Face to face? Not that he would hurt her. But he wasn’t a man who took no for an answer when he wanted something. Callie wasn’t sure what he wanted, exactly, and she’d be an idiot to find out.
By the time she closed up at two a.m., she was exhausted and didn’t have it in her to drive up the mountain to her parents’ cabin. Nor did she want to go crash on her brothers’ couch. They’d all be asleep.
Callie chuckled. It amazed her that her mother had managed to hook up with three men. Lily, her sister-in-law, had done the same with Callie’s brothers, and here Callie couldn’t even manage a relationship with one man.
She was sure the townspeople, and hell, maybe even her own family, wondered if she harbored the desire to marry more than one man. There was probably a betting pool somewhere on how many men she would end up with.
She loved her fathers and her brothers dearly, but she had no idea how her mom and Lily managed it. Having more than one man in the house would drive her out of her mind. Too much testosterone. Too many moody males to contend with. Too many egos. Too much posturing, bickering and all-around aggravation.
Her mom and Lily were happy though, so Callie was all for it. For them. As long as she wasn’t expected to keep with the bizarre tradition.
She trudged back to Dillon’s office after turning off the lights. He had a couch that he sometimes slept on—well, that was before Lily came into the picture. Nowadays he rushed home every afternoon to spend time with his new wife. One or two nights a week, he came in to work the bar to give Callie a night off, but the truth was, nights off just gave her more time to think stupid shit. If she stayed busy, she didn’t think up acceptable reasons why Max dumped her cold in a foreign country.
She fished a bottle of water out of the minifridge by Dillon’s desk and then settled on the couch. She didn’t even bother to undress. She propped her feet up on the end, drained the bottle of water and then leaned back to close her eyes.
And all she could see was that moment where she looked up and saw Max standing just across the bar from her looking as sexy as ever.
She’d been utterly fascinated by him from the day she met him. He was older, a bit stern, but he had just enough rough edges to his polished look to make her drool. He was strong and confident, and oh but confidence on a man was super sexy.
He liked things his way, and really, so did she. Now, looking back, she was mortified by just how much control she gave up around him. No one who knew her would ever believe the woman she’d become in his arms.
That’s what bothered her the most. He’d made her someone else, he’d made her need him, and then he’d walked away.
And now he thought they had something to talk about?
She growled under her breath. “Go to sleep, Callie. You’ll go see Lily tomorrow and you’ll feel better.”
Unfortunately, she obeyed herself about as well as she obeyed everyone else.
Max Wilder examined his jaw in the mirror and shook his head. A chuckle escaped and then he winced. The little wench had caught his bottom lip in the punch.
He shouldn’t have expected any less from Callie. She was fiery, impulsive, she grabbed onto life with both hands, she loved fiercely, but she was also capable of holding a grudge forever.
With a sigh he trudged out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips. Accommodations were mediocre at best in Clyde. Hell, he was lucky to have gotten a room at all given the fact that there was only one hotel.
There were much nicer towns that had more appeal for tourists but then he wouldn’t be close to Callie. He had a lot of ground to cover with her, and judging by tonight, it was going to take some fast talking. The woman was lethal.
And she was so damn beautiful, she made his chest ache.
He’d missed her. Every damn day they’d been apart, he missed her until she was all that consumed his thoughts. Forgotten was the reason why he’d initially pursued her. That no longer mattered. It hadn’t mattered since the first time he’d made love to her and recognized his other half.