Still Irresistible

“Callie?”

“Huh?” She jerked her head to Dahlia, who must have said something to her she missed.

“I said, honey in your tea?”

“Sure, sure,” she said, sitting down, gathering her wits.

Dahlia handed her a mug and Callie caught a whiff of peppermint. The good tea, according to Deck. With honey, it wasn’t half-bad. He’d been right about that.

“Anyway, I’m so glad you’re taking this pressure from your father’s shoulders,” Dahlia said to Callie. She squeezed Callie’s father’s hand on the table. “This place has aged him.”

“Is that true, Dad?” Callie asked. “Is the ranch too much for you?” Had he hidden that from her, too?

“The Triple C will always be home. I need time for more now, that’s all.” He patted Dahlia’s hand and the woman blushed. “Dahlia’s getting me out and about. We’d like to travel—see Europe and India. I’ve been stuck in a rut.” He looked into Dahlia’s eyes and she looked back in an equally moony way.

Callie glanced down, embarrassed. She sipped her tea, aware of the tingle of alarm fighting to get through the syrupy sweetness of the scene. Was she just a cynical New Yorker? She so wanted her father to be happy and well. She set her mug down with a clunk. The love birds startled and looked her way.

“So…” Dahlia said brightly, “Rancho de Descanso…what a great concept. As soon as you have your logo, we can make up labels with ‘Exclusive from Dahlia’s Desert Delights’ for the products. Do you have the design yet?”

“A graphics team is working on it right now, but—”

“Just let me know. We’ll want compatible designs and—”

“Let’s not overwhelm her, Dahlia,” her father said, putting his arm around Dahlia’s shoulder. “She barely got here.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just so thrilled.”

“Did you put in the flower pots outside?” Callie said to shift topics before the woman offered her a facial. “They really brighten up the entrance.”

“Yes. Some herbs I need for my tinctures and teas. My own garden is jammed to the netting.”

“What are the purple and pink flowers shaped like bells?”

“Those are foxglove. The small white ones are sweet woodruff. Both have healing uses. Western medicine relies on synthetic compounds to an alarming degree. It’s such a shame to ignore nature’s bounty.”

“I suppose it can seem that way.” She smiled, then caught her father’s gaze. They were both humoring Dahlia. “I should get upstairs and unpack and change, I guess, since I’m going for a ride.” She sighed.

“Rosalie put extra towels in your bathroom and a blanket for your bed,” her father said. “Holler if you need anything.”

At the second-floor landing, she paused to look down at the spectacular great room, where a middle-aged man read a paperback novel from the small ranch library.

Her mother’s classic taste stood the test of time. Raw beams and stone fireplaces were popular in the newer guest ranches. Callie would replace the worn furniture and add some contemporary art, but her mother’s choice of Navajo rugs, Tohono O’odham baskets and exquisite wood pieces still looked great. She’d keep the kerosene lighting, too, as a rustic touch.

Upstairs, Callie entered the pink-princess glory of her room with the usual knot in her chest. Her mother had been happy to create the girlie oasis of canopy bed and French provincial furniture Callie wanted. She never let Callie suffer for their choice to live in the boondocks.

The room was full of mementos—riding trophies, dried corsages, cheerleading photos and awards. The bureau still held the prom shot of her and Taylor—who’d recently gotten divorced, her father had mentioned. She could turn the room into a true guest room, but she knew her father would be upset by the change.

She picked up the candid of her mother and her at that last Halloween party. They were dressed as witches and they had their heads together laughing.

A bottomless ache came over Callie, making her sink to the bed. She hated this. It had been eleven years. Get over it.

Her mother could always find a reason to celebrate. She hosted parties and town events like crazy. Until the last one. Her mother had been returning from Phoenix, her car jammed with stuff for Callie’s eighteenth birthday bash, when she fell asleep on a lonely stretch of I-10.

As if that horror hadn’t been enough, Callie had read the newspaper story, where a witness vividly described the highway littered with foil banners, crepe paper, appetizers and paper plates. “It looked like a party had exploded on the road.” The words and the picture they drew remained branded in Callie’s brain.

To spare Callie’s feelings, they’d held the funeral two days after her birthday, but it hadn’t helped. She’d ignored her birthday ever after, avoided the subject with friends. No one knew, and she liked it that way.

Callie slipped the photo into the drawer—no point torturing herself—and opened her suitcase on the bed. Throwing open her closet door, she surveyed the fashion mistakes she’d left when she headed for college, including the ridiculously slutty dress Taylor had bought—sequined fake snakeskin she’d managed to only wear once. Her old jeans were there and the never-worn Stetson her dad had bought her to try to coax her back into riding.

Glancing at her watch, she decided to unpack later. Instead, she’d make a couple of quick calls. The first was to touch base with Finn Markham, head of Valhalla Investments, the company funding the resort, pinning down his visit to the property. She wanted to talk to him about possibly buying the riverside acres. The proceeds would offer a financial margin in case they took too long to turn the revenue corner. Raw land wasn’t as valuable as developed land, but it was an option worth considering.

Getting voice mail, she left a message, then took a calming breath before punching in the number to Be There Events, the company she and Stefan had built together.

“Hello, Callie,” he answered gravely. “How are you?”

“I’m great. Ready to dig in,” she said cheerfully, irritated by the drama in his tone. “How’s it going there?”

“The usual craziness. We miss you.”

Oh, lighten up. She was the injured party, but Stefan was the one who’d been moping around ever since. So much for easy, simple sex. They both lived for their work, so hooking up had been easy. But not simple three years later, when she learned Stefan was sleeping with a model from one of their events.

“Do you have questions?” she asked. “Everything clear?”

“Your notes are great. An idiot could handle this. And I sure qualify as one of those.”

“Don’t, Stefan. It’s over and done. I told you no hard feelings.” Not many feelings at all, she’d realized, which appalled her. When he’d confessed the affair, she’d been…numb.

Her pride was wounded, sure, but her heart was undamaged. It reminded her of the time she fell off Lucky when she was ten. She’d hit the ground and braced for agonizing pain. It never came. She’d been jarred, slightly bruised, but otherwise fine. She got up and rode off, virtually unscathed.

“It means nothing,” Stefan had said of the affair.

Then why do it? She knew why. What they had together wasn’t enough. For either of them, it turned out. She’d initiated the breakup. Stefan protested, but hollowly. He seemed to be reading the lines from the script for Cheating Lover, the Play.

She’d been too troubled to act her part. Even before Stefan, she’d been a no-strings girl, but now she feared she’d been protecting her heart so long, it had lost function. The heart was a muscle, after all. Without proper use, it could atrophy, become crippled.

She’d realized to her shock that she might not have the capacity for a lifelong love.

“What else can I do to help you?” Stefan said.

“Hold down the fort. That’s plenty for now.” When she got back they would talk. Before the breakup, she’d decided it was time to move on. She loved events, but Stefan wanted more publicity and marketing projects. She’d decided to follow up on the open invitation from Ogden, Rush & Tillman, a high-profile PR firm, to launch their special-events division, handily bounding several rungs up the success ladder.

She was finished with Be There Events. When a thing was over, you left. That was her philosophy. Never get stale, never get stuck. Done is done.

That was why she loved New York. There was always a place to go, a leap to risk, a challenge to meet. The affair had come at a good time, all things considered. Though she would have rather not discovered the crippled-heart part.

Finished with the phone, she saw she had time for a quick shower. She tied her hair back to keep it dry and stepped under the hot stream, letting the water uncoil her tension. Too bad she had to gear up for the horseback ride with Deck. She pictured his flashing grin, the knowing light in his blue eyes, the perfect curve of his ass, his big hands and where they might wander if he were here right now…mmmm.

Later, girl. She’d brought her ultrafancy vibrator—a gift from her girlfriends after the breakup—to handle her carnal needs for the next few months. If only she and Deck didn’t have a history. A mindless affair would be the perfect relief from the stress of the monumental work ahead.