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I was there as often as I could be, every free moment I wasn’t working. But wherever I was, I couldn’t escape my thoughts. And though I wasn’t a religious man, I had spent enough time on the ocean to believe in something greater than myself, understood that life was full of uncanny coincidences, miracles, and tragedies without a lot of logic.
But I couldn’t shake this coincidence, the dots that seemed to connect even though it was a stretch. I couldn’t let it go. Not without being sure.
Which is what had me knocking on Calliope Derrick’s door one night after leaving the hospital. It was later than was polite, and I hadn’t called first, but the voice in my mind had been getting louder and louder, to the point where I could no longer sleep through it.
I’d only half expected her to be there. It was a Friday night, after ten. I figured she’d be at some bar somewhere, hanging out with her friends and family. Or fuck, maybe not even in the country. She was a glamorous enigma the town still spoke about. Rich, worldly, vaguely intimidating to a small-town man like me who’d only left the country once for a friend’s bachelor party in Mexico.
She was completely out of my league, and I knew it. Yet I was still there. Because I wasn’t there for my own reasons. I was there to test out a hunch. That was it. I’d given myself a pep talk on the way over, reminding myself of the pain Janine had wrought, and Calliope had a lot more power than my high school sweetheart.
I didn’t expect her to answer in sweats and a Slasher tee, face free of makeup, dark hair clipped back hastily, unlike the tight and severe buns I’d seen her wear. Tendrils escaped here and there, highlighting a face that was beautiful and instantaneously pissed. Though furious, she looked younger. A flush of colorraced across her flawless, alabaster skin, contrasting with her expressive, dark brows, electric eyes, and full, rosebud lips.
“What are you doing here?” The signature sharpness in her tone that endeared the fuck out of me rang loud and clear. I liked that she didn’t force herself to soften for social graces or politeness or whatever society had drilled into women to make them believe that they must be meek, soft spoken, palatable. Calliope was none of those things but was still palatable to me. To say the least.
“Hello to you too.” I made myself smile despite the reason for the visit. And I reminded my dick that this visit was not to take Calliope Derrick to bed. Not with what I suspected she was involved in.
Calliope gripped the door like her life depended on it and presented me with a scowl that I guessed had scared a hundred men before me.
It didn’t scare me. Not in the slightest. It amused me, and it made my dick as hard as a rock. I forced myself to ignore my baser instincts.
“If you’re here to collect on our bargain, I agreed to a dinner, not a booty call,” she said through her teeth.
The mere idea of a booty call with her, despite it never having been something I’d practiced, made my already stiff cock twitch. I’d push through the door, press her against the wall, claim her mouth, hook her leg around my hip so my denim clad cock pressed through the thin fabric of the leggings she was wearing. Leggings that showcased long, defined, powerful legs.
Everything about the woman was powerful, even stripped down to her barest form without the clothing that she wore like armor, the makeup she used as a mask.
I wanted to be the one person she relinquished her power to. A need that was selfish and hedonistic. Which wasn’t why I was here.
Focus.
“I have things to do, so you want to keep drooling over something you’ll never taste, or do you want to go home to your little shack, far away from me?”
I blinked myself out of my stupor, realizing I had in fact been leering at her like a slack-jawed teenager, unable to control my hormones.
As my gaze travelled to her narrowed eyes, I had to resist the urge to adjust myself.
Baseball, I chanted to my cock.Dead fish. My ex-sister-in-law’s bruised face.
“Clara’s mother turned up out of the blue a few days ago.” It took effort, but I was somehow able to keep my voice flat.
Her expression didn’t change. Not in the slightest. I didn’t expect it to. I knew she’d have a poker face to rival the professionals making millions in Vegas.
“She’s a match for Clara. We’re hoping to schedule the transplant for as soon as next week,” I continued, watching her carefully.
Not so much as an eyebrow twitch, a quiver of her full lip. She didn’t shift her weight, just kept hold of the door, looking at me like I was doing her a great inconvenience by being there.
“I’m happy to hear that.” Her reply was terse, not a smile or sense of joy to match her words.
On face value, she might’ve come across as entirely unfeeling, cruel even. But I had done my research on Calliope Derrick, which wasn’t hard in a small town such as ours where she made a splash with just her presence. Despite her outward appearance, she was more often than not with her family, her nieces and nephews, friend’s children. She came from a high paying job in New York, and what I could only assume was a busy, glamorous life to a small town in Maine, where she babysat for free and helped out people she’d just met.
I could only guess that she was running from something, that something had happened in New York to bring her here. Again, something I’d given far too much thought to, and had promised myself I’d get to the bottom ofthisonce the Naomi mystery was taken care of. I’d be making Calliope Derrick my business—if she was the good person I suspected her to be.
“Suspicious timing.” I didn’t break eye contact, searching her onyx eyes for the truth. “That she’d arrive within days of our conversation.”
Calliope shrugged. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
“You don’t believe in the Lord,” I reminded her of our previous conversation that had amused me to no end.
Her stare could’ve been a diamond, steely, hard. Precious. “The devil, then.” Her lips curved into a sly smile that didn’t reach her eyes. I felt the need, the urge, to be the cause of a genuine smile for this woman, to take the weight of the world from her shoulders.