Page 82 of Let Me Be the One
“Yeah.” That described her perfectly: fiercely protective, loving, and determined. “She told me that she’d believe anything I told her, and if I had in fact killed him, she’d still back me. I think I fell apart, as dramatic and panicked as a boy that age could be.”
The entire scene played out in his head. He could still feel the tight lock of Addie’s arms around him, the reassurance in her voice as she’d promised him over and over that he was safe, that she’d never let him be hurt again.
Emotion prickled his nostrils and thickened his throat, forcing him to take a moment, to swallow, to breathe.
Callie said nothing, but she pressed her lips to him again, just above his heart as she patiently waited.
“Addie decided I needed good legal representation, so she took a second mortgage on her house. At the time I was young enough that I didn’t understand what that meant.” Though others had ensured he knew, doing their utmost to shame him over it. For years he’d carried that blame. So much of it that without Addie’s love, and later Kam’s, he knew it would have crippled him. “She fought tooth and nail for me, and in the end it was proven that I’d been in the closet the entire time.” Other abuse had been uncovered too, and that was a unique shame all its own.
Callie forced her way up despite his mild effort to dissuade her. Folding her arms on his chest, the tears in her eyes visible in the candlelight, she smiled at him. An intimate, meaningful smile, one he’d never seen from her before.
Grateful for the darkness, Tanner didn’t bother to hide his own expression.
“I never doubted that you were innocent or that Addie would move heaven and earth for you. Knowing you even a little, meeting her that first time, it was all clear to me.”
Impossible, yet she looked so sincere.
“Something else I want to ask if it isn’t too personal. Why don’t you and Kam call her Mom? Not judging, because I’m sure there’s a reason. I’m just curious.” Her smile went crooked. “Now that you’ve knocked my world off its axis with phenomenal sex, I want to know everything about you.” Cautiously, she admitted, “The more you’re with me, the more questions you’re bound to get.”
Not knowing what the future held for them, he didn’t want to dwell on that. “Ask me anything you want. If I can answer, I will.” The fall of her hair drew his fingers. Here in the dim light, her brown hair cast intriguing shadows over the side of her face, exaggerating her eyelashes, adding softness to the curve of her cheek and the corner of those impossible-to-resist lips. “Kam and I talked to Addie once about calling her Mom.” Remembering, he barely suppressed a smile. “We were worried, wanting to know if she minded that we didn’t, if we’d hurt her feelings for not calling her Mom. One thing about Addie, she always gave it to us straight.”
“She’s an up-front, honest person.”
To the core of her being. “She told us, all serious-like, that we could call her anything we wanted. She said she loved us like a mother, but also more than a mother ever could. She’d chosen us because we owned her heart, every single beat of it, and that would never change.”
“Aww,”Callie said softly as a tear slid down her cheek. Smiling, she brushed it away and sniffed. “Ilovethat.”
“Yeah, we’d loved it, too.” He stroked his hand over her messy hair, from the crown, down the warm length and to her slender back. “Kam said his mother wasn’t much to speak of, so to him Addie was more than a mom. I guess that inspired me—hard to explain the reasoning of boys that young—but I confessed that my mother had skipped out and left me with an abusive dick for a father. I agreed that Addie was better than any mom I’d ever seen.”
The candlelight found more tears in Callie’s eyes, but they weren’t tears of sadness. He loved that she didn’ttry to hide them from him. She just whisked them away again, and with her silent interest she kept him talking.
“Addie had cried,” he said, catching a stray tear off Callie’s cheek with the side of his thumb. He drew her down for a kiss that lingered. “She’d laughed, too. Kam and I were so confused. We’d never seen anyone bawl and laugh at the same time.” He grinned, remembering how they had looked at each other, unsure what to do next. “She’d grabbed us both into an unbreakable embrace and swore, over and over, that we were the best things to ever happen to her. So to us, she’s always been Addie. Better than a mom.” Tanner tunneled his fingers into Callie’s hair. “Better than anything we’d ever known or dared to hope for.”
Funny, but at that moment, Callie did that confusing chuckling and crying thing that had so bewildered him as a boy. Now he understood though, and he hugged her close. “Any other questions?”
“Not just yet,” she promised, breathing out a shaky sigh.
“Then how about we get some sleep?”
She cuddled down against him. “It’s not raining anymore.”
“No, it’s not. But it’s the middle of the night.”
“You can still stay? If it’s a problem, I understand, but I’d love it if—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her. “Earlier, before you started eyeballing me over dinner, I’d been trying to figure out the right way to ask, but then you did your kitchen routine—”
She lightly poked his ribs for teasing her.
“—and that changed things.”
“I beat you to it.”
She’d beat him to a lot of things. But hey, it had gotten him here, naked in a bed, sharing life-changing stories…with Callie McCallahan, who, as it turned out, was far better as a real woman than she’d ever been as a fantasy idea of perfection.
* * *
WHEN THE KNOCKsounded on Callie’s door, she stirred from a heavy sleep, instantly aware of the warmth of Tanner hugged up to her back, how his scent enveloped her, and the smile that bloomed on her face. Last night had been the stuff of romantic dreams and sexual fantasies mixed up with heart-filling emotion.
