Long Way Home (10 page)

In a slow, deliberate move he uncurled his body and stood up. His clothing matched hers, because all he had on was a T-shirt, and that didn’t cover much.

“But you still love me.” He wasn’t evading her gaze now. He stared right at her.

About time.
“Yes.”

She didn’t lie, because it would be useless. She’d made her feelings clear. More than once she had declared her love for him, only to have him bat it away like it meant nothing. But that didn’t mean the words rang hollow to her. They meant everything, and she’d shout them if she had to.

Or she would until he trampled on them enough times that she gave up trying. She wasn’t there yet, but his indifference was pushing her in a dangerous direction.

“So, what happens with us now?” she asked, more because she had to put the words out there than because she wanted to hear the answer.

He shook his head as he grabbed his jeans form the end of the bed. “I don’t know, Grace.”

“We do need to talk.” This huge piece of news loomed between them. Her hand went to her stomach and she debated just blurting it out. Maybe she would have if he’d bothered to look up while putting on his pants.

For the first time she wondered if what just happened was a mistake. Inevitable in some ways, but the cause of a growing divide on the other.

“We should have talked before . . .” She glanced at the rumpled sheets and balled-up comforter. “Well, that.”

“Soon.”

“But not now because you need space.” The words actually scratched against her throat as she said them.

All the life and energy had seeped out of her. If she looked down she half expected she’d see her insides on the floor. She wanted to sit on the bed and curl into a ball, but not with him there. She would not break down in front of him or let him know how his cold scowl broke her.

“I need some air.” With his pants unzipped and his long-sleeve shirt in his hand, he nodded.

“Air at your house. Not the air here.”

“Exactly.” Then he was gone.

***

Callen stood in the motel hallway with his back tight against the wall and his breaths slamming in his chest.

It couldn’t be. It absolutely fucking could not be.

He knew Grace’s body as well as his own. He’d touched her, licked her, kissed her everywhere back then as often as he could without looking like he had some sort of problem.

She was long and lean with curves he’d memorized and could almost feel when he closed his eyes. She worked out but refused to skimp on food. He found her love for french fries and refusal to starve herself with crappy salads and pretend she didn’t eat when they were together so sexy.

Maybe she’d gained weight, which wouldn’t matter to him at all. But this felt different. He’d sensed it when his hand slipped under her shirt. The subtle way she froze, then shifted her body.

The bump, not soft but firm. Not small, but defined in a way that suggested more than a lifelong love affair with chips.

She was pregnant. No question about it.

And she didn’t make a move to tell him. She stood there, half naked, and kept her mouth shut. Though, to be fair, he suspected from the other side of the bed but didn’t ask. Not then.

The timing had been wrong. He couldn’t discuss this until he could think the situation through and be ready to have a conversation. Though part of him wondered if that time would ever come. He sure didn’t feel civilized enough to engage now.

But now he understood why she stopped him the first time he made a move on her in that motel room. The early comment about not needing condoms fell into place, even though he’d used one tonight.

She said this newest secret without saying it. But he needed to know why she didn’t just spit it out.

His mind spun until he had to lean over with his hands on his knees and inhale deep breaths to keep from throwing up. This was the nightmare. His gene pool unleashed on some poor kid.

The second he’d found out about his mom not being his biological mother he promised this very thing would never happen. He’d enjoy nieces and nephews and spoil the shit out of them, but his fucked-up bloodline would end with him. But now Grace was pregnant, so he barely kept that vow for three weeks.

The bile rushed up his throat.

He stood straight again, gulping air and trying to get his mind to shut off. His muscles went soft and weak. His body fought off symptoms that matched the nasty flu he had last year.

Shit, he was in trouble.

He had to get out of there. To get home and lie across his bed until the waves of nausea and pounding dread left him. Then he could talk to Grace, because she was right—they had to have a conversation. A serious one.

He pushed off from the wall, surprised his legs could carry him. He got the whole way to the staircase before he glanced back at her closed door again.

Her words came back to him with a slap:
But now you’re running.

From this? Yeah, he was. For now.

The next morning Grace heard the knocking and went to the door without checking or even thinking. After a long night of bouncing between cursing Callen for leaving and flushing with heat while she thought about what he could do with that expert mouth, she was tired. Like, bone tired.

A pregnant woman needed peace. That had to be written in a rulebook somewhere.

She opened the door to find Declan—shorter, stockier, darker in features and scowling. Boy did he look like his older brother when he did that. Made Grace feel a little sorry for Kim, raising three boys like this on her own. Grace hadn’t met the youngest brother, only seen photos, yet she’d bet his personality and manner mirrored those of the other two.

“You are not the Hanover I was expecting.” Not wanting to fight it, she stepped to the side and gestured for Declan to come in her motel room. In a town this small, a few more visitors and she might get kicked out for entertaining men in her room. Who knew?

In almost a complete repeat of his brother’s entry the first time, Declan walked into the room and stopped near the bed, hands on hips as he turned around. “I take it things didn’t go well last night.”

That was cryptic and sent a spike of disappointment spinning through her. “Uh, I’m not really sure how to answer that.”

The comment had her wondering what exactly Callen said and why he would walk away from their lovemaking upset enough for Declan to read the clues. She was the one with the right to be pissed off. The idea that Callen had complained . . . Yeah, she might just go on a screaming binge if that had actually happened.

Declan’s gaze whipped around the room, subtle but scanning, before finally settling on her. “Callen was a mess when he got home.”

Now that was interesting. “Really?”

Declan winced, even made a short humming sound. “I guess you guys fought?”

“Unless you’re talking about Callen versus his internal demons, no.” And that was an epic war she wanted to put to rest once and for all.

Declan’s hands dropped to his side. “Are you sure?”

He looked like he was going to sit on the bed but then thought better of the choice. He settled on the armrest of the small couch instead. The guy looked two seconds away from bursting out of his skin.

She didn’t think a man with a military past and rumored to be so steady with a gun could look so uncomfortable in a room with floral wallpaper. “Declan, why are you really here?”

“I thought we should talk.”

Now she knew. This was some sort of familial showdown. “Ah.”

He shook his head as a smile kicked at the corner of his mouth. “Leah does that. It’s really annoying.”

“The sighing?”

“Plus the eye rolling. Do they teach you that in school?”

Grace liked the way Leah had him trained. He stepped over a line and it didn’t take much to push him back. “I’m not sure who ‘they’ is, but you should assume yes. Pretend it’s a woman thing.”

“Figures.”

But liking Leah didn’t mean Grace would tolerate lectures and threats from her boyfriend. To keep Declan from making a serious misstep and cutting off the friendliness she was starting to feel for him, Grace took the offensive. “Let me make this easy for you.”

“What?” His eyes narrowed as if he knew he might be in trouble.

“You’re here to warn me to stay away from Callen.” She went to her small refrigerator and took out two bottles of water and handed one to Declan. “Am I close?”

“He’s a grown man.”

The perfect nonanswer. Forget being Army. This guy should be a politician. “I didn’t hear you deny my theory.”

Declan passed the bottle back and forth between his hands, touched the lid then started picking at the label. “He’s had a lot of shit thrown at him.”

“And you don’t want me lobbing any more in his direction.”

There was a ripping sound as Declan tried to peel off the label, then gave up. “Something like that.”

She pointed to the actual couch cushion. “Sit.”

For some reason she thought she needed to loom over him for this. Having him pop up and interrupt her would only guarantee a frustrating afternoon. She’d had enough of those lately.

“You sound like my mom,” he said.

She decided to take that as a compliment. “Then maybe you’ll listen to me.”

“I have a feeling this is about to go really wrong.” He grumbled a bunch of other stuff, too, but those were the only words that came out clear and understandable.

“Hey, sport. You picked the battlefield when you came here.”

He smiled that time. “No wonder Leah likes you.”

No way was Grace getting sucked into that smile. Callen smiled, and she got weak, her temper faltering. Declan shot her one, and she wanted to chuckle. He seemed like a good guy, but he needed to know he should approach with caution.

She paced in front of him. “You came to warn me away from your brother, tell me to go home and threaten me if I don’t leave town.”

“I wouldn’t do any of that.” Declan propped the unopened bottle on the cushion next to his thigh. “Well, maybe the first one if I thought you planned to ambush him or drive him insane.”

She had a sneaky suspicion Declan was hedging and had every intention of telling her to go until she confronted him on the plan. Likely had something to do with how he ducked his head and stopped making eye contact. “None of it is going to work.”

“Want to tell me why?”

She took the seat he left open on the armrest, the one at the opposite end from where he sat. “I love your brother.”

The words freed her. She’d said them many times, and not hearing them echo back to her from Callen gutted her, ripped her right open. When he trampled over them and kept talking, every ounce of energy drained from her body. But she could only control how she acted in this.

And, frankly, he created this monster. Watching him leave last night broke something inside of her. Not in a way that beat her down or destroyed her. Exactly the opposite.

His panicked running fueled her this time. She didn’t get sad or weepy. Defiance rang inside her, strong and sure. She was not some ball for him to kick around or pick up and play with only when Callen felt like it. She was the mother of his child, and while he didn’t know that yet, this emotionally stunted nonsense was over.

And it started right now. If his brother folded under the pressure of a strong woman secure in her feelings, so be it. “There’s no need to hide it. I’ve told Callen many times how I feel about him, the most recent time being last night.”

A smile broke across Declan’s lips. “How does Callen take that?”

“Not well.”

“Dumb bastard.” Declan shook his head as he repeated the phrase a few times.

“The stubbornness, the grumpiness, the stern outside covering the decent, warm and loyal inside. I love all of it.” She wrapped her hands around the water bottle on her lap to stop from fidgeting. Because, really, there was no need to dance around in her chair. She knew Callen and understood her need for him down to her soul.

“Okay, that sounds like we’re talking about the same guy.”

“I messed up.” She stumbled over the words, not because she didn’t mean them but because it was hard to admit she’d screwed up and started the ball rolling in this direction. “I’ve said it to him, and I’ll say it to you.”

“You lied to him.”

“I didn’t tell him I knew Walker and that I went looking for him originally because of Walker.” It all made sense back then. She’d worried about the death spiral Walker seemed to be trapped in, so she chased after answers. She didn’t expect to find a whooping case of Tall, Dark and Dangerous and then sleep with him . . . over and over again. “That’s it. That is the total list of my sins. An omission.”

“You make it sound like no big deal.”

It was her turn to pick at the bottle’s label. When she realized her actions mirrored Declan’s, she stopped. “No, I know it’s huge. Especially to Callen, because with his past, loyalty matters to him.”

“And you betrayed him.”

The words tightened like a vice around her chest. “I think a part of him expected me to.”

“Why in the world would that be the case?”

She thought about Charlie Hanover a lot these days. Without trying, she was picking up on Walker’s obsession. But she knew to understand Callen and what drove him, she had to get the man who tried to break him and then remake him in his twisted image.

She thought about the little boy being dragged along behind Charlie. About the pressure Charlie must have brought down to get Callen to do awful things. She couldn’t imagine what that did to a person, though she saw the fallout: a need for control and emotional separation.

“Callen sees himself as shattered beyond repair, like he’s so messed up that no one can love him or help him heal.” She thumped the bottle against her thigh. “I’m guessing it’s why he reached out to you and your brother, Beck, then came here when the opportunity arose. He needed to give you something.”

“Literally, since he paid off the house to keep it from going into foreclosure.”

No surprise there. Grace would bet Callen spent his last dollar keeping them together. “He holds on too tight and sometimes acts like an ass, but it all comes from a good place.”

“Sounds like you really do get him.” No longer on the edge and throwing off waves of tension, Declan settled back into the couch cushions and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee.

“He’s desperate to use whatever energy he has to make the lives of the people he cares about better because he’s convinced it’s not worth his time to spend a second straightening out his own life.” There, that was her theory all spelled out. She built the pieces in her head and now she hung on to them, hoping if she finally “got” Callen she could then show him how he deserved so much more from his life.

Declan nodded as he picked at the fabric on the armrest under his hand. “At heart, beneath all the grumbling, Callen is the most solid man I know.”

Which was why Declan showed up today. Grace could see it all so clearly now.

She chalked it up to Hanover charm and his love for his brother, but in that moment Grace couldn’t help but like Declan. “Me, too.”

Declan’s foot dropped to the floor and he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You really do love him.”

There was nothing left to deny, so she just shrugged. “I do.”

“You’re going to fix this.” Declan tapped his fingertips together. “Fix him.”

“I actually don’t think he needs much fixing, but yes. Unless he refuses to ease up on the stubbornness and annoying loner thing. Then I’ll throw him in traffic.” In the mood she was in, all puffed up and ready to do battle, she could get it done.

“Man, you do understand him.”

“You don’t know me, Declan. I get that and will make allowances.” Though when she mentally turned the tap off on Callen’s nonsense she really meant to shut down all Hanover nonsense. “All I’m asking for is a chance.”

“Leah really does like you.”

The possibility of having a new female friend—two, really—was a new sensation for Grace, and a welcome one. “The feeling is mutual. Though she’s a little overwhelming when she teams up with Mallory.”

His eyes widened. “A little?”

“Good point.” Grace opened the water bottle and took a long drink. All this careful back and forth made her thirsty and half ready for a nap. “Does Leah know you’re here?”

“There will be a lot of screaming when I drop that bombshell.”

“But you’ll tell her?”

“We kept secrets once and it nearly drove us apart. I can’t let that happen again.” He exhaled. “Hard or not, we talk things through.”

“Sounds like it was a smart lesson to learn.” Also sounded normal and healthy and happy. Exactly what Grace wanted.

“For what it’s worth, I think you could be good for Callen.”

Grace already knew that, but she appreciated the support. She’d take any reinforcement at this point. “I’m perfect for him.”

“I like the confidence.”

“I had months alone to figure out what I want.”

“Callen.” Declan said it half as a question and half as a comment.

She answered anyway. “Yeah, Callen.”