“And I’m dating Charlie.” LJ was a little miffed his sister’d made her announcement first.
His parents exchanged glances that told him they’d been wondering. “Son, that’s not a wise idea,” his dad said. “You’re being ruled by hormones.”
He shook his head firmly. “It’s a lot more than that.” After a night’s soul-searching, he knew he had truly fallen for Charlie.
His mom’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t bring that girl into this house.”
No wonder he’d always been a wimp; it was what his parents had taught him to be. He shook his head. “Not until she’s welcome. Mom, Dad, I love you, but I’ve kept quiet too long. You’re narrow-minded and judgmental. It’s wrong. If you don’t change, you’re going to lose me. Maybe Emily as well. Think about that.”
“Lester!” his mother squawked.
He turned and walked out, feeling strong and confident. For the first time in his life.
9
The duvets, sheets, and towels Charlie had ordered online had arrived, and she took a set to the second floor, eager to try them in one of the guest rooms she’d finished painting. She was studying the results, pleased, when the phone rang.
Will yelled, “Charlie, it’s for you.”
“Thanks. I’ll take it up in the suite.”
She hurried upstairs. “Hello?”
“Ms. Coltrane, this is Jeff Mattingly.”
Patty’s lawyer and now hers. A man she’d never met. “Mr. Mattingly?”
“You haven’t come by to pick up your aunt’s things.”
“Can’t you send them to the B&B?”
“I undertook to put them into your hands myself.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I honestly don’t care about them. We weren’t close.”
“There’s a letter.”
Mouthing a silent oh, she sank down on the bed. Why did words have so much power?
Mr. D’s kind ones, LJ’s parents’ scornful ones. LJ’s own. Stay the night. Each night, he asked. Each night it was harder to say no. There was so much between them, spoken and unspoken. Feelings that scared her.
“Ms. Coltrane? Are you still there?”
“All right. I’ll come to your office.” Chances were, she wouldn’t see a soul she knew. Even if she did, it couldn’t be worse than meeting LJ’s parents—and she’d survived that.
Charlie tucked the manila envelope under her arm as she left the lawyer’s office. She’d rip the seal later, alone.
She glanced around. For the first time since she’d arrived last week, she stood in the tourist center of Whistler, the Village Square. She’d always scorned that part of town, where everyone had money for expensive winter clothes and designer coffees.
It hadn’t changed a great deal. Some different shops and restaurants, but the same aura of outdoorsy ritziness. And of course everything was decked out for Christmas. Windows glittered with snowflakes, tinsel, and ornaments. Wreaths and garlands hung from lampposts. Lights twinkled everywhere, wrapping around windows and eaves and twining through trees. Actually, it didn’t look half bad. Thanks to LJ, her view of Christmas had softened.
The snowy street, like others in the core, was closed to traffic. Skiers and boarders strolled down the center of the road, and shoppers browsed along the raised sidewalks, staring into windows and reading menus. She liked how they were so casual and outdoorsy. In downtown Toronto, business attire predominated; in the dead of winter, people traveled underground. The weather was no colder than in Whistler, but the wind whistled down the city streets.
Okay, there were some things not to like about Toronto, but lots to love as well. The city was cosmopolitan, with subcultures of all sorts. She’d found her niche. Found respect.
She set out down the Village Stroll. Earlier, she’d called Sandy, Will’s wife, to say she had an appointment and might be late for their meeting at the Mountain View. Sandy’d told her to come to the boutique where she worked and they’d drive over together.
As Charlie passed a store selling winter clothing, two women emerged with stuffed shopping bags. The strains of “Joy to the World” drifted out with them and she hummed along.
She’d decorated a tree and no one had knocked it down. She’d made love in front of a crackling fire, beside that fragrant, sparkling tree. She’d drunk eggnog that was smooth and spicy, not spiked with hard liquor, and listened to a CD of a children’s choir singing carols.
LJ had given her happy memories to replace the bitter ones.
What did he want from her? He dragged his heels on the renos, seduced her with a Christmas tree and a hot tub, and the way he looked at her…The warmth and hope in his eyes threatened to melt the ice around her heart.
Absently, she raised her hand, slipped it under the scarf wound around her neck, and stroked the tattoo at her nape. The feathers and flowers were each distinct and special, but so intertwined they could never be separated. Just as her friends had been. That was what she wanted. That big, mysterious thing called love. Could she possibly find it with LJ?
Ginger and Jake had been sensitive, patient, gentle. So, surprisingly, was LJ. A science geek, hot tool-belt guy who was sensitive. If it weren’t for his parents—
A passerby jostled her, breaking her train of thought, and she paused to get her bearings.
“Oh!” she sighed. A huge tree rose in one of the village squares, majestic and glowing with lights. Beneath it, three young women wearing red Santa caps with white fur trim stood arm in arm, singing “Silent Night.” A small crowd had gathered, listening reverently.
“Charlie? Charlie Coltrane?” An excited female voice drew her attention.
She saw a perky blonde in a pink and white toque, her pink jacket stretched over a pregnant belly. Charlie tensed. “Melody?” A cheerleader, the girl had dated the local basketball star. As best Charlie could recall, it was the first time they’d ever spoken.
“It is you!” she squealed. “I heard you were back.”
“I bet you did,” she said dryly.
Melody grinned. “Despite hosting the Olympics, we’re still a small town. Wow, Charlie, you look so different.”
Normal, she meant, in jeans and a winter jacket. Charlie had an urge to rip off her jacket and flaunt her dragon, to make some “screw you” quip like she’d have done in the old days. But she remembered what LJ and Mr. D had said, about how she’d never even tried to fit in. Politely, she said, “You look the same. Except for…” She gestured toward the baby bulge.
“Our second. I married Ken. No big surprise, eh? Love of my life, and all that.” Melody was gushing as if they’d been close friends.
Charlie felt as if she’d gone down the rabbit hole. “I’m happy for you.”
“How about you? I heard you live in Toronto? And you have your own tattoo place?”
“The gossip mill at work.” One that expanded the tale with each telling.
A quick grin. “You always gave it good fodder.”
“I suppose I did.” But what she’d secretly longed for was the acceptance of girls like Melody, all pink, perky, and perfect.
“I still remember that mural of the teachers. The one you painted in the gym?” She giggled. “Now I’m a teacher. Grade ten. I often wonder how my kids would caricature me.”
Charlie’s lips twitched, imagining how she’d draw Melody.
“But then, they don’t have half your talent.”
Well, how about that? Melody thought she had talent. She softened the caricature she’d drawn in her head.
The other woman caught her arm. “So, LJ Jacoby’s working for you. Can you believe him? Going from high school nerd to total hottie?”
“He’s still the same guy inside.” Open-minded, observant, sensitive. And too willing to knuckle under to his parents.
“Yeah?” Melody studied her curiously, then her pretty face sobered. “Being a teacher’s made me see how tough high school can be. Especially for kids like you and LJ.”
The other w
oman’s perceptiveness surprised her. “It can.”
Melody squeezed her arm. “I have to run, but if you’re still here in the new year, we should grab coffee.”
As she hurried away, Charlie stared after her. No doubt every word she’d spoken would be relayed via the gossip mill. Still, Melody had seemed more curious and accepting than judgmental. Seemed not everyone was as harsh as LJ’s parents and Joey’s mom.
Could she actually imagine living here rather than in Toronto?
Seated at the kitchen table after the guys and Sandy had gone, Charlie ripped open the law office envelope and spilled out the contents: a small jewelry case and a sealed envelope. She flipped open the case to see conventional, probably expensive, earrings and necklaces as well as a substantial engagement and wedding ring set, then shoved it all aside and opened the envelope. Out fell a letter handwritten on two sheets of heavy cream stationery.
Surprisingly, it was dated two days before her aunt’s death.
Dear Charlotte,
Perhaps I should have persisted in trying to persuade you to come to Whistler so I could speak to you in person, but again I’m taking the coward’s path. I know I did you a serious injury, and I’m sure you won’t forgive me.
Charlie snorted. “You got that right.”
Where to start? How to explain?
Once, your mother and I were best friends. We liked to party and drink, and we liked the wrong kind of boy. She got pregnant with you and married young, to a man much like our own father. It’s a common cycle, the child of an alcoholic marrying one.
Charlie knew that. She knew, too, that her mother’s own alcoholism had been almost inevitable in the circumstances.
When our dad died of cirrhosis and our mom remarried and moved away, I wanted a different kind of life. I got a secretarial job and won the attention of a successful businessman. Not an exciting man, but a good one, and a sober one. I entered a new world, and wanted desperately to belong.
As I became more respectable, your parents…deteriorated. Your mother asked me for money, and at first I gave it to her, in secret. But it went to alcohol. I was facilitating, not helping.
“Oh.” Charlie hadn’t known that, but a memory surfaced. She’d been five or six. Her mom had taken her to the Mountain View. Patty’d hustled them into her office, the women had argued, her mom had cried, then they’d gone home and her mom had got plastered.
And I was endangering my marriage. So, I cut all ties. Yes, he and my new lifestyle were more important to me than my parents, my sister, and you.
There it was, baldly stated. The truth Charlie had grown up with.
When your parents died, I let you down again. I shirked my duty.
Charlie shook her head. If there’d been no love, not even affection, she’d been better off on her own. She hadn’t needed the message reinforced, day after day, that she wasn’t lovable.
That was my sin, my shame, my secret guilt.
Since my husband passed, I’ve reflected on my life and my mistakes. This past July, the doctors told me I’m dying. It’s cancer. Advanced metastatic melanoma, to be precise.
Cancer? But, no one had known she had cancer. The doctor said she died of heart failure.
If it was true, Patty had called Charlie right after being diagnosed. As LJ’d suggested, she had made her will out of guilt. But why start substantial renos? To increase the value of the inheritance? If so, why make Charlie live in the B&B until the work was completed? Confused, she turned back to the letter.
Now, my strength is failing. People will realize I’m ill. I don’t want to inflict this on you, LJ, or anyone else. Besides, the pain is severe, and the medication no longer helps. It’s time to end this.
Forgive me for again taking the coward’s path.
She gaped at the wavery writing. Oh my God. Patty had committed suicide.
The doctor must have known, but he’d protected her reputation.
I am so sorry, Charlotte. I can never erase the wrongs I did to you, but I can try to make things right. I can give you the home I denied you ten years ago. Perhaps it will even bring you the love you were so long denied.
I hope you are a better, braver woman than I, that you can come to terms with your own past, and that you’ll live a happy, regret-free life.
Your Aunt Patty
Carefully, she set the letter down, surprised to find her eyes damp. Yes, her aunt deserved those feelings of guilt, but in the end she’d tried to do the right thing.
An apology, an attempt to right a wrong. Those were satisfying. It would have been hypocritical for Patty to pretend a love she’d never felt for Charlie.
But what did she mean about the Mountain View perhaps bringing her love?
Surely, not…LJ. Patty had contracted with him to do major renos, killed herself before they were done, and said that Charlie had to live in the B&B.
“Charlie?”
She jerked and pressed a hand to her throat, then turned to see him standing by the table in his jeans and jacket. “LJ. You scared me.”
“You were so deep in thought you didn’t hear me.” He sat down beside her and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
She stared at him, still stunned by what Patty had written.
“What’s wrong?”
“My aunt wrote me a letter.”
He glanced down at the sheets in front of her. “Want to talk about it?”
“I…not now.” As much as Patty might have wanted it, the Mountain View didn’t feel homey to Charlie. The place where she felt warm and comfortable was LJ’s house. “Can we go to your place? Cook dinner and sit by the fire?”
An hour and a half later, dinner was done and Charlie had told LJ about her aunt’s cancer. Not her suicide, though. She’d allow her aunt the respectability that had mattered so much to her.
He shook his head in amazement. “I never suspected she had cancer. I feel terrible.”
“And I feel bad for being rude on the phone. But LJ, she didn’t want anyone to know. It was her choice to keep the secret.”
“Are you okay? It must have been pretty emotional.”
“It was. But some questions got answered, and I feel more at peace.” She hadn’t told LJ about Patty wanting to give her the home she’d denied her before, and hoping she might find love. That part still confused her.
He tugged her into his arms. “Peace is good.”
Their lips met, and she sighed. This was what she needed. The warmth and peace LJ gave her. Tonight he’d been supportive, as always, but there’d been something slightly different about him. He seemed more confident, in a quiet way, and it made him even more appealing.
Was she falling in love with him? Could she let herself? Love had never worked out for her before. How could it, with a man who couldn’t even tell his parents he was friends with her?
His lips trailed kisses down her neck, and she arched back to give him better access. The zipper of her top whispered down and his tongue traced the line of her dragon’s head.
The dragon that protected her heart. He hadn’t been doing such a good job.
Or maybe he had. Maybe he was letting her experience something new, the feeling of being cherished and supported, of sharing passion and tenderness, of caring and being cared for. Not love, not real love that lasted forever, but…a trial run.
LJ eased down the neck of her camisole to free her breast, then gently sucked her nipple into his mouth. Sensation pulsed through her, hot and heady. Arousal and caring, mixed together.
She eased away. “Upstairs, in the turret room.” She wanted soft sheets and the ability to move freely, to twist and twine around each other.
Hand in hand they mounted the stairs, and piece by piece, without speaking, they undressed each other until they stood naked in front of the gas fire.
He was so strongly, perfectly male. Aroused, at ease with his nakedness.
He led her over to the bed and they lay side by side, moving together until arms and legs intertwined and
their bodies pressed against each other from chest to thigh. His erection nudged her belly as they kissed in a slow, sensual dance.
“So good, Charlie,” he murmured.
“Mmm-hmm.” Achy arousal hardened her nipples and she rubbed them restlessly against him. Between her legs, another ache spread hot moisture as her body readied itself for what it most craved.
She slipped from his arms and wriggled down the bed, kissing the solid plane of his chest, teasing the hard nub of his nipple, making her way toward an irresistible goal.
Gently she grasped his shaft, smoothing her hand over the resilient skin, stroking up and down as he moaned with pleasure.
He rolled onto his back, giving her better access, and she flicked her long hair across his belly as she bent over him. Delicately, she touched the crown of his cock with her tongue, then laved it in a circular motion that made him jerk in the circle of her hand.
Once, tough-girl Charlie had offered Lester a blow job, trying to prove to both of them she wasn’t vulnerable.
Now, as she sucked him into her mouth and swirled her tongue around him, as she slid her hand up and down his shaft, she didn’t feel tough at all. With LJ, she couldn’t be.
But she couldn’t be vulnerable either. Couldn’t give him the power to break her heart.
She took him deeper, concentrating on the physical sensation. Not allowing anything else. No thought, no emotion, just the moment. Sex, pure, simple, and wonderful.
Her mouth made slurping sounds as she worked him, and she hungrily inhaled the musky scent of his arousal. Heat coiled inside her and she shifted restlessly, thighs squeezing together, body aching with the need to have him fill her up.
He caught a handful of hair and tugged her away. “Together,” he gasped. “I want us to come together.”
Moments later, she was on top of him, riding him, arching so she could take him deep, and deeper still. Her hands gripped his hips, steadying herself, and she closed her eyes, concentrating on the sensations.
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