Page 33 of Tracked
“That must’ve been hard,” I murmured, blinking rapidly. “I was twenty-six when I lost my mom. I couldn’t imagine losing her at only six. Or with my sister only being six.”
“We survived.”Survivalimplied both perseverance and grit, but also scars.
I wanted to ask what happened. Like every other piece of his family, there seemed to be more to the story. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t risk rocking the proverbial life raft that was barely floating on the sea of civility between us.
He changed topics, and I let him. “Do you cook?”
If my small snort wasn’t a clear enough answer, I replied, “I microwave. And DoorDash.”
“Those are the kind of things that sustain you while also slowly killing you,” he grumbled and began cutting up the kale, the thump of the knife rocking on the cutting board echoing the thud of my heart.
Extensor carpi ulnaris. Extensor digitorum.I stared, the wavelike ebb and roll of his wrist mesmerizing me. My eyes grew hooded, and for asecond, the lack of sleep and the eventful day drew me into exhaustion, but then he tossed the green leaflets into the pan and their sizzle jerked me out of my stupor.
“I aim for the healthiest I can make work with my schedule,” I said, taking a deep breath of the amazing scent filling the Airstream. “I have to say, it’s several steps up from my childhood menu, which consisted of Rachel making us PB&J for lunch and microwaving SpaghettiOs or Chef Boyardee for dinner because Mom was working.”
The toaster oven dinged that the sweet potatoes were done. Giving the ground beef one last toss, Calder shut off the burner and grabbed a towel to pull the potatoes from the oven.
“Your mom was a teacher, right?”
I sat forward, impressed, though not surprised, by his recall. Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever known what Calder’s parents had done before ... survivalist-ing.
“When you met Rachel, she was, but when we were younger, she waitressed and cleaned houses, and sometimes she’d bartend on the weekends.” It had been on most weekends, and the ones that she didn’t were only because she wanted to spend it with whatever man she was dating at the time. “She did what she could ... what she had to do as a single mom. When we were in high school, she started taking night classes to get her teaching certificate.”
“Impressive.” Admiration colored his tone as he filled our plates with the sweet potatoes, topped with the meat-and-kale mix.
In so many ways, she was, but like most people, Mom’s greatest strength had also been her greatest weakness. For as hard as she’d worked to provide for us, she was equally as driven to find the person who would provide for her. Maybe financially, but mostly emotionally.
Rachel and I were all she’d had, and we were her children. Her dependents. She’d tied shoes and kissed boo-boos. Had made sure our clothes were clean and there was always food in the fridge. But when things got hard or money got tight, she’d had no one to hold her up. Not in the way an adult needs. So while I admired like hell the way she’d loved us,I pitied her desperation to find someone to love her, not because being loved wasn’t a worthwhile aspiration, but because the way she’d settled for things ... for the way men had treated her ... broke my heart.
“She was an amazing mom. She worked hard to take care of us and pursue her own dream,” I conceded and stood, needing some physical movement to shift me away from a topic that touched too close to my sister’s own struggles.
I cleared Calder’s files, laptop, and crossword puzzle from the tabletop. Hands full, I turned and almost crashed into him, his hands also full.
“Sorry,” I said, a strong whiff of dinner piercing my nostrils and making me moan. “Wow, that smells good.”
Our eyes connected, his injected with the same look he’d had at the diner. Hunger. And not the kind that was satisfied by the “things that would sustain you.”
Calder moved around me without a word, setting the plates on the table while I moved his things to his desk, noticing his notebooks standing proudly on the bookshelf.
“Are these from all your cases?”
Calder looked over while tearing off two paper towels from the roll. “Yeah.”
“It’s a lot.” I joined him at the table, each of us taking a seat on opposite sides. “You’ve done a lot.”
“I like to stay busy.” He picked up his fork and scraped up a bite.
“Have you worked in every state?”
Calder shook his head. “No, I tend to stick to the Midwest and Northwest. Creed usually volunteers for retrievals that are farther; he gets restless staying in one place. We call him the Drifter.”
“What do they call you?” The question jutted out, my fork poised in front of my mouth as I waited for the answer.
He looked at me like I’d just asked one more thing I wasn’t supposed to know.But now I needed to.“If we’re going to be—pretend to be a couple, I should know if you have a nickname.”
His eyes narrowed. “The Director,” he grunted and went back to eating.
The Director.Now Callum’s comment earlier about Calderdirectinghis work made so much more sense. In fact, the entirety of the male specimen in front of me made so much more sense. His initiative. His command. His skill for calm disregard.And his frustration when I changed the direction of our search.
