Willowleaf Lane (17 page)

She shook her head, remembering the pain cutting through layers and layers of flesh to the bone, of hearing someone she had loved with all the passion of her silly fifteen-year-old heart say things that devastated so deeply.

“No. That’s not everything.” She took a deep breath and faced him. “You didn’t deck him. You didn’t even disagree with him. In fact, you told him it was a pity date. You didn’t know how to say no when I asked you out because you owed my father. You and your mother worked for my pop and he had paid for your sports fees all through high school.”

“Charlotte.”

She went on as if she didn’t hear him. “You also added that no way in hell would you be going anywhere near my giant rack. You didn’t even plan to dance, if you could avoid it. You were going to wrap things up with me as early as you possibly could, and then you had a date to meet Becky Brinkerhoff at her house by ten. Her parents were out of town, and you planned to spend all weekend getting laid.”

He growled a quite appropriate oath but she went on as if she didn’t hear him.

“I didn’t want my fat butt to be the one thing standing in the way of your fun or be a pity date only because of my father, so I told you I was sick. So did you?”

He blinked. “Did I...?”

“Spend the weekend with Becky Brinkerhoff?”

He didn’t answer but she saw the truth in his eyes. How ridiculous, that she could still be hurt by that, all these years later.

She gave a ragged little laugh. “In the interest of fairness to you, I should add that I do remember that most of the time you were nice to me. That was the only time in all the years we knew each other that I ever heard you say anything...hurtful.”

“Damn. I’m sorry, Charlotte. I was a bigger ass than Ronnie McCombs.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes. It does. We were friends. Friends don’t treat each other that way.”

“I had a stupid crush on you. You had to know.”

He raked a hand through his hair but didn’t deny he’d known. Mortified heat burned in her stomach and the fat girl who still lived inside her skin wondered if that was the only reason he was here kissing her, touching her, making her feel so many wonderful things—because he had some vague idea that she was one of the few in town he might be able to bring around again. She had worshipped him once. How tough would it be to convince her to idolize him again?

The worst realization of all was that he might not be completely wrong.

She pushed that thought away as unworthy of both of them.

“It doesn’t matter. It was years ago,” she repeated. The words hid so much misery, she ached for the remembered pain of being fifteen and in love with someone completely unreachable. “I’m not that fat shy girl anymore standing in the doorway at Litchfield’s Hardware with my heart in little pieces at my feet. We’re both different people.”

“I was a prick in high school, cocky as hell—especially toward the end of my senior year when the scouts were already filling my head with all these dreams of how drastically my life would change after I signed that first big contract. That’s still no excuse.”

He had been nineteen, with the world at his feet. Why would he have wanted to waste even a minute with a homely awkward fat young girl? She still wondered that.

“So back to the point at hand,” she went on, before she lost her nerve, “as you can probably imagine, after my one disastrous foray into the dating scene, I wasn’t particularly motivated to ask anybody else out after that, and there weren’t that many guys around here willing to look past my weight or my shyness.”

“What about college?”

“I dated a few times, but there was never any kind of spark. After I came back to Hope’s Crossing, I told myself I was too busy building up Sugar Rush to have much of a social life. I was still heavy but by then I had a little more confidence in myself to know that wasn’t the sum total of my parts. I’m funny, I’m kind, I’m compassionate.”

“I agree,” he said softly.

“I knew all that but I still wasn’t taking care of myself. When Dylan nearly died in Afghanistan, it was a wake-up call that life was...passing me by, because of my own choices. I knew I needed to make some changes.”

“You do look fantastic.”

“I still have a ways to go, mainly toning and strengthening, but I finally feel as good about the outside as I should have all along about everything I had to offer on the inside. Things I can’t really blame a teenage boy for not seeing.”

He reached a hand out and gripped her fingers. “I wish I could put things right somehow. Make up for what I don’t even remember saying.”

She really should have slept with him when she had the chance, she thought ruefully. They certainly couldn’t go there now because she would forever be wondering if he was only trying to
make it up
to her.

“Please. Not necessary. Yes, you broke my heart, but what girl survives being a teenager without having a little piece of her dreams smashed to bits? It’s a rite of passage, isn’t it? I can tell you that after that, I became far more selective in the caliber of person I trusted with my heart.”

“Um, ouch.”

Despite the tumult of emotions that lingered from dredging up this painful episode in her life, a little bubble of laughter emerged at his pained expression.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” It wasn’t true anyway. She hadn’t trusted
anyone
with her heart after Spence. “Really, I still find it quite amazing you agreed to go with me in the first place, even if it was only out of a sense of obligation to Pop. Plenty of teenage guys in your situation would have been far more concerned about maintaining their Stud of the Year position in the eyes of their friends. They wouldn’t have cared about repaying a debt of honor to someone who had helped them and certainly wouldn’t have taken it to the extreme of agreeing to go out with any fat daughters.”

“Whatever I said to Ronnie, my obligation to your dad wasn’t the only reason I said yes, Charlotte. We were friends,” he repeated. “You were always good to me, even when I was a jerk. If I hadn’t been such a self-absorbed ass, I would have been smart enough to see all those wonderful qualities beneath the surface and asked you out myself.”

A tiny corner of her heart wanted to ask if he would have been here with her right now if she hadn’t lost eighty pounds but that was one of those impossible questions. They both probably knew the answer, and it didn’t matter anyway. She
had
lost the weight. He obviously found her attractive now—and more important, she had the confidence in herself to know she was much more than that.

“Now that we’ve skipped hand-in-hand down that particularly cheerful memory lane, you should probably go. I imagine Peyton is wondering what’s happened to her father.”

He made a face. “I doubt that. She’s probably hoping I don’t come back so she can take my credit card and buy a one-way plane ticket back to Portland.”

“She’ll come around,” she said, grateful the conversation had turned to his daughter instead of her. “She asked me to go with her to a bead class next week. Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t mention it. A bead class. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

“I think so. It’s taught by Claire’s daughter, Macy, who is around Peyton’s age. Maybe this will be the start of a solid friendship that will help her feel more settled here.”

“I hope so.”

She rose pointedly, wishing again for those darn hats. A nifty fedora would come in really handy right now to get him to take the hint that she wanted him to go.

He did rise but gave her a searching look. “I don’t feel like we can leave things like this between us.”

“Like what? We cleared the air, we reminisced about old times, we hashed out in great lengths why I’m still a virgin and likely to remain one for some time. I’d say we’ve covered everything.”

He shook his head. “You make me smile, Charlotte. It’s been a long time since anyone or anything has.”

Before she knew what he intended, he pulled her to him and wrapped her in his arms. After a startled moment, she hugged him back, aware that this soft, sweet tenderness was more seductive than any heated kiss.

“You should know,” he murmured against her hair, “I’m not a stupid kid anymore, too self-absorbed to see what’s in front of me.”

She closed her eyes, already aching at the pain she had a feeling was in store for her, then found just a particle more grit, enough to step away and hold open the door. “Good night, Spence.”

He studied her for a long moment then kissed her softly one last time and walked out into the night.

Though she wanted to call him back, drag him to her bedroom to finish what they had started, she firmly closed the door behind him.

She was in serious trouble here. She had mostly mended from that cruel betrayal. It hadn’t been easy, and after a brief bout with unhealthy habits that hadn’t worked out, she had once more turned to muting the pain with more unhealthy habits, including copious amounts of ice cream and macaroni and cheese.

She was halfway in love with Spence all over again. Maybe even a smidgen more than that, but who was keeping score?

Somehow she suspected he had far more ability now to leave her devastated.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
HE
LIGHTS
WERE
off at his house. So much for Charlotte’s theory that Peyton was pacing the floors, wondering where her father was. She was probably sound asleep in bed, exactly where she was supposed to be.

He sat in the driveway for a moment before going inside, still reeling from the combined force of all the evening’s events. How was a guy supposed to process so many shocks in one night?

He didn’t know which he found more astonishing. That moment when—without knowing any of the facts—she had expressed complete faith in his innocence would probably hit close to the top. He could have told her the complete story, all the ugly details, but she hadn’t needed them. She had quietly told him she believed in him, and the sweetness of it still overwhelmed him.

Then had come that heated embrace that had led to her bedroom and that sudden, unexpectedly erotic climax that had shocked both of them...and her confession that she was a virgin—and all the reasons why, which could squarely be shoved onto his shoulders.

He couldn’t believe she would even be willing to
talk
to him after how despicably he had treated her all those years ago. She had carried around that betrayal ever since. He still couldn’t fathom how he could have been so cruel. And for what? To look better in the eyes of a little pissant nuisance like Ronnie McCombs?

It made him feel sick and ashamed. He sighed. What the hell could a guy do to make up for something like that? He didn’t have any idea; he only knew he wanted to try.

What was it about her? She was undeniably lovely. The prettiness had always been there. He could see that now. That smile had always captivated him. He remembered now how much he used to love teasing it out of her at the café, and she had those blue, blue eyes that made a guy want to do anything for her.

It was more than that. Charlotte Caine was just a good person. Kind, loving, sweet. If he ever doubted it, he only had to look at what had happened a few minutes ago—in the middle of a conversation about how he had been a jerk and broken her heart, she focused her attention outward and wanted to help his daughter.

He felt small in comparison.

He had spent most of his life being a selfish bastard. On some level, all professional athletes had to carry around a fairly healthy ego. Because of his screwed-up childhood, he had learned early to take care of himself by necessity. A mistake of a marriage had done nothing to change that.

Charlotte made him want to be something else. Something better.

He was going to have to figure out a way to make amends for the hurt he had caused her. How the hell was he going to do that? He was pretty certain relieving her of her virginity wouldn’t qualify. More’s the pity.

He was too tired to figure it out tonight, he decided, and climbed out of his Range Rover. Inside the house, he was surprised to hear a faint murmur of voices and then canned laughter coming from the media room.

Maybe the housekeeper had stayed up late to wait for him, though that would be a first.

When he followed the sound, he found not the starchy Gretel but Peyton, sound asleep on the sofa. MTV played in the background, some kind of lame reality show, by the look of it. In the blue glow, his daughter looked small and delicate, almost frail, with her mother’s high cheekbones and slender features.

A few years ago, he might have scooped her up into his arms and carried her to her bed but she would no doubt consider herself too old for that kind of thing. Instead, he sat on the edge of the sofa.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Her eyes flickered open and she looked at him, bleary-eyed and confused. For just an instant, she was his little girl again, the one who used to squeal with excitement after he would return from road trips and run to greet him with her arms out and her smile just about taking over her face.

She blinked away sleep and became the all-prickly adolescent again. “What time is it?” she asked.

He glanced at his watch. “Nearly one.”

“I thought you were going to be in early.” She narrowed her gaze. “Did you go to a bar or something?”

Though he had never been a drinker, Peyton was paranoid about that after Jade’s party-hardy example.

“No. I stopped to visit an old friend, and we lost track of time.” That was the truth, as far as it went. Maybe not the whole truth but she didn’t need to know that.

“How did it go with Gretel tonight?” he asked.

“Fine. Boring. We streamed a really lame romantic comedy, and then she went to bed at like ten.”

“She’s nice, though, isn’t she? You like her?”

She drew her legs up, the sharp bones of her knees jutting through her drawstring pajama bottoms. “I’ll be thirteen in three weeks. I don’t need a babysitter. But yeah. She’s okay. She reminds me a little of Annie. We had her when I was like seven or eight, remember?”

“Didn’t she have red hair?”

“Yeah. She wore it in braids a lot. I used to call her Pippi Longstocking.”

He smiled, his heart full of love for his child. He certainly had to make amends to Charlotte for one terrible mistake, but he had twelve years’ worth to make up for to Peyton.

She yawned and he wanted to tell her to head to bed. On the other hand, there was something comfortable about sitting here in the dark talking with her. They should try it more often. Maybe they could try cooking something together once in a while, too.

“How was the pizza?”

She lifted a thin shoulder. “Okay. A little too greasy for me. Gretel had three pieces, so she must have liked it. There’s a ton left in the fridge if you’re hungry. I know you love leftover pizza.”

It warmed him that she remembered that about him. “Yeah, I do. Maybe I’ll have it for breakfast. Meanwhile, you need to get to bed. I was going to carry you up but I didn’t think you would appreciate it.”

“Good guess.”

She rose and started padding in her big fluffy slippers toward the stairs. He followed along. “Charlotte told me you were going to a bead class this week. That should be fun. She’s taking you?”

“Yeah. I asked her. She said she didn’t mind.”

“Knowing Charlotte, she’s probably thrilled at the chance to help.”

She smiled a little and headed for the stairs. With one foot on the bottom step, she turned back. “An old friend, huh? Is that what Charlotte is?” she asked, a knowing gleam in her eye.

Unbelievably, his face suddenly felt hot. He didn’t quite know how to respond to this sort of teasing from his daughter but found he didn’t mind it.

How would she feel if he started dating Charlotte? he wondered. Her mother had been gone a year and before that, Peyton must have known they hadn’t had any sort of marriage.

“I’ve known Charlotte since she was younger than you are. I’d say that puts her squarely in the category of an old friend, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess,” she answered. “But I don’t go visit my old friends at midnight.”

He snorted and shook his head. “Go to bed, Peyton.”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

As she headed up the stairs, he had to face the truth. Charlotte
was
certainly an old friend. But she was rapidly becoming something much, much more.

* * *

“N
OW
THAT
YOU
’
VE
picked the beads you want to use for the first pair of earrings you’ll make, I’m going to teach you a few basics.”

Charlotte watched Macy Bradford give a reassuring smile to the group of four girls around Peyton’s age at the worktable. “I know it can be scary at first but, I promise, it’s easy once you get the hang of it.”

She went on to explain how to make a simple loop out of a headpin and Charlotte, sitting at another worktable nearby, beamed at Claire.

“Listen to her. She’s a natural.”

“I know, right?” Claire couldn’t have been more proud. “I should have thought of this a long time ago. Girls that age don’t want to sit and listen to an old lady like me tell them what looks cute, but from Macy or Taryn, it’s a completely different story.”

“She’s doing great. They all look like they’re having a wonderful time.”

Charlotte was still a little worried about Peyton. Though she had smiled a few times, she seemed pale and more quiet than usual, while the other girls had been very welcoming to her.

“It was sweet of you guys to come and give her moral support,” Claire said to Katherine, Evie, Charlotte and her sister-in-law, Angie.

“She doesn’t need our moral support.” Angie smiled. “She’s a natural.”

“I’m not here for moral support anyway,” Charlotte insisted. “I’ve been desperate for new beaded hoop earrings and a necklace to go with the blouse I bought last week.”

“I love those colors together,” Claire said.

As she worked, Charlotte tried to shed her worry about Peyton. It really was relaxing to sit here working while she listened to her friends talk and the chatter of the girls next to them.

“There are so many cool beads in here,” Peyton said at one point. “How do you ever pick the ones you want to use?”

“That’s the hardest thing about working here.” Taryn Thorne, Evie’s stepdaughter, walked over to check on Macy’s class. “I can find something to make out of everything we have in the store.”

Taryn was older than the girls in the beading class. She had just finished her senior year and was heading to college in the fall. Everybody loved Taryn. A few years earlier, she had survived a terrible accident that nearly killed her and had emerged from it with a strength and compassion amazing in one so young.

The younger girls in Macy’s class probably just admired her because she was pretty and stylish and always sweet to everybody.

“Look at that, Peyton. You did it,” Taryn exclaimed. “Your first pair of earrings!”

“Awesome,” Peyton confirmed. “That was so easy. I want to do another pair.”

Macy laughed. “Watch out. Now you’re hooked, just like the rest of us.”

Macy and Peyton rose to pick out more bead combinations that might work for earrings. They had only walked a few steps when Peyton stopped in front of a glass display case near both worktables.

“Wow. What a pretty dress,” Peyton stated.

The crystals handsewn to the wedding dress caught the light and reflected it back around the room.

“It is, isn’t it?” Claire said, a rueful sort of pride in her voice. “Too bad nobody has ever worn it.”

“Why do you still have Gen Beaumont’s wedding dress hanging in your store?” Angie asked. “It’s been over a year since her wedding plans imploded, for heaven’s sake.”

Claire sighed. “I’ve tried to give it back to her a dozen times, but she won’t take it. She claims she never wants to see the thing again. Laura wouldn’t take it, either. Anyway, none of the Beaumonts have paid me the final amount for the beadwork. Until they do, I’ll keep it on display here. It is some of my best work.”

Charlotte fought down a laugh. Claire could be sweetly generous most of the time, but when it came to business, she could also be feisty and pragmatic.

“That girl is going to end up in some serious trouble if she’s not careful,” Taryn said grimly. “Charlie tells me all kinds of stories about her. Apparently, she’s running wild in Europe, dating any playboy she can find, spending all kinds of money. I guess Mayor Beaumont has just about had enough. He’s ready to yank her back home.”

“Watch out, Hope’s Crossing,” Katherine murmured.

“How is Charlie these days?” Charlotte asked. “He used to ride his mountain bike to Sugar Rush all the time, but I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

Taryn’s smile was soft and rather dreamy. Charlotte didn’t miss the worried look both her grandmother Katherine and her stepmother sent her way. “He’s good. Really great. We talked via Skype last night, as a matter of fact. He’s going to summer semester, trying to hurry through his generals. He likes UCLA a lot, though he misses the Rockies.”

“What’s he studying?” Charlotte asked.

“He wants to go into criminal law. He’s got two more years left of his undergrad.”

“Criminal law? Really?”

“His time in youth corrections really changed his life,” Taryn said. “He wants to make a difference.”

Charlie Beaumont, Genevieve’s younger brother, had been driving the vehicle that crashed, injuring Taryn and killing another teen, Charlotte’s friend Maura’s daughter Layla. Charlie had spent eight months in juvenile detention for driving under the influence, a sentence many people in town still considered too lenient.

“Hey, Taryn,” Macy called. “Can you help me show them how to make a beaded hoop? You have such a better eye for color than I do.”

“Sure.” Taryn walked back over to the girls’ table with that slightly lopsided smile, one of the few lingering effects of the months and months of rehabilitation therapy she had endured.

After she left and the attention of the younger class was fixed on Taryn, Claire turned to Charlotte. “How is Peyton settling in?” she asked in an undertone. “Do you think she’s enjoying the class?”

“She’s really hard to read,” Charlotte answered, concerned a little at how pale Peyton still seemed. She wanted to ask if the girl felt ill but she had a feeling Peyton wouldn’t appreciate being the center of attention.

“She’s a funny little thing,” Charlotte said. “My heart really breaks for her. She’s trying so hard to hate it here but I think it’s not working out as well as she would like.”

“How about her dad?” Katherine asked. “How is Spencer settling in?”

An image of her wild response to his kiss the other night flashed in her head, and she could feel her face heat. “Um, fine, I guess.”

Why did every conversation around town seemed to circle back to him? A person might think nothing else of interest ever happened inside the city limits.

“I hear Harry donated a bunch of money to A Warrior’s Hope,” Katherine said.

“So I understand,” Charlotte answered.

“The word is, Harry isn’t the only one putting up the big bucks. Mary Ella told me Harry’s pledge was dependent on Spencer matching the same amount.”

Charlotte looked up, shocked. “Really?”