At Peace Page 9

  “I’ll go through it with him, what he doesn’t know, you get Violet out and I’ll install it.”

  “She isn’t Kenzie Elise, Cal, you got her top of the line, it’s doubtful she’ll be able to pay for it,” Colt pointed out.

  “I’ll work that out with Chip.”

  In other words, words he wasn’t going to give Colt, she wasn’t paying shit.

  Colt studied him and Cal let him then Colt nodded again.

  “I’ll talk to Vi, then I’ll talk to Chip,” Colt said.

  “Let me know,” Cal replied. “I’ve got a job I can’t postpone means I’ll be outta town again in a few days. He needs to put her top of his list and come and get the equipment. If I need to go in, it needs to be soon.”

  “Got it,” Colt opened the door to his GMC and explained, “Gotta get to the Station.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Later.”

  Cal lifted his chin and turned while Colt climbed into his truck. He walked across Colt’s yard but his eyes were on Violet’s house. This was because her daughter was standing in the drive, her butt to the door of the Mustang which was parked behind the Fiesta, her eyes were on him.

  Fucking great.

  He crossed the street, walked passed Tina’s house and was halfway passed Violet’s when her daughter skipped to the end of the drive and called, “Hey, Mr. Callahan.”

  Jesus. She called him Mr. Callahan.

  He lifted his chin.

  “We’re goin’ to the mall,” she informed him and since she was speaking to him and she was Violet’s kid, instead of walking right by her like he would normally do, he stopped.

  Even though he didn’t respond, she took his continued presence as indication she should keep talking. “Then we’re goin’ to dinner and then a movie. Mom’s gonna spend Uncle Sam’s money that he gave her when he was here.”

  Cal had no response to this and he wanted to be the fuck out of there by the time Violet got out of the house.

  He looked to her place to gauge how much time he had and saw the older girl walking out which he thought was a healthy signal to get a move on but he didn’t. Finding himself curious, he looked between Violet’s girls.

  Neither of them looked like Violet. They were pretty but they didn’t get their mother’s rich, thick, dark hair with that auburn tint to it, they didn’t get her curves and they didn’t get her green eyes. Their hair was nice, it was also thick and long. They had nice eyes and decent bodies, but they were too thin in a way that, even though they were young, he knew they wouldn’t fill out. They must look like their Dad.

  Sucked for them. They were pretty and they’d get prettier but they’d never be knockouts like their mother.

  “We already spent Uncle Sam’s gift cards,” the younger one kept speaking and Cal’s eyes went back to her. “Kate and me. I got these shorts and a bunch of other stuff.” She pointed to her shorts but Cal’s eyes didn’t go to her shorts, they went to the drive.

  Violet was there and she was wearing that cute, little jeans skirt that fit tight at her ass and hips and hit her a couple inches above her knees. It was the one he’d fucked her in.

  Christ.

  She had stopped dead, keys in her hand, purse suspended at her forearm, her hand had stilled in the act of draping it over her shoulder. She was staring at him, her lips parted, her face pale, her eyes wide and he felt that look, her stillness, it locked in his chest, it didn’t feel good and he detested the feeling.

  She was wearing purple, she was always in purple. This time it was a light purple blouse with little, short, poofy sleeves. The shirt fit tight at her ribs and showed a hint of cleavage because it fit tight at her tits too. Her hair was down, it was long, not as long as her girls, she wore it to just above her bra strap. It was gleaming and sleek but flipped at the layers. He knew how thick it was, how soft and his hand itched to fist in it.

  Taking his mind off that, his eyes travelled the length of her and stopped at her shoes, which were purple too, much darker than her top, two thin straps, one at the toes, one around her ankle and a strap that connected the two. It went up the middle of her foot and it had a bunch of flowers on it. The shoes were low, not heeled, and they looked fucking great on her. He liked his women in heels but he liked those purple shoes on Violet better than any heels he’d seen in his whole fucking life.

  “Hey!” her younger girl shouted, his eyes sliced to her and he saw she was watching him closely. He also saw that her excited, teenage girl act was just that, an act. She’d seen him checking out her mother and what she said next confirmed it just as it confirmed she was a little schemer. “You wanna come?”

  “Keira!” both the older one and Violet cried, the older daughter loud, Violet on a snap.

  “What?” the younger girl asked, trying to look innocent as she twisted her head to her mother and sister. “He’ll have fun.” She looked back at him and grinned. “We Winters girls, we’re loads of fun.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Callahan has better things to do than go to the mall,” Violet stated and walked to the Mustang, hitching her purse on her shoulder.

  “Do you have better things to do, Mr. Callahan?” the girl asked.

  Cal just stared at her.

  “Malls are a blast,” she told him.

  He didn’t reply mainly because he didn’t agree, not even a little bit.

  “And we’re goin’ to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and it’s great there.”

  “Keira, seriously, leave Mr. Callahan alone,” Violet ordered. “Get in the car.”

  She was standing in her opened door, the keys in her hand, her eyes on her daughter. The other girl was standing in the other door without the keys but her stance and her gaze were an exact replica of her mother’s.

  “And we’re going to see the new Nicole Bolton movie. It’s supposed to be awesome,” the younger girl went on, completely ignoring her mother.

  “Keira!” Violet called sharply and her voice jolted Cal to action.

  He moved and when he moved, he moved toward Violet. He didn’t know why but he did and as he did, he watched her body get tight and watching it made his jaw get tight.

  He made it to her, she tipped her head back to look at him, her gorgeous face filled with panic which he took advantage of when he tugged her keys out of her fingers.

  “I’m drivin’.”

  “Yippee!” the younger girl screeched.

  “What?” Violet whispered.

  “Move outta the door, buddy.” She blinked, the panic gone, confusion in her expression and she stayed put so he told her. “Can’t drive, you on my lap.”

  Her body jerked and the confusion cleared, her face shifting straight to angry. He’d seen that look on her face before when she’d thrown his business card and the fifty at him. She wouldn’t like to know it but her display of attitude was hot, then and now.

  “Why is Mr. Callahan driving?” the older girl asked and Cal looked to his right to see she’d moved out of the way and the younger one was pushing into the backseat.

  “Mr. Callahan is –” Violet started to speak to her daughter but Cal cut her off.

  “Cal,” he turned to the girl and repeated, “Cal.”

  “My girls don’t call their elders by their Christian names,” Violet told him, her voice ice and when Cal turned back to her, her face was ice too.

  “We could call him Uncle Cal,” the younger girl suggested, her head and shoulders shoved over the driver seat so she could look at them.

  Christ. Uncle Cal was worse than Mr. Callahan.

  “Can we go? If we don’t, we’ll miss the movie or we’ll have to cut the shopping short,” the older girl asked, resignation in her tone and impatience then she shoved into the backseat and pulled the passenger seat back into place.

  “Yeah, or we’ll miss the chance to have cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory,” the younger one said, her eyes were on him as she finished, “obviously, that’s the best part.”

  Cal looked at Violet.<
br />
  “Get in, buddy.”

  “But –”

  He leaned into her, she reared back into the door but he ignored that even though he felt that in his chest too and repeated, “Violet, get in.”

  She glared at him then slid by him, careful not to touch him as she did so. Then he watched her stomp around the hood of the Mustang and get in, slamming her door.

  Cal folded himself into her car and had to adjust the seat, the wheel was practically in his crotch. Violet was tall, like her girls and unlike any woman he’d ever had but she wasn’t nearly as tall as him.

  He closed the door and settled in. The new Mustangs were sweet, not as sweet as his ’68 GT but still sweet. Violet, he found, had as good taste in cars as she had in clothes, shoes, underwear and nightgowns.

  He slid the key in the ignition and fired up the car, it roared to life, he threw it in reverse and pulled out of her drive.

  “Hey, Cal, do you know any of the Buckley Boys?” the younger girl, Keira, asked from behind him.

  “Just because he does what he does, Keira, doesn’t mean he knows everyone who’s famous,” the older girl, Kate, informed her sister.

  “I know ‘em,” Cal said and heard both girls pull in their breath.

  He did know them. They were all little shits, a boy band of five brothers, thought the sun shone out of their asses. They’d paid huge and he’d taken a special job, leading a detail of bodyguards again, covering them for an event. They were individually and collectively such a fuckin’ pain he turned down the next job their manager offered him.

  “Really?” Keira breathed.

  “Yep,” Cal replied.

  “What’re they like?” Keira asked.

  “You don’t wanna know,” Cal answered.

  “No, really, I do. I do wanna know,” she told him and she sounded like she did really want to know.

  He tried to find a way to explain it without using the words “assholes”, “fuckwads” or “dickheads”.

  “You met ‘em, you wouldn’t think much of ‘em.” This was met with silence, so, since he was stopped at a stop sign, Cal asked, “I might need to know where I’m goin’.”

  “Keystone at the Crossing,” Kate answered and Cal looked to his right to see Violet had her purse in her lap, her fingers clutching it so tightly he could see white at her knuckles and her head was turned to look out the side window.

  She didn’t like him there, in her car, with her girls, with her. He knew it just as he knew he shouldn’t be there.

  But he was, even though he had no fucking clue why he was. Except for the fact that some asshole was out there, some asshole who had killed her husband but wanted her and Cal didn’t like the idea of Violet and her kids going to the mall, to dinner, to a movie, without protection.

  So he was there.

  “Right,” he muttered, put the car in gear and turned toward Keystone at the Crossing.

  “Mawdy, you goin’ to Lucky?” Kate asked her mother.

  “No, baby,” Violet answered softly and Cal felt her two words in his chest too and his gut. This wasn’t unpleasant, it was nostalgic and it was so strong, his hand tightened on the wheel.

  He remembered his mother using a voice like that with him a long time ago. Her girls were lucky they had that, Violet’s soft voice, her calling them “baby”.

  The fuck of it was, however their Dad talked to them, they didn’t have.

  “Why not?” Keira asked. “Not my thing,” Violet replied. “You’d look hot in Lucky clothes,” Keira announced and then asked, “Don’t you think, Cal?” He had no idea what she was talking about.

  But he didn’t have to answer, Violet spoke. “It’s Mr. Callahan.”

  “They can call me Cal,” Cal stated.

  “They’re not gonna call you Cal,” Violet returned.

  He looked at her to see she’d turned her head to him then he looked back at the road. “Why not?”

  “They need to respect their elders.”

  “I don’t like Mr. Callahan,” Cal told her.

  “Then we’ll call you Uncle Cal,” Keira put in.

  “Keira –” Violet started.

  “Cal’ll do,” Cal cut Violet off, not about to be called Uncle Cal either.

  “Joe, they’re not gonna call you Cal,” Violet repeated.

  There it was. Joe.

  He didn’t feel that in his chest or his gut, he felt her calling him Joe in his dick.

  His Dad’s name was Joe too, so, since birth, everyone had called him Cal. According to his Dad, his mother had come up with the nickname.

  But Bonnie’d called him Joe. She was the only one who did. It irritated him the first couple of times that Violet called him that then he started to like it, mainly because she was moaning it when his cock was inside her, her nipple was in his mouth or his tongue was at her clit. And he still liked it because it reminded him of those times.

  “You call him Joe?” Kate asked, entering the conversation. “I thought everyone called him Cal.”

  Kate, obviously, had been hearing about him at school, something which Cal didn’t care much about, it wasn’t new.

  Violet didn’t reply. She’d looked out the side window again.

  “Can we call you Joe?” Keira asked.

  “No,” Violet responded.

  “Sure,” Cal said over her and for the life of him, again, he had no clue why he did.

  “Cool! Then it’s Joe,” Keira decided.

  “I like Joe, Joe’s a cool name,” Kate muttered.

  Violet sighed. This meant she was giving in and it also meant she was a pushover with her girls. He wondered if this was the way it always was or if this was in response to their father being dead. He reckoned it was the last.

  For the rest of the drive Keira carried on the conversation with Kate interjecting occasionally but Cal and Violet contributed absolutely nothing. Then again, Keira didn’t even need Kate’s input. The girl was a talker.

  They made it to the mall, Cal parked and got out, pulling the seat up for Keira who scrambled out with that enthusiastic grace only teenage girls seemed to have. As he slammed the door behind her, he looked across the roof and saw Violet and Kate were also out. He beeped the locks when Violet closed the door and Keira ran to her sister, linking arms with her and they hustled to the mall. Obviously shopping was a favorite pastime. It was like the girls were made of metal and the mall was a high-powered magnet pulling them in.

  Violet didn’t look at him and she walked more calmly toward the building.

  Cal fell in step beside her.

  “Buddy –”

  Suddenly, she stopped and tipped her head back to look at him.

  “I saw you talking to Colt.”

  Her voice was quiet but not soft, it was an accusation.

  Before he could say anything, she kept speaking.

  “I know you know.”

  “I know,” he confirmed.

  She stifled a flinch and went on. “It isn’t your job to look after us.”

  “Violet –”

  “It isn’t your job.”

  She was right, it wasn’t, but that didn’t mean dick because he was going to do it. He didn’t tell her that, he just kept looking at her.

  “You’re here because Keira’s making it her mission to befriend everyone within a twenty mile radius. She misses home, she had tons of friends and family at home and she’s social. She’s trying to recreate that,” Violet informed him though she was wrong. He was invited by Keira because her daughter loved her and knew Violet missed her husband and Keira was looking for a replacement to take away her mother’s pain. He’d done the same thing with his Dad after his mother died. It didn’t work but he’d done it.

  Cal didn’t tell her that either.

  “We’ll get through this…” her hand lifted and she gestured at the mall, “and we’ll go home and you’ll disappear like when we first moved in. You’ll be a shiny, Ford pickup in your drive and that’s it. Yeah?”

&n
bsp; “No.”

  He watched her upper body jerk and she stared at him.

  Then she repeated, “No?”

  “What Colt tells me, your situation is extreme.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “You live next door.”

  “It’s still none of your business.”

  “You got two girls.”

  He watched her swallow as something crossed her face before she hid it.

  Fear.

  Cal felt that lock in his chest too.

  “This is my business, buddy, people pay me a lotta cake to keep them safe,” he told her.

  “It might be your business, Joe, but this is not your business.”

  He leaned into her and she held her ground, glaring up at him.

  Quietly, he reminded her, “I’ve had my dick in you.” He watched the color hit her cheeks, she opened her mouth to speak but he kept going. “That makes it my business.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she hissed.

  “No, it sure as fuck isn’t.”

  “I don’t want your help.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Joe –”

  “Too bad.”

  “Dammit, Joe –”

  She stopped speaking because he grabbed her hand and started walking, hauling her along with him.

  Her girls were standing inside the mall doors looking out at them and when they hit the sidewalk, Violet twisted her hand out of his.

  Cal allowed this. He was there looking out for her and her girls. He wasn’t there to give them any ideas or start anything up again with their mother.

  They walked into the mall and even though Violet said she wasn’t going to Lucky that was the first place she directed them.

  She stopped just inside the store, looked at her daughters and stated, “You both have one hundred and fifty dollars to spend in here.”

  Cal thought this would be met with shrieks of joy but it was not. Both girls looked at their mother and didn’t move nor speak. Keira even turned her ankle to the side with sudden discomfort.