Callie's Cowboy (7 page)

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 ghosts. 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.

“I don't need time,” he said simply. “I want to live the rest of my life with you, Callie. And if you don't feel the same, I need to know now.”

“You're saying that if I don't agree to marry you right here and now, I must not love you enough. Is that it?” she asked in utter disbelief. How could he do this to her, give her such unrealistic ultimatums?

“I'm saying you knew this was coming. You knew I'd eventually take over Uncle Ned's ranch. You've had plenty of time to think about it.”

That wasn't true. She'd had no idea this day would come so soon. “This is totally unfair. I love you, Sam, but I can't marry you now.”

“Why not?”

If he didn't get it by now, she couldn't explain it to him. She shook her head and lowered her gaze, her eyes filling with tears. The next time she looked up, he was gone.

Sam's words over the telephone jerked her back into the present. “I'll pick you up in about twenty minutes.”

“Sam, I don't think …” He'd hung up. “Great,” she muttered. It would serve him right if she stayed in bed and refused to answer the door when he got there. But his solution to that would probably be to pick the lock on her carriage-house apartment and come up after her. The vision gave her goose bumps. No, she didn't need him to find her still in her pj's.

But she was damned if she would primp for him. She pulled on an old pair of jeans, an olive-green T-shirt purchased from the army-navy surplus store, and a pair
of thongs. She scraped her hair back into an untidy braid and didn't even contemplate makeup.

She was waiting at the bottom of the enclosed stairs when he pulled up in his rented sedan. She locked her door behind her, pocketed the keys, and climbed into his car. “This reminds me of when we used to sneak out in high school,” she said. “Remember how you would pick me up in that old bucket of bolts you called a car?”

Now, why had she brought up that memory? On those occasions when she would climb out her bedroom window to meet Sam in the dark of the night, they always ended up driving to the cemetery and making out.

“Yeah, I remember. I used to love watching you shimmy down that pecan tree by your window. You look so pretty in the moonlight.”

Callie's heart stumbled. Was he in the past now, or the present? Surely he couldn't think she looked pretty right now when she'd taken great pains not to.

“Where are we going?” she asked bluntly.

“I don't know. I thought we'd just drive around. Maybe check out that new subdivision that's going in around Hatter's Creek.”

“They're building some nice houses over there,” she agreed blandly as she fastened her seat belt. In the old days, she would have forgone the belt and scooted next to him. Thank God this car had bucket seats.

They were silent for a while. Callie stole glances at Sam's strong profile, with its bold, straight nose and the shock of caramel hair that habitually flopped over his high forehead. At twenty-eight he was in the prime of his manhood, much more handsome than he'd been at twenty—and more interesting, she admitted. As a youth
he'd thought of nothing but horses and cows and rodeos. Now he had a past—a wife who'd left him—and a daughter. Sam Sanger as a doting father was undeniably appealing. Darn hard to resist, in fact.

But for all of the reasons she'd already acknowledged, she had to resist. It would be useless, even harmful, to allow feelings for Sam to bloom. She turned her head and looked out the window at the sleepy town.

“Been dating anyone?” Sam asked.

“Not lately.”

“Mom told me you were seeing Randy Muehler a while back.”

“Last year. He was still in love with his ex-wife, though, so it didn't work out. How about you?”

“My divorce from Debra was final only a month ago. I haven't had time even to think about dating.” Until now. Callie could almost hear the unspoken words reverberating in the car.

“We separated a year ago, but she was gone long before that—in her mind, anyway. I never loved her, not the way I loved you.”

“Sam, I don't want to hear this. It's none of my business.”

“I'm making it your business, in case you think I'm reeling from a broken heart. I latched onto Debra because she reminded me of you. She was funny and interesting and smart, and so involved in life. But she was fundamentally different in one way.”

Curiosity got the best of Callie. “And that was …?”

“She let me talk her into leaving her hometown and
moving to Babcock, Nevada, with me. She was every bit as miserable there as you would have been, I expect.”

“I never said I'd be miserable on the ranch, Sam,” she argued. “If I had made the decision to live there, I'd have found a way to keep busy and develop interests. But I chose to stay here and follow my own dream. Can you imagine what it would feel like if someone took your ranch away from you? Told you you couldn't ride a horse again?”

He didn't answer, but she could tell from the expression on his face that he didn't like the prospect.

“Without your ranching and your riding, you wouldn't be Sam Sanger anymore. And without my writing and reporting and editing, I wouldn't be Callie Calloway anymore. I'd be … someone else. And back then, when I refused to marry you and move to Roundrock, I was desperately afraid of losing that identity.”