by Brandy Ayers
She had several. What was the accelerant used? Could they track the purchase of the accelerant? Did they have a theory on the motivation of the arsonist? Were outside investigators going to be brought in to help?
But none of those were the question to pop out of her mouth.
“Yes, young lady with the dark hair. Sorry, I’m not familiar with your name.”
The blood curdled in her veins as realization dawned on Charlotte that they mayor spoke to her. Every face in the entire room pointed in her direction. So many eyes trained on her. So much attention. Pressure clamped down on her forearm, and Charlotte looked down to realize Bekah held her arm in support. “Um, yes.” Charlotte closed her eyes, took a deep breathe, and opened them again. “Have you been able to determine the motivation for the arsonist? Is there any pattern to the arsons that might indicate they are revenge fires?”
Once again, the fire marshal leaned over the side of the podium to take the question. “It is hard to say at this point. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to the fires, but sometimes patterns don’t become apparent until more evidence is found. Revenge could be one motive. Another could be simply that this guy likes to watch the destruction he causes.”
Charlotte returned to her seat as the press conference wrapped up. Her hands shook violently in her lap, the adrenaline from simply standing and asking a question leaving her body weak.
“Good job, girlie,” Bekah whispered in her ear before turning back to watch the end of the press conference.
Five minutes later, everyone was standing and filing out from the now extremely hot conference room. Except Trey, he stood statue still by the wall, still staring at Charlotte. Ignoring him, or trying to, Charlotte gathered with Bekah and Cory at the back of the room. “I can stay and help you guys put the story together for a little bit, but I have to head back to the newsroom before Annabelle leaves.”
“That would be awesome. No one knows this story like you. But I have to hit the little ladies room first.” Bekah sauntered off, several men watching her as her hips swayed hypnotically. Only she didn’t head to the hallway where the bathrooms were, instead, she walked straight up to Trey, who finally broke his stare down with the back of Charlotte’s head to watch the reporter’s approach.
Uncharacteristic jealousy shot through Charlotte. Was Trey looking appreciatively at her friend? True, he was free to look at any woman he wanted in any way he wanted. But it still made her blood boil. The green-eyed monster consuming her logic quickly got knocked out by panic as she realized Bekah was telling off Trey. From across the room it was impossible to hear what they said, but the waving of Bekah’s finger, the hand on her hip, and Trey’s ashamed face tilting toward the floor told the whole story. Bekah was giving him a piece of her mind about ghosting Charlotte.
If only the ground would open up and swallow her. That would be much preferable to the embarrassment of having her first, what? Ex-lover? Told off by her bold and brassy friend. She knew Bekah meant well, but Charlotte would be having her own uncomfortable with the woman with no boundaries later.
Chest squeezing until she almost couldn’t breathe, her stomach sank down to her feet, and her fingers tingled with building panic. But no matter how much she wanted to escape the situation, her feet were glued to the floor and refused to move.
“Char, you okay?” Cory placed his hand on her shoulder, leaning in to block the scene playing out before her.
It wasn’t until that minute that she realized silent tears had been rolling down her face. Quickly wiping them away, she nodded, but her mouth wouldn’t respond. Cory shrugged and moved to break down his equipment. Once he did, the confrontation between Bekah and Trey seemed to be over. She stomped her way back to where Charlotte stood, and Trey once again stared at her, sadness and anger swirling in his eyes. More tears trickled from her eyes, and the anger left his eyes, leaving only despair. Trey took a step toward her, and she responded by turning on her heel and jogging from the room. Not easy in the heels Bekah had insisted she buy.
“Charlotte, wait.” Bekah ran after her until they stood on the sidewalk outside city hall.
“Why would you do that? What did you say? What did he say?” Charlotte’s chest and shoulders heaved with effort of sucking in breaths past her panic.
“Okay, calm down, slow down. I just yelled at him for treating you the way he did. He didn’t say a word, just took it, looking like I’d kicked his puppy.” Bekah grabbed Charlotte’s hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Then I guess Cory touched you, and Trey started acting all alpha-dog, emphasis on the dog. He started toward you guys, and I stopped him. Told him he had no right to be jealous when he was the one to drop you without a word. No one would blame you for moving on.”
“I’m not moving on. I never plan on moving on. I’m never doing this dating thing again. It sucks. It hurts.”
“Oh honey. I know it does. But it gets better. You’ve been with one man. I swear there are more, better, out there.” Bekah’s lips curled up into a secretive smile. “Besides, I have a feeling things aren’t totally finished between you and Mr. December.”
No matter how much Charlotte questioned her about that last declaration, Bekah wouldn’t elaborate. Instead, they concentrated on getting her story ready for her first hit on the five o’clock news.
But Charlotte’s brain never strayed far from thoughts of Trey, and the pain that had filled his eyes when she ran from him.
Chapter Twenty
Finally, quitting time rolled around, and Charlotte trudged out of the station’s back door. Her whole body curled closer to the ground in exhaustion. She’d be lucky to make it the ten miles home.
It had been a good night though. A busy night. Bekah turned two stories around for the evening news; one on the fire press conference and the other on a kidnapping that was prevented by two quick thinking boys are bikes. After the show, things didn’t slow down. Instead, the entire night steam rolled on with police calls every hour, a shooting, a tractor trailer overturning the liberty tunnels, and an idiot who had apparently been raising a bear cub in his apartment and got bit when the thing got too big. The morning producers had no shortage of stories to choose from.
The sun was just starting to peek out from behind the tree lined parking lot, and Charlotte raised her head, smiling that spring was definitely on its way if it wasn’t complete darkness by the time her shift was over.
That smile froze on her face, slowly melting into a gaping expression of pure shock. Because across the parking lot, bathed in the early morning light, was Trey propped against her car. Arms crossed across, his chin rested against his chest, and he appeared to be dozing. How long had he been there?
Approaching carefully, Charlotte laid her hand on his forearm. God, she’d missed touching him so much. “Trey?”
He jolted awake, but bags remained below his normally jovial eyes. None of the good humor she had come to associate with him in the weeks they’d know each other lingered there. Instead, sadness and pain were all that filled the brown irises. “Sugar.”
The endearment left his mouth on a sigh, and before she could react, he gathered her up into his arms, her toes leaving the pavement. On instinct, her body responded, arms flinging around his neck, body melding to his. But only for a moment. Then Charlotte came to her senses. She might not have a lot of experience with relationships or men—okay, any experience—but she did know that a man couldn’t throw a woman away and ignore her for weeks only to be forgiven at the first sign of remorse.
Releasing his neck, Charlotte pushed at his chest, and Trey obeyed her silent command, releasing her back onto her own feet.
“I missed your scent so much.” Torture, that was what filled his eyes. Regret too. God help her, it pulled at her heart. Charlotte might be shy, but she refused to be spineless.
“If you missed my scent so much, you should have called. Come over. Anything but disappear.” Turning from him, Charlotte opened the trunk and slung her work bag onto the floo
r.
The crunch of gravel behind her signaled Trey’s proximity. “I know, Jesus, I know.” His large hands gripped her hips, but he didn’t pull her any closer. Instead, he leaned his forehead onto her shoulder. Trey’s warm breath heated the thin blouse against her shoulder, seeming to turn the temperature up on her whole body.
“I know, sugar. I can’t… shit.” The hold on her hips increased, a slight tug bringing their bodies closer, but still not touching. “There is so much I want to tell you. But I can’t. Not without putting you in danger. If anything happened to you, and it was my fault, I couldn’t live with myself.”
Charlotte turned, but he refused to let go, so his hands drifted across her back and stomach, resuming their hold on her hips once she faced him. “Why would I be in danger?”
A groan of pure agony tore from his chest. “I can’t tell you specifics. Just that there have been threats, and I thought it would be best if I left you alone. To keep you safe.”
“You know that sounds insane right? Leaving me alone to keep me safe? It sounds like the excuse of a man who had no good reason for walking away without a word. I may not know a lot about relationships and men in general, but I know what you did is not okay.” A strange sense of pride glowed in Charlotte’s chest; she could stand up for herself. Even against this larger than life man who made her body want to melt. For someone who had spent her life cowering from new experiences and people, who shied away conflict, being able to speak her mind and be heard meant a lot.
“I know. You’re right. I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to think of a better way to do this. To keep you safe and keep you mine. It kills me that I haven’t known what you were doing, how your day was for the past fourteen days. That you slept alone every day.” Trey cupped her face in his hands, and Charlotte was strong enough to admit that he still managed to make her feel treasured, even after ghosting her.
“I’ve dreamt of our first time every night. I hate that you gave that to me, that we shared that together, and I had to walk away. I’ve barely slept. I can’t stop picturing your face when I left your apartment. How confused you looked. I even got burnt during a routine kitchen fire last week, because I couldn’t stop dwelling on what I’d done. The shame of not telling you something.”
Despite still being angry at him, Charlotte gasped in horror that he had been hurt during a fire. She took a step away from him until her back pressed against the side of her car and scanned him from head to toe. “Where were you hurt?”
Pulling down the collar of his shirt, Trey showed her the angry patch of flesh that had been burned in the fire. “I didn’t tuck the hood into my jacket. Rookie move. The guys haven’t stopped ribbing me about getting injured during a stove fire.”
“I’m sorry you got hurt.” Charlotte thought over everything he had told her. Took into account the injury, and the haunted look behind his eyes. The way he couldn’t stop touching her. His words and actions seemed to point to him being truly sorry for what he had done.
Charlotte wanted to forgive him. Wanted to return the affections and take him into her arms. Not holding back the questions bombarding her mind, Charlotte straightened her shoulders and looked into the face of the only man who had made feel both vulnerable and brave. “How do I know you won't do this again? That the next time things get hard you won’t shut me out again? You haven’t even told me what’s really going on. Who is threatening you?”
Trey sighed, rubbing one hand over his close-cut hair, threading the fingers of his other hand with Charlotte’s. “I want to tell you, I do. But there are things I need to do for my own peace of mind first. Then I swear, you’ll know everything. But, you’re right. I went about this all wrong. I shouldn’t have distanced myself to keep you safe. I should have stayed right next to you. The best place I can be to protect you is right next to you.”
He placed a delicate kiss on Charlotte’s forehead. The lips that she’d been thinking about each day before going to bed lingering against her skin.
“I know you keep saying you don't know much about men and relationships, but neither do I. This is the first time I’ve been in danger of falling in love. I’m halfway there as it is. And I have no idea how to handle that.”
Mind reeling, Charlotte closed her eyes, pressing her face into the uninjured side of his neck. “I don’t know what to say, what to do. I want to believe you.”
“Let me prove it to you. My parents are having a cookout tonight. I’ve never brought a woman home before. Come with me.” Trey laughed, tucking a strand of her hair that had come free from her bun back behind her ear. “My mom is going to go nuts. She’ll be all over you, trying to shove food down your throat and talking about all the grandbabies she wants. You’ll probably be the one running away at the end of the night. But I still want you there. By my side. As mine.”
The way he talked about his family made her jealous. They sounded so involved in each other’s lives. So present. The concept was totally foreign to Charlotte. She wanted to experience it, to see him in that element. But her whole body threatened to freeze at just the thought of being the center of his family’s attention. Fears she had just been starting to put in their place crept back.
“I promise, they’ll love you.”
With her mind made up, Charlotte nodded once. “Okay. But I need to go get some sleep. And change. And shower. And oh god, I have to cook something. That is what people do with cookouts right? They bring like a covered dish or something. So, forget sleep, we need to go to the store, then cook, then shower, then dress.” She turned to her car ripping open the driver’s side door and ready to speed from the parking lot as fast as her shitty little Camry would take her. First, she whipped back around a waved a finger at Trey, who had an amused grin on his face. “But this doesn’t mean you’re forgiven. It means I’m giving you another shot, and you have to earn it.”
“I know. Thank you. And you need sleep, I’ll worry about what we bring to Mom’s house.”
***
After Trey insisted on following Charlotte back to her apartment, he kissed her sweetly on the head and tucked her into bed. It took no time at all for her to drift off to sleep, a sleep filled with dreams of Trey and his mouth.
Eight hours later, the scents of chocolate and peanut butter stirred her from her near coma. Stumbling out into the kitchen, Charlotte stood wide eyed and mouth gaping. Not because the most beautiful cake she’d ever seen sat on her counter. No, it was because Trey sat at her table, shirtless, hand feeding Weasley a spoon of peanut butter.
“What’s going on here?”
“I hope you don’t mind. I figured I already got one of your pussy’s to love me, I should work on the other as well.” Trey stroked the cat’s head, then scratched his chin, and to everyone’s shock, Weasley leaned into the affections.
“Holy shit, he’s never been that nice to anyone but me. Not even the ladies at the shelter.” As she went to sit in the chair next to Trey, he wrapped one arm around her waist and drew her onto his lap. Giggling, she kissed him on the cheek, then leaned into nuzzle Weasley’s neck. “You know peanut butter is really bad for cats. Makes them gain weight.”
They both stared at the already pudgy cat and laughed.
“Well, I had to win him over somehow.”
“And what is that?” Charlotte tilted her head toward the cake.
Trey wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “That is my secret weapon.”
“Feels like there is a story there.” Settling back against his hard chest, Charlotte felt something else hard growing beneath her ass.
“You bet there is. It is my dad’s secret recipe, handed down from generation to generation in my family. Father to son. When one of the Scott men gets in trouble with his special lady or mama, he just whips up one of these beauties, and all is forgiven. I perfected the recipe in my teens.”
Leaning in, Trey kissed up Charlotte’s neck, leaving her breathless and restless. She squirmed in his lap and he groaned. God, she wanted hi
m between her legs so badly.
“Didn't you say something earlier about needing a shower?”
All she could do was nod.
“Need some help with that?”
Indecision warred in her head. She bit down on her lip, on the one hand, yes, she desperately wanted him in the shower with her. Getting her dirty then cleaning her up. But on the other, she still worried about him leaving again. She’d already handed over so much of her heart to the man. If they had sex now, she knew the rest wouldn’t be far behind.
Her hesitation apparently answered his question. “It’s okay, sugar. I’ll gain your trust again. And when I do, I’m going to give you three orgasms for every night I spent away from you. You might need to take some vacation time.”
Together, they rose from the table, cleaning up the dishes from Trey’s day spent baking. Right as she was about to head to the shower, Trey stopped her. “I almost forgot. I promised to bring you a fire extinguisher, and I did.” He opened the cabinet below her sink and produced a good sized red canister, complete with a white bow tied to the nozzle. Trey showed her how it worked, then placed it back. “While you were sleeping, I did some snooping and realized you don’t have a fire escape on your apartment. That’s against city violations. Did the landlord provide you with a collapsible ladder in case of a fire?”
Charlotte held back her laugh. The landlord had barely showed up to sign the lease, let alone provided her with anything in the way of safety equipment. “No, but in the three years I’ve lived here, there has never been anything close to a fire. And I make sure all the batteries in my smoke detectors are fresh. You don’t have to worry so much.”
She turned and headed back to the bathroom, feeling Trey’s stare on her backside the whole way. Truth was, his concern warmed her just as much as the obvious ogling. Being cared for and worried over wasn’t something Charlotte had ever experienced. Criticized, yes. But that wasn’t the same. She wanted to roll over and bask in the glow Trey instantly brought in her.