Too Hot to Handle: A Loveswept Classic Romance (18 page)

Callie felt a surge of pride wash over her as she considered Lacey’s words. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I can’t explain it, but I am pregnant and I’m very pleased. I want to have a child. I want to have this child.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“No! He’d insist on our getting married, and I don’t want that.”

“Why ever not, Callie? The man loves you.”

“The baby will be fine. I’ll be both mother and father.”

“Sure, and you’ll be Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. A child has enough problems in today’s world. It seems to me you’re sentencing yourself to a pretty lonely future.”

“I won’t be lonely,” Callie protested. “I’ll have my child.”

“Being lonely is one thing, but having loved a man and having to live without that love is a different kind of loneliness. Lonely women are unhappy women, and unhappy women don’t always make the best mothers.”

Lacey was right. No matter how much she tried to deny it, everywhere Callie looked she saw Matt. Sometimes she’d glance up from her basket work, startled, thinking she’d just heard Matt’s voice. And William seemed cranky these days, as if he missed Matt and blamed her for his departure. Callie told herself the heat was making both her and William overimaginative.

And then, one morning when she got up, the gate was standing open and William was gone.

She found a letter thumb-tacked to the gate. It was printed on expensive stationery stamped with gold initials and it read simply, “If you ever want to see, hear, or smell William again, come to my home in Atlanta. Alone. Tell the cops to stay clear or I’ll turn your homicidal goat loose on their cars.”

It was signed, “Matt,” and underneath he’d given directions to his house.

Callie couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Matt was taking charge again, trying to twist her plans to suit himself, but it was hard to resist a man who’d go to the trouble of kidnapping an ugly, smelly, neurotic goat just to get her attention.

“All right, Matthew,” she whispered. “I’ll retrieve William and we’ll talk.” She folded the note carefully and carried it into the house, her chin high. Before she talked to Matt about the possibility of a future
together, she’d see her father and decide if they could overcome their differences.

It hurt Callie a little when her father merely glanced up at her over a stack of papers on his enormous rosewood desk. Distracted, he returned to his reading and punched an intercom button on his sleek telephone.

“Mary, I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed. This report has to be complete—”

“Hello, Daddy.”

His finger, with its manicured nail, snapped away from the intercom button. He stood quickly. “Callie?”

She could tell from the shocked expression on his face that her father was surprised. In fact, she decided with pleasure, he was more nearly dumbfounded.

It was mutual. She’d never before realized how handsome he was. She’d never allowed herself to see him as more than a shadowy figure who hovered on the fringe of her life. Funny, she’d never realized before how short he was. She was only an inch or so shorter than he. In her mind he’d always touched the ceiling when he walked.

Wesley Carmichael came around his desk and moved slowly toward her. “Is it really you? After all this time, you’ve actually come to see me?” His voice was a whisper, an emotionally charged rope of uncertain words. “Why?”

He was very reserved in a way that reminded her of how Matt had acted when they had first met. She’d learned that underneath Matt’s reserve lay a
warm, sensitive human being. Now she wondered if the same was true of her father.

“I wanted to tell you … that I finally understand,” she murmured.

“Understand what?”

He stood not more than twelve inches from her, but he could have been across the world. His dark hair was fringed with silver, and deep lines radiated outward from the corners of his eyes and across his forehead.

“About the way you loved Mother, and the way she loved you. I came to say that I’m sorry I made your pain over her even greater.”

Her father took her hand and led her to the couch, where he sat stiffly beside her. Callie thought how odd, how utterly like her father it was to be so polite and formal in the midst of this emotional reunion.

“You’ve come at last,” he murmured. He studied her intently for many seconds. She kept her gaze on him and lost track of everything around her. “You’ve changed, Callie. You’re softer. There’s a gentleness about you that reminds me of your mother.”

He reached out and curled her hair behind one ear. His intimate gesture shocked her, and she felt tears pressuring the backs of her eyelids. He smiled uncertainly.

“What can I do for you, Callie?” Now she saw in his eyes the earnest desire to please her. She cleared her throat roughly.

“Perhaps … perhaps we could start by going to lunch.”

He looked wistful. “You don’t ask me for much. You’ve never asked me for much. And I’ve always had so much to give.” She looked away, her eyes
burning. “It doesn’t matter,” he added quickly. “You’re here, and that’s all I care about. Come on. We’ll scare up the biggest steak this side of the Mason-Dixon line, and I’ll insist that you talk my ears off, the way you did when you were very little. Remember?”

She remembered. Over lunch she talked and he listened, and they felt the years soften into a blur. They weren’t close, Callie knew, and they might never be, but she’d made a first step, and she felt a special glow as she left the restaurant with her arm through his. She’d told him all about Matt, and he’d actually been sympathetic.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you to visit this interesting fellow?” He held onto her arm as though he were afraid she’d slip away and be gone forever.

“No,” Callie said firmly. “This is another of those things I have to do by myself, as usual. I just had to come here today … Daddy … and make certain that you don’t mind if I sell Mother’s car. I want Matt to have it, no matter what he decides about me.

“If that idiot doesn’t appreciate your coming to apologize, he doesn’t deserve that car.”

He walked her to the curb, where he hailed a taxi. “Where are you staying?”

“At the Ravinia Hilton. I have a room on the twelfth floor, where I can see the entire Atlanta skyline. I sat there last night and watched the sun set. It was magnificent. Not as beautiful as a mountain sunset, but close.”

“And you’re really going to leave the valley and move back to town?”

“Yep, if a certain businessman will have me.”

“Call me,” Wesley said as he closed the door to the cab. “Come home if he … I mean, I don’t want you hurt, Callie. Promise me you won’t close me out this time.”

She smiled at him, her eyes full of promises.

Callie spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at a mall near the hotel. She selected a ruby-red silk dress that clung seductively to her body. Gossamer-sheer panties and a lacy bra made her smile as she contemplated Matt’s expression when he discovered them. Sheer, flesh-colored stockings and red high heels completed her outfit.

She took a deep breath, piled her packages into the Fiesta, and hoped fervently that she wasn’t about to make a fool of herself.

Back at the hotel Callie swallowed her panic, then donned the underwear, the sheer panty hose, and finally the red dress. After she applied the first makeup she’d worn in years, she decided that she looked like a Neiman-Marcus version of a gypsy or, perhaps, Scarlett O’Hara in modern dress.

The summer sun had just set as she wheeled the Fiesta into the fashionable suburban subdivision where Matt lived. No homes were visible from the street, only numbered mailboxes without names, adorned with little metal placards that announced which security service protected each residence.

Callie drove up the driveway, grateful that the gate was open. A canopy of trees shielded the house, then the trees gave way to open space, and she saw
an ornate Victorian monstrosity sitting stiffly on top of a hill.

The driveway carried Callie around behind the house past a brick, ivy-covered stable that was brightly lit. She slowed Ruby as she realized that the stable wasn’t for housing horses. Instead, each stall had been enlarged to accommodate a shiny convertible. Each car was polished to perfection. The collection seemed more like artwork than modes of transportation. Over each stall was a heavy brass plate stamped in Gothic script with the year, model, and manufacturer’s name for the car displayed there.

Only one space was vacant, she noticed. Callie jerked Ruby to a stop. One space with a plate that read, “1953 Fiesta, by Oldsmobile.”

Callie felt a chill, as if she’d looked into a waiting grave. Ruby must have felt it, too, because for a second her engine skipped. Callie pressed down on the accelerator and drove past the stable. The scene had presented an eerie picture.

The drive led past a formal garden with gigantic shrubs that had been clipped to aesthetic perfection. Scattered among the shrubs were sculptures and, in several places, ornate little gazebos. Precise rows of hedges and carefully manicured flower beds were evenly laid out everywhere.

When she completed her circle of the house and stopped by the front door, she sat in silence and felt dread steal over her. What had made her think she could fit in here? This wasn’t a home; this was a museum, a showcase for a man’s possessions. Then she looked beyond the lawns and the immaculate garden and saw a chain-link enclosure, new and
shiny. She gasped. William stared at her from behind the fence, his eyes full of woe.

“William, my darling!”

His answering baa was totally ecstatic. Callie scrambled from the convertible and ran to the fence. She couldn’t stop the tears that stung her eyes. Matt had kidnapped poor William ruthlessly, but he’d given him royal treatment afterward. William’s pen had an ornamental drinking fountain in one corner, a huge pile of sweet clover hay in the other, and a colorful canvas tent for protection from the rain.

“But he’s fenced you in,” she said wistfully. The thought tore at her, and anger grew from it. He knew William hated fences. Her freedom-loving, vagabond goat was now just a goat in a gilded cage. She supposed that she’d suffer the same fate, if she stayed.

“We’re going home soon,” she told him. “Be patient for just a little while.” Callie turned, marched briskly to the front door, and rang the bell.

Seconds later the door opened, and she steeled herself, ready to give Matt a piece of her mind about fences for goats and tombs for perfectly healthy cars. But the words she was about to lash out at him with died in her throat.

He stood there, bedraggled, worn, a little lost-looking. He wasn’t the slick, efficient executive who’d come to Sweet Valley to buy an antique car. He wasn’t the efficient organizer who’d pestered her to be more businesslike in Helen. He wasn’t the confident lover who’d plied her body with loving kisses and ardent caresses. The man standing before her was haggard and barefoot, wearing cut-off jeans and a floppy undershirt. He badly needed a shave.

“Caroline?” His whisper held disbelief. Then he began to smile, and the despair fell away from him. “Thank God. Is it really you?”

She whispered back. “Yes, Matt, it’s me.”

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

“I didn’t think you were desperate enough to steal William.” The disbelief in her voice was undisguised. “I can understand your wanting the Fiesta. I can understand your … your interest in me. But William? I can’t believe you’d want the car and me badly enough to endure him.”

“Come in, Callie. We need to talk. Please?” He stood back, his voice pleading and uncertain.

For a moment they simply looked at each other. She didn’t know what to say. A hundred times since he’d left she’d pictured this moment, and now the words wouldn’t come. Matt seemed to be having the same problem.

It took every ounce of resolve he could command not to do something irrational. All he wanted was to sweep her into his arms, but he waited. The least wrong move might send her out of his life again, he feared.

“All right, Matt,” she said at last, entering the shadowy entranceway. “I have something to say to you and then I’ll go.”

“Please, come into the study.” He opened a tall, paneled door off the hallway. They stepped inside a softly lit room filled with books and paintings. “Callie,” he began, “about William—”

“Yes, that’s a good place to start.” She turned to face him, girding herself not to reveal the desire she felt, even now. She’d expected this to be difficult,
but never could she have pictured the change in the man before her.

Matt took a deep breath and tried to find the words to explain. Callie took his breath away. No, this wasn’t Callie. He dimly realized that something was different about her. Her … outfit. Her makeup.

Gone was the adorable and completely natural look. She was polished and smooth, dressed in a deep-red dress that completely covered her lovely body, yet left Matt with the feeling that she was more exposed than he’d ever seen her. Dark shadow made her eyes unbelievably exotic. Her hair was pulled up on her head in a sophisticated sweep, and her shapely legs were even more stunning, complemented by hosiery and elegant high heels. Lord, she was beautiful.

“About William,” she said.

“Yes. Well, I know your soft spot for him. Goat-napping was the only tactic I could think of to bring you to my home.”

“You caged him up. That’s”—she squinted, and jabbed a finger at him as she used one of his favorite words—“sacrilege.”

He smiled wearily. “I didn’t pen him up by choice. It was self-defense. I didn’t care when he ate my flowers, but the estate next door has an orchard, and William didn’t understand that he wasn’t welcome in it. He was overindulging in apples, and I was afraid he’d explode. I called a veterinarian, and he agreed that a pen was the smart idea.”

Callie couldn’t hold back a smile, and Matt couldn’t stop himself from moving toward her.

“Callie …”

“No, Matt, please don’t touch me. This is difficult
enough without your touching me.” She looked around, studying the fine old paintings, seeing the sculpture through the window behind him and the brightly lit stable behind the garden. “What I came to say to you is that I’ve decided to let you have Ruby. I’m going to follow the craft-show circuit with Lacey, so I won’t need a car of my own. I’ll leave Ruby with John Henry. Give him what you consider to be a fair price. He’ll give the money to Tom Hicks for his chickens.”