by Lindsey Hart
Charity looked so cross, her arms folded across her chest, her pose stubborn and unwavering, her lips set in a grim line, her eyes flashing fire.
He actually had to laugh. “My god. If there is one thing in this world you were not meant to be, it was hard. Stay if you want then. It seems like I can do little to stop you. I just don’t want you to have to save me. You’d grow to hate me.”
She raised a brow. “Would I? Don’t worry about that. I’m not here for that. You’re doing it all on your own. I’m just here to keep you on track. And when I leave, I’m not going to forget you. The rest of the world might have. You might believe that, but I won’t let you sit here and rot alone. You’re not going to be rid of me until I know you well and truly mean it.”
“And if I said I did?”
“Then you’re a liar. You haven’t meant it either time.”
“And one day, what if I do?”
She shrugged. “Then I’ll go. Don’t borrow tomorrow’s troubles. If my mom ever taught me anything of value, it was that.”
“And the house?”
“What about the house? She’ll either crumble and fall or eventually you’ll put her right. I doubt there could be a lot of in the middle.”
He slowly smiled. That hard web of pain clenching his heart started to unravel. He felt freed, in the same way he had the first time she’d come back. “You’re awful certain of yourself.” As he said the words he saw doubt flicker in her eyes for the first time. A flash of her own pain, an insight into just, shockingly, what he meant to her.
“Should I not be?”
Joe reached out and gently touched her arm. He drew her in with his half-healed hand, into the solid wall of his chest. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she slowly unfolded into him, melting against him.
She reached up and placed her warm, delicate hand on his neck. He bent his head, closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to hers. She was there, in his arms and the bleak future he’d promised himself, set out for himself, truly seemed anything but dark.
EPILOGUE
Charity
The best part of having a brand-new kitchen, even if it had been designed to look old, was the coffee. Real, honest coffee brewed in a real machine, powered by real power, not just a generator.
Prissy lay sprawled out on the brand new checkered floor. The kitchen was her domain. It always had been, even after it was freshly renovated. Her kittens, all four of them, grown into beautiful, healthy adult cats, were nowhere in sight. Charity knew their habits and she was willing to bet they were out in the yard, giving the birds in the garden hell.
“I thought you were supposed to be cutting back on that. It’s not healthy right now.”
Charity whirled, blushing guiltily as Joe strode into the kitchen. He’d cut his hair, decided to wear it short and oddly enough, grew out his beard. She loved it either way. She loved him either way.
“It’s decaf,” she responded quickly. Too quickly.
He grinned. “We both know that’s a lie.” His eyes danced with amusement. “Just one cup a day, right?”
“And lots of water. And Vitamins. And fruits and vegetables. And less bread,” she parroted the doctor they’d just been to see, and Joe laughed. “At least we have the garden in. Vegetables are so much better when they’re ones we’ve grown.”
“That’s right. It’s great you’ve got it memorized.” He frowned, but it wasn’t a true expression. “I suppose that’s not going to stop you from making that apple pie you promised me tonight?”
She set the mug down on the brand-new butcher block countertop, next to the white farmhouse sink. “Of course not. The best part of having this kitchen is that it smells like a kitchen again.” She beckoned him with her index finger. “Come here, my love.” She moved slightly so that he had to come to her. He did so without complaint. Strong arms wrapped around her waist, holding her gently, almost reverently. She set one hand on Joe’s broad chest, the cotton of his t-shirt warmed by his skin. She inhaled the sweet scent that she’d come to learn was just his. “You know that I’ll always be careful. I’m just as excited as you are.”
“I know.” A shadow passed over his eyes, but then it was gone. “I know you’re not glass. I’ve made my peace with the past. I’m just as worried as any future father is.”
“You have eight more months of that, my love. Both of us.” Charity cast her eyes out the window. “Damn that cat. It’s Bella. She’s got her collar off again and the bell with it. I can tell from here that she doesn’t have it. I’ll have to search the yard again.”
“You’re awful hard on those poor cats.”
“And they’re awful hard on the birds. Why put out feeders if it’s just leading them to slaughter?”
Joe sighed. “You’re right. I’ll go out and look for it.”
Charity reached for his hand. “I’ll come with you. She brought his palm up to counter height and examined it. She loved how the square nails were always dirty underneath, stained with paint. She loved the way the creases of his skin, the web of his palm was just as stained in a million bright colors. Most of all, she loved that those hands made her come alive, on canvas and in every other way.
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s been five years. Five long years to get this place back to what it once was.”
“Oh, it was never like this. Now she has power and internet and running water. She’s modern.”
“We saved a lot of her character though, don’t you think?”
Joe’s eyes glowed. He bent and placed a sweet kiss on her forehead. “Yes. I do think. I think, if she could talk, she’d thank us.”
“She’d thank me.” Charity feigned seriousness. “It was me who refused to leave.”
“Technically we both refused to leave, if I recall correctly.”
“That might be true. I guess you’re right. She’d thank you too. That old couch that was in the living room and the pantry that was in the kitchen, they don’t thank you.”
“Oh, they do. They’re happy somewhere else.”
During the long years of renovations, the trades, the modernization, the endless dust and building materials, the long hours, she and Joe made the decision to sell off most of the antiques. They all went to loving homes and people were very glad to get them at bargain prices.
The house was now unrecognizable. The floors had been sanded and restained. Most of the walls were new since the wiring had to be put in for power. The ceilings too were new. Shockingly, most of the siding could be brought back to life with a few fresh coats of paint. The porch was redone, bathrooms added, the kitchen gutted and brought back almost exactly the way it had been before.
It was the gardens and the yard that truly made a difference. A team of landscapers had been hired and they’d worked their magic. It wasn’t nearly the same as it had been before, even in the height of its glory. It was different, and it was beautiful for it. Now it was a place Joe truly loved to paint.
“And you? Are you happy, my dear?” She gazed up into the depths of his loving eyes. She could see the answer written all over his face.
As the years marched on and their lives intertwined, as the house changed, and their futures merged into a solid line, they’d made the decision to be married. Joe hadn’t wanted to do it in town, but Charity, who had made it a point to get to know just about everyone, insisted. To his surprise, people had been supportive and kind. They accepted them, Joe and Charity, and the new life they were forging together.
People from town now drove by to check on the progress of the house. They came for tea or cookies or just a chat and left happier than when they drove up. The neighbors stopped by. Sometimes old Mrs. Rickerson even brought her special cherry pie, baked just for them.
They hadn’t exactly planned on having a family, though they knew their parents eagerly wanted it. Surprisingly, resuming a relationship with her mother had been far easier than she thought. It turned out that distance and separation had a way of healing even
the worst wounds. Joe’s parents were more than happy to have their son back.
Slowly, the wounds of the past healed over. It didn’t mean they were forgotten, though he had made every effort to keep moving forward. There were times Charity still caught Joe standing by the window, gazing out at nothing at all. Some nights he left their bed and got up to paint or read or just sit in the living room, lost in thought. He let her into his heart. He made space there for her as she welcomed him. They dwelled in each other and she was never afraid to share him with the past or comfort him and assure him on the odd occasion he still needed it. His past was a part of him and she loved him. All of him. While she wished she could take away his pain, she recognized that without it, she would not be there. The beauty of their life could not exist without the pain of the past.
“You’ve taught me how to be happy. Slowly, I learned what that meant again. Never doubt it. You are my world, you and this brand-new life and I am humbled and honored to be a part of it.”
Charity blinked hard. She offered a watery smile. “Don’t go and do that. It’s too early in the morning for tears.”
“You asked,” he chuckled. “I love you, Charity. You are, and always have been, my angel.” He bent his head and kissed her deeply. If there had been room for doubt in her heart, which there was not, that kiss banished it. It flooded her with warmth and life.
She pulled away gently after, took his paint-stained hand and twined it through her own. “Come on. Let’s go look for that cat collar before she gets up to no good without it.”
“Do you think it’s ironic that it’s Bella that’s always the one losing her bell?”
Charity had to think about that for a moment before she burst out laughing. She led her husband, her love, her life, out the back door, into the beautiful garden and the waiting sunshine beyond.
The End
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BEAUTIFUL ENCOUNTER
By
Lindsey Hart
BOOK DESCRIPTION
A modern-day retelling of The Little Mermaid with a guaranteed HEA.
Owen
5 years ago, he promised his all to the woman who saved him from drowning and who he thought he loved.
But he had been left with nothing but a broken heart.
On a whim to finally bring closure, he travels back to the very place where it all started. The place where a mermaid-like figure saved him.
Maren
He was back.
She had been there on that day when he’d nearly drowned. She'd watched as he gave his heart away to her best friend.
This is a full length stand-alone steamy romance novel. No cheating. No cliff-hanger. And HEA all the way!!
CHAPTER 1
Owen
Down. He was falling down. Into the blue-black darkness. Into the depths of the grave. Its watery fingers reached out, gripping him, tugging at his hair, his clothes, filling up his lungs with salty fire. The end was so painful.
He was dying. Sinking, the fight gone out of his burning muscles. He sunk, oddly peaceful, suspended, in slow motion.
As the flames of a watery destruction burst over him, igniting his skin, his lungs, his panic, his shame, his heart, there was only one last thought. The fact that there had never been anyone and now it was too late.
Owen Carter ripped the soaked cotton sheets away in panic. He flung them to the floor as he sat upright, gasping, choking. He filled his burning lungs with air. Like so many nights before, when the nightmare gripped him and held him captive, he realized he wasn’t drowning. The aftermath of shock and terror faded. No, he’d been saved. He had the chance to love. He’d given his heart, his trust, his life, his devotion to the woman who had pulled him from the ocean.
And she’d betrayed him. Broken him.
She was gone and he was alone. Alone in the house they’d shared. Just a few last nights before it belonged to someone else. It was already sold, a chunk of his fortune gone. The assets divided, the papers signed, the short, brutal battle that was divorce, at an end.
His heart though, a heart that he’d blindly given and for five years entrusted to her… it had never meant anything at all. The house, his cars, his money, what he’d given away meant nothing. The investments he still had, his business, his fortune, meant nothing. He couldn’t replace Chelsea. He couldn’t steal back the years, the time, his heart or his body.
He thought of Monterey. The peaceful coastal California town had captured his soul, provided him refuge when he was lost. It was there that he’d found Chelsea, that she’d saved him from drowning the morning he’d foolishly left the bed and breakfast and gone for a swim. He’d vastly underestimated the undertow. He wasn’t a strong swimmer at the best of times.
He remembered drowning. He remembered dying, or at least, he remembered the blackness that overtook him, the horror that stole reason and peace and sanity. It was all dark and then, light. Light and the face, the dark halo of her raven black hair hanging over him, the worry in her eyes, the relief that flooded them when he retched up the water that had nearly stolen his life.
Thinking of returning there, to that looming red and white house on the coast with the peeling siding and the cedar shingles, should have struck terror or even loathing in the very marrow of his bones. Oddly enough, it did the opposite.
Owen heaved a breath into the darkness. He no longer slept in the bedroom he shared with Chelsea. No, he’d long ago left there, over a year ago, the night he’d found out that she’d fallen in love with another man, that she’d loved him for years, that she’d played them both, in her own way.
He cast aside the sodden comforter and sweat-soaked sheets. He padded across the hardwood floor, cold from the air conditioning, to the window. It wasn’t a small window, but it was dwarfed by the size of a room that had been useless. A guest bedroom that was never once used until he moved into it. The house he’d built with his fortune. A monstrosity of a thing, four thousand square feet in the affluent neighborhood of Peace Hills in Seattle. It had been everything Chelsea dreamed and more.
Naturally, he was relieved when it sold. He didn’t want to spend any more time in that house than he had to. He’d been happy there, at one time. He believed, still, that they both had been.
Owen didn’t crack the blinds or peek through. He stood, staring at the white slats, seeing nothing. His mind wondered, back to that beautiful coast, to the sound of crashing waves and the scent of salt on the breeze. He remembered, how he licked his lips and tasted it. To him, Monterey had been freedom. He’d found himself there when he was lost.
Going back would be no stranger than anything else. It would hurt him no more than Chelsea’s falling out of love had. Though it was on that beach, in those waters, that she’d saved him, that his love for her had been born, it didn’t pain him to think of returning. If anything, it would be a relief. Perhaps, even, offer the elusive closure he’d sought for so long, never hoping to actually find.
Answers. That was what he wanted. Answers to all the questions that had no damn answer. Meaning for the shit in life that was ultimately meaningless.
He had work, but he always did. He lived and breathed his company. Anyone who said owning a business was fun never had been a business owner. He almost wished for the more mundane routine of the nine to five life. A least then, there was a beginning and an end to the day, not a constant stream of worry or thought that went on for every hour, every moment, every second of every single day.
What he needed was a week. He didn’t take vacations. Chelsea had always complained most about that. That he didn’t make time for her. Maybe if he had she wouldn’t have had to find someone who did.
Owen gave his head a hard shake. His hand fluttered upwards, towards the blinds, as though he might actually crack a slat and peek out at a neighborhood he already knew would
be bathed in the silent, golden glow of overhead streetlights.
He didn’t. His hand fell back to his side.
He’d played the game of blame, asked himself a thousand answerless questions, gone over and over the years. He’d spent nights lying awake, staring at the ceiling, wishing, regretting. It didn’t change a thing.
There were no answers. There was no stealing back the past. There was no changing where he was, no putting back together a heart that had been shattered.
He might not be able to truly take time off, but for once, he didn’t care about the consequences. His company faded to the back of his mind, inconsequential, meaningless. Closure. Yes, that was what he needed. He needed to shut the door on the past, on Chelsea, on their love that hadn’t made it and move on.
When he left the room, his black cotton t-shirt and tight-fitting boxers still damp from his night terror, his steps were sure, firm, without hesitation. It was without regret, that just past three in the morning, a glass of half drank tap water besides him at the kitchen table, the glow of his laptop straining his tired eyes, he made the reservation that would take him back to a place and a time, where everything was still possible.
CHAPTER 2
Maren
“I had the strangest reservation, booked in the middle of the night. You know how I always check first thing in the morning.”
Hettie McTavish leaned forward in her red vinyl chair, folding her wrinkled hands with the gnarled fingers on the table just in front of her teacup. The chrome chair legs and chrome band around the table were freshly polished, the tabletop immaculate. The whole thing looked like it had the day it rolled out of whatever fifties showroom had sold it.