Ain't She Sweet

by Marie Force

  “Good to know someone would’ve.”

  “I’m not the only one. I wish you could’ve seen him that day, Charl. He was like a pent-up panther on the prowl waiting to hear you were going to be okay.”

  Ella didn’t need to use names for Charley to know who she referred to.

  “I hadn’t seen him like that before,” Ella continued. “He’s always so polished and put together and calm. He was a mess, and he was anything but calm. I thought he was going to rip the nurse’s head off when she kept telling him he needed to relax and wait for the doctor.”

  Charley’s skin prickled with that now-familiar feeling of hyperawareness at hearing how Tyler had reacted to her accident.

  “Landon and Lucas tried talking to him, but he shook them off. He shook us all off until he finally got to see you, and then—and only then—did he relax ever so slightly. But he was still on edge. A guy like that, who cares about you the way he does . . . That doesn’t come along every day, Charley.”

  She was too undone by the picture Ella painted to formulate a reply.

  “Now, if you don’t feel the same way he does, that’s another story altogether. You’re absolutely right not to string him along. But I think you do care. I think you care more than you want to, maybe more than you have before, and that scares the hell out of you. I know that feeling. I’ve been where you are, and I know how frightening it can be to want something so badly. That kind of want makes us vulnerable to getting hurt.”

  Charley was having trouble getting air to her lungs as Ella zeroed in on the heart of the matter.

  “But if you don’t take a risk, Charley, you may miss out on the most wonderful thing to ever happen to you.”

  Charley had to force words past the tightness in her throat. “What would you do if you found out that Gavin wasn’t what you thought? That he’d deceived you in some way, made you think things that weren’t true.”

  Ella stared at her, seeming dumbfounded. “I’d be demolished and shocked and . . . I don’t know. I can’t bear to think about such a thing. Are you afraid of that with Tyler?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Sometimes things don’t work out. That’s all.”

  “That’s very true, but sometimes they work out perfectly.”

  “More often than not, though, they don’t.”

  “There aren’t any guarantees. But you have to have faith that the person you’ve chosen to be with will do the right thing.”

  Faith. Michael had shaken hers to the core, and she hadn’t gotten over what he’d done. She could see that now in the context of her “situation” with Tyler.

  Just as she had the thought, she heard his distinctive deep voice in the outer office, and her heart lurched at knowing he was close by. She rubbed her chest, as if that could stop the emotional reaction from occurring almost against her will.

  “Thanks for this, El. It helped.”

  “You know where I am if you need me.”

  Charley nodded, her heart beating fast as her urge to flee did battle with the powerful desire to see him again.

  Ella scooted out of the office, leaving the door open. Because Charley didn’t know what else to do with her sweaty hands, she returned to her work while trying not to listen to his conversation with one of her brothers.

  —

  Outside her office, Tyler found Charley typing away on the computer, her brows knit with concentration. Here was yet another facet of his dream girl, and he drank in the sight of her hard at work. Her fingers flew over the keyboard in a pattern that made sense only to her, and her lips moved as she typed.

  Adorable. Sexy. Smart.

  He knocked on the door frame.

  “Oh hey,” she said, her face softening at the sight of him—or was that wishful thinking on his part? “How long have you been there?”

  “A minute. Maybe two.”

  “Stalker perv.”

  “You’re sexy when you type. But then again, you’re sexy when you breathe.”

  “Not here,” she said through gritted teeth. “If one of my siblings hears you saying stuff like that, I’ll be subjected to a lifetime of harassment.”

  “I’ll try to behave.”

  “Do that.”

  “You ready for lunch?”

  “Almost. I had to clean up a mess Will made in my inventory system.”

  “Do you have a laptop you could bring with you to work from home?”

  “I don’t have one, but maybe I could borrow Hunter’s.”

  “You’re welcome to one of mine if you can log in to the system remotely.”

  “I can. That would help, actually. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind, Charley.”

  He’d give her the moon on a silver platter if only she’d let him.

  “Let’s go, then,” she said, shutting down her computer.

  Tyler took her coat off the hook behind the door and held it for her. Then he put her hat on her head and tied the scarf around her neck.

  “Nothing wrong with my hands, you know,” she said with a spark of humor in her gorgeous eyes.

  “I like taking care of you.”

  She had nothing to say to that and shifted her gaze away from his to head out the door. He matched his stride to hers as they moved slowly through the office, which was now largely deserted.

  “Heading out, Charley?” Mary asked when they reached the reception desk.

  “For now, but I’ll be working from home if anyone needs me.”

  Tyler withdrew a business card from his wallet and handed it to Mary. “The phone number is on there. Feel free to share it with the others if they need to reach Charley.”

  Mary smiled up at him. “I’ll do that. Thank you. Hope you continue to feel better, Charley.”

  “Me, too. I’m ready to get back to normal.”

  Her words struck a note of fear in him. The last thing he wanted was to return to the normal he’d known before she’d come to stay with him. Hell, he wanted her to stay forever, but in light of their temporary arrangement, he had to keep such thoughts to himself.

  “Ready for a lift?” he asked at the top of the stairs.

  She nodded, but he could sense her reluctance. His fiercely independent Charley hated being reliant on anyone for anything.

  In what had become a familiar routine, Tyler picked her up, taking pains to protect her knee. “Hold on tight.” As he started down the stairs, he caught her rolling her eyes at his shamelessness. But her arms tightened around his neck just the same, and he had to remind himself that this wasn’t the time or the place to take a taste of her long, elegant neck.

  “Should we go across the street while we’re at it?”

  “As long as you put me down before we go inside the diner, that’s fine.”

  “Will do.”

  He carried her around to the front of the store and came to a halt at the sight of Fred the moose meandering down the middle of Elm Street as if he had all the time in the world. People and cars had come to a stop to let him pass, which led to half the town taking notice of Tyler carrying Charley.

  That would set tongues to wagging if they weren’t already. He had no doubt that it was all over Butler that she was staying with him. For his part, he couldn’t care less if the town was abuzz over them, but she wouldn’t like it.

  Fred strolled past them, letting out a loud moo as he went.

  Though Fred wouldn’t hurt a flea, Tyler experienced a rush of protective adrenaline go through him as the large moose went by. He would, he realized, wrestle a moose if it meant keeping Charley safe from harm.

  “Thank God Fred has reemerged,” Charley said. “I’ll have to make sure to let Hannah know he’s been sighted. She was threatening to go looking for him because no one has seen him in a while.�
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  “I’m trying to picture Hannah in the woods hunting for Fred.”

  “Now picture Nolan flipping his lid and them having a big fight over it.”

  “I can only imagine,” Tyler said, chuckling.

  When Fred had gone by, Tyler crossed the street to the diner and put Charley down outside, per her wishes. Following her up the small set of stairs, he hung back, prepared to catch her if need be. But she managed fine on her own, and he tried not to see that as a metaphor.

  Everything with her felt so perilous. It had from that first day on the mountain when she’d disappeared from the trail. He’d been off balance ever since, trying to make sense of what she made him feel while navigating the obstacle course that surrounded her well-guarded heart.

  Tyler helped her out of her coat and put it with his on a hook inside the door. They settled in the first open booth while everyone in the crowded diner took note of their arrival, which Charley couldn’t see because her back was to most of the tables.

  “Are they all looking at us?” she asked in that quiet tone she reserved for when she was uncertain.

  Tyler helped her prop her leg on his side of the booth. “Not all of them.”

  “Hey, guys,” Megan said as she came over with glasses of ice water. “This is a nice surprise. You’re feeling better, Charley?”

  “Better every day. How’re you? I’m surprised you’re working this week.”

  Megan’s pretty face lit up with happiness. “I’m taking Friday off at Hunter’s insistence.”

  “You wild child,” Charley said, teasing her future sister-in-law.

  “I feel like a wild child. I’m going to be off the week after Christmas, too, for our honeymoon. My sister is staying to help Butch while I’m gone.”

  “Where’re you guys going?” Tyler asked.

  “Bermuda. We wanted somewhere warm but close so we don’t have to spend two days traveling to get there.”

  “Bermuda is beautiful,” he said. “You’ll love it.”

  “I’m looking forward to it. Do you need menus?”

  “I don’t,” Charley said.

  “You’re having your usual then?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll have what she’s having,” Tyler said.

  “Coming right up.”

  “You’ve been to Bermuda?” Charley asked when they were alone.

  “Uh-huh.” He hardly wanted to talk about a trip he’d once taken with an ex-girlfriend.

  “Are people still looking?”

  Tyler glanced around her shoulder. “Not really. Does it bother you that they know about us?”

  “It would bother me if they start jumping to conclusions because we have lunch together at the diner.”

  “Yeah, because that would truly suck,” he said with more bitterness than he’d intended.

  “I don’t want to have to explain anything. After.”

  In that moment, he realized she still planned to break up with him as soon as she possibly could. The thought left him deflated. “If you’d rather not do what we agreed to last night, you don’t have to wait until New Year’s Day to say so.”

  “Have you changed your mind?”

  “Not at all, but if you have—”

  “I haven’t. I haven’t changed my mind about anything.”

  Her meaning was received loud and clear. She still wanted to have a couple of weeks with him, and she still intended to leave him when that time was up.

  Their lunch arrived, and they ate in uneasy silence—at least it was uneasy for him. The precarious nature of their arrangement reminded him too much of the day of her accident when things had been so uncertain. This wasn’t all that different, really. That day her life had been on the line. Now he felt like his was. Regardless of all the time they’d spent together, and after the deep physical and emotional connection they’d shared last night, he was no closer to convincing her that he could be what she needed for a lot longer than the next sixteen days.

  Somehow he managed to eat most of his turkey club and a few fries while Charley devoured her lunch, apparently unaffected by the disquiet that plagued him.

  When they were finished, he paid their check and got their coats.

  Megan waved to them on their way out.

  On the sidewalk, he said, “Do you want me to give you a lift or go get the car and pick you up?”

  “Save your back and go get the car.”

  “All right.”

  Disappointed to not get to hold her again, he jogged across the street to get the Range Rover where he’d left it behind the store. He’d known from the start that winning her over would be an uphill battle. After losing himself in her sweet body, he wanted her more than he had before. If only he could figure out what was going on inside her head. Then maybe he’d know how best to proceed.

  CHAPTER 17

  When I take a risk, I like it to be a calculated risk, meaning I make it as small as possible.

  —David Green

  Elated after the doctor declared her recovery to be ahead of schedule, Charley wanted to celebrate being officially off the crutches. And she wanted to do something to thank Tyler for all he’d done for her, but she couldn’t think of what would be appropriate. He’d been quiet since lunch, and though she wanted to ask him what was wrong, she refrained from posing the question out of fear of what he might say.

  “Do you have time for a couple more stops?” she asked, staying in safer territory.

  “Sure. Where do you want to go?”

  “I’d love to stop in at the animal shelter to see my furry friends. I volunteer there when I can.”

  “That sounds like fun. Let’s go.”

  The Butler Animal Rescue League was located on the northern outskirts of town, between the road that led to Colton’s mountain and Gavin’s lumberyard. Tyler let her off at the front door, and she hobbled inside while he parked.

  “Charley!” The director, Dawn, greeted her with a hug. “It’s so good to see you! We’ve been so worried about you.”

  “Thanks for the flowers you sent to the hospital. That was so nice of you guys.”

  “Least we could do for all the time you’ve given the shelter. You’re not here to work, are you?”

  “Not quite yet, but I was hoping I could do some visiting.”

  “Of course. The animals have missed their friend Charley.”

  Tyler came through the door, his face flushed from the cold and looking sexy with the sprinkling of dark stubble on his jaw.

  “Um, this is my friend, Tyler. Tyler, Dawn. She’s the director.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Dawn said, shaking his hand.

  “You, too,” he said.

  When he went to look at a bunny in a cage, Dawn fanned her face for Charley’s benefit. “Holy smokes, girl,” she muttered. “Come on back.”

  Amused by Dawn’s reaction to Tyler, Charley made her way slowly down the corridor that led to the dogs’ playroom, where several volunteer staffers were keeping an eye on things. Each of them greeted her with a warm hug and inquiries about her recovery. She introduced Tyler to them, and watched as they reacted to him the way Dawn had.

  Since it wasn’t possible for her to get down on the floor with the dogs, she took a seat on a folding chair and let them come to her. The first to greet her was a black lab puppy named Rufus, who’d been returned twice to the shelter because of his high energy level. Charley felt a bond with him. She knew what it was like to be rejected. When she picked him up, Rufus snuggled into her embrace.

  “Tyler, this is Rufus.”

  “Hey, Rufus.” He scratched the puppy’s back.

  Charley watched his fingers move and was reminded of how he’d touched her last night. The memory set off fireworks inside her, making her wish she could cross her legs against the insistent throb betwee
n them—all because he’d petted a puppy. Her physical reaction to him was unprecedented. That much she couldn’t deny.

  “This is Maude,” she said of a white poodle that made her way over to give him a good sniffing.

  “Hi, Maude.”

  Because she was female, Maude swooned with delight at the attention Tyler paid to her.

  One by one, the others came over to see what was going on. Stud, the German shepherd. Duke, the Rottweiler. Maisy, the pug. Stewart, the bulldog. They pushed and shoved each other out of the way to get at Charley and then Tyler, when he paid them equal amounts of attention.

  “They’re so cute,” he said, laughing at their antics.

  “I love them all. I wish I could take them all home with me.”

  “Why don’t you have a dog?”

  “Landlord won’t allow pets. Someday.”

  “If you could pick any one of them, which one would you choose?”

  “Oh, God, I don’t know. I want them all.”

  “One.”

  Rufus, who’d been sleeping in her arms, woke with a yawn and a stretch, before resuming the position. “Him, I guess, but he’s a handful. He’s been returned twice already because the people who adopted him couldn’t keep up with his energy level.”

  Tyler signaled to one of the volunteers. “We’d like to adopt Rufus.”

  Charley gasped. “Tyler . . .”

  “I can keep up with his energy level, and I don’t have a landlord.”

  “You can’t just . . . I mean . . . Adopting a dog is a huge responsibility.”

  “I know it is. I work at home, and I’m a runner. I can give him everything he needs.”

  As he said the words, he looked directly in her eyes, almost putting her on notice that he could do the same for her, if only she’d let him.

  “You don’t have to . . .”

  “I know I don’t.” To the volunteer, he said, “When can I take him home?”

  “Even though Charley could vouch for you, it’s our policy to run background checks on potential adopters, and he’s due for more shots at a vet visit later this week. Would next week be okay?”