LITMIR.BIZ

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a snake.

      If either of them needed to hang their head in shame, it was him!

      So she got out of the car and followed Greta’s path to the barn.

      She had barely exchanged hellos with Callan when the little girl announced that she was going to show her grandparents her new shoes and purse. Thinking of that as a reprieve, Livi turned to follow.

      Until Callan said, “Can you hang back, Livi?”

      And off went Greta. Leaving Livi alone with this man she’d never wanted to see again as long as she lived.

      “I wanted to talk to you yesterday, but then I had to come out and load that truck. John Sr. won’t let me let anything slide...” Callan stopped short, as if to keep himself from saying more on that subject, and then started again. “And before I got back inside, you were gone. But we do need to talk.”

      “Okay,” Livi said, with a note of challenge creeping into her tone. She was unwilling to give him any help.

      “Hawaii...” he said. “I need to apologize to you for that.”

      For the night they’d spent together? Or for leaving?

      She raised her chin and gazed at him.

      “My phone was on vibrate, so it woke me but not you a couple of hours after we fell asleep.”

      Livi had thought yesterday was awkward, but this had it beat.

      “I definitely didn’t hear anything,” she said with accusation in her voice, thinking that he was just making up some excuse.

      “The call was to let me know that Greta’s parents, J.J.—John Jr.—and Mandy, had been in a car accident here,” he said, knocking some of the wind out of Livi’s sails. “Mandy had died on impact. J.J. was still alive but in critical condition. No one was giving him much time...”

      Callan’s deep voice got more and more ragged as he spoke, and Livi could see that even now this was difficult for him.

      And she’d thought that she was the one entitled to the emotions...

      For the second time today she had to make an adjustment, suspend her own feelings and just listen.

      “I had to get to J.J.,” he went on. “I had to make sure everything that could be done for him was being done. I had to see him...”

      Callan cleared his throat, and realizing how hard-hit he still was somehow made Livi feel guilty for all the nasty things she’d thought about him and his impromptu departure from that hotel room.

      “Mandy, J.J. and I grew up here together,” he explained. “We were close. And always stayed close. They were more family to me than my own...”

      As if he needed a diversion, he looked down at his hands and pulled off his gloves, slapping them against his thigh.

      And Livi hated that her brain was once again thinking about how glorious those hands and thighs were. What in the world was wrong with her?

      “So when I got that call,” he continued, “I was only thinking about getting to J.J. Everything went to that. I was in the air an hour later, and halfway here before I realized—”

      That not even a thought of her had entered his mind? That fact still stung, even though he’d had a good reason to be otherwise occupied.

      “—that I’d just rushed out on you without a word,” he was saying. “By then, when I called the hotel, you were out of the room. And since I didn’t even know your last name, I didn’t have any way to track you down. I did try, I swear to you...” He paused, then added, “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

      Livi raised her chin a second time, accepting the apology that way because she couldn’t not accept it when it came with that explanation.

      But it wasn’t easy to let go of the humiliation she’d felt at his vanishing without a trace. It was hard to move past thinking the worst of him.

      Instead she chose to say quietly, “I’m sorry about your friends.”

      He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Me, too. They were good people.”

      Again he didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with her, instead turning to toss the gloves onto a hay bale. “Anyway,” he repeated, “here we are.”

      “Here we are,” Livi echoed.

      “And I thought maybe we should talk about...you know...where we go now.”

      He did meet her eyes then and Livi didn’t allow herself to look away. But she didn’t say anything, because she had no idea where they should go now—especially factoring in that pregnancy test she had in that bag in the trunk of her cousin’s car.

      “How about we just put it behind us?” Callan suggested. “Forget it happened. Start fresh.”

      Easy for him to say.

      “You want to help Greta,” he went on, “and now she’s kind of my job—her and the Tellers—so we’ll be seeing each other. But Hawaii was...well...”

      A one-night stand? A vacation fling? Pure stupidity on her part? Yes, what exactly should they call it?

      As bad as the last two months had been for Livi, this was worse. This was excruciating. It felt like a brush-off. As if he was telling her that even though they’d slept together, he didn’t want there to be anything more between them than that.

      And while she certainly didn’t, either, it was still a rejection. This made it seem as if she expected something from him that he was letting her know he wasn’t on board for.

      I belong to Patrick! she wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms.

      But she resisted the urge. Instead, she tried to rise above what felt like an insult and said, “Hawaii is already forgotten.”

      Liar, liar, pants on fire...

      “And we can just do...whatever...for Greta and go on?” Callan asked.

      “Sure.”

      “Not that Hawaii wasn’t something damn memorable...” he said, as if giving credit where credit was due, his eyebrows raised in what looked like appreciation.

      “But it’s over and done with. Finished. On to a new chapter,” she said curtly.

      This time it was Callan who nodded in acknowledgment. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, though now he sounded a little confused. And perhaps a little offended. “But maybe we should actually get to know each other...for Greta’s sake.”

      Was that what he’d been trying to say? Livi didn’t have any experience with any of this, and was running on high-octane emotions. Maybe he wasn’t being a jerk—even if it still felt that way.

      She took a deep breath and tried to look at things from a calmer, less sensitive perspective.

      She’d been as responsible as he had been for them spending the night together in Hawaii. And though he had left, he’d had a good reason.

      Now here they were, but he’d inherited a nine-year-old—and apparently two geriatrics on top of it—and had his hands full. It stood to reason that romance was the last thing he needed at the moment. And yet he and Livi would still have to spend time together, for Greta’s sake, so it made sense to settle things between them.

      And it wasn’t as if her own thinking was any different than it had been before she’d met him in Hawaii. Livi still couldn’t imagine herself in a relationship with anyone other than Patrick.

      Take away her newest worry, and Callan was right that they just needed to wrap up Hawaii and stuff it in a compartment. That they just needed to start over as nothing more than they actually were—two strangers brought together over the welfare of a little girl.

      Thinking about it all like that helped Livi calm down.

      “Hawaii

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