Page 32 of My Cowboy Temptation

“Of course she’s not here. Have you looked in your bed?” I ask, unable to resist the dig.

I mean. Come on. My dad is fucking my best friend. My best friend who we’ve known since she was nine?

“Callie, now is not the time. Everly didn’t come home after work. I was hoping she might be here.”

Okay, that’s not like her. She called my cell phone several times yesterday, trying to reach me, but I was in no mood to discuss what I walked in on, wanting to stew in my misery that I knew stemmed from Brody’s rejection. Finding my dad and Everly together was just the cherry on top of a shitty day.

But as mad and hurt as I am she didn’t talk to me about what was going on with my dad, I still love her and care about her. And for her not to come home or give anyone a heads up where she’s going is not characteristic of my reliable friend. Combined with my dad’s frantic expression that I’m finally seeing as he shifts back and forth, his face haggard, I’m starting to get worried myself. “What’s wrong? Why are you so freaked out?”

“Because I have reason to believe that whoever killed the cat and broke into your place is still out there. And it’s not the Palmers. Can you think of anyone else in Everly’s life who she might have mentioned having issues with? Someone who’d go so far as to terrorize her?”

“She hasn’t mentioned anything. But then again, she wouldn’t. She usually keeps things close.”

“Can you think of anyplace she might have gone?”

In Castle Falls? No way. She would never turn to her mom for help, not after what that woman put her through growing up. I’m it. “No. You think that she’s in trouble, don’t you?”

“I wish to hell I didn’t, but…yeah. Where might she go?”

“The only place I can think of is our apartment. But it’s hard to believe she’d want to go back there. I can’t imagine ever stepping back inside, let alone spending the night there alone.”

“Stay here and try to reach Everly, if you can. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

I watch as he drives away as the fear and guilt that my anger may have somehow brought harm on my friend settles over me.

* * *

Brody

The rain isrelentless as it comes down on the roof and windshield of my truck, making it near impossible to see or hear anything beyond the cab. But there’s also something cathartic about the downpour as I sit here staring out the blurry windshield to the cabin, knowing that at least the woman inside is safe and out of harm’s way.

Callie’s pacing past the window again, and I see her reach the end of the frame, pausing to push the curtain aside to look outside into the darkness where I’m sitting. I know that she can see me out here, keeping watch over her, just as I have been for the past two hours, ever since Lucas called. But after what took place between us yesterday morning, there’s a hell of a lot more than the twenty feet that separates us right now.

Still, as pissed off as Callie might be, I’m not going anywhere. Not when the guy we thought was responsible for dumping the cat’s body and later destroying the girls’ place is out there, something that Lucas learned earlier today when he went to visit Cody Palmer in jail.

To make things worse, no one has been able to locate Everly. That fact has to be tearing Callie apart after the blowout she had with her friend yesterday, something I only know about from Lucas’s very brief, cursory explanation.

The irony isn’t lost on me. Callie’s dad sleeping with her best friend. Her sleeping with her dad’s best friend.

I can only imagine that in Callie’s mind, this only makes my inability to come clean with Lucas even more damning. Cowardly even. And sure, there was some truth in what I told her about the allegiance I owe to Lucas Castle and his family, an allegiance that might be seen as a betrayal by sleeping with his daughter.

But that’s not the primary reason I said what I said to her yesterday.

Because being a man twenty years older than her, I believe I can see things from a position of maturity and experience. I can see that a young, passionate, creative woman like Callie needs to get out in the world and make her mark on it. That settling down now in the tiny town of Castle Falls with an old man like me is something that she’ll inevitably regret.

I’ve seen it before. Back when her mom married Lucas Castle, thinking at the time she could push aside all her dreams and ambitions and settle for a life with a Montana rancher. But anyone with two eyes in their head could see she was miserable almost from the minute she settled here, misery that was compounded when Callie came along not much later.

It had wrecked Lucas and Callie when she finally left. But from my vantage point as a friend to them both, I could see that by the time she made the decision to leave, to see if she could still try and make her own dreams come true, that the years of settling had wrecked Francesca Castle too.

Callie will be better off chasing down this opportunity in London and any other opportunity that might come her way. Give her a chance to bloom and make her own dreams come true.

The fact that my dream seems to only include her and the uninspired hope of building a life and family with her doesn’t really matter much. I’ll be okay with my pain and my regret as long as I know she’s better off. Which she will be.

The curtain falls down again as Callie moves away from the window.

I roll my fingers over the steering wheel, feeling twitchy and wishing I had something to take the edge of worry away, but in my attempt to cut back on my cigar consumption, I’ve limited myself to only two a week—and those were gone by last night.

Suddenly, my phone blares with Lucas’s ringtone, and I grab it from next to me.

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