Stolen Wishes (11 page)

Two minutes later, she gives up and heads
down the stairs.

“Y’all looking for Fisher?” someone calls
when Cally reaches me.

Cally perks up. “Yes. Do you know when he’ll
be home?”

I recognize Mrs. Svenderson from my
grandmother’s beauty parlor. She swats away gnats as she moves
toward us. “Dunno when,” she says. “He just left, so I ’magine
it’ll be a few days, least. Usually is.”

I watch Cally as she digests this. Emotions
flash across her face one by one—disappointment, sorrow,
frustration, and finally anger, settling in around her jaw and
eyes.

“Thanks. I appreciate you telling me.”

“I thought you were too good to come visit
your old dad,” Mrs. Svenderson says. “What’s brought you here
now?”

Cally gives a polite smile but doesn’t
answer the question. The old women around here don’t beat around
the bush. They figure life’s too short, I guess, and ask what they
want to ask.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Cally says, as if
the woman didn’t just insult her. “Thank you for your help.”

When she reaches my side, we turn together
and make our way back along the river.

“Did he know you were coming?”

“He knew.” Again, anger flashes in her eyes,
and it looks comfortable there, as if this Cally is angry a lot.
The girl I knew wasn’t like that, but a lot can change in seven
years.

“Do you have a place to stay? Where are your
sisters?”

“I dropped them at the little motel back by
the highway. I wanted to make sure Dad was ready for us. They’ve
had enough surprises lately.”

What motel by the highway? “Wait. The Cheap
Sleep?”

She shrugs. “Sounds about right.”

Cally and her sisters certainly aren’t
living large if that’s where they’re staying. “You know people
don’t actually sleep there, right?”

She chuckles. I like the sound of it. It’s
not the girly laugh she used to have, but neither is it an adult’s
carefully crafted facsimile of a laugh. It’s soft. Sweet. Honest.
“We’ll be fine. It’s just for a few nights. Until Dad returns home
and I can get them settled with him.”

We walk in silence for a few minutes, the
only sounds the rush of the river and our shoes scuffing against
the paved path.

“Do you live around here,” she asks, “or are
you in town with your grandmother?”

When we cut back through my yard to her car,
I nod to my house. “That’s mine.”

It’s odd, seeing it through her eyes. I’m
proud of the home I built—a two-story, brick behemoth with a
gorgeous flagstone patio in the back—but as I watch her take it in,
I’m almost embarrassed at the excess. Cally and her family never
had much. In fact, they rarely even had
enough
. And now
they’re staying at the Cheap Sleep, and her dad is living in that
dilapidated old cabin. Not much has changed.

She forces a smile. “It’s beautiful. I’m
very happy for you.”

She steps away, but I grab her hand
fast.

“Cally.”

She turns to me, those big brown eyes, those
perfect pink lips.

There are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t
want anything to do with her, but I have two, maybe three days
before she disappears from my life again. Maybe for good this time.
I can’t handle the idea of this being the end, and I’ll be damned
if I’m letting her stay at that shitty motel. “Why don’t you and
your sisters stay with me?”

She snorts. “You surely don’t have room for
us
and
your wife and two-point-four children.”

“No wife. No kids. Just me and way too damn
much space.”

She shakes her head. “That’s sweet of you,
but we’ll be fine. You’ve already done more than most would have.”
She walks to her car, slides into her seat, and pulls away without
another glance my way, leaving me alone with my memories of
strawberry wine.

Wish I May is available now.

A
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling romance author, Lexi Ryan considers herself the
luckiest chick she knows. Her books have been described as intense,
emotional, and wickedly sexy. Lexi herself has only been described
using two of those adjectives (feel free to guess but she’s not
telling). When not writing, she enjoys watching football,
perfecting her chocolate martini, and reading her way to the title
of Biggest Romance Fangirl Evah. A former college professor, her
biggest fears include faculty meetings and large stacks of ungraded
freshman composition papers. She now writes full-time from her home
in Indiana, where she lives with her husband and two children and
their neurotic dog. You can visit Lexi at her website
www.lexiryan.com
or find her on
Twitter @writerlexiryan or Facebook at
facebook.com/lexiryanauthor.