‘I’ll call them and tell them that you aren’t scared but I am terrified.’
Finn’s sigh brushed the top of her head. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. Listen. He’s stopped.’
Callie lifted her head and, true enough, the grunts and roars had stopped. She was just starting to relax when another rumbling loud roar split the night. Callie yelped and buried her face in Finn’s neck, plastered herself tightly against him, hoping to climb inside.
Finn sighed. ‘Or maybe not.’
Finn’s hand stroked her neck, her hair, her back. His voice was low and warm and calming. ‘You’re safe, Cal, I promise.’
Callie shivered in his arms.
‘Breathe, angel,’ he told her.
Callie pulled in long deep breaths, felt his warmth and his strength and breathed again. Then her eyelids started to close and she pulled in another deep breath.
In Finn’s arms, fast asleep, feeling warm and safe, she didn’t even hear the next roar that shattered the night.
THEY DINED OUTSIDE the following evening, at a beautifully laid table on the lawn of the lodge, under another magnificent star-heavy sky. In the distance they could see a storm, the lightning lighting up huge thunderclouds. They could taste the rain in the air but were assured that dinner would be long over before the storm hit, so they sat back to enjoy the exceptional food placed in front of them.
Finn noticed that the lead singer of a popular band sat with a pouty waif at the next table, and beyond them he recognised an English politician with a woman who was definitely not his wife. If he were a tabloid journalist he would be having a field-day right now; he might be feeling a bit sleazy but he’d be making a fortune, he thought.
He looked across at Callie, who was leaning back in her chair, holding her wine glass, her eyes fixed on the storm on the horizon. God, she was beautiful, he thought. He’d always thought that she was attractive, but now, after seeing her without make-up and dozy with sleep, or animated and thrilled while she bottle-fed two orphaned cheetah cubs, or pensive while watching a pride of lions take down a zebra, he was slowly realising that she was more than pretty and deeper than he’d thought.
He’d thought that he would be taking a bubbly flirt on holiday with him, but the woman he was with—even if he’d only spent two full days in her company—was less bubble, more substance. And sexier than he’d believed possible.
Finn dropped his hand and surreptitiously rearranged himself under the table, feeling as if his pants were suddenly a size too small. Since he’d woken up with her clinging to him like an octopus he’d been super-aware of her all day. The length of her legs, the freckles on her chest, her white-tipped fingernails. God, if he was noticing a woman’s nails then he was in deep, deep crap.
He’d thought he was going on holiday with Flirty Callie but instead he found himself with Intriguing Callie, and he wasn’t sure he could handle her. Flirty Callie he could brush off—ignore if he had to. This other Callie had him wanting to dig a little, to see what was below the surface.
Finn took a sip of his Cabernet and pushed his dessert plate away. Then he manoeuvred his chair so that he was sitting next to her, facing the storm. He could smell her perfume and feel the heat of her bare shoulder when he touched it with his.
He slid his hand under hers and linked her fingers with his. He saw the quick, searching look she sent him and ignored it. If she asked he’d say that this was what married people did—touched each other—but the truth was that he couldn’t sit there and not touch her.
‘Tell me about your jewellery box.’
There was so much else he wanted to know about her—he had a list of burning questions—but this topic seemed the safest, the most innocuous.
He heard her quick intake of breath, felt her eyes on his face.
He slowly turned his head and lifted his eyebrows. ‘Why would a woman who loves clothes and shoes and accessories not wear some of that fabulous jewellery?’
Callie crossed one leg over the other and her swinging foot told him she was considering her response, choosing her words. He didn’t want the bog standard answer she obviously wanted to hand him—he wanted the truth. He’d rather not know than have her spin him a line.
‘Don’t wrap the truth up in a pretty bow—give it to me straight.’
The foot stopped swinging and the sigh was louder this time. She took so long to say anything that Finn began to doubt that she would speak at all. When she did, her voice was low and tight with tension.
‘That was the first time I’d seen the box for … oh, fifteen years. It lived on my mum’s dressing table and as a little girl I’d spend hours playing with her bangles and necklaces. Her rings.’
Finn tried not to wince at the thought of little Callie playing with the two and three carat diamonds he’d seen.
‘Some of the jewellery was my grandmother’s—my father’s mother’s—passed down through the family. A lot of it is my mother’s. My father constantly bought her jewellery in an attempt to make her happy.’
Ah, well … ‘I take it that the buying of jewellery didn’t work?’
‘Not so much. Neither did the pretty clothes and the gym membership and the credit cards.’ Callie shrugged. ‘She didn’t want to be a wife … a mother. To be chained to my dad, the house, us. She gave birth to the expected son and was horrified, I once heard, to find herself pregnant with me. She’d never really wanted children, and apparently finding herself pregnant with me was a disaster of magnificent proportions.’
‘Who told you that?’
Callie crossed her legs and shuffled in her chair. ‘People say that kids don’t remember stuff, but I do. She screamed that during one of their fights.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all he could say—all he could think of to say. Finn removed his hand from hers and put his arm around her shoulder, leaning sideways to kiss her temple. ‘But people do say stuff they don’t mean in the heat of the moment.’
‘Except that her leaving me—us—made that statement true.’ Callie took a large, serious sip from her glass. ‘Anyway, the jewellery—she left it behind. It meant nothing to her. So why should it mean anything to me?’
God. Imagine knowing that your mother was out there somewhere but not interested in knowing whether you were dead or alive, happy or sad. People should have to take a test before they were allowed to become parents, Finn thought. His father should head up the queue.
Callie turned her head and blinded him with a big smile, perfect teeth flashing. ‘Now, don’t you go all sympathetic on me, Banning. I had a father who adored me and spoilt me rotten, an older brother who adored me and spoilt me rotten, and a housekeeper-cum-nanny who—’
‘Let me guess,’ Finn interrupted, making sure that his tone was bone-dry. ‘Who adored you and spoilt you rotten?’
Callie laughed. ‘I have a fabulous life, and I’m on holiday with a nice man.’
‘I prefer sexy.’
This time her smile was more genuine. ‘So I have nothing to complain about!’
Being abandoned by your mum is a pretty big deal, Callie, Finn told her silently. Even if you choose to think it isn’t. The one person who is supposed to put you first, love you best, stand in your corner left you. That’s got to cause some deep scars on your psyche.
Feeling the need to banish the sadness from her eyes, Finn nudged