Page 51 of Sunkissed Colorado

I read the street address off my phone, and Callum put it in his GPS. “Thanks for doing this with me,” I said. “I mean it.”

“I know. Joking aside, it’s no problem at all.”

Funny how I didn’t mind Callum’s teasing about “owing him” for doing me this favor. While Ian’s claim that I owed him made me want to punch my ex through the phone. Probably because I trusted Callum would never really be that petty.

Once, I’d thought otherwise. But these days, Callum was one of the people I trusted most. How was that for a turnaround.

We talked about work stuff during the fifteen-minute drive. Then Callum put his truck in park in front of a run-down house that desperately needed a paint job. He eyed the street. “Didn’t realize Mrs. Mackenzie had moved out here.”

“Must’ve been at some point after Jessa died.”

This place was far more depressing than the house I’d spent so much time at in high school. I’d remembered a bungalow with flower boxes and a white fence. Not this lonely road that dead-ended into a gravel pit.

“Ready?” Callum asked.

“No, but I’m going anyway.” I pushed open the door and got out. More of a jump, since Callum’s truck was a good distance from the concrete.

Really, if I wasn’t such a coward, I would’ve faced this by myself.

But instead, I was showing up here with an indoor plant as a gift and the town’s favorite golden retriever bartender to act as a buffer. Since everybody loved Callum around here, Mrs. Mackenzie would be no different, right?

Today, he’d worn a snug T-shirt in a dark green, along with jeans that didn’t have a single rip or tear. But Callum looked effortlessly sexy in anything. Just throwing off masculine pheromones like it was hisside hustle.

I had to get a grip.

Without a doubt, seeing Jessa’s mom would sober me up.

I hesitated in the overgrown yard. “We could do this another day,” Callum offered.

Get moving, I told myself.You’re a grown woman. As much as I wanted to slink off and hide like Chloe, I couldn’t.

“No. I’m good.” Callum was here beside me, and I was so dang grateful for that.

On the porch, I shifted the potted plant to one arm and rang the bell. The door cracked open, and a thin woman with wiry hair peered out. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Mackenzie. I called you a little while ago?” I lifted up the plant, because I didn’t know what else to do.

“Oh. Of course. I remember you, Zandra.”

Nothing could’ve prepared me for how much Mrs. Mackenzie had changed. She had to be in her mid-fifties, but she looked at least a decade older. Her once-full cheeks had sunken in, leaving sharp angles where there used to be soft curves.

Yet seeing her face brought everything rushing back. Jessa’s funeral, where I’d stood frozen beside the casket, unable to find words that could possibly comfort this woman who’d lost her daughter. The candlelight vigil, where Jessa’s mom couldn’t even speak for crying.

Now, sixteen years later, the guilt crashed over me like a tidal wave. My throat tightened, and my chest felt heavy with the weight of all the things I should have said, should have done.

I should have stayed in touch.

I should have saved her daughter.

While I stood there numbly, Callum stepped in beside me, making the porch groan. “Hello, Mrs. Mackenzie. I’m Callum. Zandra and I work together at the brewery now, so I thought I’d join her.”

“The O’Neal boy from Jessa’s year.” She opened the door a bit wider. “I don’t have many visitors these days. But you can come in.”

We stepped inside the narrow shotgun-style house. The front door opened directly into the living room, which flowed into a small kitchen.

Aside from a pile of mail on a table by the door, everything was tidy. A worn couch faced an old television, and in the corner sat a small desk with a laptop computer and landline phone. But there was an overwhelming sense of loneliness here, as if most of the room was rarely touched.

I held out the potted plant. “I brought this for you.”