Maya Banks - Colters’ Daughter

“It’s my pride,” she finally admitted. “I can’t get beyond my pride. It sounds so stupid. I feel stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, Callie. Pride is important.” Lily reached over and squeezed Callie’s knee. “It’s going to be okay. Just remember you don’t have to be pressured into anything you don’t want. This is your turf. He has to come to you. You aren’t at a disadvantage here. He is.”

Callie smiled and rounded the corner to the turnoff for her parents’ cabin. She shot between the tall pines and rolled to a stop behind Seth’s truck. Then she checked her watch. “Made it with fifteen minutes to spare. Now Mom won’t gripe because the food got cold.”

“Like she’d know.” Lily snorted. “Your dads are the ones getting the food on the table.”

Callie broke into laughter. “Yeah, so true.”

The both got out and hurried up the steps. Callie opened the door, stuck her head in and yelled, “We’re here!”

To her surprise, when she walked in, her parents—all four of them—and her brothers were sitting in the living room, their faces set in determination. And they were all staring at her.

“Uh-oh,” Callie murmured to Lily.

Lily shot her a look of apology and turned her palms up as if to say she had no idea what was up. Callie let out a small groan. D-day. The day her family was no longer going to be put off.

She knew those looks. Saw the worry in her mom’s eyes. Saw the grim set of her fathers’ and brothers’ lips. Yeah, she was going to get it from all sides. She was tempted to turn around and run like hell, but she wasn’t a coward.

She took a step forward and wiped her palms down her jeans. “Hey guys.”

“Callie, come sit down,” Adam said in a low voice.

She winced. It was that tone that brooked no arguments. Even at twenty-three years old she wasn’t too old to heed her dad’s order. He didn’t give them very often, but when he did, he meant business.

With a sigh, she flopped onto the couch next to Seth. Seth was her ally. Always had been. Only now he didn’t look like much of an ally. He looked as determined as her other family members to make her talk.

Ryan leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. He stared at her with those blue eyes so like her own. “What’s going on, baby girl? Don’t you think it’s time you told us what’s wrong?”

“You’ve been moping around here for months now,” Ethan cut in. “You came home like a wounded animal and I don’t see that it’s gotten any better.”

Tears pricked her eyelids, and the people she loved so dearly went bleary in front of her. Lily came to stand beside her and put a soft hand on her shoulder in support.

“Callie, we’re worried,” her mom said. “You just aren’t yourself.”

She scrubbed a hand over her face and heaved another sigh of resignation. “I met someone while I was in Europe.”

Adam got this pinched look on his face like he did when he wanted to kick someone’s ass. Lord but this wasn’t the way she wanted to introduce Max to her family.

“His name is Max. We had a…misunderstanding.”

Seth snorted beside her. “What kind of misunderstanding? Is it the type of misunderstanding that I need to track the son of a bitch down and kill him?”

She twisted her hands nervously in her lap and peeked back up at her fathers. “He’s here. In Clyde, I mean.”

You could have broken a brick on their faces. Ethan’s eyes narrowed and Ryan scowled.

She held up a hand. “I want you to meet him.”

“Maybe you need to explain this misunderstanding first,” Adam said.

Holly got up from her position between Ryan and Ethan and moved over to where Callie sat. With a flick of her hand, she motioned Seth from his seat and then settled next to her daughter.

“What happened, baby?”

Oh Lord but she wished her mother had stayed across the room. Callie’s lips trembled and her nose drew up and stung as tears burned her eyes.

It was all over with the moment her mom pulled her into her arms. She buried her head against her mother’s chest and allowed some of her misery to pour out.

Holly rocked her back and forth and stroked a hand through Callie’s hair. Several long moments later, Callie gained control of herself and immediately felt like an idiot.

“God,” she groaned against her mom. “Make them go away, Mom. This is humiliating.”

Holly chuckled. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with them.”

“Lily can stay,” Callie said mournfully.

“Callie.”

Ryan’s voice reached her ears. It was a soft command. Full of love. She looked up, unable to deny her father.

“If you really want us to go, we will. We love you. It’s been hard watching you hurt and not being able to do a damn thing about it. We only want to help.”

Callie smiled and wiped at the damp trails on her cheeks. “I don’t want you to hate him.”

“I can’t promise to like him if he hurt my baby,” Ryan said evenly.

“He wants us to be together,” she said.

“And what do you want?” Adam asked.

She drew in a deep breath. “I want us to be together too. If I can forgive him, I want you to be able to forgive him too.”

Holly squeezed Callie’s hand. “I’m sure we’ll love him.” She shot a challenging look in her husbands’ direction. “We have to meet him first, of course. And I have to be sure he’s someone I can trust my daughter with.”

The sharpness in Holly’s tone made her sons snicker. She silenced them with a look.

“Did Max have anything to do with what happened the other night at the bar?” Dillon asked.

Callie shot him a glare. “Who told you?”

Dillon stared balefully at her. “It’s my bar, Callie. Did you think no one would say anything?”

She scowled and pressed her lips together.

Her fathers’ collective sigh echoed in the room.

“It was nothing,” she said defensively. “I might have hit Max when he showed up at the bar. I wasn’t expecting him. I was pissed.”

“How do you maybe hit someone?” Michael drawled.

“Okay, so I decked him. At the time he deserved it.”

“And yet you’re ready to be with this guy again,” Adam said with a scowl.

“Look Dad, it’s complicated. He had to leave Europe because his mom was dying. I thought he dumped me.” She left out the part where he’d done just that for all practical purposes. It wouldn’t put him in a very good light with her already skeptical parents. “He found me here. He apologized.” Or as much as Max was capable of apology. More like he demanded she forgive him. Which wasn’t the same thing at all. “He wants…me.”

Ethan sighed. “We’ll give him a chance, Callie. What do you know about this guy, anyway? What does he do? He’s not planning to take you away from here, is he?”

At that statement, she got scowls from her dads and her brothers. Even Holly frowned and looked at Callie in question.

“I…” Hell. It made her sound ridiculously stupid, but the truth was, she didn’t know a whole lot about what Max did. She knew he was wealthy. She knew he had a job. Or maybe it was that he owned his own business. Finance? Truth be told, she hadn’t cared whether he had money. She hadn’t cared what his job title was.

“Callie?” Adam prompted.

“He’s in finance,” she mumbled.

“I think we should meet him before we make judgment,” Lily said in her sweet, soft voice. “We shouldn’t make Callie feel worse than she already does. She’s been through a lot. Our support means a lot to her.”

Oh damn. Callie was going to cry again. She looked up and smiled gratefully at Lily who still stood beside the couch where Callie sat.

Ryan cleared his throat. “Invite him to dinner. The sooner the better.”

“Just don’t make it the Spanish Inquisition,” Callie muttered. “It’s bad enough there are so many damn males in this family. Dial down the testosterone for the evening if you don’t mind.”

Dillon snickered and she glowered at him.

“I’ll have your fathers make something special,” Holly said serenely. “If it turns out we don’t like him, I’ll cook the next meal for him.”

The entire room erupted in laughter.

Some of the tension in Callie’s chest loosened, and she grinned at the mischievous glint in her mom’s eyes. Holly patted Callie on the leg.

“It’s going to be fine,” she whispered. “You’ll see. Your fathers are growly, but you’re their baby. You have to remember that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Callie returned. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

Holly enfolded her into another hug and when she released her, Adam rose from the couch. “Now that we have that out of the way, are you all ready to eat?”

And then Callie was surrounded by her fathers, all hugging her and being gruff, and for the first time since she’d returned home months before, she felt a lightness slide through her soul that told her everything just might be all right.

Callie parked in front of Max’s hotel and sat there for a long moment staring out her windshield. She was exhausted from the afternoon at her parents’ but her senses were alive at the thought of seeing Max again. This time without the hurt and misunderstanding of the past between them.

Could they really start over so easily? Could she?

She opened her car door and stepped out, wiping her hands nervously down her jeans. Her stomach fluttered and her chest tightened with each step she took toward the door to Max’s room.

She raised her hand to knock and froze before quietly resting her hand against the aged wood. She was considering backing away when the door suddenly opened, and her hand fell.