Callie's Cowboy (6 page)

He never should have looked into those earnest brown eyes, much less have touched her. One glance, one almost caress, and he'd been thrown back eight years. He'd thought his adolescent adoration of Callie had long since been dealt with and buried. But it appeared he was wrong.

“Done, Daddy,” Deana said proudly.

“Well, I'll be darned,” Sam said. “I knew you could do it! See, this toilet-training stuff is a breeze, isn't it?”

“Bweeze,” Deana experimented. She liked the sound of the word, so she said it over and over.

As Sam helped Deana wash her hands he decided that this dinner with Callie was simply something to be endured. She was right about one thing, though. He should behave civilly toward her. Their breakup was ancient history, and it would be silly of him to hold a grudge. She'd done nothing recently to justify treating her with anything but respect and politeness—unless she was intent on stirring up trouble about his father's death, and so far that didn't seem to be the case.

“So that's what I'll do,” he told his reflection in the mirror. “I'll be polite, I'll be pleasant.” No more silly conversation burgeoning with sexual innuendo. No more smart comebacks or attempts at one-upmanship.
He would treat her with friendliness, but impersonally—the way he did Millicent Jones, for example.

Once he proved, to both himself and Callie, that the feelings he harbored were nothing but a fond remembrance of a childhood sweetheart, they could move on.

If he could just get through dinner without saying something stupid … and then what?

Well, he wasn't staying in Destiny very long, anyway—just long enough to help his mother push the will through probate, collect Dad's life insurance, straighten out the bills, and get the farm business back on track where she could manage it. A few weeks at the most.

If he ran into Callie during that time, he would be prepared. He would handle it.

But he'd give anything to be back on his ranch, in the saddle, cutting through a keen wind, with nothing more pressing on his mind than rounding up a few strays.

Sam washed his own hands and ran a comb through his hair. “Okay, I think we're—Deana?”

Apparently, during his lengthy soul-searching, she'd wandered out of the bathroom. Feeling a pinprick of panic, even though he knew she couldn't wander far, he went in search of her. She wasn't hard to find. She was in the kitchen, sitting on Callie's lap.

“Looky, Daddy!” she exclaimed the moment she caught sight of her father. She held up a fuzzy yellow toy that appeared to be a baby chick. “Cal gimme.”

“Oh, very nice.” Sam bit his tongue. But if he bit it any harder, he would bleed. So to Callie he added, “That was thoughtful of you. But I thought you didn't like kids.”

Callie's jaw dropped open for an instant, but then she quickly composed herself. “I never said I didn't like kids. I don't know much about them, but I still like them.”

“Think you'll ever have any of your own?” All right,
so he was being nosy. Callie's interest in Deana, though nothing to be shocked about, intrigued him.

“I don't know. But I have a few more years to decide. Heck, I might not even get married.”

“A few years ago marriage didn't appeal to you, but I thought maybe your biological clock had kicked in by now.”

“Not even a little,” she said flatly, though the way she cuddled Deana—and the way Deana responded—made him wonder about her self-avowed lack of maternal instincts. “Sam, surely you don't think that because I brought your daughter a present, I have my sights set on a ready-made family?”

“Of course not. I'm just making conversation.”

“You're deliberately provoking me.”

Okay, so maybe he was. Maybe he'd never gotten over the fact that she'd chosen her career over him. It was his damned male pride, that was all. He didn't really want Callie. She was way too bristly, too stubborn, and too independent to make a good wife and mother. But she brought out this belligerent streak in him that he couldn't seem to control.

Callie's face went neutral. She gently set a protesting Deana on the floor. “I wanted to be friends with you, Sam, but apparently that's not possible. I'm not sure if you have a chip on your shoulder, or if you just enjoy making me uncomfortable. Either way, I can't deal with it anymore. So I'll be on my way.” She paused, then awkwardly patted Deana on the head. “Good-bye, Deana.”

“Wait!” Sam called after her as she exited the kitchen by punching through the swinging door like a
fist. He followed her to the front of the house. “You're not staying for dinner?”

“It's too uncomfortable for me, Sam. Your mother doesn't need to deal with the tension between us. You know how she is. She'll assume the role of peacemaker. She has more important things to deal with right now.” Callie found her jacket and jabbed her arms through the sleeves.

“What am I supposed to tell my mother?”

“How about the truth? That you needled me until you drove me away.”

“I can't tell her that!”

Callie sighed. “Then make something up.”

“Wait, wait, Callie—” He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.

She looked up at him expectantly, her brown eyes aglow with the molten lava of repressed emotions. “Wait? For what?”

Sam couldn't think of anything to keep her there, not one damn thing, except … Before he could stop himself he'd leaned down and captured her mouth with his. And for one split second, one tiny sliver of remembered heaven, she kissed him back.

Then, apparently, she came to her senses. She pushed him away and raised her hand as if to slap him. He was so sure she was going to do it that he braced himself for the blow, knowing he deserved that and more.

But slowly she lowered her arm as she stared up at him, chest heaving, bottom lip trembling. “You are so incredibly juvenile.”

“I am?”

“Once upon a time that might have worked. You could kiss me and I'd forgive anything. But I'm not that easy anymore, Sam Sanger.” She stepped back, still staring. Abruptly she turned and fled.

Sam shook his head. So much for control.

Callie managed not to lose control until she was safely in her car and off Sanger property. Then she pulled off the road and shook for a full five minutes.

What had Sam been trying to prove with that stupid kiss—that he still had some hold on her?

Unfortunately, that was exactly what he'd proved—to her, anyway. Until then she'd been fine, everything under tight rein. But one touch of his mouth to hers and she'd become a lump of sugar melting in a thunderstorm. Everything she'd pushed aside over the years—the memories of loving, laughing, battling, and wanting—had risen from some previously uncharted region of her brain to engulf her.

It had taken every ounce of willpower she'd had and then some to pull away, to deny the sexual pull he'd reawakened with that one simple, complicated kiss. She still wasn't sure how she'd done it, how she'd spoken coherently, or why her wobbly legs hadn't dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor.

After a few more minutes she felt okay enough to drive. But her lips still tingled, and the memory of Sam's embrace, the strength of his hands as he grasped her arms, the smell of his aftershave, stayed with her.

Since she'd done herself out of dinner, and she knew darn well her freezer was empty, she had to find something
to eat. She was thinking about Mexi-Taco when she stopped to fill up her car. Then she spied some frozen burritos in the case at the mini-mart where she bought her gas and decided that would fill her stomach as well as anything.

As she stood in line to pay for her purchases, she recognized the cop in front of her—Sloan Bennett, who'd graduated from high school with her. He'd been the black sheep of the class, the motorcycle-riding bad boy who was always getting into fights. The one all of her friends' mothers warned them to stay away from.

And he'd become a cop, of all things.

“Hey, Sloan,” she said when he'd finished paying for his gas. They hadn't known each other at all in high school, but they'd become acquainted in the course of their respective jobs.

“Oh, hi, Callie. That your dinner?” he asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Uh-huh.”

“That's kind of pitiful. I was just heading over to Sal's for some lasagna. You can tag along if you like.”

She started to refuse. She wanted nothing more than to run home and hibernate. The idea of going someplace public where she had to maintain a facade that everything was peachy … On the other hand, Sloan was someone she'd been meaning to talk to. The police report on Johnny Sanger's death had mentioned Sloan as one of the first officers on the scene. But he'd been unavailable for an interview, and she'd had a deadline.

“C'mon, put those disgusting things back in the case,” he said.

“Hey,” the clerk, Alma Potter, objected. “You want
to insult the food I sell, you can buy your coffee and doughnuts somewhere else.”

Sloan laughed. “Okay, you win. They're not disgusting. But Callie could do better.”

“Hmmph,” Alma said.

“All right, I'll go with you to Sal's.” Callie paid for her gas, returned the burritos to their case, and followed Sloan the two blocks down Main Street to Sal's Pizzeria.

Maybe someone would see them having dinner together and Sam would hear about it, she thought smugly. At any rate, it couldn't do her reputation any harm to be seen with Sloan. With his curly black hair and a college quarterback's body, he was handsome as sin and always the object of speculation among the women she knew.

She and Sloan found an empty booth in a dimly lit corner.

“You were one of the first to arrive at the scene when Johnny Sanger died, right?” Callie asked after she'd made the requisite small talk.

Immediately a wary look came into Sloan's eyes. “Are you asking as a reporter, or as a friend?”

“Mmm, a little of both. I mean, the story's done, and I don't have any firm plans to write anything else about it. But I'd wanted to talk to you. Just to kind of tie up the loose ends.”

“You know I can't do any official interviews without approval from the department.”

“Yeah, I guess I knew that,” she reluctantly admitted. “Tell you what. Just talk to me, off the record. If for any reason I should want to use what you've told me, I'll go back and get permission. Fair?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Callie had worked hard to earn trust from the police department and various other civic authorities over the years. She'd gained a reputation as a straight shooter. If she told someone their words were off the record, she meant it. Consequently, her sources were open with her. The police in particular were always cooperative. More than once she'd offered up information she'd gleaned from researching a story that had helped them out.

“What exactly is it you want to know?”

“What was the scene like when you got there?” she asked. “I mean, I saw the police photos, but sometimes those two-dimensional pictures don't do a scene justice. What were your personal impressions?”

“You sure you want to talk about this while we're eating?”

“I'm tough,” she said with a smile. And she meant it. She'd seen enough crime-scene photos over the years, and a few scenes up close and personal, that she could detach herself when necessary.

“Well, Jerry Langly and I got the call. Mrs. Sanger let us in. She was pretty cool under the circumstances; in shock, I'd guess. She showed us where the study was. Said she and her daughter-in-law had just come home from grocery shopping and found him. Neither of them stayed long in the room, and she didn't believe they touched anything. They just turned, walked out, and Mrs. Sanger dialed nine-one-one. Then they called in the older son, Tamra's husband.…”

“Will,” Callie provided.

“Right. He'd been out in the fields plowing or something. Some neighbors verified that.”

“So Johnny was in his office? And he was already dead?”

“Real dead, I'm afraid.” Sloan went on to describe where exactly Johnny had been lying, where the two loads of shot had entered his body—first in his solar plexus, then the fatal wound in his chest—how he was holding the gun. The details were a bit gruesome, but Callie just kept eating her lasagna, wanting Sloan to continue.

When he paused, she prompted him with a question that had been bothering her. “Isn't it a little unusual for a suicide to shoot himself twice?”

“A little, not unheard of. The first shot doesn't always do the trick.”

Callie nodded. “Okay, now with this type of murder—”

“Don't you mean suicide?”

That brought her up short. Why had she said murder? “Oh, of course I mean suicide. I don't know what I was thinking.”

“Callie, is there some reason you suspect foul play?”

She sighed. “I don't know. Something just doesn't feel right. I got the impression that the police were eager to close the case—not for any nefarious reason,” she added hastily when Sloan started to object, “but because everyone remembers the hell that family went through with the drunk-driving scandal years ago, and no one wants to cause Beverly any more heartache than is necessary.”

“So you think something might have been overlooked in their haste?” Sloan asked skeptically.

“Not anything obvious. The bases were covered. The wounds were from almost point-blank range, there was gunpowder residue on Johnny's right hand, significant amounts of alcohol in his system—all consistent with suicide.”

“But …?”

She shrugged helplessly. “Can't put my finger on it. I do feel it's odd he didn't leave a note.”

“A lot of them don't, especially if it's a spur-of-the-moment decision. I mean, picture this: He was drinking, looking over the finances, feeling despair because he never amounted to much, overwhelmed by the continual debt. He searched through his files for some kind of salvation. He finds the insurance policy. The gun was handy … 
pow.
He ends it all.”