Between Duty and Desire by Leanne Banks Read Free Book Online

make it myself.”
    She studied him. “You really don’t get along with your stepfather, do you?”
    “Tough relationship. I’ve accepted it.”
    “I bet your mom misses you, though.”
    He nodded, thinking how frequently she’d written him when he’d been in the hospital.
    “Maybe you should go see her,” she said.
    He wasn’t accustomed to women giving him advice about his mother. “Maybe I will after I get settled in Atlanta.”
    They turned the cart onto the dairy aisle and she picked up a couple of cartons of yogurt and a small jug of milk. “I could never live in Atlanta. Too busy. Too crowded. Too much traffic.”
    “Depends on your point of view. There’s a lot of stimulation in Atlanta, lots of things to do.”
    “As an artist, I prefer the quiet of a smaller town.”
    “One of the things I learned as a Marine was to create the quiet inside me. That way, I take it with me wherever I go. I’m not dependent on my environment.”
    She looked at him thoughtfully. “I never thought of it that way.”
    They continued through the store and completed her shopping. One more aisle to go and it was the cookie aisle. “Are you going to be a good girl and avoid the sweets?”
    “Absolutely not,” she said, grabbing a box of cookies. He grinned. “For such a little thing, you sure like your sweets.”
    “High metabolism,” she said and grabbed one more box. “That’s all,” she said, but stopped suddenly near the end of the aisle.
    “What is it?” he asked, seeing her features tighten with pain.
    She held her breath. “It’s silly, really silly. But he loved animal crackers. Even when he grew up, Rob loved animal crackers. I sent them to him when he was overseas.”
    Brock felt a sharp twist in his chest at the lost expression on Callie’s face. She and Rob had known each other for so long that there would be many memories that would ambush her at odd times. It occurred to him that she might feel barraged with those memories when she ventured outside her cottage.
    “Breathe,” he said. “It’s worse when you freeze up.”
    She glanced at him in surprise and took a shallow breath.
    “Take another one, deeper,” he coached, and watched her make the effort. He reached across her and took the small box of animal crackers from the shelf.
    “Why did you—”
    “We’re going to eat these in Rob’s memory,” he said.
    He drove her back to the cottage and they unloaded her groceries. She pulled out the box of animal crackers, opened it and solemnly ate a lion. She offered Brock a giraffe. She munched on a monkey then swallowed.
    “This is probably very disrespectful to mention at this particular moment, but—” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t like animal crackers.”
    Brock chuckled. “Neither do I. They taste like cardboard.”
    She smiled. “Rob must’ve liked them because his mother got them for him.”
    “That’s possible. You know me and cherry pie.”
    Her eyes sparkled. “Yeah. For me, it’s chocolate chip cookies. Great big, fat, hot cookies loaded—and I mean loaded—with chocolate chips.”
    Her voice was husky with a sexy indulgence that made his blood race to his crotch. He bit back an oath. Just hearing her talk about a cookie made him hard.
    Callie closed the box and put it in the cabinet. “I’ll save these for someone else.”
    “Just make sure you don’t leave them in there until they’re museum quality.”
    She laughed. “Duly noted. I think I’d like to play some music. Do you mind? It’s a nice evening. Would you like some lemonade to wash down the cardboard?”
    “Sure,” he said, accepting the glass she offered and wandering out onto the patio. The sensual sound of a song by the artist Seal eased through the speakers of her stereo. In another situation, he would be drinking a beer or a glass of wine and getting his date ready for some time between the sheets. Instead he’d eaten animal crackers, was drinking lemonade, and was probably