by Marie Force
“Charley, come on. I just want to talk. You have to come out of there sometime.”
Tyler would come for her. If she was gone long enough, he would come. Her hands shook uncontrollably, and the pain in her knee was agonizing, but there was no way in hell she was leaving that stall with him still out there waiting for God knows what.
“Look, I know you’re probably mad about what happened, but that was a long time ago.”
Why didn’t someone else come in to use the facilities? How was it possible she was actually trapped in the bathroom with him? Please, Tyler, please come find me . . .
The dinner that had been so satisfying and delicious now churned like an angry sea in her belly, threatening to come back up at any second. But she couldn’t give Devlin the satisfaction of knowing he’d actually made her sick, so she fought it back, the effort bringing more tears to her eyes and sweat to her brow.
“Charley,” he said in a softer voice. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m not that guy anymore. I wish you’d let me tell you—”
The door slammed open, and Tyler’s deep voice rang out. “What the hell is going on? Who are you and where’s Charley?”
“Tyler,” she cried, the single word ripped from her throat. “Get him out of here. Please.”
From her post inside the stall, she heard the sounds of a scuffle—grunts and groans and flesh connecting with flesh. She flinched at each sound. If that monster hurt Tyler, she would kill him the second her hands stopped shaking and her knee started working again.
Then she heard the door to the room crash open again, and Tyler called for security. More scuffling, more grunts, new voices.
“This guy was hassling my girlfriend in the ladies’ room,” Tyler said.
“He was in the ladies’ room?”
“All the way in, and she’s locked in a stall.”
“I just wanted to talk to her,” Devlin said. “We’re old friends.”
“You’re no friend of hers if she had to lock a door to keep you away from her,” Tyler said.
“We can take it from here, sir, but we’ll need a statement from your girlfriend.”
Charley leaned against the wall inside the stall, taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself, but the rush of adrenaline drained from her system, leaving her shaking violently and crying hysterically. She deeply resented the tears, but the shock of the encounter had rocked her to the core.
“Charley, baby,” Tyler said softly from outside the stall. “Let me in.”
She eyed the lock and tried to get her arms to cooperate with her desire to see him, to hold him, to let him fix what was wrong inside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
“Charley, it’s okay. He’s gone. Security’s got him, and he won’t get near you again.” To Tyler’s credit, he didn’t ask who the man was or what he meant to her, but he’d probably already figured that out for himself. “Sweetheart . . . Please, I love you. Let me in. Let me help.”
The desperation she heard in his voice finally cut through the numbness. Her arms moved jerkily, her fingers clumsy until the lock finally opened with a click of metal against metal. Tyler stepped around the door, closing it and locking it behind him as he reached for her. “It’s okay,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ve got you, and everything is okay.”
She shook her head.
“Did he touch you?”
She shook her head again. Devlin’s grasp to her elbow didn’t count because he’d been trying to stop her from falling.
“Jesus, you’re shaking violently.”
“T-Tyler . . . My knee. I hurt my knee.”
“Fuck,” he said on a long exhale. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
“No,” she said, clawing at him, terrified of him leaving her alone for even a minute. In her entire life, she’d only ever felt this way once before—and she’d been alone then. Thank God she wasn’t alone this time.
“Baby, I’m not leaving you for a second, but we’ve got to get you to the hospital.”
She whimpered at the thought of another hospital, but the pain was bad enough that she couldn’t disagree.
“Would it be okay if I lifted you?”
“I-I need to use the bathroom first.” The urgent need to pee had nearly been forgotten in the chaos.
“I’ll hold you while you do.”
“Tyler . . .”
“This is no time for modesty, Charley,” he said through gritted teeth. “Let me take care of you.”
Since she didn’t have much choice in the matter, she said, “Okay.” Working together, he positioned her over the toilet without jarring her leg and pressed his lips to her hair as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
She took care of business, and he helped her to right her clothes before lifting her gingerly into his arms.
“Okay?”
Grimacing from the pain, she nodded.
He carried her from the room into a crowd of people outside the restrooms. “She’s injured,” Tyler said. “Let us through.”
“We called for police and rescue,” one of the security guys said.
Charley kept her face pressed against Tyler’s chest so she wouldn’t have to look at anyone.
“The police are going to want a statement,” the security guy said.
“Tomorrow,” Tyler replied tightly.
The ambulance ride, the emergency room, the antiseptic smells and the fear on Tyler’s face were all eerily familiar. After being put on an IV to deal with the pain, she was taken right to X-ray for a scan of her knee, and then they waited for the doctor in the tiny ER cubicle.
Through it all, Charley could not stop crying at the thought of having to relive the ordeal with her knee, not to mention the aftershocks of her encounter with Devlin.
After shedding his suit coat and rolling the sleeves of his shirt, Tyler paced the small space, anger coming off him in waves.
“Tyler.”
He came right to her.
“Sit with me.”
He did as she asked, sitting on the narrow bed and putting his arms around her. “Who was he, Charley?”
“Michael Devlin, the guy I fell for in college until I learned he was running a scam on me and a dozen other girls at school.”
“Of all the freaking people to run into on an overnight getaway.”
“As he said, what’re the odds?”
“Baby, I’m sorry this happened. I’m so filled with rage that he scared you that I want to punch a hole through the wall.”
“Don’t do that,” she said, running her thumb over the knuckles he’d bruised dealing with Devlin. “It won’t change anything.”
“Maybe not, but it would sure feel good right about now.”
She put an arm around his waist, keeping him from acting on the impulse.
“He’s the reason you’ve never had a real boyfriend, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Did he hurt you back then?”
She knew he meant physically. “Not the way you think. What he did was so much worse in some ways. It was like psychological warfare. He said everything I wanted to hear, made promises he never intended to keep, and I fell for every word he said. I fell so deep I almost couldn’t find my way out of the hole when I found out it was all a bunch of shit.”
His body trembled from the rage he tried so hard to contain for her. “I want to kill him for doing that to you. I’ve never before wanted to kill another human being, but I wish I had those five minutes in the bathroom to do over again.”
“I was never so happy to hear your voice in my life, except for maybe that day at the bottom of the ravine when you came back with help.”
“I’ll always come for you, Charley. No matter what, you can count on me. Don’t ever, ever lump me in with that piece of shit in your overactive
imagination, you hear me? I’d rather cut off my own arm with a bread knife than ever cause you a second of pain or heartache or—”
“Tyler.”
“What?” he asked, sounding annoyed that she’d interrupted his tirade.
“Kiss me, will you?”
Tyler did more than kiss her. He devoured her, pouring every bit of his love for her into that one kiss, and Charley felt it slide through her veins, comforting and calming her after the trauma of the encounter with Devlin.
He was her long-ago past. Tyler was her present—and her future.
“Don’t let what happened tonight take this away from us, Charley. We’ve worked too hard to get where we are to let that scum derail us.” Tyler laid his hand flat against her fast-beating heart. “Promise me, you won’t let him get to you.”
“If you weren’t here, I’d be losing it.”
“I’m here. I’ll always be here because there’s nowhere else in this world I’d rather be than with you. You have to promise me, Charley. You won’t let him hurt you any more than he already has.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
Tyler kissed her again, caressing her tongue with deep strokes of his.
A throat clearing brought them up for air.
“Pardon the interruption,” the doctor said with a grin, “but we have the results of your scan, and everything looks good. We don’t see any new tears or damage to the surgically repaired area. You probably just jarred the incision site, which would account for the pain. I’m going to write you a script for some pain meds and send you home, if that’s okay.”
Filled with relief and gratitude, Charley smiled up at Tyler when she said, “That would be perfect.”
—
Charley spent the entire first weekend in January in bed with Tyler—and Rufus, who’d moved in with them a week ago and made himself right at home in their bed. Last weekend had been dedicated to helping Ella move in with Gavin. This one was all theirs. Tyler had skipped the weekly workout with the running club, and they didn’t even bother to get out of bed for Sunday dinner at her parents’ home. With a howling snowstorm going on outside, they were perfectly content to hunker down in bed with nowhere to be and nothing to do except make love, sleep, shower, eat, let Rufus out and then do it all again.
“This is beyond ridiculous,” Charley said on Sunday night as she lay facedown on the bed while Tyler kissed his way down her back. “I’ve never been so slovenly in my entire life.” Because he hadn’t shaved in days, he had the starting of an actual beard, and Charley loved how it looked on him.
“I love you when you’re slovenly.” He cupped her cheeks and took a gentle bite of each one, waking her body to the drumbeat of arousal that had become so familiar to her in the last few glorious weeks.
Charley had gone back to work after the holidays, but returned to Tyler’s bed every night. Rather than drive a wedge between them, the encounter with Devlin had brought them closer together. Tyler had refused to allow her to retreat into a pit of painful memories. Rather he had forced her to stay focused on the present, which he said had nothing at all to do with the past.
And thank God for him, because she didn’t like to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there to remind her that Michael Devlin no longer had any power over her and couldn’t hurt her unless she let him. At Tyler’s urging, Charley had pressed charges against him for the incident in the bathroom. Because of his criminal record and the circumstances of his encounter with Charley, the prosecutor had assured Charley that he would be charged with disorderly conduct.
Charley tried her best not to think about him, and with Tyler demanding all her attention it was easier than it would’ve been otherwise to keep the past where it belonged. She sighed with pleasure as he ran his hands over her, stimulating every nerve ending with the reverent way he touched her.
“So when are we going to make things official around here?” he asked.
His question brought her out of the contemplative state she’d slipped into. “I thought we already were official?”
“I guess I mean when are you going to move in with me and make it super official?”
“Oh, um, like you want me to live here with you?” Charley kept her smile hidden behind her arm.
He bit the back of her shoulder, making her squeal. “Don’t mess with me, Charlotte. You know exactly what I mean by ‘live together.’”
“That’s kind of a big step.”
Before she knew what was happening, he’d picked her up and turned her over effortlessly and without jarring the leg that had recovered quickly from the events in Boston. “Are you screwing with me?”
“Yes, I think maybe I am.”
His attempt at a sinister frown was so comical that Charley started laughing and couldn’t stop. Grasping her hands, he held them over her head as he pushed into her, filling her with one deep stroke that made her sigh with pleasure.
She waited for him to move the way he always did, but he stayed lodged deep inside her, throbbing and expanding as she squirmed beneath him, trying to spur him to action.
“You’re moving in with me,” he said.
She looked up at him, memorizing every detail of his fierce expression as he gazed at her. “Okay.”
Her easy capitulation made him stagger. “Really?”
“Really.”
“And you’re staying forever once you officially move in.”
“Okay.”
“How did the most difficult girl in the world become so easy?”
“She fell in love with you. Does that count as number three hundred?”
“I think it’s three hundred and one,” he said before he sealed the deal with a kiss. “I love you, Charlotte Abbott. You’ve made me so happy.”
She reached up to place her hands on his face, loving the scrape of his whiskers under her palms. “I love you, too.”
“Three oh two. It’s gonna take ages to get to a million.”
“I’m not doing anything the rest of my life. Are you?”
Surging into her, he said, “I hope to be doing you for the rest of my life.”
“Such a gentleman to the rest of the world and such a dirty, dirty boy with me.”
“You love when I’m dirty.”
“Mmm, yes I do, but then I love you all the time.”
“Three oh three,” he said, drawing a smile from her as he picked up the pace, taking them both to the stars and then back to earth where he caught her, giving her a warm, soft, safe place to land.
EPILOGUE
Elmer Stillman laid the sheets of paper he’d brought with him flat on the table at the diner while he waited for his son-in-law to arrive for lunch. Tanned and rested after her honeymoon, his new granddaughter-in-law Megan glowed with happiness that made Elmer’s romantic heart sing with joy. Never in his life had he seen two people better suited for each other than Megan and his grandson Hunter.
While he took pride in all the matches each of his precious grandchildren had made in recent months, he was particularly proud of Hunter’s. For many years before Hunter worked up the nerve to actually ask out Megan, she’d held a special place in that romantic heart of Elmer’s. After losing her parents the way she had during her senior year of high school, the sweet girl greatly deserved the kind of happiness she had now with his beloved grandson.
She topped off his coffee cup. “What’re you up to today, Elmer?”
“Oh this. And that.”
“You’re looking awfully cagey.”
The thing about seeing someone every day for ten years, they got to know you quite well, and Megan knew him as well as anyone did.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, sweetheart. Tell me about your trip. How was Bermuda?”
“It was incredible. So beautiful.”
“You look rather we
ll rested for a woman just back from her honeymoon.”
Megan laughed. “You’re not getting the details, so don’t even try it.”
“You used to be so nice to me before I fixed you up with my grandson,” Elmer said mournfully.
Megan leaned over to kiss his forehead. “I’m still nice to you, and you’re still not getting the dirt.”
“Oh well. You can’t blame an old man for trying.” Elmer loved her spunk and her spirit, but more than anything, he loved the way she loved Hunter, who also deserved nothing but the best life had to offer. Elmer took hold of her free hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you for making him so happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for him.”
Blinking furiously, she said, “Are you trying to make me cry?”
“Would I do that?”
“Yes, I believe you would, and P.S., it’s my pleasure to make him happy.” Smiling, she winked at him and moved on to tend to other customers.
Ah, yes, he’d chosen well for Hunter. Now where in the heck was Linc? He’d no sooner had the thought when his son-in-law came rushing into the diner. “So sorry I’m late.” Linc hung his coat on a hook and slid into the bench seat across from Elmer. “I got stuck on a phone call that I couldn’t get out of.”
“I can forgive that since you do such a great job of running the family business.”
“You think so? Really?”
Elmer stared across the table at the man who’d been family to him since the day he married Molly nearly forty years ago. “Have I never said so? Have I never told you how proud I am of what you’ve done with my parents’ little country store?”
“You have, but it’s still nice to hear you approve. Your voice is always in my head, no matter what we’re doing.”