Chapter Seventeen #3
Not Kolby. He had four inches and fifty pounds on him, so he wasn’t worried, especially because he didn’t think the guy was dick enough to want to start something physical.
When Tom took a step toward him, chest puffed out and a teeth baring snarl on his face, Kolby knew he was wrong to assume that.
“You work with Charity,” the man said, the condescending tone set to demean. “That’s all. You’re not in charge of her. She’s my girlfriend not yours, so you read the room and butt out.”
His aggressive stance was almost comical.
Almost.
When Tom came right up at him, chin lifted – there was that four-inch height difference on full display – Kolby figured the guy was posturing so he wouldn’t look weak to Charity.
Wrong move, bud.
Kolby stood his ground, one eyebrow mockingly raised.
Tom chest-bumped him, a move Kolby barely felt.
Then he did it again. Kolby was all set to shove back, but Charity moved like lightning between them.
“Stop it!” She hissed, danger and anger in her voice as she slammed a hand on each of their torsos. She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. “Knock it off right now, Tom. You’re acting like a child.”
“Me? He’s the one,” he pointed at Kolby, “who—”
“Zip it,” she commanded in a don’t make me take you down tone that warmed his heart. A strong hint of Mississippi crawled into the words and Kolby had to struggle to keep a smirk contained.
He wasn’t surprised when Tom clamped his mouth shut, abject annoyance snapping his body stiff as a plank as he regarded her.
Charity’s cheeks puffed as she blew out a breath and closed her eyes for a brief second.
“Now, I’m sorry,” she said, actively struggling for calm, “but this isn’t the time, nor place for this kind of behavior.
We’re at a wedding reception. A wedding reception, Tom, and the two of us are working.
” She tossed a side eye Kolby’s way. “We have responsibilities and no time for nonsense like this.”
Tom slung his fisted hands into his pants pockets, the scowl hardening his jaw.
“How would you feel if I came into your work and acted like you are right now?”
“You know I work from home.” Petulance dripped from his tone.
“No surprise,” Kolby muttered.
Charity shot him a glare so hard he looked down at his sneakers.
“I think you should go,” she told Tom after hauling in another breath. “Home,” she clarified. “I’ll call you later tonight and we can talk about this.”
Tom dragged his gaze from her to Kolby and then back to her.
The sneer that crossed his expression had Kolby going into protective mode again as he took a step toward the man, fearful he was going to lash out at Charity.
“Don’t bother,” Tom spat, shaking his head. With a final heated stare at Kolby, he stomped back down the hallway like a sulky child being sent from the room.
When he was out of sight, Kolby moved.
“Charity—”
She spun around to face him, fury on her face and running across her eyes.
“Don’t.” She shot up a hand, palm out. “Just don’t. We have to get through the rest of this wedding, and we’ve already been absent for too long.”
With that, she turned on her kitten heels and speed-walked back to the ballroom.
Yeah, she was angry all right. And not only at her boyfriend.
He took a breath and told himself he’d wait until they were done for the day to talk about what happened.
And they were going to talk about it. The guy she was seeing, despite being vetted by Liv Joyner, had too many red flags for him not to say something.
***
Her face hurt, her smile pulled so tight and wide she felt like a rubber band overstretched from its normal, lax position.
Hell's bells. How had this day gone so wrong?
Dumb question, Baby-girl, CarlieRae’s voice whispered in her ear. You know dang well how.
Unfortunately, she did.
“We can’t thank you enough,” the bride said as she pulled Charity in for a body-crushing hug. “You made everything beyond perfect.”
“You’re welcome.” She patted the designer dressed back. “It wasn’t hard with such a fabulous couple to work with.”
The groom shook Kolby’s hand.
“Okay,” Charity said. “There’s nothing else you want to do? Any last-minute pictures of just the two of you? Anything?”
“One picture with you guys,” the bride said. “Can you selfie on that?” she nodded toward Kolby’s camera.
“Let me do it this way.” He tugged his phone from his pocket, then called up the camera icon. “I can send this to you.”
Charity huddled close to the happy couple, arms around their waists.
Kolby planted himself next to them and held the camera up framing them all into the shot.
Having him so close, touching her, breathing him in, was too much.
The coiled tension coursing through her system was begging to be released.
“Smile, kids,” he instructed. He kept his finger on the photo button for a good five seconds. When he dropped his arm, he told them, “Okay. I got about twenty. I’ll pick out the best and send it to you.”
The bride threw her arms up and around his neck and clamped him as tight as she had Charity.
“You’re the best!”
“Okay, babe, let the guy breathe,” the groom quipped with a smile. “We need him alive to send us our wedding pics.”
Laughing, Kolby patted her shoulders as Charity had, and then took a step back.
With a final goodbye tossed over their shoulders, she and Kolby were alone.
“Let’s –”
She cut him off before he could say anything further. “I’m going to check with Maureen.” Without looking at him, she moved toward the kitchen.
Maureen was in the arms of one of the tallest men Charity had ever seen, and being soundly and thoroughly kissed.
Charity stopped short, a spontaneous grin forming at the scene. After a few beats, she cleared her throat.
Lucas Alexander, Chief of Police of Heaven and Maureen’s husband, broke the kiss and glowered over his shoulder at her.
“Sorry to intrude, Chief. Maureen.”
With a dramatic sigh, Lucas dropped his hands from around his wife’s waist. “Once, just once, I’d like to kiss my wife without someone,” he slanted a tossed-eyebrow glare at her, “interrupting me.”
Charity blushed while Maureen grinned and patted his cheek. “Don’t make the girl squirm, Lucas. You get to kiss me all you want when this place is quiet, and you know it.”
“It’s never enough.” He shook his head and smiled down at her.
Charity’s heart stuttered.
This. This is what I want. Someone to look at me like the Chief looks at his wife. With unending love and devotion. Apparently, Tom isn’t that man. Tonight’s little display of temper and idiocy proves it.
Kolby came up behind her, the heat from his body signaling he was closer to her than she could stand. She put needed distance between them.
“Happy couple all done?” Maureen asked.
She nodded. “They’re on their way upstairs. Everything set?”
“Champagne is chilling in their room, along with a few pieces of cake and some of the cookies they wanted. I left two cold breakfast trays in their mini-fridge because they’re leaving before service starts in the morning.”
“I have car service picking them up at four.”
“If I know you,” Lucas told his wife, “and I do, you’ll be up to see them off and probably give them go-bags of fresh muffins and hot coffee.”
She shrugged. “Only seems right. They are my guests.”
He smiled at her, then placed a kiss on her temple. “My wife, the hostess with the mostest.”
“You got that from Nanny Fee,” she said with a laugh, mentioning her grandmother. “No one says stuff like that in this century. Only her.”
“She does have some good sayings. Okay.” He stretched. “I’m gonna go get my gear.”
“He has to work tonight?” Kolby asked. “I thought one of the perks of being chief was that he could have weekends off.”
“One of his deputies’ wives just had a baby, so Lucas is covering a few of his shifts.”
“Okay, well, I’m heading out.” Charity stretched up and kissed Maureen’s cheek.
“Here,” the innkeeper said, handing them each a bag. “Left-overs from this morning.”
Kolby grinned. “If you weren’t already married to a man who could shoot me dead and then step over my body like it was roadkill, I’d beg you to marry me.”
“You just like my muffins.” She smiled at him. That smile dropped a hair when she looked over at Charity.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
Charity blinked, pulling out of her mental meanderings about the situation with Tom. “Yeah. Yes. I’m okay. Just tired.”
Maureen didn’t look like she believed her. “Did your friend find you?”
Charity could barely nod.
“He said he was here to surprise you.”
“It was a surprise, alright,” Kolby muttered.
Charity tossed him a withering glare, then said to Maureen, “I’m gonna head out.”
“You okay?” the innkeeper asked again.
With a nod, she turned, tossed her bag over her shoulder, and shifted around Kolby.
He muttered a quick, “‘Night,” to Maureen, then sidled up next to Charity, his equipment in his hands.
Charity ignored him as she pushed through the front door of the inn. She pulled her phone from her pocket and called up her rideshare app.
“What are you doing?” he asked, glancing down at her phone. “I’ll take you home.”
“No.”
“You came with me, Charity. I’ll drive you home.”
“I said, no. I’ll get myself home. I don’t feel like being around you.”
Kolby stopped walking and dropped his equipment. “What are you so pissed at me about?”
She stared straight ahead of her, ignoring the question.
Kolby moved directly into her line of sight. She took a step to the side. He countered the move.
“Charity, stop. Answer me.”
“No.”
She stepped away from him, only to be halted when he rooted in front of her, hands on his hips.
“Look, I’m not the one who showed up here unannounced and then threw a hissy fit when you wouldn’t drop everything and fall at his feet.”
Her neck snapped up, her eyes feral as they pierced his face. “That’s not what I’m mad at,” she spat.
“No? Coulda fooled me. You ordered him to leave. That sound like you were pleased to see him?”
She had to dig down to her toes for calm and was just tired enough that her toes – and everything else in her – wouldn’t comply.
“Yes, I’m mad at Tom for that. I hate surprises.”
“I know that, Charity. Why doesn’t he? He claims you’re his girlfriend. Why doesn’t he know something as simple as that about you if you are.”
“Stop.” Her hands flew to her head and she rubbed her temples with the pads of her fingers. A headache was creeping in and she didn’t have the wherewithal to stop it. “This has nothing to do with Tom and everything to do with your overbearing, arrogant attitude.”
“I’m the one who’s arrogant?” His head tilted to the side as his eyes flashed. “Not the guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer when you said it? Repeatedly?”
Charity bit down on her lips and closed her eyes, praying for a smidge of composure.
Not happening, her pained mind shot back.
“You know what I’m talking about, Kolby. Once again, you purposefully butted into a situation concerning me with that overprotective caveman idiot thing you do. Treating me like a poor little damsel that you, big, brawny he-man, must protect from all harmful things.”
“I was trying to help.” His voice rose as he lifted his hands from his hips. “He wasn’t about to take your no for an answer.”
“And once again I didn’t need your help,” she countered, her volume matching his. “I was handling it.”
“The very fact that you had to handle him at all is the problem, don’t you see that?
” His deep booming timber echoed in the empty lot.
“He’s the one who was acting like an idiot, not me.
Jesus.” He dragged his hands through the sides of his hair.
“He chest-bumped me, Charity. Talk about caveman. He was staking a claim to you like you were his property. He disregarded everything you said to him as if your feelings didn’t matter and only his did. Didn’t you see that at all?”
In the back recesses of her mind, she knew Kolby wasn’t wrong. She’d made note of the way Tom always took control of their dates, deciding where they’d eat, what movie they’d see. His showing up tonight was just another of those instances where he was assuming control.
But that was for her to deal with, not Kolby.
Before she could say another word, Lucas and Maureen came through the front door of the inn.
“Everything okay out here?” Lucas queried.
They both turned to him and barked, “Fine.”
Charity shook her head and added, “We were just discussing something while I wait for my ride.”
“I’m driving you home,” Kolby said, his voice brokering no argument about it.
That did it.
Fatigue, sleepless nights, and frustration about her life all combined in a cocktail mix of fury. Add in the brewing head pain and she was done. Simply...done.
She didn’t even try to mask her roots when she shouted, “I wouldn’t get inna car wit’ you, Kolby O’Brian, if'n I was stranded in the desert f’days wit’ no water and knockin’ at death’s door and you were th’ only one left on earth wit’ a vee-hick-le an'a water jug!”
Her words repeated in a shrieking echo in the night air like a bad public announcement system in a ballpark. The silence that followed was staggering.
Charity’s heart galloped like caged horses suddenly sprung free.
The heat in her cheeks scalded. With her vision tunneled on Kolby as she shrieked, she hadn't noticed anything but the shock on his face. As her chest heaved, she detected movement around her periphery and was mortified to find the bride and groom’s parents staring at them in addition to a stern-faced Lucas and a stunned, open-mouthed Maureen.
Charity’s body shook with equal parts rage and humiliation at losing control and having it witnessed by so many people.
No one moved. No one said anything.
Then, Lucas stepped toward her and, in a quiet voice coated in kindness, said, “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll drive you home.” He took her arm and led her toward his squad car.
She went, silently, without struggle or protest.