Misplaced Innocence

by Veronica Morneaux

  “Oh, Charisma. I’m so sorry.” There was nothing else he could say.

  “They really wanted their money, and I guess they thought we were still together, or at least that we were still in touch. I was the last person they saw him with. In fact, no one knows where he’s gone. Probably France or something.” She snorted. “And they wanted me dead so that I wouldn’t be able to testify about everything that had gone on inside the club, and what I’d seen happen to Donna. It was win win for them. And of course, the FBI was looking for me because they wanted me to be a witness for them, because I can ID the faces of so many mobsters from being around the club so much. They wanted to put me in their witness protection program. But I was scared. I knew there was nothing they could do…. And I was right, they found me all the way out here.”

  “So you ran from the mafia, and from the FBI. What a story.” Jared sighed. “What a horrible story. We are going to get you a therapist.”

  Charisma chuckled, but it was laced with unmistakable bitterness. Neither one addressed it, and they lapsed into silence. He reached out a hand and let it rest on her knee. She let her hand slide beneath his, and he held it until she stopped trembling.

  ~*~

  “I’m coming with you,” Jared insisted, His suitcase was already packed and sitting by the door.

  “Because I haven’t imposed on your life enough,” Charisma shot back, hands on her hips. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and the tendrils of hair that fell from it interrupted the creased frown of her forehead. “You can’t come in, anyways. They won’t let you.”

  “I’ll wait outside.” He nudged the suitcase toward the door. Her expression softened as she recognized the gesture for what it was.

  She reached out a hand and let it fall on the curve of his arm. “I don’t want you to,” she said softly.

  “You’re lying.”

  They stared at each other a long moment, neither one of them budging.

  “Look, you’re going to be a mess. You can’t even argue that part,” he said as she opened her mouth to speak. The words died in her throat and she snapped her mouth shut. “You should just accept that I’m coming and let me be there for you. I don’t want you to walk out of there and have to go back to your hotel room and be alone, back in the city where it all began. I want to be there, if only to remind you that your life is different now; that you are different now.” He drew his brow together, his dark eyes shaded as he reached out and held her firmly by her slender arms. “I really need to be there. For my sake, if not for yours.”

  She pushed the loose bits of hair back from her face. “Fine,” she relented with an exaggerated eye roll and a silent, and very deep, sigh of relief. It was bad enough that she felt like she needed him. It would be even worse if he knew it.

  The airport was quiet, and they breezed through security. But just being there set her on edge and left her feeling indignant. How dare she need to rearrange her life for this. The FBI had arranged for their cab from Carlton, and they would be there to pick them up in New Jersey, but it was a long day of traveling for a measly two days of depositions.

  Charisma closed her eyes and took a deep breath, melting into the chair as the jet engines roared around her. The pressure of take off pressed her to the seat, suffocating in its intensity. She had never traveled much as a child; all the people she needed had been little more than a stone’s throw away. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had been on an airplane…at least ten years ago, it had to be, now. Jared took one look at the worried lip and the pallor of her face and let his hand cover hers while it clutched the armrest.

  Though the flight was more or less uneventful, it was heavily laced with emotional turbulence for Charisma. The day was bright and clear, and below the wisps of fog she could make out pieces of the earth and the slowly changing scenery. It was amazing how quickly you could get from point a to point b in an airplane. This trip had been downright painful in her old truck. Since her return to Carlton, she had been living in Jared’s house, and in fact, in Jared’s bed. Even after her house was straightened up and habitable again, neither of them had talked about her actually moving back into it. Yet neither had suggested she become more settled in his space either. She was in this limbo, one foot inside each house, each life, and she didn’t know what was coming next. Jared had returned to Carlton a hero, even more adored by all the local single women. And Charisma felt like the charity case du’jour; everyone had heard the rumors and she was the recipient of more pitiful glances than she cared to acknowledge, but no one wanted to mention it. It could have something to do with the fact that the whole town knew she was living with Jared. Remarkable how quickly information like that is ascertained and deployed. But all that was pretty irrelevant in the long term. She had been alone long enough that it really mattered little to her what others though. The problem had everything to do with Jared, and the missing conversation about what was happening between them. Maybe he hadn’t brought anything up because he was trying to find the words to let her down slowly; maybe he was just being a good friend and she was misinterpreting their relationship. It wouldn’t be the first time friends had benefits, and it wouldn’t be the first time one of them was more attached than the other. But she didn’t want to be the one to bring this up, mostly because she didn’t want to hear one of the possible outcomes.

  And why was she sitting here, playing the damsel in distress? Wasn’t that the role that had gotten here in the first place? Sure, he was her prince charming, all dropping everything and crossing the country just to rescue her. Maybe it was her own trauma that made her feel so strongly bonded to him. It might be a bond he didn’t feel at all. She had just regained control of her life and here she was, losing it again. Except, this time, for a man. Maybe a few more weeks or months and they would both find that they had only been drawn to each other because they had to be. What else could really be expected?

  Could she even stay in Carlton all her life? She looked out the window at the country passing below her. There were so many places to be that were not Carlton. Now, she thought, am I making problems just to make problems? Returning to her reclusive and defensive self she had been for so long?

  Charisma shook her head hard. She was going to have to stop this craziness or she would never get anywhere with any of her thoughts. Jared was next to her, his head tipped back, eyes lightly closed. Napping. He’d been napping since just after take off, and frankly, Charisma was caught somewhere between irritated and jealous that he could be having such a sweet sleep while she was here bemoaning the fate of her life. She fought the urge to kick him hard and yank him out of his reverie. He must deserve something along those lines for something he had done.

  When the plane finally landed it was without so much as a hiccup, and though both anxious and exhausted, they managed to chat politely in the cab. Charisma pointed out things to Jared as they drove, but remembered the intimate details of who she had been with on the sunny summer day at that corner, and the last Christmas gift she had bought her mother at that store. There was a running dialogue in her head he had no access to, and she had no real desire to share. This part of her life she could leave behind her forever. No problem. The hotel couldn’t arrive fast enough, and Charisma was thankful for the quiet that was allowed to settled between them as they checked in and sought reprieve in the plush quarters, guards stationed outside the peep-hole graced door. Jared slid the deadbolt into place, and the sound echoed uncomfortably in the room.

  ~*~

  The sun was bright, and high overhead when Jared and Charisma made their way to the waiting FBI agents. The morning fog had burned off and the crisp air was quickly being replaced by the heavy rays of sun. Jared couldn’t help but notice the lines of Charisma’s charcoal suit, the way the skirt hit above the knee and the material moved as she walked. Her hair gleamed in the daylight, and her long lashes seemed darker and longer than usual.

  “Good luck,” he whispered, giving her hand one last s
queeze outside the door.

  “Thanks,” she bit her lip and smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her jacket. A deep breath and the subtle push of her shoulders backward, and she placed her hand on the doorknob.

  “You can do this. I’ll be waiting for you, right here.”

  They looked at each other another long moment, the glance pregnant with unsaid things, and neither daring to voice them. He swallowed hard and turned his eyes away, and she disappeared behind the heavy door.

  Jared found an overstuffed and somehow still uncomfortable leather chair, and sat down to wait. Waiting didn’t even begin to describe it. He was there for hours. He did some billing on his laptop, checked his email, surfed the internet, read the news, ran out of battery, began to pace. He came up with a hundred different scenarios about what could be happening on the other side of that door. Most of them were pretty unpleasant.

  Charisma finally emerged, swinging the oak door open only as far as necessary for her slim form to slide out. She passed the uniformed guards outside the room. She looked small and shaken as she walked towards him, eyes downcast – A far cry from the Charisma he knew she was.

  She moved in his direction, her feet moving more slowly the closer she got to him. She wavered for a moment, just long enough for him to stand and slide his arm around her trim waist. Beneath the fabric of her suit he could feel her trembling. He pressed a little kiss to her temple, tried not to get lost in the scent of her shampoo. “Hey. It’s all over now. How about we get some lunch, and maybe go on vacation. How’s Tahiti sound? You deserve it.”

  She flashed a smile up at him and they moved toward the door together. He let her go just long enough to pull the door open, and then he was back by her side, their legs swinging forward in tandem, and nothing but the sound of their breathing between them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Charisma milled through the hoard of people. Downtown Carlton buzzed with color, noise and activity. She hadn't really stopped to think about how many people actually lived in Carlton. Or to be more accurate, in the acres of seemingly empty land that called Carlton their city.

  It was as hot as you would expect the fourth of July weekend to be in Arizona. The cotton of her simple, knee-skimming dress clung uncomfortably to her body, and she wished for more than just the stiff, arid breeze and the ineffective fans placed strategically down the block. She bumped into yet another person and murmured her ‘excuse me’ in the closest she could come to a pleasant tone.

  The sun was still in full force, though Charisma had thought the evening might bring with it an invigorating and welcome chill, dusk was nowhere in sight and the barbecues did little to ease the sticky heat. The red, white, and blue banners whipped through the air, dramatizing the effect of those plastic fans. She was just about to take refuge and duck into the darkened doorway of Bill's when a hand caught her round the waist and spun her.

  His smile was slow and easy, and he seemed unaffected by the heat in a button-down shirt that brought out his eyes. “I've been looking for you.”

  She fought the urge to lean into his hand, and enjoy the way his fingers cupped the curve of her hip. Instead, she let his touch linger on her a moment longer, feeling as though there was nothing that separated their skin, before letting her hand slide down the length of his arm and deftly remove itself from his gentle grasp. “I've just been here. With all of Carlton. Which apparently contains the population of half of Arizona. I never knew there were so many people who considered Carlton home.”

  Jared smiled and raised a hand in greeting to someone passing by, before refocusing his attention on Charisma. A lock of hair had tumbled out of her ponytail and flitted in and out of her eyes. Jared reached up and pushed the wayward hair behind her ear, so he could get a good look at the sweep of dark lashes and pale skin.

  “Why, Jared!” came a voice heavily laden with sweetness and possession, followed by a curtain of glossy blonde hair and pink lips that sparkled in the sunlight. Another Carlton native, predisposed to being heat insensitive. She wore a pair of dark wash blue jeans that tapered to Keds in the cutest shade of pink Charisma had ever seen on an adult woman. The denim hugged every curve of her lower body while the simple white tank top left little to the imagination. And then she was pressing into Jared, sliding an arm around his neck and pulling herself close to him, painted fingers emblazoned with that same shade of pink pausing to rest on the arch of his shoulder. She had successfully maneuvered between Jared and Charisma, so that Charisma was almost forced to take a step backward and had full access to study the blonde's body from behind.

  Jared's eyes had gone carefully blank, his mouth not quite smiling, not quite angry. Indifferent, Charisma finally decided, fascinated and at the same time acutely aware of the sharp knot of jealousy that started in the pit of her stomach and was starting to eek upwards. “Mary Anne,” he said, and her name rolled off his tongue with that ease of a person who had tasted the weight and sound hundreds of times before.

  Charisma was captivated. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the pair, she all golden and glowing, the barest hint of freckles on her upturned nose, he all tall and dark, counterparts in some compelling way. She swallowed hard; this hadn't been how she'd anticipated her return to Carlton would go at all. Though now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure what else she could have expected. She'd spent those sweet nights in the hotel, sequestered away every gentle touch of hand on skin while they had been in cars, on the streets, cramped into an airplane, never daring to think about how things would change when they got back to Carlton. And here it was. Things wouldn't be changing. Not for Mary Anne, and not for Jared. Things would only be changing for Charisma. Back to that cold, lonely place she had come to call her own.

  Charisma came crashing back to the present, all those tender moments she had imagined she and Jared had shared in the last few weeks shattering and splintering from her mind. Mary Anne was laughing about something, the sound husky and rich, something you might find on a movie screen, her words were slow and imbued with that appealing cadence of the west. Jared was looking at her now, saying something else, and Charisma felt herself seeping into the ground, suddenly invisible.

  In a flare of kelly green cotton, she spun on her heels and disappeared back into the sea of people, hoping those tears she felt burning the back of her eyes wouldn't make an unwelcome appearance in the next few moments. If she'd had any doubts before those had been entirely dispelled by the display of history and sexuality. She had just been a pleasant diversion and he was going back to his roots. All of them.

  She was trying so hard to focus she almost ran over a small child. But then she was safely tucked in her truck and she was backing out, and Carlton was disappearing from view.

  ~*~

  Jared had finally managed to pry Mary Anne's fingers away from the collar of his shirt, and spun her around so they were both facing Charisma.

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes widening in that innocent and unassuming way she had mastered. “Where did your little friend go?”

  Jared frowned. It was true that Charisma was no longer in the spot she had been, and it was also true that Jared hadn't seen her slip away. His eyes scanned the crowd for her, but he didn't see that too-familiar crown of dark hair, of the bright green that brought out the prettiest flush in her cheeks. He turned away from the mass of people to glare down at Mary Anne. “She is not my little friend, Mary Anne, and you know that. I can't believe you would go out of your way to be so mean to someone you can't even take the time to get to know.” She opened her mouth, sure to have something witty and sweet to follow, when Jared interrupted her again, “Scratch that. I can believe you would act that way.”

  Her eyes darkened unexpectedly, for the first time since Jared could remember looking neither sweet nor innocent. “You know, Jared,” she bit out at him, “Everyone knows about us. They've been talking since you reappeared here. I'm sorry things didn't work out for you the way you imagined they would with your pretty, Big
City girl and your amazing business, and you had to come slinking back here like you've never made a mistake in your life. You know you should have been with me all along. I would have made you happy. Your wife couldn't do it, and certainly that mousy friend you have won't be able to do it either.” Her bright eyes flashed up at him, all fire, the most appealing he had seen them be in a long time. “I know how to make you happy.” The anger slipped from her face, and there was just that wistful, reminiscent thoughtfulness that brought him back to the years they had been together. “I remember.”

  Her words had gotten so soft, he almost didn't hear that last part, and he was certainly so distracted by her angry monologue that he had failed to notice how she was creeping toward him, her hands resting on the breadth of her chest, as though she had spent her whole life touching him that way, and to be fair, she had spent a good portion of her life touching him that way.

  He caught her hand in his and pulled it down, gently holding it between them, and looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in a long time. She'd never married. Her eyes had that longing and sadness that echoed failed relationships and crushed hopes. “Stop, Mary Anne. You and I both know we don't work. We tried. It's not that I don't care about you, it's just that there's someone else for you. And maybe that someone isn't here in Carlton. You should go somewhere else; see new things and new people. Don't let Carlton weigh you down. You can have what you want, but if you're honest with yourself, you'll know that what you want isn't me. It's just the idea of me.”

  She bit her lip hard enough that the color drained from her pout. “But I know you....”

  He smiled. “I know you do. And I know you think I'm safe, that I won't hurt you. And I am safe. And I wouldn't. And I'm sure we could be very amicable together. But it's not enough. I want more than that. And you deserve to have more than that. Charisma is amazing. And if you spent five minutes getting to know her instead of tearing her down, you would realize that. She makes me happy. Really, very happy, and I want to be with her. You should be able to respect that. She's special to me.”