Chapter 2 Charleigh
Charleigh
The waiting is hard. No, excruciating.
Charleigh swishes past the open curtains for the third time this morning, checking for Jackson’s convertible in the circular drive, a lavish river of concrete gushing through the turf-green lawn. One of the many extravagant touches she commissioned for this place.
So unlike the dirt drive of her childhood. Forlorn, pitted, and weed-pocked. An actual river of glassy mud when the springtime rains came. The hemline of Charleigh’s clothes splattered with muck as she trudged each morning to catch the school bus.
Now she peers around at her manse, watching as morning sunlight splashes across the marble floors, filling the house with light. Freshly squeezed lemonade being poured into a clean, empty glass.
She chews a nail as she stands at the window.
Lettie, her long-suffering housekeeper, could just let him in when he rings the bell, but Charleigh always likes to be the one to greet Jackson.
Prying open the hulking pair of doors, folding his taut, tanned form into her arms. The two of them squealing like it’s been forever, even though they see each other nearly every damn day.
It’s part of their schtick, their special bond.
A signal to anyone looking on (and Charleigh does love an audience) that they are the most important people in the world to each other.
Twin bitches, she likes to joke. Charleigh calls him Jackson, but in serious moments, she’ll draw out his full name, Jackson Lee Ford, the only person to do so other than his estranged mother, Willamena.
Her stomach continues to churn. She hates this feeling, the almost agonizing pinch in her gut. It’s not desperation, exactly, but rather anticipation, and she wishes she didn’t still get this excited—no, needy—at seeing her best friend.
Her only friend?
At least, her only true one.
He’s coming over today to help her decorate for her weekly Bunco night.
In just eight short hours, this room will be buzzing with the sound of a dozen women. Women she claims as friends and women who, in turn, claim her. And technically, they are friends, but not in the same way as she and Jackson.
Soon, this space will be filled with the feral clatter of gossip, the clinking of glasses—first champagne, and later, for dessert, grasshoppers—voices climbing higher in octave to match the surging of blood-alcohol levels.
Charleigh’s nerves will be muted by then, her own blood-alcohol ratio at peak level as she sweeps her gaze across the room, satisfaction trickling over her when she registers that—once again—she’s successfully hosted this klatch of women in her home.
They’re having fun! Skin flushed, eyes swimming with booze—lost in the dice game and chatter.
But until then, she’s hell on wheels, annoying even herself.
“I don’t know why you throw these things,” Alexander purred into her ear last night as he unclasped the front of her bra. “They make you crazy. And not the good kind of crazy that I’m about to make you.”
“Ha!” That familiar rush of attraction zipped over her that she always feels when Alexander makes his moves.
But she also felt a flash of annoyance.
Because he doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t get it; he’s not from here.
Doesn’t know what it was like to grow up in this town. Judged by these very women who now hustle into her house, lapping up proximity to the richest family in Longview.
Charleigh grew up here poor, outcast, even made fun of and bullied until she fled to Dallas for community college, then returned triumphant just three years later, engaged to handsome Alexander Andersen, oil heir from Highland Park.
Six foot two with pale golden hair, lean but muscular, with intense eyes the slate color of fjords from his great-grandparents’ homeland of Sweden, Alexander was—and continues to be—the answer to Charleigh’s prayers. Their attraction was instant, their bond magnetic.
“You seriously should do something else with your energy.” He continued undressing her.
But before her lips could form an answer, he was already pecking at her breasts, thoughts of the upcoming Bunco night sliding away as he hoisted her onto the edge of their bed.