AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My gaze flicked back to Landon. Only for a moment.
He would never call mesweetheartordarlin’. He would never take me to dinner.
In fact, he probably wouldn’t speak to me at all if he could help it. I wouldn’t pine for a man who preferred to run the other way rather than endure seeing me again.
So, I looked up at Beau and smiled.
“I would love to have dinner with you.”
Chapter Four
Landon
I purposefully kept myself busy with work on Sunday as a distraction. I didn’t want to think about how easily Beau and Callie flirted. Or the fact that they would be going to dinner together.
Beau had called on Saturday afternoon to let me know about it. And to double-check that he wasn’t crossing any lines with me. I didn’t have the guts to tell him that I was sweet on Callie. It wouldn’t change anything anyway. She obviously liked Beau, and I couldn’t fault her for that. They hit it off well. And I’d missed my chance.
I spent Sunday working on my barn, lost in the rhythm of physical labor. Although when the sun went down and I put away my tools, a lump of dread sat heavy on my chest. My gaze strayed to the McClaren homestead.
The house was dark. No sign of any activity. Callie was still out with Beau.
I searched the pasture for Hera but with the shadows growing darker by the second, I couldn’t spot her. I gave a piercing whistle that echoed off the tree line.
She whinnied in response from Callie’s barn. Callie must have locked the horses in for the night before going on her date. I’d have to make it up to Hera in the morning.
Sore and tired, I headed inside. I didn’t care what I ate as long as it curbed the hunger pangs in my belly. As I stood in the kitchen alone, eating a bowl of cereal by the sink, it dawned on me how big and empty the house was. Too much space for one person, like a single seed bumbling around in a milkweed pod. Itroared with silence, too, apart from the scuff of my boots and the clink of my spoon against my bowl.
When I was sixteen, I ran away from home and spent every red cent I owned for one night in a motel room. I didn’t have any money for food and went to bed with an empty stomach. But I was free. I couldn’t bear another second under the same roof with my old man. I couldn’t take another beating.
Day after day, I scraped by, doing any kind of work around town that I could get my hands on as long as I had money in my pocket for rent. My father scoffed.
You’ll be crawling back to me soon enough, boy. You’re too weak and soft to make it on your own.
I would rather curl up in a ditch and die than return to my father’s tyrannical rule. So, I made that cramped little motel my home. As I got older, money was a little easier to come by. I settled into the business of working with horses and made a name for myself until I had a steady stream of income from a reliable set of clients.
Then I saw this place for sale. Since it had been abandoned for years, I bought it for a song. The motel room had provided a roof over my head and a clean, warm bed to sleep in. But this…this was a house. A real, proper house, instead of that crumbling trailer where I’d lived with my father for sixteen miserable years of my life.
Although I wasn’t prepared for how lonely the empty rooms made me feel. Highlighting the fact that I had no family who could fill my home.
Owning this house was supposed to be a victory for me. It was supposed to prove that I was the man my father claimed I would never be.
Instead, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe my father was right. No matter how far I tried to get away from him, Iwould never amount to anything more than a quiet, awkward, shy little boy no one wanted.
A lump formed in my throat, too thick to swallow around. Dumping the remains of my cereal down the drain, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. After shucking off my dirty clothes, I dragged myself into the shower, scrubbing layers of grime and sweat from my skin.
When I finally sank into bed with relief, I glanced toward my window. I could barely make out the shape of Callie’s house and a corner of the barn in the dark.
Still no sign of Callie.
Probably having the time of her life with Beau,I thought.
Despite the ache in my gut, I still hoped she was happy. With a heavy sigh, I rolled over and turned my back on the window.
***
The noise woke me first—a high-pitched scream of terror.
Then I smelled it. Sharp and cloying.
