Small-Town Redemption

by Andrews, Beth

  “Oh, my God, she dumped you,” Estelle said, hitting her desk with the palm of her hand. “What did you do?”

  “She didn’t dump me. We were never together.”

  “Okay, okay. Obviously you messed up,” Estelle continued blithely. “You can get her back. First thing you need to do is send her flowers but, for God’s sake, don’t write the note yourself or you’ll just blow it.” She picked up her phone and started typing. “Let’s see... Dear Charlotte, these flowers don’t compare to your loveliness...” She wrinkled her nose, tapped another button—hopefully the delete button. “No, you’d never use loveliness. She’d see right through that.”

  “I’m not sending her flowers—”

  “Right. Good idea. Skip right to jewelry. Nothing too showy and nothing as predictable as diamonds.”

  “I’m not giving her jewelry, either. There is nothing going on between me and Charlotte. There never was and there never will be so just...drop it.”

  “Why not?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  Estelle rolled her eyes. “Why won’t there ever be anything between you two? It’s obvious you’re into each other.”

  “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

  “Daddy, please, I’m practically an adult.”

  She wasn’t. She was his little girl. Always. “Charlotte and I want different things.”

  She wanted a fairy tale and all it ensued—marriage, kids, weekend dinners at the in-laws. Strings and commitments and promises of forever.

  He wanted... Hell...he wasn’t even sure anymore. Three weeks ago he would have said freedom. Solitude. But being able to jump on his bike and take off to places unknown didn’t hold the appeal it once had.

  And solitude felt more like loneliness.

  Estelle shook her head at him disappointingly. “Daddy, I love you, but sometimes...you’re a real idiot.”

  She hit a button on her laptop and the screen went blank.

  The apartment was eerily quiet after Estelle’s chattering. He went into the kitchen, got a bottle of water from the fridge, opened it but didn’t drink. Stared out the window at the starry sky. Ever since Charlotte left his bed, left his life, last week, he hated being here. Felt trapped in the small rooms, as if the dingy walls were closing in on him.

  Everywhere he turned, he saw her. Every night he dreamed of her.

  He missed her. More than that, he ached for her, physically ached, as if a piece of himself were missing.

  She was an addiction, more dangerous than the one he’d had fourteen years ago, and that one had almost killed him. These feelings he had for her were dangerous. Terrifying. He didn’t love her. Couldn’t.

  Loving someone meant trusting them. It was too big of a risk. One he wasn’t strong enough to face.

  The truth shuddered through him. He hung his head, squeezing the water bottle so tightly it exploded in his hand. He didn’t move. After everything he’d done, after everything he’d faced, after he’d busted his ass turning his life around he was still nothing but a damned coward. An idiot, as his daughter had so helpfully pointed out.

  He didn’t have to keep punishing himself for his past. Didn’t have to be alone.

  He could be with Charlotte. Have her by his side, in his bed, in his life. They might not last forever, but however long they did—months, weeks or days—it was better than letting his fears push her out of his life.

  It was better than simply letting her get away.

  He tossed the bottle into the sink then strode to the door.

  And prayed like hell he managed to convince her to give him a second chance.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE STEPPED OUT of her car, still in her scrubs, only to stop when Kane, sitting on the stoop of her back door, straightened and stood.

  What was he doing here? Hadn’t he done enough? Hurt her enough? “Skulking around someone’s house is not an attractive trait,” she said, reaching back in for her purse and bag. She swung her purse onto her shoulder, used her key fob to lock her car. “Not to mention it’s just plain creepy.”

  “I want to talk to you,” he said as if he had any right to be at her house this early in the morning with his hair all mussed and his snug shirt clinging to his broad shoulders and flat stomach. He had dark circles under his eyes and at least two days’ worth of facial scruff.

  She only wished she didn’t find it, didn’t find him, so annoyingly appealing.

  “Well,” she said, brushing past him so he either had to move out of her way or take an elbow to the ribs, “as I’ve recently learned, we don’t always get what we want.” She unlocked the door and faced him with a mean smile. “Now, all I want is to get inside, get something to eat, shower and maybe read for an hour before I try to get some sleep. So, goodbye.”

  He kept the door open easily—too easily—just by holding it. “I want to talk to you, Charlotte.”

  “Again, we don’t always—”

  “Please,” he said gruffly. Damn him, he knew she couldn’t refuse when he was all polite and his accent came out.

  She stepped aside. “You’ll have to talk while I eat,” she said grumpily. “I’m hungry.”

  She turned her back to him, set her items on the table then crossed to the cupboard. While he watched her like some scowling, wild-haired poster child for rebels everywhere, she poured herself a bowl of cereal. Scooped up a bite as Kane paced her kitchen. Ignoring him, she sat at the stool at the counter and ate, tried to pretend a big, hulking man wasn’t circling her kitchen like some damned specter of boyfriends past.

  She wouldn’t ask why he was here. Told herself she didn’t care, not one bit. Not after he’d hurt her that way. Not after she’d opened up to him. Trusted him with her feelings. So, no. It didn’t matter why he was here or that he more than likely walked the three miles from O’Riley’s just to see her.

  She’d have to be a complete and utter fool to let him back in her life. And Lord knew her mother had not raised any fools.

  Finally, when she was fishing out the very last of her cereal, he stopped, faced her. “I may have been premature in ending things between us.”

  Char snorted. “Uh, you didn’t end anything. If I remember correctly, I did the ending. And I’m pretty sure it was a really good decision. Especially if you came here to try to tell me how you may have made a mistake. May have? Really? Could you get any more indecisive? God.” She stood, rinsed her bowl because there was no way she was going to let that cereal dry on it. “If you came here to waffle about whether or not you want to be with me, you’ve wasted your time and mine. “So,” she continued, pointing rather dramatically toward the door, “since you’re unsure of your feelings for me, I think you should leave. And when those feelings do become clear, please, please do me the courtesy of staying gone because I do not want to go through this again with you ever.”

  To her horror, her voice shook, tears threatened. She swallowed them back. She’d cried enough over him the past few days. She refused to do so anymore.

  He walked up to her, his face set, and she thought he was going to listen to her, that he was going to do as she asked and leave her be. Instead, he grabbed her shoulders, yanked her to him and kissed the breath from her lungs, the doubts from her mind. She sank into him—how could she not when she’d thought of nothing but him ever since she left him the other day?

  But then, thankfully, she found her strength, her resolve, and tore away from him. Shoved him. Hard. “No. Damn it, no. You don’t get to do this to me. We’re done. You may not have made that decision, but it was ultimately your choice.”

  He moved as if to walk away, and her heart broke, the thought of shutting him out again was hard, but she knew she had to do it to get past this. To get over him. To keep her heart safe.

  Kane whirled around. “I�
��ve been miserable,” he said lowly.

  She nodded. “Yeah? Welcome to the club, buddy. And don’t think for a moment I feel sorry for you, either.”

  “I...” He rolled his head side to side. Exhaled heavily and pinned her with his intense gaze. “I’ve missed you. I’ve left my family, have gone months...years...without seeing them. Have made and lost friends and have never, not once, missed anyone the way I’ve missed you these past few days. It was like...”

  She bit into her bottom lip. She wouldn’t ask. Wouldn’t give him any more of her time or thoughts.

  But she couldn’t stop the words from coming out any more than she could stop herself from loving him.

  “Like what?” she asked after a moment, her breath lodged in her throat, her heart racing. She tried not to hope, she really did. He’d hurt her too much for her to think there could be anything between them. But the thought formed all the same.

  He looked miserable. As miserable and unhappy as she’d felt this past week. It shouldn’t please her, but it did. It really, really did. Knowing he’d suffered the way she had, that he regretted—as he should—his stupidity, his mistake—made her own pain that much easier to bear.

  Made it that much easier for her to want to forgive him.

  She sighed. Guess she was a fool after all.

  “It felt as if a piece of me was missing,” he said quietly. He lifted his hand, touched the ends of her hair just above her ear. “Like it was hard to breathe without you there. I crave you, Charlotte.”

  Oh, that was good. Really good. But she had to be smart. She had to protect herself. “What if you were right? What if it was just sex?”

  “It wasn’t. I lied when I said that, when I said it was always that way. I didn’t want to admit how great it was, how much it meant to me. I was stupid. Scared.”

  “Scared? Of me?”

  He nodded. “You have the power to hurt me. You have my heart in your hands.”

  “And you don’t trust me not to crush it?” She shook her head. “You don’t trust me at all, do you?” she asked quietly.

  “I was an idiot not to.”

  She crossed her arms. “You were. But maybe you were right. Maybe we’re not meant to be.”

  “Don’t say that.” He sounded desperate. Shaken. “Please, Charlotte. Give me another chance.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” she whispered. “What if you decide you can’t trust me again? What if you get scared? I don’t want us to be sex buddies or ‘sort of’ seeing each other. I love you. I’m in love with you, and for me, that means forever.”

  “I’m not the man you wanted,” he pointed out, and she saw, for the first time, that knowing she’d wanted James and Justin, by her thinking she had wanted them, she’d hurt him, too.

  Maybe they were both idiots.

  “You’re not the man I thought I wanted. You’re better. You’re real and not some fantasy I concocted in my head. But if you don’t believe that, if you don’t trust in that, in me—and in us—there’s no point in us trying anything.”

  He swallowed visibly. “I can’t let you go again,” he said raggedly. “I’m in love with you and that’s the best damn reason I can think of for us to try. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and the way you discuss disgusting medical cases over meals. Your plans and goals, your smile and laugh.” He took her hands in his, and she noted his were unsteady. “Charlotte, I want you. Only you. Forever.”

  Tears threatened again but they were the good kind. It was scary to hope. Terrifying to trust. But in the end, the heart wanted what the heart wanted.

  And her heart wanted Kane. Only Kane.

  Half laughing, half crying, she threw herself into his arms. “I want you, too. You’re not who I envisioned, but you’re the perfect man for me.”

  He held her tight, pressed his face against the crook of her neck. “Damn right I am.”

  And when he kissed her, they were both smiling.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to check out the other books in Beth Andrews’s IN SHADY GROVE series!

  TALK OF THE TOWN

  WHAT HAPPENS BETWEEN FRIENDS

  CAUGHT UP IN YOU

  All available now from Harlequin Superromance.

  And look for a new IN SHADY GROVE book from Beth Andrews later in 2014.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from TOO CLOSE TO RESIST by Nicole Helm.

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Superromance.

  You want romance plus a bigger story! Harlequin Superromance stories are filled with powerful relationships that deliver a strong emotional punch and a guaranteed happily ever after.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “THANKS AGAIN FOR doing this.” Grace McKnight sat in the passenger side of her brother’s truck and tried not to feel like a coward or a failure.

  She wasn’t succeeding.

  “Happy to do it.”

  Grace fidgeted in her seat. Jacob’s good-natured acceptance of her proposal didn’t make this any easier. Nothing about Barry’s getting out of jail had made life easier. Nothing.

  Seven years after he’d beaten her into a three-day coma, Barry was still influencing her life. No matter how Grace tried, she couldn’t find another alternative.

  Going to live with her brother currently felt like the only option. Not only because of Barry and what he might do to the woman who’d testified against him, but also because living within walking distance of her parents was driving her insane, or at least turning her back into the jumpy weakling she’d been directly following her incident.

  She couldn’t go back to being that person. So a little buffer from her parents was necessary, no matter how much it felt like running away.

  Barry hadn’t even been released before Mom and Dad started hovering. Dropping in multiple times a day at the gas station where she worked—even when they should have been at work themselves. Bringing her dinner or breakfast at her tiny house a few streets over from theirs. Filling in every second of her life with false cheer and barely contained worry.

  Grace couldn’t blame them, but she also couldn’t handle it. It was hard enough living with the fear that Barry would try to seek some kind of revenge. Her parents’ constant checking up and fake smiles, buying her alarms and talking to county deputies behind her back left her ready to head back to therapy.

  She’d worked too hard and come too far to go back to being that woman who hid from everyone and everything.

  So she’d stay with Jacob for a month or two, let her parents see that everything was all right. Give them some time to calm down and relax. If she lived with Jacob, they wouldn’t hover as much. Jacob had a security alarm, a roommate. Grace would be safe, constantly surrounded by Jacob or Kyle. They would believe she was safe and looked after. They wouldn’t be by her side constantly.

  A few weeks and her parents would see that Barry’s being out of jail changed nothing. She could convince them. Had to. Because if she convinced them, she’d be that much closer to convincing herself.

  And then maybe things could go back to normal.

  Maybe.

  Grace moved her gaze to her tattoo. A Native American morning star, it symbolized strength and courage. A nod to Grandma Davenport, the strongest woman Grace had ever known.

  Symbols had strength. Grace had to believe they’d give her some. Even when this felt cowardly. Even when it felt as if she was giving up, she had to let that
symbol give her some comfort.

  She was doing what she had to do. For herself. For her parents. For the life she deserved. It wasn’t running away if it saved her sanity or kept her parents from worrying themselves into an early grave. Was it?

  Grace took a deep breath and let it out, watching the small town of Carvelle fade away into cornfields and then into the larger town of Bluff City.

  Grace preferred Carvelle’s small-town charm, and the ability to survive without a car because everything was within walking distance, but Bluff City had its moments. The Mississippi snaked below the town, calm and lazy. The sun was shining and even some of the deserted brick buildings along the riverfront looked pretty instead of dilapidated or flood worn.

  Or maybe that was just her appreciation for the damaged and neglected.

  Jacob’s house/office was an old Victorian nestled in the bluffs. Grace smiled as they approached the big building with curving edges and diamond windows. Five years had transformed it from a deserted, decaying eyesore to a shining white vision of the past. With the bluff to the side and the river beneath, it was downright gorgeous and a testament to the success of MC Restorations.

  Her baby brother had built a business he loved. She tried not to let that be a source of bitterness for her. Sure, she spent forty hours a week cashiering at a gas station, but she also spent the rest of her free time happily painting. On occasion, she sold a piece, too.

  She wasn’t an abysmal failure, and she wouldn’t let herself wallow in thinking she was.

  Jacob pulled into the lot out back, and with the reality of the situation sitting in front of her, Grace tensed. Living with her brother was one thing; invading his business territory was another. Because Jacob didn’t live or work in this house alone.

  “You never did tell me how you got Kyle to agree to this.” Jacob’s business partner and roommate, Kyle Clark, wasn’t her biggest fan. To put it mildly.