Forgive Me (Callaway Book 2) by Kaithlin Shepherd

he knew his body would make him pay in the morning, but he didn't care. It was well past 9 p.m., yet he was still working on the roof. His brothers had insisted on staying and helping him, but he didn't want them around; he wanted time alone with Amanda. As if his thoughts had conjured her, she stepped out on the back porch holding two beers.
    "Are you trying to get me to drink on the job, Amanda?" He really liked teasing her. It was one of the things he loved most about her; she was so easy to tease but unlike women who got offended, she just laughed it off.
    "It's almost ten, Drew. I think you've done enough for today," she shouted before sitting down on her front steps.
    "All right, I'll be right down." He climbed down from the roof in record speed, making sure everything was safe. When he sat down beside her, the scent of her perfume lingered in the wind. God, he wanted to drown in it.
    She gazed around the house, and he could tell she was taking everything in. "I can't believe how fast you guys got things done. The house looks amazing." When she turned to look at him, the emotion he saw in her eyes took him back.
    To him, this wasn't something he needed to do; this was something he wanted to do. He took a sip of beer, clearing his thoughts before saying something that would send her running for the hills. "Your safety is important, Mandy."
    "Apparently, sleep isn't all that important to you. You look like something out of The Walking Dead ." She sounded amused, and he'd missed that about her so much. But this, just talking, was one of the things he'd missed most of all.
    He took off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "Is it that bad?"
    "Don't worry, you're still the most handsome brother." She smiled at him and for the first time in weeks, he saw it radiate through her eyes.
    "Straight to the heart, sweetheart," he told her, his hand over his heart. When she shifted on the stairs, he grabbed her by the hips, pulled himself back a little farther and sat her down between his legs, her back pressed to his chest.
    He smirked at her intake of breath and waited for her to protest or move away from him, but she didn't. Instead, she dropped her head back on his shoulders, letting out a sigh that made it seem like she'd just found something she'd been missing. Hell, he could relate to that himself.
    Her eyes went up to look at the stars, and a smile covered her face. "I forgot how peaceful it was out here. So quiet."
    "Bet you couldn't get that in the city." He remembered how much she used to enjoy lying out in the fields at night, just spending hours looking at the stars. She used to say that every person we'd ever lost could be found in the stars. When he saw the longing on her face, he knew she was thinking about her dad. They had spent so many nights out in the middle of nowhere, talking about their families and how they would raise their own kids someday. To sit there with her and see everything she still wanted written on her face took him for a ride he wasn't sure he was ready for.
    "Definitely not." Neither of them said anything more. They stayed there in each other's arms like they didn't have any history, only the present. As much as Drew wanted that to be true, it wasn't. They did have a history, one that ended in heartbreak. If they were to have any chance to move forward, to give this relationship another try, there were some things they needed to talk about.
    He could no longer avoid their past, like they had been for the past weeks. "Can I ask you something?"
    She pulled away from him, and he silently cursed the loss of her body against his. "Would it matter if I said no?" she asked.
    He took a sip of his beer and went straight to the point. "Probably not. Why did you leave without saying goodbye?"
    He watched her face, trying to see what she was thinking but he couldn't struggled read her. There was something blank about the way she was looking at him, something he didn't like, not one bit. She