare the hell out of me.” Everett was so tempted to kiss the pulse point below her ear. “I never wanted to make you feel less-than, Callie, and hurting you is the last thing I want to do.”

  Seconds ticked by, and she said nothing. He was still scared shitless, but he couldn’t ignore this thing between them. Distance and avoidance hadn’t made his desire for her go away, hadn’t lessened his infatuation, and her passionate speech only made him want to keep pushing, peeling back her layers until he could see right into her soul.

  And just when he was sure he’d blown it, she shocked the hell out of him.

  “What’s the first thing?”

  CALLIE COULDN’T HEAR Caroline calling for her, not over the pounding of her heart and the blood thundering in her ears. The trail of Everett’s fingers on her neck still burned pleasantly, and she had a sudden urge to lean back. To trust him. To believe him.

  It was that insanity that had led her to ask him a loaded question.

  He probably thought she was daring him to kiss her again, and maybe she was. Maybe she was tired of being scared, of jumping at shadows. It had been too long since she’d let a man touch her because she truly wanted him, rather than just to get her rocks off. She wanted him in a second-chance-at-happiness kind of way—one she never thought she’d want again.

  But Everett’s warm breath on her bare neck made her shiver, and anticipation raced through her.

  “The first thing I want to do with you,” he said, close enough that his lips grazed the skin just below her ear, “is take you hiking tomorrow.”

  Callie’s eyes flew open in surprise, both at his words and the fact that she had closed them in the first place. “That’s it?”

  His deep, masculine chuckle caused an ache to pulsate between her legs and her nipples to tighten. “Oh, no, honey. That’s just the start.”

  “Callie!” Caroline’s shout broke through her desire, and Callie saw her over by the tents, coming toward them.

  Callie couldn’t look at Everett as he stepped away from her. Instead, she fidgeted with her hair and jacket as she started toward Caroline on wobbly legs.

  “Have a good night, Callie Jay.”

  The nickname whispered so sweetly made her stomach flip, and she turned around to say good night, but he was already heading back toward the house.

  “Hey! I got you an elephant ear and a mocha,” Caroline said, coming up alongside her. “Was that Everett?”

  Callie reached out for the coffee. “Yeah.”

  Suddenly, Caroline was almost nose-to-nose with her. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Callie said, jerking back.

  “You have the hots for Everett!”

  “I do not,” Callie said before taking a drink.

  “Um, yeah, your eyes are totally dilated, and you’re all flushed—”

  “If I’m flushed, it’s because it is freezing,” Callie said. “Now give me the sugar you promised me.”

  “I don’t think I have what you’re craving.” Caroline laughed as she knelt down to pull an elephant ear out of the bag.

  “God, you are a pervy horndog,” Callie said and took the pastry.

  “Don’t even try to lie. I know the signs of a woman in lust.”

  Callie walked back toward the tents. “I’m ignoring you.”

  “Oh, come on! Let’s talk about boys.”

  Laughing, Callie shook her head, excitement rushing through her veins, something she had been missing. She’d been playing it safe, holed up and keeping the world at bay. Maybe she did need to get out and live again. Maybe go for a morning hike.

  It sounded like a very good start.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’M SO GLAD you could make it.”

  At seven forty-five, Callie stood at the bottom of the trail that Everett had mentioned, Ratchet by her side. Most of the landscape was rock and sagebrush, except for the cluster of trees closer to the top of the mountain. Staring up at the steep climb, she wondered if maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

  “I’m not sure mountain climbing was what I had in mind,”
she said.

  Everett stood next to her, his wide shoulders covered by a warm jacket. On his head he wore a black beanie with a little brim pulled down over his forehead. He looked like a model for L. L. Bean or Cabela’s.

  Except for the scars.

  Ratchet kept inching closer to her leg¸ as if leaning on her would somehow show Everett who she really belonged to. Running her hand over the big dog’s head, Callie said, “I like to run, but my trails have little hills and bumps. That thing looks like you could base-jump off it.”

  “It’s not as hard as it looks,” Everett said before starting up the hill ahead of her.

  Callie stared at his back dubiously but followed after him, asking herself for the hundredth time why she’d thought this was a good idea. Climbing a mountain with a man she hardly knew sounded like the start of a bad made-for-TV movie.

  “The view from the top is amazing and totally worth the climb,” Everett called back over his shoulder.

  They had only been climbing for twenty minutes, and thanks to her afternoon runs, she was in pretty good shape. Still, the steep grade made her muscles protest slightly. “I hope so.”

  “Trust me.”

  Give me a reason to. She didn’t say it, but the thought still lingered there. Trusting the wrong person had cost her everything she held dear.

  “You’re awfully quiet back there,” Everett said.

  Callie stopped and took a few deep breaths as she looked out across the valley. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t even been aware that they’d made it a third of the way up the mountainside.

  “Wow.” Staring out across the green and yellow landscape, she felt truly lucky for the first time in years.

  Everett came down a few steps to stand next to her, and she resisted the urge to shy away from him. Tristan would never completely leave her alone, not when he’d left his mark on her, but she had to remember that Everett wasn’t Tristan. She couldn’t constantly compare the two, or she was going to make herself crazy.

  “We haven’t even reached the top yet.”

  “Still, this is pretty impressive,” she said, rolling her shoulders and tilting her head. She needed to shake off the past and just enjoy this. Live again. It was what she wanted, right?

  “Come on. If you think this is impressive, the view up there will blow your mind,” he said before picking up the pace again.

  She followed behind, a little surprised that he hadn’t mentioned anything about last night or even asked what had made her show up today. “So you do this every Saturday?”

  “Just about. In the winter, the trail gets lost in the snow, and in the summer you have to watch for ticks, but right now, it’s pretty much perfect.”

  Yuck, ticks? Suddenly, Callie needed to scratch everywhere, as if she could feel tiny legs making their way across her body. “I hate ticks.”

  Everett laughed. “Don’t worry; it’s too cold for them right now.”

  Callie stopped to scratch the side of her calf anyway.

  “What? Did I give you the heebie-jeebies?”

  Callie looked up to find that he’d turned around and was watching her with a grin. It amazed her how easily he seemed to smile, especially given all that had happened to him.

  “How do you do it?” she asked, surprising herself.

  “Do what?”

  “Relax.”

  Everett seemed stumped for a moment but then said, “I guess I just finally decided not to let my hang-ups destroy me. If I sat around and dwelled on everything that’s wrong with my life, I’d never find the beauty in just being alive.”

  Callie stood up, shaking her head. “You make it sound simple.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t mean to trivialize whatever you’re trying to get past,” he said, reaching out for her hand and lacing his gloved fingers with hers. The gesture was sweet and comforting, although she wasn’t quite sure who was comforting whom. “I just mean that I came back a hot mess, and I’m still working through it, eight years later. But I also know that there’s a reason I survived.”

  “What’s the reason?” Callie was unable to look away from his intense gaze.

  “Haven’t figured it out yet.”

  WHEN CALLIE PULLED her hand from his, Everett let her. He’d told himself he needed to go slow, to not push her. Whatever it was that made her jumpy wouldn’t be helped by his forcing his attentions on her. Still, he couldn’t help it. She was like a wild rabbit—skittish as hell but so soft, you just had to touch her.

  Taking up the rear, he decided to change the subject to something a little less personal. “For a woman who seems to prefer older country, you sure play a lot of Taylor Swift.”

  “She’s a popular artist,” Callie shot back without stopping.

  “With whom? Twelve-year-old girls?”

  “And I bet you just love Kenny Chesney’s new song,” she said.

  “As a matter of fact—”

  “Kenny Chesney lost his roots right around his third album.”

  “I was just going to say I’m not a fan of his new stuff,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  Everett liked that she was so passionate about the music she played. “So, who’s your favorite band?”

  “Diamond Rio. You?”

  “I thought you said it was Little Texas.”

  Callie paused. “You’re right. I did tell Rhett that.”

  “So, which is it?”

  “I guess it depends on the day,” she said.

  “What made you fall in love with country music in the first place? Aren’t you a California girl? Shouldn’t you like rap and alternative?”

  “I grew up in a small town in California, and my mother was originally from Tupelo, Mississippi. She raised me on the greats: Patsy Kline, George Jones, Johnny Cash, George Strait, and Garth Brooks. Plus, we have cowboys and FFA, just like you do.”

  Everett held up his hands. “Pardon my faux pas then.”

  “If I must.”

  She turned around and kept walking, missing his grin.

  “So where’s your mom now?”

  They broke through a patch of trees, and she took so long answering that he almost repeated himself.

  “She died.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry. What happened?”

  Callie stopped again and leveled him with a hard look. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Some things I like to keep private.”

  “What about the rest of your family? Friends from your childhood?”

  “There’s no one.”

  She was shutting him out again, and it hurt. Stepping up alongside her, he reached out to touch her face, running the back of his hand from her temple to her jawline. Her breath caught and her mouth trembled, as if she wanted to fight her attraction to him.

  “I understand having demons, Callie. I think if you let me inside your walls, we could help each other.”

  Everett didn’t wait for her but dropped his hand and kept climbing. If she wanted to let her fears control her, he wouldn’t push. He could feel something pulsing between them, something warm and incredible, but if she didn’t want to let him in enough to find out what it meant, that was on her.

  The sound of feet and paws behind him let him know Callie and Ratchet were moving too, but it took a few seconds to realize the sounds were getting closer, not farther away. Smiling to himself, he continued on through the trees, hope flaring to life in his chest with every step.

  When the grove of trees opened up, he stopped. “We made it.”

  He sensed her beside him and turned to watch her face light up as her amber eyes swept over the view. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  THE VIEW WAS spectacular, just like he’d said it would be. Green and gold squares showed where farm fields met, and there were patches of trees scattered about. To Callie’s right, the Sawtooth Mountains rose up like slate-gray arrowheads, clouds drifting across their peaks. The sky was robin’s-egg blue with puffs of white clouds drifting past, and to the s
outh, she could see the dark gray of distant thunderheads making shadows across the land below.

  “You were right,” she said, with awe making her voice soft. “This was worth the climb.”

  Everett sat down and patted the spot beside him. “Have a seat. Take it in.”

  Despite everything she had said to him, he still wanted her around. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” he asked, staring out.

  “Everything. Snapping at you, accusing you of stalking me, pushing you away—”

  “Before you get too carried away, I think we’ve both apologized enough, don’t you?” Everett took his hat off. “Besides, I get accused of stalking women at least three times a day, so it’s really no big deal.”

  “Shut up,” she said, laughing as she sat down next to him. The minute she did, Ratchet tried to crawl onto her lap. “No, you are too big to be a lap dog.” Finally giving up the fight, she let him lay his front legs and chin across her.

  “He’s a good-looking dog,” Everett said, holding out his hand. Ratchet lifted his nose to sniff the digits, and then lay back down again.

  “Thanks,” Callie said, rubbing her dog’s soft ears. “He thinks he’s a cat, though.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He rubs his head on me like he’s scenting me,” Callie said. Her lips twitched as she warmed to the subject. She loved talking about Ratchet’s antics. “Especially when my hair is wet. If you think my hair is scary now, you should see it after he tackles me and gets it all tangled.”

  “I like your hair.” Everett reached out to finger a curl that had escaped from her ponytail.

  Callie’s heart stuttered as their gazes clashed. “It’s a mess. I can’t even straighten it.”

  “So, don’t.” He tucked the curl behind her ear, his fingers lingering there, and whispered, “Curls are sexier anyway.”

  The pit of her stomach flipped over at his warm tone and words. “I’m not trying to be sexy.”

  “You don’t have to try,” he said, leaning toward her. “You just are.”

  Callie closed her eyes as Everett’s lips brushed hers, softly searching, and she sighed. “Everett . . . ”

  “Mmmm?”

  She forgot her protest as his tongue snaked out and ran along her bottom lip, making her shiver. Callie felt Ratchet move before Everett had a chance to deepen the kiss, and she opened her eyes to find him standing with his head between them, nose-to-nose with Everett.