by Taylor Hart
Ryan looked semi caught. “No, I couldn’t.”
Her mother set her lips into a pinch. “I want you to.”
“You have to come. It’s the best party in the county.” Sam grinned up at Ryan.
Charlotte took Sam by the shoulders and pulled him into her. “Shh.”
Nathan cleared his throat. “I’m sure he can’t go because he has to get back to whatever hole he’s been hiding in the past seven years.”
Ryan didn’t move for a moment. Then he winked at Sam. “My schedule might be clearing. I would love to go.”
Charlotte’s heart pounded in an erratic rhythm. Nathan and Ryan carried their own epic-sized small town rivalry. They’d been best friends through high school, until she’d chosen to date Ryan instead of Nathan.
And then there’d been the accident. Things had never been the same after that.
Nathan took another step, standing eye to eye with Ryan. “I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe it.”
Charlotte tried to keep her calm, but truth be told, she was just as ticked as Nathan.
Ryan’s eyes flicked to her and then back to Nathan.
Nathan curled his lip and stepped face to face with Ryan. “I can’t believe you would dare show your face in this town.”
Ryan didn’t flinch. He didn’t take a step back. He didn’t even act like Nathan was violating his personal space. He held his ground. “Believe it.”
Nathan’s face squished in distaste—the kind of distaste he saved for lima beans and church casseroles. “If you were smart you’d get out of town before someone made you get out.”
Ryan shook his head. His face cracked into a slow grin, a challenging grin. A grin that Charlotte knew would drive Nathan into one of his insomniac phases that had him pacing the house all night. “I guess we both know I’ve never done the smart thing.”
Nathan exhaled.
Ryan shifted his eyes to Charlotte and then back to Nathan. “I believe she asked you to leave.”
Charlotte couldn’t stand it. She would not be some pawn in their game. “This isn’t any of your business, Ryan. You can leave, too.”
“Now,” her mother said, joining in the conversation, “I wouldn’t say that Ryan has to leave. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him.”
Charlotte really hated the fact her mother liked to do her version of protecting her. She didn’t need her help. She also really, really hated the fact that she’d only just learned her mother was selling the ranch. And she really, really, really hated the fact that her mother had always asked about Ryan and had made no bones about the fact she’d liked him a lot better than Nathan. When she did this, Charlotte consistently pointed out the fact that Ryan had been the one that’d left. “Stop, Mom.”
Nathan laughed, his high school “ha ha, in your face” kind of laugh. He moved for the tent door. “Well, I guess I’ll be leaving then.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“Dad?”
Nathan looked down at Sam.
“Will you look at the stars with me when I have my new telescope?”
Nathan turned back. “I have to go right now, Sam.”
“Are you coming to the Halloween party tomorrow night?”
Charlotte didn’t want to break the news to her son that his father really wasn’t invited anymore.
Nathan pulled at the side of his ear. Charlotte knew that this meant he was not just perturbed, but was very perturbed. He was on the brink of losing it altogether. “Ya know, I think I will go to the party tomorrow night. I think that would be a great place for all of us to talk.”
Charlotte inwardly winced.
Nathan took Sam’s shoulder. “And change of plans, I will take Sam with me right now. We’re going to the canyon so we’ll just see you tomorrow at the party. Say sixish?”
Sam gaped in horror. “I can’t leave. I have to be here to win. The rule is that if you aren’t here, you don’t get the telescope when your ticket is drawn.” Tears budded into his eyes.
Nathan tugged harder on his shoulder. “Well, I guess you’re not going to win because I promised Melody I would take her to the canyon tonight, and you’re coming with us.”
Sam burst into tears.
Charlotte couldn’t stop herself from reaching for him. “You said he was staying with me this weekend.”
Sam sniffed and clung to her.
Nathan pinched his lips. “It’s my weekend. It’s written in the papers. What do you want to do, Charlotte, go to the judge? Is that what you want?”
Sam hiccupped and took the bottom of his shirt to rub his eyes.
Fury built inside of her. “Nathan.” She tried to keep her tone controlled.
He lifted a shoulder. “Charlotte.” His tone had a challenge to it.
“It’s okay, Mom.” Sam shakily moved toward Nathan.
Fire breathed into her. She wanted to do something horrible to this man who claimed to be father of the year at election time. In reality, he was a father who used his son to settle an old score and prove a point to her. He just wanted control. He would always want too much control, but she couldn’t do anything. Legally, it was his weekend.
Nathan beckoned Sam. “Come on son, buck up. We’ve got to go.”
Charlotte watched Sam go to Nathan’s side, more tears falling down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’ll go talk to Ms. Claire.”
His lower lip trembled. “It’s no big deal.”
Nathan put his arm around Sam possessively. “I’ll see you at the party tomorrow.” He sneered at her mother. "You’re parties are always the best.”
Chapter 9
Charlotte rushed out of the tent and toward the raffle set up. She wanted to talk to Sam's teacher and find out whether he could still have the telescope in case he won.
"Charlotte."
Ryan was on her heels, but she didn't slow down. "Just go away." She had lots of complications in her life, and she didn't need Ryan Hardman back in Hidden Falls.
"Charlotte." He caught up to her and paused next to the booth.
Charlotte was already waving over Ms. Claire. Ms. Claire beamed through her extra wide glasses at her. “Where's Sam, it's almost time to announce the winner?"
The part of her stomach that no longer could be soothed by any kind of antacid upped its pain. "I'm sorry, Ms. Claire, Sam won't be able to make it." Because he has a jerk for a father. Because I married a jerk a long time ago. Because I'm a complete loser for marrying the jerk.
"What?" she asked as the edges of her eyebrows tugged together. She loved Sam. She was the one teacher Sam loved, too. He always talked about her. She was the kind of teacher that made a bad day feel better. He often commented about some joke Ms. Claire cracked and about how good her classes were.
Charlotte knew she couldn't hold it together, especially with this seriously crazy man from her past waiting behind her. She felt her hand begin to shake. Just a slight shake she'd felt lately when she was overly stressed. She'd told herself she was just extra tired lately. The problem was she was extra tired most of the time no matter what. She couldn't stay here and face all this. "I have to go, Ms. Claire, but I just hoped if he won, somehow he could still be eligible to get the telescope."
Ms. Claire shook her head. All the joy left her face. "It's the rules, Charlotte. If he's not here, all of the numbers have to be put back in, and we draw again.”
Charlotte understood the rules. She understood being firm. She understood making sure kids did their homework and crossed their t's, but she didn't understand making a seven-year-old pay for something that clearly he had no control over. Tears burned behind her eyes. He wanted that telescope so much. It'd been all he could talk about for the last two weeks. He wanted to take it out to the ranch and hitch it up in the tree house, where he thought he could “get closer to papa,” and check out what stars he could see. Her dad's death had been hard on him, too.
She shook her head and took off from the booth. She had to yell, scream, or chuck a
million things. She was mad at Nathan, herself, her choices, the asinine man Nathan had turned out to be, and the way he always managed her and got his way. She rushed through the park. She had to get back to her bookstore and lock herself into her bedroom, and cry. She hated to admit it. She wouldn't admit it. But this was something that had been coming for a long, long time and needed to be hidden at all costs.
Ryan matched her speed. “What’s wrong, Char?”
He said it like he knew what she was feeling. He said it like he deserved to say it. He said it in the same tone and familiar way a husband would ask a wife.
She abruptly stopped.
He stumbled and stopped, too. He faced her and then took a step toward her.
She looked him over from top to bottom. He looked so much the same as he had seven years ago. Then suddenly, she just couldn't take it anymore.
She slapped his face hard and fast.
He flinched back, his eyes wide.
“That’s for leaving.”
His hand went to his cheek. His eyes met hers.
She saw the blue ice, the shattered glass that had always broken her. It made her feel lost and found and completely out of sorts.
Ryan kept his eyes on hers. “We need to talk.”
Charlotte was still jittery and adrenaline filled and . . . on the edge, teetering. He wanted to buy the ranch. Her father’s ranch. The ranch she stood to inherit. “No, I need to leave before I hit you again.”
She spun around and jogged across the last part of the park.
He was beside her. “Wait.” He put a hand on her shoulder.
Abruptly, she stopped. “Fine. Just tell me why you’re here, Ryan. Why did you come back?”
Chapter 10
Ryan savored the moment.
Charlotte Talon
She was even more beautiful than he’d remembered. That red hair. The wild curls that couldn’t be controlled, contained, or calmed. He’d loved that about her. Her hair always reflected her mood. Even though it was longer now and less wiry, it still had that spunk. Her cheekbones stuck out more, making her look like a woman. Her curves were still in all the right places even though she was thinner, almost too thin.
The anger seethed off her like a rising storm.
She was more beautiful than those haunting dreams he’d had about her when he’d gotten captured. The dreams he still had.
“Ryan,” she demanded.
He blinked and shifted his focus to the present. He didn’t want to tell her. About the deal. About developing her land. He knew what it all meant to her. He looked at his hands. “Your mom told my partner she would only do the deal with me.”
Charlotte took a step closer to him. She pressed her lips together. “I can’t do this.” She pushed past him. “I can’t do this with you.”
“Charlotte.”
She stopped and pushed her face into his. “The only way you’re going to get that ranch is over my dead body.”
She stormed away, rushing into her bookshop.
He waited, watched her, pulled out his phone, and dialed Alan's number.
He answered after the first ring. "Tell me the deal is done.”
"She's not married."
Alan didn't answer for a beat. "I assume we're talking about Charlotte."
"Did you know that she was not married?"
Silence.
"You knew." Ryan pulled the phone away from his ear and squeezed it. He wanted to throw it.
"Ryan!"
Ryan put the phone back to his ear. "Why did you send me here?”
"Ryan, listen, I told you, her mother only wanted to do this deal with you."
"I can't do this."
"Whoa, tell me what's going on."
"I can't see her or any of them."
"Ryan . . ."
He scanned the carnival. “It’s the same and different and I don't know why I let you talk me into—"
"Fine. I'm coming."
Ryan knew he must have sounded pretty desperate if Alan agreed with him. Ryan paused next to the booth with the raffle tickets and watched Ms. Claire hand the telescope to some kid. Some kid that was not Sam.
"I didn't mean to press you like this," Alan continued.
Ryan could hear him shuffling things on his desk. For some reason, Ryan thought of the disappointment on Sam's face.
"I'll book a flight and then, let's see. I'll have Candy line everything up."
"No don’t come, I can handle it."
"Are you sure?"
“Stay there! Talk to you later.” Ryan ended the call. He pulled out his wallet and rushed toward the boy holding the telescope. “Hold on there kid."
Chapter 11
Charlotte kept the sunglasses in place and pounded her mother’s back door. Answers. She needed answers.
She pounded again even though every pound caused her physical pain. It had been a long, long time since she’d gotten drunk. She hadn’t even realized she’d kept that bottle of scotch in the back of her closet. It wasn’t like she ever drank hard liquor. It had been a gift to her and Nathan at their wedding. The only reason she’d even taken it when she’d left Nathan was to prove to herself that she could take it. To prove it belonged to her just as much as Nathan.
It had come in handy last night. She hadn’t even paused after she’d locked the bookstore up. She’d gone right to the bottle of scotch and sat in the closet. And drank it. Not all at once, but with deliberate purpose.
Then she’d done something she hadn’t done for a long, long time. She’d pulled out her box of pictures of her and Ryan. She’d sworn to Nathan she had destroyed the box after he’d found it during their second year of marriage, but she hadn’t. She’d only taken it the one place she knew Nathan wouldn’t find it—the ranch. She’d hidden it back in her old room, in the closet her mother now used for clothes she’d gotten tired of but never gotten rid of.
Her mother had brought the box over casually—well, as casually as her mom could do anything—and left it on Charlotte’s bed on the night she and Sam had moved into the loft above the bookstore.
Charlotte had drunk scotch and cried and remembered and wanted more than anything to forget.
Normally she didn’t allow herself the comfort of being numb. It would never do to succumb to being drunk or taking pills or doing a countless amount of things to self-medicate. She knew she couldn’t be that person for Sam. She was a mother, and she had responsibilities. As her father had told her when she’d left Nathan, she was Charlotte Talon before she’d been anything else, and she could do anything.
When her father had asked her what she wanted to do with the rest of her life after the divorce, she couldn’t think of anything else—except books. Books had been the thing that had gotten her through the hard times. She liked making a new life for herself and for old books.
The town had shown their support—coming into the bookstore, buying books, buying pastries, buying coffee, sitting and chatting. It meant everything to her.
She knew bookstores were supposed to be on the way out, but her niche of finding extremely rare books had paid off for her. She had a knack for it. She didn’t know why it was so easy for her to find a book and get it into the right buyer’s hands. Angela called it her gift from the universe. It was those rare books that kept her business going. All the other books were just helping her live her dream and give back to others. That’s why she called it “The Do Over.” It was a do over for her and for the books.
Charlotte shook her head and focused on the task at hand—of getting information out of her mother. She pounded again and shouted, “I know you’re in there, Mom.”
The sound of the stairs creaking under her mother’s steps calmed her. “Coming.”
It was nine a.m., and even though her mother was technically a ranch woman, she’d never adjusted to the earliness of ranch life. Her father had constantly teased her mother about the fact she loved to sleep in, but when Charlotte wanted to wake her, he wouldn’t allow it. He like
d to joke that she was a woman of the night and he liked it.
Her father had been so in love with her mom. Charlotte remembered the way he coddled her mother and gave in to her intense need for compliments. He really did worship her. He even added on a sunroom to the back of the house for her because she insisted on it.
The door pulled back, and her mother held a hand to her messy hair. “You know it’s rude to wake me. I need my beauty sleep.” She stepped back and gestured for her to come in.
Charlotte stumbled in, bracing herself against the door for a minute to give her a chance to silence the echo in her head. “I need answers, Mom.”
Her mother ignored her and strolled over to the coffee maker. “It looks like you need caffeine. That’s the best thing for a hangover.”
Charlotte took another few steps to the table and sunk into a kitchen chair. “Mom, please tell me what’s going on?”
Her mother worked quickly, filling the coffee maker, and then pushed back the kitchen window curtains. “Do you want some eggs? I have some fresh spinach and tomatoes I bought yesterday at the market.” She tugged on the refrigerator door and pulled out the eggs and vegetables.
Her stomach rolled in protest. Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out any images of food. “I can’t eat. I just—I have to be back to open the bookstore in an hour, and I wanted to talk to you before tonight.”
Her mother took a pan out of the cupboard and turned on the stovetop. “Charlotte, you’ve always been a sensitive girl. I think it was really hard for you to move around so much when you were little. You were clingy, shy, would cry at the drop of a hat.” She cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl then sliced up the tomato and added the spinach. “I remember telling your father when we first moved here that it would be terribly hard for you to adjust to the change.”
“Mother.”
“And your father told me that Hidden Falls would be the best place for you to really put down roots. That this would be the place that we would see our shy little girl blossom, and I have to admit he was right. I saw it. Do you remember the first time you got on a horse?”