Settling in for the drive north to the lake town they would now call home instead of Columbus, Evan once again reminded himself that this venture was a second chance. For him and his son. A place to create new memories, be closer to Rae’s parents and Rae’s best friend on the planet, Charlotte Harris.
“Excited to see Aunt Charlie?” he asked Lyon.
Charlie had been “Aunt Charlie” since she walked into the hospital room the day Lyon was born. Rae had held up the blue blanket Lyon was wrapped in after she’d sworn her way through eighteen hours of labor, and Charlie, with tears in her eyes, had taken him into her arms and said, “Hi, Lionel Downey, I’m your aunt Charlie.”
She’d been a fixture in Lyon’s life always.
Since Rae had passed, she’d become more of a fixture. Charlie was a dear friend. A constant, a solid person he and his son could count on. A light in a dark place.
Whenever she visited them, she dragged out photo albums, sometimes bringing new photos of her own to add to the pages, and sat Lyon down to tell him stories of his mother.
Charlie insisted on never letting him forget her. While he agreed this was best for his son, Evan did better when he wasn’t confronted with Rae’s smiling face as he walked down the hallway. Or her still one, a vision that woke him in a sweat more often than he cared to admit.
For that reason, he’d left the photos in the albums, had tucked the picture frames of the two of them away. But there was no escaping the spot of carpet in the hallway where she’d collapsed, or the other side of the bed, its emptiness as real a presence as Rae had been when she was alive.
Moving to Evergreen Cove would not only get them away from the house choked with her memory, but would bring Lyon closer to the things that meant most to him.
Charlie was one of those things.
“I can’t wait!” Lyon said, a very real light shining in his eyes.
Kids were so resilient. Especially his kid. Through the process of packing and moving, Lyon had been both apprehensive and excited. Evan saw the sadness in his eyes when he talked about not seeing his friends at school anymore, but Malcolm and Jesse, the two boys who were his best buds, visited the Cove in the summer. Lyon had been appeased with the promise of hanging out with them.
Plus, the new house offered the attractive package of swimming in the lake, a new house with a bigger bedroom, and Charlie nearby. Evan hoped that might make up for some of what they’d all lost.
Not everything, because God knew he couldn’t replace Rae, nor would he try.
But he’d sure as hell take whatever reprieve he could get.
* * *
The pain in the voice at the other end of the phone sliced through Charlotte Harris like a shard of glass. Three seconds ago, when she’d seen her best friend’s name pop up on her phone, she’d answered with a chipper, “hi!”
Her greeting was met with a beat of silence, followed by a deep, male response. One hollow, broken syllable; the nickname he’d given her a year ago.
“Ace.”
Her heart dropped to her stomach, her extremities going instantly cold in spite of the warm nighttime air. There was something registering in his tone that sent fear spilling into her bloodstream.
“Evan?”
A beat of silence, then, “Yeah.”
She stood from the chair she’d been lounging in and paced to the three steps leading from her porch down to the inky, still surface of the lake. In the background, a pyramid of pine trees climbed the hill in the distance.
“What is it?” This from her boyfriend, Russell, who stood from the porch swing behind her.
She held out a finger to tell him to wait a minute.
“What happened?” she asked into the phone. Something. She and Evan were friends, but not call-each-other friends. If he was calling her now, it had to be because there was a problem. With Lyon, or—
“Rae.” His voice cracked, a painful sob shattering the airwaves and sending an adrenaline rush through her bloodstream. He drew in an uneven breath. “Jesus, Ace.”
Unable to hold herself up any longer, she sank onto a step and issued the understatement of the year. “You’re scaring me.”
“She’s gone, Ace.” His voice went hollow, into a dead tone she never wanted to hear again as long as she lived.
“Gone…” False hope she’d recognize later as denial leaped against her chest, borne of desperation to find a reason other than the obvious for this almost-midnight call.
Maybe Rae went shopping. Maybe she and Evan had a fight and Rae went to her parents’ house. Maybe—
“Gone,” his whisper confirmed.
That’s when the tears choking her throat pulsed against her eyes. That’s when Russell took the phone from her hand. And that’s when she knew.
Rae Lynn Downey, her very best friend, more like a sister than her actual sister, wife to the long-ago besotted Evan Downey, and mother to a dimpled three-year-old Lyon Downey was… gone.
It took five days for that fact to settle in.
For her to see Rae’s physical body in the casket, for her to notice Evan’s formerly bright eyes weary and bloodshot, for her to witness firsthand the devastation of Rae’s parents and the somber expressions on Evan’s family’s faces.
For her to accept what “gone” meant.
Gone was permanent. Gone was forever.
Gone was unfair.
Standing over her body, Charlie vowed to Rae she’d watch over her family. She kissed her fingers, placed them on her best friend’s cold cheek, and whispered to the woman she’d never see alive again, “Sorry, Rae.”
Wheels crunched along the gravel outside her house, bringing Charlie out of the memory clouding her head and back to her living room. She dropped the open magazine she’d been staring unseeing at for the last however many minutes and swiped a single tear from her eye.
Then she cleared her throat, closed the magazine, and bucked up. Because Evan and Lyon couldn’t arrive and find her mourning Rae. There was no reason to darken this occasion with melancholy. Them moving here was a good thing. The best thing for them all. Their coming here had reminded her of the promises she’d made, the pain they’d gone through. The loss they’d endured.
She peeked between the curtains and confirmed the tires on the gravel did not belong to Evan’s SUV. Releasing a pent-up breath, she watched a blue pickup climb the hill and vanish into the trees.
Not them.
Evan had texted her—she checked her phone, then the clock—forty-six minutes ago, to say they were ten minutes away and since then she’d sat anxiously by the front window. Knowing him, and she did, he probably stopped at Dairy Dreem for an ice cream the moment they set foot in town.
She snapped up her iced tea, frowning at the ring on the coffee table. Where was her head today? She swiped the water ring with one hand and turned for her back porch, pausing first to slip on a pair of flats.
Charlie’s house was the most modest on her street—she liked to tell herself it was because the house was built before Evergreen Cove had become a vacation destination. She and her boyfriend, Russell Hartman, had purchased the small, white clapboard because of its view of the lake and the fantastic porch. At the time, she believed that buying a vacation home as a couple was a sign of permanence.
Wrong.
But she had no regrets about the house. Since she worked from home, she’d outfitted the family room facing the lake at the back to hold her desk, computer, and a few shelves for her supplies. She’d kept the couch, and yes, the television, in the room. Her office connected to the kitchen where she had a small table and chairs, but the real prize of her home was the porch. The wide, covered expanse, befitting of a Georgia plantation five times her home’s size, was where she ate most of her meals, entertained, or just sat and enjoyed the view.
Rather than stare out the window for the arrival of the Downey boys, she tracked out back to the swing hanging by a pair of chains, smoothed her dress, and sat.
Resting t
he tea at her feet, she sucked in a breath and took in the view. While the front of her house offered up traffic and trees, she preferred the back—the lake and the hill that rose behind it, a jagged skyline designed from pointed pine trees. This view was why she and Russell had purchased on the private beach.
When he left her two years ago, he’d kept the huge new-build with the cherry tree in the backyard. Rae had always told her a man who was unwilling to marry her was a man who would walk away. At the moment when he’d delivered her morning coffee in the enormous white kitchen with gleaming granite countertops and told her he was leaving her, Charlie thought of Rae’s words first.
Sad, but true.
He let her keep the vacation house in Evergreen Cove, and the Subaru they’d recently paid off. “I’d pay alimony if we were married,” he’d told her, assuaging his guilt. “The house at the Cove, the car, it’s the least I can do.”
The very least, she thought bitterly at the time, but now she didn’t feel bitter. She considered herself blessed things had ended before she’d thrown good years after bad into a relationship doomed to fail.
Russell was a software developer, a pragmatic thinker, and ten years older than Charlie. She met him at a wedding—prior to her photography career, so rather than the photographer, she’d been the bridesmaid at this particular event. A guest of the groom, Russell had sought her out, danced with her, and practically begged her to take his phone number.
After several dates she learned he didn’t want to be married, and he didn’t want children. She had always wanted children and assumed children were the natural path following marriage. But when it became clear they were serious, she’d decided both marriage and children were things she could live without. With the right person, sacrifices were unavoidable. Forever would be worth it.
But her relationship didn’t last forever, making the six-year compromise she’d made much harder to live with now.
After the kitchen conversation over coffee, he’d arranged for movers to extricate her from the house and then Russell had eloped with a woman with three children. One going into college and twin boys in the sixth grade. He gave no explanation for what changed his mind, but she knew. The other woman, Darian.
Darian had changed his mind.
Which had the unpleasant side effect of making Charlie feel like she hadn’t been enough.
She’d taken what was behind door number two and moved on as intact as she could. Some nights, the hurt and the fear of being alone lingered. The fact she’d been unable to achieve the seemingly simple goal of having a family and settling down had haunted her enough that on those nights she became practically nocturnal.
Taking in a deep, humid breath, Charlie centered herself on the here and now. June was nearly July and the hot and sticky had both settled in at the Cove for the long haul. Sunlight danced on the surface of the lake, sending waves rippling in the wind. Behind the lake, in the sea of evergreens lining the hills, there were a few hidden homes, but that was too “deep woods” for her taste.
From her coveted porch—yes, even her fancy neighbors with their large, enviable homes admitted to coveting her porch—a patch of grass gave way to shore and led into the water. Her aquatic neighbor, Earl, stepped out onto the deck of his beaten houseboat off to the left where it was anchored in the deep, and raised a hand to wave. She could make out his pipe, handlebar white mustache, and sunglasses from here. He was tanned and brawny and made the best clam chowder she’d ever tasted.
Murmuring from the side of her house brought her to her feet as the smile spread her mouth.
Finally!
The voices grew louder as they closed in and she strode across the porch to meet them. She couldn’t make out the exact words, but she knew the boy’s voice as if he were her own.
“Aunt Charlie!” Lyon appeared around the corner and burst into a run. Before she had a chance to take the three steps to the grass to meet him, he bounded up them and straight into her arms. She caught him against her, savoring how small he was, knowing it was a battle with time she’d lose, and bent to kiss his head. His tight curls had grown out some since she saw him last. They tickled her nose.
Pulling away, she flattened his hair with both hands. It sprang up again, refusing to be tamed.
“You need a haircut,” she teased.
“I knoooooow.” He rolled his green-blue eyes. Lionel Downey was a stunning kid. He had Rae’s chocolate-brown skin, a touch lighter than hers had been, and her genuine, full smile. He had his father to thank for his eye color: ocean blue so striking against his dark features.
“That’s a tired subject, if you can’t tell.”
Her eyes went to Evan, who’d crossed his bare arms over his chest and leaned a hip into the column at the bottom of the steps to watch their interaction. His presence wasn’t overbearing or intimidating, but easy. Evan matched his laid-back, live-and-let-live attitude with a lazy swagger that was anything but. He’d worked hard his entire life and as a result, confidence oozed from every pore. The thinning pair of Levi’s, the casual T-shirt hugging his chest, his array of tattoos, and devil-may-care smile he showed to the world were him through and through, but Charlie knew Evan ran deeper than his outer layer.
Her eyes tracked along the tattoos decorating his arms to the new one. His latest patch of artwork was a series of evergreen trees, their dark blue-black bases circling his wrist and branching up his arm, their tops almost reaching his elbow. Each tree was a different height, and knowing his attention to detail, each one had some significance. The whole of the pictorial on his arm had a big one.
His moving to Evergreen Cove.
Unable to keep it from happening, her heart reverted to the state it’d been in at age fifteen, somersaulting in the wrongest way imaginable. Before he was Rae’s, oh, how Charlie had pined for Evan Downey. Must have been seeing him back here, or maybe her earlier thoughts about her life, that caused the mini-backslide.
But she couldn’t backslide. She’d made a vow to herself, to Rae’s silent body, to care for Lyon and Evan.
“Did you guys eat?” she asked.
“Yeah. Dairy Dreem,” Lyon confirmed.
She knew it. She tilted her chin at Evan in reprimand. An accidentally sensual smirk crooked his mouth, surrounded in a one or two days’ worth of stubble.
“We didn’t only get ice cream.”
“Yeah, we had French fries,” Lyon added, earning a headshake from his dad.
“No loyalty.” The smirk slid into a grin and if that didn’t cause her heart the subtlest flutter, the wink would. And there it was, one blue eye closing and opening again—a flutter in and of itself—the blue so bright, it was nearly electric.
Was it any wonder he’d been on her radar when she was a vacationing teen visiting the Cove? There’d been three “bad boys” she and Rae had noticed whenever they sunbathed at the beach. Evan Downey, Donovan Pate, and Asher Knight. For Charlie, Evan stood out the most.
Evan only had eyes for Rae.
At first she was heartbroken, but Charlie had kept that fact to herself. Teenage crushes were a dime a dozen, and predictably, she outgrew it in a few summers. Rae and Evan had been designed for each other. By the time she stood at Rae’s side as her maid of honor, there wasn’t a bone in her body not overjoyed that her best friend had found the love of her life.
After Rae’s death, Charlie had become a more consistent part of Evan’s and Lyon’s lives. Russell hadn’t liked it. More than once, she wondered if her decision to care for Rae’s family rather than prioritize him had ultimately led to their demise.
Staying in touch with Evan had been easy when she and Russell lived close by. After the breakup and relocation, however, her trips to Columbus became less frequent. Once she was settled and had a job, Charlie did make an overnight trip down to visit, and she ended up babysitting for Lyon.
She hadn’t minded the babysitting part. Not at all. But the fact that Evan had gone on a date with an incredibly beautiful blonde, t
hen come home around three in the morning smelling of perfume and sex, had hurt her heart in a way she hadn’t known possible.
When he’d passed her in the hallway, Charlie had ducked her face into her palm to stifle a sob. Evan abruptly turned on his heel to wrap her in his arms and comfort her, and she had just lost it.
Him giving himself to a harlot who didn’t appreciate the things Rae had fallen in love with: his huge heart, his bottomless love for his family, was awful to witness.
Rae and Evan were supposed to live happily ever after. Lyon was supposed to grow up, get married, and dance with his mom at the reception. And Charlie… well, her life hadn’t turned out the way she’d planned, either.
Unable to voice the real reason for her crying jag, she’d blamed her emotions on her breakup with Russell, rather than the way it punched a hole in her chest to see the way she and Evan, Lyon, and Rae had all been shortchanged.
Life didn’t heed plans and dates. Life went on, and left whomever it pleased behind in the wreckage.
The memory caused her heart to ache, and her gut to yearn for what could have been. She flicked her eyes heavenward and sent up a mental, Sorry, Rae.
“Can I go inside?” Lyon pulled away from her and grabbed the handle on her sliding door.
“Knock yourself out,” she answered. “One more hug, though.” He acquiesced, giving her a halfhearted squeeze. She’d take what she could get. Soon, he’d be at an age where he wouldn’t snuggle with her any longer and she thought that might be the day she started crying and never stopped.
Evan pushed out of his casual lean, uncrossed his inked arms, and stomped up the three steps separating her from him. “Missed you, Ace.”
Him being close made her feel better instantly. “Missed you, too.”
He slid the door aside and motioned for her to go in, but when he ran a hand through his shaggy, mussed bedhead, she felt her heart kick against her chest in the slightest show of appreciation.
And for that, she should be ashamed.
Sorry, Rae.
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
A Bad Boy for Christmas Page 31