“Is it possible that she goes under a different name now?” Dillon asked.
“I don’t know. She’s always just been Em, and I’ve always been B.” I sighed, rubbing my throbbing head. The vodka shots were not my friends right now.
“Has she ever given any indication she was in some sort of trouble?” came Braiden’s next question.
“No, I mean, other than seeming a little desperate for cash recently, no. I just assumed she was behind on her rent or something.”
“Is she married? Boyfriend?” it was Dillon’s turn to ask. I was beginning to feel like I was a spectator in a Montgomery tennis match.
“Not married, at least not that I know of. I’m sure she would have told me something like that. Boyfriend? I have no idea.” I really didn’t feel like I was giving them much to go on, and for the first time, I actually realized how little I really knew about my sister, my own flesh and blood. It was depressing.
“So, what we have is Emily Grace Donovan, twenty-five, short dark hair, light blue eyes, approximately five feet, two inches, slim build, in the company of two men driving a fancy black sedan.” Dillon glanced at me for confirmation.
“Two fucking big men,” I murmured. He nodded and I assumed at this point he would mock the lack of information—I felt like I was contributing so little. She was my little sister for Christ’s sake, I should know more about her. I should have cared enough to at least look for her, check in on her. I had just let her walk away from me when she was nothing more than a wild teenage girl. Guilt rested heavy on my shoulders.
“Okay, that’s a start. Do you have the last cell phone number she called from?”
“Yes, but I’ve already tried all three of them and they’ve been disconnected.” Braiden grinned and I almost slipped off the couch. His smile was breathtaking—not too cocky, not too boyish—it was sexy, confident masculinity at its best.
“That doesn’t surprise me, but you would be shocked at the sort of trail a phone number can leave behind,” Braiden said.
I left the last three numbers I had in my phone for Emily and finally found myself climbing back into Charlie’s truck. He engaged in a quick private conversation with Dillon and Braiden in front of the office before joining me. In a despondent haze of aching head, tired limbs and worry, I leaned my head against the window of Charlie’s truck and fell asleep instantly.
Chapter 12
Charlie
Rebecca was out before my truck left the parking lot. It had been a big day for her, so I wasn’t at all surprised, especially after the way she knocked back those three shots of vodka earlier this afternoon. The curious note from her sister had left an uncomfortable feeling in my gut, and, as I expected, Dillon and Braiden had the same opinion. It was too big of a coincidence that Emily was sniffing around for money only weeks prior to Rebecca’s attack. For the first time since her attack, I was beginning to think Luke Hollywell may in fact be innocent of the assault. Of being a fuckwit, not so much. For Rebecca’s sake, I hoped to God her sister had nothing to do with it. But my gut told me she did. Rebecca’s house on its own wasn’t worth much, but the land it sat on was worth quite a lot, and she said that Emily seemed desperate for cash. It wasn’t hard to reach a sinister conclusion.
Rebecca woke as I tried to carefully unbuckle her seatbelt, then she mumbled and cussed like a trooper as I steered her up the stairs, to my apartment which sat over Carter Constructions’ office. Rebecca didn’t like having her sleep interrupted. I wasn’t even sure if her eyes opened as I led her through the small studio apartment. I pulled the sheets back and she sank into my bed, falling quickly back into a deep and restful sleep. I tucked her in and then grabbed her bag from the truck before taking advantage of the quiet moment to shower. Under the burning hot water, it was difficult not to let my thoughts stray to the beautiful woman who was laying in my bed. In fact, she was the first woman to lay in it. I decided a long time ago that it was easier to remove myself from a woman’s home than it was to remove a woman from mine. For the first time in my adult life, I wanted this particular woman in my home. I wanted her clothes strewn about my bedroom floor. I wanted her vanilla scented shampoo in my shower. I swore I would never settle for the love of one woman, but Rebecca had opened my eyes to the warming notion. Rebecca and Rebecca only, forever? Hell yeah! As my thoughts began to stray to the erotic adventures I might play with this beautiful woman one day, I had to turn the hot water down and to douse my libido, yet again, with ice cold water.
In the kitchen, I turned the TV on to the evening news and set the volume down low, while I threw together some spaghetti bolognese. I almost missed the soft groans coming from the bed on the other side of the apartment. I took the spaghetti off the burner and quietly made my way to Rebecca, who was beginning to toss and turn. She was still having nightmares and my fists clenched at the injustice of it. I fought the urge to climb into bed beside her and pull her into my arms. The mattress sank as I sat down, which caused Rebecca to roll towards me. I ran a hand through her soft blonde hair and whispered words that I thought might help. Her body seemed to lean into my touch. The tautness in her shoulders disappeared and eventually her eyelids fluttered open. I tensed, expecting her to freak out, but she surprised me when a shy smile touched her lips.
“Hey,” I murmured, relishing the fact that she hadn’t pulled away from me.
“Hey,” she whispered back, “I think the smell of food woke me up.”
I wasn’t about to suggest a bad dream may have had something to do with it. She seemed so languidly content right now, I didn’t want to spoil the moment. She was obviously hungry, so I would feed her. I hoped she liked spaghetti. Crap, what if she was a vegetarian? The thought made me realize just how little I knew about Rebecca, the woman I wanted forever with.
“What’s that look for?” she asked, obviously noticing my inner monologue playing out on my face.
“What’s your favorite food?” I found myself asking her.
“I have a soft spot of chili, how about you?”
“Italian, big time, like hard-on style big time.” She laughed and the sound almost created one aforementioned hard-on.
“You get a hard-on for food?”
I shrugged. “Depends on whose cooking it and if it’s any good. Take Mary’s chocolate chip muffins for example, hard-on worthy and not because of Mary, but because they taste that damn good!”
Rebecca scrunched up her nose. “Okay, well, that’s kind of weird, but luckily for you I can deal with weird.”
I was reluctant to pull my hand from her hair, but when an awkward silence fell upon us, I forced myself to move. “Why don’t you hop up and have something to eat, then you can take a shower and climb back into bed. We’re having movie night.” Rebecca slipped out from under the covers and followed me across to the kitchen.
“What movies are playing?”
I signaled to the wall of DVDs behind us. “Take your pick.” Her mouth dropped open with astonishment. Yeah, I had a lot of movies. Not that I found myself watching them often, but I had somehow garnered a little bit of an addiction for buying them, especially the old school stuff like Cool Hand Luke and Rebel Without a Cause. I had accumulated over five hundred now. Rebecca strolled across the room to the massive shelving unit and began searching. I made two plates of spaghetti and by the time I sat at the small table, Rebecca made her choice and joined me. My eyebrows rose with surprise as she placed two DVDs down in front of me, Clerks and Clerks II.
“What?” she asked.
“Just didn’t take you for a Clerks kinda girl.” Rebecca’s eyes sparkled with mischief.
“You know how every girl's parents put a pussy troll in them when the girls are young, to keep them from having premarital sex?” she said with a smile. The Clerks II quote made me laugh in disbelief.
“Myra’s is named Pillow Pants. And so even though she totally wants to have sex with me, Myra says if I put my thing in her, Pillow Pants will bite it off.” I practically kn
ew every word in both of these movies—Jax and I have watched them like a thousand fucking times. I laughed loudly. “Do you have any idea how hot it is that you not only like that movie, but you can quote it?” She shrugged as she began to eat.
“What can I say, I have lived a repressed life thus far and quoting movies is a talent.”
“Not your only talent,” I murmured, recalling the night we spent together a year ago. Rebecca blushed and the color in her cheeks was fucking cute! “So, tell me about your family, about Emily,” I suggested, moving the conversation along to perhaps an equally dangerous topic.
“Not much to tell. My mom and dad passed away in a car accident when I was nine, Emily was six. Our grandma took us in. Emily was the reckless one, the spontaneous one, even more so after our parents’ death.” That surprised me, after all, Rebecca has always seemed pretty damn spontaneous to me. She chuckled. “I know—the way I dress, my attitude—people assume I live life on the edge. I don’t.” She gave me a pointed glance. “I like things orderly. I like to prepare, know what I’m getting into. Emily didn’t stop, it’s like she had one speed: full throttle.” Rebecca shook her head, a smile teasing the corners of her lips. “Claymont was too slow for a spark of life like Em. She left a few months after our grandma passed away, and it’s been just me since then.”
“No extended family?” I wondered out loud. She shook her head.
“What about you? Ella tells me your family is,” she seemed to be struggling to find the right word, “unusual?”
I couldn’t hold back the laughter. I’m sure Ella had an entirely different word for my family. I tagged along with Ella and Jax to the Claymont summer fair the previous year and Ella had had the misfortune of meeting my crazy-ass, right-wing mother.
“That’s one word for them. Fanatical, eccentric, bigoted, domineering are probably more accurate.” My temper threatened to spill at just the thought of my ultra-conservative family. One look at Rebecca’s solemn gaze grounded me though. I sighed and rubbed a hand over my head which always throbbed in protest at the thought of my parents. “I was an only child and my folks are rather fanatical when it comes to religion. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with people having faith in something. What are one person’s beliefs might not be another’s, and that is fine with me, to each their own and all that hoo-haa. But my family takes their beliefs and interpretations of the Bible a step further than most. Fuck, they take it a hundred damned steps further. They forbid the most basic of human wants and desires: music, television, brand name fucking clothing. Their way of demonstrating their faith is extreme. As far as I’m concerned, they pushed too hard, you know?” I peeked up at Rebecca. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see in her face, but the gentle understanding in her eyes drained the fight out of me. Any anger that had built under the thoughts of my family disappeared. “I believe if you can’t simply have a pure, strong, yet simple faith, if you have to force it or bend it, then maybe you don’t have it in the first place. Inventing your own interpretation of the bible, or your own ideas of what God wants for us or doesn’t want, makes you fanatical. They pushed it on me, tried to force me to accept their manifestation of what they thought was right and wrong. Hell, they even handpicked a girl that they believed was worthy of marriage when I was fourteen for Christ’s sake.” I laughed bitterly.
“The girl you scared away by cutting the cheese?” My smile was now genuine. Rebecca had been listening the night of her attack as I rambled on about everything and nothing on the other side of her bathroom door.
“The one and only.” Our conversation came to a lull.
“So, I have no family and you have a crazy one,” Rebecca noted.
“You have Emily,” I reminded her. Her eyes became distant and anxious.
“I hope I do,” she murmured.
We finished the meal in companionable silence, and I quickly cleaned up, while Rebecca moved quietly around the apartment, taking in photos and mementos from the few vacations I had taken over the years. With the lights off, we set up in front of my large screen TV and put the first movie on. When we both started quoting lines, we laughed loudly at our mutual talent. I was comfortable with Rebecca at my side and even manned-up enough to pull her close, my arm resting comfortably over her shoulders. She smelled too damn good. She felt too damn good—a perfect warm fit next to me as she nuzzled into my body. I didn’t want to move, I could have lain here with her in my arms all night, but I was worried if she woke up in unfamiliar surroundings, and in the arms of a man, she might get terrified. Once I felt her breathing deepen and her body relax, I carefully moved her to my bed. Again a primal roar of satisfaction reared its macho head. Having Rebecca in my bed, in my home was nothing short of a sweet caress to my soul. I fought the need to climb into bed with her and took the couch, ignoring the throbbing want in my shorts. The thought of functioning without Rebecca in my life was impossible. She made me want more. A home, a family. Hell, kids! I liked kids. I’d looked after Annie’s boy, Eli, a few of times, and I liked goofing off with him. I liked taking him to the park and tossing the ball around. The thought of doing something like that with my own son or daughter made my head spin and heart hammer with furious longing. However much I liked kids, I never once thought I would be a father, my own childhood far too dismal to imagine me at the helm of my own family. Now I wanted it all. If ever a time came when Rebecca didn’t want me in her life, it would break my fucking heart, and that scared the shit out of me.
Chapter 13
Rebecca
My eyes fluttered open. My body heavy and lethargic as I took in my unfamiliar surroundings. It was dark, the shadows in the room were causing my heart to pound heavily. Charlie’s apartment, I remembered with a relieved sigh. I licked my lips, my mouth felt sandy and dry. I needed a drink like the desert needed rain. I started to get up and found that my body refused to cooperate, my limbs were frozen. Panic and uncertainty filled my veins as I tried to move again. It was then that I noticed the dark figure looming over me at the foot of the bed. All I could see of the figure were the whites of those dark, angry eyes. He had found me! Charlie! I tried to scream, but nothing more than a weak whimper escaped my lips. I felt the bed dip as the frightening figure knelt on the mattress.
“Hi, sweetheart, I told you we would finish this,” he purred. I tried to scream again, but no sound would come. What the hell had he done to me? Had I been drugged? Where was Charlie? My eyes darted around the room looking for him. “It’s just you and me, sweetheart.” His hand found my leg, his palm was rough on my skin.
“No,” I barely managed to breathe through my lips, but inside the frozen cocoon of my body, I was fighting with a fury unlike any other.
“Yes, sweetheart, it’s time to finish this.” He crept up my body and tears escaped the corners of my eyes, my breathing became rapid and out of control. His hands continued to explore my body, though they missed the tenderness of a lover—they were hard and aggressive, taking something I was not willing to give him.
“Noooooo!” I screamed, my voice finally returning. As my scream pierced the quiet night, I sat upright in bed, kicking with manic fury trying to back away from my attacker. Suddenly Charlie’s apartment was no longer in darkness, the large room was bright. I was alone in the bed and at the realization, my back slammed painfully against the headboard.
“Rebecca?” Charlie’s voice came from the doorway. His eyes looked wild and worried.
I searched for the intruder only to find he wasn’t here. A nightmare, another fucking nightmare! A sob broke from my chest as I launched myself from the bed and ran straight into Charlie’s arms. I hit him hard but he didn’t budge as I wrapped myself around him, trying desperately to find the safety only he seemed able to bring.
“Shhhh, settle down, baby, deep breaths,” Charlie murmured as he walked us back towards the bed. I shook my head furiously, I didn’t want to be there, not so soon after the nightmare.
“N...Not the b...b...bed,”
I stammered. He moved us to the living area instead and sat with my legs wrapped around his hips, my arms tight around his neck. I began taking big gulping breaths, trying to rein in the panic. Charlie held me tight until I finally began to settle, and even once I had calmed down, he still didn’t let me go.
“You scared me,” he quietly confessed, which caused another stupid tear to fall.
“I’m sorry.”
He shushed me and held me close. “This nightmare was different, wasn’t it?” I nodded. “How?”
It took a while before I was brave enough to recollect the vivid imagery of the nightmare. “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t fight. He was here, in the apartment, and I didn’t know where you were and I couldn’t speak so I couldn’t call out for you. He touched me and I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.”
Charlie was quiet for the longest time. My heart began to slow to a steady rhythm and Charlie eventually moved, lying back with me still wrapped around his body.
“Am I too heavy?” I whispered. Charlie’s chest rose and fell with a quiet chuckle.
“No, Betty Boop, you are no heavier than a very warm and pretty blanket. Are you comfortable?” I nodded. We laid like that for the longest time, me sprawled over Charlie, his fingers stroking my hair and down my back.
“I hate this,” I finally said, the fear replaced with anger. “I can’t get rid of that memory, it’s like I’m trapped and can’t move forward. I’m stuck with this stupid fear.” Charlie shifted to his side and just like that we were face to face. He pushed my hair away and tucked it behind my ear, as if he wanted nothing obstructing his view of my puffy eyes, red nose and blotchy skin.
“Then we replace that memory with a better memory.” His words seemed like a logical solution. I arched an eyebrow, skeptical. Did he really believe it would be so easy? “Someone took something from you, they took control from you and forced you to give a part of yourself that you weren’t offering. You need to take that control back.” I wasn’t sold on his idea, but I was definitely intrigued.
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