by Marie Force
“That is worrisome,” Sarah said. “I think we just need to have faith that once the trial is over, the Owen we know and love will be back with us.”
“I hope you’re right,” Laura said. “More tea, please.”
Smiling, Sarah handed her the mug.
“Now let’s talk about this amazing night you had with Charlie.”
Once again, Sarah blushed furiously. “Girls my age don’t share the dirty details.”
“So the details are dirty?” Laura asked with a coy grin.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Sarah said primly.
“Oh come on! You know you want to.”
Sarah laughed and the sound filled Laura’s heart to overflowing with love for the woman who’d come to mean so much to her. “I really do want to.”
“Spill it, sister.”
Returning to the hotel after his visit with Evan, Owen carried the sleeping Holden and followed the sound of laughter into the sitting room to find his mother and Laura gabbing on the sofa. He immediately noticed Laura’s pallor and the cup of tea she held in her hand. She’d been sick again.
“What’s going on around here?” Owen asked them. Was it his imagination or did his mother look mortified to see him standing there?
“You didn’t hear any of that, did you?” she asked.
“Any of what?”
The question set off another wave of laughter between the two women, giving him a warm feeling of homecoming that had been so rare in his life before the last year. While this hotel had been the only true home he’d ever had during a childhood marked by frequent moves and the strife of his violent family life, it was even more so now that he and Laura were living here together. Having his mother with them only made it that much better.
“Why do I feel like I’m missing the punch line to a joke—or maybe I am the joke?”
His question set them off again. Seeing them both laughing so hard was good for what ailed him, and he couldn’t help but smile at their glee.
“Trust me when I tell you,” Laura said, wiping tears from her eyes, “you do not want to know what we were talking about.”
Eyeing them with trepidation, Owen said, “I take it you had a good night with Charlie, Mom?”
Sarah gasped and looked to Laura for help. “Make him stop. I’m not talking about that with him.”
“I don’t want any details, and I mean that with every fiber of my being. I was simply asking if you had a nice time.”
“Um, yes,” Sarah said. “Yes, I did.”
Her demure reply made Laura snort inelegantly.
Sarah slipped a hand over Laura’s mouth. “Stop it. This instant.”
“Can’t,” Laura said feebly.
“I’m going back to work,” Sarah said. “Try to behave yourself.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“See you two later.” Sarah scurried out of the room, and Owen moved to take her place next to Laura on the sofa.
“What was that all about?”
“You’ll never get it out of me. Girl talk.”
“She’s okay, though? You’d tell me if she wasn’t, right?”
Laura took his hand and leaned in to press a kiss to the chubby cheek of her sleeping son. “Owen, honey, she is far more than okay. She is divine.”
“Eww. Gross.”
“Not gross at all. Very, very lovely. She’s extremely happy this morning.”
“Although I’ll beg of you not to share any details, I’m glad to hear that.”
Laura dissolved into giggles that made him smile at her delight despite the dark mood he’d been in for days now.
“Has it been a rough morning around here?”
“Rougher than usual.”
“I shouldn’t have left.”
“I was fine, and you can’t be with me all the time.”
“I’d like to be.”
“I know. Did you have any luck talking Evan out of coming with us?”
Stunned by the question, he stared at her. “How’d you know that was where I was going?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve got you figured out, Lawry.”
“You’re kind of scaring me right now.”
“So, what did he say?”
“He’s almost as bullheaded as you are,” Owen said with a sigh.
“Sucks having all these people around who love you, doesn’t it?”
He reached for her hand and linked their fingers. “It doesn’t suck nearly as bad as being all alone did. That was worse.”
Laura rested her head on his shoulder. “So Evan is coming with us?”
“Yeah, he’s coming.”
“Good. Are we going to Dan and Kara’s engagement party later? The party is at two. Appetizers and drinks.”
“I suppose we can go for a little while if you want to.”
“You sure you feel up to it?”
“Anything is better than trying to find a way to think about something else.”
She turned toward him, putting an arm around him and Holden. “I can’t wait for this to be over,” she said.
“I can’t either.”
For the first time in longer than she could remember, Stephanie woke up feeling unburdened. She’d spent years frantically trying to free Charlie from prison, and then after that had finally happened, she’d trapped herself in a cage of her own making.
It had been foolish, she now knew, to worry that Grant wouldn’t understand her fears or want to help her manage them the way he had for as long as she’d known him. Even after all this time with him, she’d still been waiting for the bottom to fall out the way it had so many times before. After last night, though, she’d finally begun to believe it wasn’t going to happen this time.
Grant wasn’t going anywhere. He’d convinced her of that as he once again showed her how very much he truly loved her. With the memories of their incredible night together fresh in her mind, she was eager to share their good news with the person she loved second best.
Despite her assurances, she could tell that Grant was still concerned about her. She’d insisted he go share their news with his father, even though he’d offered to stay home with her. She was determined to move forward with their plans and try to enjoy her life in a way she’d never been able to before. After a shower, she got dressed in a tank and shorts and headed out.
The bright sunny day that greeted her made her grateful to live in such a beautiful place. After she decided to stay permanently on Gansett, she’d worried about being bored. However, she’d been anything but bored. With Grant’s big family nearby and their wide circle of friends, there was always something going on, even in the winter when the tourists had gone home.
She’d loved her first full winter on the island, during which she’d kept the restaurant open only on the weekends and had spent the rest of the time hunkered down with Grant while he worked on the screenplay about her efforts to get Charlie freed from jail. For months, she’d cautiously avoided his frequent attempts to pin her down on a wedding date by changing the subject or evading the questions. He’d never pushed her, but she could tell that her refusal to discuss it had hurt him on more than one occasion.
It was such a relief to know she no longer had to dodge the issue. They’d talked through all of her fears and set a date. She was going to marry Grant in a few short weeks. The thought set off a wave of giddy laughter as she pulled into her stepfather’s driveway, where he was cutting the grass. As he was wearing only a pair of shorts, his impressive physique was on full display. He had muscles on top of muscles, which came from the time he’d spent in prison with nothing to do but work out for several hours a day.
Seeing her there, he turned off the mower and used a bandanna to wipe the sweat from his face. He bent to pick up the T-shirt he’d tossed on the grass and put it back on. “Hey there. What brings you out so early?”
“I wanted to see my dad. Is that allowed?”
“Always. I could use a cold one. Join me?”
“Lead the way.” She followed him into the small house he rented from Ned Saunders. He’d intended the rental to be temporary until he figured out a plan for life after prison. Like so many others who’d come to Gansett, that life had found him, and she was thrilled to have him close by. The first thing she noticed inside the house was the vase of artfully arranged flowers on his kitchen table. “Nice flowers.”
“Oh, thanks. Sarah picked them from the garden.”
“How is Sarah?”
“Good, as you know. You saw her yesterday.”
Stephanie smiled at him as she accepted the glass of lemonade he’d poured for her.
“I’m actually glad you came by,” he said. “I was going to call you today to tell you I’ll be off the island for the next week or so.”
“Where’re you going?”
“To Virginia with Sarah and Owen. Her ex-husband is going on trial for beating her up last fall.”
“What?” Stephanie asked with a gasp as she sat down hard on a chair at the table.
Charlie brought his drink to the table to join her.
Her mind whirled as she tried to absorb that the woman she’d come to know so well through her dad and working close to her at the hotel had been abused. “Did you know?”
“Not until the other day. I suspected, though. She’s always so timid and skittish. I hated to think that was the reason.”
“I had no idea.”
“It’s not something she or Owen speak freely about. I guess it was pretty bad when he and his siblings were growing up.”
“God, poor Owen—and Sarah. He seems like such a happy, laid-back kind of guy. I never would’ve guessed. And I never heard a word about Sarah either.”
“They’ve been private about it, for obvious reasons, and they’re doing well now. We just have to get them through this next week or so, and then they can get on with their lives.”
“I’m glad you’re going with her.”
“So am I. I’m glad she told me about it and is letting me be there for her.”
“So things are good with you guys?”
“You could say that. She stayed here last night.”
Stephanie’s mouth fell open before she quickly closed it. “Really? Do tell.”
“That’s all you’re getting.”
“Oh come on!”
“End it,” he said with a playful scowl. “What brings you over here, and don’t tell me you missed me. You just saw me.”
“Don’t be so saucy,” Stephanie said, amused by his gruffness. “I came to share some good news with you. Grant and I have set a wedding date. Labor Day.”
“This year?”
“Yep.”
“Good for you, honey. I’m happy for you. I was wondering when he was going to get around to making a real commitment to you.”
“He wasn’t the holdup. I was. He’s been wanting to set a date for almost as long as we’ve been engaged.” She slid a finger up and down the side of the glass, moving the condensation around. “I’ve wasted a lot of that time worrying that I might turn out to be more like my mother—”
“Whoa! Wait, what did you just say?”
“That I might turn out to be like her, which had me worried about having kids of my own.”
“You are nothing like her. Nothing. If I hadn’t seen pictures of her holding you as a newborn, I’d never have believed you were really hers—and I thought that from the time I first met you two. She was always a bit of a mess, and you… Even as a little kid, you were so incredibly smart and capable. There’s no comparison, Steph. None.”
Stunned by the emphatic, impassioned speech that was wildly out of character for her quiet stepfather, Stephanie slumped in her chair. “I let the fear get the better of me, and it feels sort of silly now that I finally aired it all out with Grant last night.”
“He was good to you, I hope?”
“Yeah,” Stephanie said softly. “He’s always good to me. It’s been hard, though, you know… To give him everything.”
“You were holding something back, protecting yourself in case it fell apart, right?”
She could hardly be surprised that he understood so well after what he’d endured at the hands of her mother. “Yes.”
“Classic defense mechanism. I know it well.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Look, we’re both conditioned to expect it all to go to shit because that’s what’s always happened in the past. I’m choosing to believe that’s not going to happen this time with Sarah. You should do the same with Grant. Despite the absolutely amazing thing he did to help me, I’ll admit I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on him for you when I first met him. He seemed kind of… I don’t know… Fancy, I guess. I wondered if a guy like him could be happy with the simple life you need.”
“You never told me any of this.”
“You were ass over teakettle for the guy. Would it have mattered?”
“Yes! It would’ve mattered! You have no idea, do you?”
Charlie’s brows knitted with confusion. “About what?”
“The whole time you were locked up, your voice was in my head. You were always my compass, even when I couldn’t see you any time I wanted to. It would’ve mattered to me that you didn’t think he was right for me.”
“I never said he wasn’t right for you. I said I wasn’t sure at the beginning, but I trusted you to know your own heart, and over time I’ve come to see he’s perfect for you in all the ways that matter most. The two of you… You complement each other.” Charlie took her hand. “He comes from good people. That matters, too.”
“They’re very good people. I love them almost as much as I love him.”
“You need to allow yourself to be happy, honey.”
“I’m learning how to do that.”
“Won’t happen overnight, but we both deserve it, wouldn’t you say?”
“Absolutely.” Feeling suddenly shy, she glanced at him. “You’ll give me away on Labor Day, won’t you?”
“I’d be so very honored. Come here and give your old man a hug.”
She went to him and let him wrap his strong arms around her, surrounding her with the unconditional love he’d given her long before he’d made the huge mistake of marrying her mother. “Love you, Charlie bear,” she whispered, using her childhood nickname for him. She was so damned grateful to be able to hug him any time she wanted or needed to.
“Love you, too, Stephie Lou.”
Chapter 15
Charlie walked Stephanie out to her car and gave her another hug before he sent her on her way with a wave. He was so damned proud of her. She’d been a bright, happy, joyful kid growing up in the midst of a nightmare with an abusive, neglectful, drug-addicted mother. After her mother had accused him of kidnapping and abusing her, they’d walked together through the fires of hell and made it to the other side, somehow still whole and healthy despite their ordeal.
He hadn’t thought about Renee in a long time. In fact, he went out of his way to never think about the day he’d walked in on her beating the hell out of the girl he’d come to love as a daughter. He’d done what anyone would do in that situation—he’d gotten Stephanie out of there and had paid for that decision with fourteen years of his life behind bars. Seeing her now, grown up, beautiful, glowing with happiness and in love with a great guy, Charlie knew he’d do it all over again if he had to. She was worth every minute he’d spent locked up.
As he was about to resume his yard work, another car pulled into the driveway, this one a low-slung black Porsche that made Charlie want to drool with envy every time he laid eyes on it. He’d always appreciated cars, and Dan Torrington’s car was one of his favorites. It suited the LA lawyer to a T.
Charlie had learned the hard way to be wary and cautious around lawyers, who were often out to protect their own interests over those of their clients. Dan was a notable exception. Charlie owed him everything. With one phone call from the notoriously successful attorney, Charlie had s
uddenly been granted the hearing he’d been denied for years, at which Dan had successfully argued for his release.
“Hey, Charlie,” Dan said when he unfolded himself from the car. He’d once told Charlie the car had originally belonged to his brother Dylan, who’d been killed in Afghanistan. Charlie had seen the depths of Dan’s grief and the pain of his loss that day when he talked about his only brother.
Charlie shook the hand he offered. “Counselor. What brings you out this way?”
“A rather intriguing phone call from a friend of mine in the state attorney general’s office.”
“On a Sunday? You all never take a day off, huh?”
Dan was another one Charlie had found to be a bit fancy, until he got to know him better and came to appreciate the man beneath the urbane veneer. “We’re both off today, but he wanted to give me a heads-up that the state is preparing to offer a settlement in your unlawful imprisonment claim.”
Charlie had resisted filing that claim until Dan, Stephanie and even Grant had compelled him to consider it. After all, the original proceedings had completely disregarded the testimony of the girl he’d supposedly abused, who’d pleaded with someone, anyone, to hear her assertions that he’d actually saved her, that her mother had been the abuser, not her stepfather.
Renee had died a short time after he was charged without ever admitting she’d lied about what happened that day in their home. She’d condemned him to hell without an ounce of remorse, as if she’d never professed to love him when she was clean and sober.
“What kind of offer?” Charlie asked hesitantly. He’d told himself over and over that it didn’t matter if anyone ever paid for what he’d been forced to endure. He had his freedom and his daughter was back in his everyday life. What else mattered?
“This is strictly off the record because it’s not an official offer yet, but he heard they’re going to come back with half a million for every year you spent in jail.”
