New house, new life, new start.
Lucinda Cartwright's life was thrown into chaos after her father and step mother died. She became the sole provider for her younger sister, Mary-Beth in a single moment. Uncertainty cloaked her and she decided that m...
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When we woke up the next morning the atmosphere between Cal and I was good. Better than good, it was actually great. Sharing a bed with him was far easier than I wanted it to be. In fact, I had woken up feeling more rested than I had since moving to Twin Peaks. Maybe even before then, honestly.
I laid in bed next to him for the better part of an hour watching him sleep. Perhaps that was a little creepy on my part, but the opportunity to see him so unguarded was hard to pass up. Without his usual grimace, the temptation of Cal was almost impossible to resist.
His relaxed boyish face and soft breathing made it easy to imagine a world where we didn't argue like cats and dogs. A world where we woke up next to each other every morning like this. A world where I could act on the feelings that he stirred in me with a single, heated glance.
But the sobering knowledge of what lay dormant inside me had done well to keep me from doing something I would regret later. Now, we were back on the familiar road to Twin Peaks, just on the outskirts of town. My stomach was all twisted up with my anxieties. I shifted on the seat, trying to ease the invisible discomfort swirling around me.
Cal reached over and placed his hand on my knee. It startled me from my thoughts. I cast a quick glance in his direction, noting the slight curve of his lips. My cheeks grew hotter and I turned my face to the passenger window as I shifted my body a little closer to his.
He gave my knee a tiny squeeze and I closed my eyes. It was hard to ignore my feelings when he acted this way. We weren't supposed to get along. We weren't meant to. It was dangerous. I needed him to go back to being obtuse and cold, it would make my life easier.
"Why did you give up your Alpha title to Bradford?"
He pulled his hand back from my knee with a cough, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I understood the motion as he had meant it. A sign that he didn't want to talk about it. But Cal never wanted to talk, not the hard stuff anyway.
I should be happy for the separation and silence. It was what I wanted. To maintain the wall between us, but still found myself mourning the loss of his touch. It did something to me. Somehow it both ignited and excited, while it calmed and soothed. Frustration with my own conflicting desires was easy to mask as irritation toward him. Mostly because it was the response he expected.
He released a heavy sigh through his nose. "I was a stupid kid. Responsibility was the last thing I wanted."
"I don't believe you."
Cal cast a quick glance in my direction, a defined crease between his brows. "Have you always been this damn nosy?"
"Have you always been this damn stubborn and closed off?"
He did his best to hide the smile that threatened his usual scowl. "Sorry. I know said I would be more open with you. It's just there are some things in my past I'd rather not talk about."
