Authors: HelenKay Dimon
Walker pushed his mug to the side and got in close enough for his harsh whisper to carry but not far. “Don’t fuck with her.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Once again he got cast in the role of villain. Callen understood the act Walker had going here, but why play it now when it was just the two of them? People leaned in too close and watched without trying to hide it, but there was no real audience to be impressed with his big FBI role right now.
“You sic her on me and then—”
“What?” Walker sat back against the booth hard enough that the man behind him turned around.
“Be a man and stop hiding behind her.” That was what pissed Callen off the most about Walker. Well, one of the things.
Callen had made a load of mistakes in his lifetime, but he owned them. He tried to make amends and fix what he could. Walker, the guy with the badge and the big office, didn’t do his own dirty work. No, he used Grace for that.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Walker asked.
The confused expression and tone were nice touches. Callen refused to buy in. “Why are you in Sweetwater?”
“To prove you are just like your dad.”
There it was. Walker unknowingly drilled down and hit Callen’s greatest fear. There was only one way to handle someone who got that close to the horrible truth—evade. “You’re an idiot.”
Walker shrugged. “You asked.”
“Fine. Why is she here?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t know she was until I walked into Mallory’s store this afternoon.”
He sounded sincere. The shock and the frowns. Callen tried to hold on to the idea that this guy was trained. That he fooled people for a living. Went undercover and played a part. That had to be what he was doing now.
“I’m supposed to believe you?” Callen asked.
“Again, I don’t give a damn what you believe. I just want to make sure you stop screwing with her.”
“So you can?”
“You are two seconds away from getting punched.” The menace in Walker’s voice sounded pretty damn real.
Callen had to admit that the delivery suggested more of a brotherly feeling for Grace than sounding like something a lover would say. If Walker was in love with Grace, he sure did a good job of hiding it.
Maybe there was another explanation—one still foreign to Callen, who never stayed anywhere long enough to earn a pension. “Aren’t you worried you’ll lose your precious job?”
Walker shook his head. “What the hell does she see in you?”
With each sentence Callen lost ground. He felt the dirt shift and all the anger he’d been so invested in collecting and piling inside him slip away. But he gave it one more shot. “Maybe she’ll get a bonus at work if she brings me in before you do.”
“Again, genius. She doesn’t work for the FBI anymore.” Walker talked slow, as if he were explaining something really difficult to a third grader.
“So I’ve heard.”
“She hasn’t for a long time, since before you started sniffing around her.”
“Were you watching us together back then?” The thought scraped against the inside of Callen’s brain, blocking out every good memory.
He wanted to believe some piece of his relationship with Grace was real. Hell, any piece of it. He needed that for his sanity, to know he hadn’t totally lost his ability to read a situation and people. To make him fell less like one of Charlie’s victims and more in control.
“If I’d known she was getting tied up with you I would have stopped her. By the time I figured it out, it was too late.” Walker glanced around the diner, but it didn’t appear as if he focused on anything. “You were already together, and she made it clear you were off-limits.”
“You think I believe that?” Damn, he wanted to and Callen hated that weakness.
“Not a news flash, but I still don’t care what you believe.” Walker waited while the waitress served food to the table behind theirs. “Look, you messed up with Grace, and I say
good
because you’re a fucking mess. Now do the decent thing and stay away from her.”
“She came to Sweetwater. She came after me.” And Callen still didn’t get that part. If it was all part of a ploy for information or to get closer to Charlie’s schemes or whatever, those days were over. They ended when he figured out her connection to Walker.
But that didn’t fit either. Why continue? Why uproot her life and come here to stay in a motel in the middle of Oregon? Her decisions didn’t make sense. They pointed to her being truthful, and Callen would not let that hope take hold.
“Dumb move for a bright woman.” Walker shook his head. “Not something Grace ever is.”
Because he couldn’t handle one more second of talking about Grace or the mix of anger and frustration and need that coursed through him when he even thought her name, Callen changed topics. “Speaking of women.”
Walker immediately switched to alert mode. His body stiffened and he sat there as if waiting for a body blow. “What?”
“Mallory.”
Walker started shaking his head before Callen finished saying her name. “Say one thing about her and I’ll pull my gun.”
That sentiment Callen recognized. He also noticed the fire in Walker’s eyes and the way his hands clenched into fists. This was protective mode. Callen experienced it himself. He’d seen that possessive, heated look in the mirror when thinking about Grace, as recently as this morning.
His mouth dropped open and he struggled to close it. “Holy shit, you’re sleeping with her.”
“There is nothing sexual between me and Grace.”
“Mallory, I mean.”
A nerve ticked in Walker’s jaw. Probably had something to do with how he tightened it until the point of snapping. “You have ten seconds to leave this booth.”
“Oh, I’m going.” Callen had found a weakness in his opponent. Not that he’d use it, but it was good to know he wasn’t the only one who could be set back on his heels by a strong woman.
“Stop smiling,” Walker said in a low angry voice.
Callen slid out and stood next to the table. “Do you have any idea what Leah is going to do to you if you mess with Mallory?”
“I can handle Leah Baron. And my personal life is not your business.”
Callen almost felt sorry for the poor bastard. Almost. “Oh, man, do you have a rough road ahead of you.”
“You threatening me?” Walker seemed to welcome the idea.
Yeah, no way was Callen letting the guy off that easily. “No, but I am looking forward to seeing you squirm.”
“Never going to happen.”
Spoken like a man who didn’t appreciate the strength and stamina of a woman like Mallory and her unbreakable friendship with Leah. Callen no longer made that mistake. “We’ll see.”
Grace leaned against her car and watched the argument play out through the diner window. She knew she should leave. Let the men do their testosterone dance and make complete idiots out of themselves from a safe distance. But she couldn’t pull away.
Watching let her take a good long look at Callen. Despite the bullheadedness and all the conclusion-jumping, she loved him. He could be thick and unyielding. He could also be fierce in his loyalty and so loving in the way he touched her.
Deep down he was broken, only a little—but he believed the break was irreparable. She’d read all about Charlie and in the months since Callen walked away had heard all about Walker’s theories. Truth was, every FBI agent in the world could pile on information implicating Callen and she wouldn’t believe it. She knew the real man.
And right now the man walked out of the diner with an unexpected smile on his face. That amusement made her want to rush inside and check for blood on the floor.
She straightened away from the car as he approached. “You have fun in there?”
He stopped right in front of her. “Walker really is sleeping with Mallory.”
Of all the things Grace thought he’d say, that was not on the list. “That’s what you guys talked about?”
Something had changed Callen’s mood. Instead of looking ten seconds away from driving her to the town limits and dumping her there behind a fence to keep her out, he struck her as being relaxed. Fury no longer vibrated off him. He appeared guarded, and his words remained cautious, but not closed off to the point of being shut down.
“First he supported your story about not setting me up.”
Now that was closer to what she expected Callen to say. “Let me guess—you don’t believe him either.”
“You can see where I might have a trust issue with you, right?”
More like a stubbornness issue. “Maybe if you listened for two seconds.”
“I’m listening.”
It took her brain a second to catch up with the conversation. She glanced around at the people going in and out of stores and the diner. Sweetwater was a small place, but people gathered in the middle of town. Or for some reason they seemed to do that whenever she stood outside.
Crowd or no, he couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he meant. “You mean now?”
“Sure.”
Leave it to Callen to pick up a shockingly bad sense of timing during their months apart. “In the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Sweetwater?”
He swept an arm across the landscape. “Let’s not make the place sound like a big city.”
But it was outside, and people talked. He’d just served up enough for the rumor mill by talking with the FBI agent where everyone could see and hear. “That’s my point. For a man who values privacy, you sure seem to want to hash this out in front of a lot of people watching.”
“No one is—” Callen shifted and almost ran into two forty-somethings hovering behind him. After an apology, he turned back to Grace. “Okay, good point.”
“I think what you really want is to tweak Walker.” She pointed over his shoulder to the man inside the diner currently scowling at them as he held his mug with enough force to shatter it.
Callen didn’t appear all that impressed by the badge, the gun or the rage. “Because he has a thing for you and doesn’t want us talking?”
Not this again. “Walker doesn’t have a thing for me.”
“You sure?”
She wanted to shove against Callen’s chest. If Chief Darber weren’t walking inside the diner right at that second, she might have. “Stop being a moron.”
“A moron?” Callen said something under his breath about name-calling. “Exactly how long were you with Mallory? Sounds like you picked up some of her more annoying tendencies. Namecalling being my least favorite.”
“Long enough to know your problem is not just with me. It’s with everyone.” Though, to be fair, she’d already known that. He treated her well, always charming even through his gruffness. But he tended to ignore other people. She’d introduced him to a neighbor, and while he wasn’t rude, he wasn’t exactly full of sunshine either.
Callen defined loner. He stuck to himself and limited his activities away from home to work. He didn’t go out with the guys. Something about that dark part of his personality appealed to her. She never viewed herself as the rescue-him type, but sometimes she thought about Callen and wondered if she really was.
“I don’t have a female problem.” He sounded serious at first, then made a face like he wasn’t sure what he just said.
She tried to hold on to the frustration bubbling inside of her, but she couldn’t. She heard him say the words
female problem
and her mind zipped somewhere else and the laughter spilled out of her. “Do you want to rephrase that?”
He scrunched up his nose. “Kind of, yeah.”
She loved this side of him. The lighter, guarded-but-still-willing-to-banter side. Maybe that’s why she roamed back into heartache territory without any thought of self-protection. “Look, I know I messed up.”
He didn’t look at her as he waved her off. “Forget I said anything.”
She grabbed his hand and forced eye contact. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Excuse me?”
She flattened his hand against her chest and covered it with hers. A wave of relief crashed through her when he didn’t pull away. “You want to have it out, fine. Let’s do that, but in private—and you can’t walk away when it gets rough.”
“I’m not a runner.”
He’d been sprinting since she met him. “That is exactly what you are. Things get tough and you bolt.”
His hand slipped across her collarbone then away from her. “You don’t know me.”
“Oh, I do.” Knew and accepted. She’d never wanted to change him into a different man; just maybe a slightly nicer one. “I know you and still love you even as I have to beat back the urge to smack you half the time.”
“That last part’s particularly charming.”
“Maybe one of these times when I tell you I love you, you’ll respond.” The lukewarm reaction started an ache in her chest that wound down to her belly. “Oh, but that’s right—you don’t believe me.”
Instead of launching into a list of her faults, he shook his head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
The draw to his voice and the exhaustion that suddenly seemed to pull at him had to mean something. Maybe she was just hopeful or slow to pick up clues but she needed to break down the wall he kept erecting between them. “Believe this.”
She took one step and went straight into his arms. He didn’t push her away or hold back. Her body touched his and his arms wrapped around her. Then her mouth closed over his and the world started to spin. She felt light and free, hot and itching to get him alone.
Their lips touched and all the sounds and sights around her blurred. She could hear talking and a car horn, but they could have come from anywhere. She knew somewhere Walker watched. None of that mattered. The only thing that meant anything was the heat pulsing off the man holding her and the feel of his hands as they skimmed up and down her back.
The kiss pushed on. She kissed him with all the pent-up desire that had been building since she arrived in town. Kissed him for the time lost and the ache that never went away. She kissed him until she lost her breath and had to break away to jumpstart her brain to get it working again.
Her forehead rested against his cheek as she struggled to regain her breathing. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest and something kept flipping around in her stomach.
“I thought you didn’t want to put on a show.” Callen’s low voice rumbled against her ear.
“That’s you. I am happy to go at it right here.” She pulled back and stared up into those green eyes filled with amusement. “Okay, now it’s my turn to rephrase.”
“I’m fine with the wrong interpretation.” He wiped a hand over his chin as he nodded to a man walking by.
She recognized the guy from Schneider’s Grocery but refused to be embarrassed. “I’m tired of trying to explain and seeing only your retreating back.”
Callen’s grip loosened and he pulled back. “Fine.”
From her experience,
fine
usually stood for
whatever
or
no
. Something other than what she wanted here. “Clue me in. What do you mean?”
“I’ll come to your room later.”
She turned the words over in her head, looking for hidden meanings, but couldn’t find one. “Later?”
“I have work I have to do first.”
He worked for himself and owned the place he was fixing up. She couldn’t imagine how any of that could be more important than settling the mess between them. Unless this was another stall tactic, and she feared it might be. “On your personal life, or at the house?”
“Those are pretty much the same thing.”
Then Grace remembered the comment he had made about his mom. Something about her not being his mom. It didn’t make sense then and really didn’t now either, but it was one explanation for being on the verge of bolting again. “You said you had an issue with your mom. I’m thinking I might not be the only woman you need to talk with today.”
“No.”
Something in his expression pinched. Closed up and shut down. “That answer doesn’t quite match up with what I said.”
“A few kisses do not mean you get to tell me how to live my life.”
She did not agree with that assessment at all. “I do as your girlfriend.”
“You’re not that.”
Maybe they should just have it out right there on the sidewalk. She’d bet money the crowd would side with her, but the longer she stood there, the weaker she felt. She needed a nap, and maybe some tea.
The energy drained right out of her. “I am, but you’re too stubborn to admit it.”
“I think I—”
Unable to take one more second, she held up a hand. “Save it for tonight.”
***
Declan got out of his car just in time to see Callen pull up to the curb outside of Tom’s house. It was a bungalow-style place on a quiet street. He’d fixed it up until the front looked brand-new. Declan knew from talking to Tom that the inside was a work in progress. To some extent, so was the apartment over the garage where his mom was staying.
Rather than going in and checking on her, Declan waited for Callen to join him in the driveway. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to her.”
Declan wanted to see that as a good sign, but Callen’s stiff shoulders suggested otherwise. “And by ‘her,’ you mean our mom.”
“Don’t start. I’ve already argued with Walker Reeves and Grace today.”
“That sounds like a pretty fucking awful afternoon.” Made Declan happy he spent the morning filling in holes in the backyard.
“No kidding.”
Callen wasn’t exactly offering up details. Too bad for him—Declan had no intention of letting that fly. “Together or apart.”
“Both.”
Grace was one issue. Walker Reeves was downright dangerous. “You and the FBI agent who wants you locked up had a conversation with Grace sitting right there. Yeah, now I get why you look ready to punch someone.”
“The guy makes me want to reach for a shovel every time he speaks.”
Declan could relate, but the last thing he wanted was for Callen to take the bait and give Reeves and Chief Darber or anyone else in this town a reason to put his big brother in jail. He didn’t want Callen yelling at their mom either. “So, naturally, in that mood you came here.”
“She should move back home.”
Okay, that sounded like progress. “You’re coming around on Mom? Does that mean you’re coming around on Grace?”
“
She’s
going to be the death of me.”
Declan sensed Callen wasn’t joking. The dragging on the limbs and fogging of the brain. The mix of confusion and frustration. Declan recognized it all.
“I know that feeling.” Declan clapped Callen on the shoulder. “Let’s go see if we can fix one of your women problems.”
They walked in silence up the steps. Their sneakers clunked on the wood, but they didn’t say anything. Other than the odd car passing by and a little kid shrieking over a ball in the distance, the world stayed quiet.
Declan made the mistake of looking in the window as he knocked. “Oh, hell no.”
Behind him, Callen shifted positions. “What do you see?”
It was too late. The door opened and Tom stood there. Tall with broad shoulders, he pretty much filled the doorway. His silver-tinged blonde hair was the only hint that he had slipped from his late thirties to his mid-forties. The face still looked young, and Declan knew from rebuilding the outbuildings at Shadow Hill that the guy could lift and work at the speed of a much younger man.
And his shirt was unbuttoned at least two buttons too far.
“Uh, what the fuck?” Not Callen’s usual greeting, but for some reason it fit.
Tom didn’t appear put off by the visit. He stepped aside and welcomed them. “Come in.”
They stepped into the small family room in time to see their mom scramble off the couch. Her clothes were in place, but her hair looked disheveled and red stained her cheeks.
“You can leave.” That was as cordial as Declan could manage as he glanced at Tom.
Tom being Tom, he didn’t budge as he rebuttoned his shirt. “You’re not my boss here.”
Mom rushed up next to him, almost plastered to his side. “Boys, what’s wrong?”
“Other than you two sitting on the couch kissing . . . or whatever?” Yeah, it would take a few days to wipe that memory from Declan’s head. His mom and Tom leaning in . . . Damn.
“That wasn’t happening,” she said.
Tom frowned down at her. “Yes, it was.”
She touched a hand to his arm in a move that looked both familiar and intimate. “Tom, please.”
Declan didn’t like that at all. “Yeah, Tom. Please go.”
“This is my house.”
Declan wished Callen would say something. “You got anything to add? Maybe you could help me here.”
Before he could answer, Mom looked up at Tom. “Could you give us a minute?”
“Are you serious?” He snapped out the question.
Declan didn’t like the response, but his mom didn’t seem upset. She actually came off as pretty clueless. Declan didn’t know how she missed the tension crowding the room.