A Charm Like You

by Sharla Lovelace

  “He was kissing me!” I yelled, my voice scratchy and shaking now that the shivering was setting in. “Why didn’t you try to kill him?” I pointed a hand up to where Bart knelt at the railing, holding out a hand like that would help anything. “I didn’t see him jumping in.”

  “Somebody go get the damn ladder!” Thatcher snapped. “She’s pregnant, get her dumb ass out of this water.”

  When Dixie tried to swim around to the back of the boat and pulled my leg with her, Thatcher let go of me to grab something. Moving his hands down my leg to where my foot was knotted into her train, he flipped a knife open and sliced the material, separating us.

  It was the hottest thing anyone had ever done for me.

  “What—what did you do?” Dixie cried. “My dress!”

  I went under for a second as I untied the loosened material from my ankle while treading water, coming back up with it in hand.

  “Get your ass to that ladder,” I seethed, blowing water out of my nose. “Don’t make me strangle you with this.”

  Dixie huffed and made her way to where Bart was putting the ladder down, slapping at his hand when he reached for her.

  “I didn’t see you jumping in,” she spat, echoing my words.

  “I didn’t throw anybody off a boat, either,” he growled back.

  “Should be fun at their house, tonight,” Thatcher said, helping to boost me to the ladder after Katrina hauled her up, the high-heeled cowboy boots Dixie had on making it hard for her to climb.

  All my people methodically moved her out of the way to get to me, and that made me happy.

  “Too many near-death experiences today,” Micah said, pulling me up and hugging me in spite of my sogginess.

  “How is Lanie?” I asked.

  “She and Nick and the baby are curled up in a pullout bed, and if people quit jumping overboard, we can get to the park,” Micah said, peeling off my hoodie jacket and wrapping a blanket around me.

  “Give me the blanket,” Thatcher said, declining his leather jacket as Leo handed it to him. He peeled off his shirt, and I had to look away before his sister saw my tongue fall out. “Give Gabi my jacket, it’s warmer.”

  He met my eyes, and I knew it was pointless to argue. Plus…his jacket. It was a thing. Good God, help me, it had become a thing. I put it on, and tried to keep my expression neutral, but it was difficult. The leather was soft and buttery and worn. The inside smelled like Thatcher. I could have curled up in the fetal position right there on the floor and fallen asleep.

  “That was quite the little show out there,” Micah said, giving us each an amused look. “Diving in to save the damsel? Wrapping yourself around the hero? It was like an old romantic movie. Something y’all aren’t copping to?”

  It was the perfect time. Our opportunity to come clean.

  Take a leap, Gabi. Take one for me.

  Mr. Bailey’s words squeezed at my chest, and all I could do in response was chuckle and shake my head. I shook my effing head. I was no less of an idiot than Dixie was. As I met Thatcher’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, I saw that same thought. Right before the wall came back up.

  What the fuck did I just do?

  Dread washed over me, chilling any warmth his jacket could bring. Everyone went about something as we moved underway. Micah busied herself with wet clothing. Most of the others went to check on Lanie and the baby, now that I wasn’t drowning. Thatcher moved to a window and watched the water, looking like he would walk on it if it would get him there faster and away from this. From me. From any of it. Back to Cherrydale, before joint ventures and divorce groups and friends of sisters could complicate his life.

  We got to the park, us staying to ourselves and glaring at anyone who looked like they agreed with Dixie. The bridesmaids in their Daisy Duke shorts and boots had left to comfort Dixie after all the craziness was over. Even Mr.—Dr. Dartwell stayed with us, monitoring Lanie for the short ride over after he deemed my head solid and apologized quietly for his daughter’s lack of good judgment. I had the feeling that he had more in mind on that topic than just her lapse of sanity earlier, but that wasn’t my business.

  To all of their credit, the entire wedding party and guest grouping just looked solemn, and I was good with that. If anyone was going to have the nerve to say anything out loud, or get mouthy about delays or postponements, I still had a soggy piece of jewel-encrusted wedding dress train nearby and I was ready to use it.

  The second we dropped anchor at the Lucky Charm, Thatcher went to help Nick get Lanie and the baby out and to a waiting ambulance that Dixie’s dad must have summoned. I grabbed her bag and my hoodie and followed them all, my feet squishing in my sneakers. When Thatcher said his goodbye and Nick grabbed both him and Bash around the neck for a rough hug, my heart tugged. And then jumped, when he walked off to his car.

  I tossed Lanie’s bag to Nick and took off at a jog after Thatcher.

  “Wait,” I called, shrugging out of his leather jacket.

  “I need to go, Gabi,” he said, not pausing in his stride.

  “Thatcher.”

  “Take your jacket,” I insisted, handing it to him.

  He stopped and turned so suddenly, I had to stop short, myself. Looking down at the garment in my hand, his eyes moved slowly back to me.

  “You did good today,” I said, wanting to stomp on my own foot. You did good today? “I mean—my God, you saved two lives today, Thatcher. You’re meant for that.”

  “That was your big take-away?” he said. “What kind of job I should do?”

  No.

  No.

  Damn it.

  “I—I’m just saying—”

  “You’re saying nothing,” he said. “As usual.”

  “I can’t,” I said through my teeth, anger flashing at hearing the same tired argument. “We can’t.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “We can do whatever we want.”

  My words echoed back at me.

  “Cute.”

  “I’m just saying,” he continued.

  My eyes narrowed. “You’re infuriating.”

  He gripped the jacket still in my hands and used it to pull me to him. In under a second, I was chest to chest with his hands holding my face.

  “I know the feeling,” he said, the breath from his words brushing across my lips before his mouth touched mine.

  It was like tumbling over the rail again. I felt every nuance of the fall in slow motion, my body melting against him before I could form a coherent thought. It was soft, sensuous, simple. Just a pressing of lips that didn’t let go. That said a million or more things without one word or look. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want it to end. Then a car door closed somewhere in the distance behind me. Probably Nick’s. Or Bash’s.

  I breathed in quickly and pushed away, but he held fast.

  “Thatcher, we’re—”

  “I don’t care,” he said under his breath.

  “Everyone can see us.”

  “I don’t care,” he repeated slowly, running his thumb under my lower lip.

  I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to feel the heat of a thousand eyes burning through my back, imagined or not, but I did. All I could picture was Micah’s face, and her saying, “Something y’all aren’t copping to?”

  It wasn’t those eyes, however, that hit me square in the chest. It was Thatcher’s as he read my thoughts all over my face and backed up. He leaned down to pick up the jacket we’d both dropped, backed away a few more steps, and then turned and walked to his car. I watched him, unmoving, the sound of my breathing and my pounding heart in my ears. I watched him drive away.

  I watched him drive away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  He was literally my ride. And Carmen and Sully’s. And Micah and Leo’s. Luckily and unfortunately, I now lived a whole three block
s up the street, and could walk it. And Allie and Bash had a vehicle they could bum a ride from. And, I already knew that someone was driving Nick and Lanie’s car to the hospital.

  The ambulance had left. I didn’t have to turn around. They were all good. Lanie was good. The paramedics had confirmed that she was now stable, she was feeling fine, and the hospital would take care of all the post-birth details and check her out for clotting or blood pressure issues. Baby Bailey looked good, had good color and all those things they look for in newborns.

  I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t look to see if anyone had witnessed that kiss. A kiss that had been probably the most chaste he and I had ever done and yet rocked me to my friggin’ core. It was real. I closed my eyes and felt it again, drawing a shaky breath.

  It was so real.

  How had that happened? How did I let that happen? And more importantly, how had I let him just leave?

  You’re so terrified of being comfortable, of enjoying something real, that you’re sabotaging your own life.

  He was right. I’d done it over and over. In his office, at the restaurant, at the meeting, on the boat, and now here. Time after time, I’d pushed it away, refusing to believe in something that could hit and take root so quickly. Being so afraid to deserve something amazing that I couldn’t even recognize it.

  My shoes squished on the pavement as my feet started moving. I felt the pattern speeding up, until I was jogging through the parking lot toward Main. I heard Micah call my name, but that was a direction I couldn’t go yet. I couldn’t redeem my mistake until I knew what the fix was. If it wasn’t too late.

  The irony of that thought wasn’t lost on me.

  Breathing hard, I pushed open the shop door, and ran upstairs for my keys and wallet, tossing the wet hoodie on the floor and grabbing a sweatshirt to pull on over my tank top. Everything else stayed. I didn’t have time to think that out, to change, to be a girl. To maybe brush the funky pond crap out of my hair or wash my face. Put on shoes that wouldn’t give me jungle rot. I had to leave. I had to go now.

  “Gabi?” Mom called as I ran back downstairs.

  “Gotta run,” I said. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Everything okay?” Drew asked, looking up from an order.

  I paused just long enough to meet her eyes.

  “Hopefully,” I said, huffing. “Oh, by the way—Lanie had her baby—stopped breathing—okay now and at the hospital.” I sucked in a breath and held my side where it was starting to hurt.

  “What?” Mom said, starting to come around the counter.

  I held up a hand. “Everyone’s okay. Call Micah—she’s there.”

  “Why are you all wet?” Drew asked.

  “Dixie threw me overboard,” I said. “Bart—”

  “Overboard of what?” Mom said. “What the hell have you been doing?”

  “Oh—” I started laughing hysterically, which didn’t help the gulping of air. “By the way, I’m rich now. Remind me to—fill you in on that one. Gotta go, love y’all.”

  The doorbell rang overhead as I slid out the door as fast as I’d come in. I’d pay hell for that exit, but it couldn’t be helped. I was on a mission. My phone was sitting right there in the console where I’d left it when I came home from Drew’s, with the texts from Micah, from Carmen. Nothing from Thatcher.

  I scrolled through my recent contacts to find what I was looking for. When I did, I hit the button and put it on speaker, tossing the phone into the passenger seat. I pulled out onto Main and listened to it ring.

  “Hello?” said a male voice.

  “Jackson?” I said. “It’s Gabi Graham. This is going to sound odd, but I need your brother’s address.”

  * * * *

  I didn’t take him seriously when Jackson said GPS would fail me. I was too nervous, too focused on breathing, on not passing out from hyperventilation. I put in the information, 92 Red Oak, Cherrydale, and let the other advice—about ignoring the right turn it would tell me to do at the red light, and turning left when it gave up and started rerouting on long loop because the backass twisty road they grew up on had its own little world—go right out the window.

  Thankfully, Jackson at least had the grace to not ask me why I wasn’t just hitting Micah up for the info, even though I was pretty sure he was clear on that answer.

  “Jesus, this town is smaller than Charmed, how hard can one road be?” I muttered, circling back past the same red big-mouthed bass mailbox on the corner for the third time.

  Rerouting…

  I took the only choice I hadn’t taken yet, and that was what looked like a narrow driveway that disappeared around some trees. Why the hell not? If it led to a house, I’d get out and ask where the living hell Red Oak was. It didn’t turn out to be a driveway, however, it led to more small streets branching off and fewer houses on them. The sign on the last one made my stomach jump up into my throat.

  Red Oak.

  “This is a bad idea,” I whispered. “I mean, what are you hoping to prove? That you suck at stalking?”

  I hovered at the turn, willing my car to turn around without me doing it. No. I couldn’t be that person. That coward who stayed terrified of moving forward, of embracing something real. Even if he wasn’t still willing to take the chance.

  Take a leap. Take a chance. Take one for me.

  Tears filled my eyes as Mr. Bailey’s voice filled my head.

  “Shit,” I whispered, swiping under them. I pulled down the visor mirror and recoiled in horror, slamming it back up. “Yeah, that ship has sailed.” I shut my eyes. “What am I doing?”

  The memory of his kiss. Of him holding me on the floor of my house. Of all the “almost” moments of the past two weeks.

  Two weeks. This was crazy.

  “Big girl panties, Gabi,” I said under my breath, as I turned onto Red Oak.

  More twists and turns awaited as I chanted that, adding a tune to it as I started passing houses, spread out so far that they probably never saw each other. And only a few had numbers. Awesome. I glared at my phone’s GPS, but it had long since given up the fight. I crept along a hard curve, and took a deep breath. Jackson had said it was on the left, and that there were trees. Well…there were trees friggin’ ev—

  I hit my brakes and nearly swallowed my tongue.

  Standing—no, leaning—against a mailbox, like one of those cowboy silhouettes, arms crossed over his chest and gazing toward the ground, was Thatcher Roman.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I whispered, as my heart did some Olympic-worthy somersaults.

  Breathing in fast and lowering my window, I pulled into the driveway alongside him, praying I wouldn’t say something ridiculous.

  “Expecting mail?” I asked.

  Yeah. That’s what I said.

  Those hazel eyes lifted from the ground as if pulling rocks from it.

  “Expecting you.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. Any and all comebacks flew off with the dust.

  “Why?” I finally managed.

  Thatcher turned and started up the gravel driveway, hands in his pockets. Seriously?

  “Jackson called,” he said.

  I mentally banged my head on the steering wheel. Thanks, Jackson.

  “He said I needed to come wait out here because you’d never find the place if I didn’t,” he said.

  The nerve. To think I had been anxious and thinking all warm and gooey thoughts. Screw that. I could go back to Charmed and hit up the bakery for warm and gooey, with a hell of a lot less stress.

  Except that I’d come out here to make a point to myself, and to clear the air with him, and by God, I was going to do it. I slammed my car into park and pocketed my keys, following him at a faster pace, my feet still squishing. As I got closer, he turned around, a confused look on his face.

  He was staring at my feet.
>
  “You’re still wearing your wet shoes?” he asked. “Your—your pants? Why?”

  “I didn’t have time to change.”

  An eyebrow shot up. “Something pressing?”

  I stopped a few feet away and folded my arms over my chest. “Maybe.”

  “You need to get out of those wet clothes—” He stopped and closed his eyes. “You know what, I’m not going there. Do whatever you want to do.”

  He turned to walk up the steps to his porch, and I heard those words again, strong and loud. Take a leap, Gabi.

  “I am doing what I want to do,” I said, letting my arms go but then folding them back again as he turned back to face me. Protecting my core. Protecting my heart. “I came here. I want to be here.”

  “Of course you do,” he said. “We’re alone. There’s no one to hide from.”

  “And why is it so damned important that people see us?” I blurted. “That they know about us?”

  Thatcher took a step toward me. “What is it they’d know?” he asked. “That we kissed in a parking lot? Or that we’ve messed around a little? Or would it go all the way back to the very first night at group when you knocked me on my ass and made me spend a week thinking about a woman I didn’t even know the name of. That I prayed to God I’d get to see again, and hoped on the other hand that I wouldn’t, because no one’s affected me like that in a hell of a long time.”

  I had to force my mouth to form words.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He nodded slightly. “Yes, I did. Your turn.”

  “What?” I said, taken aback. “My—”

  “Turn,” he finished. “Yes. Why did you come here?”

  “You’re awfully damn demanding, you know that?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just standing in my front yard,” he said. “You’re the one who called my brother to find out where to find me. Not Micah, of course, because she’s evidently the evil queen that will curse us all.”

  Heat, and not the good kind, rushed up through the top of my head, threatening to take my head with it.