Page 68 of Bad For Me (Rock Canyon, Idaho 5)

Callie burst out laughing as Everett carried her against his chest, past Ratchet, who sat at the edge of the hallway watching them.

“Come on, Ratchet,” Everett called over his shoulder. Callie leaned around him to find her dog following behind them.

“He used to growl and warn people off if they even looked at me funny, but you pick me up and he just looks bored.”

“That’s because he knows you’re safe with me,” Everett said. He poked his head through the door of her bedroom. “Wow, this is not what I was imagining.”

Callie glanced around the room defensively. “What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Simple lines, nothing girly.”

Callie blushed. A down comforter with blue and purple flowers lay rumpled on her bed. A bulbous lamp the same shade of purple sat on her nightstand, which was part of her mother’s oak bedroom set. On the walls were different country music star art canvases that she’d special ordered and gotten signed over the years, and in the corner was a guitar signed by every member of Diamond Rio.

“This looks like the room of a fifteen-year-old girl.” Everett set her on the bed, still looking around the room in amusement.

“Hey.” Callie was insulted. “It does not.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure my high school girlfriend had that same George Strait poster,” Everett said, pointing.

“First of all, that is a canvas, not a poster. Therefore, it is art.”

“Um . . . ”

“And second of all, every piece of art on this wall is pretty to look at.” Callie pointed to Luke Bryan, Chuck Wicks, and Billy Currington, all live at their concerts. Concerts she’d seen from the front row and backstage.

“So this is what girls feel like when they walk into a teenage boy’s room and see a centerfold on the wall.” Everett played somber, but she saw a mocking twinkle in his eye.

“You . . . they aren’t even close to being naked.” Callie reached back for a pillow.

“I don’t know . . . Billy’s shirt is riding a little—hey!” he said when she hit him in the face with the pillow.

She swung again, giggling when he tried to block her aim. Callie squealed as he took the pillow from her and tried to scramble back across the bed but gasped when she put pressure on her ankle.

Everett sat on the bed and picked up her ankle, clucking his tongue. “See what happens when you’re ornery?”

“You’re the ornery one. I was just defending the integrity of Billy Currington’s abs.”

“I think he’s safe from my scrutiny, at least for now.”

Without warning, Everett unzipped his sweatshirt and peeled it off, revealing a plain gray T-shirt that hugged his shoulders and upper back, showing off mouthwatering muscles.

But when he started pulling his T-shirt up over his he

ad, Callie panicked. “What are you doing?”

Everett pulled the shirt all the way off, and Callie sucked in her breath. Yes, the muscles were definitely impressive, but it was the red, puckered flesh along his side that made her want to wrap her arms around him. It was one thing to touch the scars, but to actually see them . . . well, all she wanted to do was kiss her way along the scars and tell him they were beautiful. That he was beautiful.

“I figured you were going to see them eventually.” His tone was flat, emotionless. Callie hated that he thought his scars might be a deal-breaker, that she might find him less desirable because of them. Which would never happen; she thought his scars were beautiful.

Isn’t that the same way you feel?

But she had good reason. Anyone who thought Everett was anything less than a sexy hero was a fucking idiot.

Everett was holding himself ridged, as if waiting for her to say something. At that moment, Callie realized that Everett didn’t just want her; he needed her.

Was she the only one who saw his scars for what they were? A mark of his selfless, heroic nature?

She had been so engrossed with her own hang-ups, she’d ignored the fact that Everett had experienced hell too. And even though he seemed like he had it all together, he was human. He was lonely.

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