by Kira Blakely
What was it about her that did this to me?
“Charlie,” I repeated and crossed the distance between us in three huge strides. I took her in my arms and folded her into my chest, inhaled the scent of her hair. Still that same soft rose smell that woke something in me.
I couldn’t explain any of this. I’d been angry the last time I’d seen her, but her tears washed out memories of that.
She had to stop crying. “Charlie, what happened? Are you OK?”
She mumbled something unintelligible. I smoothed fingers over the back of her head and glared at the front entrance of the school.
“I expected to have to ask to see you,” I muttered. “It’s early morning. Why aren’t you working?”
Charlie pulled out of my arms and scrubbed her cheeks.
My mind rushed to all the worst possibilities. That sleaze had cornered her again or she’d been fired or another kid had fallen off the fucking monkey bars. What could it be? She’d been sick last night, run out gripping her stomach. Was that it?
“It’s nothing,” she said and dragged her arms away from me. From my touch. “Don’t worry about it.” She side-stepped and walked past the cars.
I turned and followed her. She wasn’t in any state to be alone.
When did you become this guy? You’re not supposed to care.
I fell into step beside her and we walked in silence, out of the gates and onto the sidewalk, beneath the overhanging branches of trees. Birds chirped and unsettled leaves. We passed stores and headed down the street that led onto Main, still quiet.
If this was what she needed, I’d give it to her. For now.
An urgency swirled in my gut. Something serious had happened, and I had to know what it was.
A Honda cruised past, tires kneading the hot tarmac.
It’d be a scorcher today, all right, but nothing distracted me from my mission. Get Charlie to spill.
“Talk to me,” I said.
She grunted and shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Clearly, something’s bothering you. Tell me what it is.”
Charlie halted mid-stride, outside the General Store, and I stalled a step later. “You don’t have to do this,” she said. “I know we were just a weeklong thing. We made those rules from the beginning.” She winced and pressed a hand to her stomach.
“Are you sick?” I took hold of her elbow, a gentle touch, and she inhaled, sharply.
“No, I’m not sick. I’ve just got some stuff to work through.” Those ocean blue eyes flicked from side-to-side in their sockets as if she’d consider it all now. Work it out.
That was what I liked about her, apart from the obvious—peachy ass and those plump lips. She made plans. She did things for herself. And once she made a decision, she went with it.
“I can’t decide what to do,” she said, softly. “And you don’t help. You being here makes it more difficult.”
“Why?”
“I’m—” She cut off and paled, pressed her fingers to her mouth, stifled a burp.
Fuck it, even her burps were cute. “Charlie?”
She gulped and spoke against her lips. “Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick again.”
“Here,” I said and guided her toward the General Store. I shoved the glass door inward and strode inside. The cashier perked up behind the register and I nodded to her. “Bathroom?”
“We don’t let people use the bathroom,” she said but fluttered long lashes at me. Tina her name badge read. “It’s for staff.”
“That’s a fascinating story,” I replied, “and I’d love to hear all about it later, but right now, I’ve got a woman who’s about to puke, and unless you feel like a cleanup on aisle one, I suggest you let us use the bathroom.”
Tina’s eyelids fluttered again, but this time it was out of confusion. Her gaze took in Charlie, now holding her mouth with both hands, and swung back to me. “Both of you?”
“Now,” I commanded.
She rattled off her stool and rushed around the counter, holding out a bunch of keys. “This way,” she said and shuttled off between two sets of racks. We rushed past bread and eggs, then a line of fridges, and finally, Tina halted in front of a door.
She unlocked it then stepped back, almost as pale as Charlie was at this point.
I guided her inside, kicked the door shut with my heel, then helped her into the only cubicle, green-walled and, thankfully, clean.
“Go,” she managed, against her hand.
“No,” I replied.
I helped her through it all. Held back her hair and stroked the back of her neck, handed her toilet paper to dab, if necessary, and after, I paid for a toothbrush and toothpaste, then brought it back to her.
She swayed in front of the sink, still wan, a thin sheen of sweat on her upper lip. I handed her the toothbrush and she smiled, tight-lipped. “Thanks,” she whispered.
I leaned against the sink and waited for her to finish, studying her, carefully. Stomach bug, apparently. Or stress. Or… nah, that wasn’t possible.
“Are you ready to talk?” I asked.
She spat and washed her mouth out, then washed her new toothbrush. She slipped it into the outer pocket of her handbag and turned to me. “What, was this your idea of an interrogation? You hold back my hair while I puke my guts out, then force me to talk?” She gave a weak chuckle. “You should be a cop.”
“Funny,” I said, “but the topic change didn’t work.” I held out a hand. “Come on, let’s take a walk down to the hot springs. We’ll chat, drink iced tea again. Don’t suppose you’ll want anything to eat.”
She looked sheepish as she scuffled her fingers through her hair. “Actually, I’m kinda hungry, now.”
Not a tummy bug then. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s get some sandwiches here.”
She nodded, and we traipsed out into the store.
Charlie picked out what she wanted, and I grabbed a couple iced teas again. We paid, while Tina eyed her out as if she might throw up again, and finally headed toward our new favorite spot.
How can it be a favorite spot if we’ve only been there once? Stop thinking like this. As soon as you find another job, you’re gone. This town can’t hold you. But maybe Charlie could.
Fuck, I despised this confusion.
Twenty minutes later, we sat down on the grass under the trees near the springs. Steam rose from the surface of the water, but nobody was down here today. It was way too hot to take a dip in the pools.
I reached into our brown paper shopping bag and brought out the iced teas, a couple sandwiches, and a box of donuts. We opened everything up, and Charlie tucked into it all with a vengeance.
“Did that donut do something to you?” I asked.
She looked up, a blotch of cream on her nose, and grinned. “Sorry, I’ve been stressed lately, and this is how I deal with it, apparently.” Charlie patted her hip. “I guess we should talk. I was so shocked last night, I didn’t get a chance to tell you what I—”
“Hold on,” I said and swiped the cream from her nose. “You missed some.”
She grinned, then took my finger between her lips and sucked lightly. She released it, immediately.
Likely, she hadn’t meant it to turn me on, but god damn, if my dick didn’t fucking roll over in my jeans.
“So, you were telling me about what happened today,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” She lowered the donut and placed it back in the box, half-eaten.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. I—you don’t want to know why I was at your mom’s house last night?”
I had wanted to know, but whatever had made her cry was more important. “Not right now,” I said. “You were crying.”
“It was a moment of weakness,” she said and shook her head, even as tears brimmed in her eyes again. “Stupid. This is all so stupid.”
“Explain.”
“I was almost fired today.”
“Why
?” I asked. Already, anger zipped through my veins, and I tensed up. “What happened?”
“It was Greg,” she said. “You know, the guy—the one who you saw that day?”
She didn’t have to finish the thought to get the idea across. Charlie was stiff all over, now, staring out at the steam rising from the water. A leaf drifted from the heavens and landed in her hair. I swept it out and she flinched.
“What did he do?” I grunted. Relax, he’s not here.
That didn’t technically help, though. I wasn’t a fucking beast, but I’d been around. I’d had my rough teenage years. I’d rebelled against my asshole dad and learned that punching got a message across pretty effectively.
The Doctor Pope of today was a life-giver not a taker, but moments like these brought me right back to dark nights and the crack of my knuckles against someone’s jaw.
“Charlie,” I said, “what did he do?”
“Your eyes have gone dark. Please, Houston, it’s fine. There’s nothing—”
“I can’t protect you if you won’t let me.”
“Protect me!”
“Yes.” Christ, that sounded dumb even to my ears, but it was out now, and fuck it. So what. She was the first woman I’d slept with in years. Had I gone soft in my “old” age?
“You don’t need to protect me, Houston,” she said. “I’m not fragile. Greg’s a bully, that’s all.”
“Start from the beginning,” I said.
“Only if you promise to stop staring at me like you’re going to pop his head clean off his shoulders next time you see him. He’s not worth it,” she said. It sounded good from her lips.
“I won’t pop him like a champagne bottle. Swear to god.” I made no promises about clocking the fucker, though.
“All right,” she said and inhaled. Her breasts pressed against the light fabric of her sleeveless blouse. “He came back a second time. He told me that he’d report me if I didn’t do what he wanted basically, and his wife walked in when he had his arms around me.”
I lurched to my feet.
“Houston!”
“Where does he live?” I asked.
“No, I’m not telling you.”
“I’ll teach him a fucking lesson.”
“That won’t help. None of this helps,” she said and pressed her hands to her eyes. “God, this is such a mess. You promised, OK? You promised.”
“Tell me you went to the cops.” I paced back and forth in front of her, the cusp of the pool a couple feet behind me, heat rising fast. “Charlie, tell me you reported him.”
“I didn’t. I was scared he’d have it squashed. He’s some big-time business dude or a broker or, I don’t know. He’s got connections. It was his word against mine.”
“But the wife saw,” I replied and quit moving.
“She believes that I seduced him and that I’m the witch in all of this. Jenny’s got a screw loose. No, that’s not it, she’s convinced that her husband is a victim because she can’t admit that he’s a scumbag. She thinks it reflects badly on her that she can’t keep him “satisfied” or whatever.”
“Jesus, that’s so fucking Stepford and weird.”
“I know,” she said. “And that’s why I was almost fired today. I’m on my final warning, and Greg won’t be allowed back on school premises while I’m teaching his son. See? It’s not so bad. I was overwhelmed this morning, that’s all.”
“No so bad?” I asked. “It’s fucking shocking. Charlie, you deserve so much better than this.”
She raised her gaze to mine. “All I want is peace and quiet, and—” She didn’t have to say the last because it was written all over her face, in the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes.
Me. She wanted me.
Chapter 19
Charlie
Houston stood there, backed by steam and natural beauty, and encompassing everything I’d fantasized over in the last few weeks. His soft, brown hair, swept to one side, his steel-gray eyes glinting in the early afternoon light. So large and so real in his jeans and plain white tee.
Surely, Summit Springs couldn’t hold him. And I certainly couldn’t either.
“This isn’t over,” he said.
My heart leaped. “What isn’t?”
“We’re going to the cops,” he said, dominating the space underneath the canopy. Gosh, did he have to own everything with his presence? He was so confident, so sure. That had to be nice. I wasn’t a wilting daisy, but Houston was so ballsy.
“I don’t think that will make a difference,” I replied. “He’s got too much influence.”
“So do I,” he replied and raised an eyebrow. “I won’t let this happen to you again, Charlie.”
“It’s not your place to let anything happen.” I stiffened. “This is my choice. It’s my experience. Come on, Houston, this is a small town. What do you think’s going to happen if I accuse this super popular dude of harassment? People are going to take sides, and that’s just going to make everything worse. It’s going to make it difficult for me to do this job.”
“Fuck,” he said and ran his hand through his hair, tugged on it. “Fuck, this is bullshit.” He strode to my side and lowered himself to the grass, then grabbed his tall can of iced tea. He popped the tab and tossed back some of the fluid.
Finally, he put the bottle down and turned to me. “I know what this is like for you, believe it or not. Not in exactly the same way, but similar. I know what it’s like to have someone take advantage of you because of your position, though what you’ve experienced is way worse.”
“Way worse than what?’ I asked and studied him in the dappled light. There were tiny hairs at the base of his hairline, little ones that looked almost downy, and below them was a single mole, almost a beauty mark, on the back of his neck.
He shifted his focus to the pool of water again, shook his head, and sighed. “Fuck it. I haven’t spoken about this in an age.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. Tell me. I want to know you.
“It’s time I talk about it. Shit, I haven’t spoken to anyone about it since it happened. I told my mother and that was fucking it.”
That shouldn’t have made me feel special, but it did.
“You met me after it happened,” he said. “Like a couple months after. It’s the reason this job in Alaska was so important to me. Six months ago, I was on top of the fucking world. I had the job of my dreams, working in Northeastern Memorial Hospital. I helped hundreds, if not more, women deliver their baby sons and daughters into this world.” Each sentence was clipped and tight, preceding whatever negativity was about to fall from his lips.
“What happened?” I asked.
His expression darkened, and he shifted on his patch of grass. His hands twitched and he settled them on his thighs, patted his jeans in an arbitrary rhythm. “Mrs. Janine Belfonte happened.”
“OK? Was she an ex? Wait, Mrs. Belfonte?”
“Yeah, Mrs. Belfonte,” he replied. “And she wasn’t an ex. She was a fucking wreck from the minute she walked into my office and asked for prenatal meds and a sonogram. Whiny and demanding. I advised her to get a C-section because her baby was in breach, but she refused. Wanted to give birth naturally.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “Why would that affect your career?” I gasped. “Oh god, did the baby… Is the baby all right?”
“Oh, yeah, little Trevor came out whole and happy as a piggy in mud. I’ve never lost a child, and I never will,” he said.
My heart tha-thumped again. At this rate, I’d wind up dying of cardiac arrest. He had me all over the place, hot and cold, and scared and happy. “So, what gives? You said someone took advantage of you?”
“In a way. Mrs. Belfonte had a problem, see? She had a husband who was a son of a bitch, and a brother-in-law whom she’d fallen in love with. The baby came out and the father, who’d obviously had his suspicions for a while, demanded a paternity test.” He chortled—a laugh that held no mirth whatsoever. “That didn’t g
o down well. Mrs. Belfonte threw a mini-tantrum. The brother-in-law came to the hospital, there was a ruckus, and that was when it happened. Dear Mrs. Belfonte accused me of being the father of her baby. She said I took advantage of her on a previous checkup and that the baby was mine.”
“What?!” Shock stuttered through my arms and legs, then whacked me upside the head. “Are you kidding? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he replied. “But it was enough for the father to lose his mind. He charged at me, tackled me in the hall, and proceeded to try—and I mean try because he didn’t get far—to beat me.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I lost control of the situation. I detained him, basically. Pinned his arms behind his back and held him until the cops arrived, but not before I punched him. Twice. Broken nose, shiner on the eye.” He inhaled. “I lost control. Fuck, it feels like shit to say it. I’m lucky I wasn’t fucking sued, that it was counted as self-defense.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Regardless, it was a scandal for the hospital. I was already on thin ice with them,” Houston said and turned a hot gaze on me, filled with ire and something I couldn’t quite place. Was it regret? “I’m not exactly the easiest guy to get along with, and I was nearing the end of my contract with them anyway.”
“I didn’t notice,” I said. “You’ve always been amazing with me.”
“That’s just you.” He took my hand. “You bring it out in me, Charlie. It’s a first for me.”
Now. I can tell him now. No, definitely not. That woman accused him of being the father of her child, and he lost everything. What would it look like if I told him I was pregnant?
“But surely,” I said and cleared my throat to distract myself from the confused thoughts racing through my mind, “surely, you can find another job. I mean, that was a one-off. It’s not like you were sued for malpractice or something. You’re still a good doctor.”
“Let’s just say, word got around quick. People don’t want an asshole on staff, no matter how brilliant he is, and the punch-up was a crowning glory. The final fuck you, Dr. Pope.” He squeezed my fingers gently. “Alaska was a one-off opportunity. My buddy got the job offer for me, and now that’s gone, too.”