Callie's Cowboy Page 5

  “Wait!” Sam called after her as she exited the kitchen by punching through the swinging door like a fist. He followed her to the front of the house. “You’re not staying for dinner?”

  “It’s too uncomfortable for me, Sam. Your mother doesn’t need to deal with the tension between us. You know how she is. She’ll assume the role of peacemaker. She has more important things to deal with right now.” Callie found her jacket and jabbed her arms through the sleeves.

  “What am I supposed to tell my mother?”

  “How about the truth? That you needled me until you drove me away.”

  “I can’t tell her that!”

  Callie sighed. “Then make something up.”

  “Wait, wait, Callie—” He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.

  She looked up at him expectantly, her brown eyes aglow with the molten lava of repressed emotions. “Wait? For what?”

  Sam couldn’t think of anything to keep her there, not one damn thing, except … Before he could stop himself he’d leaned down and captured her mouth with his. And for one split second, one tiny sliver of remembered heaven, she kissed him back.

  Then, apparently, she came to her senses. She pushed him away and raised her hand as if to slap him. He was so sure she was going to do it that he braced himself for the blow, knowing he deserved that and more.

  But slowly she lowered her arm as she stared up at him, chest heaving, bottom lip trembling. “You are so incredibly juvenile.”

  “I am?”

  “Once upon a time that might have worked. You could kiss me and I’d forgive anything. But I’m not that easy anymore, Sam Sanger.” She stepped back, still staring. Abruptly she turned and fled.

  Sam shook his head. So much for control.

  Callie managed not to lose control until she was safely in her car and off Sanger property. Then she pulled off the road and shook for a full five minutes.

  What had Sam been trying to prove with that stupid kiss—that he still had some hold on her?

  Unfortunately, that was exactly what he’d proved—to her, anyway. Until then she’d been fine, everything under tight rein. But one touch of his mouth to hers and she’d become a lump of sugar melting in a thunderstorm. Everything she’d pushed aside over the years—the memories of loving, laughing, battling, and wanting—had risen from some previously uncharted region of her brain to engulf her.

  It had taken every ounce of willpower she’d had and then some to pull away, to deny the sexual pull he’d reawakened with that one simple, complicated kiss. She still wasn’t sure how she’d done it, how she’d spoken coherently, or why her wobbly legs hadn’t dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor.

  After a few more minutes she felt okay enough to drive. But her lips still tingled, and the memory of Sam’s embrace, the strength of his hands as he grasped her arms, the smell of his aftershave, stayed with her.

  Since she’d done herself out of dinner, and she knew darn well her freezer was empty, she had to find something to eat. She was thinking about Mexi-Taco when she stopped to fill up her car. Then she spied some frozen burritos in the case at the mini-mart where she bought her gas and decided that would fill her stomach as well as anything.

  As she stood in line to pay for her purchases, she recognized the cop in front of her—Sloan Bennett, who’d graduated from high school with her. He’d been the black sheep of the class, the motorcycle-riding bad boy who was always getting into fights. The one all of her friends’ mothers warned them to stay away from.

  And he’d become a cop, of all things.

  “Hey, Sloan,” she said when he’d finished paying for his gas. They hadn’t known each other at all in high school, but they’d become acquainted in the course of their respective jobs.

  “Oh, hi, Callie. That your dinner?” he asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s kind of pitiful. I was just heading over to Sal’s for some lasagna. You can tag along if you like.”

  She started to refuse. She wanted nothing more than to run home and hibernate. The idea of going someplace public where she had to maintain a facade that everything was peachy … On the other hand, Sloan was someone she’d been meaning to talk to. The police report on Johnny Sanger’s death had mentioned Sloan as one of the first officers on the scene. But he’d been unavailable for an interview, and she’d had a deadline.

  “C’mon, put those disgusting things back in the case,” he said.

  “Hey,” the clerk, Alma Potter, objected. “You want to insult the food I sell, you can buy your coffee and doughnuts somewhere else.”

  Sloan laughed. “Okay, you win. They’re not disgusting. But Callie could do better.”

  “Hmmph,” Alma said.

  “All right, I’ll go with you to Sal’s.” Callie paid for her gas, returned the burritos to their case, and followed Sloan the two blocks down Main Street to Sal’s Pizzeria.

  Maybe someone would see them having dinner together and Sam would hear about it, she thought smugly. At any rate, it couldn’t do her reputation any harm to be seen with Sloan. With his curly black hair and a college quarterback’s body, he was handsome as sin and always the object of speculation among the women she knew.

  She and Sloan found an empty booth in a dimly lit corner.

  “You were one of the first to arrive at the scene when Johnny Sanger died, right?” Callie asked after she’d made the requisite small talk.

  Immediately a wary look came into Sloan’s eyes. “Are you asking as a reporter, or as a friend?”

  “Mmm, a little of both. I mean, the story’s done, and I don’t have any firm plans to write anything else about it. But I’d wanted to talk to you. Just to kind of tie up the loose ends.”

  “You know I can’t do any official interviews without approval from the department.”

  “Yeah, I guess I knew that,” she reluctantly admitted. “Tell you what. Just talk to me, off the record. If for any reason I should want to use what you’ve told me, I’ll go back and get permission. Fair?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Callie had worked hard to earn trust from the police department and various other civic authorities over the years. She’d gained a reputation as a straight shooter. If she told someone their words were off the record, she meant it. Consequently, her sources were open with her. The police in particular were always cooperative. More than once she’d offered up information she’d gleaned from researching a story that had helped them out.

  “What exactly is it you want to know?”

  “What was the scene like when you got there?” she asked. “I mean, I saw the police photos, but sometimes those two-dimensional pictures don’t do a scene justice. What were your personal impressions?”

  “You sure you want to talk about this while we’re eating?”

  “I’m tough,” she said with a smile. And she meant it. She’d seen enough crime-scene photos over the years, and a few scenes up close and personal, that she could detach herself when necessary.

  “Well, Jerry Langly and I got the call. Mrs. Sanger let us in. She was pretty cool under the circumstances; in shock, I’d guess. She showed us where the study was. Said she and her daughter-in-law had just come home from grocery shopping and found him. Neither of them stayed long in the room, and she didn’t believe they touched anything. They just turned, walked out, and Mrs. Sanger dialed nine-one-one. Then they called in the older son, Tamra’s husband.…”

  “Will,” Callie provided.

  “Right. He’d been out in the fields plowing or something. Some neighbors verified that.”

  “So Johnny was in his office? And he was already dead?”

  “Real dead, I’m afraid.” Sloan went on to describe where exactly Johnny had been lying, where the two loads of shot had entered his body—first in his solar plexus, then the fatal wound in his chest—how he was holding the gun. The details were a bit gruesome, but Callie just kept eating her lasagna, wanting Sloan to
continue.

  When he paused, she prompted him with a question that had been bothering her. “Isn’t it a little unusual for a suicide to shoot himself twice?”

  “A little, not unheard of. The first shot doesn’t always do the trick.”

  Callie nodded. “Okay, now with this type of murder—”

  “Don’t you mean suicide?”

  That brought her up short. Why had she said murder? “Oh, of course I mean suicide. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Callie, is there some reason you suspect foul play?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right. I got the impression that the police were eager to close the case—not for any nefarious reason,” she added hastily when Sloan started to object, “but because everyone remembers the hell that family went through with the drunk-driving scandal years ago, and no one wants to cause Beverly any more heartache than is necessary.”

  “So you think something might have been overlooked in their haste?” Sloan asked skeptically.

  “Not anything obvious. The bases were covered. The wounds were from almost point-blank range, there was gunpowder residue on Johnny’s right hand, significant amounts of alcohol in his system—all consistent with suicide.”

  “But …?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “Can’t put my finger on it. I do feel it’s odd he didn’t leave a note.”

  “A lot of them don’t, especially if it’s a spur-of-the-moment decision. I mean, picture this: He was drinking, looking over the finances, feeling despair because he never amounted to much, overwhelmed by the continual debt. He searched through his files for some kind of salvation. He finds the insurance policy. The gun was handy … pow. He ends it all.”

  Callie gave an involuntary shiver. She wasn’t as tough as she thought. “That just doesn’t seem consistent with the Johnny Sanger I knew. I can’t believe he would do that to Beverly—shoot himself, knowing she would find his body. And from what Beverly says, their finances weren’t in that bad a shape.”

  “Danny Fowler said their debt was pretty staggering.”

  “Danny—oh.” The detective who investigated the Sanger death. “I’ll bet if he checked, he’d discover the debt has been much worse in past years.”

  Sloan took a tiny notebook out of his breast pocket and made a note. “It’s worth a second thought.” He looked at his watch. “I need to get back on patrol Any more questions?”

  Callie thought hard. “Were you aware that Johnny Sanger was something of a neatness freak?”

  “Couldn’t have told that from looking at his office.”

  Callie nodded. Sloan had made her point for her. “By the way, the last thing I want is to cause the police to harangue Beverly with any more painful questions—unless there’s a really good reason.”

  “Like murder?”

  The phone rang, waking Callie out of an uneasy sleep. She glanced at the illuminated dial of her bedside clock before answering. It was after two.

  “Hello?” she said muzzily.

  “Callie? It’s Sam.”

  Sam? “Is something wrong?” Her heart went into overdrive.

  “Hell, yeah, something’s wrong. I can’t sleep.”

  She fell limply against her pillow. “That’s it? You can’t sleep? You woke me up at two in the morning to tell me that?” If the truth be known, Callie’d had a hard time falling asleep herself. Between memories of Sam’s kiss and her suspicions about Johnny’s death, her mind had been awhirl with questions that had no easy answers.

  “You’re the reason I have insomnia.”

  “I should have known you’d find a way to blame me,” she said dryly, stacking two pillows together and propping her head on them. She was awake now, so she might as well give this conversation her best.

  “I blame me. I let you get to me.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!” she protested.

  “I’m not saying you did anything wrong. You just get under my skin, Callie.”

  She made no reply to that.

  “Okay, I know what you’re waiting for. I’m sorry if my less-than-sterling behavior drove you away. Geez, this must be some kind of record, three apologies in one week.”

  “Maybe if you’d stop acting like a horse’s behind, you wouldn’t have to apologize so often.”

  “Guess I had that coming.”

  “Yup. Sam,” she said, abandoning their verbal sparring, “you do understand why I came to dinner, don’t you?”

  “Because I asked you?”

  “Because your mother wanted me to come.” It was a lie of omission only. She had gone to the Sangers’ last night because of Beverly, but also because she found it nearly impossible to say no to Sam, especially when he was being humble and earnest. “Difficult as it may be for you to understand this, Beverly and I are friends. You know I’ve enjoyed being around her ever since I was a kid, and we remained close even after you and I broke up. I didn’t want to avoid seeing her, especially at a time when she most needs her friends, just because you happen to be in town.”

  “Very noble of you,” Sam said. “Are you telling me you weren’t just the least bit curious to see how I’d changed during the last eight years? Curious about my daughter? Curious to know if those ol’ embers were still glowing beneath all the ashes?”

  Callie took a deep breath. “You’re doing it again.”

  “Doing what?”

  She rolled her eyes. The man was hopeless. He was also a little too perceptive for her own comfort. “Maybe I was curious,” she admitted. “But I’ve got my answer now, haven’t I? You’re as bullheaded as ever, just as determined to be right, to be in charge. You’ve only confirmed that I made the right decision eight years ago.”

  She thought she heard a whoosh of air coming from Sam, but through the telephone lines it was hard to tell. Good, she thought. He needed to have the wind taken out of his sails once in a while.

  “And that kiss meant nothing to you?” he said after a long pause.

  Damn, he was pulling out the heavy artillery. The kiss! Just the memory of it made her stomach do cartwheels and her thighs tingle. “Of course it meant nothing,” she bluffed.

  His silence was quite obviously a sign of skepticism.

  “It brought back a certain nostalgia,” she said, “but that’s all. It meant nothing in terms of the present or the future.”

  “Then why did I detect a response?” he asked in that soft, sexy voice that sent shivers down her spine.

  “Because you were hallucinating?” she shot back.

  He answered with a low chuckle.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, I’m allowed to have hormones. Maybe one or two got in the way for a moment, but in the grand scheme of things, hormonal reactions mean very little.”

  “In your opinion.”

  “This conversation is stupid. Can I hang up now without your twisted brain coming up with some silly, Freudian reason why I won’t talk to you?”

  He laughed again. “How about I come see you?”

  “What? Now?” she asked, panicking.

  “Sure, why not? Neither of us can sleep.”

  “I was sleeping just fine until the stupid phone woke me up.”

  “Afraid to see me?”

  “No.” Oh, hell, yes. She did not want to be put in a position of proving to him that he meant nothing to her. And that was exactly what he had in mind. When it came to using her own arguments against her, Sam was a master.

  “Then I’ll come pick you up. We’ll go for a drive.”

  Great. A drive in the moonlight on a flawless autumn night. “What for?”

  “To make absolutely certain there’s nothing left between us? What we had was good, Callie, and if there’s any chance—”

  “There’s not. Nothing’s changed. In a few weeks you’ll be going home to your ranch, and I’ll still be here working at the paper.”

  “So what’s the harm of us seeing each other? Maybe we can lay to rest some old g
hosts. I’d like to be as certain as you that you were right to turn me down all those years ago.”

  Was she really that certain? Odd, but the memory of that night he’d proposed hadn’t faded one iota in all those years. She’d met him at Sal’s on a Friday night, a lush spring evening fall of promise. She could still remember how the air smelled, how the breeze felt against her bare arms as she’d climbed out of her beat-up VW Bug, aching to share her good news with Sam. She’d been granted a summer internship at the Daily Record over a dozen other students who’d applied. It was an important stepping-stone in her career plans.

  But Sam had had news of his own. His uncle had passed on, and Roundrock was now his.

  “I’m moving to Nevada, Callie. For good this time. And I want you to come with me.”

  She stared, a slice of pizza halfway to her mouth, forgotten. “When?”

  “Now. Well, at the end of the term, I guess.”

  “I couldn’t possibly,” she answered automatically. “I have an internship. My mother is here—she can’t get along without me right now.” Callie’s father had died less than two years earlier.

  Sam shook his head in disbelief. “Callie, this is our entire future I’m talking about here. I’m asking you to marry me. Be my wife. Share my life, my dreams.”

  Many him? “And what about my life? Don’t my dreams count for anything? I want to be a reporter.”

  “And I want to be a rancher. I don’t inherit a fifty-thousand-acre spread every day, you know.”

  She wanted to cry out, I don’t get an internship every day, either! But the brag seemed childish, unconvincing. She fell back on an argument any sane person would find convincing. “We’re too young.”

  “We’ve been in love forever,” he countered, one of the few times he’d used the L-word. “Do you think that’ll change?”

  “I need time.”

  He looked so disappointed she wanted to take it back, to throw her arms around him and agree to anything he suggested. She’d fantasized many times of how and when Sam would propose marriage to her. None of her fantasies had resembled this scenario. In her dreams, she’d always been prepared with an enthusiastic “Yes!” But this was reality, and she couldn’t make life-altering decisions that quickly. It wasn’t her way.