Chapter Twenty-One
Charlie
I get in my truck and look over at her sitting in her car. Her eyes stare straight ahead while her hands grip the steering wheel. I wait in my truck for her to snap out of it, and all I can see is her shaking her head and mumbling something to herself before she backs up and makes her way home.
I pull out of the parking lot, and instead of going home, I follow her to make sure she gets home. She pulls into her driveway, and I park outside on the street. She gets out of her car and holds on to the door while she looks over at me. I put the truck in park before I get out and leave it running, walking around to her. “Are you okay?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
She folds her arms over her chest.
“I’m making sure you get home safe.”
I stop in front of her and look down at her. The breeze makes her hair fly onto her face. My hand comes up with hers as I tuck it behind her ear, wanting to bend down and kiss her lips but also knowing I haven’t earned this yet. From now on, the only kiss I’m taking from her is when she wants to give it to me. It’s also not going to be a hate-fucking kiss.
“What game are you playing, Charlie?”
I step into her, my hands going to her hips.
“I’m not playing a game,”
I tell her. “I’m trying to make up.”
“For being a dick and an asshole?”
she questions, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“That’s putting it lightly,”
I say softly. “I’m so sorry. I want to think of other words to say, but there isn’t anything I can say that will erase the hell that I brought down on you.”
One of my hands goes up to touch her face. “There is not enough time on this earth that can make up for it, but I’m going to try to show you that I am.”
“You don’t have to show me anything. We can just avoid each other.”
The thought alone makes me angry. “Maybe if we do run into each other, we can be civil with each other.”
I’m not going to lay out that we won’t be avoiding each other, and I’ve decided quite the contrary to that statement. So instead, I bend down and kiss her cheek. “Okay, Autumn.”
My hand drops from her face. “Now get inside so I can go home.”
She stares at me for a second more before she steps away from her car door and slams it shut, turning to walk up the steps. As I watch her strut, my cock stirs in my jeans. “And don’t let me catch you outside on that swing.”
She turns around. “I’ve been just fine for the past eight years, Charlie.”
She clenches her teeth. “I think I’ll be good.”
“Should I turn off my truck and meet you on the swing, then?”
I ask her, and she doesn’t answer me. Instead, she just storms up her steps and slams her front door.
I turn and head to my truck, turning it off before walking around the house, up the steps, and sitting on the swing. She comes out five minutes later and groans when she sees me. “Can you just go away?”
She’s changed out of her jean shorts to one of her white tank tops and her tight light-gray sleep shorts. A long sweater hangs open, and she wraps it around her middle when she sees me.
“Not until you are in your bed,”
I say, and I want to pull her to me and have her sit on top of me so we can make out. Fuck, I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my life, which makes me feel a little guilty. “You going to come over here and sit with me, or are you going to go to bed?”
“I’m going to ask you to leave, then I’m going to sit on the swing and decompress.”
I swallow down the words that want to come out, which are I have a better idea to make you decompress, but instead, I move over on the swing, and she comes over and sits next to me. “Honestly, Charlie.”
She looks over at me, and I put my hand on the back of the swing. “I don’t have the energy to fight with you. I’m mentally exhausted.”
She sounds tired, and I want to kick myself because I’m probably one of the reasons she’s so tired.
“I don’t want to fight with you,”
I say, my thumb rubbing her shoulder. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
I turn to look ahead at the darkness of the night. I don’t know how long we sit on the swing, neither of us saying anything, when I look over and see her closing her eyes. “If you want, I can carry you inside.”
I get up, and she turns to look at me, her eyes filled with sleep.
“I’m good.”
She gets up, taking a step toward the door. “Good night.”
She turns and looks at me over her shoulder.
“I’ll just stay here a while to make sure,”
I state as she opens the storm door, “unless you want me to come and lie down in bed with you?”
I know if I go into that house, I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off her. I know the minute I get into her bed, I’ll want to sink into her. Even though it’ll be amazing, I want more than that. I also know we are both not ready for whatever it is that this is going to be. “Lock up,”
I say as she walks inside, and I hear the lock click. I sit here and wait thirty minutes, and when she doesn’t come out, I get up and make my way to my house. Sliding into bed and laying my head on the pillow, I don’t expect sleep to come and take me as fast as it does. When the alarm rings in the morning, I reach over, finding the bed empty but wishing I was waking up with her.
Instead, I’m in the middle of the bed, thinking about her. I get up and look out at the sun coming up, making the sky look like it’s pink. I step into the shower, my hand gripping my cock as I think about her. It takes me no time before I’m moaning out her name in a release. I get dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt before grabbing my mug of coffee and heading out to the barn. Emmett gets there at the same time as I step into the barn, and he stops in his tracks.
“You’re here,”
he says, and I just stare at him.
“Where else am I supposed to be?”
I bring the cup of coffee to my lips.
“It’s just that the past couple of days you’re usually getting back home at this time.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You keeping track of me?”
“It’s hard not to see you coming back when you walk through a fenced area and head to the house.”
He points at the door that shows where I would walk by. “Slinking home with your head hanging forward, regretting whatever or whoever you just did.”
“No regrets,”
I say. “At least not lately.”
“Is that so?”
he asks me, walking over to the coffee maker and starting the coffee. “That’s interesting.”
“Nothing about it is interesting,”
I inform him, “and it’s also none of your damn business.”
“You literally just made it my business by answering my questions.”
He chuckles as he pours himself a cup of steaming coffee.
“Are we going to be gossiping all day long?”
I ask, and he shrugs.
“It’s Saturday, so not much to do on the weekend. We can gossip.”
“How about we get to work?”
I turn on my heel and walk to the stall that’s become my habit of checking on first thing in the morning. “Good morning, beautiful girl.”
She is lying on her side. “Aren’t we being lazy this morning?”
I put the mug down on the floor before opening the stall and going to pet her. “Did you have a good night?”
I ask her. “I did.”
I walk over to grab her pail of water, walking out with it and heading over to get some fresh water.
I muck her stall before taking the hose to wash some of it out when I hear my name being paged. “Charlie, Charlie.”
Emmett’s voice fills the barn and the outside of the barn. “You have someone here for you.”
Instead of clicking disconnect, I hear him slam down the phone.
I walk out of the stall, putting my gloves in my back pocket and seeing Emmett standing there with a man. “What’s up?”
I ask him. The guy turns around, and I see it’s the man from the bar.
“You got someone who would like a word,”
Emmett says, standing next to me.
“Hi, Mr. Barnes,”
he greets, “my name is Darren Trowel.”
He reaches out his hand to give me a business card, and I look down at it. “I’m a reporter for a New York magazine called The Future and the Past.”
I look back up at him. “We are doing a special article on the Cartwright accident, and I’d love to ask you some questions about it.”
“Sure,”
I say, surprising Emmett, who just looks over at me. “Why don’t you come to my office?”
I turn and walk toward my office. He follows me in there, and I can see the snide smile on his face.
I walk around my desk, tossing the card on top of it, as he takes a seat in the chair. “What exactly is this article about?”
I pull out my chair and sit down.
“Well, Mr. Barnes,”
he starts, “we’re doing a follow-up, sort of a ‘where are they now’ piece.”
I don’t say anything. I just wait for him to talk. “How the accident changed your life. What hardships came from it. We also would like to know its fallout with Autumn Thatcher.”
I cross my hands. “There was speculation that she lied under oath. We were wondering about the events that led up to the crash. Things that haven’t really been discussed.”
“Kind of hard to lie about an autopsy that was performed twice, don’t you think?”
I ask him, trying to keep my anger in check and not freak out and give him anything. “They did a private one, and we were lucky that the coroner never flushed out the blood that was collected at the morgue when he was brought in. Then the court found out about the discrepancy and requested another one.”
“Right,”
he says, ignoring my point. “Do you think she did it as a vendetta against the Cartwrights?”
“Is this a piece about how our lives are since then or is this a piece about how wrong the Cartwrights were?”
I ask him the question, waiting to see what he says. His body gets tight for a minute, and then he relaxes into it.
“We are just trying to get a different angle of the story,”
he explains, and my skin prickles at the back of my neck. A bad vibe is just rolling off him, and something definitely feels off about him.
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Trowel.”
I pick up his card. “How about you email me the questions you want to ask me, and I’ll have my attorney look at them, and then I’ll get back to you.”
Disappointment registers all over his face as I put the card down and start to get up.
“I would think that with everything Ms. Thatcher did to you, you would be willing to give your side of the story.”
“Ms. Thatcher wasn’t the one driving the truck,”
I remind him, my teeth clenched together tight. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
I hold out my hand, and he shakes it before walking out of the office and down the hallway to the front door. I stare out the window at him getting into his rental car, and only when he’s out of the parking lot do I take the phone out of my pocket and scroll down to the number I’m looking for.
He answers after half a ring. “Charlie,”
he says and I can see the smile fill his face.
“Hey, Pops,”
I reply, and he must sense that my voice is tight. My grandfather is Casey Barnes, who owns CBS Corporation, which is one of the top security companies in the world, with contracts with the military that are top secret.
“What’s up, big man?”
he asks, and I turn and walk back to my desk.
“Someone came in here,”
I state, and I know right away the smile on his face is gone. “A reporter, Darren Trowel,”
I read his name off the card.
“What did he want?”
he asks, and I sit back in my chair.
“He’s doing a follow-up about the accident.”
“What?”
he hisses out. “Did he ask you questions?”
“Oh yeah, but the questions were more an accusation on Autumn and if she had a vendetta.”
My voice gets tight. “It was fucking strange, and I did not get a good feeling about this article.”
“Send me his contact information, and I’ll run a check on him.”
He gives me a deep sigh. “But from what you said, I don’t like it.”
“That would make two of us.”
“Has he spoken to anyone else?”
he asks, and my stomach burns at the memory.
“Yeah, he went to talk to Autumn,”
I say, “but Brady put him out on his ass, and the next time, she told him to leave.”
“Persistent,”
he notes. “Let me see what I can find.”
“Sounds good.”
I take a picture of the business card and send it to him via text.
“You sound different,”
he immediately says, and I shake my head, chuckling.
“I sound the same.”
I take a deep breath in.
“No, you sound… I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Well, I have work to do.”
I don’t want to get into it right now. “Let me know what you find.”
“You got it. When are you going to come and visit Grandma and Grandpa?”
He mentions my great-grandparents.
“I’ll come soon. Got to go. I love you,”
I say before I hang up the phone on him.
I’m putting my phone in my pocket when it pings with a text, and I can’t help but laugh.
Pops: You know that I can find out things, right?
I answer him right away.
Me: I don’t have anything to hide.
I put the phone back in my pocket and walk out toward the barn. I don’t have anything to hide, but I also have something I want to keep to myself. At least for now.