At Peace (12 page)

He looked to her place to gauge how much time
he had and saw the older girl walking out which he thought was a
healthy signal to get a move on but he didn’t. Finding himself
curious, he looked between Violet’s girls.

Neither of them looked like Violet. They were
pretty but they didn’t get their mother’s rich, thick, dark hair
with that auburn tint to it, they didn’t get her curves and they
didn’t get her green eyes. Their hair was nice, it was also thick
and long. They had nice eyes and decent bodies, but they were too
thin in a way that, even though they were young, he knew they
wouldn’t fill out. They must look like their Dad.

Sucked for them. They were pretty and they’d
get prettier but they’d never be knockouts like their mother.

“
We already spent Uncle Sam’s gift cards,”
the younger one kept speaking and Cal’s eyes went back to her.
“Kate and me. I got these shorts and a bunch of other stuff.” She
pointed to her shorts but Cal’s eyes didn’t go to her shorts, they
went to the drive.

Violet was there and she was wearing that
cute, little jeans skirt that fit tight at her ass and hips and hit
her a couple inches above her knees. It was the one he’d fucked her
in.

Christ.

She had stopped dead, keys in her hand, purse
suspended at her forearm, her hand had stilled in the act of
draping it over her shoulder. She was staring at him, her lips
parted, her face pale, her eyes wide and he felt that look, her
stillness, it locked in his chest, it didn’t feel good and he
detested the feeling.

She was wearing purple, she was always in
purple. This time it was a light purple blouse with little, short,
poofy sleeves. The shirt fit tight at her ribs and showed a hint of
cleavage because it fit tight at her tits too. Her hair was down,
it was long, not as long as her girls, she wore it to just above
her bra strap. It was gleaming and sleek but flipped at the layers.
He knew how thick it was, how soft and his hand itched to fist in
it.

Taking his mind off that, his eyes travelled
the length of her and stopped at her shoes, which were purple too,
much darker than her top, two thin straps, one at the toes, one
around her ankle and a strap that connected the two. It went up the
middle of her foot and it had a bunch of flowers on it. The shoes
were low, not heeled, and they looked fucking great on her. He
liked his women in heels but he liked those purple shoes on Violet
better than any heels he’d seen in his whole fucking life.

“Hey!” her younger girl shouted, his eyes
sliced to her and he saw she was watching him closely. He also saw
that her excited, teenage girl act was just that, an act. She’d
seen him checking out her mother and what she said next confirmed
it just as it confirmed she was a little schemer. “You wanna
come?”

“Keira!” both the older one and Violet cried,
the older daughter loud, Violet on a snap.

“
What?” the younger girl asked, trying to
look innocent as she twisted her head to her mother and sister.
“He’ll have fun.” She looked back at him and grinned. “We Winters
girls, we’re
loads
of
fun.”

“I’m sure Mr. Callahan has better things to
do than go to the mall,” Violet stated and walked to the Mustang,
hitching her purse on her shoulder.

“Do you have better things to do, Mr.
Callahan?” the girl asked.

Cal just stared at her.

“Malls are a blast,” she told him.

He didn’t reply mainly because he didn’t
agree, not even a little bit.

“And we’re goin’ to The Cheesecake Factory
for dinner and it’s great there.”

“Keira, seriously, leave Mr. Callahan alone,”
Violet ordered. “Get in the car.”

She was standing in her opened door, the
keys in her hand, her eyes on her daughter. The other girl was
standing in the other door without the keys but her stance and her
gaze were an exact replica of her mother’s.

“
And we’re going to see the new Nicole
Bolton movie. It’s supposed to be
awesome,
” the younger girl went on, completely ignoring
her mother.

“Keira!” Violet called sharply and her voice
jolted Cal to action.

He moved and when he moved, he moved toward
Violet. He didn’t know why but he did and as he did, he watched her
body get tight and watching it made his jaw get tight.

He made it to her, she tipped her head back
to look at him, her gorgeous face filled with panic which he took
advantage of when he tugged her keys out of her fingers.

“I’m drivin’.”

“Yippee!” the younger girl screeched.

“What?” Violet whispered.

“Move outta the door, buddy.” She blinked,
the panic gone, confusion in her expression and she stayed put so
he told her. “Can’t drive, you on my lap.”

Her body jerked and the confusion cleared,
her face shifting straight to angry. He’d seen that look on her
face before when she’d thrown his business card and the fifty at
him. She wouldn’t like to know it but her display of attitude was
hot, then and now.

“
Why is Mr. Callahan driving?” the older
girl asked and Cal looked to his right to see she’d moved out of
the way and the younger one was pushing into the
backseat.

“Mr. Callahan is –” Violet started to speak
to her daughter but Cal cut her off.

“Cal,” he turned to the girl and repeated,
“Cal.”

“My girls don’t call their elders by their
Christian names,” Violet told him, her voice ice and when Cal
turned back to her, her face was ice too.

“We could call him Uncle Cal,” the younger
girl suggested, her head and shoulders shoved over the driver seat
so she could look at them.

Christ. Uncle Cal was worse than Mr.
Callahan.

“Can we go? If we don’t, we’ll miss the movie
or we’ll have to cut the shopping short,” the older girl asked,
resignation in her tone and impatience then she shoved into the
backseat and pulled the passenger seat back into place.

“
Yeah, or we’ll miss the chance to have
cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory,” the younger one said, her
eyes were on him as she finished, “obviously, that’s the best
part.”

Cal looked at Violet.

“Get in, buddy.”

“But –”

He leaned into her, she reared back into the
door but he ignored that even though he felt that in his chest too
and repeated, “Violet, get in.”

She glared at him then slid by him, careful
not to touch him as she did so. Then he watched her stomp around
the hood of the Mustang and get in, slamming her door.

Cal folded himself into her car and had to
adjust the seat, the wheel was practically in his crotch. Violet
was tall, like her girls and unlike any woman he’d ever had but she
wasn’t nearly as tall as him.

He closed the door and settled in. The new
Mustangs were sweet, not as sweet as his ’68 GT but still sweet.
Violet, he found, had as good taste in cars as she had in clothes,
shoes, underwear and nightgowns.

He slid the key in the ignition and fired up
the car, it roared to life, he threw it in reverse and pulled out
of her drive.

“Hey, Cal, do you know any of the Buckley
Boys?” the younger girl, Keira, asked from behind him.

“Just because he does what he does, Keira,
doesn’t mean he knows everyone who’s famous,” the older girl, Kate,
informed her sister.

“I know ‘em,” Cal said and heard both girls
pull in their breath.

He did know them. They were all little shits,
a boy band of five brothers, thought the sun shone out of their
asses. They’d paid huge and he’d taken a special job, leading a
detail of bodyguards again, covering them for an event. They were
individually and collectively such a fuckin’ pain he turned down
the next job their manager offered him.

“Really?” Keira breathed.

“Yep,” Cal replied.

“What’re they like?” Keira asked.

“You don’t wanna know,” Cal answered.

“
No, really, I do. I
do
wanna know,” she told him and she sounded like she
did really want to know.

He tried to find a way to explain it without
using the words “assholes”, “fuckwads” or “dickheads”.

“You met ‘em, you wouldn’t think much of
‘em.” This was met with silence, so, since he was stopped at a stop
sign, Cal asked, “I might need to know where I’m goin’.”

“Keystone at the Crossing,” Kate answered and
Cal looked to his right to see Violet had her purse in her lap, her
fingers clutching it so tightly he could see white at her knuckles
and her head was turned to look out the side window.

She didn’t like him there, in her car, with
her girls, with her. He knew it just as he knew he shouldn’t be
there.

But he was, even though he had no fucking
clue why he was. Except for the fact that some asshole was out
there, some asshole who had killed her husband but wanted her and
Cal didn’t like the idea of Violet and her kids going to the mall,
to dinner, to a movie, without protection.

So he was there.

“Right,” he muttered, put the car in gear and
turned toward Keystone at the Crossing.

“Mawdy, you goin’ to Lucky?” Kate asked her
mother.

“
No, baby,” Violet answered softly and Cal
felt her two words in his chest too
and
his gut. This wasn’t unpleasant, it was nostalgic and it
was so strong, his hand tightened on the wheel.

He remembered his mother using a voice
like that with him a long time ago. Her girls were lucky they had
that, Violet’s soft voice, her calling them “baby”.

The fuck of it was, however their Dad talked
to them, they didn’t have.

“Why not?” Keira asked. “Not my thing,”
Violet replied. “You’d look hot in Lucky clothes,” Keira announced
and then asked, “Don’t you think, Cal?” He had no idea what she was
talking about.

But he didn’t have to answer, Violet spoke.
“It’s Mr. Callahan.”

“They can call me Cal,” Cal stated.

“They’re not gonna call you Cal,” Violet
returned.

He looked at her to see she’d turned her head
to him then he looked back at the road. “Why not?”

“They need to respect their elders.”

“I don’t like Mr. Callahan,” Cal told
her.

“Then we’ll call you Uncle Cal,” Keira put
in.

“Keira –” Violet started.

“Cal’ll do,” Cal cut Violet off, not about to
be called Uncle Cal either.

“Joe, they’re not gonna call you Cal,” Violet
repeated.

There it was. Joe.

He didn’t feel that in his chest or his gut,
he felt her calling him Joe in his dick.

His Dad’s name was Joe too, so, since
birth, everyone had called him Cal. According to his Dad, his
mother had come up with the nickname.

But Bonnie’d called him Joe. She was the
only one who did. It irritated him the first couple of times that
Violet called him that then he started to like it, mainly because
she was moaning it when his cock was inside her, her nipple was in
his mouth or his tongue was at her clit. And he still liked it
because it reminded him of those times.

“You call him Joe?” Kate asked, entering the
conversation. “I thought everyone called him Cal.”

Kate, obviously, had been hearing about him
at school, something which Cal didn’t care much about, it wasn’t
new.

Violet didn’t reply. She’d looked out the
side window again.

“Can we call you Joe?” Keira asked.

“No,” Violet responded.

“Sure,” Cal said over her and for the life of
him, again, he had no clue why he did.

“Cool! Then it’s Joe,” Keira decided.

“I like Joe, Joe’s a cool name,” Kate
muttered.

Violet sighed. This meant she was giving in
and it also meant she was a pushover with her girls. He wondered if
this was the way it always was or if this was in response to their
father being dead. He reckoned it was the last.

For the rest of the drive Keira carried on
the conversation with Kate interjecting occasionally but Cal and
Violet contributed absolutely nothing. Then again, Keira didn’t
even need Kate’s input. The girl was a talker.

They made it to the mall, Cal parked and got
out, pulling the seat up for Keira who scrambled out with that
enthusiastic grace only teenage girls seemed to have. As he slammed
the door behind her, he looked across the roof and saw Violet and
Kate were also out. He beeped the locks when Violet closed the door
and Keira ran to her sister, linking arms with her and they hustled
to the mall. Obviously shopping was a favorite pastime. It was like
the girls were made of metal and the mall was a high-powered magnet
pulling them in.

Violet didn’t look at him and she walked more
calmly toward the building.

Cal fell in step beside her.

“Buddy –”

Suddenly, she stopped and tipped her head
back to look at him.

“I saw you talking to Colt.”

Her voice was quiet but not soft, it was an
accusation.

Before he could say anything, she kept
speaking.

“I know you know.”

“I know,” he confirmed.

She stifled a flinch and went on. “It isn’t
your job to look after us.”

“Violet –”

“It isn’t your job.”

She was right, it wasn’t, but that didn’t
mean dick because he was going to do it. He didn’t tell her that,
he just kept looking at her.

“You’re here because Keira’s making it her
mission to befriend everyone within a twenty mile radius. She
misses home, she had tons of friends and family at home and she’s
social. She’s trying to recreate that,” Violet informed him though
she was wrong. He was invited by Keira because her daughter loved
her and knew Violet missed her husband and Keira was looking for a
replacement to take away her mother’s pain. He’d done the same
thing with his Dad after his mother died. It didn’t work but he’d
done it.