Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
But what was she doing in my house? Had Reed sent her? I opened my mouth to ask just as a miniature version of the woman appeared, scooting past her mother. The little girl saw me within a heartbeat, her little eyes flying wide.
I blinked.
She screamed.
2
Callie
* * *
Sutton’s shriek jolted my heart, and I dropped everything in my arms to sweep her behind my back. Her backpack, my phone, my keys, even my camera bag crashed to the tile floor of my little entryway as I jerked my head up to face whatever threat she’d spotted.
A clatter in the kitchen had my gaze flying across the house.
What the actual hell?
A man stood at the stove behind the kitchen island.
A very tall, very ripped, very…shirtless…man.
And that smell—
Wait, was he cooking? Bacon? In my kitchen?
I swallowed around the boulder of terror in my throat and retreated a step, keeping one arm locked around Sutton’s torso as I maneuvered us back through the open door.
He threw his hands up, showing his palms, and the expression of complete, abject shock had me pausing at the threshold as recognition tickled my brain. Sutton had stopped screaming, freeing up a little space for logic in my mind as adrenaline surged through every vein.
The dark hair. The strong chin. That face.
Oh crap, I knew who this man was.
I owed him everything.
“Callie!” Ava yelled up through the speaker of my phone.
“Stay here,” I told Sutton, keeping her outside on the porch while I scrambled for the phone and keys I’d abandoned to the floor. “Ava?” I asked, keeping my eyes on my intruder as I lifted my phone to my ear.
“Oh, thank goodness!” My friend sighed. “I was trying to get ahold of you because—”
“Let me guess,” I interrupted. “You called to tell me there was a good chance I’d find Weston Madigan in my house.” Because that’s exactly who was cooking in my kitchen. Weston-freaking-Madigan, the middle brother of the family who owned this entire resort.
Weston’s eyes flared, then narrowed slightly, and his mouth dropped along with his hands.
“Oh God. He’s already there, isn’t he?” Ava asked. “I’m in the car right now. I was hoping I’d be able to get there before you got back from Sutton’s parent-teacher conference. It was today, right?”
“Yep, and yep. Just got here. He’s standing in my kitchen.” Shirtless. Oh man, did I need to get out on a date if that was where my head immediately went when there was a strange man in my house. Not that he was a stranger, not really.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll be right there!” She hung up and I slid the phone into the back pocket of my jeans. At least I hadn’t cracked the screen when I’d dropped it. A new phone was the last thing I could afford right now.
“You know who I am.” His voice was really freaking deep and more than a little attractive. Not the time, Callie.
I nodded and took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. He wasn’t a threat, or someone who’d sneaked into my house to attack Sutton or me. This was just some kind of screwup that resulted in bacon and Weston Madigan in my kitchen. My stomach growled. “We met. A little over eleven years ago.” Even now, I could still feel the chill of my rain-soaked clothes as I hiked up the last fifty feet of road to the resort after my car had run out of gas.
He cocked his head to the side and his brows furrowed.
“You hired me,” I babbled. How long was it going to take Ava to get here and sort this out? “You probably don’t remember. I mean, it was a long time ago, and you were getting ready to leave.” I swallowed, glancing back over my shoulder to make sure Sutton was still on the porch. “In fact, I think you left the next day.”
“I hired you,” he repeated slowly.
“Yep. The only experience I had was a semester of Intro to Photography from NYU, but you hired me anyway, probably because I was pregnant, and crying, and my car—”
“Had run out of gas,” he finished, recognition lighting his eyes. “It was raining.”
“Exactly.” My keys bit into the palm of my hand. “And you took me to get gas, and when your dad didn’t show for my interview, you just…took a chance and hired me.”
His jaw locked and he nodded once.
“Anyway, I’m Callie Thorne.”
“Callie? I don’t remember that being your name.” He shook his head. “It was something uncommon.”
“Calliope,” I answered, heat rushing my cheeks. He remembered. “My friends call me Callie. And this”—I pointed to our surroundings—“is my house. Or at least it has been for the last five years.” I heard the unmistakable sound of an engine approaching and nearly sighed in relief. “And your bacon is burning.”