Marrying the Wrong Man (16 page)

Charlie balked. No way. Morgan wouldn’t have been drinking and driving. She’d never been big on booze. And even if what Pamela said had driven her to drink, she couldn’t have been drunk off one beer. But still … Maybe the comment about losing Charlotte was because of the beer.

No matter how much she did or didn’t drink, it did look pretty bad. Some people would jump at the chance to persecute her for this.

He scooped up the six-pack and grabbed the stray can off the ground. Then, he tossed them onto the front seat of his truck. It was better if the police and tow truck driver didn’t find them among the wreckage.

People were already jumping to too many conclusions where Morgan was concerned.

She stood with her back to him in the field beyond the car. Every once in a while she lifted her free hand toward her face, but then yanked it back down again.

He smiled. She was listening to him.

The biggest, fattest sense of peace and right washed him from head to toe. She was alive, and he was so fucking grateful.

He wanted her to know.

• • •

Morgan answered Officer Daly’s questions despite the splitting headache and ringing in her ears. The paramedics had told her to go to the ER in Rileyville if things got worse. She just wanted to go to Aunt Phyllis’s house, cuddle up with Charlotte, and forget this day ever happened.

“How fast were you going?” Office Daly asked.

“I don’t remember.” Which was a lie. She’d been going too fast, but she wasn’t going to say that.

He scribbled something on his pad.

Charlie wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Can we hurry this up? She needs to rest.”

Morgan relaxed against him, careful of her sore shoulder and the bruising on her face. She couldn’t believe he was here, but she was so thankful he was.

“Of course.” Officer Daley said. “Let me just have a few words with Jay before he tows the vehicle, and you can be on your way.”

Alone again, Morgan rolled into Charlie, and he surrounded her with both arms. When she closed her eyes, images of the deer and then the tree, flashed in her head. She tensed.

He kissed the top of her head and smoothed his hands over her back. “It’s almost over, and then I’ll get you home to Charlotte.”

She would’ve cried in relief if she wasn’t so worried the tears would burn her wounds.

“Cramer, is this your truck?”

When Morgan looked up, Officer Daly was looking into the cab of Charlie’s truck.

Charlie inhaled, and she rose up on his chest. “It is.”

“You know it’s against the law to have an open container in your vehicle?”

Morgan’s heart stopped. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Charlie about what Alice said the other night. Was he really drinking again? “Charlie?”

He lifted a palm to halt her words. “It’s not what you think.” And then he called, “I wasn’t drinking it” to the officer.

“Doesn’t matter. That’s an open container inside your vehicle. I’m going to have to cite you.”

Charlie’s growl rumbled through Morgan. “Fine, then cite me. Just let us get the hell out of here.”

“I’ll have to confiscate the alcohol.”

“I don’t care.” Charlie tipped Morgan’s chin and lowered his face. “I promise you I was not drinking.”

No matter what Alice said or saw, Morgan believed him.

Officer Daly walked toward them with a ticket in hand and a six-pack tucked beneath his arm. She recognized the beer immediately. That was hers, left over from the picnic with Mark. She’d told him she’d take it, so Margaret wouldn’t smell it or see it.

Her jaw dropped. Charlie must’ve thought
she’d
been drinking. He was trying to protect her.

Absolutely not! She wouldn’t let him take the fall for her. “That’s my beer. That’s not his. I wasn’t drinking it while I was driving, though. It’s from a picnic weeks ago. I forgot it was in there.”

Officer Daly furrowed his brow. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I found the open container in Charlie’s truck. The citation goes to him.”

He reached toward Officer Daly for the ticket, but he looked at her. “Don’t worry about it. I’m a big boy. I can handle the consequences of my actions.”

She wanted to scream, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“Don’t let this become a habit again, Charlie. Get some help.” Officer Daly tipped his hat at Morgan. “I’ll be in touch, Miss Parrish. Take it easy.”

After that it was just Jay, hauling away the wreckage.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I thought I was protecting you. I didn’t think it would come back to bite me like that.” Charlie helped her into his truck, and then he climbed behind the wheel.

“People are going to think you’re drinking again.”

“If word gets out, probably. But do you think I’m drinking again?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then that’s what matters. I’ll handle whatever comes of it.” He reached for her hand. “Now, let’s get you home to Charlotte.”

Warmth from her palm climbed her arm and fanned across her body until she dropped her head to the seat and closed her eyes. He made everything better for her, while she made everything worse for him. Word would surely get around about the open container violation, and Alice wasn’t going to be the only one who would rightfully blame her.

Rolling her head against the seat and opening her eyes, she looked at him again, ready to apologize. The muscle in his cheek pulsed, and her heart broke. “Charlie?”

He faced her, and for a second, shared her misery, but then he smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’m so fucking glad you’re okay.”

“Me, too.”

She just wished there was a way they could be okay together. What he’d done today only further displayed the jeopardy she put him in by being here.

Charlie jolted awake at the sound of pounding on his front door.
What the hell?

“Go away!” He rolled onto his stomach and slammed a pillow over his head.

Then he remembered what had happened yesterday. The scene at the restaurant. Morgan’s crash. “His” open-container violation.

He’d bet everything he had that the pounding on his door had something to do with one of those things.

And he was right. Alice stood on his front porch with her blue eyes blazing and her hands on her hips.

“Were you drinking and driving?” She yanked open the screen door and shoved against his chest.

His blood pressure spiked. Why was she always thinking the worst about him? “I wasn’t drinking, Alice.” He swatted her hands away.

“Then why were you cited for an open-container violation? It’s all over the mayor’s office. Are you going to deny it?”

If he thought he could get away with it, yes. But he knew damn well when he’d accepted the citation that this town was going to have a field day with it.

He sank to the couch. “I’m not going to deny it. There was an open can of beer in my truck, and I was cited for it.”

“Charlie,” she wailed. “Why was there an open can of beer in your truck?”

“It wasn’t mine.”

“Whose was it?” Her eyes were going to pop out of her head if she didn’t calm down. “It was hers!” She gasped. “Is that why she wrecked? People are saying there was a huge fight at the bistro, and you and Morgan ran off like Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Holy shit, Alice. When did you start listening to what these people say? After all the crap they made up about you.” He dropped his face to his hands.

“There are multiple eye-witness accounts of what happened at the bistro, and there’s a police report detailing the accident. This is not just vicious gossip.”

Too bad her precious eyewitness accounts and police report weren’t telling the whole story. He grabbed a pillow, curled up on the couch, and closed his eyes. “I’m tired.”

“You’re throwing away everything for a woman who threw you away three years ago. You only own twenty percent of that bistro. Do you think for a minute the Mitchells are going to keep funding the rest if you’re acting like this?”

“I don’t know, Alice. You’re a Mitchell. You tell me.” Yeah, he was being a smart ass, but he couldn’t help it. He really was too tired to deal with her.

“Charlie!” She punched his upper arm.

He groaned.

In the distance, his cell phone rang.

“You’re just going to ignore that, too, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

He heard her footsteps soften against the hardwood floors. And then, it was blessedly quiet except for the faint ringing.

“You should probably answer it,” Alice said.

Oh, joy!
She’d returned. Maybe if he didn’t say anything, she’d go away again.

“It’s Margaret.”

Son of a bitch.

He answered his phone. The alternative was more guff from Alice.
That
was torture. Hopefully, Margaret’s execution would be quick and painless.

No such luck. She wanted a meeting before she chopped off his head.

Fortunately, Will was in the meeting, too. He would be the voice of reason. Although, there wasn’t much reasoning to be done. Charlie was guilty of almost everything he could be accused of. And what he wasn’t guilty of, he wouldn’t admit. Talk about being screwed.

Margaret leveled him with steely eyes. “Pamela Boardman is one of my oldest friends. She’s also my bible study group leader.”

Charlie lifted a brow. That wasn’t saying much for Margaret’s taste in friends or the state of her bible study. “I’m sorry.” The words definitely held a double meaning.

She sniffed. “Your apology is insufficient. We are the majority owners of that business. What you do reflects on us.”

And the company people kept reflected on them, too. Pamela Boardman was a bitch. But he probably shouldn’t say it like that. “With all due respect, Pamela Boardman was rude.”

“She was also a customer,” Margaret snapped. “The customer is always right.”

“Not when the customer is verbally abusing my wait staff. And before you blame this on Morgan, remember who hired her.”

Margaret hmphed.

Will tapped his pen against the boardroom table. “I’m sure my mother would agree with me that abuse of any kind should not be tolerated. Nobody wants a hostile work environment. Mrs. Boardman deserved a reprimand and removal if she didn’t heed a respectable warning. My issue is that you verbally told innocent customers to leave and left the restaurant while they were seated.” Will shook his head. “You can’t do that, Charlie, especially not when you’re the only chef.”

“Corbin is my sous chef. He cooked when I left.”

“Corbin has been your waiter for months. When was the last time he cooked a meal for a patron beyond last night?”

He stirred the sauce a time or two. Charlie hid a cringe with the wipe of his palm. He wanted to argue that none of this was his fault, but he knew better. He’d been the one chasing Corbin from the kitchen and scaring waitresses away. If he hadn’t done that in the first place, then he wouldn’t have needed Morgan to stay.

Will sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Charlie, but you need to take a break. Get yourself together. Make sure you’re healthy for a business commitment like this.”

Disappointing the guy who’d had faith in him in the first place made everything worse.

Charlie tried to take a breath, but his lungs were dead weight. He hadn’t felt this worthless and hopeless in years. “If I take a few days off, can I have a second chance?”

Margaret wrinkled her face when she looked at Will.

“I want to close the bistro for a couple weeks, so we can decide how to proceed,” Will said. “You’ll still get paid. Just give me fourteen quiet days. If we decide to reopen, maybe we’ll even rebrand. After what happened, we need a fresh start. Best case scenario, we reopen stronger, wiser, and with the help you need to make that place a stable success.”

They were shutting him down like they’d threatened to do. Two weeks without creating menus or cooking for someone else? That sucked. Everything in the fridge would go to waste. His vendors would be left without their weekly orders.

Ah, hell. Who was he kidding? Milk and eggs were the least of his worries.

In two weeks, he might have to face the fact he’d lost his biggest dream.

• • •

Seeing Charlie’s truck amble up Aunt Phyllis’s driveway lifted Morgan’s spirits. Her aches and pains were worse the day after the wreck, and without a car, she felt trapped.

Not that she had any place to go even if she had a vehicle. She hadn’t heard back from Johnson Berger or his human resource manager about a second interview. Her future was still up in the air, but at least she had a future.

One thing was for sure, she would never step foot in that bistro again. She’d already caused Charlie too much trouble by being there.

“Daddy’s here.” She carefully hoisted Charlotte to her hip and pushed out onto the porch.

“Daddy!” Charlotte yelled. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, baby girl.” He smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “How are you?” When he looked at Morgan and asked the same, his forehead crinkled.

Something was wrong—really wrong. He wasn’t just worried about her. Maybe he was taking serious heat for the open container violation.

That made her feel even worse.

“I’m fine,” she said. “How are you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Which means you aren’t fine now. Why? What happened?”

“Daddy.” Charlotte reached for him.

Morgan transferred her into his arms, and for a split second, his eyes sparkled. He kissed Charlotte’s fingertips, and rubbed noses with her, but all too soon, the sadness returned.

“Alice stopped by to tell me that everyone in the mayor’s office thinks I’m a drunk again, and then Will Mitchell informed me they’re closing the bistro at least for a couple weeks … ” his jaw clenched, “so I can get myself together.”

“How can they do that? You’re part owner, too.”

“Twenty percent. That’s a far cry from one hundred.”

Morgan winced. She’d done this to him—ruined everything he’d been trying to build. His reputation. His restaurant. “Charlie, this is crazy. That wasn’t your beer. I’m going to call everyone in town and tell them the truth.”