Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
CHARLOTTE
I’d been so absorbed in the memory of the last time my sister and I had spoken, so overcome with the accompanying emotions swirling inside me that came with it, that I hadn’t realized Dalton was awake until his hands landed on my hips, jolting me from the past with a startled yelp.
I whipped around, placing my hand on my chest and blowing out a breath as my heart rate returned to normal. “God, you scared me.”
“You okay?” A concerned frown marred his chiseled features as he took the mug from my hand and set it on the railing so he could pull me against his bare, broad chest. I loved how small and safe I felt tucked against him, and as I lifted my palms to rest them on his warm skin, I felt a sense of calm I never would have suspected, given the thoughts that had just been running through my head.
“I was saying your name. Thought you’d heard me. ”
I pasted a smile on my face, hoping it was passable, considering it felt more than a little stiff. “Sorry. I must have been distracted by your view.” I waved my arm outward in an effort to shift his attention to the sky beyond and off my face. “It’s beyond gorgeous out here, Dalton.”
His eyes flicked over every inch of my face, taking it all in very closely like he was checking for any kind of deception, and when he asked, “You sure, baby?” I got the impression he read through my lie.
I’d gotten really good at hiding my secrets over the years, but as I worked to get a lock on my emotions and get my mask firmly in place before I could give anything away, I was swamped by a sense of guilt.
There was a part of me, a big part, that wanted to tell him the truth .
. . about everything. But I held fast to that promise I’d made years ago, even if it had only been to myself.
Staying away from her was the only way I could guarantee she’d live a happy life.
As much as it hurt—and it hurt worse than anything I’d ever experienced—I was determined to do it.
“Yeah. I’m good,” I assured him, pushing up on my tiptoes to brush my lips against his. “It’s all good.”
“You’re up early. I woke up and you weren’t in bed with me.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.” I dragged a hand through my hair, encountering tangles made from our amorous night. “I have trouble sleeping from time to time.” All the time, actually, but I didn’t feel the need to tell him that. “It’s not a big deal. I just didn’t want to wake you up.”
He wasn’t buying it. Along with the concern that was marring his handsome brow, there was what I suspected was a hint of frustration mixed into those gunmetal eyes.
He knew I was holding back, and as much as he was trying to be okay with it, I could see the struggle etched into his chiseled features and carved into the strong lines of his body.
“You’re holdin’ back,” he rasped, his voice still thick with sleep.
“I felt you toss and turn in your sleep last night. You can trust me, Thumbelina. You know that, right?”
Damn it.
I let out a breath so big it felt like my lungs were being wrung empty. “I know,” I whispered.
His fingers beneath my chin pressed upward, tipping my face back to his. “I get you don’t feel like you can give me your secrets yet, but I’m here. I’m not goin’ anywhere, baby. One day you’ll trust that.”
I hadn’t thought it possible to feel any guiltier than I already did, but with that caring statement, Dalton had just proved me wrong. “I’m sorry,” I breathed out, feeling small and scared of what it could mean for us if I couldn’t find the courage to give him everything.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he could hear the desolation in my voice and knew the struggle I was waging just then was getting the best of me, but I knew he’d let it go—at least for the time being—when his penetrating gaze shifted and he gave me a rakish look.
His hands slipped down to my ass, giving it a delicious squeeze.
“Next time you have trouble sleeping, I want you to wake me up. Maybe I can do something to wear you out again.”
Okay, so I really liked the sound of that.
His eyes darted down just then, taking notice of what I was wearing.
“Damn.” His long fingers pressed against my skin, starting at the very base of my throat between my clavicles, and dragged them down, down, down.
His fingertips slid between my breasts, then over the shirt, plucking at the buttons.
Just the softest, quickest touch from him lit me up from the inside out, like I had the sun inside me, and the warm glow was shooting out of my fingertips and pores and the ends of my hair. His touch helped to drive the sadness and shame away. “It looks way better on you than it ever did on me.”
I grabbed the ends of the shirt and gave it a little tug as a subtle breeze whipped across my legs.
“Then you won’t have a problem if I steal it.
” I gave him a playful grin that felt more genuine with each passing second.
“Because I already planned to, and there’s really nothing you can do about it. ”
He leaned closer, and I took a deep breath, drawing his scent, something incredibly masculine and all Dalton, into my lungs.
My hunger for him began to build deep in my belly.
I was insatiable. With how we’d gone at each other the night before and into the early morning hours, I shouldn’t need him this badly, but it was like he’d opened a floodgate inside of me, and there was no chance of plugging it back up.
His lips met mine, and I was just about to suggest we get naked again when my stomach let out a growl so loud I wouldn’t have been surprised if it sent the woodland creatures in our vicinity running in fear. I might have been embarrassed if my sudden desire for food wasn’t so overwhelming.
Dalton’s chest rumbled as he let loose a laugh that made my knees weak, those straight white teeth flashing from beneath his beard. “Come on, Thumbelina.
Let’s get you fed before that monster in your belly gets any angrier.”
He wasn’t going to get any argument from me. Grabbing my coffee mug from the deck railing, I followed Dalton back inside his incredible house so we could go to breakfast, our first official one-on-one date. And I couldn’t wait.
Dalton and I walked into Evergreen Diner hand in hand. Nearly every table was full thanks to the early morning breakfast crowd, and as people in small towns were prone to do, everyone stopped to look as we came through the door.
Most of the faces in the place were familiar, but thanks to the almost knowing smiles of some and the unhappy frowns of others, the vibe was much different than usual.
The happy cloud I’d been floating on since an un-freaking-believable round of shower sex with Dalton began to dissipate beneath me, sending me crashing back to earth.
Leaning into Dalton’s side, I spoke out of the corner of my mouth, asking, “What’s going on? Why do I feel like I’m getting smiles and death glares at the same time?”
He was suspiciously quiet, and when I looked up and over I saw the corner of his mouth trembling, like he was fighting back a smirk.
“Well, well, well.” Sally, the wife of the husband and wife duo that owned the diner, stopped in front of us, blocking our path.
The apron tied around her waist was splattered with food stains, indicating the place had been hopping probably from the moment it opened hours ago.
“So it finally happened, huh? Took you guys long enough.”
Her husband’s bearded face popped up from behind the pass-thru. Sally worked the front of the diner as a waitress, and he worked back in the kitchen, making some of the best stick-to-your-ribs comfort food you could ever eat.
“What’s goin’ on?” he shouted loudly. “It got real quiet all of a sudden. We bein’ robbed?”
Sally yelled back in return. “Not a robbery! Just Charlie and Dalton comin’ in for breakfast.” It was known far and wide that yelling through the whole diner was their preferred form of communication, and most of what came out of their mouths was downright hilarious.
More times than not, coming in here felt like getting dinner and a show.
Ralph’s booming voice went up several octaves—which I hadn’t thought was even possible—making the windows rattle in their frames. “Together?”
My brows shot up at the tone of his voice. What sounded almost like disappointment was the complete antithesis to Sally’s giddy expression.
“Holdin’ hands and everything. You owe me fifty bucks,” she returned, only adding to my complete confusion.
“Damn it!” the big man barked loud enough to make everyone in the dining area jump. “First it was the hundred I lost on Hayes and Tempie, now this! I gotta stop bettin’ on these fool young people!”
“Um . . . what’s happening right now?”
Dalton’s hand gave mine a squeeze, silently drawing my focus to his handsome face. “They’ve had a bet going a while now on when we’d get together.”
“Who?” I squeaked.
“The town,” Sally clarified.
I blinked slowly a couple times, needing the extra seconds to wrap my brain around what I’d just heard. “The town? Like the whole town?”
Sensing I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having the entirety of Hope Valley betting on my love life, she quickly began to backpedal. “Well, I’m sure not the whole town. There are probably a few people who didn’t hear about it.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“I been in it since the start,” one of the resident seniors, Joe Silvester, said around his steaming mug of coffee. “Right around the time you got outta the hospital, girly. Was bumped out last month.”
Ms. McClintock, the surly, blue-haired old lady, and self-appointed town sage, spoke up just then. “I didn’t bother gettin’ in on the action ’til he started showin’ up at that club where she worked. Wasn’t gonna waste my money if it wasn’t a sure thing.”
The woman had to be around the same age as Ms. Weatherby, but for some reason—maybe a deal with the devil that even he was too scared to cash in on—she was still as spry as someone half her age.
She’d been touting her new hip for a while now and loved to go on about how she was putting it to good use with a few “gentlemen friends.” She looked at me just then and shot me a sly wink.
“You just paid for my spa weekend in Richmond, darlin’. Me and my gentleman friend thank you.”
Oh God. Don’t think about old people having sex, Charlie. Don’t’ think about it!
With no bleach on hand to scrub my memory clean, I decided to shift my focus from her to the big man beside me. “And you knew about this?”
“I heard rumblings.” It wasn’t exactly an admission or a denial. He was skating the line, and I could see from the way his eyes danced he knew more than he was admitting.
“Well, who started this whole thing?” I needed a name if I was going to kill them after making them suffer for a very long time.
“Talk to your girl, Hayden,” Ralph shouted from the kitchen pass-thru. “She’s the one in charge of the signup sheet and who owes what.”
There was a signup sheet?
With a frustrated huff, I started for an empty booth near the window and flopped down, pulling my phone from my purse.
Me: You set up a betting pool with the whole freaking town on when Dalton and I would get together?
Her response was much faster than I’d expected.
Hayden: #Sorrynotsorry. I regret nothing. I have a really nice chunk of change coming my way to put toward Ivy’s college fund . . . that is, if she hasn’t dominated the world before then.
Me: You’re dead to me.
Hayden: Boo. No I’m not. You’re all talk. Would a quarter of my winnings make you feel better?
I paused in my response, giving that some thought before looking across the table at Dalton. “Did you put money on that bet?”
He watched me carefully, trying to gauge my reaction before answering. “Maybe.”
My eyebrows rose. “Well? Did you win money or lose money?”
“Depends. Which answer’ll piss you off the least?”
I felt one corner of my mouth pull up. “I’m currently negotiating Hayden’s way back into my good graces. Ms. M’s mention of a spa weekend got me thinking. Will a quarter of her winnings pay for us to have a weekend away, or do I need to demand half?”
His eyes filled with heat that made me squirm as I remembered all the things he’d done to me over the past several hours. “Baby, you forget. I’ve known this was gonna happen all along. I’ve just been waiting for you to catch up.”
My stomach suddenly felt nice and floaty. “What does that mean?”
“It means I just won enough on us to cover the cost of a whole week. But you wanna stick it to your girl, you can put that toward a new wardrobe for the trip.”
Damn, but my man was smart!