Page 33 of Let Me Be the One
“Yeah.” Laughing, Tanner said, “Don’t let your mind go there. If I was Callie, I’d burn that mattress.”
“The girls seriously need to just sleep here again tonight.”
“The girls? Is that Addie’s influence?”
“Probably. She’ll end up getting me killed by an enraged woman.” Kam smelled the air again. “What’s for dinner?”
“Crock-Pot stew.”
“One of my favorites.” Dropping the pillows on the couch, Kam said, “Give me five minutes to shower and change, and I’ll help you carry over everything.”
“Only five. I’m already hungry.” And although he’d like to deny it, he was edgy with a vague sort of anticipation. He wanted to see Callie again. Maybe a day’s worth of work and an up-close view of the undertaking before her had changed her mind about staying.
Then again, maybe it hadn’t. He was betting on the latter.
* * *
AS THE SUNdropped lower in the sky, Callie’s exhaustion settled in. She still had so much to tackle. Her to-do list kept growing. She’d complete one task and think of three more. “It’s a lot of land for one person to keep up.” Not that she was anywhere near giving up.
“It is,” Addie agreed. “But it’s manageable. I can give you tips along the way that might help.”
“I’d love that.” Callie sincerely hoped she and Addie would be friends. She already felt a kinship for the woman unlike anything she’d ever known. It had nothing to do with the fact that Addie was close to Tanner, though that was certainly a bonus.
Addie brushed her foot over a clump of weeds. “Tip number one: the goats are good at clearing out your yard, but if you want any kind of lawn, you’ll need the fence repaired to keep them contained.”
Callie eyed the faces of the goats with their big ears and funny horizontal pupils and wondered if she’d have the heart to corral them. If not, any flowers she wanted would have to be in front, or up in window boxes so the goats couldn’t eat them.
They were all so sweet. Who knew she’d like farm animals?
After checking that the spot near the tree wasn’t too messy, she sat down on the ground, her forearms draped over her knees. “I’ll get to that tomorrow, if you think it can wait.”
“Course it can. Most of it could wait another day if you’d stop being stubborn and stay the night again.”
Coming from Addie, the mention of her stubbornness sounded less like an insult and more like affectionate teasing. Callie harked back to Addie’s earliercomment, one that had caught her attention. “You said you’ve known about me?”
“Tanner didn’t mention that you went to school together?”
“He did, sort of, only I don’t remember him.”
With a secret little smile, Addie said, “I know that, too.”
“So…what am I missing?”
“He was sweet on you back then. You were his first crush.”
“What?”Tanner used to be hung up on her? “How can that be when we never met?” She was certain she would have remembered if they had.
“Hmm,” Addie said. “So you never had a crush? Like for some cutie in a boy band or a young actor or something?”
“I guess I did.” She tried to think about her high school days, but it was mostly a fog after her tumultuous college time. “I was never star status though.”
“No? Rich, pretty girl, out of reach of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks.”
Callie winced. There were train tracks thatliterallydivided the town.
“When you were off buying dresses for school dances, Tanner was there at the tracks, waiting for the train to pass so he could get home. He wouldn’t let me pick him up and he refused to ride the bus. Wouldn’t let Kam ride it either. You know how cruel kids can be. Tanner kept his brother at his side as much as possible.” Addie rested her head back and closed her eyes. “I remember once, Tanner came home with a horrible black eye and bruised, bloody knuckles. He wouldn’t talk about it, but back then, Kam was the weak link. I could usually get anything out of him.”
“He tattled?”
