Wilde Magic (Wilde Women Book 3) (48 page)

T
HERE WAS NO WAY CHARLIE
was going to boo hoo and wring her hands over any of what went down between her and Ty. No. Caleb. That part she had to keep straight. Caleb.

She was a grown ass woman with a serious case of the hot and bothers for a guy. They were having sex. Lots of it. On her terms. Where exactly was the problem? What she was doing was no different than what any of her girlfriends did. Her sisters? Yeah. Not so much, but she really shouldn’t compare herself to them.

Two weeks were now water under the bridge, after the monster storm robbed their little corner of the state of power for twenty-four hours. They’d managed well enough despite the practical challenges. Soon as the snow stopped, Cal went about clearing off the vehicles, snowblowing all around the house, the garage and the walkway to the bakery. Part of that process involved making the gas grill on the patio accessible. There was a lot you could do with some ingenuity and propane.

Soon as things got back to normal, they really got back to normal. Jonas and his crew went back to working on the house renovation, Amy ran the bakery and Cal studiously repaired the storm damage to the porch roof.

And her? What did Charlie fill her days with? She’d been undeniably freaked out after that first erotic explosion because they did it in Brynn and Jax’s bed. And not only that, her unexpected waterworks left glaring evidence on the bedspread. Could anything be more embarrassing? Luckily, it wasn’t hard to completely replace all the bedding so nobody would ever know what a wanton slut she was being. Not that it mattered. She didn’t give a flying monkey’s ass what anyone thought.

Every night he joined her for dinner. Except for the night he surprised her with a birthday balloon and a cupcake from the bakery, their conversations were stilted and overly polite. Just as well, though, she put on a detached air, the truth was, she was confused and uncertain. And Caleb? He was grumpy and surly. Until she appeared in the loft. Which she did with alarming frequency. And sometimes not when he was hunkered down for the evening or even first thing in the morning.

A couple of times she’d gone and simply taken his hand and led him to the not-so-private studio loft fuck nest. She didn’t imagine for a second that Jonas didn’t see what was going on. And Amy? Shit. That girl had binoculars or something. Every day, when she stopped in at the tearoom to say hi and grab calorie laden bad things from the bakery, Amy eyed her knowingly and went out of her way to crack some pretty inappropriate jokes.

Pouring an overly large mug of coffee, she took it along with a butterscotch scone and a book to the big leather wing chair in front of the tearoom’s gigantic hearth. Hanging around the house was dangerous. With nothing for her to do except find trouble—usually naked trouble—she’d taken to setting up camp here for a few hours every day.

With all her goodies spread out around her, Charlie indulged in the dense buttery scone, swooned over the richness of the incredible coffee blend the Baron’s Tea Room served. She admired Brynn tremendously for her pay it forward business sense. She liked to think some of her hippy girl, peace and love ways made an impact on her wise, older sister.

All the coffee and tea brewed for serving at Baron’s was on the house. You could order specialty teas of course and some folks were addicted to those damn coffee pods. That stuff, the customers paid for. But what they brewed on site was all fair trade and organically sourced, of a high quality and personally tested and approved of by Brynn herself, even though she hated the stuff. If you needed a cup of really good coffee, it was free at Baron’s.

Amy added an old, beat-up kitchen cauldron some workers found when the barn was originally renovated. There, people could drop tips knowing all the money collected went to two causes. The local veteran’s group and the food bank serving homeless in the area.

She smiled and looked around at the grand old barn so lovingly renovated. Her grandpa would be proud of the Baron-Wilde legacy. Nana was a genius for handing this whole place over to Brynn. After all, she was the natural heir and the family’s good name would be safe in her hands.

Pulling her legs up, she curled into the antique wing chair and thumbed through a treasure. She found an old book of classic fairy tales published in the late eighteen hundreds at one of the local shops. With a baby about to join the family, she’d been thinking about doing a mural on the wall in the nursery’s small alcove. That’s where Brynnie planned to put the baby’s changing table. Charlie was looking for fairy tale inspiration and the book was the perfect aid.

Lost in a cloud of artistic fantasy, she startled when Amy approached, poured a tea and joined her in the other chair.

“Whatcha got there?” Amy asked. Sipping her drink, she held Charlie’s eyes over the rim of her teacup. Remembering what Brynn told her about Rhi being in collusion with Amy, she didn’t have to wonder if the interrogating stares and every word she said wasn’t going to be reported to the Baron-Wilde middle sister. She considered asking Amy to confirm Brynn’s suspicion that Rhiann was writing, but thought better of it. She wouldn’t tell her anyway. Amy was like that. Loyal to the bone.

“Mm, something old. Here, smell,” she said, handing the book off. “Fairy tales and the scent of a musty library. My favorite thing!”

“You Wilde girls and your books,” Amy chuckled. “Guess it’s in your blood, huh? Rhiann speaks of your father’s home library like it’s a world wonder.”

Sooo
true. “Thanks to Professor Wilde, I knew what a first edition was long before stepping foot in a classroom. I wanna do a mural for the baby,” she explained. “I love the softness of the illustrations—perfect for a nursery.”

“Oh,” Amy quipped. “So this is inspiration. That’s cool. I like the way your mind works, Charlie.” She paged through the lovely antique volume of wonderfulness as Charlie sipped her coffee.

Pausing to inspect a page, Amy innocently asked, “Did you make any new years resolutions?”

Resolutions. Uh, no. Not this year. She’d been too busy at midnight getting her ….

Amy laughed. “First Brynn and now you, sneaking into the loft at all hours. I’ve heard of sisters hooking up with brothers before but you two are setting a new standard.”

Trapped, she stuttered awkwardly. “What? Oh. Um, that. Yeah. I mean, no.”

“That’s what I call covering all the bases.”

“You don’t understand,” Charlie blurted. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“What do you think it looks like, hmmm?”

“Well, first of all, Brynn and Jax were in love, and …”

“Not at first they weren’t,” she cut in with quite a bite. “He came real close to having some northwoods country mojo unleashed on his ass.”

Charlie sighed and bit her lip. This was news. She only knew a little bit about the drama before they got together. Mostly, her info centered on Nana meddling and then her parents stirring the pot.

“Oh, really? I didn’t know. But seriously, Amy. No country mojo required. Already been there and done that.”

“What the hell does that mean exactly?”

Dammit, she didn’t mean to give so much away. “It means, I’m not interested in romance or any of that mushy stuff. No need to do a therapy session on why. Caleb is … well, he’s a blip on the radar. When the newlyweds return, I’m heading out. So.” She stopped talking and shrugged.

Amy studied her. Charlie started to sweat. It was nerve-wracking.

“Where you headed next Charlize? Home to Happy Valley? Your folks would love that. Or you planning on some new adventure?”

Truthfully, she hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. She didn’t want to make actual plans. Letting the winds blow her where she needed to be seemed like a good enough solution. She’d end up where she ended up. Period.

With a casual shrug, she shoved the last piece of scone into her mouth. With her fingers shielding that she was still in mid-chew, Charlie quietly dropped what she knew would be a bomb.

“Nana Wilde wants me to go stay with her. Through the summer.”

Amy’s shock was understandable. Charlie’d have to be nuts to willingly climb into the old woman’s meddling twirly wheel.

“Excuse me?”

“Yep. You heard me. She’s promising to unlock the vault. Says I can, and I quote, ‘curate’ the contents. Ho-lee fuckballz.”

“Whoa. My God.” Amy paused and got really still. Finally, she added, “You do know, right—that Rhiann would kill for a chance to weed through the woman’s mementos. And shit. Getting a first-hand look at her journals?”

That’s what was giving Charlie a bad case of conscience. She knew Rhi would cut a bitch where Nana’s colorful life history was concerned. It was her sister’s dream to write the insider’s biography on the fantabulous life and times of Bryanna Charles Baron-Wilde. Nana knew it too, so it seemed especially suspicious when she made the offer to Charlie.

“I know,” she said. “I got the impression she wants me to catalog everything—not review or explore. Hopefully getting it all organized will be the first step to handing it off to Rhi.”

“
Hmph.
So, Philly it is, I suppose? How can you turn that down?”

Charlie laughed and widened her eyes. “Oh my lord, Amy. I’m
sooooo
bored. There’s nothing for me to do here. It’s funny, really. When you think about it, I mean. I teach others how to relax. Smell the roses. But here I am crawling out of my skin.”

“Does that explain why you’re jumping on Caleb every fifteen minutes? Boredom? Sheesh, Charlie. That’s a big time grown up man. Seems a bit odd to me that he’d put up with being relegated to the toy drawer.”

The toy drawer? Eeep! She better kick up her verbal game. Stop sounding like a prude with a naughty secret.

“Oh,” she sniggered. “Don’t worry about him. Caleb Merrill is going to be just fine. You should see his little black book.” Oh, crap. Wait. Do guys still have one of those? Probably not. Everything’s done with technology now. “He’s got quite a rep.”

Amy was too damn smart. Either that or Charlie was a fool. Maybe a bit of both.

“And what would you know about his rep, young lady? Europe is a big place, sure. But maybe your paths crossed at some point. Hmmm?”

Oops. Damage control. Stat. She knew just what to do.

“Yes, well…” she smoothly quipped. “We all have our secrets. And you’d know all about that. Right? I think you know way more about Rhi and probably even what’s really happening with that asshole boss of hers. And other things.”

Amy burst out laughing and smacked her playfully on the knee. “Touché, Charlize! Touché! Nicely played little sister.”

She was still laughing when she stood up to leave. “And don’t worry. My lips are sealed. You’re a big girl, although I’m sure your sisters would disagree. If you want to teach a certain hottie a lesson, more power to you.”

They giggled, high fived and then Charlie was left with her thoughts. She’d gotten over teaching Caleb a lesson two minutes after she hit the bathroom the night of the snowstorm. She was pissing him off—that she was sure of. But a lesson? Hardly.

A block of wood went sailing through the air, banged the side of the house and dropped into a melting snow pile.

“Fuck,” Cal muttered. That was his third try at making a simple cut he’d done a thousand times before. What the hell was wrong with him?

Slamming another piece onto the workbench, he clamped it tight and stopped to clear his head. Gather his thoughts.

Yeah. Joke. He didn’t have any thoughts to gather. There was only one thought. One goddamn motherfucking thought, twenty-four-seven.

‘‘tessa.

Or Charlize.

She was doing everything she could to mess with his head and it was working. Maneuvered into a no-win situation, theirs was an entirely physical relationship and he couldn’t fucking believe he let it happen. Convinced there was a single moment when he began to lose control, he was beating himself up day and night trying to pinpoint the mistake. Knowing where he fucked up would be helpful, but so far nothing stood out.

Frustrated, pissed off, miserable. All those wonderful words applied. If he got any grumpier, they’d make a movie about it.
Man Fucked to Death.
Poor him, right? Well, yeah—poor him. Fucking his way back and forth across Europe was the past. Shit, man. He barely remembered any of it that’s how meaningful it was.