by Juanita Kees
“My father owns TRJ Racing. My name is Charlotte Jackson.”
*
Charlie waited.
“Charlotte Jackson.” Her name rolled off his tongue.
She breathed in deeply, her eyes squeezed tight. If she couldn’t see his face, she wouldn’t see distaste mar his handsome face or his lips pull tight in disappointment. The way she was used to seeing every day growing up.
“Yes.”
“Wow.” His hands dropped from her shoulders to lodge on his hips. “Not what I was expecting. You look different without the dark hair and face paint.”
“That was the disguise of an angry young woman. I’m not that girl anymore. This is the real me. Do you want me to leave?”
“What for?”
She drew on her courage to look him in the eye. “I lied to you.”
“You withheld the truth. There’s a difference. The way I see it, there’s a reason you did. I’d like to know what it is.”
“If I do go back, I know I’ll be reliving the same nightmare. I won’t have space to grow. My father will continue to make decisions for me. That includes adopting out my baby. And I’ve fought so hard against him doing that. I love my daughter with all my soul and I want to raise her. I don’t want her raised by strangers.” She drew in a breath and let it out again. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I don’t want to be Tony Jackson’s rebel daughter, the troublemaker who makes his life hell. The sister portrayed by the press as the villain who puts the black mark on the Jackson name so that her brother’s star can shine brighter.”
“You’re a total mystery to me, Charlotte Jackson. What is it you’ve done that’s so terrible?”
“Some really stupid things. Until I realized that no matter how hard I tried, my family was never going to see me, good or bad, so I made a promise to my baby that I would be the person I truly wanted to be. A good person. A good mom. And now I’m afraid that if he finds us, he’ll make me go home and I’ll lose everything before I’ve had a chance to achieve it.”
He folded his arms across his chest. Arms she wanted to feel around her, holding her like they had last night, giving her courage and comfort.
Her arms ached from holding Zoe, a dead weight now that she’d gone to sleep on Charlie’s shoulder. She should put her baby down, let her rest, but the thought of losing Zoe’s comforting warmth made her hesitate. Zoe was exactly who she was fighting to keep.
Chase sighed and ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “No one should be afraid of taking control of their life.”
“Fear is what made me grow up.”
“Then if you’ve grown up, what happened in the past shouldn’t matter.”
“Tell that to the media and my parents. People have long memories, Chase.”
Chase placed his hand on hers, tangling his fingers through hers and tugging her gently. “Why don’t we sit where we can be more comfortable, and you can tell me? Zoe’s no lightweight when she sleeps.”
“She’s growing so fast.” How much longer could she do this on her own? Raise a happy, healthy child when her father waited in the wings with the power to destroy everything she aimed to fix.
“You’re doing just fine with her, Charlie. Don’t doubt that. Stay true to what you’re fighting for.” He led her to the sofa, tugged her down beside him, and tossed the throw blanket across their legs. For a long moment, he studied her and Zoe, his features solemn in the firelight. “Our family knows a lot about gossip and blame. The blame comes mostly from within ourselves.”
Charlie eased into the warmth against his side as he laid his arm around her and drew her closer. Zoe offered up a sleepy sigh. Charlie smoothed out her baby’s frown with the tips of her fingers, her heart filled with love and pride for the tiny, little life she’d created. The only mistake she’d never regret.
“What made you come to Montana, Charlie?”
She looked up at Chase to find him watching her with a fire heating his look that warmed her all the way through. “I needed to get away from Florida. A complete change of scenery. A new start in life.”
“A brave move on your own with a baby.”
“Brave? My father would call it a dumb move.”
“And running was the only option?”
Charlie thought a moment before answering, “Running, no. Hiding, yes, but only until I have a solid foundation under me to stand up to them. My family isn’t like yours. We’re not close in the way yours are. I’m the black sheep. The one delegated to the shadows. My brother is the star, the go-getter, the favorite.” The regret in her voice echoed in the space between them. “That’s fact, not jealousy. I tried hard to make them see me, love me, but all they could see was Ronan and the commitments that swallowed their time and attention. It made me an angry teenager.”
He shrugged. “You must have reason to feel that way.”
“All my life I’ve lived in my brother’s shadow. I wanted to go to art school, but it was considered a waste of money when my brother needed funding for his career. My father gave me a job in his marketing department. He said my ‘talent’ would be of better use in advertising rather than wasted on sketches and paintings. Apparently having a struggling artist in the family wasn’t good for our standing in society.”
“What gives him the right to make those decisions for you?”
Charlie grimaced. “My father is an old-fashioned tyrant. He wanted me to be a carbon copy of my mother, a perfectly groomed trophy wife with high-profile engagements. It just wasn’t what I wanted.”
“What do you want, Charlie?” He raised his free hand to touch her face, tangle a lock of her hair around his finger.
“I want to do what I’m doing for you. Designing, drawing, restoring. Giving things a second chance, breathing new life into them, giving them meaning. I want to love my job and what I do and provide a home for me and my daughter.”
“What about Zoe’s father?”
Her shoulders stiffened. She never wanted anything to do with that lying, cheating bastard ever again. He’d taken her father’s money and run as fast as he could. “He’s not in the picture. And he never will be. He made that perfectly clear.”
“Sounds like a complete asshole.”
“If only I’d been mature enough to see that through his charm and my rebelliousness.”
Chase tugged gently on the lock twisted around his finger. “We’ve all made mistakes we wish we could go back and undo.”
“I can’t undo them, but I can make better choices for the future. I thought I could hide until I’d worked something out. A plan, a foundation to build on. But no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to change my father’s mind or his personality.” Knowing she had to stand up against that eventually hurt too, but he’d had control for long enough.
“You can’t change what people will think or how they’ll react or what they’ll try to do. It’s what you plan to do that matters. It’s about staying power. Deep inside you, you have that. You know it, or you wouldn’t have taken this stand against your family. We’ll have your back. You’re here under our roof, and that makes you one of us.”
She looked at him, her eyes taking in the promise that turned his eyes a deeper shade of blue, the perfect lips that hovered near hers, the heat she could feel transmitting through his knitted sweater.
It felt right that she should reach up her face to his. It felt right that his lips should touch hers as her eyes fluttered closed in expectation. And when she opened her lips to the gentle pressure of his mouth, it felt like heaven in his kiss.
*
Intoxicating. Headier than the whiskey in Mason’s thermos. Salty with tears. Sweet with comfort. Chase wanted to kiss her forever. Warm and inviting, her mouth was soft and pliant under his. Giving, taking, easing the pain from his heart, drawing hers to the surface so she’d share it with him.
More than anything else in the world, he wanted her to feel safe. If his mom were here, it would be exactly what she’d want him
to do. Give another baby a chance in a place where so much heartache had dogged their steps.
He lifted his head mere inches from hers, not wanting to leave the welcoming, comforting space, but knowing he had to give her this opportunity to tell the truth without distraction or persuasion.
“Tell me the rest of your story, Charlie,” he whispered into the space between them.
She sighed heavily and rested her head on his shoulder. “In my father’s eyes, I was born a failure. First because I was a girl and second because I didn’t want to race the circuit. From the time I could hold a pencil, I wanted to draw and create. Having an artist in the family didn’t quite fit with their social standing, so they pushed me to do what they wanted for me. The harder they pushed, the more I rebelled.”
Even as she said the words, her chin came out in defiance. Chase smiled. He liked a girl who could stand up for herself, but it would have come at a cost. “What did they want you to do?”
“Become a lawyer so I could run the team’s legal department.”
He winced even though he could totally imagine her in a fitted black business suit, rocking three-inch-heeled stilettos and a smile that would make his blood pressure rise. “Not your style?”
“Not even close. I went all out against it. The more criticism I attracted from my parents, the brighter my brother’s star shone. ‘Why can’t you be more like Ronan, Charlotte? Why do you have to be so contrary?’ He lapped it up, of course, taking every opportunity to throw it in my face as to who the favorite child in the family was.”
“How did you feel about that?”
She shifted against him and he hugged her tight. “It hurt. The sharper the pain, the more I rebelled. There were parties that led to under-age drinking, protests leading to arrests, a fire at the sorority house I was in—all of it very bad publicity for the Jackson family.”
Chase frowned. “Isn’t that what all students do at some stage in their career?”
“Not when you’re Tony and Leila Jackson’s offspring.”
The bitterness in her tone cut deep. “What happened then?”
“I got thrown out of Florida State University. My father buried me at the back desk in the team’s marketing division where I couldn’t possibly bring any more shame to the family.”
“Still not terrible, criminal stuff, Charlie.” He curled a lock of her hair around his finger and tugged. “You were just a brat.”
“A fact my brother rubbed in my face very loudly and publicly at a team celebration party a little over a year ago. I was angry, humiliated, tired of constantly being talked down to, dictated to, and more than a little drunk.”
Chase grimaced as his stomach took a nose dive. He had a feeling the fallout hadn’t been pretty. “The final nail?”
“The very last one and sharper than any before it. I had no excuse other than blind fury fueled by too many cocktails and bottled up resentment.”
“What did you do?”
“I left the party with a crew member who didn’t have a healthy relationship with team management. He was one last warning away from being fired. A bad boy to the bone. On our way out, we passed my brother’s Lamborghini on the driveway. Ricky dared me to do it and I was far enough gone not to have any good sense or functioning brain cells left.” She shivered against him. Her breath hitched. “Ricky cut the fuel line and I dropped a match.”
Chase bit down on the string of curses that lodged on his tongue. Shock had him stiffening his shoulders under her head. “You set fire to your brother’s Lamborghini?”
She nodded. “Not my proudest moment. We didn’t stick around to watch. The trouble is, I don’t remember anything much after that. I know we kept drinking, but I woke up alone in a grubby motel room, only minutes before the sheriff arrived with a warrant for my arrest.”
“Your father had you arrested?” The enormity of what she’d done stunned him, but that her own family would press charges against her rocked him to the core. What kind of a man would do that to his daughter?
“He said it would teach me a lesson.”
“Did it, Charlie?”
She shook her head. “It only made me dislike them more when all I really wanted was for them to love me.” Hot, wet tears soaked his sweater as she buried her face against him.
“What happened after that?”
Her words were muffled against the knit of his sweater, driven from her throat as she forced them out. “They released me on bail. Eventually the charges were dropped. It didn’t matter. I was broken already. Then I found out I was pregnant with Zoe. From the start, they told me I had to give her up for adoption. At first, I agreed. I knew I’d come to the end of the line. That if I didn’t change my ways, I’d only end up in worse trouble. But the first time I felt Zoe move, I knew … I’d never be able to give her away.”
“So, you told them you wanted to keep her?” He pulled his handkerchief out of the pocket of his jeans and handed it to her.
She slipped away from his side, blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes and scrunched it up in the palm of her hand as she rubbed two fingers across Zoe’s brow, relaxed in deep sleep. “Yes.”
“And they said…”
“No, I had to give her away or they’d sign a declaration that stated I was an unfit mother. There was enough evidence and bad press to back up their threat.”
This time Chase didn’t hold back on the curses. Anger filtered through him.
“So, you ran away.” Not a question, a statement. Had she had another option?
“I had no reason to stay. They were never going to love me. But I had a good reason to leave. In the months leading up to Zoe’s birth, I had plenty of time to think, banished from the family home in Daytona Beach and imprisoned in my room at the house in the Hamptons.”
Chase cocked an eyebrow and wondered if she was mocking herself or her parents’ wealth. “A pretty impressive prison.”
“It’s only a house if there’s no love to make it a home and give it life, Chase.”
He had no argument with that, so he drew her and Zoe back to him and let her finish her story.
“I researched adoption, checked my rights. And when Zoe was born, I refused to give her up. My parents were away. Mom had a string of charity events to attend from Las Vegas to Singapore that kept her away for months. Dad was tied up on the circuit with races in full swing, so he sent his lawyer to deal with the adoption. I refused to sign the paperwork, which resulted in long-distance arguments and threats of what would happen if I didn’t obey. So, I made a plan. I applied for jobs all over the country, got one, and planned a new life. I drew out my savings so I wouldn’t have to use my credit card. It bought me time and distance until my car broke down and I had to rent a replacement. By that time, my father had his PI out looking for me.”
“So, you kept moving, all the way across the country. Why stay in Bigfork?”
“Because everything I’ve been searching for is right here.”
“What would that be, Charlotte?”
“A job I can be passionate about. Freedom, friendship, and a new start—a blank canvas on which to redesign my future.”
He smiled, shifted closer and curled his fingers through hers where her hand rested on Zoe’s blanket. “You have fire in your eyes when you say that. It’s better than sadness and regret. Will you stay and fight for what you want?” He held his breath for her answer.
“Yes.” She looked down at their joined hands, at Zoe, content in her arms.
“What happens when your father or his PI finds you? Is there enough here to make you stay?” He rested his cheek against her shoulder, lifted his face to hers, touched his lips to her skin. Her breath hitched as he trailed a path to her ear. “Is it just friendship we have, Charlie?”
She turned her face into the touch of his mouth. “I don’t know what it is we have yet,” she whispered against his lips.
“We have all the time in the world to find out.” He kissed her, slow and deep, exploring, searchi
ng, drawing, falling. Deeper and deeper.
Chapter Nine
Charlie added the finishing touches to the stallion’s mane that flared out across the hood of Carter’s newly finished pickup and tried not to daydream about kissing Chase last night. But, oh boy, could the man kiss. She touched a hand to her lips.
They’d talked. About her future, her plans, and the inevitable arrival of reality in town. With all her secrets out in the open, she could rebuild, prepared to continue the fight for her daughter. She still had so much to fix within herself before she could face her family.
A shadow fell over the hood, blurring the line she followed with her brush. Lifting it so she didn’t smudge the paint, she looked up to find Marty watching her, hands on his hips, a slight tremor running through the muscles of his arms. She’d noticed the tremors had gotten worse since she’d arrived. How long before the disease stole his movement, his dignity?
“Looking good, girl. Carter’s gotta be happy with that.”
Charlie stepped back to admire her work, a stab of pride warming her blood. She’d put her heart and soul into this job, just as she had put everything into the new design she hoped would one day go on Mason’s pickup. “You like it?”
“I darn well love it. You’ve got talent, girl.”
She let the praise flow over her, inhaled it, embraced it. “Thank you, Marty.”
The old man flicked an imaginary speck of dust off his sleeve. “You look so much like your mother. The way she was in the early days.”
“I hadn’t realized how much until you showed me the photograph. She’s changed since then.” When had the light gone from her eyes?
“She was a beauty. Crowned Miss Florida way back when she was just eighteen.”
“Really?” Charlie raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t known, had never seen any evidence of it either in trophies or photographs.
Marty leaned lightly on the fender and ran his hand over the smooth cream duco. “Your father snapped her up right out from under the noses of his rivals.” He shook his head. “She changed after that. I guess she had to when your father made it big on the track.”