down to the soles of her boots.
She’d said the words to hurt … said them knowing they would hit him hard.
She’d wounded him instead of doing what she should have done … which was to tell him the truth. About why she was so afraid. Fiona was right—she needed to tell him about Ryan.
“I have to go,” she said as she grabbed the reins and sprung into the saddle. “Thanks, Evie,” she said as she turned Indiana back toward the boat ramp and began the quick canter home.
Twenty minutes later she was back at Sandhills Farm. She untacked Indiana, turned him into one of the small paddocks behind the house and then headed inside. One telephone call and a change of clothes later and she was on the road.
She’d called Preston Marine and was told Noah was working from home that day. Within eight minutes she’d pulled her truck into his driveway. Callie turned off the ignition and got out. She heard a loud noise, like a motor running, and followed the sound around the side of the house. She saw him immediately, behind the pool fence holding a chainsaw.
In jeans and a white tank shirt, he looked hot, sweaty and gorgeous. She observed for a moment as he cut branches from an overgrown fig tree and tossed them onto a growing pile. There was something incredibly attractive about watching a man work—a kind of primitive instinct, purely female and wholly erotic. As if aware he was being watched, he stopped the task, lay the chainsaw aside and turned. He walked around the pool and came to a halt about ten feet from her.
“Hello.”
She took a breath. “Hi.”
He looked at his hands. “I need to wash up.”
Callie followed him through one pool gate and then another until they reached the patio. She waited while he slipped through the back door and then returned a few minutes later, cleaned up and in a fresh T-shirt and carrying two cans of soda.
He pulled the ring tab and passed her one. She took it, desperate to touch his fingertips, but she didn’t. “Are you playing truant today?”
“Just working off steam.”
Callie suspected she was the steam he needed to work off.
He put the can down on a nearby table. “Why are you here, Callie?”
She held her breath. “I saw your sister today.”
His brows came up. “Did she embarrass me?”
“No.” Callie stepped back on her heels. “But she said something. She said … she said you’d never invited a woman here … to be with the kids. Before me.”
“She’s right.”
Another breath, longer, to steady nerves stretched like elastic. “Why not?”
He pulled out a chair for her to sit on and then one for himself. Once Callie was seated he did the same. Finally, he spoke. “When you’re treated badly, when the person you’ve committed yourself to walks out the door and says she doesn’t want you, she doesn’t want your children, she just wants to be free, it breaks something inside you. It broke something inside me,” he admitted. “I have no illusions about the kind of marriage I had. Most of the time it was a disaster. She’d left once before—the second time I told her that was it, no more. She had to make a choice. And she chose freedom.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
Callie stood and walked across the patio. She looked at the pool and the immaculate garden and the timber cubby house she knew he would have built himself. When she’d gathered the courage to say what she come to say, she turned. He was still seated.
“I’m so sorry, Noah.” Callie inhaled heavily. “About what I said the other day. I know I … I hurt you.”
He didn’t move.
Callie took a deep breath. “The way it came out, the way it sounded. That’s not what I wanted to say. And certainly not what I meant.”
He stood up and walked toward her. “So what did you want to say?”
She placed her hand on his arm and immediately felt the heat of their touch. “That your kids are amazing.” She swallowed hard and kept her hand on him. “What I’m feeling, it’s not about them. It’s about me.”
Noah covered her hand with his. “What are you feeling, Callie?”
Callie looked at him and her eyes glistened with moisture. She inhaled deeply, taking as much into her lungs as she could. “The reason I feel as I do … the reason I push people away …” She paused, felt the sting of tears. “The reason I push you away … it’s because I lost someone.”
Noah’s grip on her hand tightened. “Your fiancé?”
She met his gaze levelly. And the tears she’d been fighting tipped down over her lashes. “No, not Craig.”
“Then who? What do you—”
“My son,” she whispered. “My baby.”
“You had a son?” The shock in his voice was obvious.
Callie shuddered. “His name was Ryan,” she said and felt the hurt right through to her bones. “He died when he was two days old.”
She watched Noah think, absorb. “How long ago?”
“Three years,” she said quietly and inhaled. “Ten months … one week … three days.”
He swallowed hard. “How? Was he sick?”
She shrugged and turned, wrapping her arms around herself. “I was in an accident.” She hesitated, took a long breath and then looked at him. “A car wreck.”
Noah clearly knew what that meant. “The same one that killed your fiancé?”
“Yes.”
She watched as the pieces of the puzzle came together in his head. “You lost them both?” He turned her back around and rubbed his thumb along her jawline. “Why didn’t you tell me this before now?”
She looked down, taking a breath. “Because I don’t talk about it. And we haven’t known one another very long and I didn’t … couldn’t … Well, being responsible for someone’s death, it isn’t exactly the kind of thing I want to talk about.”
Noah didn’t try to hide his shock. “How were you responsible?”
“The accident,” she replied. “It was my fault.”
“Were you driving the car?”
She shook her head. “No, Craig was driving.”
“Then how could—”
“I
