Charlene barely heard it. She imagined herself, long blonde hair curled and pinned up, not a tendril out of place. Her neck was bent, exposing the strand of pearls that had been her sweet sixteen birthday gift from her father. Her black dress was expensive silk, the best she owned. It fit her well but hid the lush, womanly curves that lay below. It was a chaste dress. She’d picked it in Paris when her father took her with him on a business trip just short of her twentieth birthday.
He had always urged her to choose her purchases with care. To create an image that reflected her personality. She’d picked the dress because she saw it as something that was classy and tasteful. Because it was black, with a tight fitting waist, flared skirt that fell to the knee and a sheer, lace pane in the back by her shoulders, it was feminine and dainty.
Her father had loved that dress. She remembered trying it on for him, spinning around, feeling like a dark fairy. The shine of love in his eyes had been unmistakable. He’d proudly escorted her to dinner, a small place with tables that spilled into the cobbled street.
Charlene felt the sting of tears well at the corners of her eyes. Her throat closed painfully, the fire of grief burning its way up her throat and flooding her mouth. She blinked rapidly and forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths.
She raised her head again when she was able, slamming back down into her body. The sense of detachment was gone. She knew that in a few hours, her father would be laid to rest under layers of black soil. She would never see him again.
“Daddy,” she breathed out, the world inaudible to anyone around her. The cancer had come so quickly for him, reducing him to a shell of the man he once was. His suffering had thankfully been brief. In less than three months it was all over. A promising, beautiful flame snuffed out, plunging Charlene’s world into darkness.
The aged pastor droned on. This had been part of her father’s last wishes. To have a proper church burial though to the best of her knowledge, he hadn’t been religious.
Charlene had gone through the motions of death and grief woodenly. She chose a casket with care. Drained the last of her savings account so her father could have the best in death as he’d given her in life. Throughout the last months of her father’s illness she’d nursed him. She had that consolation at least. That ironically, her profession should have been so apt. She’d quit her job at the hospital, giving up her coveted nursing position so she could be at Charles’s side day and night.
She just hoped the will would be sorted out soon. She didn’t know how she was going to scrape together enough money to make her mortgage after all the expenses. She had enough left for one month. Enough to see her through.
Panic welled in up Charlene’s chest as she thought of returning to her house, the cold, empty rooms providing no solace for her pent up grief and wild rage.
The house wasn’t a mansion but it had been the one she’d been raised in since the time she was a small baby. Her mother had left them when Charlene was four years old. She hardly recalled what Clair Penticton even looked like. She didn’t even know fully why she’d left. All her father ever told Charlene over the years was that he never had any doubts her mother loved her. He shouldered the blame and never spoke ill of the woman he had loved and married, who had born his child and vanished.
Their home had always felt like a home. Would it now be little more than a cage of memories? Charles Penticton worked hard. He traveled for business and Charlene had seen much of the world on his trips. He’d moved heaven and earth to be both father and mother to her.
And now she had neither.
A sudden burst of piano music brought Charlene out of her dazed memories. She struggled to tear herself away from the pit of anxious worries, of cold, hard grief that threatened to consume her. There was an elderly woman at the piano. She had a kindly face. She closed her eyes when she played.
Charlene imagined the woman’s arms, soft and warm and grandmotherly. What would she give right now for a kind touch? For a few words of encouragement that would help her go on living.
Soon it was all over. The pallbearers lifted the coffin and filed slowly past Charlene’s front row pew. She felt as though if she wanted to cry it would be acceptable in that moment. Ironically enough, the tears refused to come.
She turned to watch the six men bear her father down the aisle to his final resting place, the tiny grave yard outside. It seemed perfectly suited to the man that he had been in his life, the man who valued love and family over anything else, that he should choose this quaint little Williamsburg church with the tiny plot of land beside it. In all of Virginia- no, in all of the world, nothing seemed more fitting.
Charlene’s gaze followed the stoic, broad backs of the last two men, friends of her father. They had discussed all this when he’d found out he was ill. It was like he knew it was his time. She’d been so shocked that he arranged everything so quickly in order to spare her. He had even contacted the men who were bearing him away now, personally, before his illness had him in the grips of pain so intense it was madness.
The church doors were opened and the bearers moved through the day lit portal. Sunbeams spilled onto the red carpet of the little church. Charlene wondered if they would ever feel warm on her skin again. Was grief always that way? Like a hard ball of ice freezing the insides so the outer layers felt no warmth?
She copied the rest of the people assembled and rose from the pew woodenly. Her actions were guided by the masses. Her eyes fell on the last pew, the one closest to the door as she began the long, torturous journey down that same aisle her father had been borne.
Charlene blinked when she saw him. Once. Twice. Her long, honeyed lashes framing shockingly emerald eyes. She stopped walking, shock gripping and squeezing her lungs so that they refused to take another breath. Chest on fire, she waited. He saw her and he stopped to. Their eyes met and the world closed in around them.
He looked exactly as she remembered him.
She was relieved when he turned his back and filed out ahead of her, into the open air. The rushing blackness rushing at the corners of her vision faded away. Her burning lungs inflated with life giving oxygen.
Ten years. It had been ten years since she’d last seen her father’s closest friend, Clayton Ellison. Now that her father was dead he could not have prevented the man’s coming. They had broken years ago, their friendship in ruins. Had he come to pay his last respects, wish the man who was once a brother to him, a final farewell or had he come for something more?
“Clayton,” Charlene whispered, her words evaporating in the church like the fog of breath on a cold winter morning.
Charlene squared her shoulders and forced her wooden legs to take the required amount of steps to propel her into the heat of the mid July day. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. A tiny spark of hope bloomed. Perhaps she wasn’t as alone as she had thought.
Chapter 2
A Ghost From the Past
Clayton Ellison was aware of the people milling around the graveyard. Sober, black clad, their grief hanging in the air, suspended about them. His own chest felt curiously compressed. The hard bands of grief that clenched his heart told him that his college friend was dead yet he refused to believe it. Charles couldn’t be gone. Not yet. They had never officially made amends.
The coffin was in the ground, the fresh mound of earth still standing beside the open hole. He had watched from the sidelines, hidden from view by the towering trees surrounding the graveyard and church, as Charlene Penticton threw a handful of earth on the coffin. There had been crying and handshakes, hugs and well wishes from the mourners.
It went on for what seemed like hours until finally the last straggler paid their respects, got in their car and left.
Only Charlene remained. She knelt at the base of the headstone, staring down at the gaping hole in the earth. She held herself perfectly still, her back erect, her bearing regal. Her honeyed hair was done up in a tight bun above her head. Her body was that of a woman now, not the girl Clayton once
knew. He’d only glimpsed her face in the church and then from a distance but he could tell that she’d become the great beauty she had always promised to be.
Stepping out from behind the towering tree that sheltered him, Clayton approached the grave and the still woman beside it. She didn’t glance up, lost in her own private world of grief and memory.
“Charlene.” Clayton whispered her name and her face turned, her green eyes widening in surprise. Her full, lush lips parted in shock.
“Clayton.” His name held so much, the weight of it settling between them. He stood rigidly, unsure of how to proceed. It was Charlene who broke the tense silence. “It’s been a long time.”
He nodded, his hands at his sides. “Ten years I believe.”
“Yes. Ten years.”
Charlene rose from her place in the grass. The crumpled blades, flattened to the earth, began to spring back. She was a picture of grace and beauty. Tall and shapely, the lush curves of a woman so different from the girl he had once known.
Clayton’s mouth went uncharacteristically dry. His words lodged in his throat and Charlene stared at him expectantly. “I suppose you are going to ask why I’m here,” Clayton finally choked out. His palms, flattened against his black pants, grew moist.
Eyes flashing with undefined emotion, Charlene shook her head slowly. “Not at all. You were once my father’s closest friend. It’s only right that you’re here now.”
Clayton stared into Charlene’s eyes and she held his gaze. She took another step forward, until little more than a few feet remained between them.
“We could go somewhere. To talk if you want.” He extended the invitation, sure she would refuse. He was shocked when she nodded.
“I guess this isn’t the best place to discuss things.” Her eyes roved furtively over the headstone, glancing down once more to the open pit in the earth. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.” A single tear dripped from her blonde lashes and made its way down high cheek bones and splashed from the edge of her jaw. The silvery streak on her alabaster skin remained even after the tear was gone.
“I have a hotel.” Clayton cursed himself when he saw the shock on her face. “I mean I have a room here for a couple days. I don’t have to rush off anywhere. Choose the place and I’ll meet you there.”
Charlene’s perfect brow furrowed in thought. It wasn’t a stretch for Clayton to imagine that same expression brought on by the throes of pleasure. He blinked and quickly looked away. What was it about Charlene that could snap his careful control so easily?
“There’s this man-made lake? Easton Park. It has walking paths and a fountain in the middle. We could take a walk there. I want to talk where no one is going to listen in. I can’t imagine forcing myself to go to a restaurant or something like that right now.”
“I could wait. Like I said, I’m in town for a couple days.”
“No. We could go now. If you’ll give me a ride? I just… I don’t want to go back to the house yet, even to change. I’m afraid I’ll see him everywhere.”
Clayton softened. Charlene had been a sweet, sensitive girl. She was always so caring, even as a child. When he’d heard she became a nurse he figured that it was the perfect profession for her. Even as a woman she had the same tender heart that she’d always possessed.
“Alright. I have a rental car parked on the street not far from here. I can take you.” The thought of having her so close, sitting a mere foot away from him in an enclosed space made Clayton’s heart pound painfully in his chest. He thought of Bonnie, his ex-wife. They’d been married a brief three years before she asked for a divorce. She’d told him, at the end, that she believed he’d never loved her and she’d been right. If only she’d known the truth about him.
As he led the way out to the street, Clayton knew he never should have come. He should have stayed away. Hell, he could have sent a card or written. Called. He should not have indulged his whims and given in.
They reached the car, a black, nondescript sedan that gave away no hint of what he could have afforded instead. Clayton didn’t want to admit he’d anticipated seeing Charlene, even if from a distance. He wanted something that wasn’t going to announce his arrival or make him stand out. He wanted to go undetected and unnoticed for as long as possible.
Which hadn’t been long at all. He recalled the stunned expression on Charlene’s face when she’d spotted him in the church. Her green eyes had flashed with confusion and something else. He hadn’t been able to define what it was before he’d turned and disappeared into the gathered crowd.
She directed and he drove, ever conscious of her nubile, lush body perched only inches away. The sweet smell of her perfume swirled in the car, filling Clayton’s nose and setting his senses on fire whenever he breathed in. He turned to look at her once but she was staring out the window, only the side profile of her face visible.
What a beautiful face it was. He’d seen it more than once in dreams he’d be ashamed to admit to. The heart shape had been passed down to her from her mother as had the high cheekbones and delicate jaw. The broad forehead and slightly curved nose were all her father’s. Neither of her parent’s eyes had been green. Her mouth was now full and sensuous, a woman’s mouth and like her eyes, was distinctly her own.
“There,” Charlene said suddenly. “There are parking spaces on the street. The park is just over that way.” She pointed and he followed the slim, tapered digit with his dark eyes.
“I see it. It’s beautiful.” After parking the car in one of the minuscule spaces left, Clayton sat staring out the windshield. The park was beautiful. People of all ages walked or jogged alongside the shimmering waters of the small, round lake. Like a geyser, a jet of water burst forth from the middle of the lake and he recalled Charlene had mentioned a fountain.
“Shall we?” Charlene broke the silence. She opened her door and climbed awkwardly from the low car, her heels making it difficult for her to step out and up onto the sidewalk in one easy movement. Clayton cursed himself for being so thoughtless. He should have been helping her out instead of sitting there like a dazed fool.
As it was, Charlene waited for him on the sidewalk. She looked unsure, like coming with him had been a mistake. Her eyes were wild, like that of a frightened animal. In her black dress with the full skirts and lace back she was exquisitely out of place in a park where most people donned jogging clothes and old t-shirts.
“I guess we should walk then. I know a path that’s only about twenty minutes long. I think that’s all I can handle in these heels.” Charlene attempted a smile but Clayton could tell it was forced. He didn’t think it would be appropriate to offer her an arm so he just nodded and fell into step beside her.
The sun slanted down hotly, reminding Clayton exactly why he didn’t choose to wear all black very often. The collar of his dress shirt chaffed his neck, a thousand times too tight though it wasn’t even buttoned fully. His immaculately pressed black slacks felt like a sauna and his polished, square toed shoes bit into the backs of his heels.
“I’m glad you came,” Charlene stated, a tremble in her voice. She didn’t slow down or turn to look at him.
Clayton blinked and kept walking. He didn’t even miss a beat. “Are you?” He asked softly. Are you really?
Slowing her step, Charlene tilted her face to look at him. “Yes,” she said, more firmly. “I am. You were dad’s closest friend. You were always like a brother to him. I feel… I feel responsible for what happened.”
Hard guilt, the kind of guilt that only grew worse with time, gripped his stomach like a hard fist squeezing his internal organs. “You can’t. It wasn’t your fault.”
Blinking, Charlene stopped. She turned to face him fully, her green eyes snapping with life. They were the same eyes that haunted Clayton. “Maybe it’s no one’s fault. If my father hadn’t overreacted…”
“He was just trying to protect you.”
“Maybe but I was old enough to make my own choices.”
“
You were sixteen. I was almost forty. When he found out you had a crush on me it was only natural to protect you.”
“It was only a harmless crush but even if it had been more than that, I was old enough to know my own mind,” Charlene insisted. “Besides, you were always like a second father to me. I never would have acted on my stupid crush and my father should have known that. I tried, over the years, to get him to see reason but he wouldn’t listen. He was always like that, chasing all my boyfriends away but it was the first crush that really set him wild. I don’t know what it was.”
“Again, the fact that I was more than twice your age probably had something to do with it. He never believed that I didn’t have designs on you.” Clayton was ashamed to admit he’d been flattered when he found out about Charlene’s crush. He never expected Charles to suspect that he wouldn’t have been able to control himself. Charlene had been like a daughter to him. However, he was ashamed to admit that over the years, as he imagined her, a young woman, that fondness had changed into something else.
Charlene blinked. “I can see why he was trying to protect me but it frustrated me that as I got older he wouldn’t even reach out to you. I feel like I broke your friendship apart. I should never have said anything. It was just one stupid comment over dinner one night and it was like he knew.”
“He was your father. He knew you best.”
Shaking her head, Charlene blinked rapidly and he suspected she was trying not to cry. “I just wish you could have said goodbye to him. I feel responsible for that as well. At least you’re here now.”
“Yes. One of our mutual friends told me when the funeral would be. I came to pay my respects.” Liar. His conscious grabbed hold of him hard, forcing Clayton to admit, even to himself that the funeral hadn’t been his sole reason for coming.
Chapter 3
The Invitation
“My father was a stubborn man. I think he was sorry but he didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t want to admit that he might have been wrong. At any rate, it’s done now.” Charlene said quietly but the fire in her eyes and her rigid, determined stance belied her soft words.
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