McKenna loved everyone. She was also deliriously happy with her husband and daughter, Holly, and wanted the people she loved to have what she had—bliss.
That was not in the cards for Holden. He lost his chance when he lost Charleigh.
Though, ‘lost’ wasn’t the right word. He’d left her. Then she betrayed him in the worst way and sealed their fate.
Holden stopped eavesdropping and passed by Nixon’s office door, relieved that his friend didn’t stop him. He was in no mood to discuss Charleigh’s problems. Though he owed it to her to put a stop to them once and for all.
He’d just sat down behind his desk when there was a knock.
“Yeah?”
“You gotta minute?” Chasin asked as he walked in and closed the door behind him.
“By all means, come in and make yourself comfortable.”
Chasin took a seat, completely unaffected by Holden’s snarky remark.
“I know this isn’t something you wanna hear about,” Chasin started and Holden braced. “Charleigh got served with custody papers. Beatrice Towler is claiming Charleigh’s an unfit parent and wants sole custody.”
“Say again?”
Holden hadn’t thought the bitch would go that far. He’d assumed she was once again trying for visitation.
“Charleigh didn’t want to share, but Micky pointed out this case wasn’t about her but Faith, and that little girl needs all the help she can get. Charleigh finally agreed and let us read the documents. It’s all bullshit. Beatrice claims Charleigh was having an affair. They have pictures. But they’re taken out of context.”
Apparently, Holden hadn’t braced enough because he felt like he was going to come out of his skin.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nix put in a call to Rhode Daley. After he left the teams, he started to do some PI work, mostly for an outfit called Takeback. Anyway, I just talked to him. He found the pictures. They’re of me and Charleigh. Like I said, they’re taken out of context.”
Holden was at a loss for words and the oxygen in his lungs seized.
“How in the fuck are there pictures of you and Leigh-Leigh?”
“This is the part you’re not gonna want to talk about.”
“And what part is that, Chasin? The part where you were fucking—”
“Don’t go there, brother. You know that never happened so don’t say shit just because you’re mad at yourself for the epic fuck-up you instigated.”
Good Christ.
He hated it, but Chasin was right. Everything that had happened all started because he’d fucked up.
“Then what don’t I want to talk about?”
It was a stupid question, considering Holden didn’t want to talk about any of it.
Chasin leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and speared Holden with fiery regard.
“I suppose you don’t want to talk about any of it, but particularly the reason why I was visiting Charleigh.”
“Christ, Chasin, cut to it.”
“Those pictures were taken a few hours before Paul and Charleigh’s wedding. She called me and asked to meet her at Red Wing Park. She was having second thoughts. Or maybe she was having third and fourth thoughts.” Chasin paused and Holden didn’t like the way his chest tightened. “Charleigh admitted that even though you’d broken it off with her that the two of you had slept together on more than one occasion in the five months you’d been apart. And she was worried that the baby she was carrying might be yours.”
There it was. That constant ache of wanting made itself known, and Holden felt his feet itching to run. The child who had plagued his thoughts for years, the child he wished was his.
“Yet she married him,” Holden spat.
The remark was wholly unfair. Holden knew Faith was Paul’s, and the snide comment against Charleigh was uncalled for. But to this day, hearing about Charleigh marrying Paul burned.
“Don’t go there. The whole situation was as fucked as it could’ve been. You left her without an explanation. You were with her for years, brother, and one morning, you wake up, pack your shit, and tell her it’s over. You were miserable, wouldn’t talk to us about why you’d left her. You crashed at my place, Nixon’s, and Weston’s. Then for five months, you strung her along. You fucked her when you wanted but refused to talk to her otherwise.”
“And during all of that, with my head as fucked-up as it was, I didn’t fuck anyone else. She did,” Holden lamely defended.
He knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on; he’d screwed Charleigh over. He’d done everything Chasin accused him of doing and then some. There was more he’d done, hurtful, mean things he’d said in his quest to make Charleigh hate him. He had needed her gone, and he was too weak to let her go. So he’d set about making her hate him. And Paul was right there, ready to pick up the pieces.
It didn’t work.
Nothing ever worked.
Not even when she married someone else did Holden stop loving her.
“Why was she at the bar that night with Alison?” Chasin asked.
Hell to the no. Holden wasn’t going there. That might have been the single biggest screw-up of his life. He’d said horrible things to Charleigh that had driven her to seek out Nixon’s then-girlfriend, Alison, who was a conniving bitch. Charleigh got trashed, and by the time Holden had found her to apologize for what he’d said, he saw her and Paul stumbling out of a cab and into her place.
Five hours later Holden watched Paul exit the apartment that at one time he’d shared with Charleigh. His friend—his teammate—had fucked his woman in his own goddamned bed. Though it wasn’t his bed and Charleigh wasn’t his woman by then—he’d thrown it all away.
“Tell me about the pictures.” Holden changed the subject.
With a long-suffering sigh, Chasin answered. “We were sitting on a park bench and Charleigh was crying. One picture is of her head leaning on my shoulder. There’s another of me hugging her, and right before we parted ways, I kissed her on the forehead. All innocent and taken out of context. I was consoling a friend who in a few hours was marrying a man she didn’t love while leaving the man who she did behind.”
Holden knew Chasin was telling the truth. Unlike Paul, Chasin would never touch Charleigh. They’d been close friends. Hell, Charleigh had been close to his whole team. She was friendly and likable. Never nagged or bitched, was always up for a good time. She could hang with the guys and drink beer or sit with the women and gab with them. Everything about Charlotte Axelson was perfect. His Leigh-Leigh, the only woman he’d ever love.
But she wasn’t his—she was Charleigh Towler—Paul’s widow.
“And now, the Towlers are using those to what, prove Charleigh’s an unfit parent?”
Paul’s mom and sister, the White Trash Twins, as Paul not-so-lovingly had called them.
“They’re using the pictures to try to claim the money he left her and Faith. They’re using her move to Maryland to prove she’s unfit,” Chasin explained.
“That’s absurd.”
From everything Holden had seen, Charleigh was a good mother. She loved her daughter and had worked hard to provide a nice home for the two of them. Before they’d moved to Maryland, Charleigh had a nice two-bedroom condo in a decent part of Virginia Beach. She’d had a good job that paid well. All of which she’d given up to move to Maryland after Holden had been shot.
Now she and Faith lived in an okay apartment above a real estate office three blocks from the Gemini Group office. Gone was her view of the beach, her friends, her job, Faith’s school. Charleigh had given up everything and uprooted her family to be closer to him.
All because he’d been shot. A reminder that life was short. Though Holden didn’t think she needed to be reminded. She lived with the knowledge every day. Her husband had been killed in combat before he had a chance to meet his child.
Holden shook that thought away quickly.
“How are we gonna play this?” Holden found himself asking ev
en though he knew he shouldn’t be involved.
“Daley’s digging into Beatrice and Patricia now.”
“Tell him to crawl so far up their asses Charleigh has enough to bury them. This is the third time they’ve pulled this shit. It ends now. Have Daley send me the invoices, I’ll take care of them personally. I want those two bitches leashed and neutralized.”
“Right.” Chasin smiled. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, I don’t want her knowing I’m involved.”
“Holden—”
“Don’t you think I’ve fucked up her life enough? She doesn’t need to know I’m sticking my nose in her business. The last time we had words, it wasn’t pleasant, but I think she understands that there’s no going back, there’s no fixing what I broke.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Chasin admitted. “Though I also know the last time the Towlers pulled their shit, you waded in and fixed that for Charleigh.”
“Obviously, I didn’t do a good enough job because here we are and they’re at it again.”
Holden needed this conversation to be over. He didn’t want to think about his trips down to Virginia Beach, and the latest screwed-up game he and Charleigh had played.
A game that had broken him.
“What else do we have going on this week?” Holden asked as he shuffled through the papers Micky had put on his desk.
Chasin gave Holden an unhappy glare but gave him his play.
“Jonny’s got a case he needs help on. He’ll be in tomorrow. Jameson just left to head to Philly to pick up a bond skip and Weston’s finishing up his latest assignment.”
Holden had been pleased when Weston had literally drawn the short straw and was assigned the job of following a cheating husband. Those were boring as fuck, and by the end of the case, you were put off sex for a good long while. Spying and taking pictures of two people doing the dirty made you wish eye bleach was a real thing.
Being as Holden wasn’t having sex, maybe he should’ve saved Weston and taken the assignment. But then the team would’ve been deprived of hearing Weston’s incessant whining about the old man pumping away at his twenty-years-his-junior side piece.
Nothing like watching old man balls swing with a Viagra erection.
“When’s Weston due back?”
Chasin’s mouth tipped up into a devilish grin. “Around two. I’ll bring the popcorn to the debrief. Old Mr. Thompson’s meeting with his latest piece at eleven. It should be a nice long session. Weston’s gonna be in a fit.”
Chasin wasn’t wrong, Weston would bitch and complain about his afternoon live-action porno shoot. Just what Holden needed—entertainment to get his mind off Charleigh.
And if he was lucky, hearing about Mr. Thompson’s escapades would put him off sex and quell the ever-growing ache Charleigh’s proximity created.
3
“I don’t know, Char. Does that say Barnyard Chic or Farmer Jane?” my client, Lizza Powell, asked.
That was Lizza with two z’s.
Normally, I loved my job. In Virginia Beach, I’d worked for a large event planning company. When I moved to Cliff City, I decided it was time to start my own business. Which had worked out wonderfully. I loved being my own boss, I loved executing my vision and seeing my clients’ faces light up with happiness the day of the big party.
But every once in a while, a Lizza with two z’s came along and made me want to drown myself in a bathtub full of vodka.
I wasn’t sure what Farmer Jane was, and if she called me Char one more time my head was going to explode.
Char.
Like I was a charbroiled meat patty.
I took a deep breath, plastered a fake smile on my face, and tried again.
“Lizza, we could move the party from your barn to the main house, but Sydney’s guest list is nearing a hundred. It’d be a squeeze, but we could make it work.”
“No, no. Syd wants the barn,” Lizza sighed then finally came out with the truth. “I just don’t want people to think we’re poor.”
And there it was, the difference between new money and old money. Lizza and her husband were nouveau riche—they’d recently acquired their wealth and it showed in everything they did. Not only was it nauseating, but it was also exhausting to deal with.
“I can assure you no one will think you’re poor.”
It was becoming increasingly harder to swallow the bitter taste of disdain.
“Maybe we should hang crystal chandeliers.” Lizza pointed to the ceiling.
“You could, and it would certainly be a lovely addition to the voile that will be draped along the rafters. You’ll need to hire an electrician to wire outlets.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Lizza spun in a circle. “I’ll have Stone call someone. That’s what we need. A touch of elegance. Very Martha Stewart.”
“Yes, very,” I agreed and fought the need to roll my eyes.
And for the record, Stone was not Lizza’s husband’s real name. It was Steve, but she called him Stone because it sounded “classier”.
“Perfect. Then I’ll wait to hear from the electrician and adjust the sheets of fabric as needed. Was there anything else you wanted to go over?”
Please God say no.
“You’re sure about the caterer?” she pressed.
“He comes highly recommended and both you and Sydney enjoyed the tasting,” I reminded her.
“Yes, well, I just want to make sure he’s in line with who our friends hire.”
Sweet mother of God, I’m going to strangle this woman.
“Mrs. Goldman from your yacht club recommended him, so I’d say you’re fine on that front.”
“Right. I forgot. I just want everything to be perfect for my girl’s party. You only turn fifteen once.”
Right. This fifty-thousand-dollar party was for a fifteenth birthday, and not even a quinceañera. Totally new money. And the way Lizza went through it they’d be in the poor house sooner rather than later.
“Everything will be perfect,” I promised, then added, “So perfect, no one will be able to stop talking about it.”
“Yes, that’s what I want. The party of the decade.”
Yeah, I knew that’s what she wanted. People like Lizza had zero self-esteem and needed others to stroke their egos. Sadly, she was passing this trait down to her pretty teenage daughter.
Speaking of daughters, I needed to end this meeting and go pick up mine from Jameson and Kennedy Grant’s house.
“I have to get going, Lizza.”
For a moment she looked like she was going to argue, then at the last second thought better of it. It was a Saturday—not only that, the Saturday before Christmas—and she was lucky I’d come out at all to deal with her latest hissy fit.
“Yes, of course.”
No “thank you for coming out” or “I appreciate you dropping everything, finding a sitter for your child” not even a “sorry to bother you on a Saturday”.
Nothing. Pure entitlement.
Annoying.
It had taken nearly the entire drive to Jameson and Kennedy’s for me to put my irritation aside. The only good part about my impromptu meeting was Faith got to spend time with Kennedy. My daughter loved helping Jameson’s wife make jam and honey. Now that it was winter and there was no garden to tend to or wild berries to pick, Kennedy was teaching Faith the art of bread making. Today was sunflower seed bread. Faith would totally love that. My heart constricted at the thought of moving her away from the people she’d bonded with.
I wish she could’ve had this her whole life. Good men to help protect her. Good women to help me guide and teach her. Even Chasin’s fiancée Genevieve was kind to Faith, though it was very obvious she disliked me. But that hadn’t stopped the former country megastar from giving Faith guitar lessons. And Bobby, Genevieve’s best friend, was a riot of laughs and was welcoming and friendly to my girl. Though she was firmly in the I-hate-Charleigh Camp.
As long as they were nice to my daughter, they could hate me a
ll they wanted. I deserved most of their ire. Most—not all. Though I did understand why they’d shifted all the blame from Holden onto me. Holden was theirs; it was natural they’d protect him from an outsider. But part of me did wonder if they knew the whole truth.
You know the saying, ‘there are two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth?’ They only knew Holden’s side and I found it doubtful he’d been forthright.
By the time I pulled into the Grants’ driveway, my heart ached. When would I stop loving Holden? Would there ever be a time when I could move on and not pine for a man who didn’t want me? After all of these years, I still loved him the way I did the first time I saw him. So at this point, it was a good bet I’d die loving him. That thought made me sick to my stomach. Faith would grow up an only child of a single mother, who never taught her how to love a man or be loved by one. She’d grow up without a family. It would always be just her and me.
I hadn’t even exited my car when the front door opened and Tank the giant German Shepherd that Jameson should’ve named Giganto—the dog was that big—came barreling across the yard, Faith’s little legs trying but failing to keep up.
“Mom!” Faith shouted. “Auntie Kennedy’s baby kicked. And I felt it.”
The “auntie” designation was new and I wished with all my heart that I could find joy in my daughter’s closeness with these women. But all it did was grind me to dust. I was going to selfishly yank her away from the first healthy family she’d ever had.
Good God, I’m a horrible mother.
“You did?” Faith came to a skidding halt in front of me, Tank danced around, his tail thumping my thigh with such force I’d be surprised if I didn’t have a bruise. “I see you, Tank.” I reached down and gave his soft fur a rub.
“Can we get a Tank?”
“No, sweets, we live in an apartment.”
“Then can you have a baby in your belly so I can feel it kick all the time?”
Dagger to the heart.
“Nope. I already have my best girl. No more babies for mommy.”
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