by Juanita Kees
“You were a big name too. I’ve seen photos of you on the podium.”
Marty grinned. “First place to his third. He hated losing. Especially to me.”
“Why is that?”
He winked. “Because I had more skill than he did, but he had old money behind him.”
That sounded exactly like her father. He believed he could buy everything. Including people and happiness. “Do you miss it, the rush, the adrenaline, the win?”
“No.” Sadness clouded his eyes. “I had a wife I hardly ever saw, children who grew up with only glimpses of me. I had a short time to enjoy them all before I had to leave again. No time at all to make a real home for them. Instead they lived in the attic above the shop while I raced cars to make money to build my dream. This.” He pressed his shaking hands into the pockets of his coveralls and looked around the garage. “And then it was too late. She was gone, and I had six kids to raise alone. I’d give back every trophy I won just to have that time over with her and do things differently.”
Tears stung her eyes at the heartbreak in his. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What I’m telling you, girl, is to follow your heart and trust that it will lead you where you need to be. Sometimes we let our head stand in the way of happiness.”
“What if I don’t know what my heart wants?” Movement to her right caught her eye and she looked up to see Chase in the doorway to his office, Zoe in his arms, wide awake and making happy baby noises up at him.
“Oh, I think you know exactly what your heart wants, young lady.” He tapped the fender with his palm and chuckled. “All you need to do is reach out and take it.”
Charlie tore her eyes away from Chase and met Marty’s smiling eyes. “Oh no. No. Don’t go getting ideas now. I’m here to do a job. That’s all.”
“You had the job in the bag the moment I laid eyes on those designs. You’re exactly who we need here at Calhoun Customs. And I think you’re exactly who my son needs too. But I’ll let you make up your own mind about that.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t everything in life?”
Marty pushed away from the pickup as Chase wandered over to stand next to him. Marty reached out to tickle Zoe’s cheek with his forefinger and was rewarded with a gurgle. Zoe waved a fist around, almost as unsteady as Marty’s, and tried to catch his hand. Charlie’s heart squeezed around the moment. Her father would never engage with Zoe the way Marty did, even if he was given the chance to. And her mother’s heart was too frozen to show real love.
Marty’s words from earlier flitted through her mind. What had made her mother change when she’d met her father? What was she like before she was crowned Miss Florida? What dreams had she sacrificed to become Tony Jackson’s wife? The paintbrush slipped from Charlie’s fingers, leaving a blob of brown paint where it shouldn’t be. Quickly, she reached for her rag to wipe it cleanly away. That was all in the past now, she had to focus on what was to come. Her future. Zoe’s future.
“Everything okay, Charlie?”
Chase’s words, soft and warm, reached her ears. The same soft, warm voice that had comforted her last night. The man with the hard arms, firm chest, and strong heart that had drummed out a soothing rhythm beneath her ear until she’d fallen asleep in his safety zone. To wake in the morning, wrapped around him on the sofa, a blanket covering them and her baby safely asleep in the porta-crib beside them. Men like Chase were too hard to find, too easy to love, and too special to taint with the tar of her brush. What if she hadn’t changed enough?
This morning, driving into town, seeing the smile on his face, the quick glances he kept sending her way, all of it had her tied in knots. Not that anything had happened on the sofa, except for a few sizzling hot kisses then he’d held her while they slept. But, God, she wouldn’t mind waking up to that every morning with his lips brushing her hair and cheek with a gentle “good morning”. It was the most treasured she’d felt in forever.
“Charlie?”
“Hmm?” She looked up and caught his twinkling blue eyes focused on her and a blush crept into her cheeks.
“I asked if everything is okay?”
“Oh…” The sound came out more like a breathless sigh.
She caught it and cleared her throat at the same time as Marty delivered a soft, knowing chuckle. Charlie shot a warning look his way but couldn’t maintain the heat in it when his laugh was so infectious.
“Everything is just fine. All good.” She stuffed the rag back into her pocket and held out her arms for her daughter. “I’ll go and feed Zoe while the paint dries. Then we can apply the clear coat and bake her, and she’s all done. The pickup, I mean. Bake the pickup.”
Marty laughed harder. Chase frowned. Oh, dear God, his father was right. All this talk about following her heart. She’d found what her heart wanted more than her parents’ approval, and she was in no position to claim it. Not until she could face her father and the sting of his reprisal with her head held high and proof beyond doubt that she could take care of herself and her baby.
*
Chase shoved his hands into his pockets and rubbed them against the rough denim. If he hadn’t, he would have hauled Charlie back and kissed her senseless. His eyes were still gritty from lack of sleep because he hadn’t been able to close them while she’d lain wrapped around him, breathing softly into his neck. Inhale. Exhale. Soft breaths that raised his temperature and tore at his heart at the same time. One step away from falling and tumbling headfirst into everything Charlie.
He wanted to wring her father’s neck. Shake her mother out of her ice castle. And ram his fist down her brother’s throat for being such an asshole. His Google search had turned up all the media articles she’d told him about, including the one showing the charred remains of her brother’s Lamborghini. From the comments he’d made to the press, Chase reckoned the pretentious little asshole had got what he’d deserved. Who threw their little sister under the bus like that?
The unmistakable roar of anger ripped through the doorway from the showroom into the garage, followed by sound of something hard slamming into metal. Marty looked up, his eyes meeting Chase’s, with a helpless shake of his head.
“I’ll handle it, Dad. Stay here, okay? Keep Charlie and Zoe away.”
Marty nodded. Chase took long, steady strides into the showroom. The tarp had been ripped from Mason’s battered pickup and lay in an angry, discarded bundle on the carpeted floor. Mason swung the sledgehammer, high on bitter anger, muscles quivering under the weight of each impact. His blow landed on the already battered hood, the metal shuddering under the contact. Every year it was the same. Every year the battered pickup took another beating until it no longer mattered which scar had come from the accident and which one had been self-inflicted. With every strike of the sledgehammer, his brother lost another piece of his soul.
Outside the big windows, rain drifted down at the command of the fall weather gods, the ice-cold drops touching the faces of a group of curious onlookers. Chase stayed back out of the range of flying shrapnel and activated the remote that would bring the blinds rolling down the windows to shut out the view from the street. Molly would see his signal over at the Old Time Five and Dime, warm up some of Mason’s favorite scones, whip up some cocoa in takeaway cups and be ready to come over as soon as the danger had passed.
“That’s enough, Mason.” Chase let his voice drift into the silence that followed the next blow.
“It’s. Never. Enough.” Mason punctuated each word with the crash of his fist on the battered roof of the pickup. “Never.”
“It’s been five years. It’s time to let go.”
His brother turned on him, eyes wild with anger and guilt. “Tell that to all those people out there who give me the stink eye at the same time every year. Tell that to the boy who lies up there on the hill in a cold damn grave.”
“That’s because this is here to remind them. To remind us. And you.” Chase stepped up to take the sledgeha
mmer from Mason’s hand, limp now that all his power was spent. “Hiding it under a tarp won’t change anything. We fix it, or we scrap it. Today’s the day you choose.” He said that every year, and every year they dragged the tarp back over it to hide its multitude of sins. Every year as they did so, he hoped that next year the outcome would be different.
“I can’t.” Mason dropped his head in his hands, his shoulders.
“You should.” Chase dragged him into a hug, used to the resistance he put up.
Mason let his big brother hold him for a short while before he shoved him away, hard. At the back of the room, Charlie stood frozen. Where the hell was Zoe and why hadn’t she stayed out of the way like he’d instructed? She took careful steps toward them, clutching her sketch pad to her chest, her face pale under the spotlights in the showroom. Chase shook his head, willed her to back off, but she set a defiant tilt to her chin and kept walking. Damn it. Now wasn’t the time for her to exercise her stubborn streak.
She reached them and placed a hand on Mason’s sleeve. Chase held his breath. Mason in this mood was volatile, a volcano of emotion ready to bubble over and burn anything and anyone in his path. But instead of going psycho on her, he dropped his gaze to the pale fingers with their neatly shaped nails, turning his clenched fist up as he followed the line of her arm until his eyes reached her face. The tension eased from his shoulders and his fist released, baring his palm for Chase to see the damage he’d done to his hand.
“Mason, I have something to show you,” she whispered into the tense silence, her voice hesitant, wary.
“Honey, this isn’t a good time …” Chase hated that at any moment Mason could snap and take his bad mood out on Charlie.
“Shut up, Mother,” Mason growled. “What is it, princess?”
Charlie clutched the sketch pad tighter to her chest. Doubts flickered across her beautiful face. Chase wanted to reach out and drag her away from the monster that taunted them with its damaged body and steadfast silence. She chewed her lip and a monster of a different kind rose in him as he noticed Mason’s gaze follow the movement.
“I had an idea for a design come to me last night, so I drew it for you.”
Mason frowned. “Why?” He barked out the word, but she didn’t shrink from it.
“Because I think it might be exactly what you want. I think it might even be what Mitch would have liked.”
“Don’t mess with me, princess.” His growl turned to a snarl. “You didn’t even know my brother.”
“Mason.” Chase gripped Mason’s shoulder and drew him back out of Charlie’s face.
She tipped her stubborn chin up a little higher and turned her sketch pad around for them to see. “This is the design for the hood. The skulls represent races won and lost, the flag means it’s over, but not for long. Only until the next race. And the cowboy hats … well, this is Montana after all.”
Mason’s sharply indrawn breath had Chase wanting to see what she’d done, but he could wait. Tension drained from Mason’s muscles, the danger of his anger past.
Charlie flipped the page. “And this is for the sides. Look at it, Mason. Really look at it.” She pressed the sketch pad into his hands.
He looked, holding the page between his thumb and forefinger, poised to tear it out. He didn’t. Instead he listened to Charlie in a way Chase had never seen Mason listen before.
A little smile spread across her face, signaling her victory. “Your two skulls again, one regenerating, the other staying the same. Chasing each other across the sky, together yet apart, the blue flame that binds them together burning eternal. Mitch will always be with you, Mason.”
The burn of loss lodged in Chase’s throat. He hoped Mason would see exactly what she’d drawn and how perfect it was for the pickup. It might even spur him on to fix it or, at the very least, not continue to destroy it or himself further.
When Mason spoke, his voice was tight. “Do you seriously think showing me a pretty picture will make things right?”
“No, nothing will make what happened right. We can’t undo the past, but we can make amends. We can make things brighter again. Do you think Mitch would want you to stay angry at a chunk of metal? Do you expect the people, standing outside that window watching you, to forgive you when you can’t forgive yourself?” She stepped into Mason’s space and Chase held his breath. “Do you think your mom would want this for any of you?”
Mason’s head jerked up and he considered her with narrowed eyes and a bitter twist to his mouth. “So now you know what my mother thinks too, princess?”
“I know I wouldn’t want to see a child of mine unable to forgive himself for an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“It was. You didn’t make it rain that day. You didn’t set out to make the road slippery.”
“I was showing off.” He shouted the words at her, but she didn’t flinch.
Chase stepped forward. She glared at him, so he stepped back again. “You made an error in judgment and you paid the price. You can’t bring Mitch back by beating the shit out of a piece of metal, Mason. But you can honor him by making that pickup beautiful again, by paying tribute to his memory, by showing those people out there that you’re ready to forgive yourself. If you do, they will too.”
The fight leeched out of him. “How do you know so much, princess?”
“Because I made an error in judgment too.”
“What did you do?”
“I set fire to my brother’s Lamborghini.”
“You … Why?” Mason’s features screwed up into a mask of confusion.
“Because he was being a nasty little shit and I was done taking it. He’s nowhere near as nice and deserving of forgiveness as you are.”
Mason thought on it a minute. “You’ve got balls.” Reluctant admiration colored his tone as he turned away and shoved the sketch pad into Chase’s hands, shoulders hunched around his thoughts. “Here. You look at it. I need a drink. I smell Molly’s cocoa. And, Pyro?”
“That’s my name now? No more ‘princess’?”
“Pyro, if you want to paint it, you need to help fix it.”
The half-smile his brother offered, less mocking than usual, brought hope to Chase’s mind that, at last, his brother might be healing. Victory had the sweetest taste. Sweeter than the marshmallows in Molly’s cocoa, which had to be the best tasting stuff he’d ever had. His brother walked away, solemn but no longer bone-deep angry. Chase’s fingers traced the lines of Charlie’s sketch. She’d brought a small smile to Mason’s lips and perhaps a little peace to his heart. It made him fall a little harder for the girl he’d found sleeping among the shattered memories of their lives.
Chapter Ten
Back in the garage, with Zoe and Mason settled, Charlie’s phone vibrated as a message came in. She’d charged it and turned it on for the first time since leaving the Hamptons. A myriad of emails, missed calls, messages, and angry texts from her family had greeted her. She’d deleted them all without reading them.
She pulled the phone from her pocket and dialed into her voice mail to hear the cold, hard tones Tony Jackson saved for his most disobedient employee.
“Charlotte. This is your final caution. You have shamed this family enough. We have the adoptive parents of the child waiting to hear from you. Yet again, you have bridges to mend. One more week is all you have. I will not tolerate this behavior any longer.”
The child. As if her baby was a spare part he’d ordered and not received rather than a sweet child who deserved to be loved and cuddled like the precious gift she was. Anger shifted to a stab of regret as her thoughts turned to the people who’d come forward to adopt her. She hadn’t meant to hurt them. Her heart ached for them, but there would be other babies needing homes. Others more in need of a stable, loving family than Zoe. Zoe had a mother who loved her and people around her who cared. So much more than they’d have if she obeyed her father’s demands.
One week wasn’t long enough to stop
the mighty Tony Jackson from exercising his influence over the law and tearing her reputation as a capable parent to shreds. It didn’t matter to him that his wayward daughter had mended her ways and grown up, taking responsibility and motherhood seriously. All that mattered was he had full control over the perfect image of family he’d created when he had no real idea of the kind of fabric that weaved a real family.
Chase touched her shoulder lightly. “Everything okay?”
She wanted to say yes, but the word hitched on a hard-drawn breath. Things between her and Chase had changed since she’d spent the night in his arms. A subtle shift from friendship to something more. Something so much more dangerous because she couldn’t let herself be drawn into the wonder of it, the promise of a future and a happy-ever-after.
She’d known him less than a week, yet it felt like she’d known him forever. She’d fallen in love with Marty, the kind of grandfather her baby deserved to have. Fallen for Carter and Mason because they were the kind of brothers she’d always wanted. Fallen for Chase in a way she’d never thought possible. Hard and fast, like a driver sneaking into the slipstream, blindsiding her to take the flag, stealing her breath, the adrenaline and her win.
“Charlie?”
She’d been so strong and brave until now. Until the look of concern on his face stole her heart and bravado in one smooth move of his lips. Her throat closed tighter around the fear that robbed her of words. She hadn’t done enough yet to keep Zoe with her. She hadn’t had enough time to prepare to take a stand against her father again, not face-to-face. She still had so much more to do to establish her foundations in this new life she’d chosen.
Chase cupped her face, his palms warm, stealing some of the chill from her skin. “Bad news?”
She focused on those deep blue eyes, the care in them, the solid reassurance and strength in his presence. “Kinda. That was a message from my father.” Her lips pulled tight. “Well, more of a warning really.”