Chapter Six
Charity pulled her car into the parking lot at CRISIS and let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. She put it in park and turned the ignition off before removing her sunglasses and taking a look around.
This place held so many memories for her. Most of them she’d never told anyone about.
It made her feel good to see that Heaven Hill was making a show of force. Tyler Blackfoot stood at the side door, Dalton stood at the front. There was no back door to the building for a reason. Even from where she sat in her car, she could see the updated security measures—cameras that would see everyone coming and going. No one would enter CRISIS without them knowing about it. Several cameras had also been put at the very few windows the house had.
On purpose, she took her time gathering the things she would need to go in and do her first interviews with the woman and child she was here to help. Many people had helped her as a teenager; it was time for her to repay the favor.
To say that she was nervous to interview these two was an understatement. She had done some pro bono work with the Civil Liberties Union in North Carolina and worked with some domestic violence survivors, but Charity was pretty sure nothing was going to prepare her for this.
Getting out of the car, she slowly made her way to the front door. Usually she dressed to the nines, wanting her clients to trust her implicitly and to realize she was a professional in every sense of the word, but today she wore faded jeans and a Jagger Stone T-shirt she’d had since she was a teenager.
Smiling as she walked to the front door, she reached over, giving Dalton a hug. “How are you?”
“Good.” He nodded. “Girl, I would recognize you anywhere, even though you’ve gotten rid of that blonde hair. You still have the same banging body you always had. Just don’t tell Mandy or Drew I said it.” He winked and gave her a laugh.
Dalton had always teased her; it was nothing new for him to shamelessly flirt with her. Subconsciously, she ran her hand through her hair. Since she’d left Bowling Green and gotten out from under her mom’s thumb, she’d made some changes for herself. Back then, the stripper’s daughter had been expected to have bleached blonde hair, like her mom. Now, Charity felt much more at ease with her natural dark hair color.
“Things change.” She laughed. “Except for you, because you look exactly the same.” And he did. It amazed her how much had stayed the same in this sleepy town. The growth was evident as she went down Scottsville Road and saw new fast food joints and new businesses, but out here in the county, time had almost stood still.
He rocked back on his boots and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “It’s a gift, what can I say?”
She closed her eyes and giggled. Same guy that she’d always known. It was nice to come back to things that were familiar. “Before I go in here, I wanted to ask you, have you seen anything out of the ordinary? I’ve dealt with a couple of guys like this before, and I’m aware of their diversionary tactics as well as the fear they like to place in the victims.”
Dalton shook his head. “Nah, it’s been quiet out here today. Maybe too quiet, but it’s hard to say. Nobody is going to let anything happen to anyone inside that house, though; I can personally guarantee that.”
She knew that he could and would, with everything that he had. Nodding at him, she made her way further up the front steps and headed inside.
“Charity, thank you so much for coming!”
Hurricane Meredith Blackfoot loved to engulf the people in her life, and Charity knew she was no exception.
“It’s my pleasure. I’m happy to finally see you again, and this place.” She glanced at the inside of CRISIS house, taking in the changes that had been made over the years. “It’s been a long time,” she whispered as she allowed Meredith to give her a huge hug.
Meredith smiled gently and squealed as quietly as she could. “It has been, and look where you are now.”
That was the consolation prize. She had made it out. She had a seat, and Meredith went to sit behind her desk. “So fill me in on what I need to know. I took this job without a whole lot of answers because it felt right, and to be honest, it was my shot to get back to Bowling Green.”
Leaning over in her chair, Meredith pulled out a set of keys and unlocked a drawer on the inside of her desk, pulling out some papers and laying them on top, right in front of where Charity sat. “You and I both know that many different people come through those doors. Some of them are down on their luck, some of them need a place to sleep for the night, some want to change their lives, and some are just plain scared.”
Charity did know that. On nights when she hadn’t wanted the Walker kids to know that she was scared to be in her mom’s house—when Jasmine brought home men she wasn’t sure she could fight off—Charity had crashed at CRISIS house. It had always been her and Meredith’s secret.
“These two,” Meredith continued, her voice dark, “were just plain scared.”
Charity watched as Meredith placed four pictures down on the desk. As she got a glimpse of what was in those pictures, she gasped and put her hand to her mouth. The woman, who she assumed was the mother, had been beaten badly. Both eyes were swollen shut, dried blood pooled at the side of her lips, and her nose was obviously broken.
The younger girl, who she thought to be the daughter, looked better than her mother, but not by much. A huge bruise covered the top of her forehead, and her chin was busted open.
“Jesus Christ,” Charity breathed, her stomach flipping. She had seen too many people like this in her life. “The husband did this?”
Meredith shrugged. “If I were to hazard a guess, I would say yes. They won’t talk to me, but when I told them I knew a lawyer who would help, they seemed to warm up to that idea. Client/attorney privilege I guess.”
In hard situations like this, sometimes it was easier for her to get people to talk because they felt as if what they said would go no further than the room they were in. There were things she’d take to her grave that gave her nightmares, and looking at the two ladies in these pictures, she hoped like hell they wanted to prosecute, because she would like nothing more than to nail whoever did this to the wall.
Chapter Seven
Charity followed Meredith up the stairs and into the part of CRISIS that housed the bedrooms. It was as if she had entered a time warp. Not much had changed. The stairs still smelled the same; the paint on the wall only looked as if it had been touched up. Meredith’s voice broke through the memories.
“They are very quiet when you first approach them, kind of like skittish, wild, animals, so be careful. If you make too much of a fuss or you move too quickly, they run. We want them to stay here for as long as possible.”
She appreciated the heads-up because she did not want to scare them away. Obviously they needed help, and that’s what she wanted to give them, more than anything. That was her initial reason for being here. “You want to come in here with me? Sometimes a familiar face helps.”
Meredith nodded and lightly knocked on the door. “Maggie, Skylar, it’s Meredith. I brought my friend along with me. You know, the one I’ve been telling you about? The one that can help you.”
The door slowly opened, and Charity did her best to school her features as she took in the room. It was the cleanest room she had ever been in, nothing was out of place, and had she not known the two ladies were staying there, she wouldn’t have known it. There was a reason for that—they wanted nothing to point anyone to where they had been previously. These girls were smart, and they covered their tracks well.
“Is this the lawyer?” The older one asked, her mouth barely moving. Apparently her jaw had also been broken when she’d been beaten. It wasn’t unusual. Most men did it to send a message, hoping the woman wouldn’t want to speak out against her attacker. It was a cheap shot, but most men who did these things didn’t seem to care. She could still see the dark circles under her eyes from where her nose had been broken.
�
�I am.” Charity moved forward, not waiting for the introduction from Meredith. “My name is Charity, and I’m here to help you.”
The older one blew out a breath. “Really? How you think you gonna help me and my baby girl?”
Charity knew this was a test and she had to pass it in order to help these people. She smiled softly and patiently at the mother. “That room across the hall? At least two nights a week when I was a teenager, I slept there. If you go in there and look in the closet, there should be an engraving on the wall. It says Charity loves Drew. I know a thing or two about being in this house.”
She hoped like hell that they hadn’t painted those rooms since the last time she’d been in there; otherwise, she was fucked. The mother leaned down and tapped the daughter on the thigh, indicating with her hand for her to go and check it out.
Less than a minute felt like a lifetime, but the girl came back and nodded to her mother.
The mother opened her mouth to speak, causing Charity to throw up her hand. “Wait, give me a dollar.”
The mother looked at her like she had lost her mind, but dug into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a dollar, handing it to Charity.
“Okay.” Charity stuck the dollar in her pocket. “My name is Charity Thomas, and you’ve just hired me to be your attorney. Whatever you say to me is privileged and will not go any further than between us, except for a court of law.” She pulled a notebook out of her bag. “I take it you’re Maggie?”
“I am, ma’am.”
“No ‘ma’am’ here. We’re equals; you call me Charity, I call you Maggie, and we figure out how to get you and Skylar out of this mess. Sound good?”
Looking at the woman, she could tell it was probably the best thing she’d ever heard in her life. Sitting down on the floor, Charity stretched her legs out and put the notebook in her lap. “Now, I need you to tell me why you need me. What’s got you running scared, and who the hell did that to your face?”
Three hours later, Charity still couldn’t believe the things she’d heard come out of the other woman’s mouth, and this was only their first session. Maggie had let her know that she knew other things, things that would get Dixon and the League put away for a while. Charity almost wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know or not.
Walking down the steps, she waved goodbye to Dalton and Tyler, who still stood guard, and got into her car. She’d purposely left her phone in the passenger seat, in order to give her full attention to her clients. Now, she had phone calls to make and things she wanted Mandy to research for her, but seeing the name on her phone caused her breath to catch.
Drew had texted her.
I hope you’re looking forward to riding with me tonight as much as I am.
She was, but she also knew there would have to be a part of herself she held back. Ten years was a long time to go without seeing one another and then automatically fall back into their old routine.
I am, can’t wait to see you!
But first she would have to forget some of the horrors she had just heard and do some preliminary planning on how she was going to help this family. Turning the car on and connecting the Bluetooth, she called Mandy. They had to get started on this, and fast.
Chapter Eight
Drew’s leg shook, and he made a concentrated effort to stop it. He’d never been nervous in his life. Back when they had been teenagers, he’d worked to keep Charity, but once he had her, he had her. He’d let her go because he knew he’d had to. If he hadn’t pushed her, she wouldn’t have left and then he would have hated himself for the rest of his life. Chances were they would have hated one another sooner or later, and who knew where they would be now.
“You leaving?” Liam asked as he went around the kitchen, picking up the plates the family had eaten on. He did his part in the family hierarchy as he took them over to the dishwasher and started loading it.
Family dinner was something neither Drew nor Mandy liked to miss. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Mandy had missed, and now that she was working for Charity, Drew had to wonder what the hell had gone down—if she missed because she was doing legwork for their case, or if she was hanging out with Dalton. He hadn’t been briefed on what she’d found out today, but from what he understood, no one else had been either.
“Yeah.” He glanced over at Tatum, who gave him a sad look. He did his best to ignore it. “I’ve got someplace I need to be tonight.”
“With Charity?” Denise teased as she scooted chairs to sit next to her son.
“Or with one of his other many women?” Tatum taunted as she brought her cake over from the counter.
He put his arm around his mom’s neck and did his best not to blush. He hadn’t blushed in a long time. “We’re hanging out and catching up,” he confirmed. It would do no good to tell a lie to his mom. She always found out, even though he was now a grown man.
“I heard she had a rough day over at CRISIS,” Denise mentioned. “Of course, Mer can’t tell me specifics, but it sounds like they have a fight on their hands.”
“If Dixon McCall wants a fight, then that’s what we’ll give him,” Drew vowed quietly. This man wouldn’t be hurting anyone on his watch. Especially not the people he cared about.
Liam had a seat on the other side of him. “We will, but we’ll do it smart. We don’t want to be messing with the League when we aren’t sure what we’re up against. That’s bad business and plain dumb.”
Drew knew that his dad was right, but at this moment, his mind wasn’t on the League, it wasn’t on the Heaven Hill MC, and it sure as hell wasn’t on the chocolate cake that Tatum sat down on the table.
“Time for dessert.” She grinned, her smile telling him that it would mean a lot if he stayed and sampled what she’d made. Not able to tell her no, he settled in and got comfortable to feed his face.
Fifteen more minutes to appease the club princess, and then he could leave.
Thirty minutes past seven o’clock and Charity was beginning to wonder if Drew had stood her up. Back in high school, she had done that a few times to him, to make him prove he really wanted to be with her, but she figured now, almost in their thirties, he’d be over that. Her stomach sank as she thought of that the possibility. Talk about a blow to her ego and a knife to her heart.
Picking up her cell phone, she had her finger poised over his number, damned if she wasn’t going to give him a piece of her mind. Just as she was about to dial, she heard the loud tailpipe of a motorcycle enter her apartment community. She knew it was him, didn’t matter that she hadn’t seen the bike, hadn’t seen the rider, and hadn’t even heard from him in hours. The way her heart sped up, she knew it was him.
Grabbing a jacket, she placed it over the clothes she’d worn to CRISIS earlier in the day. While she wasn’t the same girl Drew had known all those years ago, there was a part of her that still kept a tiny piece of that girl, and Drew held the key to it. Tonight, she wanted to let that girl fly a little.
“Hey,” she yelled as she locked the door to her apartment and made her way to her designated parking spots.
He glanced up from where he’d been putting the kickstand down and grinned at her.
That grin. Good Lord that grin. It took her back to another place, another time. Back when all that had mattered was that she get away from the home life she’d had. Where with him she wasn’t the stripper’s daughter with the brick-shithouse body. With him, they were the only two people in the world. It had been a lifetime since a grin had almost knocked her flat on her ass, and the one he gave her right this minute…it almost did just that.
“I was gonna come get you.”
That voice. It had been deep when they’d been teenagers, and she hadn’t paid much attention to it when she’d seen him before, but in this setting, at this time, it was deeper than she remembered. It had a slight gravel to it, probably from the smoking habit he had, and the southern drawl had yet to go away. Probably never would. His voice washed over her body, almost like a caress, and
she knew without a doubt she was home.
“I couldn’t wait any longer.” She jogged over to him. That had been the truth; she hadn’t realized it until she’d seen him again, but she couldn’t wait any longer, she was sick of waiting. She had no idea where this was going to go, why she’d truly decided to come back to Bowling Green, and she had no idea where her life was going to lead her, but she knew this was where she wanted to be…right here, right now.
“Sorry I’m late,” he whispered when he got her around the waist and brought her so that they embraced one another. “Tatum made a chocolate cake for dessert, and I couldn’t hurt her feelings by not staying. Mandy didn’t show up, I guess because she was busy, and I’m her favorite anyway,” he joked with a shit-eating grin. “So I had to eat some.”
“I know,” she teased. “You have chocolate,” she reached out with her finger, “right here.” She wiped at the side of his mouth.
With those motions, ten years melted away, but deep in her heart, she knew the problems hadn’t. With what was going on at CRISIS, she knew they’d only just begun, and she was putting herself and the club smack dab in the middle of them.
Chapter Nine
Drew could have shouted to the moon how happy he was that Charity was in her rightful place, on the back of his bike again, but he kept it under control. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off.
“Where are we going?” she yelled over the wind as she tightened her arms around his waist.
The tightening of her arms was just one more thing he’d missed, and he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing it. As they came to a red light, he took that moment to bring his gloved hand to where hers were clasped around his waist and give them a little squeeze.
“Someplace we can be alone without prying eyes,” he yelled back as the light changed.
She held on tightly as he drove out towards the clubhouse, and she wondered why, because there was no way in hell the two of them could be alone there. Silly her, she’d assumed all they were going to do tonight was go for a ride, but it looked as if Drew wanted to talk about a few things.
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