Second Chance Hero (23 page)

Callah had to agree. Those calls had been unnerving to say the least. But it had been months since the last one. Months since she’d buried her mother. Since she’d seen her father. Since she’d even bothered with a no comment for the Hollywood press corps.

“Maybe you should talk to Riley. How much damage could a small town reporter do anyway?”

Obviously Jen hadn’t figured out the simple truth that all reporters were hell bent on one thing and it wasn’t protecting the people. Nope. They were about bylines and exclusives. Ad sales and circulation and guest appearances on whatever Hollywood gossip show was featuring the story du jour.

Riley was no different. Their past connection was nothing but a footnote in the history of Burkette bad ideas. No way could she talk to him. No way.
 

Besides, if she did answer his calls, what was she supposed to say? I’m glad the bastard who left me high and dry is dead, and I don’t give a flying flip if it was murder.

Yeah. That’d go over real well.

“Reporters are reporters. No matter where they live. They’re vultures, and I’m not talking to any of them.”

Especially not him.

“Listen doll, I’ve got a million and twelve things to do today before I leave the office. You sure you don’t want to come back for a while? I’m worried about that sound in your voice. And I have an extra room. You’re welcome to it.”

Callah closed her eyes and envisioned the crowded LA highways, the busy sidewalks, the palm trees and even the graffiti. For a moment she could feel the soft breeze, the warm sunshine, smell the almost citrus scent that permeated the air on clear days after a good rain washed away the smog.

She loved LA, but it wasn’t home. It never really had been. “Thanks for asking Jen, but I’ve got to do this on my own. I’ll be fine. Really. Keep everyone out there in line. I’ll talk to you soon.”

She hit the end button and sagged onto her couch, determined to make her words to her friend the truth.

She was fine, and she wasn’t going to worry about how her ex-husband had drained their bank accounts before he’d died. Or about Mr. Investigative Reporter Riley Sorenson who was nothing but one mortifying memory after another. Especially not about him.
 

She hit the erase button on her answering machine before she was tempted to listen to his deep voice again.

Maybe coming back here was a mistake. Maybe this quest to find herself was just a bunch of craziness brought on by too much Dr. Phil and Deepak Chopra.
 

Or maybe it was just some insane way she was trying to reconnect with her mother. She’d loved Burkette more than any other place they’d lived over the years. Callah could still see her mom laughing, smiling, picking tomatoes in their old back yard. Belinda Crenshaw had been an amazing woman. A woman so sure of herself and her place in the world.

God, she missed her. This would all be so much easier if she were still alive. If she could just pick up the phone and say Momma, I hurt so bad, and this sucks, and how did I let all this happen? How did I lose me?

Callah closed her eyes and swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat, but she couldn’t stop the tears. Once they started, she decided she didn’t want to stop them. Jen’s phone call, the mess of her finances, the stupid reporters, she hated all of it. All of it, dammit. She needed a good cry.
 

Beside her, the house phone rang and she brushed away the tears hoping it was her father. He had an almost scary ability to sense when she needed to hear his voice.
 

She groaned when she saw the caller ID.

Riley. Again. Dammit.

Visions of their last conversation played through her mind. Twelve years later, his words and actions still had the power to embarrass the heck out of her.
 

She picked up the receiver and slammed it down.

God, that felt good. Almost as good as Godiva tasted and a whole lot better than crying. Maybe she’d take up slamming phones down as a hobby. A new kind of stress relief. She could write a book. Go on Oprah. Pay the stupid electric bill without eating all the ice cream in the house afterwards.

When the phone rang again, she slammed it down once more. This time envisioning every jerk reporter who’d harassed her over the last six months. Every cruel caller who’d used her mother’s death to keep her on the phone.

The third time she’d had enough.

She picked up the receiver and spoke. “Look, Mr. Sorenson, I think I’ve made it abundantly clear. I’m not interested in talking to the press. Leave. Me. Alone.”

She started to hang up again, but his voice, deep, anxious, alluring, stopped her.

“Give me thirty seconds, Callah. I swear. That’s all I’m asking. Thirty seconds.”

Well now, that was a new one.
 

“Okay. Thirty seconds. Go.”

“I’m at your back door. Let me in and I swear if you want me to leave, I’ll go. I won’t bother you again.”

His shadow passed in front of her curtain and she shook her head at his audacity. Of course he was at her back door. She should’ve taken her daddy up on his offer of security. Better yet, she should’ve taken him up on the offer of a concealed weapons class. Flashing a gun around might actually get reporters to leave her alone. It’d been years since she held a gun, but once upon a time she’d been damn good at hitting a target. What better target than the reporters who swarmed like flies around watermelon on a summer day?
 
But then Riley wasn’t just a reporter, and she better remember that. He knew plenty of her secrets, and with her luck, he’d expose them to the rest of the world.

Thirty seconds. Callah looked down at the ragged blue sundress she was wearing and pushed her hand through her pony-tailed hair she hadn’t bothered brushing. She was a mess. A depressed mess. She hadn’t even put on mascara this morning.
 

 
What she looked like really didn’t matter. Riley Sorenson was here because he was a reporter and he thought he could finagle his way inside with this whole thirty seconds crap.

“Go away, Riley. I’m not giving interviews.”

He didn’t get the message. Instead he stood there outside the door even after she hung up the phone. Even after she sat on the couch and counted to a hundred. Even when she yelled, “You’re invading my privacy.”

Finally, she picked up the phone and walked to the window. Pressing back the curtain, she held the phone up so he could see it.
 

No such luck. His back was turned, so all she saw was someone who from the back looked very, very different from the boy she’d known years before. Sturdier. Stronger. She ignored the sudden curiosity brought on by the realization and opened the door but kept the locked screen between them.

“If you don’t leave, I’m calling 9-1-1, Riley. Go. Away.”

But he didn’t.
 

Instead he turned to face her. And oh my my, Riley Sorenson had grown up to be quite the specimen of mankind. His white blonde hair had darkened a little with time, his face hardened. But his ice blue eyes were still as intense as always.

She didn’t know what she expected him to do or say. For a moment she was so stunned at the changes in him, the way he’d grown, the way his full lips finally fit his face, the way her heart still did a little loop-de-loop when he was within twenty feet—and that was insane she was an adult, not a silly kid with a crush that would not die—that she missed the meaning of his words.

Missed every second of his “Don’t call the police, Callah. Not yet. Not until I talk to you.”

In fact, by the time she processed the words and quit telling herself to grow up, he pressed an old photo against the screen.

She didn’t really look at it. Not right away. She was too busy realizing that opening the door with Riley on the other side had been a bad, bad, bad idea. That she hadn’t had sex in what felt like forever and that sex with Riley had been the earthquake and fireworks kind once she’d gotten the hang of it. He’d been a hell of a teacher, and they’d both been kids. No telling what…

His voice interrupted her thoughts. “Look at the photo, Callah. Look at the photo and then let me in. This isn’t about a story. At least not yet. It’s about you. You and whoever’s in this picture. Let me in.”

Chapter Two

Callah blinked and tried to focus on the object causing Riley such obvious agitation instead of focusing on his hands, his face, his voice. All so familiar and so foreign at the same time.

Dear God, he still had one fine voice. Its deep timbre warm and gravelly and sexy as hell. He should be in radio. He’d set the airwaves on fire.

She looked at the photo, and this time Riley’s voice was the last thing on her mind. She reached out, touched the glass that separated her hand from the picture, surprised by what she saw.

The woman in the photo looked just like her. How strange. Riley’s intense eyes met hers, and she saw something, sympathy maybe?

No. She stepped back from the door, from the photo and shook her head. God, she was such an idiot. What would a reporter not do to get a story? She took a deep breath and reminded herself anger was just wasted energy.

“Go away, Riley. Trust me when I say there’s not a trick in the books you could play that hasn’t already been tried.”

He pressed his hand against the photo, his long fingers splaying above its yellowed edge. “There’s more, Callah. And it’s not a trick. I promise. You need to see the rest. Just let me in. Please.”

Okay, this was scaring her. He looked sincere. Troubled. Maybe even worried. She’d lied before. This picture thing was a whole new trick. A sick, sick joke.

“I swear, Callah. I swear on my mother’s grave, and you know what that means.”

Callah closed her eyes as she remembered the day he’d buried his mother. All of it. Strange how all this time later, it still hurt. Of course, now she really knew his pain. Truly understood what losing a mother meant.

Her eyes met his again and she realized he wasn’t lying. No way. He might be a reporter, but he’d never cross that line. At least she didn’t think he would. She didn’t really know him. This man was a stranger.

But the teen lover who’d cried in her arms before sending her away wasn’t.
 

Oh God. He said there was more.
 

With shaking fingers, she unlatched the screen and stepped back as he strode in and closed the door behind him.

“What is that?” She pointed to the photo in his hand and for a moment he didn’t say anything, just stood there looking at her with some unfathomable question in his eyes.

Finally he spoke. “I was hoping you could shed some light on that question.”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve never seen that picture before. I can’t imagine…”

“She looks just like you.”

Obviously. “That’s the only reason you’re in my house. You said there was more. What are you talking about, Riley? What’s going on? I swear to God, this better not be some sort of con.” She held out her hand, told herself this had to be some sort of mistake. “Let me see that photo.”

His warm fingers brushed against her palm as he handed the yellowed picture to her, and she forced herself to ignore the sensation. To focus on what mattered.

The photo looked real. But then she’d spent the last twelve years in a town where nothing was as it seemed. Where making things seem real was all part of the game.

She flipped the photo over. Nothing to identify it other than the faint Kodak imprint and aged glue from some old album. She turned it back over and stared into the eyes so much like her own. At the happiness there, the love. She’d looked this same way on her wedding day. Damn Charlie Benson to hell.

But it didn’t change anything. She didn’t know the woman in the photo. “It’s remarkable. She really looks just like me. I guess what they say about having a twin in another part of the world really is true.”

She tried to hand the photo back, but Riley refused to take it with a slight shake of the head.

“You better sit down.” His voice was gruff, but the concern on his face was real. A little too real. It didn’t make sense.

She crossed her arms over her chest and walked to the kitchen table but refused to sit. She was done doing what people suggested. Whatever else he had to say, she could take standing up just fine. “What’s this all about, Riley?”

He didn’t answer. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he regretted being there. As if a reporter was going to regret a one-on-one with her right now. She was a disaster. And he was going to be able to tell the world all about it.

Finally, he opened the package in his hands and dumped the contents on the table. She leaned in to see them, wrinkled her brow and chewed her bottom lip.

Photos of her. Some man walking his dog. The same man at the grocery store. The same man with the police.

“Do you recognize him?” he asked.

No. She’d never seen him. She shook her head.

“Look closer. You’ve probably seen him but never really paid attention because of the dog.”

He wasn’t listening. “I’ve never….” Only wait. Maybe. “I think maybe he walks his dog in the afternoon. But I could be wrong. I don’t know. I always see some guy out there, and I think he’s crazy because it’s the hottest part of the day.”