“I thought you’d listen to me. I thought…”
“What? That I’d turn on my Dad just because I’ve never really gotten along with him until now?”
“No, I—”
“I know your father was an amazing guy, and mine could never match up to all that, but that doesn’t mean he’s a scummy piece of shit,” he continued, eyes glittering with anger.
“Cade, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“I’m done talking about this.”
My hands began to shake, and I realized I’d taken the conversation too far. “Cade, I’m sorry, I just—”
He held up a hand, silencing me yet again. “You know, when we first met up after all those years apart, I could handle you hating me. But for you to actively hate my family like this…I can’t deal with it.”
“I don’t hate your family. I love Evan. I’m just not sure about…”
My voice trailed off. I had no idea what to say anymore, and Cade sighed and looked towards the window. “Maybe it’s a good thing you dreamed all of this bullshit up. Makes it easier.”
“Makes what easier?” I asked. Then I realized what he was saying, and my eyes filled with hot tears. “You want to break up with me?”
He still didn’t look at me. “We knew this had to end one day, didn’t we?” he said softly. “I didn’t want it to, but now…I guess this is for the best.”
“So we have one disagreement and you’re going to ditch me?” I said.
He rounded on me, his eyes flashing with fury. “This is hardly a disagreement, Charlotte. You basically accused my father of being a total fucking psychopath for no reason. I don’t see how we can move on from that.”
I nodded, tears still brimming in my eyes. “Okay. You’re right. I…I’m sorry.”
I turned and ran from his room, stopping in my own room to grab my car keys before dashing outside. I couldn’t stay in this house for another second. I needed to get out for some fresh air, and I needed to do it far away from Cade, because I didn’t want him to see or hear me cry.
I knew it was my own fault that he’d ended it with me. I’d pushed him too far by voicing my horrifying suspicions, and now I was paying the price.
I’d lost him.
And seriously, what the hell had I even expected?
As I pulled out of the garage and headed out onto the main road, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white, and I replayed what had just happened in Cade’s room over and over in my mind. All I could hear in my head was the man I loved telling me we were over, and I winced as the emotional pain seemed to claw at my stomach, turning into tangible physical pain.
I might’ve lost him, but that didn’t mean I’d changed my mind about his father. Keith and his campaign team were up to something shady, and every time I thought about it, I became more and more convinced that I was right.
If Cade couldn’t see that, then I’d just have to make him see it.
As soon as that thought occurred to me, reality hit me like a cold slap in the face. It had been a totally crazy thought, and I was acting like a crazy person. Holy shit. I’d totally lost it. Cade was right; my suspicions were probably baseless, and I’d simply watched one too many political dramas on TV, causing my mind to cook up all sorts of insane conspiracy theories. I was no better than all of the other nuts out there now, dredging up memories of a horrible event just to try and spin it into a defamatory story. Jesus, what the hell had I been thinking?
But it was too late to say sorry now. I’d taken it too far when I should’ve just kept my big, stupid mouth shut.
A fresh set of tears brimmed in my eyes, and I kept my gaze on the road as they splashed down my cheeks. I had no idea where I was going, but I was too ashamed to go back and face Cade or anyone else right now, so I kept on driving. A moment later, a bright flash lit up my rear-view mirror, and I glanced at it to see who the hell was flashing their lights during the daytime.
A silver van with a logo on the hood was trailing me.
A flash of recognition hit me, and I realized it was one of the local news station’s vans. They must’ve been waiting around outside the property again, and they’d seen me leave the house and had decided to follow me in the hopes of harassing an interview out of me.
“Ugh, leave me alone!” I said out loud, glancing in the mirror to see that they were right on my ass now.
They flashed their headlights again, and I decided to pull over to the side of the road and let them pass, so I could then possibly turn in an attempt to lose them. I pressed my foot down on the brake, slowing down and veering further to the right as I watched the van in my mirrors, and when I saw them speed past me, I started to make a turn so that I could drive off in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, I was so caught up with trying to lose the van that I failed to notice the tiny squirrel dashing across the road until the last second.
“Shit!” I said, slamming on the brakes again and swerving to the left to try and avoid hitting the little animal.
The edge of the road was packed with dense snow, some of which had melted onto this part of the road in the morning sun, and terror shot through me like an icy bullet as my front tires slipped. The squirrel had gotten away safely, but I was quickly losing control of my car, and pressing down on the brakes did nothing but make me skid even more, right around in a half-circle before the car went flying backwards down the embankment on the edge of the road. I screamed as I realized where I was heading; I was careening down a small hill into a valley, where I knew a dense forest lay, and in seconds, my car could be smashed right into an enormous pine trunk.
I braced myself for the impact as my car suddenly tipped to the side and began to roll, and only one thought echoed in my head as my eyes snapped shut with terror.
Cade….I’m an idiot. Please forgive me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cade
My hands clenched into fists as I paced my room, furiously replaying the conversation with Charlotte in my head. What the fuck had gotten into her? She’d come in here looking like she hadn’t slept in a week and then launched into some insane theory about my Dad being a diabolical psycho who’d pay a gunman to shoot his son at his own goddamned wedding, and I couldn’t believe it.
She’d lost her fucking mind.
It wasn’t like Charlotte to be so irrational, though. She was a smart girl, and I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t the sort of person who would buy into conspiracy theories that had zero merit. I absolutely hated to admit it, but that made me wonder if maybe she was right, or at least partially right, about the wedding disaster. While I didn’t think my father would ever do such a thing, I honestly wouldn’t put it past Greg Sanders. He was the most cutthroat political consultant in the country, and I’d heard lots of rumors over the years of the wild shit he’d done to get his candidates elected. He was like Karl Rove on steroids.
But would he stoop this low?
Maybe, maybe not. It was still worth thinking about, though, and I realized how quickly and cruelly I’d dismissed Charlotte over the subject. I guess I couldn’t be blamed for reacting so badly, though; after all, she’d leveled some pretty terrible accusations against my father. On the other hand, the more I thought about what she’d said, the more I realized she was simply stating things I’d actually wondered about myself.
Why had the security at the wedding been so shoddy? There’d been plenty of security personnel, and I’d seen them checking everyone who came in, so how the hell had they managed to let Felix Adamson slip in undetected? With a fucking gun, no less. It didn’t make sense, unless they were actually just that bad at their jobs….or if someone on the inside had helped Adamson get in.
If it was true that someone like Greg Sanders had orchestrated this whole thing in order to get my father elected, then it would be the political scandal of the century.
But surely it wasn’t true. It was too crazy to be true.
Even so, I needed to apologize to Cha
rlotte. I’d been so pissed at her for bringing all this crap up that I’d made the decision to end things with her, but fuck…it wasn’t what I really wanted at all. I’d acted in the heat of the moment, like an idiot, and now I was regretting every word. Especially the way I’d brought up her father; I should have never done that. I hadn’t said anything negative about him, but still, he’d passed away a long time ago, and it wasn’t right for me to bring him into any arguments we had.
I was an asshole.
I threw on some clothes, then headed down the hall and knocked on her door. As I did so, the door swung open, and I saw that she wasn’t in her room. Her phone was sitting on the bedside table where she always left it, but her keys were gone, and I frowned. Where would she have gone? She didn’t have any classes today, and I was pretty sure she didn’t have any plans with friends for the day. Then again, I’d really upset her—she’d probably taken a drive somewhere to blow off some steam.
I left the house and headed towards town, figuring that was the most likely direction she’d have gone in, and about five minutes into the drive, I saw a set of skid marks on the road up ahead. They looked fresh, and my stomach lurched with worry for Charlotte. I knew it was likely that someone had simply swerved and then regained control of their car rather than anything drastic, but as I approached, the direction of the skid marks became clearer, and it was obvious that whichever car had created them had gone right off the road.
I stopped, my heart pounding. Even if it wasn’t Charlotte, some other person had still likely crashed, and it didn’t look like anyone else had noticed and stopped to help yet. I got out and dashed across the road and looked down, and a chill ran down my spine as I saw Charlotte’s car on its side, with the back end smashed into a tree. It must have gotten turned around as it skidded off the road, and it looked like it had been mid-roll as it crashed into the pine trunk. I ran down the snowy embankment, my heart in my throat.
Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Please…
I reached the car to see that Charlotte was on the side which was up in the air, and it was clear that she wasn’t conscious. I quickly set about kicking the surrounding snow into a small snow bank near it, and with a grunt, I then reached up and tried to lower the car back down to the ground. It felt like an impossible task, but it was a small car, and with each attempt, I managed to lower it an inch or so, rocking it back and forth, and soon gravity took over, and the car came crashing down into the snow bank I’d built, which would hopefully cushion the blow for Charlotte a little bit.
When the car was safely on the ground, I opened her door and unclasped her seatbelt before dragging her out and laying her on the ground. She had a pulse, and her chest was slowly rising and falling. I let out a sigh of relief. Thank fuck. Ripping my jacket off, I placed it on the ground near her and rolled her onto it to keep her body from getting too cold, and I stroked her hair out of her face as I checked her head for any serious injuries. There was a bump about two inches above her left ear, but it didn’t feel very large, and I hoped to god it was nothing more than shock which was keeping her unconscious.
“Charlotte…wake up,” I whispered. “Please wake up.”
A strange crackling sound a few feet away made me look up, and I saw that part of the front of her car had caught fire, with flames licking up and down the metal shell. I knew it was rare for cars to catch on fire after crashes, but it could happen if the fuel tank or fuel lines ruptured after a crash and came into contact with the hot engine.
Thank fucking god I’d pulled her out in time.
I yanked my phone out of my pocket and called 911, pissed at myself for not having done it sooner. After I told them what had happened out here and told them to send an ambulance, a delirious moan brought my attention back to Charlotte. I leaned closer. “Charlotte? Can you hear me?” I asked.
“Mm…Cade…”
“Help’s coming, and you’re gonna be okay. I promise,” I said.
“Sorry…so sorry….”
“Charlotte, don’t apologize,” I said as she slowly opened her eyes. “Not now. I was way more of a jerk than you. I’m the one who should be sorry. I should’ve listened.”
I squeezed her hand, and she rolled her head to the side and looked over at the car, which was still partially on fire. “Volvo…” she murmured. “It looks like our last conversation.”
My forehead creased with concern. “Charlotte, you’re not making any sense. You might be concussed. Just stay still.”
She let out a weak, choked-up laugh. “I’m not brain damaged,” she said. “I meant the car’s gone up in flames, kinda like our—”
“Like our last conversation.” I finished her sentence, nodding as it finally sank in. “Shit, Charlotte, you had me worried there for a second. Instead you’re just making god-awful jokes. What are you…me?”
She smiled at my lame quip, and I grinned down at her. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said.
“I am because of you. You saved me,” she whispered, squeezing my hand back. “Thank you.”
And then she did something totally unexpected. She sat up on her elbows and tilted her face toward me, and her lips pressed softly against mine.
As we kissed in that moment, with her Volvo in flames before us, I knew that no matter what we argued about, and no matter what came between us, we’d always work through it, because we loved each other above all else.
Unlike her unfortunate car, we were going to be okay.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Charlotte
“Just take two of these after meals for the next three days, and you’ll be fine. They’ll dull most of the pain in your head.”
I looked at the doctor as she explained my new painkiller medication to me, and then nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Dr. Prior.”
“No problem. We’re still waiting on your parents to arrive, but they should be here any minute now.”
With that, she briskly swept off, and I yawned and rubbed my eyes. My head was still pounding, but the doctors at the hospital the ambulance had brought me to hadn’t found any serious injuries other than the bump on my head, which could barely be classified as serious. As long as I was careful to take it easy for the next few days, I was going to be fine. I shuddered to think what might have happened if Cade hadn’t shown up and pulled me out of my wrecked car, though.
He was sitting with me now, and he’d also stayed by my side throughout the examination. I turned to him. “Cade,” I said softly. “I really am sorry for all the things I said earlier. I was being crazy.”
He shook his head. “You’re not crazy. Maybe you didn’t bring it up in the most tactful way, but I think you actually had a good point.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I don’t think my father would do anything like that, but that political consultant of his has a bit of a reputation, and like you said, there’s a few seemingly weird coincidences surrounding the wedding incident. I wouldn’t put it past him to pull an awful stunt like that just to draw attention to Dad’s campaign.”
I nodded slowly. “True. I always got a bad feeling about Greg. He just seems so….”
“So much like a rat?”
“A big blond rat, yeah,” I said. “So what do you think we should do? Do you think we should tell someone?”
Cade shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I mean, surely other people have noticed the same stuff that we have.”
“Maybe, but it sounds totally and utterly insane. No one would think it could’ve actually happened, even if they think it’s all a bit weird and suspicious. It’s like, TV drama level stuff.”
“Yeah, I guess. Let’s sleep on it before we tell anyone. If that Greg prick actually had anything to do with hurting my brother, I want to figure out a way to fuck him over in the best way possible.”
I wanted so badly to reach over and touch Cade as he spoke, but there were nurses around, and the last thing we needed was to get caught out now. Besides, I wasn’t even sure if there was anything left
to be caught out in. I loved Cade, and he’d kissed me back an hour ago after I’d been pulled from my car wreckage, but we hadn’t spoken about our relationship at all, and I still wasn’t sure where I stood with him after the blowout this morning.
As if he could read my mind, Cade’s face softened. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry about what I said this morning…when I ended it. I don’t want that; not at all. But I understand if you need some time to think about us after I reacted like that.”
It was cute that he actually looked a little anxious, and I smiled. “Cade, I accused your father of having your brother shot for political points and media attention. You didn’t overreact. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
He smiled back at me. “So…what do you want to do?” he asked.
“You,” I replied with a cheesy grin.
He chuckled. “Better not say that too loudly. But I’m glad we’re okay,” he said with a wink. “Shit, here comes your Mom…act normal.”
I looked to the left to see my mother frantically racing towards us down the main ER hallway. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” she said as she arrived next to the bed I was sitting on. “I only just got the message. I came here as fast as I could.”
“It’s okay. The car isn’t, though,” I said with a rueful expression on my face. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
I felt terrible for having crashed the Volvo. It’d been such a nice gift from her, and I’d completely totaled it. She squeezed my hand. “The car doesn’t matter. We have insurance for that. You being okay is what matters,” she said. She turned to Cade. “And Cade, thank you so much for helping her and being with her.”
She didn’t know that he was with me in more than one way, and right now I suppose she didn’t need to….but she would one day soon, because I was tired of having to hide our love, and I could tell that Cade was as well by the expression on his face.
Tease - A Stepbrother Sports Romance Page 16