The Bargain (22 page)

“I see.”

He slipped the bag from her shoulder and put it over his own. “This it?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re out this way.”

Without looking back, Danny led the way through the crowd of people and out to where his beat up old pickup truck sat.

Welcome home, Callie thought with a wistful pang as she followed him out.

• • •

Danny walked ahead of Callie to allow himself a few moments to absorb the impact of seeing her again. He hadn’t expected it to hit him this hard, and he hoped it didn’t show on his face.

He hardly recognized her. It wasn’t that she looked very different. There were subtle changes, of course, some that he wasn’t sure he could even put his finger on, but she still looked like Callie.

But she was different somehow. Older. Harder. Not the same girl he had known. She was a woman now, and she carried herself like one.

She also looked exhausted, Danny thought grimly, as he led the way among the parked cars. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she was much too pale. But then he had always thought that. A little sunshine and fresh air would do her a world of good compared to the smog of New York City. Other than that, though, she was as lean and lithe as ever.

He risked a backwards glance at her over his shoulder. She moved with a confident, sure stride that had not been there before, and when she caught him looking at her, she didn’t look away first. He did.

Emotions warred within him. Relief at seeing her safe and sound after years away from home doing God knew what. Bitterness at the easy way she seemed to cut him out of her life despite everything that should have linked them.

But he ought to have hugged her, a small voice inside him insisted. He ought to have held her and told her how good it was to have her back home instead of letting her get away with that aloof little one-armed excuse for a hug. It had been easy enough to do such things when she was his best friend’s kid sister, but harder now. This woman walking with him seemed very different from that girl. He wasn’t sure he knew her.

She smiled when she saw his truck, and it was a beautiful smile, one that made him suddenly nostalgic for older days when things were simpler between them. “Some things never change, do they?” she asked wryly, running a hand over a dent in the truck’s fender, caused years ago in a misadventure with Elliot.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said more shortly than he’d intended.

Her smile faded, and he wanted to kick himself. He didn’t want this visit to be a repeat of the last one, full of angry words and hurt feelings. There was a time, after Elliot’s death, that he thought they might have been closer to each other than to anyone else. Maybe they would never be able to recapture the easy camaraderie that used to exist between them, but surely they could be civil to each other.

In an effort to be more conciliatory, he opened the passenger’s side door for her and handed her the bag after she had settled into the seat. Then he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side, thinking that this might turn out to be a very long ride.

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