AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I follow him out. What else can I do?
“We’re calling it a day,” he says to Troy and Alyssa. “Take the rest of the afternoon for yourselves.”
Troy lifts his eyebrows. “Everything okay? With Talon?”
“Yeah. I checked in with Mom an hour ago. He’s still doing well.”
“Thank God,” Alyssa says. “Why are we shutting down early, then?”
“Because it’s my first day, and I need to get to Grand Junction to see my dad.”
“We can still stay—”
Donny stops Alyssa. “I love you guys. Really. Most city employees would be gunning to get the rest of the day off. Please. Go. Enjoy yourselves.”
“All right.” Alyssa shuts down her computer and grabs her purse. “Thanks, Donny.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Donny and I wait until Troy and Alyssa are gone, and then we leave as well.
“To the park,” Donny says.
“What for?”
“So I can tell you what you want to know.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Donny
“Nervous?” I ask Callie.
She inhales. “I’m fine.”
“Then why are you shivering?”
“Am I?” She rubs her arms and then squeezes her hands together. “Maybe just a little chilly.”
“It’s sixty-three degrees.”
“Okay, okay. I’m a tad nervous. I want to help you, Donny. But frankly… Frankly you’re scaring me a little.”
I draw in a breath. “That’s exactly what I don’t want to do.” Though I’m a little scared myself, as well, which is more than freaky. After my childhood horror, there’s not much that scares me. Almost losing my father is at the top of that very short list.
“I know. I mean, I know you wouldn’t scare me on purpose.”
“Damn.” I rub my forehead against a headache that’s threatening to erupt. “You want to get out of here? Go…” I chuckle. “Where the hell would we go? We both live at home.”
She smiles shyly.
“The hotel. I’ll get us a room.”
“Donny, I…”
“I know. I’ll tell you. I just… I don’t want anyone to see us.”
“Ashamed to be seen with me?” she says, trying to tease, but her voice cracks a little.
Yeah, she’s really nervous.
“Everyone already knows how I feel about you. This is a small town, Callie. Donny Steel and Callie Pike are already an item.” And I’m in love with her, but that has to wait.
“Are we?”
“I hope so.”
She blushes again. Damn, that pink that spreads over her cheeks is like a fucking love glove on my cock. She’s so damned hot.
“Look,” I say. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to fuck you into next week right now. I do. I’m hard as a rock already. But that’s not what this is about. I want to be somewhere where we won’t be interrupted. Where no one will overhear us.”
She nods tentatively. “So if we go to the hotel, we won’t fuck. Got it.”
I grin. “I didn’t say that.”
She returns my grin, her cheeks still pink, her countenance still slightly rigid. “Then you’re going to have to buy me dinner first.”
We grab takeout from Lorenzo’s and then go to the Snow Creek Inn. Callie deliberately looks away as I check us in and get the key card for our room. Funny thing… We’re actually here to talk, not to fuck.
I mean, sure, we’ll probably fuck too, but that’s not the main reason for shacking up at the hotel. If I’m going to tell Callie the reasons for the research she’s going to do, I need to be assured of privacy.
Once inside our room, Callie takes the bag of takeout from me and spreads it on the small table next to the window. “Crap. We forgot to get drinks.”
“No problem. There’s a machine downstairs. Let me guess. Diet Coke?”
She smiles. “If they don’t have it, water’s fine too.”
“Got it.” I leave the room and make my way downstairs again.
“Nice,” Patrick Lamone, the clerk, says when I walk by reception. “Callie Pike. I’d do her.”
The hair on the back of my neck springs into action as jealousy spears into my gut. Who does this guy think he is? I vaguely remember the Lamone family, but Pat was just a kid when I left Snow Creek. “I’m going to forget you said that, Pat.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Maybe I didn’t speak loudly enough. Say anything like that about Callie again, and I’ll knock you unconscious.”
“You mean you’re not tapping that?”
“You’re skating on really thin ice, Lamone. I’m not kidding.”
“Easy, Steel. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then you should have kept your mouth shut about Callie.”
“Come on, man. Everyone knows the Pike girls are easy.”
Rage unfurls in my gut. “Everyone like who?”
He’s pulling something, but I’m not sure what. Rory Pike is in a committed relationship, last I heard. Callie has never been known as anything other than an intelligent woman with a goal, and Maddie is the honorary fifth member of the awesome foursome of Bree and three of my cousins, and while they like to have their fun, they’re certainly not easy. They’d better not be, anyway.
