“That sounds awesome!” Olivia’s ponytail was still damp and left a wet mark on her blue shirt.
“We should have packed another change of clothes for you. Let’s go sit in the sun to dry off, and you can call your brother.”
They walked down to the dock and Olivia took out her cellphone.
“I’m at the camp with Charlie. We went swimming and I’m having dinner with her at the lodge.”
Charlie cringed. “You should ask and not tell,” she whispered.
“Um, I don’t know. You can talk to her if you want.” She held out the phone to Charlie.
She took it and chewed her lip before speaking. The last thing she wanted was for Owen to think she was pressuring him into... anything.
“Hi. So, yeah. As you heard, I have Olivia with me.”
Silence. Not good. Finally, he spoke. “How did she get there?”
The tension in his voice told her he wasn’t too happy about the situation. It was either distract him with sex or humor. Glancing at the curious eleven-year-old glued to her side, she opted for humor. “Hijacked a pickup and drove herself.”
“Charlie.”
“Hitchhiked?” Silence. He’d been private about his mother and the diner, for whatever reason, and she had a feeling learning about her working there for two days wasn’t going to go over well. “I was with her at the diner and brought her here when it closed.”
“You had lunch there?”
“And breakfast.”
“Why?”
“Your mom needed help. Al broke his hip and June is taking care of them. I offered to lend a hand for a few days.” For the rest of the week until camp started again.
“Can I stay for dinner?” Olivia tugged at her shirt.
“I’m on my way.” He hung up, leaving Charlie feeling like she’d done something bad.
Something very, very bad.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Owen worked his ass off all week so he’d have time to spend with Charlie. He hadn’t texted or called her about it, not wanting to sound desperate. And desperate he was.
To see her. To touch her. To kiss her.
And then she pulled a stunt like this. The Black Fly Diner was a hard line she crossed, even if she didn’t know it was a line. She was observant to pick up on his change of topic anytime she brought up his mom, the diner, or anything to do with his past.
All it took was five minutes on the phone with his mother to learn about how Charlie had come in to save the day working alongside them in the rundown diner. Nellie McDougall wasn’t one to dole out compliments, yet she had plenty for Charlie.
God only knew how much information Charlie got out of his mother. How many personal questions about their past she managed to discover. No one, no friend, no employee, no girlfriend had ever been introduced to her or had ever learned about his connection to the Black Fly Diner.
Until now.
Taking the curvy road too fast, he applied pressure to the brake as he neared the camp. While he appreciated her building a connection with Olivia, she’d over-stepped this time. Slamming his truck into park, he jumped out and stormed his way to the lodge.
Not even the smell of roasted chicken and garlic could ease the steam coming from his ears. With clenched fists, he stormed into the kitchen where he broke up the laughter between Oliva and Charlie.
“Liv. Get in the truck.”
“What? Why?” She held two salad tongs in her hands and was tossing the lettuce and tomatoes.
“Get in the truck.” He raised an eyebrow and not his voice. She knew the tone and didn’t argue again.
She gave Charlie a hug and untied her apron. “I’ll see you in the morning.” When she walked past him, she muttered, “Grouch.”
Yeah, he was.
“She was excited for the dinner she cooked. We made chicken pot pie.”
“You have no right.” He gritted his teeth and forced himself to look into her eyes, to show her he meant business. “If I wanted you to be part of my family, I would have brought you to the diner. Stay away from it and my mother.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to do it, but it was safer for his heart this way. “And Liv. You can’t fix us or yourself by prying yourself into our family. Stay away.”
He spun on his heels feeling like the biggest asshole he’d ever met and forced himself to not flip out at Liv when he got to the truck.
They drove in silence. She sulked on the far end of her seat with her arms crossed and her back to him. To try to make amends, he pulled into McDonalds. Even then, she didn’t budge. “Would you rather go through the drive-thru?”
“I’d rather have chicken pot pie.”
“We can pick one up at the store.”
“I’d rather have one I made.”
“We can get the ingredients.”
“Why couldn’t we eat dinner with Charlie? You’re so unfair. All you want to do is work and be mean to me. Why can’t we ever have any fun? I like living with Charlie and Gina and Brooke better than with you.”
Ouch. Way to hit him where it hurt most. He reached back to tug at his hair, quickly remembering he’d had it cut the other day. His hair had gotten so long he’d considered tying it back with one of those elastics Liv used in her hair.
Then he’d remembered Charlie’s parents’ repulsion at the site of him. His longish hair not respectable enough for their daughter. Not that their opinion of him mattered. They were hateful people. Still, he’d wondered if Charlie thought him too unkempt to consider boyfriend material, so he’d had it cut. Not too short, but not long enough where it got in his eyes, or where it curled up under his baseball caps.
“Peanut, it’s complicated. The truth is,” he turned off the truck and faced her, “the truth is, we’ve—you’ve been spending a lot of time at the camp and they have a job to do. Charlie shouldn’t be working at the diner when she has hundreds of kids and camp counselors to cook for. It was unfair for Mom to take advantage of her.”
And not even pay her, he’d learned. He’d send Charlie a check next week to cover the hours she put in. Sixteen according to his mom, and there would have been two more nine-hour workdays coming up if he hadn’t told his mom Charlie couldn’t come in again.
She’d asked if Charlie was his girlfriend and he’d steered the conversation to Liv. Then she guessed Charlie was his ex-girlfriend, which was why he didn’t want her working there.
How completely wrong she’d been. He wanted Charlie to be his girlfriend, which was why she needed to stay far, far away from the diner. Or more importantly, his mother. And him.
“Charlie liked working with us. She even told me so while we were floating in tubes on the water.”
“I’m sure she’s being polite, Liv. Working at the diner isn’t her job. She already has one.”
“Whatever.” She opened her door the second he pulled into a spot in front of McDonalds and jumped out.
The teenage attitude struck early in the McDougall genes. No matter how hard he tried to protect her, Liv refused to live in a bubble.
They ordered their meals and ate in relative silence. From their table, not a word. The screaming toddlers and frustrated parents around them didn’t give them much of an opportunity to have a real conversation anyway.
They threw their trash away and when they got back into the truck, he told her she was staying at his place tonight.
“Don’t I even get a choice?”
“You love staying at my house.”
“Not when you’re being mean.”
It was the first time he could remember her not greeting him with her signature hug. Taking her away from the meal she’d worked on with Charlie without any explanation may not have been his best parenting move.
And that was the crux of it all. Owen wasn’t a parent. He wasn’t fit to be one, not with the role models he grew up with.
The day he showed up to second grade with a black eye, was the first time he’d been aware of his living conditions. Bef
ore that, he didn’t realize how poor they were. Or realized having a dad who slapped you around because you forgot to empty the garbage or because you didn’t have dinner on the table when he stumbled in drunk at ten o’clock at night.
When he’d gone to his friend Billy’s house for a birthday party and saw how his parents interacted, and how Billy’s dad didn’t hit him when he spilled his red fruit punch on the kitchen floor, he slowly realized the differences in their families.
When he started middle school and the other kids made fun of his cheap, outdated clothes from second-hand stores, he became aware of his poverty.
When Lucas and Ryan Wentworth made jokes in the cafeteria about the black flies they found in their food, he no longer talked about his family’s diner.
In high school, he hung out with the crowd who didn’t care where he came from. The crowd who only cared who could get the booze, the drugs. Who could convince the girls to come out and party with them.
He was seventeen years old the last time his father beat him. They were both drunk. His father found out Owen had taken his last case of beer and his bottle of whiskey. They wrestled in the living room breaking a mirror and two lamps while his mother cried from the kitchen.
Owen was on the floor, his father sitting on top of him, punching his face over and over again. Owen got in one blow that knocked his father on his ass. If he hadn’t been so drunk, he probably wouldn’t have fallen over and hit his head on the coffee table.
Instead of checking on her bleeding and bruised son, his mother ran to his father, asking him if he was okay. All he got was a stern warning from her. “You shouldn’t have taken your father’s alcohol.”
After that night, he cut back just enough on his drinking so he wouldn’t come home too drunk to defend himself. And he started working out at the school gym. Never again would he let his father lay a hand on him.
A few months after the brawl in the living room, Owen came home from a party and heard his mother’s cries from her bedroom, and then a crash. He forced his way into the room and found her cowering in the corner with her hands over her head.
“Leave her alone.”
“Shut the hell up you little bastard.” His father had stepped toward him, fists raised.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Owen had puffed out his chest, still a tall, thin teenager, but stronger now. His father was overweight and drunk and no match for him this night. Something in Owen’s eyes must have scared him off.
“I can’t believe I live with pansy asses. You two girls can go rot in hell.”
He’d stormed out of the trailer, and Owen remembered hoping his father would find his way around a telephone pole. They lived in relative peace for five weeks before he returned. He did that a lot. Took off for weeks, sometimes months at a time, draining the bank account.
The diner barely paid the bills, and Owen found himself waiting tables and working the fryer when his mom was short-handed. It wasn’t until four years later when his father had beaten his mother to nearly an inch of her life, he’d finally been arrested.
The following months were the most peaceful he’d ever had at home.
Until his mother found out she was pregnant. During Roger’s six years in jail, Owen vowed to keep his mother and sister safe. After his release, Owen started noticing subtle changes in his mother.
She’d forget about Liv at school. Stay out at night late and stumble into work tired and cranky. When Owen reprimanded her for leaving Liv alone, she’d bring her to work.
Part of him wanted to believe his mother would change, that she’d be the parent to Liv that she never was for Owen.
Eleven years later and nothing had changed.
Owen turned on the living room lights and called out to his sister before she disappeared into her room. “I’m sorry about dinner tonight, Liv. I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”
He wasn’t sure how. He wasn’t sure when.
And he had another apology to make as well. This one would take even longer. Again, he wasn’t sure how and he wasn’t sure when. But Charlie deserved one.
It took thirty seconds overhearing the phone call with her mother, and another ten seconds in her parents’ company to realize the upper-class had as many problems as the lower class. It didn’t hide the shame he had from his parentage. He still didn’t want Charlie to be exposed to the abuse and neglect from his past. It was supposed to be about sex, not a relationship. They weren’t supposed to get tangled up in family matters or emotions.
He’d accused Charlie of crossing the line, but he was the one who toed over it first. Asking to accompany her to make her speech that didn’t happen, then holding her and distracting her from her tears. He let it happen, and now he had to clean up the mess he made.
But he feared there was no apology big enough to excuse how cruel he’d been to her tonight.
ELEVEN FREAKING DAYS and not a peep from Owen. Charlie wiped down the last table in the lodge and plopped down on the bench. This weekend was a whole new kind of exhausting. Deaf children were incredibly sweet and fun, but not being able to communicate with them was hard. Harder on them than on her, for sure. There were plenty of interpreters scattered around, but it did slow the process with them in the kitchen.
The camp brought her joy. Exhausted joy, and she was ready for a break. Only three more hours and she’d have a stretch of five days to rest and recover. Her phone chimed and she read the text.
Olivia.
She’d received daily texts from her and not once had Charlie asked about Owen. The last thing she wanted to do was put the little girl in the middle of the drama.
Besides, Owen had made it pretty clear he wanted her to stay far away from his family. If he knew about the texts from Olivia, she’d have heard about it by now. The man had serious baggage, maybe more than Charlie.
Nope. Not possible. She pocketed her phone determined not to reply instantly to her. Hopefully over time Olivia would forget about Charlie and make more friends her own age. It’s what Owen had wanted from the very beginning.
They’d gone from innocent flirting for nearly a year to her becoming a friend finder for his sister, to sex buddies, to the black plague. While his expressions changed as quickly as the Maine weather, she could always read his reluctance to talk about his family.
Nellie seemed... nice. Not exactly motherly toward her daughter though. Charlie could understand why Owen stepped in and nurtured his sister as much as he did. There was some serious maternal affection missing.
The way Olivia and her mother talked to each other at the diner, it sounded more like employer to employee. It would be one thing if her daughter was older, but eleven?
Noises from outside brought her attention back to work. A few of the campers were already picked up, and a handful weren’t leaving until three. They were promised one last canoe trip around the pond and Charlie was being beckoned from below.
Tossing the dish rag in the kitchen, she hurried out the door and down the steps focusing on the kids climbing into the canoes.
“Charlie.”
She closed her eyes and froze. His deep voice came from behind her. Eleven days weren’t enough to figure out how to handle seeing Owen again. Clearing her throat from the nerves building deep inside, she plastered on a smile and spun around.
“Owen. Nice to see you. I’d stay and chat but duty calls.” She clicked her tongue and took long strides down to the water.
“Do you have a minute?” he asked at her heels.
“No. Not really. I wouldn’t want to interfere with your family. You should probably go.”
Lisa and Avery were already buckled into their life vests and sitting in the middle and front spots of the canoe. Two other eight-year-olds were in the next canoe with Gina at the helm, and the three interpreters were buckling into their vests on the other side of the dock.
They’d already gone over the instructions since it wasn’t like they could call out which way to paddle. If she tapped the r
ight side of the canoe, it meant the girls needed to paddle on the right. Tapping the left indicated the left. If she needed them to stop paddling, she was to tap her foot three times on the bottom of the canoe.
“Charlie,” he growled behind her.
She ignored him. It was either that or kick him in the nuts or run into his arms. Neither was a wise option.
“What’s going on?” Brooke tossed a glance over her shoulder and furrowed her brow as she studied Owen.
“Nothing. I’ll take that.” She grabbed the oar and stepped into the canoe, steadying herself so she didn’t tip her and the girls over. She watched as Jacklyn interpreted from her canoe.
“You remember the cues?” she spoke as she signed.
The girls nodded and turned back to smile at Charlie. She mustered up the courage to keep moving.
Using the oar, she pushed off from the sandy bottom ignoring Owen’s plea for her to stay. The canoe and the pond were quiet with the only sounds coming from the gentle splash from the oars. Or rather, sloppy splashes. The girls weren’t in sync with each other, but it didn’t matter.
She heard the other canoe as it got closer, and then his voice.
“Charlie, I need to apologize.”
No, he didn’t. One quick glance over her shoulder told her he did. The jerk was in Gina’s canoe. He paddled like a fiend to catch up as Ana and Shannon sat oblivious to their hijacker in the back.
She tapped the left side of her canoe and paddled faster. It was no use. Lisa and Avery were adorable girls, but coordination and athleticism were not in their genes.
Her arms grew tired as the tip of his green canoe came into view right beside her. The girls noticed each other and all four stopped paddling to sign to each other. Giving up, she laid her oar across her lap as Owen grabbed ahold of her canoe keeping them side-by-side.
“I came to apologize.”
“In case you didn’t notice, I’m a little busy right now. Working. I stayed out of your life, now you can stay out of mine.”
A Thousand Sunsets (Band of Sisters) Page 18