“About midnight,” she grumbled. “Time’z’it?”
He raised his head to look at the alarm clock on his dresser. “Seven-thirty. Rett… I’m sorry I didn’t come pick you up.”
“Don’t be. Georgie said you been busy lately, ’tween working at the store and the auto shop.”
“And fixing up the trailer,” he added. He suppressed a frown at how she left out that particular task.
“That, too.” She smiled and ran her fingertips lightly over his cheek. The wedding band gleamed on her finger. “I missed you somethin’ fierce.”
“I missed you, too.”
After a long moment during which they just lay there soaking in each other’s presence, Rett stretched over him to grab her glasses off the windowsill. He frowned at the tortoiseshell frames but said nothing. Then Rett rolled onto her feet. Calum followed suit, pulling on a T-shirt as she led him out of his bedroom. The house was empty: Tiffany must have left for her classes at the community college in the next city over, and Georgie was always at the store by seven every morning. Charles never left the house later than four-thirty to get to the ranch on which he’d worked for fifteen years. Rett stood at the front door and rested one hand against the frame while she slipped her feet into her sandals. When she stood straight again, Calum knew.
“I gotta go see my parents,” she explained unnecessarily. “I never told ’em I was comin’ home today.”
“They’ll love this surprise then.”
Calum pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, murmured a goodbye, and watched her leave. At the end of the walkway, she turned right and disappeared from view. The willow branches hung limply toward the ground, and Calum remembered a small face in the curtain of leaves, a spectator to his approach. Little Kevin Turner had quickly gotten over his apprehension, joining the other kids in openly watching Calum whenever he made his way through the town. Thankfully, the novelty of Calum’s arrival had worn off rather quickly for the children.
After a quick breakfast of two peaches and the rest of the coffee in the pot, Calum brushed his teeth and washed the glass carafe before setting it back on the hot-plate. He stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind him, and breathed in the humid morning Rett was home, and everything felt right again. With a small smile, Calum set off for work.
Hearing she’d gone to a party with her roommate had left a bitter taste on Calum’s tongue and a sharp twinge in his chest. He trusted Rett—hedid—but he couldn’t help fearing what might have happened. What if she’d found someone new? Then where would Calum have been?
But she hadn’t mentioned anyone other than Manny, and it had eased some of his worries.
He could hardly focus on his job. More than once, he hit some part of his body on the cars—his head on the lifted hood, his hand on the engine block, his knee on a fender. Darlene scowled and warned him to get his head on straight before she did it for him, but all Calum could think about was Rett, seeing her as soon as he was off work, holding her close again like he’d ached to for the past two months. There was no lasting damage done by the time he left the auto shop seven hours later, and he hurried home to wash up. Once the grease was gone from his hands andhe was wearing a pair of clean shorts and T-shirt, he rushed out of the house and pointed himself toward Rett’s.
She was sitting on the front porch with her father by the time Calum arrived, and she grinned at him over her bowl of ice cream. Matthew nodded once to Calum, kissed his daughter’s head, and stood. After the door shut behind him, Calum took his place beside Rett and nudged her with his shoulder.
“Missed you today.”
She swallowed a mouthful of ice cream, grimacing at the cold, then smiled. “Missed you, too. How was work?”
He didn’t tell her about not being able to concentrate. Instead, he talked about the cars he helped fix up and how Darlene and Leonard had argued for most of the morning about something trivial. Calum still wasn’t sure what it was really about. He’d learned, since starting at Mitchell’s, to stay out of the way when the two were going head-to-head. It made life easier if he kept himself on the outskirts instead of diving headfirst into the tension.
Calum didn’t care to work on the trailer while Rett was home. They only stopped by long enough for him to show off the work he’d done, then they spent hours on the riverbank. Calum held her as closely as he dared, as tightly as he could without hurting her. He counted down the minutes before she left again. Before he had to say goodbye once more and hope she came back to him. Never before had he loathed time so much. Even during the first few months of living in Oak Creek, after his mother sent him away because of his behavior, he hadn’t hated the seconds that passed. It was slow then, but now it was too fast.
Too soon, he found himself standing with Rett outside the bus station under the glow of a summer midnight’s half-moon. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears behind her tortoiseshell glasses. He missed the neon green wire rims. Pushing a lock of hair from her face, he exhaled slowly before leaning in. Their lips foundeach other as if drawn together by magnets, and it tasted right. It tasted like a home he’d only ever find within Rett. He’d known the day they met that Rett was something special; he just hadn’t known how special she truly was. How much he’d come to rely on her. How much he would love and need her.
Calum watched the bus pull away ten minutes later, taking his heart with it. He waited until it shrank to a speck on the horizon before vanishing from sight, then turned toward the truck he’d borrowed from Charles. The drive back into town was silent and reminded him of just how alone he was. He’d grown accustomed to her voice nearly every second of every day that she had been home, all two weeks of it, and now he had to get used to hearing it only every Sunday again. He tried to convince himself that it would make it all that much more sweet to listen to. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that, he thought.
It didn’t work. He was just as miserable parking in front of the house as he was watching the bus leave him behind.
Calum sprawled across his bed, bringing to his face the pillow Rett had used, and breathed in the scent of coconut. She might have changed her glasses, but at least she still smelled the same. Sighing softly, he closed his eyes and forced the tension from his muscles.
Time dragged on without Rett. Calum spent slow-moving Mondays through Fridays working in the auto shop, Saturdays at the corner store, and Sundays in a pew until noon. His paychecks from Mitchell’s were split between supplies for the trailer and paying Georgie’s phone bill. She never complained about the long-distance calls, but Calum felt guilty. He’d promised his mother, way back in the beginning of his exile, that he wouldn’t run up his aunt’s bills. Granted, he’d meant he wouldn’t call home to talk to the friends he used to get into trouble with, but the sentiment remained.
It wasRett, though. Calum couldn’t go without talking to her.
“Calum.”
He stopped stacking cans on the shelf and looked over his shoulder. His aunt and uncle stood at the register; Georgie had her elbows leaning on the counter, and Charles tucked his hands in his pocket. Calum slid the last can of tuna into place then made his way to his family members. Georgie cocked her head, resting her chin on one upturned palm. Calum frowned. Something was up.
“What’s going on?”
His aunt let out a slow breath. “You been workin’ like a dog for the last month. The auto shop, here, the trailer. You ain’t rested for more’n a second. So. This is me tellin’ you to get outta here. Take a break.”
“I’m—”
