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CHAPTER1
CALLUM
Dear Callum,
I’ve never done this before. Written to anyone. Had a pen pal of sorts. So, you’re my first, I suppose. I don’t know why I’m doing this.
I probably shouldn't be.
No, I definitely shouldn’t be.
But there’s something in my heart, in my soul, begging me to write to you.
A lingering sense of panic, you could call it.
We know each other, have for a long time, but I’m not brave enough to talk to you, let alone admit that I’ve had a crush on you for years. I think if you knew who I was, you’d likely turn me away.
Nicely, though.
Because that’s the kind of man you are.
Kind. Hard-working. Compassionate.
The kind of man a girl like me dreams of calling her own.
Maybe, one day, I’ll get up the guts to tell you my name. How I know you. For now, I hope you’re safe and that you make it home without trouble.
I look forward to hearing back from you, but if I don’t, I’ll understand.
Always,
Yours
What the hell?“Hey, Major, you going to share those?” Private Dexter asks while gazing down longingly at the chocolate chip cookies in the box my letter came in.
“Touch them, and I’ll have you on midnight patrol until we go home.” Pulling the box closer to me, his hands raise as he steps back, and I glare until he leaves me alone.
I re-read the letter as I open my laptop, waiting for my daughter, Vivian, to call me when she gets out of class. We have a bi-weekly chat since she’s away at college, and I’m more often than not deployed.
Glancing at the return address on the package, I see it’s from a P.O. box out of my hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina. It could be anyone. I just haven’t a damn clue who. When I’m home, I spend as much time as I can with Vivi or working on the house—that still doesn’t resemble a home—I bought a few years ago.
I purchased it as a fixer-upper. We’ve managed to correct all the major problems outside, like the foundation, siding, rotting, and roof. Last time I came home was over this past summer, and Vivi, her bff Adalee, and a few other friends built the wraparound porch. Something my mother insists my future wife will want.
When I get home next month, I plan to attack the master suite. This way, as I work on the rest of the house, I’ll have a space to rest and relax. I've also been informed that this is important when I bring girls over.
A woman of my own hasn’t entered my mind since my older brother died, and I adopted Vivian ten years ago. It was the toughest yet easiest decision I ever made. Vivi had been heartbroken for so long. When I moved her to Fayetteville with me two years later, she met Adalee. They shouldn’t have worked as friends, but they’ve been inseparable ever since.
Until Vivi went away to college.
Adalee doesn’t come around much anymore. Usually, Viv goes to her, and it worries me. I know she lives with roommates at the college in the city, taking photography and graphic design classes while also creating YouTube tutorials on how to use photoshop for some extra cash. She’s too exposed from the videos as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not her parent, so I don’t get a say.
Not that I want to.Liar.
A shift occurred in how I looked at her over the summer. A stirring in ways I hadn’t felt in far too damn long.
Adalee James wasn’t just my daughter’s friend any longer.
She became a woman I desired. A woman I wanted beneath me on those hot summer nights.
