“You’re really in love.”
“Yes.”
“So...why aren’t you with her? Is she married or—”
He cursed as the memories began to pile up. “She’s dead, Callie.”
It felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of him, but Levi cared enough about this new person in his life to want to offer some explanation.
Her jaw dropped. “How?”
“I met her in Afghanistan.”
“She was in the army?”
“No. She was a civilian. Her father pretended to be friendly to Americans because he wanted our business. He owned a little grocery store. I actually thought he liked me.” He grimaced as the bitterness threatened to overwhelm him. “But he was secretly aligned with the insurgents. Someone in her extended family—her brothers wouldn’t tell me who for fear of reprisal—shot her in the head when she admitted that she was carrying my child. They said she’d defiled herself by lying with a filthy American. I wanted to bring her home with me, wanted to marry her, but...her father didn’t care.”
He hadn’t told anyone about Behrukh. He shouldn’t have told Callie, either, because now he couldn’t look her in the eye. It had been a mistake to touch Behrukh. And it had been a mistake to touch Callie. But she was the best thing to happen to him since Afghanistan. For the first time in months, he’d felt human—instead of like some kind of robot, just going through the motions of living.
It was time to get out of her life before he hurt her, too. But he couldn’t leave her vulnerable to Denny. First, he had to know she’d be safe.
“I’ll start cleaning up the mess in the barn.”
He was exhausted after being up all night, but he wanted to get away from her, needed the escape.
Turning he put on his clothes and, without another word, left the house.
16
“Callie? Callie, are you okay?”
Rolling onto her back, she forced her heavy eyelids to open. Kyle and Baxter were leaning over her, their faces pinched with worry. Earlier, after Levi had hammered some boards over the broken window, she’d put on an old flannel nightgown, crawled into bed, and that was the last thing she remembered. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like a lot. It was getting dark outside.
“What...what are you doing here?” As if to underscore how long she’d been sleeping, her voice sounded gravelly from disuse.
“We came as soon as we learned about the fire,” Kyle said.
The fire was just this morning but it seemed like ages ago. “Who told you?”
“Some of the volunteers who helped fight it were talking at Just Like Mom’s.”
Because it’d happened out of town in the middle of the night, she hadn’t expected a burning barn to generate much interest. No one had been hurt, and the fire hadn’t spread. But there was some question as to the cause and that, naturally, invited conjecture. Or maybe the firefighters knew. Maybe that was what they’d been discussing.
“Was it arson?” she asked.
“One guy said it had to be,” Baxter answered. Kyle was too busy scowling.
Dragging a hand up to push the hair out of her face, she finally awoke enough to see that the bustier she’d bought for Levi’s benefit was lying in the middle of the floor, along with her silky robe. Kyle and Baxter had to step over them to get to her.
Shit...
“Levi didn’t have anything to do with what happened, did he?” Kyle’s voice and manner were just shy of accusatory.
“Of course not!” she replied. “He tried to put it out. Without him it would’ve done more damage.”
“Then where is he?”
This question gave her a start, a moment of panic when she realized that, if he’d left, she might never see him again. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised—or sad. This had been coming all along. But she felt so unprepared. “He’s not here?” she managed to say.
“When you didn’t answer the door, we walked around back. Rifle’s in the yard, but Levi’s motorcycle is gone.”
Suddenly desperate to fade back into sleep, to avoid this reality, even though she should’ve expected it, she drew a steadying breath. “I guess he decided to move on.”
“You didn’t know?” Baxter asked.
She scrambled for an answer that would cover at least some of her embarrassment, given what they’d seen on the floor. “Things have been chaotic because of the fire.”
“So that’s it?” Kyle said. “He’s out of your life for good?”
The relief in those words bothered Callie. Whether Levi stayed or went shouldn’t make any difference to Kyle. They were finished sleeping together. They’d spent months trying to feel just a fraction of the excitement and attraction she’d experienced so naturally with Levi, but trying to turn friendship into love hadn’t worked. As a matter of fact, it was such a poor substitute she knew she could never settle for something so diluted again, even if she had another fifty years to live. Which she didn’t.
“I told you he wouldn’t hang around forever. With the...with the barn burned, there’s no way he can paint it.” But he could’ve said goodbye....
Kyle encouraged her to scoot over so he could sit beside her on the bed. “What exactly happened last night?”
“I wish I knew.” She propped the pillows behind her back as she explained the sequence of events to him and to Baxter, who was standing to one side.
“Is there any chance Levi was smoking when the fire broke out?”
Baxter asked this. Callie shifted her gaze to him. “Levi doesn’t smoke. As you probably heard, the cause wasn’t obvious. Chief Stacy said he’d get an arson investigator out here.”
Kyle and Baxter exchanged a glance. “Why would anyone want to set fire to your barn?”
“I’m hoping no one did. That there’s another explanation. But...there is one person who has a grudge against me.”
Baxter barked a laugh. “No, there isn’t! Everyone in this town loves you.”
“Not Denny Seamans and Powell Barney,” she said.
“Who are—” Baxter started, but Kyle interrupted.
“The two guys who own the pit bulls that attacked Levi.”
“Oh, right.”
Kyle stood. “Damn it, Callie. This is what I was hoping to avoid! If you’d only stayed out of it—”
“I wasn’t trying to get involved!” she broke in. “What else could I have done? Turned Levi away when he was bleeding all over my doorstep? Told him he had to leave when his bike wasn’t working?”