Chapter Eighteen
The headache she’d cried herself to sleep with was still present when she woke the next morning.
Darkness bathed her bedroom, the lighted bedside clock showing the time of four-thirty.
Charity slid from the bed and, like a sleepwalker, shuffled to her bathroom, phone in hand.
She couldn’t turn the bathroom light on because the glare would cripple her, so with her phone’s flashlight, dimmed to the extent she could see just in front of her, she found the pills she rarely took, swallowed one, not the two pill dose prescribed, drank a full glass of water and then crawled back into bed.
The next time she opened her eyes, daylight slid through the window blinds.
She’d slept for six more solid hours, the stiffness in her back and legs indicting she hadn’t shifted an inch in all that time. Her dried tears had stiffened on her face and her lips were in dire need of a coating of Chapstick.
The reason for the tears shot to the front of her mind the moment she opened her eyes.
Goodness, she’d made a spectacle of herself.
Her parents would be so disappointed if they knew how she’d screeched like a banshee at Kolby.
She was disgusted for losing her well-fought calm.
There was no excuse she could give that would negate the horrible way she’d treated him and what she'd said. She’d overreacted.
Whether because she was tired, mad, or had a headache, it didn’t matter.
Yes, he’d been in protective mode with Tom. That wasn’t in question. And she'd come to realize, after seeing how he was with his mother and knowing a little more about his past, that Kolby was as hardwired to protect those around him as she was to be independent.
You cain’t really be mad at him ‘cuz of the way he’s made, Baby-Girl, CarlieRae’s voice said in her head. And wouldn’t ya rather have a man who’s gonna protect ya than one who couldn’t care less about ya?
Charity couldn’t argue with the voice of reason, especially when that voice was her mother’s.
What to do about her behavior was a question she gave considerable thought to as she dragged her stiff body into a scalding shower.
She could text him and apologize, but that seemed cowardly.
She could call and ask if he’d meet her for breakfast, but she was terrified he’d refuse.
She could drive to his apartment, deliver her apology in person, but the thought she might find he had company shot that straight out of her.
None of the options were good, but she had to do something. And soon. Today. Because the longer she avoided it, the worse the situation was going to be for Kolby and for her.
Never let a wound fester, Granny Quinlan had said time and time again over the years.
Wise words.
Out of the shower, she went back into her bedroom to get dressed. Her phone buzzed from her bedside table.
Office. 30 minutes.
Colleen.
“Oh, good Lord and all the departed souls. This can’t be good.”
Colleen was never terse. Not in a text, or real life. There was no preamble to the missive advising why she had to be at the office in a half hour, but from the tone of the message, it wasn’t a friendly Sunday morning kaffeeklatsch reconnect visit.
“She knows,” Charity told her closet while she pulled out clothes for the day. “She knows what happened last night.”
Fear choked the back of her throat. Colleen’s reputation in the wedding planner community was above reproach.
No hint of scandal had ever wafted her way, and from the first day she'd begun working for Colleen, Charity had vowed to conduct herself in a way to represent the business in the best possible light at all times.
Last night she’d broken that vow. Publicly. Her imagination got the better of her as she pictured Maureen, and the bride and groom’s parents, detailing her outburst in the parking lot of the inn. While not scandalous, it was salacious enough to cause gossip – something Charity knew Colleen hated.
You’ve stepped in it now, Baby-Girl. What’chu’gonna do about it?
“The million-dollar question, Daddy” she murmured to her reflection in the mirror.
Her phone chirped with a text from Liv.
“Oh, Lordy.”
Can you talk?
Not right now. I have to go meet with Colleen.
Okay. Stop by my office when you’re done. I’ll be there most of the morning.
She replied she would, then hit send.
This was going to be a long, long day.
Right on time, she pulled her car into the office driveway, noting Kolby’s truck already parked.
With a bracing breath, she walked through the front door. Voices wafted from Colleen’s office.
“Charity?” Colleen called when the door shut behind her.
“Yes. I’m coming." The tremor in her voice was unpreventable and not even the calm she silently pleaded for could quell it.
She stepped into the room and three pair of eyes regarded her. Nodding to Slade first, then Colleen, she mumbled a good morning. Her gaze drifted over Kolby but she didn’t include him in the salutation.
“Take a seat.” Colleen pointed to the empty chair positioned next to Kolby's. Unlike his usual slouched, relaxed posture, he was upright, his legs at a ninety-degree angle, his hands resting on his thighs.
No greeting back from her boss, no smile on her face, and the two pink spots on her cheeks showed she wasn’t happy.
Not even close.
Charity sat.
“As I was just telling Kolby,” Colleen tossed him a glance, “I got a few disturbing phone calls last night after the Reynolds/Damon wedding ended.”
Charity swallowed, nodded, and folded her shaking hands together in her lap.
“Maureen and both Karen Reynolds and Donna Damon called me. The moms wanted to praise how everything went with the day and to thank us. They added, though, there was a sour note to report at the end of the night. Maureen told me the two of you had a shouting match in the parking lot and that Lucas had to drive you home.”
Her attention zeroed in on Charity.
“She didn’t know what you were fighting about, and I have to tell you, I don’t care what it concerned. What I do care about is that clients witnessed the scene and felt compelled to report it to me.”
The color in her cheeks darkened as her tone became sharper.
“Babe,” Slade said softly from his perch behind her chair. He rubbed a spot between her shoulders. “Take a breath. Come on.”
She did, pursing her lips together as she nailed them each with a hard glare.
“I left the two of you in charge of my business, my business, in the hopes you’d conduct yourselves professionally, especially around clients. To say I’m disappointed doesn’t come close to how upset I am about this.”
Tears threatened to spill, so Charity dropped her gaze and willed them to dry before they could.
“The two of you have been swiping at one another for years, but you’ve never let it affect how you conduct yourselves professionally, especially around clients. Why did that change? How? Tell me what happened.”
Charity sensed Kolby’s stare. She couldn’t look at him, though, because the tears were a breath away from spilling down her cheeks.
“Charity?” His voice, deep and raw, told her he’d had as tough a time sleeping as she had. “Do you want me to go first?”
She nodded, never lifting her head.
Kolby inhaled, then said, “Everything was fine until the guy Charity’s been seeing showed up at the inn yesterday, unexpectedly.
I was a little, well, I guess I was rude to him when he wouldn’t leave after Charity asked him to.
Repeatedly. He was acting like a tool and I called him on it.
I also, well, I voiced my opinion of the guy, and that didn’t sit well with Charity.
Plus,” another deep breath, “I was in a shitty mood because of all that’s been going on with my mother.
I took it out on Tom, I guess, and Charity. ”
Her head whipped up, her valiant attempt at keeping her tears contained flown, as they wet her cheeks with the motion.
“I’m sorry.” The apology wasn’t aimed at Colleen, but at her.
She was the one who should be apologizing, not him. The one who’d been racking her brain on how to do so, so he’d accept the gesture. But he’d beat her to it.
“Charity?” Colleen said. “Care to tell me your side?”
She sniffed and swiped at her cheeks.
“Everything Kolby said is true. I-I overreacted when he called Tom out. I...I didn’t think it was his place to say anything. I got mad when he did and I let it fester for the rest of the reception. It all came to a head when we were done with the day and he told me he was driving me home.”
“You were screaming at him because he offered to drive you home?” Confusion etched in Salde's quirked brows and tilted head.
Charity shrugged. “I looked at it as another way of him trying to protect me when I didn’t need or ask for protection. I had the situation with Tom handled.”
“You didn’t think so?” Colleen asked Kolby, to which he shook his head.
“And,” she said to Charity, “Kolby’s offer to drive you home you saw as him being overprotective?”
Another shrug. “Yeah. It wasn’t the first time. But I didn’t shrug it off like I should have.”
Husband and wife looked at one another.
“There’s got to be more behind your reaction than that,” Colleen said. “Because I can’t see that as something to make you lose the control you cherish so much. Especially in front of other people.”
Charity bit her bottom lip and dropped her head again.
“I’m right. There is, isn’t there?” Colleen asked.
Charity, gaze down, nodded.
“Charity.” Kolby’s voice held a warning she ignored.
She huffed in her own breath. The guilt of keeping a secret from Colleen was proving too much.
The woman deserved to know the root reason why Charity lost it.
With her headache under control, she’d been able to think clearly about why her action last night was so uncharacteristic and had finally settled on what had happened between them and all her confused feelings about Kolby.
“What is it?” Colleen asked.