Return to Glebe Point

by Patricia Paris

“It’s just down the block and around the corner. I was there once several years ago when I came here with one of my girlfriends and her parents.” Charlie pushed her chair back a few inches from the table and crossed her legs.

  “If you’re into wine, St. Michaels has a wine fest in the spring—around late April or early May. It you don’t mind a crush, it’s a lot of fun, and you can sample wines from all over the world.”

  “Oh, I think I’d like that. Have you ever gone?” Delaney asked.

  Charlie shook her head. “No, I never got a chance before I moved away, but friends of mine have and they enjoyed it.”

  “How does it feel to be back?” Gab asked casually.

  Charlie wondered how much she could trust these two women to understand if she opened up to them about her past. She hadn’t told anyone about her relationship with Phillip. She’d never considered herself naïve and she’d never considered herself to be weak. She’d been both where he’d been concerned.

  She’d been in other relationships with men but never tried to be anyone or anything she wasn’t just to please them. She’d like to forget Phillip had ever happened, in part because she was ashamed he had. How could she explain to anyone else how he’d been able to take such control over her when she’d struggled to understand it herself?

  It would be wonderful to have someone to talk to, though, to confide in. Sometimes it felt like her soul was still locked away, alone and lonely, sitting by the window in a dark room as life went on around her, pretending to be a part of it but never embracing it, still chained.

  It wasn’t how she wanted to live the rest of her life. She wanted to feel whole again, alive, real. She craved the simple, honest comfort she’d always felt with family, and it was here, the reason she’d come home. Family—the salve that could help her to heal, the glue that bound her to this place, these people.

  “Charlie, are you okay?”

  She glanced up to see Gabriella exchange a look of concern with Delaney. What had her expression revealed to them as she’d sat quietly wondering what to say, how to explain what it meant to be back?

  “Yes, I’m fine. I was just wondering how to respond to your question.” Swallowing, Charlie decided to test the waters. “It feels safe. When I moved away to go to school, I was filled with curiosity and so many big dreams. I wanted to experience more of the world, travel down a hundred different roads and see where they led.”

  Her heart raced, filled with uncertainty, and she hesitated, unsure. Was she really ready to open the door she’d kept bolted for so long? To love is to trust, her soul whispered, step through the doorway—it’s time—set us free.

  “I thought it was great at first.” She ran the tip of her index finger around the rim of her wineglass and then took a small sip before continuing.

  “I’d grown up and lived my entire life in the same small town. I wasn’t unhappy, but I wanted to experience new places, new things, and I was sure there had to be a lot more to life than what Glebe Point could offer. When I left for school, I felt like I’d taken the first step toward my new life. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to discover all the wonderful things I’d convinced myself I’d been missing. My dad died during my freshman year, and with him gone I felt like I had even less reason to return to Glebe Point after I graduated. I knew I’d miss Blake and Justin, but they had their own lives, and I thought I needed to make my own as well.”

  Snagging a long curl that kept insisting on falling in front of her eyes, Charlie braided it into her hair. “You know in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy says something about looking for her heart’s desire, and if she can’t find it in her own backyard, she probably never lost it in the first place?”

  Pausing to gauge their moods, Charlie looked at each of them before going on. Gab and Delaney both nodded. Sitting across from them, Charlie thought the two couldn’t look more different from one another: Delaney with her fair skin, lustrous red hair, and eyes the color of new spring leaves; and Gabriella, tall, earthy, with warm brown eyes and a pixie haircut that framed her gorgeous bone structure to perfection. Yet in each of their expressions she saw the same thing: caring, acceptance, and support.

  “I didn’t appreciate how special Glebe Point was—or what I was leaving behind when I left—until I made a wrong turn a couple of years ago and ended up lost, alone in a relationship that almost destroyed me, with no place to turn, no one to talk to, and no way out but to run.”

  She stared down at her hands, almost afraid of the judgment she might see in their eyes after blurting out that last bit. She’d barely told them anything really, but she’d cracked open the window, allowed them a peek inside. Her heart pounded in her chest, frightened, yet desperate to be free, both at once, swirling together, a whirlwind trying to squeeze through the crevice she’d created with her admission.

  She looked up again when Delaney took hold of her hand.

  “You’re not alone anymore, honey. You’ve got us now.” Delaney cast a glance in Gab’s direction. “If you want to talk about things, we’re here, and maybe it would be good for you to tell someone what happened. We care, but we don’t want to push.”

  “I think I’d like that. I’m tired of trying to hide the truth, of pretending, and of shutting out the people I care the most about when all I really want to do is to gather them to me and never let go again. I just hope that after you know the truth you won’t think less of me.”

  By the time she finished bringing her cousins up to date on what had happened after she graduated, Delaney had tears in her eyes, and Gabriella had pulled her chair over to the other side of the table and sat with her arm around Charlie’s shoulder. She hadn’t told them everything, but enough that they understood what kind of situation she’d been trapped in.

  “Do you think there’s any chance he might come here looking for you?” Gab asked.

  “At first I worried he might, which is why I tried to cover my tracks. But Phillip doesn’t care about anyone but himself. We never talked about me—my likes or dislikes, my past, my family. I just existed in his life, a possession of sorts, like his apartment, his car, someone he draped over his arm when he needed to. He really had no idea who I was or where I came from.”

  In an attempt to control her unruly curls, Charlie gathered them up into a ponytail again and tied it into a knot. “I honestly thought he loved me at first, and I was infatuated with him. We travelled, attended splashy events, met interesting people, things I’d never done before. It all seemed so exciting. He was handsome, worldly, wealthy, and I was small-town Charlie. When we started dating, it had seemed like a fairy tale. You know, Cinderella meets Prince Charming. But under all the practiced charm lived a very different man from the one I thought I’d fallen in love with.”

  She reached for the bottle of wine and refilled her glass, then topped off her cousins’ glasses as well.

  “Anyway, if he was going to show up, I think he would have done so by now. There’s a chance he might have tried to come after me if he’d known where to look, but not because he cared about me. It would have been—I don’t know—more to prove a point, or to try to punish me for being the one to walk out on him.”

  She shook her head. It didn’t matter at this point. “No, I don’t think I have to worry about him showing up on my doorstep at this point. Too much time has passed, and I was too insignificant in his life for him to still be spending any time worrying about me now.”

  “Well, if he ever does, he’ll be in for a surprise because he’ll have to deal with all of us, and that includes Justin and Blake. They’re not going to let anyone try to hurt you and get away with it.”

  “I know that.” Charlie smiled softly. “And they can be pretty intimidating if they want to be. Phillip would try to dismiss them at first, but I don’t think it would take too much before they’d have him running away with his tail tucked between his legs.”

  “That’s usually the way it is with abusers and bullies.” Gab gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I
’m so glad you left him, that you’re here now, and that you were willing to tell us about what happened. Thank you for trusting us. It binds us. As Blake and Justin always say, you’re ours, we’re yours. That goes for Delaney and me as well, Charlie; know and believe that.”

  Charlie bit back the tears building behind her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do sitting out here in a public place was to break down and cry.

  “Thank you. I do.” She gave her head a shake to toss off the threat of tears, and cleared her throat. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to be the one to tell Blake and Justin what happened. It should come from me, and I’m starting to get tired of the two of them giving me cautious glances and treating me like I’m broken. I’m not. I might have a couple of scars, but that’s a good thing. They’ll serve as reminders if I ever think I’m falling in love again.”

  Delaney frowned at her. “I hope you’re not going to let your experience with that jerk ruin your chances of finding happiness with someone else. There are plenty of good men out there, Charlie. Just look at your cousins.”

  “They’re exceptions.”

  “Well, they are pretty exceptional, I agree.” She grinned over at Gabriella. “However, and not that I’d ever tell them this, they’re not the only ones who are keepers. You’re going to meet someone someday worth holding onto, someone who will make you reconsider. I hope you don’t walk away without giving him a chance because…well…then Phillip wins, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Gab put in confidently. “You’re just a little raw right now, and no one can blame you for feeling as you do after what you went through. Even so, you can’t let it define you. Delaney and I will give you a reasonable amount of time to put what happened in the past behind you, and for you to realize all men aren’t Neanderthals. We’ll even try to protect you from Mary until such time we think you’ve done so, but if it goes on too long and we realize you need a push, we may need to join ranks with her for your own good.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Charlie said with a grimace.

  “No problem. And just in case you’re thinking we might be right about you needing to move on, there will be a few single men at the crab feast tomorrow. None of them may be Mr. Right, but there’s no reason you can’t go out with one or two of them to start getting back into the swing of things until he comes along.”

  Charlie had no interest in spending time with any men right now. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had some interest in Cooper Barone making impromptu visits to her shop and kissing her silly again, but that was—she wasn’t sure what that was, maybe lust, pure and simple as that. She just knew she wouldn’t be opposed to another lip-locking encounter with him. It didn’t mean she wanted to date him. She wasn’t even sure if she liked him that much, yet.

  He was attractive, yeah, belly clutching in the looks department. And he’d helped her carry in all those boxes and broke them down for recycling, so he was nice enough in that respect, but she wasn’t his type. Except that he’d kissed her—more than once and pretty thoroughly—and she’d liked it.

  Cooper was friends with Justin and Blake. There was a good chance he’d be one of the single men Gab had been referring to…or he might come with a date.

  Charlie frowned. If he came with someone else after insinuating himself into her thoughts by way of his lips, it didn’t matter how much she’d enjoyed his kisses, he wouldn’t get another.

  Finger cakes!” Ben snatched up a chocolate-iced cupcake from the dessert table and bit into it with relish. “Yumm.” He wiped off the chocolate icing coating his upper lip with the back of his wrist and then licked that clean.

  His cousin Chloe giggled at him before choosing a vanilla one with strawberry icing for herself. She peeled back the paper wrapper delicately to avoid pulling away too much of the icing, and then took a bite. She grinned broadly around the cake in her mouth, her eyes widening in delight, and looked up at Charlie. “I love finger cakes, and strawberry is my favorite.”

  Charlie cocked her head. “Why do you guys call them finger cakes instead of cupcakes?”

  “’Cause you get to eat them with your fingers,” Ben said.

  “Well yeah, that’s obvious, but I never heard anyone call them that before.”

  “Me and Ben do. Sometimes Aunt Delaney makes us a whole finger picnic. That’s when we get to eat everything with our fingers, like chicken fingers, or hot dogs, and baby tomatoes, and stuff like that, and sometimes finger cakes, too. She puts everything in a little basket and lets us eat on a blanket in the yard. It’s really fun.”

  “I’ll bet it is.” Charlie fought back a grin. As kids went, these two were pretty stinking cute. They made her think that she’d like to have one or two of her own someday.

  “How many of those have you two had?” Charlie heard Delaney ask, and glanced over her shoulder to see her cousin walking up behind her.

  “Just one,” the kids rang out in unison.

  Delaney narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing them. “Truth?”

  “Swear it, Mom, really!” Ben whipped up his hand and made an X over his heart.

  “Okay. You can each have one more this afternoon, but then no more until the fireworks.”

  “Awww, but they’re little,” Ben protested.

  “Two’s the limit, Ben.”

  “How ‘bout three? Pleeeeaaase? And I won’t pester you about it.”

  Charlie chuckled and Delaney scolded her with her eyes, as if to say, Really, you want to encourage him?

  She put a hand over her mouth to hide the grin she found almost impossible to withhold.

  “Two,” Delaney said firmly. “I don’t want you to get a stomachache. And you won’t pester me about it one way or the other, young man.”

  “Okay,” Ben agreed with a pout, “but it sure is gonna be hard to choose.”

  Delaney ruffled the boy’s hair. “Maybe you and Chloe can each choose a different one and do halfsies.”

  Chloe and Ben looked at each other. “Yeah,” they shouted, and then gave each other a high five before going about the difficult challenge of choosing which two cupcakes they wanted.

  “Nice work,” Charlie said to Delaney after Chloe and Benjamin made their selections and then took off toward the dock to enjoy them.

  “Thanks.” Delaney flashed her with one of her contagious smiles, and as always, it made her entire face seem to light up. What Charlie wouldn’t give for dimples like her cousin’s.

  “They’re not the only ones having a tough time deciding,” Delaney admitted. “They all look tempting, and they’re getting rave reviews by the way. Two of the moms I was talking to before I came over here told me they plan on putting in orders for their kids’ birthday parties.”

  Charlie didn’t even try to mask her pleasure. Guests had been coming up to her all afternoon and telling her how good her cupcakes were. Some had gone so far as to say they were the best they’d ever tasted. She didn’t know if they were exaggerating to make her feel good, but it didn’t matter. They’d liked them enough to make a point of telling her so.

  Sensing another presence, Charlie glanced around and saw Cooper standing less than two feet to her left. His eyes dipped to hers and held a moment, too intimate to be casual. Heat flooded her cheeks and she looked away quickly, hoping Delaney hadn’t picked up on anything.

  He zeroed in on her cupcakes and bent down to survey them. “So what are these?”

  “They’re cupcakes,” she said with a splash of sarcasm even though she knew he’d been asking about the flavors. Realizing how defensive it made her sound, she focused on the desserts and, pointing to each one, quickly rattled off their names: chocolate-bacon with salted caramel icing, lemon-mango dream, strawberry-vanilla swirl, rum-raisin, until she’d itemized them all.

  He’d shaken her up with that look. For someone who didn’t want anything to do with her, he sure did put out a lot of mixed messages. Was it any wonder she got her defenses up around him?

&nbs
p; Cooper picked up one of the rum-raisin cupcakes and after peeling off the wrapper, lifted it to his lips. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his mouth. He chewed it slowly, the hint of a smile suggesting he liked it. She continued to watch as the tip of his tongue retrieved a bit of buttercream icing from the corner of his mouth, and realized she’d been about to lick her own.

  Swallowing, she lifted her gaze to discover him watching her and knew—just knew—from the look in his eyes that he’d read her desire.

  “Dilettevole,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

  Charlie narrowed her eyes on him. “Translation?”

  “Delectable. Delicious.” He popped the last bite into his mouth and finished it off.

  “Oh. Thank you.” Of course he was talking about the cupcake, but did he have to make the word sound so sexy, so suggestive? Good God, her bones felt like putty when she most needed them to be stiff and rigid.

  “I was afraid these were going to be all gone.” Blake walked up from behind Charlie and scooped up a cupcake in each hand. He downed the first one in four bites and gave her a broad grin. “You’ve come a long way since the burnt bottom cake, kid. These are pretty damn amazing.” He took a bite of the second one. “Oh, Christ! Is there bacon in here?”

  “Bacon and chocolate,” Charlie confirmed.

  “This is going to be your top seller.” Blake took another bite and moaned. He waved the remainder of it in front of his chest. “My prediction: top seller! You all heard it here first.”

  Delaney shook her head. “It’s fabulous, but I think it’s going to be the vanilla-rhubarb. That’s my prediction.”

  Everyone of course had their own favorites, and Charlie found it a bit amusing that they started taking bets on which of her cupcakes would be the most popular with customers. She didn’t really care which came out on top. All that mattered was that they’d been such a success here today. It boosted her confidence and made her believe that maybe she could turn something she enjoyed into a successful business.