Along the Cane River: Books 1-5 in the Inspirational Cane River Romance Series

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  Walking back through campus, he thought of Megan and wondered where she was. He hoped she had found some peace, maybe grown up the same way he had. Getting to a place where he wished Megan well had taken a lot of time. Loving her, and realizing later that he hadn’t really been loved in return , was one of the most painful experiences of his life. Maybe now he understood. Maybe finally he would remember that a true friend would never ask him to go against his beliefs.

  Gideon had told him once he was soft-hearted and had made it sound like a compliment. Austin didn’t want to be soft-hearted. He wanted to be discerning and skeptical. If he could trade his natural tendency to empathize, for Gideon’s natural tendency to scare the stuffing out of people, he might just take it. But he couldn’t change. He was born with a heart that accepted people as they were, and sometimes made excuses for their bad behavior, as dangerous as that was to his own moral standing.

  Looking up at the clear blue sky, Austin prayed that Charlie was feeling the same freedom from her secrets. Of course she was no saint, none of them were, but Austin knew she didn’t deserve condemnation. She had the same fatal flaw as he did. They loved too much, believed too easily, would do anything for the people they loved.

  Their kiss flashed through his memory. They say opposites attract and keep each other balanced, but kissing Charlie felt like finding a part of himself that had been missing, except he hadn’t known it was lost. Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing and it hadn’t meant anything to her but a nice kiss. But just like everything else about Charlie, he felt it held the promise of something indescribably precious.

  ***

  “So, what was your favorite part of the tour? The IMAX screen? The virtual reality room? The mobile gaming development area? It’s probably weird to see all those people pinching the air and watching the game from across the room. We’re trying to see how far we can identify individual fingers when we put the game up on a big screen.” Paul punched a button on the shiny silver panel and the elevator smoothly started its climb.

  “Oh, the cupcake bar, I guess.” Charlie stared out of the glass walls and after a few moments, they cleared the trees. The campus of ScreenStop headquarters appeared, parking lot full of cars to the left and rolling grass with newly planted trees to the right. The city of Natchitoches retreating below them, the river shining in the sun like a silk ribbon.

  “Very funny.” Paul followed her gaze and pointed toward the Northeastern area. “By the Book is over there. I can see if from my office. It’s a whole lot better than looking out my Southern window in New York City and knowing it’s a long plane flight just to kiss my wife and little girl.”

  Charlie smiled, but her nerves were jangling like plucked banjo strings. In minutes, she’d sit in front of Paul and tell him that she was the reason his company had lost five years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars in value.

  The elevator doors slid open and he waved her out into the foyer. An older woman sat at a glossy, rounded desk. She glanced up with a smile.

  “This is Mrs. Connor. If she ever quits, my entire business will explode in a fiery shower of phone message slips and meeting notes. I’m glad she decided to move to Natchitoches with the headquarters. Otherwise, I would have called the whole thing off.”

  “Oh, you.” Mrs. Connor said, but Charlie could tell Paul was telling the truth and everyone in the room knew it.

  “And in here, we have the gaming consoles for testing purposes.” He paused and cocked his head. “You’re not even going to ask why there’s an old school Ms. Pacman arcade game in the corner? It’s because this is actually where Andy and I decompress after a long day of being adults. ”

  “What?” Charlie swiveled her head, finally noticing the row of arcade games. “Sorry, I was looking at the view.” It was a lame excuse, since she’d lived in Natchitoches her whole life and wasn’t awed by any of it, whether on the sidewalk or thirty stories up.

  “Why don’t we sit down.” He ushered her into an ergonomic chair and opened a small section of the black paneling. “Would you like a Coke? Or juice?”

  She almost reminded him that she’d enjoyed some fresh pressed apple juice downstairs. Maybe Paul felt as nervous as she did. “Coke would be nice.”

  He popped the cap. “Glass?”

  “No, that’s fine.” She took the bottle and held it in her hands, wishing the cold glass could absorb some of her anxiety.

  Paul sat across from her, hands resting on his knees. “So, where would you―”

  “I wrote the trojan that infiltrated your servers and copied all your projects.”

  He blinked.

  “I wrote the program but I never intended it to be used that way. I never imagined it would be. I was just showing off.”

  “I know.”

  “You know… I was showing off or that I wrote it?” He didn’t seem upset. In fact, he seemed worried about her.

  He held out a hand, in the gesture a person makes when they want to calm a skittish horse. “We tracked down the source code within days. We fed it right into a stylometry code that we bought to track down malware.”

  She gripped the bottle. “And it brought up my name?”

  Paul nodded. “But even before it matched it to programs you’d written that were out on the web, I knew.”

  “But how? I spent all my time writing games. I never… I didn’t ever want to…”

  “Andy says my code looks like poetry, lots of white space.” He smiled, as if he really liked that assessment. “When you work with someone, you get to know them, the way they think and the choices they make when they’re constructing something really complicated. And I know your work, Charlie.”

  She sat back, her heart still pounding. She didn’t need to ask him to contact the FBI. Of course they were already on it. “And you’re not mad?”

  “Mad? Of course I’m mad. And we’ve been tracking them for months. We’re almost ready to lower the hammer.”

  “On us?”

  He shook his head, confused. “They stole it from you, correct?”

  “Well, it was a dare.” It sounded so stupid now. “I never gave them permission to use it.”

  “Exactly. And your friend Tyler is going to be in a world of hurt.”

  She sucked in a breath. “You found him?”

  “Yep, but his real name is Clint McRaney. Forty years old. Fixes hard drives for a living. Currently residing in Arkansas.”

  She grimaced at the description. “You must think I’m the dumbest person around.”

  “No, not at all. Phishing wouldn’t be an epidemic if regular people didn’t fall for it. You didn’t have any reasons to disbelieve him. As for the virus…” He wiped a hand over his face. “My mama says fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong. We weren’t secure enough. That was my fault. We learned a painful lesson that day, and we made our security tighter than tight. In fact, I was hoping that you would be interested in working in that area. I know you’re a gamer, and you can work on development or illustration, too, but we need someone who can code like a hacker.”

  “You still want to hire me?”

  Paul let out a laugh. “Charlie, I’d be a fool not to. I’ve been giving you some space, after everything that happened, hoping you’d hit the ground running. But that was a vicious set of punches, losing your guild and then being trolled. I tried to intervene as much as I could behind the scenes. When you came home, I figured you needed a break.”

  “I did. Sort of. I stopped gaming. Stopped drawing. But I’m ready to work now. I thought I could give it up altogether but I can’t. Even if I never go back to school, I need to finish my project. My archer is waiting for me to finish her world.”

  “But why wouldn’t you go back to school?”

  “They cleaned out my college account.”

  For the first time in all the years she’d known Paul, he looked really angry. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I… say anything?” She realized he w
as angry at her.

  “To Alice, to Ruby, somebody.” He stood up, running his hands through his hair. “We knew they were scammers, but I didn’t know they’d gotten to your accounts. So, you’re not taking a break because of the trolling. You actually don’t have any money.” He paced a few feet. “And that’s why you live in those dumpy apartments. You probably don’t even make enough at the bookstore to pay your rent.”

  Her face went hot. “Austin helped me fill out some assistance forms at the center.”

  “Austin? You barely know him!” Paul shook his head. “I thought we were friends. Me, and Alice and Bix and Ruby… I thought we were your friends.”

  Charlie realized in one instant that the trouble she’d been in was personal to him, and would be to all of them. She’d thought the virus would break their friendship, but it was her pride that might deal the death blow. Paul Olivier had never been a guy who cared about money. Alice wasn’t, either. She hadn’t come to them for help, the way real friends did. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “We’re not just anyone.” His voice was sad. “And I didn’t tell Alice about the code being yours. I thought you’d want to tell her yourself.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said. She stared at the bottle in her hands. There wasn’t anything more to say. She wasn’t going to jail. She wasn’t going to be sued. He had known all along. But their friendship was bruised, maybe broken, as surely as if she had maliciously set out to hurt him and his company. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he said and moved one shoulder as if he were shrugging off his disappointment. “I don’t want you to feel any worse, after everything you’ve been through. Don’t mind me. I’m just…. surprised.”

  She stood up. “I need to talk to Alice. You don’t have to show me out.”

  He started to get up but she was already halfway at the door. She knew what she needed to do now and it included having a very difficult conversation with one of her best friends in the world. As she stepped into the elevator, she prayed for courage. Telling Alice that she’d been going hungry rather than ask her for help was going to be harder than anything she’d faced the last six months of misery.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. ― Henri Nouwen

  Alice looked out the front window and didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I thought you didn’t want to be here because of Aurora. Things changed and I knew it wasn’t as quiet as it used to be.”

  “Aurora?” Charlie repeated. She looked down at the baby in her little activity seat, batting at toys. Her curls were wild with the humidity and her shirt read “I Put The ‘b’ in Subtle”.

  “This bookstore was your refuge for so many years and suddenly there was this little person, being loud and taking up all of our energy.”

  “She’s the best thing that ever happened to this bookstore. Hands down.” Charlie held up a finger. “Don’t tell Paul I said that. I know he paid off that greedy niece of Mr. Perrault’s but still, Aurora takes that prize. She’s…” Charlie had trouble expressing what she wanted to say. Instead she stood up and plucked her from the seat where she had been watching them. “When everything seemed dark, when my whole life was falling apart, she gave me so much joy. This store needs her more than any of us. She belongs here.”

  Alice wrapped her arms around the two of them, her tears falling on Aurora’s hand as she kissed it. “I know. I know just what you mean.”

  “I’m sorry. Again.”

  “Don’t say it anymore. I understand.” Alice took a deep breath. “Paul has been rich for a long time. I was poor just a few years ago. Having to ask for help takes grace. That’s the only way I can describe it. You humble yourself. People always think the giver is the saintly one. It’s actually the person who had to be humble enough to receive that gift.”

  A tinkle of the bell brought them out of their position, arms wrapped around each other and Aurora cocooned in the middle. Austin stood there, looking as if he didn’t know whether to come closer.

  “Come on in,” Alice called out, her voice rough with emotion. “We’re just chatting.”

  “I was wondering about lunch. If Charlie’s free. If she was hungry. If she wanted to, I mean.” He grimaced. “Can I start over?”

  Charlie let out a laugh. “Will it be more entertaining than the first try?”

  “Probably not by much.” He grinned at her.

  Mr. Darcy, the great black cat who never left his perch at the top of the poetry range, dropped to the floor behind Austin. “And it looks like someone is here to inspect you. What is the verdict, Mr. Darcy? Does he meet your approval?”

  Austin kept still as Darcy languidly circled one, twice. Then he turned and walked away without comment.

  “I think that was a positive vote,” Alice said.

  “How can you tell?” Austin was still watching Darcy retreat.

  “He didn’t shred the leg of your pants.”

  “And I say so,” Charlie added. She looked at Alice. “If it’s okay with my boss.”

  Grinning, Alice shook her finger. “Be back by twelve thirty-five and not a moment later.”

  “Oh, that reminds me of that terrible boyfriend you had. What was his name? You know, the dentist.”

  Alice smiled. “I have no memory of this person.” Pressing her lips to Aurora’s round cheek, she said, “Everything is loveliness and light in my world now.”

  With a laugh, Charlie gathered up her things and slipped her hand into Austin’s. As they headed for the door, she glanced shyly up at him. “Is this a date?”

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Otherwise I would have wasted all that nervous energy just asking a good friend to lunch.” He opened the door for her.

  “So, does that make me your girlfriend?”

  “Do you want to be?”

  “I’ve never liked that word, actually. It sounds so juvenile. ”

  He shot her a worried look. “Is there another term you’d prefer?”

  “I’ve always liked ‘companion of my heart’. Or ‘my better half’. Or maybe even ‘the sun in my universe’.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  Charlie snorted, pulling him close and hugging his arm. “I can’t help it. You’re so agreeable. I was trying to keep a straight face but I couldn’t. Would you really call me your sun if I asked you?”

  “I sure would. In private.” He pointed her toward his car parked in the little lot behind the bookstore. As he opened the door for her, he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “My sun, my moon, the heart of my heart.”

  Charlie didn’t laugh a bit as he kissed her. Instead she wondered what grace there was in the world to take two suffering people, two broken halves, and put them together in just the right way. Like everything else, she didn’t deserve this unexpected gift of a righteous man. To the rest of the world, Austin Becket was nobody special. He wasn’t very rich, very handsome, or very famous, but his heart was gentle and kind. He believed in truth and goodness. He believed in her.

  As Charlie wrapped her arms around his neck, he whispered softly in her ear. “You may be my sun, but my heart fell for you like a star. Nobody could have missed it, the way it lit up the sky.”

  She smiled against his cheek, blissfully unable to think of anything clever to say. There were very few certainties in the world, but Austin Becket was one of them, and he was hers.

  OTHER TITLES by Mary Jane Hathaway

  The Pepper in the Gumbo (Cane River Romance Book One)

  These Sheltering Walls (Cane River Romance Book Two)

  Only Through Love (Cane River Romance Book Three)

  A Star to Steer By (Cane River Romance Book Four)

  Pride, Prejudice
and Cheese Grits (Austen Takes the South Book One)

  Emma, Mr. Knightley and Chili-Slaw Dogs (Austen Takes the South Book Two)

  Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin’ Cornbread (Austen Takes the South Book Three)

  OTHER TITLES by Virginia Carmichael

  All The Blue of Heaven (historical romance)

  Purple Like the West (historical romance)

  Leaving Liberty

  Season of Joy

  Season of Hope

  A Home for her Family

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to give special thanks to people who generously offered their expertise in several areas. As always, all errors are my own! A very special thanks to Katherine Coble for describing her time as a gamer in the last decade, plus her personal experience with sexism in the gaming industry. To Gil Milbauer for explaining code sourcing vs executable programs. To Christalee Scott May for being a supportive texter during the final stretch of finishing this manuscript. (I never knew there was a gif of Bill Murray drinking from a pot of coffee, but now I do.) To Caleb Hesse for sharing his artwork and the college program that features programming and digital arts. To John Abramowitz for gaming terminology and etiquette. And always, to my children, who never waver in their confidence that I can tell a story.

  Dear reader,

  I hope you enjoyed Charlie’s story as much as I loved writing it! From the first moment the sassy gamer stepped onto the page in The Pepper in the Gumbo, I wanted to find out more about her. When we first meet Charlie, she’s in the summer before college and full of dreams. Her two best friends are an eighty year old blind man and a single woman who runs an antique book shop, yet she herself is as typical as my own teens. How did these unusual friendships (and that unusual job) prepare her for college? I assumed Charlie would live a charmed live, cocooned in the loving friendships of By the Book employees. Then I wondered if perhaps someone might spot that tenderness, innocence and optimism in Charlie, and use it to their advantage.