by Mia Kayla
I kept going, stopping only to hold certain pieces that reminded me of an occasion—our date at the theater, Sarah’s Christmas recital, Christmas with my parents, where the theme was ugly sweaters.
I brought the sweater to my nose and inhaled deeply, seeing if there was any trace of her left on the clothing, a light scent of her perfume, anything … but it was gone. The only traces of her left were the items themselves that had once belonged to her.
Who knew what time it was? I was head deep into the bins when I peered up to see Becky by the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey.” She waved a hand, her eyes still drowsy from sleep. She was fully changed into a T-shirt and running shorts. I figured she’d gone back to her room to change. “I was looking for you.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
She yawned. “It’s around ten.”
“Oh.”
Well, shit. I hadn’t realized I’d been going for so long. I was three quarters of the way done and kind of on a roll.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
I sat on my heels. “Not really.” I scratched at my temple. “You had me thinking a lot about things, Nat, us.”
“You didn’t have to do this because of me,” she said softly, her eyebrows pulling together, her gorgeous green eyes soft and gentle. She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her ankles.
“I didn’t. I did it for me. I did it for Nat.”
Because there was that little voice of hers that had kept telling me to move on. I’d tried to mute it for too long. It was time. Time for me to take a path without her ghost walking alongside me and time for Natalie to have peace, knowing I was happy again and no longer living in the misery of losing her.
I placed the Disney T-shirt that I had within my hands in the box and stood. “Let’s get breakfast.”
“Are you done?”
I looked at the boxes still left to go. “Almost but not quite.”
A sweet smile popped onto her face. “Well, let me help you, then.”
Before I could protest, she got down on her knees and rummaged through the box closest to her.
“Becky … you don’t have to do this.”
Immense guilt hit me in the chest because she didn’t have to do this, didn’t have to help me go through my deceased wife’s belongings. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable with the situation.
She paused, her hands stopping at the edge of the box. “Unless you don’t want me to. If this makes you uncomfortable—”
“No,” I protested, frowning as I assessed her. “I’m just surprised that you’re not.”
Her tone softened, and she tilted her head. “I just want to help you, Charles.”
With Becky, I was too much in my head. I never used to be that guy. I never assumed things. Here I was, assuming she wouldn’t feel comfortable, putting away all my dead wife’s belongings, that it would be too much for her.
“Thank you.” I plopped down next to her and continued to place things that I would donate in a big garbage bag.
“This shirt though.” She lifted it up, so I could read the front. I’m going to do nothing all day. “You know Mary will wear this.”
I shook my head and laughed. Wasn’t it the truth though? Mary had won this family over with her cuteness, and I wondered if she’d keep pushing the same envelope when she was older.
Most definitely, came the voice again, and I smiled to myself.
An hour and a half later, we were done. I stood there, hands on my hips, taking in the bags that were all ready to be sent off to Goodwill. Natalie’s clothes and belongings that I would keep for the girls all placed in bins and labeled.
A weight lifted from my shoulders, and even though we were in the basement, in the dim lighting of the storage area, I felt as though Natalie’s light was shining down on me, showering me with warmth.
I exhaled deeply and turned to Becky. “Mission accomplished. Now, let’s go out to eat.”
Becky’s smile was soft, beautiful, something I could get used to every day, going forward.
“You don’t want to make breakfast?”
“No, let’s go out. We have the whole day together since the girls are with Brad till tomorrow.”
She extended her hand and nodded. “Let’s go, then.”
I pulled her in and dropped my head to the crook of her neck, breathing in her natural scent of citrus, most likely from her shampoo.
My new favorite scent.
Becky
We were seated at an outside patio that overlooked the lake. The scent of the crisp fall air, the breeze against our faces, the sun beating down against my skin had me giddy. I ordered blueberry crepes. Figuring that I could have made pancakes, bacon, and eggs at home, I wanted something different.
“So, what do you want to do today?” Charles asked above his chicken and waffles.
He wore a Cubs baseball cap today and a regular white T-shirt, dressed down, unlike his usual professional attire.
“I’ll do whatever you have planned.”
He laughed, taking a sip of his coffee. “I’m not much of a planner. Every vacation or dinner reservation is made by Mason. I’m thankful for him because he makes an itinerary for the girls when we have to go out.” The way he talked about his brothers made my heart full. “But, yeah, I’m pretty proud of my planning abilities yesterday even though I had to google best first dates.” His mouth twitched with amusement.
I laughed. “It was perfect.” I finished the last of my crepe, slipping the fork in my mouth. “How about we take a bike ride and then go grocery shopping for what we want to cook for dinner? Then, we can rent a movie and watch it back home.”
The corner of his mouth tipped upward. “Home.” The smile played on his lips, and then his gaze dropped to the table before meeting my eyes again. “I like the sound of that.” He reached for my hand and intertwined our fingers. “And biking, grocery shopping, making dinner, and renting a movie sounds like every other night, no?” He pulled me in, angling closer. “Not like I have a problem with that.”
“But this time, there will be no kids around.” I suggestively wiggled my eyebrows as I closed the gap between us and kissed him.
After breakfast, we walked farther up the lake, hand in hand, to rent bikes. I wanted to ride one of those tandem bikes, where I rode up front and Charles rode on the back. I almost skipped down the sidewalk while I spotted the multitude of bikes ahead of us, but something—or more so, someone—caught my eye.
I stopped mid-step, and my stomach dropped to the ground and kept on going.
It was impossible.
Impossible!
Bile crept up my throat as my whole body trembled.
“Becky? What’s wrong?” Charles asked beside me. His grip tensed around my fingers, sensing my stress.
I shook my head, seeing him in the distance, up the hill—his profile, the sharp lines of his jaw, the bridge of his nose.
Panic threatened to choke me.
Paul.
Fear clouded my vision. Not for me. But for Charles. For Sarah. For sweet Mary.
But I didn’t want to run and hide today. I didn’t know what took over me today, but I wanted to fucking take him down.
I ran at a full sprint up the hill, arms pumping, legs moving. He turned and walked in the other direction, ignorant to me fast approaching him, and I ran even faster, hearing Charles call after me.
He wasn’t going to hurt the people around me, be a threat to their lives like he’d done with mine. I wasn’t leaving because of him. I had found my place on this earth, where I was needed, where I was wanted. He wasn’t going to take that away from me. He’d already taken too much.
I was almost up the hill when Charles gripped my arm, stilling me.
“Becky, what’s wrong?” He was breathing fast from having to chase after me.
I flipped around, but Paul was gone.
Instantly, I tore myself from his grasp and raced down the street, doing a three-sixty, tryi
ng to find him.
Where is he?
Where the hell did he go?
Then, I saw him. By the stoplight. And I took off running again like my life depended on it. He’d know today that he couldn’t scare me anymore. That I had someone who loved me, someone who cared and would stay by me this time. I wouldn’t hide anymore. I’d fight him back and confront him.
The light changed to red, allowing the pedestrians to walk, and I charged toward him, whipping him around by tugging at his shirt.
“Shit.” I dropped my hand as soon as I realized it wasn’t Paul.
From the side view, he was unmistakably Paul, but this wasn’t the Paul who haunted my nightmares.
“Sorry.” I raised both hands as he stared at me, thoroughly pissed, in the middle of a busy road.
The light changed, causing oncoming traffic to press on their horns, and I tipped my chin, my eyes apologetic. “I’m so sorry.”
“Becky.” Charles reached me again and grabbed my hand, dragging me back across the street to safety. When we were on the sidewalk, he gripped both of my forearms, bringing me in. “What’s going on with you?” His eyes were full of worry.
“I thought …” My eyes went back to the stranger crossing to the other side of the road. “I thought I knew him.”
His eyes followed mine across the street. “You thought that was your ex?”
I nodded, still not taking my gaze from the man I’d almost assaulted.
Without warning, Charles pulled me into him until my cheek planted against his chest. “I promise you, nothing and no one will ever hurt you again. Ever.”
I snuggled against him as he kissed my forehead. I wasn’t worried about Paul hurting me anymore. This new realization pushed through while I was in Charles’s arms. He couldn’t do anything to me that he hadn’t done already. I was more scared of Paul hurting the people around me, the people I’d grown to love.
But no, never again.
Chapter 30
Charles
Becky’s nerves were shot after that encounter with the stranger that she’d thought was her ex. The bike ride down the lake did not ease her anxiety, and when we went grocery shopping, I noticed how her eyes searched the vicinity, as though he would pop up from the condiments aisle.
That was when I made a decision for the safety of my kids and Becky. I would legally find this son of a bitch and serve him a restraining order.
I’d hire a private investigator to find him and enlist my legal team to serve him the papers.
We were seated at the kitchen table with our steak and potato meal that we had cooked together. There had been times through the night, after the laughter and short make-out sessions, that she zoned out, and I had known she was in deep thought.
As she sat there, poking at her steak, I knew this was one of those times.
“Hey.”
No answer.
I toed her foot under the table.
Still nothing.
I pulled at her plate, forcing her head up from wherever she had gone to a minute ago. “What’s in that beautiful mind of yours?”
She shook her head, her eyes gaining focus. “Stuff.”
When I threw her a pointed look, she laughed. “What happened earlier. How I’m so on edge. I wonder if that paranoid feeling will ever go away.”
I reached for her hand over the table, placing my hand over her fist. “I was thinking.” I paused, knowing how I phrased things was important. It was how I handled my business, my household. It was all about the approach. “I don’t want you to be paranoid anymore. I don’t want you to keep looking behind you at the grocery store or when we’re out at the park with the girls. So”—I leveled her with a stare—“I want you to think about getting a restraining order.”
“What?” She reeled back as all these questions played behind her eyes.
I continued before she had a chance to deny my request, “If we find him and file a restraining order against him, he can’t hurt you anymore. I don’t want you to live a life where you’re afraid.”
Her gaze dropped to the table, and I squeezed her hand tighter. “Let me do this.” I paused, needing her to really listen to me. “I care about you, Becky.” My thumb brushed against the top of her fist.
Her eyes focused on the table, her eyebrows pulling in. “I can’t.” When her gaze met mine, her decision was made. “If I believed for one second that a restraining order would stop him, I’d do it. But it won’t. I know him. Paul Clark is one of a kind. He won’t stop until he has me under his control.”
Her words seared through me, and I wanted to protest and argue with her that I had all the means to keep him away. Even if I had to hire round-the-clock security for her, I’d do it.
She smiled then. “I can only imagine what’s playing in that mind of yours. Just don’t go there, Charles.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s impossible for me to not take care of the people I care about the most.”
Her fingers came to my fisted hand on the top of the table. I hadn’t even realized that my body had gone stiff, my muscles tightening at this conversation.
“How do you know?” I pressed. “How do you know we can’t get this guy in jail if he tries to come at you? Not like I’m willing to risk it, but I want you to no longer be afraid.”
Her eyebrows pulled together, and her gaze dropped to the table. “I’ll be more afraid if he knows where I am.”
When her eyes flickered toward mine, I read the fear clearly, forcing me to pull her from her seat and into my lap.
I held her close, and my lips found their way to her forehead. “Okay,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t be at ease but wanting to please her, do what she was comfortable with. “I’ll let it go.”
I cupped her face, forcing her to look up at me. Her eyes were a blazing green, as fierce as a newly watered lawn.
A deep emotion settled in my gut. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. You know that, right?” My voice was strong, firm. I’d protect her and everyone close to me with my own life. “Because I am here—to serve and protect.” My smile surfaced, waiting to erase the fear in her eyes.
After a beat, she kissed my lips with a sweet peck and pulled back, smiling. “That’s good to know.”
Becky
The weekend seemed to speed up. Didn’t it always when you were having the time of your life? In a span of a short day and a half, I’d learned so much about Charles, about Natalie, about his little quirks.
I always knew what motivated him, and I knew some of his favorite things from living with his family, but finding out little tidbits while it was just the two of us was different. Charles was a hand-holder. Though his outward appearance would make him seem rough and tough around the edges, his hand-holding or little brushes against my waist showed a different side of him that others never saw, and I got to experience it firsthand without little eyes in the house.
I was sitting on his lap, watching the most recent Jason Bourne movie. Barely watching really because his fingers were threaded through my hair, his tongue was down my throat, and more accurately, I was not sitting on his lap. I was straddling him.
I hadn’t been kissed like this in … never. I’d never been kissed like this, slow and sensually yet where every flick of his tongue sent shivers straight through me.
My heart raced. My pulse thrummed rapidly against the inside of my wrist. I wanted him, no doubt, but I wanted him to be ready, to go at his pace.
Sure felt as though he was ready now, given that his one hand was on my ass.
When he pulled back, I was allowed to breathe. I thought it was game over until he lifted me, both hands on my ass.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Where are we going?”
“My bedroom.”
My heart almost jumped out of my throat. I didn’t know what I had expected, but I for sure hadn’t expected that.
His lips peppered kisses against my collarbone as he ascended the stairs two at a time, sending a jolt of t
ingles through me. His kisses accelerated from zero to one hundred in a matter of seconds. He moved his tongue against mine with unrelenting passion, flicking and sucking my lips, moving to my neck, nibbling my ear. Before I knew what was happening, he guided me to my back on top of his bed. Our make-out session was heating up my body to immeasurable temperatures, causing the ache between my legs to intensify.
He fisted his shirt and lifted it above his head in one swift movement, and then it was chucked to the side.
Holy two hundred miles per hour.
When he met my lips again and he crushed his bare chest against mine, I placed a hand against one of his pecs. Meeting his eyes, I said, “Are you sure?”
His eyebrows pulled together then, and his expression filled with worry. “Why? Are you not sure?”
I shook my head and laughed at the pinched expression on his face. “I’m sure. But last night …”
His hand traveled up and down my side. “I like you, Becky. There’s a part of me that’s still scared and nervous, but right now, here, what I can’t fight is how much I want you.”
I understood him. I knew where he was coming from. We were both reluctant for different reasons. But, yes, above all my insecurities of jumping in with Charles, passion outran those doubts.
“Question is”—I threw him my sexiest, most seductive look—“do you have a condom?”
“Yes.” His smile was blinding and sexy and all the things that made my lady parts weep.
His lips descended on mine in a mess of fiery lust. Slowly, he stripped me bare, as though he was unwrapping me like a present. First, my jeans. Then, my shirt. Finally, my undergarments.
The look of awe and reverence in his eyes made my heart pump harder and faster in my chest. But more than that … I couldn’t breathe. He looked at me as though I were the only woman in the world.
He pushed himself up and knelt above me. The crinkle of the condom and the anticipation of what was coming next had me wriggling beneath him, wanting and needing him. His body was glorious, an Adonis in the flesh, a man to be worshipped and adored.
