by Janie Crouch
Charlie nodded. “I understand that.”
Wavy didn’t argue, but her look said she didn’t think Charlie could. And why shouldn’t Wavy feel that way? As far as anybody knew, Charlie had grown up with money and then married more. She smiled weakly and shrugged again.
She expected some sort of scoff from Finn too. He wouldn’t be as silent and polite about it as his sister. But he remained quiet, studying her with those eagle eyes from across the booth.
Wavy took their order. Charlie got the burger she’d been fantasizing about. Finn just told her to have Trey surprise him. Wavy rolled her eyes. Obviously, this wasn’t anything new.
Wavy left and she and Finn stared at each other across the table.
“We spent a lot of hours here,” he finally said.
She smiled. “Actually, for most of that time, I think I was sitting next to you, rather than across from you.”
She’d give anything to be able to do that now. To have his big body corner hers in the booth. To constantly have his arm around her, when it wasn’t misbehaving up her thigh.
Finn wasn’t smiling. He obviously wasn’t remembering the same way she was, or if so, it didn’t resurrect the same sort of feelings. She looked away from those emerald eyes.
He still hated her.
“This was a mistake,” she murmured. Delicious hamburger or not, she didn’t know if she could sit here with all the weight bearing down on them. She began to slide out of the booth.
His hand shot out and touched her wrist before she could. She’d forgotten how fast he could move when he wanted to.
“You and I being within a fifty-foot radius of one another may very well be a mistake,” he said. “But you are not leaving without eating.”
He sat there, staring at her with one black eyebrow raised, as if daring her to argue. Before she could even decide if she was going to or not, another man, just as big and muscular as Finn but with lighter hair, slid in next to her.
“Good timing, Aiden,” Finn said. “I think she was just about to make a run for it.”
Aiden grinned and held out his hand for her to shake. “In my book that just shows you have good taste, if you’re trying to escape from Bollinger. I’m Aiden Teague. I have the dubious honor of being one of his partners at Linear Tactical.”
“Charlie Devereux. Linear Tactical? I don’t think I know what that is.” Aiden didn’t let go of her hand.
Finn leaned back in his seat. “It’s the business Zac, Aiden, and a few of our Army buddies, and myself started when we got out. We do different types of survival intelligence training for anybody who wants to learn. Self-defense, wilderness survival, situational awareness, weapons instruction. That sort of stuff.” He narrowed his eyes at Aiden. “You can stop groping her now.”
Aiden’s thumb continued to rub along the top of her hand. “I’ve lived in this one-horse town for nearly four years now and know I would recall meeting you if we had before.”
“Charlie is Ethan’s tutor,” Finn said before she could respond. “The one I was telling you about.”
Awareness dawned in Aiden’s striking hazel eyes. His hand slid gently off hers. “I see.”
And evidently what he saw, or had heard from Finn, wasn’t good. Or it at least put her in the not-worthy-of-being-flirted-with category.
“But Charlie and Ethan met today,” Finn continued. “And it went very well. Charlie is going to meet with him a few times each week until school starts.”
“Great.” Aiden’s smile was in no way flirtatious now, just friendly. “I love that kid and want to see him do well.”
“I think he’ll do great with the right tools,” she said.
Wavy brought their food over and took Aiden’s order.
“I got a call from Major Pinnock today,” Aiden said as he stole one of Finn’s fries, part of the fish and chips plate Trey had chosen for him. “He’s got some more details on that issue he was discussing with us.”
“Have things escalated?” Finn asked.
She bit into her hamburger and couldn’t stop the moan that fell from her lips. God, it had been so long since she had eaten something this good. Almost everything she put into her body for the past two years had been purchased either because of its low cost or nutritional value. Taste had not been a factor.
Both men turned to stare at her.
“Good burger?” Finn’s voice was a little strained.
“Sorry,” she muttered. Most people were not going to understand how she found a burger almost orgasmic. “Do you guys need me to sit somewhere else so you don’t have to talk in code?”
“It’s not code.” Finn stabbed at Aiden’s hand with his fork as he tried to steal another french fry. “On rare occasions Linear Tactical helps out law enforcement. Evidently somebody is trying to sell state secrets from a nearby military base and they want our assistance.”
And knowing Finn and his best friend, Zac, they loved it, the potential danger, being the heroes. It was why Finn had gone into the Army to start with. Aiden was probably just as crazy. She wasn’t surprised to hear that they had started some sort of superhero school.
She tuned them out as they discussed details. She focused instead on every bite of her burger, not wanting to miss one moment of this meal. Who knew when she’d get another like it?
It would probably be excessive to lick the plate when she was done. She needed to remember that. And more importantly, could she fit a piece of pie in her belly?
It was nice, eating here like a normal person rather than in her car or at the back room in the club, having two handsome men talk shop in low voices while she half listened.
She took the last bite of the burger and dipped a fry in ketchup. It might be nice, but it wasn’t real. She would do her best to remember that.
But Finn had agreed to let her work with Ethan some more. She glanced over her shoulder to where the little boy was sitting at the bar, talking to his aunt and the cook. She had so many ideas about how to help him. She’d spent her entire master’s thesis developing a method of shapes and codes to help children who suffered from dyslexia and other reading difficulties. Ethan’s love of shapes and blocks already made him a perfect candidate.
Her time with him would help balance out all the soul-sucking of everything else. The jobs. The knowledge that her father didn’t have long to live. That the man she’d been in love with her whole life—even when she’d been married to someone else—hated her, or at best barely tolerated her.
She wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking there would be more lunches like this.
It was just one more thing she would learn to live without.
Finn stood as Aiden scooted out of the booth and Charlie excused herself to go to the bathroom. They both watched her walk across the diner.
“Christ, Finn. I hope you’re taking that woman out to get more food sometime soon. Better than what they have here, if that’s the sound she makes biting into something she likes.”
The impression of a zipper was molded onto certain parts of his body after that sound had escaped Charlie’s lips. He dropped back down into the booth with a thud. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“I’m going to assume you’ve only heard fifty percent of what I said.” Aiden chuckled.
Finn tore his gaze away from Charlie’s retreating form. “Fifty may be a little generous.”
“So that’s Charlotte, the tutor you weren’t going to let anywhere near your son.”
Finn shrugged. “I talked to his teacher and she convinced me to give Charlie a chance.”
“She goes by Charlie?”
Finn couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I gave her the nickname in high school to try to piss her off. But she loved it. And hell, she’s always been more of a Charlie than a Charlotte.” That actually wasn’t true. She’d been a perfect blend of both: the rich, pampered Charlotte and the feisty, gutsy Charlie who never backed down from a dare.
Who was she now?
That was it, was
n’t it? Finn couldn’t seem to find the old Charlotte or Charlie in the woman he was facing today. But damn it, he couldn’t let this be his problem. Not again.
Charlie, Charlotte, both could take care of herself. She’d never needed him.
He looked up at Aiden. “Yeah, so tell me what Pinnock said again. I’m really listening this time.” They hadn’t wanted to go into much detail in front of Charlie.
“Henry was able to set up a way in for me. Got me on Cline’s radar, the guy shopping around info on the holes in NORAD’s air defense. Henry is calling the mission Project Sparrow.”
“You’re going undercover?”
Aiden shrugged. “I’m not as well known around here as you and Zac. Anybody who knows the two of you would know Teton County’s golden boys are never going to end up on the wrong side of the law. But me? I’m new. A bit more of an unknown factor.”
“You do know you’re not a cop, right? You’ve got no jurisdiction, no real backup. You can’t arrest anyone. You’ll be completely on your own.”
Aiden nodded. “I’m just gathering information.”
Which had always been Aiden’s forte. In the Army, he’d always been the man sent in to gather intel. He could speak at least five languages; Finn had lost count of the actual number. And even more, he had the uncanny ability to fit in to situations, to be the person the target needed him to be. He could become invisible and indispensable at the same time.
He could’ve made a killing in Hollywood, the way he played so many different roles.
“Just be careful.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”
Finn’s attention was drawn back to Charlie as she made her way out of the restroom. Multiple people stopped her along the way to say hello.
Then they all looked over at him, as if afraid he might feel betrayed. Charlie saw it too and winced. It was a small town with a long memory. No one was going to be quick to forget that the two of them had once been one of the town’s most passionate couples. And that she’d married someone else without much warning and despite Finn’s best attempt to convince her otherwise.
Let Aiden go play undercover superhero.
It would take all sorts of miracles for Finn to get out of his own situation unscathed.
The music was still as loud, the hands were still as gropey, and the looks at her breasts were still as leery, but two weeks later Charlie found she could get through her shift at The Silver Palace with a smile.
Okay, maybe not a smile, but at least without a grimace.
Things were finally, finally looking up. Yes, she was still exhausted. Yes, she was still working almost a hundred hours a week between all her various jobs. But she had been able to make this month’s payment for Dad’s treatment center, even with the added costs from his fall and Mama staying with him what ended up being three nights rather than two.
Charlie had gotten into a pattern, so cleaning was something she could do almost remotely. All she had to do was show up and her body took over. The vacuum didn’t care if she was eighty percent asleep as she used it. And Mack had been pleased with her work, or at least at the amount of money he was saving, so he’d offered her more hours.
Most importantly, she’d had seven different tutoring jobs in the last two weeks—four with Ethan and three with other families. It was going so well it almost made her giddy. Already she could see a true change in Ethan. His attitude toward reading and his own abilities had completely shifted. The kid was so smart. At first, she’d helped him develop the different codes and patterns to use to replace sight words for reading. Now his brain could visualize an image rather than the letters that were so confusing to him.
Once he’d understood the concept, Ethan had run with it. The last time they’d met two days ago, he’d written an entire short book by himself with his different codes and patterns.
Maybe nobody else could read it, but the important thing was, Ethan could. In essence it was a sort of hieroglyphics, patterns and shapes on paper forming a method of written communication easier for his brain to understand.
Admittedly, they were still a long way off from him being able to read regular books at grade level, but it was a start. And it was an educational method—at least the part about writing their own books—that Charlie had developed for her master’s thesis. She’d studied the tie between educational ownership/confidence and reading ability, the concept that a child was more likely to want to read something they’d written and developed themselves. Once they had, their confidence would improve, and therefore their reading ability would also.
What she’d explored in theory in her master’s thesis was now being proven correct in practice.
It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
“You’ve got really pretty titties. You should be a dancer.” A drunken voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
All Charlie had to do was not kill anybody and everything would be all right. A frat boy was resting his chin on his arms at the bar. She hoped the bouncer checked his ID at the door because he barely looked twenty-one. “Well, sweetheart, somebody has to serve the drinks. What can I get you?”
The kid’s gaze didn’t move from her breasts. “DVR.”
Double vodka Red Bull. Great. Do stupid things faster.
She made the beverage before moving to the station printer, which was spitting out another drink order from a waitress. It was a Tuesday night and shouldn’t be this busy, but April, the third bartender, hadn’t shown up for her shift again. Heather had, but two of her three kids were sick, and she’d spent half the night on the phone with the babysitter.
Busy was good, it meant more tips, but so busy you couldn’t get orders out meant watching those tips disappear. It was frustrating for everyone on all levels.
“Charlie, I’m going to have to leave,” Heather said around ten. “Both my kids are throwing up and the babysitter refuses to stay. I’ve called everyone I know, including my miserable ex. Nobody is available.”
They were pouring drinks as they talked. Charlie knew Heather wasn’t faking. Like her, Heather would never leave when it was so busy. There was too much potential for making tips.
“Mack is going to kill me. I told him I could come in, and now he’s going to get a ton of complaints.”
“It’s not your fault. April is the one who didn’t show up for her shift. I’m sure she’s already fired.” Which wasn’t going to help them now.
Heather looked over at Charlie, tears in her eyes. “You’re never going to be able to handle this on your own. Plus, Rocco has a VIP group in the back. Nobody’s supposed to go in there, but it will need to be cleaned at the end of the night. They prepaid for everything.”
Charlie slid a beer to a guy at the end of the bar without even looking at him. “I know you wouldn’t leave me if you had any other choice. Not to mention it’s not some national crisis if people need to wait a few extra minutes for some drinks. Your kids are more important. They need their mom.”
It was clear Heather was thankful Charlie understood. And she did. But an hour later, Charlie was wishing she was the one vomiting so she wouldn’t have to deal with all the angry customers, waitresses, and dancers. Everyone was pissed, and it was all directed at Charlie.
She only had two goddamn hands.
“Excuse me, I was supposed to talk to someone named Charlie about possibly tending bar here. Mack said Tuesday was a good night to come by.” The voice of the tall, slender woman at the end of the bar was so quiet Charlie almost didn’t hear her when she walked by. She totally didn’t have time for this.
“Normally it would be, but not tonight. Sorry.” Charlie spared a glance from the tray of drinks she was preparing.
Something desperate flew through the woman’s big gray eyes before she blinked it away. “I understand. Thanks for your time,” the woman said just as quietly as she had the first time. She turned away.
Charlie rubbed an exhausted hand across her forehead. Damn it, she understood
that look. Hell, if she was going to turn someone away who had it in their eyes.
“Hey!” she called out to the woman, who turned back with something akin to fear in her eyes. “You ever bartended before?”
The woman shook her head no.
Great. Damn Mack for not vetting potential employees before sending them to her.
“Can you start tonight?” Charlie asked. “Like right now?”
The woman nodded. Charlie reached into a cabinet underneath the register and pulled out one of the obnoxious Silver Palace mesh tank tops. She threw it at the woman.
“Put this on. We’ll keep you on simple stuff tonight.” She could at least pour beer and make easy cocktails. “What’s your name?”
“Jordan Reiss.”
Somebody behind Charlie started clamoring for another drink, but she held up a finger for them to wait. She recognized the name right away.
“I thought you were in prison.”
Something passed through those gray eyes again. “I’m out as of last week. Does this mean I’m not hired?”
Jordan had gone to prison for manslaughter when she was eighteen. She’d fallen asleep behind the wheel and killed a woman and her baby. Not just any though, Becky and Micah Mackay, family of Zac, Oak Creek legend and Finn’s best friend.
Six years later Jordan was just now getting paroled. Everybody in a three-county radius knew who she was. And they knew her sentencing had been so harsh—even though she’d had no prior arrests, nor had she ever been in any trouble with the law before—because of her father, Michael Reiss.
The man who had swindled half of Oak Creek out of their retirement accounts, then skipped town.
“I’m not going to steal from you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jordan said. “I just need a job. I’m sorry for anything my dad did to you or your family. I had no part in that.”
It was obviously a line she was used to repeating.
She might be the only woman from Oak Creek more hated than Charlie.
“Your dad didn’t get anything from my family. We had our own financial advisors.” Not that they’d done much good. Look at Charlie now.