Colters' Daughter

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The knock at Max’s hotel room door startled him from his dark thoughts. He bolted to his feet, his pulse racing a mile a minute as he rushed to open it.

He flung the door open to see Callie standing there staring at him with dull, dead eyes.

Her appearance shocked him. She was still wearing the same clothes as she had when they’d driven to her parents’ together. Her hair was limp, half covering her face. She looked exhausted. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her lips were drawn into a pale, thin line.

She looked liked death. She looked exactly like he felt.

“Callie,” he whispered past cracked lips.

Oh God, he wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her he’d never let anything bad ever touch her again. He wanted to say he was sorry, but the words—the damn words—were hopelessly inadequate. How could he possibly put into words what was bleeding from his heart?

She held out a large manila envelope that bulged at the bottom. Her fingers shook, making the envelope flap like a breeze blew it.

“This is for you,” she said in a low voice.

“Callie, come in. Please.”

He would have reached for her but she shrank back as if anticipating such a move. She looked so infinitely fragile that he was afraid to demand—or ask—anything at all.

So he curled his fingers into tight fists at his sides as he tempered the urge to haul her into his arms and never let go.

She shook her head. “I can’t stay. I have to go. But I wanted—” Her voice cracked and she swallowed visibly.

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.