With Everything I Am(58)
“You okay?” he asked.
She was silent.
“Baby doll?” he prompted, not taking his eyes from the road.
She remained silent.
He glanced at her to see her arms were crossed on her chest, the bag filled with her medication in her lap, and she was glaring through the windscreen.
“Sonia?”
“Oh, am I allowed to speak now?” she queried sarcastically.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “Just take me home.”
Fucking hell. She was pissed about something.
“Sonia, tell me what’s bothering you,” he ordered gently.
“Nothing. I’m perfectly fine and I’ll be more fine when I’m finally home.”
Callum decided that was probably not true because it appeared they would be arguing when they arrived at her home. He wasn’t going to engage in one in the truck. Further, he had to take that time to control his temper that she obviously didn’t realize today, regardless of how delightfully it started, the rest had been unpleasant for him to say the least. Furthermore, the coming days, or weeks and (although he hoped to God not) possibly months would be busy and taxing.
Therefore she’d failed in her responsibility to provide him what he’d thought he’d explained to her during their second day at the cabin was her duty to provide. An outlet. A release. Be that in the form of a casual conversation in an SUV about his day, holding her cuddled on her sweet bed in her sweet room and talking with her about his concerns about his people or fucking her so hard that when she came she cried out his name.
The latter of which was how he definitely decided he’d like to process his day.
And that was exactly how he was going to do it.
He turned into the short drive at the side of her house, parking behind the door of her garage and he shut off the engine.
She didn’t wait for him to help her from the SUV (another issue he had with her that he decided, astutely, to bring up later). She dropped down from the truck and stormed up to her dark house.
Then she stood at her front door, arms crossed, her bag with her meds dangling from her fingers, as he took his time (to calm his temper further, an effort which failed) sauntering to her house.
“I don’t have the key,” she told him when he arrived at her side using a voice that made this clear it was an accusation.
He had her key.
Saint had given it to him the day he’d arrived. It was on the ring with his truck keys, his SUV being something else Saint had provided for him.
He used the key to let them in while she glared at his keyring like she was willing it to combust in his fingers.
When they entered, her alarm started beeping. She turned to it and punched in the code then stomped into the house.
Callum took off his coat while slowly Christmas lights, inside and out, started twinkling from everywhere.
Callum glanced around.
Ryon wasn’t wrong. Sonia seriously had a thing about Christmas.
He listened to her tramping around upstairs as he went to her clean, pristine kitchen and opened the fridge, praying she had beer.
She didn’t.
She didn’t even have a bottle of chilled white wine.
He was searching the cupboards for spirits when she stormed in, having divested herself of her vest and scarf, and her eyes narrowed on her mail neatly piled on the counter.
“I see someone’s been taking care of my house,” she announced ungraciously and walked to the mail, snatching it from the counter. Not looking at him, she shuffled through it while she demanded to know, “Did you arrange that?”
“Yes,” he replied, turning back to open another cabinet in which he saw, thankfully, she had a number of bottles of liquor and one of them, to his great fortune, contained a very good whisky.
“I shudder to think of the state of my store considering I disappeared into thin air during Christmas season.” She aimed a glare in his direction as he discovered where she kept her glasses. “My girls are probably freaked!”
“Only if they have the uncanny ability of clairvoyance,” Callum replied calmly. “Regan arranged for one of our people, a woman who has a goodly amount of retail experience considering her mate owns Harrinton’s department stores, to tell them you had an urgent situation that called you away but arranged for her to manage the store in your absence.”
This knowledge gave her a start, as it would considering there was a Harrinton’s in every exclusive mall in the country. They were highly lucrative ventures and were known as the elite shopping experience.
He ignored her reaction and the fact that she didn’t express her gratitude as she had to Ryon, three times when he’d displayed his thoughtfulness, and turned to pour his whisky.