“They’re always fun. Jesse says she booked his band again.”
Donny lifts his eyebrows. “I thought they were going to LA for a tour.”
“They were. The fire changed some stuff, and Jess decided to stay here.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
I sigh. “It is what it is.”
“Dale’s bummed about his vines.” Then he bites his lip. “Sorry. I know you guys have it a lot worse.”
Please, don’t pity us. I can’t take it. “We’ll deal. We always do.”
“If there’s anything we can—”
I raise my hand. “Please. Just don’t.”
“I just mean—”
“I know you’re trying to help. I do. But think about how you’d feel if our situations were reversed.”
He pauses a moment. Then, “I understand. I’m sorry.”
I smile. “No need to be sorry. We appreciate the fact that your family wants to help, but the Pikes have always made their own way, you know?” Tried, anyway.
“I do know. Believe me.”
I cock my head slightly. Truth lies in his words somewhere. Donny wasn’t always a Steel. No one really knows where he and Dale came from originally, but they were both old enough to have memories of their former life.
Maybe one day I’ll know him well enough that he’ll want to share those memories with me.
I’m busy thinking about how to reply, when he continues.
“Tell me, Callie. Where have you been?”
I wrinkle my forehead. “Uh…right here?”
“I mean, why haven’t I noticed you until now?”
My cheeks warm as I ponder what to say.
Laney returns with our drinks and sets them down. “Anything else?”
Donny doesn’t reply. He’s too busy gazing into my eyes, making my insides melt.
“I’m good. Thanks, Laney.” I pick up my glass and take a sip.
“So,” Donny continues after Laney leaves, “you were saying?”
I swallow my drink. “I wasn’t saying anything.”
“I asked where you’ve been.”
“And I told you. Here. You’re the one who wasn’t here. You’ve been in Denver for the past”—I calculate in my head—“fifteen years.” Geez. I was only thirteen when Donny left for college fifteen years ago.
“I’ve been back to visit.”
“Now and then, but when you went to Denver for school, you were gone. You never came back permanently.”
“Until now.”
“I suppose not.”
“So why haven’t I noticed you?”
Because you were busy chasing anyone else in a skirt. Nope, not the right thing to say to strike the mood I’m going for.
“That’s on you,” I finally say. “I’ve been here, except when I was in the city attending undergrad. Plus, I was…”
“You were what?”
“Too young, Donny. When you left for school, I was thirteen.”
He smiles. “You’re not too young now.”
I bite my lip as sparks skitter across my cheeks.
“And I’ll be honest,” he continues. “You Pike women have always been beautiful.”
My God, I’m going to be scarred from the fire consuming my cheeks.
I clear my throat. “Good genes, I guess. My mom was Miss Grand Junction when she was young.”
And yeah, I want to jump in a hole. Why did I bring that up?
“Oh?” he says. “I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“There isn’t any longer. It was a county fair thing, but they stopped it a while ago. A bunch of people signed a petition saying it was degrading to women. Pageants are kind of outdated, but my mom got some great benefits. A full year of college tuition paid for, and a trip all around Colorado doing promo gigs.”
And why again am I talking about this? Like Donovan Steel, Esquire, gives a crap that my mother was the winner of a local beauty pageant. Geez, shut up, Callie.
“If it still existed, you’d win for sure.”
Not likely. Not against either of his sisters, nor any of his cousins, for that matter. We Pikes may be pretty, but the Steels are gorgeous.
Am I supposed to respond to his observation? If I say no, I’ll seem self-deprecating. If I say yes, I’ll seem conceited.
There’s just no easy response.
So I take another sip of Diet Coke.
“I’m noticing now, Callie.”
His words are slow and raspy, and they tug on me, landing in all the places that make me hot. This is the Donny Steel I know. Seducer of women.
Yeah, I was headed to bed with him a week ago at the wedding reception. But I was drinking that night. It was a party. Jesse’s band was playing. We were dancing, laughing, in the moment, until the unthinkable happened.
Clearer heads are prevailing now.
I want him. I mean, I really want him. I haven’t had sex in a while. It’s kind of tough when you live at your parents’ place. My last serious relationship was five years ago, when I was still in college.
“I know you spent your adolescence mooning over my brother,” Donny says.
My God, surely my cheeks are burned to a crisp by now, yet the sparks keep erupting.
“You weren’t the only one. Dale has that brooding thing going on that seems to be irresistible to women.” Donny takes a drink of soda. “Frankly, I don’t get the appeal.”