by Juanita Kees
“I thought she’d be asleep.” Charlie stood in the doorway with her shoulder against the frame, feet crossed at the ankles, her expression blank.
At the sound of her mom’s voice, Zoe whimpered. Chase stood and walked around the desk toward Charlie. “She was a bit fussy still. I thought she might settle if I hold her.”
Charlie straightened and held out her arms to take the baby. “You’ll spoil her. It’s what all the books say.”
Chase grimaced as he handed Zoe over. She curled toward her mother, snuggling in. “The books aren’t always right. She’s a good baby.”
“She is.”
A warm smile spread on Charlie’s lips, the sight of which grabbed his heart and squeezed. Oh, he was in all kinds of trouble here. He’d be better off not getting too close to his mystery guests. He couldn’t afford to lose his heart. He should step out of her space now that he’d handed the baby over. That would be the smart thing to do. Apparently, he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Certainly not around Charlie.
*
Charlie should back away from him, but his body generated a comfortable warmth in the space between them. Strong arms crossed over his chest, the size of the muscles in his forearms suggesting he did more around the garage than just marketing and finances. She understood why his brothers teased him about being motherly. Chase had a way of making everyone feel safe and cared for.
“How’s the design coming along?” Chase offered her a smile that could melt chocolate.
“Taping it out is the hardest part. Once I start airbrushing, things should move along nicely.”
“Carter’s pretty happy with the sketch.”
She’d added the colors, blended the lines and created a flow across the page that encompassed the Calhoun’s logo. A mixture of landscape and horsepower, strength and presence—everything that united the Calhoun family. “I can’t wait to get started. It’ll look even better on the Chevy.” Marty had chosen Dusk Pearl for the duco on the body, giving her the perfect canvas to work with. No computer graphics in sight. Only pure, invigorating, exciting, passionate art. She flashed Chase a smile that encompassed all that. “I won’t let you down. I won’t waste this opportunity.”
“I have faith in you, Charlie.” He lifted a hand as if to touch her face, hesitated then shoved both hands in his pockets instead.
Disappointment flooded her even though she shouldn’t want to feel this attraction to him. Perhaps her father was right. Maybe her brother’s taunts were on target. Charlotte the Harlot. Unoriginal, yet no less hurtful. You’d do anything for attention, wouldn’t you, Charlotte? Even bring disgrace to the family. Easy thing for the star of the family to say when he’d captured and held the spotlight all his life while she’d been pushed out in the cold in the shadows of his brilliance, her own talents ignored.
She hugged Zoe tighter for just a moment before holding her out to Chase. “I’d better get back to work.”
Chase studied her steadily as he took Zoe in his arms. “What are you running from, Charlie?”
“Myself. But I’m not running anymore.”
“You’re still hiding.”
Charlie’s heart danced around a misstep. “Not hiding. Buying time.”
“Time for what?”
Time to grow, to put down roots, find the happy place where she could raise her daughter in a warm and loving environment, and fulfill her dreams outside of her brother’s shadow, away from the stark, cold, controlled environment of TRJ Racing.
The rub of Chase’s thumb across her frown drew her from her thoughts. “Whatever trouble you’re in, we can help you.”
Pride, stubbornness, and sheer determination chased through her. She’d made the decision to run away and take control of her life. She wouldn’t rely on strangers to do for her what she had to do herself. “I’m not in any trouble. I just have things I need to take care of. And that’s on me. Zoe’s almost asleep. She’ll settle now. I’ll get back to work.”
“I’ll leave it, Charlie. For now. But sooner or later, I hope you’ll trust me enough to tell me.”
Chase turned away from her. He placed Zoe gently in the porta-crib and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. She whimpered, and he soothed her back then he straightened and moved back to his desk.
She watched him for a moment. He knew she hadn’t left. The awareness was there in his movements. He dragged a hand through his short blond hair making it stick up every which way then ran his palm around the edge of his jaw before pulling a folder toward him and flicking through it.
With a sigh of regret, Charlie pushed away from the doorframe and went back into the garage. She hated keeping secrets, avoiding the truth, but trust came hard when it had been betrayed so often in the past. It was enough that the Calhouns had given her a chance to prove herself. She couldn’t let them fight her battles too.
Picking up a roll of tape, she moved toward the fender of the Chevy. Marty leaned on the other side, his head under the hood as he waited for his hand to stop shaking so he could torque the spark plugs he’d put in the motor.
“Everything okay?” He looked up as she approached.
Charlie nodded. “Fine.”
Marty continued to study her face. “Don’t look fine to me.” He placed the torque wrench on top of the block. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
Charlie looked at him uncertainly. “I should get on with the design.”
“It’ll only take a minute,” he reassured her. “I want you to understand what makes Chase tick.”
“With all due respect to you and your family, it’s none of my business, Marty. I appreciate this opportunity you’ve given me and the place to stay, but it’s better I don’t understand any of you.”
“I’d ask why not, but I already know the answer. Trust takes a long time to earn when you’ve been hurt before, Charlie. We Calhouns know that more than the rest.” He stepped around the front of the pickup and held out his hand. “Come along. I think it’s important you know what you’re dealing with here.” He gestured toward the showroom and held out his hand to her.
After a moment’s hesitation, Charlie took his outstretched hand. Warm fingers closed firmly around hers in a way her father’s never had. Reassuring, comforting, encouraging. She let him tug her through the door into the expanse of the showroom where fall had started to strip the trees of their leaves outside the vast windows. He led her past the shape in the shadowy corner draped in a soft, nylon cover.
“What’s under there?”
Marty’s eyes clouded over for a moment. “Mason’s old pickup. We need to fix it. One day.”
“A restoration?”
Sadness etched his voice. “Accident damage.”
“Why keep it in here?”
“Because Mason won’t let it be moved.” He tugged on her hand gently. “That’s a story for another day. Come on.”
Curiosity eased away the bad feeling that curled in her gut as she followed him over to a gallery of portraits on the far wall of the showroom. Marty stopped at the start of the gallery and pointed to a picture in the top row on the far-left corner.
“That’s me and my wife, Nora. I’d won my very first NASCAR race. She was so proud of me. Chase was only three months old. Same age as your Zoe. Ten years later, she died.”
The ache of his loss came through clearly in his words, making Charlie’s heart clench. “I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “She was the most beautiful girl in the world to me. Inside and out. She’d do anything for anyone, even if it cost her. Chase has that same caring nature she had.” He moved on to the next portrait. “This is two years later. By then I held the title of champion. That’s Chase, and the baby is Mason.”
Charlie studied the two-year-old Chase. A sweet, innocent face, looking up at his mother and baby brother with a cheeky grin. The same smile he still had years later. She pointed to the next photo. “Who’s that?”
Marty chuckled as he studied the portrait. Chase
and Mason stood between their parents, while Marty and his wife each held a bundle. One pink and one blue. “Our celebration surprises. The twins, Carter and Grace came just over two years after Mason. Not what Nora had planned for but was happy to receive anyway. Nora doted on the children. She was a great mom. Born to it, I always said.” He dragged a rag from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes and nose before shoving it away again. “Chase wasn’t much more than four at the time, but he took a step up to help his mom as best he could. By the time young Mitch came along three or so years later, Nora was a full-time mom, so she didn’t travel with me around the circuit anymore. It wasn’t the same without her and the children by my side, cheering me on.”
Charlie smiled. How awesome it would have been to have two parents who loved each other so much that the one without the other was incomplete. One day, she hoped to find a love like that. “How much longer did you race for?”
Sadness etched into his features once more as he pointed to the last portrait in the row. “I gave it away the day Nora died. I should have been there, but I missed my flight home from Daytona Beach. I’d been invited to a party after the race. Got a little drunk on the success of winning against Tony Jackson.”
Charlie hissed in a breath at the mention of her father’s name, her heart pounding. “I’m sorry.”
Her father had never been good at losing. She could only imagine the scene he might have caused as a young, hot-headed racing driver. Most likely close to the ones her brother, Ronan, caused when he lost. There’d be accusations of cheating, race-setting, investigations into builds and pit stops while her father searched for excuses for his loss and someone else to pin the blame on.
“When I arrived home, they’d taken her to the hospital. In those days, we lived in the attic above the garage. I’d put up drywall to make rooms for the children, but we still used the kitchen and bathroom downstairs. Nora took a tumble down the stairs to the attic that night which resulted in her going into labor. She was almost full term. Trinity survived, but Nora didn’t make it.” He turned to Charlie, tears glittering unashamedly in his eyes. “Chase was the one who found her. She was bleeding badly. He called an ambulance then fetched Molly from across the road to help. He stayed behind to look after his brothers and sister while Molly rode with Nora in the ambulance. And he’s been looking out for them ever since while living in his own personal hell. Chase thinks he’s responsible, that his mother’s death was his fault.”
“But that’s—”
“Crazy? Yes. But, you see, Charlie, both my boys are afraid to face the truth, to step outside of themselves and see that sometimes in life things happen beyond your control. That sometimes fate has a plan and it doesn’t always make sense at the time. Sometimes never. The kind of plan that brought you to hide out here in Bigfork. Do you believe in fate, young Charlie?”
She thought back to her first night in the attic. The peace and comfort she’d found there. In a home she now knew was once filled with the happiness of family. “If you’d asked me that question twelve months ago, I would have denied it. It sounds so fanciful saying it out loud, but would you believe me if I said I’d felt drawn to the attic the moment I saw it? That I felt someone guiding me to it, and a kind of peace when I found it?”
Marty smiled. “I’d believe it. If Nora were alive, she’d have done exactly that. She was a beautiful, generous soul, my Nora.” He looked up at a group photo, labeled with the date and location of the NASCAR race, and tapped it with his finger. “See this girl here?” He turned the force of his sharp blue gaze on hers. “She reminds me of you.”
Charlie swallowed as she looked at her mother in the photograph. A smiling, happy young wife. A beautiful, warm, elated young woman far removed from the ice queen Charlie had grown up knowing. She chewed her lip.
Marty’s hand came down and he patted her arm. “I don’t know why you’re hiding, girl, but I know who you are. Don’t you think my son deserves to know too?”
Chapter Six
Chase tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as silence filled the cabin of the pickup on the drive home. Marty, riding shotgun, kept his eyes on the road. Charlie sat in the back with Zoe, staring out the window at the passing landscape while Zoe made happy baby noises, oblivious of the tension.
He had no idea what to say to Charlie. The tension that had sprung up between them earlier had stretched through the day. What exactly had his father told her when he’d taken her into the showroom that had her so lost in thought now?
Chase pulled up next to the main ranch house and waited for his father to climb out. “See you in the morning, Dad. Call me if you need anything.”
“Sure, Son.” He stuck his head back in. “See you in the morning, Charlie. You did good work today.” Marty closed the door and waved through the window.
Chase waited until Carter opened the door for his dad before he pulled away to drive the short distance to his cabin.
Watching Charlie work was almost as bewitching as watching her interact with Zoe. She’d moved with the grace of a ballet dancer as she’d progressed from the front fender to the rear tailgate on the Chevy. He’s seen her stretch the kinks from her spine, shake the stiffness from her fingers holding the paintbrush as she’d outlined her work. He’d meant it when he’d said they wouldn’t let her go easily, whatever secrets she was keeping.
He parked the pickup under the lean-to next to the cabin, shut off the motor and got out. Charlie was out the door before he could open it for her, reaching for Zoe. He’d never meant to hurt her with his questions. In the tight space between the cabin wall and the pickup, he waited for her to squeeze past him, her back to him, their bodies touching. He wanted to stop her, to apologize but, with the wind cutting in through the gaps and touching them with icy fingers, his apology would have to wait until they were inside.
Chase gathered up his laptop and scarf from the back seat and closed the door. On the porch, he slipped off his boots and held them in his hand as he followed Charlie inside. She dropped her carryall onto the sofa and balanced Zoe on her hip. He pushed the front door closed with his foot, placed his laptop on the table and his boots on the rack. Charlie’s shoes lay discarded on the floor next to the door. He picked them up and put them next to his.
She looked so small and vulnerable in the open space of the cabin with her scarf around her neck, her beanie slightly askew and Zoe in her arms. And he had nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like mothering.
“So, what would you like for dinner?” Mothering. He tried again. “Is it warm enough in here for you and Zoe or should I light a fire?” Yeah, mothering again. He could almost hear Mason’s laughter.
A smile touched Charlie’s lips. “How about I sort Zoe out with a bath and a feed, and then I’ll cook dinner?”
And what the hell would he do with himself until then? He slipped off his coat and hung it on the coatrack. He’d had the same routine since he was ten. Sort out the kids, cook dinner, clean up, shower, and settle in for some sports on ESPN or maybe a movie on one of the other channels. Chase looked from the kitchen to the television and tried to visualize the contents of his freezer. What would she even cook?
“A fire would be nice though. And a cup of tea.” Charlie stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm.
Warmth flowed through him at her brief touch.
“You’re good at taking care of people. Maybe it’s time someone did something nice for you.” She hitched Zoe higher on her hip and supported her back with her hand.
Chase dropped his gaze to his socks and wished she’d touch him again. “I don’t know any other way. Taking care of people is what I’ve done my whole life.”
“That’s a strength, not a failing. If the people in my world were more like you, I wouldn’t need to be here.”
There was a thought that sent a chill up his spine. He couldn’t imagine life without Charlie, and she’d only been in his for less than a week. “Tell me about them?”
“How about
I share some of my secrets over dinner and a glass of wine? Now that Zoe is taking a bottle, I can have a glass without being worried about the alcohol affecting her.”
He lifted a hand to cup her cheek, her fair skin almost translucent against his. “Sounds great.”
He rubbed the silky smoothness of her cheekbone with his thumb and wondered what she’d do if he kissed her. Just a small touch of his lips to hers, to explore this … thing … between them. The tug of attraction, the need to take it one step further to see if it grew, to test the question of the right or wrong of it. Green eyes met his, full of questions and a touch of regret.
She covered his hand with hers, pressed a kiss to his palm and moved out of his reach. “Don’t make me fall in love with you, Chase. The cost is too high. For both of us.”
Then she and Zoe were gone, and he was left standing alone, staring at the empty space she left behind. Dragging a hand through his hair, he walked over to the kitchen and set the kettle to boil on the stove. The front door of the cabin opened, and Mason breezed in, blowing on his hands.
“Colder than a hag with frostbite out there. What’s for dinner?”
“Keep your voice down. Charlie’s trying to settle Zoe.”
Mason pulled a face. “Sorry. I forgot.” He looked at the empty gas grids on the stove and headed for the refrigerator. “Formula, pureed apple, vanilla custard … what the fu … dge? Where’s the man food?”
“Try your own cabin,” suggested Chase, dryly.
“Not as much fun as yours.” He pulled out a jar of pickles. “Seriously?”
Chase took them from him and placed them on the kitchen counter with a thump. “From Molly.”
“You always were her favorite.”
Chase frowned. “You are too. So are the others. Just ask her.”
Mason closed the refrigerator door and leaned back against the counter. “I haven’t been the favorite in this town for a long time.”
Chase pushed away from watching the kettle, waiting for it to boil. He bit back a sigh as he glanced at the calendar on the wall and the big red circle around the date. A night when they remembered the chunk of their hearts they’d lost. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
