Maya Banks - Colters’ Daughter

She shoved the envelope toward him again, hitting him in the chest with it until he had no choice but to take it from her.

“It’s yours. I can’t…” Tears filled her eyes, and she lost the tightly held control that had made her face an unbreakable shield.

Her features crumpled and tears slid endlessly down her cheeks.

“I can’t… It’s ruined for me. I can’t even bear to look at it. You’ve ruined that for me. It’s not mine. It can never be mine because I can’t even be there without thinking of you. Of what you did. It’s not my safe place anymore. It will always represent hell and what I lost—what was never mine.”

She took a step back and he panicked. His chest was so tight he felt like he’d explode. There was such grief. Such finality to her words and her actions.

This was her goodbye. He couldn’t let her go. Never.

“Callie, please, you have to listen to me.”

She shook her head in denial and turned and fled toward the parking lot. He flung the envelope aside and rushed after her, his pulse exploding at his temples.

She fled like a spooked deer. Her truck door was open, the engine was running, as if she’d anticipated just such a flight. She was inside and backing out of the parking spot before her door even closed.

He hit the side of her door with his body, his hands pressed against her window as he shouted her name over and over.

She paused only to put it in gear and she looked at him. Just once, her face so tormented, hurt so bright in her eyes that he wanted to die on the spot.

“Callie, please. Don’t do this!”

She looked forward and accelerated, leaving him standing in the parking lot, shouting her name.

He stared after her, so numb, so frozen that he couldn’t process what had just occurred. He couldn’t let her go. Not this way.

He slapped at his pants pockets and cursed, realizing his keys were in his room. He sprinted back, determined to go after her. Make her listen. Beg her for forgiveness. Again.

When he ran through the still-open doorway, the envelope that she’d pushed into his chest lay on the floor. He stopped and stared, a sick feeling rising in his gut. What had she meant?

What had she done?

He slowly bent down to retrieve the envelope and walked over to the bed where his keys rested on the nightstand. With shaking hands, he tore open the seal and reached inside for the sheaf of papers.

It took him three attempts before he could make sense of the wording. At the bottom, her signature, barely a scrawl, made it official.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “Callie, no. No.”

She’d given him Callie’s Meadow. All it lacked was his signature to make it legal.

On the bed, the envelope lay, the bulge still at the bottom. His heart aching, he clumsily shook out the contents and there on the sheets, gleaming in the soft light were the two bands he’d placed around her wrists.

He closed his eyes. They burned like fire. Raw and scratchy like the insides of his lids were lined with sandpaper. Tears gathered. Tears that he hadn’t shed when his stepfather had died. Or when his mother had passed away so unexpectedly.

He’d been strong then. First for his mother and sister. A rock for them to lean on. He’d held them while they cried. And then when his mother had passed he’d been there for his sister.

There was no one here for him now. Callie was gone. She hated him. He’d destroyed something infinitely fragile and so very precious.

He looked down at the paper in his hand. The words blurred and then a tear fell onto her scrawled signature.

The land was his. His promise fulfilled. And he’d never felt so damn empty in his life.

Max hadn’t slept in two nights. He was surly. He was pissed. He missed Callie so damn much that he ached.

He’d resorted to prowling around town looking for her, acting like a damn stalker again. But he hadn’t seen her, hadn’t seen her truck. Hadn’t even seen a single damn family member of hers.

Enough was enough. He was going to go up that mountain, and he didn’t give a shit if he had to take on the entire Colter clan, he wasn’t leaving until he talked some sense into her.

He showered, shaved and dressed just so he wouldn’t look like some escapee from prison, and then he walked out to get into his car. Right now he didn’t care if he got his ass kicked so hard he wound up in the hospital, just as long as he was able to pin Callie down in one place long enough to wipe that horrible look of pain and betrayal from her eyes.

God, he never wanted to see such a look on her face for the rest of his life. If she’d let him, if she’d just give him a chance, he’d make damn sure nothing—especially him—ever hurt her again.

Just as he was getting into his car, he glanced up and saw Lily Colter walk out of the sheriff’s department and down the sidewalk toward the small grocery store.

His pulse ratcheted up. He slammed his door and sprinted across the street to intercept Callie’s sister-in-law.

When she looked up and saw him, she took an instinctive step back. Her eyes hardened and her lips curled into a snarl. For such a small, dainty woman, she could look damn mean.

He put out a placating hand. “Lily, please. I need your help.”

Her glare froze him to the nuts.

“Look, I know you think I’m the biggest asshole on earth, but I have to talk to Callie. Is she up at her parents’?”

The anger in Lily’s eyes faded and the same raw grief he’d witnessed in Callie’s eyes now stared back at him.

“She’s gone.”

His brows furrowed. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

Lily stepped forward, her fist balled like she’d love nothing more than to hit him. “She left. Cleaned out her bank account, all the money she’d saved for her dream house. She’s off somewhere and we don’t know where. She’s out there hurting. Devastated. And we can’t help her because she’s gone. Because of you. Because of what you did to her.”

His stomach fell. His chest caved in as a wave of despair nearly crippled him. He had to grip the light post to keep his knees from buckling.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “Oh God, no. I have to find her.”

Tears shimmered in Lily’s gaze. “Good luck with that. All we know is that she flew out of Denver on a nonstop flight to London. She could be anywhere right now. Callie doesn’t stay in hotels. She doesn’t travel like most people. She’ll disappear for weeks—months at a time. Then one day she’ll come home. I hope and pray she comes home this time. Her entire family is devastated.”

He stared at the woman and didn’t even try to hide the horrible grief festering inside him. “Lily, I love her. I love her. Do you understand that? Things happened so fast. I never had the chance to explain. But God, I love her so damn much.”

Lily gazed at him for a long moment until finally her expression softened. “Then why? If you love her so much, why?”

“I was never going to go after her meadow. I couldn’t. Not once I met her—fell in love with her—saw how much that land meant to her. But that is why I searched her out. I’m damned by my own actions, but things changed after I met her. I swear to you they did.”

Lily put her hand on Max’s arm. Her touch was so gentle that he wanted her hand to stay there. It was the only soft thing in his world right now. His only comfort where he had none.

“Then you have to find her, Max. And you have to tell her. You have to make her listen. It won’t be easy. I’m not sure she’ll listen this time.”

Max took Lily’s hand and raised it to his lips to press a brief kiss across her knuckles. “Thank you, Lily. For listening. It means more than you’ll ever know.”

She smiled ruefully. “My husbands will tell you my heart is too soft for my own good. Callie will tell you I have a vicious streak that she loves. I’ll fully admit, what I really wanted to do was kick you in the balls. But I can’t fault you for loving her. And I believe you when you say you do.”

Max smiled for the first time since everything had gone to hell. “I think you’re a very special lady, Lily.”

“Just find her and bring her home to us,” Lily said softly.

For the first three weeks after Callie’s departure, Max spared no expense in his efforts to locate her. The problem was, as Lily had said, Callie wasn’t most people. She didn’t check into hotels. She didn’t often stay in one place for more than a day. He only had London as a starting point, and all he’d been able to determine was that she took the Star to Paris. After she reached the continent, she could literally be anywhere.

He didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. He was consumed with finding Callie so he could bring her home. Or not bring her home. He didn’t care as long as he could find her and confront her.

It was nearly a month before he realized that his efforts were misdirected. Callie wouldn’t be found if she didn’t want to be. But eventually she’d come home, wouldn’t she? He didn’t believe for a minute that she wouldn’t return to the family she loved more than anything.

It was then he realized that he needed to focus his efforts on making her homecoming special.

And that precipitated a trip up the mountain to see her family.

With a little help on the sly from Lily, he made damn sure that the entire family would be assembled when he arrived. It was time to take the bull by the horns. It wouldn’t be pretty, but he wasn’t about to give up without one hell of a fight.

He parked by the myriad of vehicles and got out, spoiling for a fight. He strode to the front door and knocked briskly.