by Josie Kerr
She rolled her neck and went to retrieve her father.
She stopped in front the of the lobby door that protected the world from the inner workings of Tara Security, took a deep breath, and plastered a smile on her face.
“David, what a nice surprise. Bailey Carmichael, this is my father, David Markham.”
“We met.” David delivered the words flatly with not even a pretense of friendliness.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Markham. We always enjoy meeting family members,” Bailey said lightly, but Charlotte knew the little office manager well enough to recognize the irritation that bubbled just below the surface of her sweet demeanor.
“Come on back, David.”
They walked down the hall, silently, side by side, and Charlotte quietly observed her father’s reaction to her workplace. She knew he would be impressed with the understated luxury of the offices, and that would go a long way toward his acceptance of Tara Security Systems as a legitimate company and not some fly-by-night start-up.
When they got to Charlotte’s office, David looked around and then looked at his daughter, who stood next to her big desk with her arms crossed and a defiant look on her face.
David cleared his throat. “Well, I’m impressed. This actually looks like a legitimate place of business.”
“It is. And I’m not going to talk about the brunch, so if you’re here to discuss that, you can leave right now.”
“All I’m going to say about the brunch is that you disappointed a lot of people by not showing up. Several people asked where you were and hoped that you were not having any sort of trouble.”
“Well, that was nice of them. Tell me who they were, and I’ll drop them a line in the next week or two.”
David waved her off. “It doesn’t matter, like you said, because what’s done is done.”
Charlotte remained standing by her desk, waiting patiently, and watching David pace around the office.
“You know, I’m not as angry about you missing the brunch as I am about the reason you missed it. Really? For some fighter? You were down in the middle of nowhere, and you missed the one event that I request you attend, and for what?”
“For what? I had a really nice time this weekend, as a matter of fact. It was good to get out of the city and just do nothing except for what I wanted to for once.” At least, until Tig decided I was too much trouble.
“Well, I’ve scheduled another brunch with the same people, and you are going to be there.”
“I don’t have to be anywhere, David. You can’t seem to quite grasp that I’m not sixteen anymore, and you have no control over what I do.”
“I’m just thinking about your reputation, Charlotte.”
She wrinkled her forehead in a scowl. “My reputation? What on earth are you talking about? Wait. . . how do you know he’s a fighter? And how did you know whom I was visiting? I just said it was a friend.”
“This is how I know, Charlotte.” With a smug smile of satisfaction, David threw the pictures on the desk.
Charlotte grabbed the photos and rifled through them, a sick feeling of fury building in her gut.
“Charlotte, you need to face reality. Nothing good can come out of being involved with a thirty-year-old fighter who doesn’t even have a major contract. He’s a peanut farmer, and a broke one at that. What are you thinking?”
“Get out,” Charlotte whispered, her voice wavering with emotion. “Get the hell out of my office.”
The man barked a laugh. “I’ll leave when I’m finished talking to you, and I’m sure not finished yet. I’m not having any daughter of mine be involved with the likes of that redneck.”
“I am thirty-six years old, David. I can see whomever I please.”
David snorted. “You know, fifteen years ago, I would have welcomed you seeing someone like him. Get you loosened up a little, and hell, it’s expected that you ‘spite-date’ at least one boy. Now? It’s just pitiful. I’m embarrassed for you.”
“No, you’re embarrassed for you. This has nothing to do with me. Now, leave, before I get someone to show you out.”
“Now, listen here, Charlotte . . . ,” David began.
He was interrupted by a knock on the door and a deep voice asking, “Charlotte, is there a problem?”
David whirled around to come face-to-face with a glowering, burly, redheaded man.
Charlotte mentally inhaled and exhaled, gathering her nerves. “No, Rory, there’s no problem. David, this is Rory Doyle, the man behind Tara Security. Rory, this is my father, David Markham.”
David stuck his hand out and Rory shook it, but the look he leveled at David spoke volumes about what their true relationship was going to be.
“David was just leaving, and we’ve got that two o’clock with the Holbrook Firm. . . .”
Rory nodded. “I’ll walk you out, David. Charlotte, tell Ed I’ll be just a few minutes late joining in.”
After the two men left her office, Charlotte slumped down in her chair, shaking with fury. She tried to take some deep breaths, but she could not quite do it. She could feel her heart rate speed up, and the more she tried to take deep, calming breaths, the less she was able to do so, and in five minutes, she was forced to put her head between her knees so she would not pass out.
“Charlotte? Charlotte, honey, it’s okay.” Charlotte felt a hand softly pat her back. “I brought you a Coke, sugar.”
Charlotte sat up slowly and was finally able to suck in a deep, cleansing breath and let it out. Em pressed the cold glass in her hand, and when Charlotte looked up at her, she was looking at Charlotte with a wholly sympathetic expression.
“You want to talk about it?”
And then it all came out. Thirty years of frustration, thirty years of disappointment, Charlotte told Em everything, from kind housekeepers getting fired because they had the audacity to bake a little girl the cake she wanted, all the way to a fake engagement to a gay man and the acceptance of a job that she did not want, just to keep her father happy.
“God, he’s an asshole, isn’t he?” Em said when Charlotte had finished.
“Well, I’m not the most assertive person on the planet. I should have told him to shove it a long time ago.”
Em snorted. “Yes, you should have, but he’s your father. I understand how hard it is for you to disappoint your parents, even if they’re being completely unreasonable.” She patted Charlotte’s hand. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to move out of that apartment is the first thing. I would not put it past him to threaten to put me out on the street for not paying attention to what he wants.”
Em nodded. “That’s good. Do you need a real estate agent?” she said with a laugh.
“No, I actually have had my eye on a neighborhood for a while, and something just came on the market yesterday.”
Em clapped her hands together. “It’s a sign. Call the agent right now.”
Charlotte laughed. “I’ll call them tonight. . . .”
“You don’t want to miss out. Call them.”
“I’ve got work to do.”
Em leveled a look at Charlotte. “You need to call that agent, girlie. These jackasses who are ripping off shareholders and the government are going to be here tomorrow; that house might not be.”
“But Rory . . .”
Em waved her off again. “Rory, schmory. He knows not to mess with signs. Call. That. Agent.”
Chapter Thirty
And that was how Charlotte ended up in the front yard of an updated 1910 Craftsman in Cabbagetown with Rory’s very pregnant missus and a very excited Em.
“I haven’t seen the inside of it, but unless it’s got a rotten floor and body buried in the basement, I don’t think I’m not going to like it.”
“You can get rid of the cadaver smell, but it takes time,” Ashley said as she hauled herself up the stairs. Em and Charlotte gaped at her. “What? You gotta know thes
e things when you’re dealing with somewhat sketchy listings, which, I may add, this is not.”
“Oh, this is so cute. So, so cute,” Em murmured as they walked through the house.
“It is,” Charlotte whispered. “It’s just perfect.” She sucked in a ragged breath. It’s perfect.
She felt herself hugged from both sides, and she laughed even as tears ran down her face.
“Oh God, you must think I’m a complete basket case,” she said, wiping her eyes with a hankie that Ashley produced from seemingly thin air.
Ashley dismissed her with a snorting laugh. “Honey, you don’t have anything on crazy, trust me. This is it, this is your house. I can tell these things. Now, I have a few more that are in the neighborhood. Do you want to look at them, just for comparison’s sake?”
Charlotte took a deep breath and looked out the kitchen window into the backyard where there was already a garden staked out.
“I’ll look at them, just to be sure. But I know this is it.”
“Okay, honey. Em?”
“Oh, you know I’m up for it.”
Ashley clapped her hands and did a little dance. “Yay.”
“You sure you should be bouncing around like that?” Em reprimanded her friend.
Ashley snorted. “I did a whole lot more bouncing last night than that, Em,” she said with a leer and wiggle of her eyebrows.
“Oh my,” Charlotte laughed.
“I know you don’t know me very well, but I’m not really shy,” Ashley said with a grin. “But I am hungry. Let’s go to Foley’s and get something to eat. I think the babies want fish and chips. We can go see the other houses on the way to the pub, and then we can put in an offer on this one.”
An hour and a half later, the women had cool beverages and several plates of food in front of them and the beginnings of homeownership paperwork completed.
Ashley scraped a french fry through a large glob of feta salad dressing and pointed it at Charlotte. “The only thing I worry about, Charlotte, is the fact that it only has two bedrooms and a bath. It’s going to be hard to resell. I’m sure that’s the only reason that it’s still available.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Two bedrooms is perfect—one for sleeping, one for working. And I’m never planning on reselling it, ever. I’m going to live there until I keel over.”
“Things happen,” Em said with a pointed look at Ashley, who stuck her tongue out at her friend.
Charlotte huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s not going to be an issue.”
“Ashley didn’t think it was going to be an issue, and now she’s got two car seats in an SUV and three more, just waiting, in boxes.”
“Five?” Charlotte squeaked. “Oh my God, that was so rude. I’m so sorry.”
Ashley threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, honey, that was essentially my reaction, especially with this second bunch.” She mumbled something about bossy men who could not follow directions as she shoved a french fry in her mouth. “But you don’t mind this essentially being a single person’s house?”
Charlotte shook her head. “I’m used to being alone. I actually like being alone, but now, I’ll be someplace that I love—and that’s my own—instead of being someplace that’s forced on me.”
Em and Ashley nodded in agreement.
“Well, what have we here? All the ladies, playing hooky?” Sully grinned at the table of women.
“No, this is a working lunch, Sully,” Em said with a laugh. “Well, at least it is for those two. I’m just here for moral support.”
Sully chuckled warmly and patted Ashley on the back. “How’re you feeling these days, girlie? ’Bout run ragged already?”
“Good God A’mighty, if I did not have Daddy and Sheila and Paddy, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Sully nodded and looked at Charlotte. “I’ve met you before. Guinness, but not too sure about it, salmon plate. Whiskey also, yeah?”
Charlotte laughed. “Yes, that was it exactly.”
At Em and Ashley’s inquisitive looks, she recounted that night at the pub when she first encountered the fighters of DS Fight Club.
“So that was even before you met Tig at Bailey and Colin’s housewarming slash wedding reception, then. Huh.” Em tapped her chin with her index finger, a thoughtful look on her face.
“Huh, what?”
“Do you think Tig saw you at the pub that night?”
Charlotte regretted bringing the fighters up. These past few hours had been the only time that she had not been wondering about Tig, about how he was doing, what he was doing. If he missed her.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, he did. We’ve talked about it some.”
Em laid her hand on Charlotte’s wrist. “Is Tig part of the reason your father showed up at the office today?”
Charlotte nodded. “And we’re not even seeing each other anymore, I guess. I haven’t talked to him since we came back from his parents’ house. It’s been ten days.”
“Oh, honey. No wonder you were so upset.” Ashley’s lip wobbled, and she patted Charlotte’s other hand.
“And I don’t even know what happened. I mean, I can guess at what happened—his parents got in his head, made him feel guilty for whatever reason. It’s a complicated situation down there.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think the farm’s doing well, and I don’t think that his parents, especially his stepfather, approve of the fighting. And I got the impression that his father thinks that I’m not good for him, for whatever reason.” She heaved a big sigh. “I just don’t know.”
“Have you tried to call him?”
Charlotte shook her head. “He said he needed some time. I’m giving him that.”
“Good God A’mighty, they are such chickenshits sometimes,” Ashley blurted. “Goddamn. And you just hush, Ermengarde Davidson. I know I’m the pot calling the kettle black, so just don’t start.” She glared at Em, who tried to look contrite, but Charlotte could tell she was about to burst out laughing. Ashley pointed a warning finger at Em and then turned back to Charlotte.
“Call him tonight. It can’t hurt, honey.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Call. Him.”
The three women jolted when Ashley’s and Charlotte’s phones buzzed. They looked at their phone and grinned at each other, and at Em, who said, “I’m assuming this is good news?”
And Charlotte surprised both of them, as well as Sully, by whooping and throwing her fists in the air.
“Do you think Rory would mind me taking the rest of the day off? I’ve got movers to hire and stuff to pack.”
“If he does, tell him he’s got to answer to his missus. He’ll not have an issue. Trust me,” Ashley said with a sniff and a knowing look, and Charlotte laughed.
Chapter thirty-one
Tig blew out a breath as he pulled mats into place for a women’s self-defense class. He knew that Colin was aware of the illegal fights going on around the city, but the fact that one of his main fighters, as well as his cutman, were participating in those fights would greatly disappoint the ex-champion.
Tig needed to find out if Colin was connected to the underground scene enough to find out who was fighting. No, actually, he needed to stop fighting in the underground matches is what he needed to do; however, until he got on another card, he needed the fights for the extra income they brought in because as well as Colin paid him to do personal training sessions and help around the gym, it just was not enough.
“Tig?” Dig snapped his fingers in front of Tig’s face. “Earth to Kicker. Come in, Kicker.”
Tig shook his head to clear it and gave his buddy a weak smile. “Sorry, man. It’s been a weird couple of weeks.”
Dig snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet things can get wild at Cougar Central.” Dig skipped back a few steps, anticipating a good-natured jab at the mention of Charlotte, but Tig just stood there, mat in his hands, looking thoughtful and
sort of sad. “Tiggyman, what’s up? You need Ponytail to cheer you up a bit? I know you come in really late and have been dragging ass lately. Miss Cougar is wearing the young buck out, huh?”
Tig shook his head. She had not called, not once, and that upset him more than he ever thought it would. He did not know how many times he had stopped himself from calling her. Why hadn’t he called her? Hell if he knew, and he did not want to examine that too closely either.
Dig continued to blather. “I’ll be honest, she’s totally not what I usually go for, but damn, she . . . is . . . hot. Those little suits and those high heels? She looks like a dark-haired version of that redhead from that show, you know, about the ad agency?”
“Yeah, I know that show. I guess she does. But I haven’t been spending time with her. I’ve been going back and forth to the farm to help out every chance I get. I haven’t seen Charlotte since that weekend when you fucking interrupted us.”
“Since I interrupted your fucking, you mean,” Dig said with a big grin, but that faded when Tig blew out a frustrated breath. “Oh man, you on the outs with her or something?”
“Man, I really don’t know what’s going on.” Tig scrubbed his face with his hands. “She came down to Montezuma with me that weekend, and things got kind of weird on the way back. I haven’t seen or talked to her since.”
“Man, that sucks.”
No shit, it sucked. It sucked big time.
Tig blew out another big breath. “Yeah,” was all he said.
An ear-splitting whistle rang through the gym, and everyone stopped and turned—or at least slowed down to gawk.
“Tig, you’re up,” Ryan Richards yelled across the gym.
Tig groaned and Dig chuckled. “Looks like Goody’s in a mood, too. Man, have fun with that.”
Tig flipped Dig off as he walked toward the cutman, a feeling of dread building in his belly with every step he took.
“Hop up, Tiggyman.” Ryan began wrapping Tig’s hands. He leaned in closer and said in a low voice, “You fighting tonight?”
Tig nodded.