Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Doing other things with Lucas Jackson was probably a lot more interesting than learning to cook.
Maybe I should be grateful Trey hadn't been interested in sex after the first few years. On second thought, nope. I'd rather have spent the last seven years madly in love, getting all the sex I wanted, rather than teaching myself how to make a good pasta sauce from scratch.
“Aaanyway,” Charlie said, dragging out the word to cover her blush, “I thought of a good Knox story to make up for telling Lily about the spiders.”
“That's okay Charlie, we don't need any more stories,” Knox said. “Really.”
“You mean a story about Mr. Knox from when he was a kid?” Adam asked, leaning forward in interest. Charlie leaned across the table, almost meeting him halfway.
“Exactly.”
“You knew Mr. Knox when he was little, like me?” Adam was enthralled at the idea that his new hero had once been a kid.
“Not exactly. Mr. Knox is older than me. Really, really old. By the time I was born, he was already ten.”
Adam's eyes widened as he looked at Knox. “That is really old.”
Everyone around the table laughed as Knox said under his breath, “I'm only thirty-five.” Adam's eyes went even wider. “Really, really old,” he whispered in awe.
I bit my lip to hold back the laugh, squeezing Knox's knee under the table. Leaning over, I said against his ear, “Should I buy you a walker?”
“Watch it, Lily,” he breathed back. “A little less mouth or I'll have to spank you later.”
“Promises, promises,” I singsonged quietly, raising my eyes to see Griffen studying us, his eyes serious, but his lips curled in a half smile.
For a second, I'd forgotten we weren't alone. My eyes went back to my son, embarrassed to be caught flirting. Adam was oblivious, bouncing a little in his seat, saying to Charlie, “Tell me, tell me.”
“Okay. So, I grew up the youngest in a big family. Knox and his brothers were kind of like my brothers. I was the littlest. I was always trying to keep up with the big kids, and I never could.”
Adam nodded sagely. “Sometimes I try to play with the bigger kids at school and they won't let me because I'm too little. I'm not even in kindergarten yet.”
“So you know what I'm talking about,” Charlie said with an understanding nod. “I guess I bugged them a lot, though I don't know how because I was a very good little girl.”
A snort of laughter from Knox, who caught Adam's eye and shook his head in a negative. He stage-whispered behind his hand, “She got in trouble all the time. All the time.”
Charlie let out a huff and looked at the ceiling as if praying for patience. “I'm telling the story, Knox. Not you. And I was a very good little girl.”
“Nobody's buying that, Princess,” Lucas cut in. She ignored him and continued her story, talking only to Adam and pretending the rest of us weren't there.
“Knox's house was in the same neighborhood as ours.
If you wanted to drive from one to the other it took a little bit, but a long time ago our dads figured out that if we cut through some other people's yards, they could get from one house to the other in a few minutes.
The neighbors didn't mind, so the bigger kids were allowed to walk from Winters House to the Sinclair's house.”
“Were you allowed?” Adam asked.
Charlie shook her head. “I was not. One day, the big kids decided that they were going to leave Winters House, where they were playing video games, and go to the Sinclair's house. I don't remember why.”
“Because the game we wanted to play was in my room,” Knox supplied, “and you guys didn't have it at your place.”
“I should have guessed. An excellent reason to tromp through the woods. To get a different video game.”
Charlie rolled her eyes, but Adam looked at Knox and nodded in agreement. He didn't even have a gaming console, but he was looking forward to getting one after hearing all about it from other kids in preschool.
“I wasn't playing with the big kids because they wouldn't let me—” a scowl at Knox, “but I didn't want them to leave because then there wouldn't be any kids around. I can't remember what my mom was doing, but she was busy with Mrs. W and she didn't notice when I followed the boys out of the house.”
“Did you get lost?” Adam asked, a little breathless.
“No,” Knox cut in. “She got stuck.”
“Stuck? How did you get stuck?”
“I haven't heard this one,” Lucas said. “What did you get stuck in, Princess?”
“Not in, on,” Knox clarified.
Charlie thrust out her chin. “Are you telling the story?”
“You are, Charlotte,” Knox said. “Carry on.”
Charlie's eyes narrowed at being called Charlotte, but she looked back to Adam with a smile.
“The house I grew up in is surrounded by a big stone wall. There are a few gates in the wall, and they all have big locks. I was only six, so I didn't have a key. And since I was six, I never considered what I would do when the boys went through the gate ahead of me and locked it behind them.”
“What you should have done was turn around and walk home,” Knox said, interrupting again.
Charlie ignored him. “But there was a big tree next to the wall.”
“Not close enough to climb over, because my dad was in charge of your security, and he never would have let that happen,” Knox added.
Charlie continued to ignore him. “I thought if I could climb the tree, I could get over the wall. I was a good tree climber, even when I was six.”
Adam looked at Knox for confirmation. “She was an excellent tree climber,” he confirmed. “Too good.”
“That might be true,” Charlie admitted. “I climbed the tree. I climbed way, way up the tree. So high I could see over the wall, but Knox is right. The branches were trimmed, and there was no way I could get to the other side. I wasn't close enough. And then I looked down.”
“What happened when you looked down?”
“I realized how high up I was,” Charlie said with a dramatic screech, her eyes wide with surprise. “Then I was too scared to climb down. I was stuck.”
“What did you do? Did you have to spend the night in the tree? Didn't you get hungry?”
“I started to scream. I screamed really, really loud. I screamed for a really long time.”
“She screamed for like five minutes,” Knox corrected. “You cannot believe the sounds little six-year-old Charlie could make.”
“They all heard me. My cousins, Vance and Gage. Knox's brother Evers. They all heard me. But only Knox came back to see what was wrong.”
“Someone had to see what you were screeching about before we all got in trouble.”
“You were the only one who came back,” Charlie said again, gracing him with an affectionate smile.
Focusing back on Adam, she said, “Knox climbed up that tree.
As far as he could. The branches where I was sitting were very thin, and he couldn't get close. But he talked to me, calming me down until I managed to inch my way back to the trunk. He grabbed me, put me on his shoulders, and climbed all the way back to the ground. Then he walked me home.”
“Did you get in big trouble?” Adam asked, sneaking a look at me. I tried to give him my best 'Mom Face' so he didn't get any ideas. The last thing I needed was Adam climbing to the top of a tree and getting stuck.
“I didn't get in trouble because Knox didn't tell. He made me promise never ever to leave the house by myself, but he didn't tell.”
Adam stared up at Knox with reverence. “You rescued her. You saved her from falling out of the tree and then you didn't even tell.”
Knox leaned across me to Adam and said, seriously, “She could have gotten badly hurt. I was scared. I would have gotten a grown up if I thought I had time, but I was afraid she'd fall out of the tree. We were both very lucky.”
Ignoring the caution in Knox's words, Adam said again, “You saved her. You climbed all the way up and saved the Princess. Like in a book.”
“Not like a hero, bud. I never told anyone this, but I was so scared that after I walked Charlie home, I ran for the woods and threw up.”
“But you did it anyway,” Adam protested. “Even though you were scared. That's what Mom says being brave is. Doing hard stuff even though it's scary. From the book with the frog and the fox.”
“Kid's got a point,” Charlie said.
Knox shook his head. My heart tumbled at his feet. He hadn't tried to play the hero to Adam, when another man might have soaked up that worship, embellished his role in the story. No, Knox had exposed his own fear without hesitation.
What kind of man was he? Strong enough to take out six armed men on his own. Even stronger to admit when he was afraid.
How could I not fall for him?
I was setting myself up for pain when this was all over.
I couldn't find it in me to care.
I had Knox for now. That would have to be enough.