Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
CHARLOTTE
“Oh my God,” I said on a small, broken sob. “I can’t believe you found it. This is just—” Lifting my hand to cover my mouth, I cried silently, staring down at the only treasure I’d ever had. A treasure I thought was lost to me forever.
“Baby, say something,” Dalton coaxed softly. “Is this a good surprise or a bad one?”
I ripped my gaze from the locket and looked to the man I loved, really and truly looked at him. This incredible man who, time after time, had proven himself in not just words, but in actions too. “It’s good,” I whispered through a trembling smile. “It’s very, very good.”
I shot to my feet and started out of the kitchen when his hand lashed out and his fingers banded around my wrist. “Where are you going?”
I bent at the waist, placing a soft kiss on his lips. “Just wait here. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
He released my hand but stayed in his chair, so I didn’t hesitate to run out of the kitchen to the foyer where I’d hung my purse.
I grabbed my wallet, unzipped it, and pulled the two pictures I’d stowed away for safekeeping out of the small slot that was supposed to be used for credit cards.
It was where they’d stayed since I took them out when I’d been forced to pawn my mother’s necklace.
Dalton was still seated when I came rushing back into the kitchen, but I could tell from his furrowed brow that he was worried.
“Charlotte, baby, what’s going on?” he asked as I used my thumbnail to open the clasp of the locket.
Only once I had those two pictures placed back into their rightful space did I look back up at him, taking my first full breath in what felt like an eternity.
Clutching the locket tight to my chest, I felt like a piece of me that had been missing for so long had finally snapped back into place, making me more whole than I’d been a moment ago.
Tears were still spilling from my eyes, making tracks down my cheeks when I finally looked back at him. With the locket in my hands, it suddenly felt so much easier to give him the secrets I’d been holding so close to the vest for so long.
Bringing my hands down, I slid the open locket in front of him so he could see the two pictures I’d put inside.
They were weathered and faded with age, but the girls staring up at him were both smiling big and bright, like everything was right in their world, because at the time those photos were taken, it was.
However, for the little girl on the left, that was one of the last moments she experienced true happiness .
. . at least until the man sitting right in front of her came into her life.
“Charlotte,” he started softly, lifting his eyes from the locket to me. “What is this?”
“I told you about my parents dying when I was seven years old, but what I didn’t tell you was that, before I went into foster care, we were taken in by my mother’s cousin and her husband.”
He lifted a questioning brow. “We?”
I pointed to the photo on the right side of the locket. “Me and my sister, Cheyanne,” I admitted in a voice so quiet, it was barely audible. “My little sister, by three whole minutes.”
His eyes widened, that deep gray turning to steel in his eyes. “You’re a twin?”
“Fraternal. Although, we looked a lot alike when we were little.” A fond smile pulled at my lips as I thought back to Cheyanne.
I’d spent the past almost two decades not allowing myself to linger too long in memories, but I could still remember her giggle, and the thought of it warmed something inside my chest.
“Charlotte and Cheyanne,” he muttered to himself, tracing his index finger along the picture of me at six years old.
“Yeah. My mom went a little nuts with the whole twin thing. Gave us similar names, dressed us alike, did our hair the same. She loved it.”
He looked up at me, fascination brimming in his expression. “Tell me more.”
That was the first time I’d spoken about my sister in eighteen years, and I found that once I started, it was like a plug had been pulled, and everything came rushing out.
“She was my best friend. We did everything together,” I recalled.
“We were polar opposites. I was the loud twin, the wild, rebellious one, while Cheyanne was quiet and shy and sweet.”
The tender smile he gave me just then warmed my heart. “I can imagine that.”
“She might have been a lot more reserved than I was, but she still followed me everywhere, did everything I did, whether it scared her or not. She might have been shy, but she was strong, if that makes sense.”
He nodded but remained silent, giving me the chance to gather my thoughts so I could carry on.
Sadness started to creep back in as I continued recounting my childhood.
“I didn’t handle my parents’ death very well.
It started first as nightmares, but then I began acting out.
I was getting in trouble at school. Typical stuff you’d expect from a little girl who was struggling with emotions so much bigger than her mind could wrap around, you know?
” I sniffed, batting at a stray tear running down my cheeks.
“Anyway, my mom’s cousin wasn’t anything like her. She wasn’t warm or affectionate. She and her husband weren’t big fans of kids, which is why they didn’t have any of their own. But they were the only family we had, so they were stuck with us.
“I only lived with them for a few months before she decided I was too difficult to handle. They said I was just too much of a trouble maker, but the truth was, they didn’t want to deal with a sad, grieving kid, so—” My voice broke as that warmth I’d been feeling only moments ago dissipated, leaving me chilled from the inside out.
I cleared my throat and shot Dalton a sad, watery smile. “They got rid of me.”
“Fuck,” Dalton grated, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists on the table.
“Yeah,” I said with a bitter laugh. “But as our guardians, they were getting money from our parents’ estate, and they didn’t want to give that up completely, so since Cheyanne was less problematic, they decided to keep her.”
“Jesus Christ, baby.” His hand shot across the table, wrapping around both of mine, and I didn’t realize until I looked down that I’d been ripping at my cuticles with my fingernails. “They split you up?”
I nodded, feeling like my chest was being squeezed in a vice.
“I still dream about the last time I saw her. That’s why I have so much trouble sleeping.
I hear her crying, begging me not to leave her.
I’ve done everything I can to bury that memory, but I can still remember it like it happened yesterday. ”
“What happened after that? Did you ever see your family again?”
I shook my head. “Not my mom’s cousin or her husband.
I bounced from foster home to foster home, one shitty situation after another until I was sixteen.
When I ran away from the last place, I wanted to try and find Cheyanne.
It had been nine years since I’d seen her, but there hadn’t been a single day I hadn’t thought about her.
She was my sister. My twin. I was missing a piece of my heart, my soul.
She was my other half. I wasn’t whole without her.
“Did you ever find her?”
The pain that crashed over me just then was so strong it stole the air from my lungs. I had to squeeze my eyes closed and breathe through it before I could go any further.
“I did,” I finally confessed. “They’d moved to the other side of the town we’d lived in, so it took a while, but about a month and a half after I ran away, I finally managed to track her down.”
He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table and taking my hands in both of his. “And?”
“And . . . she looked happy. I’d spent the past nine years being told by everyone who was supposed to have my back, who was supposed to look out for me, that I was worthless.
My own family hadn’t wanted me. I’d been beaten down and used and mistreated to the point I was convinced what they said was right; I was nothing but trouble, a waste of space, unwanted.
Then I saw Cheyanne was living a good life . . .”
“And you thought you’d taint it if you reached out to her. Because you believed you were cursed.”
I nodded grimly, ducking my head so the tears falling from my eyes spilled onto the table.
“I’d had nine years of misery and pain, and the next time I saw her, she was smiling and laughing with her friends.
At first, I was mad or heartbroken . . .
same thing, I guess. I had no one and nothing, and she was thriving.
” I looked up at him, my vision watery. “How could she be happy when she didn’t have me?
But then I realized she was light, and I was dark.
She’d always been sweet and gentle. I’d always been loud and difficult.
She’d lucked out, plain and simple, and I didn’t want to ruin that.
So I left, and I never looked back. I never told anyone about her.
I kept her a secret, telling myself I was doing it to keep her safe from all the bad that always followed me everywhere I went.
Then—” My throat suddenly felt like I’d swallowed gravel.
“What is it?” he pleaded.
“The reason I snuck out, the reason I went to Cormack . . . he found out about her,” I finally admitted to him, all these months later.
“I don’t know how, but he found out about Cheyanne, and he said he’d track her down and make her pay for me betraying him.
Dalton,” I said on a broken sob. “I couldn’t let that happen.
I had to keep her safe. When we were little, I’d always promised that I’d protect her, and I was determined to keep that promise, even if what I had to protect her from was me. ”
He shot out of the chair, moving fast to round the table like he couldn’t stand the small distance between us for another second. He yanked me to my feet, stealing my seat, and pulled me into his lap.
“Charlotte, baby, you have to listen to me,” he insisted, taking my face in his large hands. “You are not cursed. You aren’t dark or any of that other bad shit you think about yourself. You’re good, through and through.”
He wiped at the dampness on my cheeks with his thumbs as I reached up and dragged my nails gently through his beard. God, I loved that damn beard. I loved him. “I think I’m starting to get that. Because of you.”
Sliding his fingers into my hair, he gripped the strands gently and pulled my face toward his so he could rest his forehead against mine. “Christ, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I whispered, emotion clogging my throat. “And I trust you, honey. You’re in, all the way. Please believe that. You have all of me.”
That gray turned to quicksilver as heat filled his eyes.
In response, my nipples pebbled and a rush of arousal centered between my thighs.
It had been too long. Sleeping beside him these past couple weeks, smelling his heady masculine scent but not touching him had been acute torture, and having him hold me now, telling me he loved me . . . it was my breaking point.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I slammed my lips down on his in a kiss so full of passion it overwhelmed me. “I’ve missed you so much,” I panted into his mouth. Dalton took over, ramping up the kiss, making me whimper. “I need you, Dalton. Please.”
“You have me,” he growled against my lips. “All of me, Charlotte. Always.”
I shifted on his lap, throwing one leg over so I was straddling him without breaking the kiss. I was like one of those little characters on a video game who’d gotten extra lives. The longer he kissed me, the more I filled up with happiness until I was fully alive once again.
I was so consumed by him that I didn’t realize what he was doing until I jumped at the loud crash and pulled back, whipping my head around to see he’d swiped the dishes off the table.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, even more turned on by his desperation. However . . . I looked back at him, one eyebrow cocked. “You know I’m not cleaning that up, right?”
“Don’t give a fuck about the mess,” he growled, lifting me up and sitting me on the edge of the table as he stood between my thighs and pulled my shirt over my head.
“All you need to worry about is holding on because this is gonna be hard and fast. Need you too much, baby,” he panted, reaching for the button of my shorts.
“I want it exactly how you give it, cowboy.”