“Get out!” she screeched.
He walked into her, shoving her back several feet, bumping her into the porch swing. Before she could become slightly afraid of the man who was a decade older than her, a blur moved behind him.
The blur grabbed him up by the scruff of his golf shirt.
“Son of a bitch!” she heard Evan shout loud and clear. They tumbled down the stairs as she blinked them into focus. He had Russell flat on his back in a manner of seconds. Russell, several inches taller and out-weighing him in the beer-belly department, tried to get up but Evan clasped his shirt again and delivered a hard right across his jaw.
Russell, never a fighter—no need to be when he could wield his tongue like a sharpened sword—held up his hands in front of his face to deflect another blow.
“Evan! Stop! My family!” he begged.
Evan ignored his pleas and pummeled him again. Another right busted open his lip. Another landing on his nose. One to the eye. Charlie covered her mouth with her hands, frozen in a combination of fear and awe.
“You ever touch her again, Hartman, I will put you in the hospital,” Evan promised, his hands wrenched in Russell’s collar, biceps flexing as he raised Russell’s face to his own. “Get me?”
“Let me go!” Russell scrambled again.
Evan tightened his hold. “Say you get me,” he said, his voice a low, dark rumble.
“I get you! I get you!” Russell shouted.
Unfortunately, right at the moment Evan loosened his hold on Russell, Darian rounded the side of the house and shrieked, her hands clutching a white purse hooked on one narrow shoulder. “Russy!”
Distracted, Evan looked up and Russell took a cheap shot, punching him square in the face. Charlie propelled down the stairs toward them as Evan rolled to the side and wiped blood from his nose.
“I’m going to kill him,” Evan growled, his eyes furious and unfocused as he pushed himself up.
Charlie hung on to Evan’s bicep as he stood, almost losing her balance. “Russell! Get the hell out of here,” she shouted. “And take that bitch with you!”
Darian gasped. “Don’t you talk to me like that. Whore.”
Oh no she didn’t.
Charlie advanced, her eyes on the other woman. “Get off my lawn.” Evan’s hand wrapped around her upper arm, but there was no need for him to stop her. She wasn’t about to fight Darian Hartman. “Before I sue you and Russy for trespassing.”
“You two deserve each other,” Russell said with a finger-point, still managing to play the holier-than-thou card with blood pouring from cuts on his face.
He walked around the house, his sobbing wife behind him, cooing, “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“I’m okay, darling.” He wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Let Evan sort out his trash.”
At that comment, Evan tore off after Russell. Charlie lost her balance as he pushed past her and fell into the sand with a soft oof! Evan stopped, spun around, and dropped to his knees in front of her.
“Shit, Ace. You okay?”
“I’m fine.” But she wasn’t fine. She was the trash Russell had referred to. He’d also pointed out she’d been selfish. And that she was attempting to take the place of her best friend.
Russell never had her best interests in mind, but he was also one of the few people who knew Charlie through and through. Who knew Evan and Lyon. Who’d known Rae. In a way, that made him more qualified to assess this situation than anyone else.
“Ace, honey.” Evan’s hands ran over her arms, brushed the sand from her clothes. “Let me help you up. Are you hurt?”
She ignored his fussing.
Evan Downey.
Her best friend’s husband.
Much as she hated to concede, Russell was right. She had stood next to Rae at the wedding. Stood there and witnessed her best friend bind herself for life to Evan Downey.
Her best friend had died tragically, and what had Charlie done? Fallen in love with Evan.
Why? Why him, the least convenient person in the world to fall in love with?
Since he’d moved to Evergreen Cove, she’d been moving in on their lives. As if she had any right to them. As if they’d accept her as a replacement for Rae Lynn. She’d been fooling herself. They’d all been fooling themselves.
Her stomach rolled. She was going to be sick.
“Talk to me, Ace. That asshole hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” she repeated, finally allowing him to help her to her feet.
“Did I hurt you?” The blood had begun to dry between his nose and lip. His turquoise eyes darkened with concern.
She shook her head. Tears she’d been attempting to dam throughout this entire episode finally spilled over. “No, Evan. You didn’t hurt me.”
She’d hurt him. She’d hurt him and Lyon by confusing her role as Lyon’s aunt and Evan’s friend with a role she didn’t deserve to play. The role of mother and wife. Rae’s role.
Family was grown, not encroached upon. And a family like the Downeys was family in its most pure form. There was no abandoning father, no destroyed sibling relationships. Everyone had a clear part and they played it.
Evan’s mother had passed away a few years ago. From what he said, his father was contentedly single. Charlie knew why. Because there was no replacement for Kathy Downey.
Like there was no replacement for Lyon’s mother.
At seven, Lyon might not see it now, but what about when he was thirteen? Or eighteen? Or twenty-four with a bride of his own? Soon, he’d see Evan’s and Charlie’s relationship for what it really was.
Friends with benefits. Convenient due to geography and attraction. Both things they had pretended were real reasons and let get out of hand.
“Ace.” Evan’s face invaded her line of vision, his eyebrows drawn. “Talk to me.”
“You should clean yourself up.” She shook off his palm and walked away from him. “At your house.”
He followed her up her porch steps and latched on to her arm again.
She shook free. “I’ve been manhandled enough for one afternoon, thanks.”
Dropping his hand, he narrowed his eyes, his face pure fury. “Sorry?”
She shook her head, hand wrapped around the handle of the sliding glass door to her kitchen. “No, Evan. Like I’ve been telling you from the start. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for one insane second for allowing any of this. I crossed a line with you.”
“You crossed a line?” The color flashing in his eyes reminding her of the sky when a storm rolled in over the lake. “I came for you, Ace. Repeatedly.”
“You’re Rae’s husband!” she shouted in his face.
He didn’t back off but closed in on her. She pressed her back against the door. Lowering his face over hers, he said in a voice that was pure steel. “Rae’s dead.”
“I won’t be a convenient replacement,” she whispered.
He drew back like she’d slapped him. Russell wasn’t the only one who could deliver a sharp insult. Evan’s reeling away from her was proof she’d hit her mark.
“You wanna say that again.” It wasn’t a question, but it was. She watched a muscle in his cheek jump as he wedged his teeth together and dared her to speak.
So, she did.
“Admit it. I’m the easy choice. You know me. I love your kid. I’ve had a crush on you since I was fifteen years old, and my best friend won you.”
“A crush.” His eyes grew more furious. She kept talking.
“I’m a one-stop shop. You get a replacement mom, a woman Lyon trusts to raise him, and someone who supports you when you’re painting in ‘the zone.’ Convenient,” she repeated, tears spilling from her eyes.
He searched her face as if she’d transformed into a stranger rather than the woman he’d known for seventeen years.
She felt it, the sharp way it cut into her to know things between them would never be the same. And she took it. Because she deserved it.
After an eternity of silence, h
e finally spoke. “You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” she asked, not understanding his meaning.
“Lucky you’re a woman,” was all he said. Then he stalked off her porch and stormed across the beach toward his house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Charlie had never been so glad to have so much to do. She spent the evening alternating between crying and fixing Guy and Mallory’s wedding photos.
Stupid weddings.
Sniffling, she reached for a tissue to blot her eyes as she saved the picture she’d altered. She was being unfair. Spitting venom at the wrong party.
What she needed was a mirror.
The clock over the stove read nine, and she stood and stretched, her stomach aching from a combination of hunger and fear. She peeked out the kitchen window and over to Evan’s house. Earlier when she looked, she’d spied him and Lyon out on the porch, the grill smoking.
She’d gone back to her computer, afraid he’d come invite her to dinner and relieved when he hadn’t.
Being faced with Russell, who threw Rae in her face, had challenged her. A challenge she’d failed.
She saw that now.
Filling a glass with water, it hit her front and center. Where she’d screwed up; what she’d done wrong. She should have stood next to Evan. She should have trusted him.
What had she done instead? Pushed him away. After pushing him away repeatedly when he kept coming for her, how could she expect him to continue trying?
At some point, something had to give.
The windows of the Downey house were dark. The studio lights off. She wondered if they were sacked out in the living room, watching Man of Steel, or if Lyon was showing Evan proof he’d finally won the queen on his iPad game.
Rae the queen.
Charlie gave her head a sad shake, seeing herself with frightening clarity all of a sudden.
Not only had she not infringed on her friend’s role, she’d kept Rae’s memory alive for Lyon, for all of them. She thought of the stacks of paintings in Evan’s studio. Instead of getting up to paint another dark mural, he’d drawn her tattoo designs. “Because of you, Ace,” he’d told her while he punctured her skin lovingly.
She’d reached in and pulled Evan out of the darkness he’d been in for years. Charlie, Evan, and Lyon had created a new family. Rae couldn’t be here for them. And that wasn’t anyone’s fault.
Charlie had fallen deeply in love with both Evan and Lyon. And then, when tested, had pulled her heart from their hands. Taken herself away. She tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling, muttering, “Sorry, Rae” for a whole new reason.
Because Charlie had failed them.
She’d failed them both.
Returning to her computer, she clicked the “Rae” file and sifted through photos of her best friend. Beautiful in color or black and white, her smile shined from each image.
Charlie was in a few of these, too, her arms around Rae. This one was the last Christmas Rae was alive. That one, a girls’ night out at a sushi bar.
Her heart ached. She’d lost Rae, and now, she’d lost Evan and Lyon.
She’d lost them all.
Finally, she found the one she wanted Lyon to have, selected a size, and clicked print. The printer at her back whirred to life, pulling in a sheet of paper, when there was a knock at her patio door.
Charlie tried to keep her heart from overreacting, but it pounded hard, and harder when the knock came again, because it sounded like a little boy’s knock.
And there was only one little boy who knocked on her patio door.
Creeping around the edge of her desk and kitchen counter, she found Lyon peeking through the glass, hands cupped around his face. When she flipped on the outside light, she saw Evan behind him, leaning an elbow against the post at the bottom of the stairs.
Seeing Lyon made her heart hurt.
Seeing Evan obliterated it.
Steeling herself for the confrontation she should have known was coming, she swiped her fingers under her eyes and pulled her hands through her hair, glad she was semi-decent; dressed in her tee and shorts from earlier.
Then she slid the door aside and used every ounce of strength left in her to give Lyon a smile. “Hey, honey.”
“Hi, Aunt Charlie. Dad said you were sad so I brought you this.”
In his hands was a large yellow envelope. She accepted it. “Thank you.” Flat. Likely a sheet of paper.
Or a photo.
“Want me to open it now?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She hazarded a glance at Evan, who stood stone still against the pillar, his face a placid mask.
Bending the metal prongs, she carefully lifted the lip of the envelope and reached inside. What she pulled out took her breath away. It was a photo of her and Lyon on Evan’s back porch. She remembered he’d taken it with his phone while she and Lyon grinned and said, “Cheeeeese.”
He looked like both Rae and Evan in this picture, but it occurred to her as she studied the way he pressed his cheek against hers, that he also looked like he belonged with her.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, hoping Evan didn’t make out the emotion filling her throat. But why did Lyon bring her this photo? To remember him by? She sought Evan’s face for answers.
“Tell her what else, bud.” Evan’s eyes were on her but he spoke to Lyon.
“We’re having a bonfire at our house. Can you come over?”
Carefully, she slid the photo back into the envelope, wanting very badly to ask Evan if the invitation was so he could break up with her for good, and if he needed her to take anything out of his house she may have left behind.
How this would work with her being two doors away? Would they remain friends? Would he—
“Ace.”
Her scratchy, red eyes found his. She darted them back down to Lyon. Like she could tell this kid “no” to anything. Evan must have known that.
“Sure, honey. Let me grab my shoes.”
Lyon bounded down the stairs but Evan remained, warning his son “not to go too far,” then rerouting his eyes until they found hers.
“Be over in a few,” she mumbled, backing into her house and wanting to stay there. “Need me to bring anything?”
“Yeah. A bag.”
A bag? She swallowed thickly, dread pooling in her belly. She was right. He needed her to get her things.
“Did I leave much over there?” Her voice was hollow. But it made the most sense for Evan to let her come over, hang with Lyon, make nice. He was a decent guy; he’d never take his son away from her completely. What he would do was make this an easy transition, because he loved Lyon with all his heart.
Evan pushed off the pillar and turned his head to check on Lyon, who had obeyed, going no farther than the edge of dark beach in the front of her yard.
He took the porch steps without hesitation while she watched in wonder.
One.
Two.
Three.
When he got to her, her fingers wrapped around the edge of sliding door—the only thing holding her up.
“The hell are you talking about?” He sounded as unhappy as he looked.
She lowered her voice even though Lyon was too far to hear. “I’m assuming I left things there you’d like me to pick up. That’s why the bag?”
Without warning, his arm lifted and he palmed the back of her neck. Then he stood way, way too close. He pulled her out of the doorway and into his chest until she was flush against him. Her hands landed on his solid torso, her body flooding with relief, her eyes closing. He was touching her.
It felt way too right to be wrong.
Evan’s fingers threaded into her hair. She felt him watching her. “Something you need to get off your chest, Ace?” His voice rumbled through his body and against her palms.
She tipped her head back on her neck to meet his eyes, needing to clear this up. If for no one else but her. “Are you…” She swallowed, then continued, “… ending things?
”
Wow. That hurt to say out loud. She had no idea they could, but his eyebrows actually went lower. His thick lashes narrowed, obliterating his eyes.
“What part of ‘not going anywhere’ is unclear to you?”
Blinking at him, she said, “Sorry? I mean, pardon me?”
The corner of his lips twitched and repeated, “Not going anywhere. Not giving you a break. Not giving you an out.” His hand ruffled into the hair at her nape. “Sound familiar?”
It did sound familiar. Those were his words to her while they stood in Rae’s old bedroom at Patricia and Cliff’s house.
“The bag”—he tipped his head closer to hers—“is because I’m not letting you sleep without me tonight.”
He’d come for her.
Again.
“Yeah?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper, her heart filling with hope.
“Yeah.”
* * *
Lyon had insisted on s’mores followed by hot dogs over the fire. Evan had indulged him. After they’d all eaten that abominable—but no less delicious—late-night snack, Evan left Charlie on the deck to tuck Lyon into bed.
She watched the flames, feeling… something. Foolish? Contented?
Unsure.
What she felt was unsure.
She’d brought a packed bag and put it in the bedroom. Evan had sat close to her while they readied their food for roasting over the fire bowl. But with little ears around they hadn’t been able to clear anything up… and there was more to say.
More from her.
She didn’t have a speech in queue. Didn’t have any idea of an elegant way to explain what a mess she was. Other than to say she was sorry, a word she knew he didn’t like to hear from her.
Such was her state when he came back outside after tucking Lyon in: no speech, sorry, and having no clue how to elegantly say it.
He collapsed into the chair next to hers with a sigh. His lip was slightly swollen from Russell’s sucker-punch, but the small bump in his nose was not from Russell. That one Evan said he’d had since Donovan had socked him in the face one summer at the Cove.
Boys.
She turned her head. “How’s your face?”
Bringing Home the Bad Boy Page 28