Lost in Her (6 page)

“Whoa, Charlie, getting ahead of yourself.” Who knew if he even wanted
in
her panties? After a quick shower and leg and underarm shave, she toweled off, glad she’d washed her hair the night before and didn’t have to mess with blow-drying it. Her natural curls never frizzed—something she often thanked her mother for passing on to her—and all her hair needed was a quick brushing.

Which body lotion? She uncapped both of the ones in her cab
i
net and sniffed the vanilla chai scented one. “Nice, but too sweet.”
She didn’t want to be sweet for Ryan, not on this particular night. She
brought the second bottle up to her nose and inhaled. Not
bad.
She read the label.
A day at the beach sunshine fresh
was in script across
the bottom. It did have a fresh, sunshiny smell.

Thirty minutes later, she stood in front of the mirror and assessed her sunshine-fresh-smelling self. Something was missing, but she couldn’t figure out what. Maybe she should use more makeup. All she’d put on was a little eye shadow, mascara, blush, and lipstick. No, even that was more than she usually wore. What about jewelry? Other than the delicate silver cross her mother had given her on her thirteenth birthday, she rarely wore anything else. Earrings! The blue-beaded ones in her jewelry box would be perfect with the blouse.

Just the right touch, she decided, eyeing the earrings dangling from her ears. Time to go meet Mr. Hot Guy, and she absolutely wouldn’t be disappointed when nothing came of it. The drive to Dockside only took fifteen minutes, and she pulled into the parking lot fifty-five minutes after agreeing to meet Ryan. She put her hand on the door handle, then stopped, grabbed her purse, and fished around for her lipstick. Sheesh, she was acting like a teenager on her first date. Even so, she applied another layer of color on her lips.

As she stepped around puddles left by an earlier rain, she noticed her toes, the nails clearly visible because of the white sandals she wore. Dang, she should have painted them. Not used to acting girly, it hadn’t occurred to her.

“Enough, Charlie,” she grumbled. She was what she was, and if he didn’t like that, to hell with him. Satisfied she’d gotten her head on straight, she entered Dockside. The foyer was crowded, and why hadn’t she thought of how popular the place was when she picked it? Not seeing Ryan among the people waiting for a table, she approached the hostess, thinking to add her name to the wait list.

“I have us a table, cherub.”

Charlie almost jumped out of her skin, then she about melted as Ryan’s warm breath wafted over the back of her neck. She turned and lifted her head, then lifted it some more. “Hi.”

Those beautifully strange eyes of his crinkled at the corners. “Hi back.”

He slipped his hand around hers and started walking. Unable to do anything else for more than one reason—like because he was big and strong, and because she suddenly wanted her hand in his—she meekly followed along. Which was damned strange. Charlie didn’t do meek for anyone. Oh, she once had, but that had changed the day she found the courage to get on a witness stand and send her stepfather to prison. But she wasn’t going there, not while her hand was engulfed by the hottest man she’d ever known.

“I got us a table on the deck. Thought you’d like that.”

Okay, give Hot Guy bonus points. How he’d gotten them a table at the railing, looking out over the gulf when so many people were waiting, she didn’t know. Apparently, he was a magic man. Their only two kisses had certainly been magic. Charlie wondered if she was so far out of her element that she’d somehow entered the stratosphere.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, sounding as if he really meant it.

“I tried not to call you,” she answered, then bit down on her bottom lip, sorry she’d admitted that much.

Green eyes with streaks of orange in the irises zeroed in on hers. He smiled at her oh so slowly. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I checked my messages probably a hundred times hoping to see one from you.”

Oh.
Oh, well then. Either he really had thought of her, or he was like one of those basket cobras that gently swayed to the soft tune of a flute, charmed the daylights out of you, then bit you. Warning bells went off in her head, and she decided she’d best keep her guard up. More than likely, Hot Guy was a player—definitely not what she wanted in a man, even short-term.

“Well, here I am,” she said, then stared out over the water so she wouldn’t drown in the eyes focused on her with an intensity she had never experienced from any man.

The reflection of the moon shimmered over the gulf, and out of nowhere she wished she were alone in her plane, just her up there in the night sky. Why hadn’t she thought of doing that before she’d dialed his number?

She didn’t belong anywhere near the man sitting across the table. He was too much. Too much man, too much for her to ever handle. What had she been thinking?

She stood. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake.” Without waiting for a response, she fled.

CHAPTER SIX

W
hat the hell? Ryan threw a twenty on the table, then followed his little cherub. “We have an emergency,” he said to their waitress as he passed her. With his long strides, it was easy to catch up with Charlie.

“Where we going?” he asked, matching his pace to hers. She stumbled, and he clasped her elbow.

“Stop sneaking up on me like that.” She pulled her elbow away, giving him a disgruntled glare. “
We’re
not going anywhere.”

“What did I do wrong, Charlene?” They reached her car and he blocked the driver’s door with his body. “I’m just asking. I don’t have experience at dating, you see.” He glanced away, hiding the pain he knew showed in his eyes. There had only ever been Kathleen for him, and he’d never learned how to play the game.

“Yeah, right.” She tried to push him away, sighing when he didn’t move.

“Yes, that
is
right.” He smiled at her expression of disbelief. Ryan knew he was considered good-looking, fit, and halfway intelligent. It did sound far-fetched, even to him, who knew it as the truth. “One thing you need to know about me, cherub. I’ll never lie to you, and that’s a promise.”

Her gaze roamed his body, from his face on down, then back up. “Look at you. How can you stand there and say you never dated? Were you a monk or something like that, then decided you didn’t like it?”

After the past year, he certainly felt like a monk. At what point when you met a woman you liked did you tell her you had been married? Just another thing he didn’t know. What he did know was that he didn’t want to have that kind of conversation standing in the middle of a parking lot.

“If you want to know why I haven’t dated, let’s go for a ride.” He stepped away from the door and eyed the car. “I’ve never ridden in a Vette. Come on, Charlie, take me for a spin up the beach road.”

“Are you a serial killer?”

Ryan sputtered a laugh. “I’m a lot of things, but that’s not one of them.” When she seemed undecided, he said, “I have no way to prove that, I guess, other than my word. But you don’t know me, so let’s do this. We’ll go inside and ask for the manager. I’ll give him my driver’s license to copy, and we’ll tell him that if you’re not back in an hour to call the cops.”

That seemed to satisfy her, and the tension lines around her eyes smoothed.

“Okay, you’re not a murderer. I didn’t think you were, anyway.” She smiled and dangled her keys. “Wanna drive?”

“Hell, yeah!”

She dropped the keys into his hand, a smirk on her face. “I’m not stupid, you know. If you’re driving, you can’t strangle me.” With that, she laughed and skirted around the back of the car.

Ryan grinned. His tiny cherub was going to be a handful. As she opened the passenger door, he leaned over the roof. “Can we put the top down?”

Her face lit up. “Hell, yeah.”

Once on the beach road, she turned on the radio, tuning it to an oldies station. When she turned up the volume to where it made talking impossible, Ryan relaxed. Maybe he wouldn’t have to talk about his marriage after all. Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” came on, and as he drove one of the coolest cars on the road with a woman he really liked sitting next to him, and the night wind blew across his face, Ryan felt something he hadn’t experienced since losing Kathleen. He’d all but forgotten how light in spirit happiness made one feel.

Charlie sang along with Marvin, and although she didn’t have a great voice, it wasn’t terrible either. Unable to resist showing off, he joined in. The surprised look she gave him made him laugh. His family members were singing fools, and blessed with a beautiful voice, Kathleen had fit right in. At family gatherings—whether cookouts, at Christmas time, or for no reason at all—he and his wife had been the stars of the show with their duets.

No, not gonna think about Kathleen, not when he was with Charlie. Taking a chance, he reached over and wrapped his hand around hers. Either she was too caught up in the song to notice, or it was okay with her to hold hands. He hoped it was the latter. As the high-performance Vette cruised up US 98 under the moonlight, Ryan couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be right then. Not even with Kathleen, and that was epic.

“Turn in there,” Charlie said, pointing to the access road leading to a state-owned picnic area. The place was empty except for two cars parked right in front of the pavilion. Two couples with five kids between them sat together at one of the tables, enjoying a dinner at the beach. Ryan parked the Vette away from them, at the far corner. He turned off the ignition and waited to see what Charlie wanted to do.

“Let’s walk on the beach.” Without waiting for his agreement, she slipped off her sandals, then opened her door. Halfway out, she glanced over her shoulder. “Coming?”

“Give me a sec,” he said as he struggled to remove his shoes and socks in the cramped space.

“You can catch up with me,” she tossed back, and off she went.

He watched her dance-hop over the rocky pavement, smiling as she skipped over the first sand dune the same way a child of six would. “I like her, Kathleen. A lot.”

Not expecting an answer from his wife, he rolled up his pants, then did his own hopping over the stones. As he passed the families at the picnic table, the smell of hamburgers caught his attention, and his stomach growled. Did dating include giving up one’s dinner when the date decided the restaurant
she
had picked didn’t suit her?

Apparently, yes.

Since he wouldn’t die from missing one meal, he dismissed that particular rule as insignificant. There was a cherub somewhere out there in the dark, and he intended to find her. He reached the top of the sand dune and paused to get his bearings. The moon was still low on the horizon, but bright enough to see Charlie standing at the edge of the water, looking up at the stars. He jogged down to the beach and came up beside her.

“You’re wishing you were up there, flying among the stars, aren’t you?”

She lifted her face toward his. “How did you know?” Then she grinned. “Stop sneaking up on me like that.”

It was too dark to see her eye color as she looked at him, but it made no difference. He had their blue gray memorized. “I watched you when you took me flying. You love it. You live for it.”

“Flying’s my life.” She returned her attention to the sky. “Sometimes when I’m in my plane at night, I just want to keep going up until I can touch one of those stars. I don’t care which one.” She turned in a full circle, and fascinated, he watched her. “Maybe that one,” she said, pointing at Sirius. “Sirius, the dog day of summer. I’ll touch him, I think.”

Ryan stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the sky. “This is just dream talk, right? You’re never going to point the nose of your plane up, knowing you’ll not come down in one piece?” Something ripped at him, thinking she would even consider such a thing. “Right?”

Her gaze returned to him. “Every time I fly, Ryan, I point the nose of my plane up, never one hundred percent sure how I’ll come down. No, I would never purposely do something like that. I’m just dreaming, that’s all. If I ever have to go out, though, I want it to be when I’m reaching for the stars.”

Jesus walked on water! Ryan was floored by this woman. “I was married,” he said, surprising them both if the expression on her face was any indication. He didn’t doubt his face showed surprise at what he’d just blurted. “I was married to the woman I had loved since the third grade.” He turned away from her and headed down the beach. How was it that he was heartbroken by the loss of his wife, yet felt like he was ready to step off a cliff for the woman scurrying to keep up with him?

“You said
were
. Are you still?”

He walked faster, yet he didn’t seem to be able to leave Kathleen behind. “She died.”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

If he hadn’t realized Charlie was two-stepping to keep up with him, he would have run. Away from her, away from Kathleen’s ghost, away from a baby that wasn’t his.

“She was pregnant,” he said, then wished to God he could take those words back. They weren’t meant for anyone’s ears but his. He started walking again. The woman must be stupid. Instead of turning her back on him, she grabbed his arm and tugged him to a stop.

“Ryan, God, I don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to lose your wife and your child.”

“The baby wasn’t mine,” the mouth he wished would shut up said.

“Holy shit.”

Not quite his exact words when he’d read the autopsy report, but close. Done with talking, he turned and walked down the beach. The water cooled his temper as the cold waves lapped at his feet. It wasn’t Charlie’s fault his wife had been pregnant with another man’s baby, and that fact slowly sank in. Letting out a deep breath, he stopped and waited for her to catch up.

“I sent my stepfather to prison,” she said, coming up beside him. “It tore my family apart, and now my stepsister hates me. My mom . . .”

Ryan turned to face her when she hesitated. “Go on.”

“My mom, she died believing I lied about seeing him molest my best friend. She refused to accept that Roger would do such a thing. My friend, she got a rope out of her father’s shed, went into her closet, and hung herself. She did that after I went to my guidance counselor and told her what he had done. Mrs. Bronson . . . my guidance counselor, she called the police. The same day my friend killed herself, she mailed me a letter. She wanted me to know that she hated me for telling what I’d seen, that she had never wanted anyone to know. Because of me, she said everyone would talk about her, that our other friends would think she asked for Roger to do what he did and would say she was a slut.”

Christ. Ryan took Charlie’s hand and led her up to dry sand, then sat, pulling her down beside him. “Why would they think that?”

“You know how kids are, but I think that it was more like how she saw herself in her own mind. She thought Roger was handsome and worldly, and she had this weird crush on him. Whenever she came over, if he was around, she would flirt with him. Sometimes she would joke about taking him away from my mother, but I never took the whole thing seriously. If I had, maybe I could have done something to stop what happened.”

There was regret and self-blame in her voice. “How old were the two of you?”

“Fifteen. I guess I didn’t think much of it. At the time, I had a major crush on my biology teacher. I thought he was the hottest thing ever, but it never occurred to me to do anything but stare at him with dreamy eyes. I thought it was the same with her.”

“Good God, Charlie, no fifteen-year-old is responsible for what a grown man does. He was the one who should have known better than to touch a young girl.”

She huffed a weary-sounding sigh. “I know that now, but back then, it felt like I was the one who put that rope around her neck. On top of that, I tore my family apart, and my mom died of a broken heart. She never forgave me for talking to the police.”

“You did the right thing, you know, even considering the consequences, ones you couldn’t have guessed at when you reported him. If he would molest one child, he would do it again. You get that, right?” She flopped back onto the sand, and he followed her down.

“I get it, but if I had known the consequences as you say, I would have kept my mouth shut. Then five months ago, my stepfather came up for parole and I went and spoke against his release. Now Ashley . . . that’s my stepsister . . . hates me more than ever. If not for me, her father would be out of prison.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” A falling star shot across the sky and he followed its progress until it disappeared from sight. The night hadn’t gone at all like he had envisioned when she had agreed to meet him for dinner.

“Because you shared a secret with me, and I’m guessing it’s one you’ve never told anyone. Because I wanted you to know that you’re not the only one whose heart hurts. But most of all, because I like you, and I don’t want you to feel so alone. Because I think you do. Feel alone, that is.”

Ryan kept his gaze on the night sky until he was sure he could speak without a catch in his throat. Why had he told her so much? All she had needed to know was that he had been married to his childhood sweetheart, just enough to explain why he didn’t have dating experience. Her response made him feel as if she could see into his soul, a place he no longer invited anyone.

When he was sure he had control of his emotions, he lifted onto an elbow and stared down at the woman who seemed to see too much. “That’s a lot of becauses, cherub.”

He lowered his head until their mouths met, then paused, giving her time to push him away. Her hand snaked around his neck and he took that as permission. Like their previous two kisses, this one knocked his socks off. Or maybe it was because Charlie was only the second woman he’d ever kissed, and it was the novelty of it. He didn’t think so, though. He thought it more likely that it had everything to do with the girl who didn’t want him to feel alone.

Charlie tightened her hold on Ryan’s neck, letting him know she wanted this, wanted his mouth on hers. His tongue slid across the seam of her lips, and she opened her mouth, welcoming him in. He groaned and covered the right side of her body with his. Warmth seeped into her at all the parts he touched.