Maya Banks: Colters' Daughter

“So who was he?”

Callie’s lips tightened. “No one important.”

For several long minutes, she stared at the door where Max had departed. Why had he come? Why now? She’d wasted far too much time moping over him. Chalk it up to age and lack of experience on her part, but it wasn’t a mistake she planned to make again.

Max Wilder could drag himself back off to Italy or Greece or wherever the hell it was he ditched her. She was embarrassed to remember just how long she waited for him to come back before she got a clue and realized he’d dumped her.

“You heading out now, Callie? I can take it from here,” Paul said.

“Yeah, I know you can,” she muttered. “It’s busy, though. I’ll hang around in case there are any more problems.”

She didn’t particularly want to be here , but she didn’t want to walk out that door and chance Max being there , waiting for her. It was one thing to take him on inside a crowded bar. Face to face? Not that he would hurt her. But he wasn’t a man who took no for an answer when he wanted something. Callie wasn’t sure what he wanted, exactly, and she’d be an idiot to find out.

By the time she closed up at two a.m., she was exhausted and didn’t have it in her to drive up the mountain to her parents’ cabin. Nor did she want to go crash on her brothers’ couch. They’d all be asleep.

Callie chuckled. It amazed her that her mother had managed to hook up with three men. Lily, her sister-in-law, had done the same with Callie’s brothers, and here Callie couldn’t even manage a relationship with one man.

She was sure the townspeople, and hell, maybe even her own family, wondered if she harbored the desire to marry more than one man. There was probably a betting pool somewhere on how many men she would end up with.

She loved her fathers and her brothers dearly, but she had no idea how her mom and Lily managed it. Having more than one man in the house would drive her out of her mind. Too much testosterone. Too many moody males to contend with. Too many egos. Too much posturing, bickering and all-around aggravation.

Her mom and Lily were happy though, so Callie was all for it. For them. As long as she wasn’t expected to keep with the bizarre tradition.

She trudged back to Dillon’s office after turning off the lights. He had a couch that he sometimes slept on—well, that was before Lily came into the picture. Nowadays he rushed home every afternoon to spend time with his new wife. One or two nights a week, he came in to work the bar to give Callie a night off, but the truth was, nights off just gave her more time to think stupid shit. If she stayed busy, she didn’t think up acceptable reasons why Max dumped her cold in a foreign country.

She fished a bottle of water out of the minifridge by Dillon’s desk and then settled on the couch. She didn’t even bother to undress. She propped her feet up on the end, drained the bottle of water and then leaned back to close her eyes.

And all she could see was that moment where she looked up and saw Max standing just across the bar from her looking as sexy as ever.

She’d been utterly fascinated by him from the day she met him. He was older, a bit stern, but he had just enough rough edges to his polished look to make her drool. He was strong and confident, and oh but confidence on a man was super sexy.

He liked things his way, and really, so did she. Now, looking back, she was mortified by just how much control she gave up around him. No one who knew her would ever believe the woman she’d become in his arms.

That’s what bothered her the most. He’d made her someone else, he’d made her need him, and then he’d walked away.

And now he thought they had something to talk about?

She growled under her breath. “Go to sleep, Callie. You’ll go see Lily tomorrow and you’ll feel better.”

Unfortunately, she obeyed herself about as well as she obeyed everyone else.

Max Wilder examined his jaw in the mirror and shook his head. A chuckle escaped and then he winced. The little wench had caught his bottom lip in the punch.

He shouldn’t have expected any less from Callie. She was fiery, impulsive, she grabbed onto life with both hands, she loved fiercely, but she was also capable of holding a grudge forever.

With a sigh he trudged out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips. Accommodations were mediocre at best in Clyde. Hell, he was lucky to have gotten a room at all given the fact that there was only one hotel.

There were much nicer towns that had more appeal for tourists but then he wouldn’t be close to Callie. He had a lot of ground to cover with her, and judging by tonight, it was going to take some fast talking. The woman was lethal.

And she was so damn beautiful, she made his chest ache.

He’d missed her. Every damn day they’d been apart, he missed her until she was all that consumed his thoughts. Forgotten was the reason why he’d initially pursued her. That no longer mattered. It hadn’t mattered since the first time he’d made love to her and recognized his other half.

It was corny. Overwrought. And he didn’t give a damn. Callie was his. He’d made mistakes. Mistakes that had cost them both more than he could ever imagine. But she was his, and he had every intention of reasserting his claim on her.

It bordered on obsession. His need to possess her. To mark her. To stake his claim—again. This time… This time he wouldn’t let her go. Not ever again.

He simply wasn’t whole without her.

Pain—and regret—weighed heavy on his heart. The idea that he’d forego a promise made to the man who’d raised him as his own, that he’d lay aside the request of his dying mother. Her whispered apology that she hadn’t held on to the legacy that should belong to him and his sister and to their children.

He considered himself an honorable man. A man who put his family above all else. But what he’d done—what he’d considered doing—to Callie wasn’t honorable. Never mind that he hadn’t—couldn’t—go through with it.

Breaking his word was also not honorable, but from the moment he’d laid eyes on Callie, held her in his arms, taken what she’d so sweetly offered, he’d known. He’d known that he couldn’t have her and his honor when it came to his family.

He’d chosen Callie.

He’d always choose Callie.

He just had to convince her of that fact without her ever knowing the true reason for their chance meeting in Europe. It would only hurt her, and Max would do anything in the world to never hurt her again as he’d done by leaving. Even though his reasons were solid and he’d had much to consider in the time they were apart.

She thought he hadn’t loved her enough.

The truth was he loved her too damn much.

Callie woke with a sore back and a grumpy disposition. She hated sleeping on the couch. Which was kind of funny when she thought of some of the places she’d slept when she traveled. She’d slept in train stations, hostels with creaky cots, and she’d done plenty of camping. But a couch? She’d rather sleep on the ground.

She stumbled out of Dillon’s office, checked her watch and decided it wasn’t too early to head to Lily’s.

What she really needed was a place of her own. Not that she minded staying with her folks. She loved them to pieces and her fathers doted on her shamelessly. She split her time between her parents’ and Lily and her brothers’ house, but they really couldn’t accommodate her long-term. Not until the renovations were completed. And by then she hoped to be closer to her own dream.

She’d promised herself, though, that she’d save every penny she earned to build her dream house in Callie’s Meadow, the piece of land she was born on. Land that had been gifted to her by her parents.