Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lord, deliver me from overprotective male family members.
She’d repeated the prayer five times already, and it wasn’t even eight p.m.
The visitation, long and sorrowful, had finally ended and the family – all of them, grandkids and wives included – had driven back to the farm Charity had grown up in.
Kolby’s unexpected arrival had done wonders for her headache, something she hadn’t considered at the time.
Once she was certain he was staying, the dull ache in the back of her head disappeared as she received the condolences, unbidden hugs, and tear-stained faces of the mourners.
Just knowing Kolby was at the back, far end of the room somehow made the entire process easier to get through.
Her mother had cornered her in the bathroom when she needed a break and questioned Kolby’s presence.
“Honestly, Mama, I had no idea he was comin’. I’m just as surprised as anything.”
“But a happy surprise, I think,” CarlieRae said while reapplying her lipstick.
Charity’s cheeks went pink as she looked in the mirror and ran a brush through her hair. She’d been petted, hugged, and had hands of all generations swipe over her head as she’d received the condolences of the mourners. Her hair now resembled a beaver burrow of tangles and wisps and snares.
“You cain’t fool yor mama, Baby-girl. This man means somethin’ to ya, doesn’t he? More than just someone you’re workin’ side by side wit'.”
Charity sighed as she finished brushing her hair. “It’s complicated, Mama.”
“Relationships usually are, Baby-girl. That’s what makes’em interestin’”
With a nod first at her reflection, then her daughter, she left Charity alone.
“Interesting is one word for it.”
CarlieRae invited Kolby back to the house for supper once the wake ended, something Charity didn’t know until he walked into the house.
Her sisters-in-law had cornered her and questioned who he was, what he was to Charity.
Were they dating? This was the reason Charity had never brought home any men for her family to meet since leaving town.
The questions were more like police interviews, and everyone was in full interrogation mode.
Especially her overprotective and overbearing brothers.
While the potatoes got passed around, Pecker asked, “How long you been working with our sister?”
Zeke queried, “You married?”
When Kolby replied no, the followup was “Ever been?” then “Why not?”
Poo wanted to know “What kind of car you drive?” while Spud asked, “Who are your people and why’nt you have a real job, cuz photography seems like sumthin' ya do when you ain't got a job.”
Rapid fire, one after the other, from both sides of the table. Charity’s head was spinning like a tilt-a-whirl ride at the county fair, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how Kolby was staying sane and not running for the hills.
“Leave the man be,” CarlieRae said at one extremely intrusive question about Kolby’s sexuality from Liam. “You got a room for the night lined up, Mr. Picture Man?”
His face blanched and in that moment Charity knew he’d done the same thing she’d done when his mother had been hospitalized.
The difference was she could have gotten any kind of motel room in Concord.
In Gulches End there was only a rooming house and it was already booked solid with all the Quinlan relatives that had come hither and yon for the services.
“I need to get one,” he told her.
“No need. You can stay here. What are ya, ‘bout six-two?”
“Three,” he answered, brows turning to commas over his eyes.
CarlieRae nodded. “You can stay in Pecker’s old room, then. That’s got the longest bed.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” the bed’s owner called. “Don’t I get a say in who stays in my room?”
“Not since you moved out thirty years ago, you don’t,” his mother said. “My house. My rules. My choice o'who sleeps in the beds I got free. You got yor own big bed you can sleep in. You ain’t usin’ that one upstairs.”
Kolby looked as if he were a deer and had just walked into a blind field with gun-toting hunters. “Oh, Mrs. Quinlan, thank you, but you don’t—”
Her raised hand shushed him. “No buts, Mr. Picture Man. Any friend of Charity’s,” she flipped her hand in the air to finish the statement.
“Friend, huh?” Rory mumbled, the sarcasm profound in his voice. He scowled and stared down the table at Kolby, looking for all the world to see his concern about the man being an axe murderer, a prison escapee, or a sexual predator who was gonna defile his baby-girl.
Et tu, Daddy?
It was bad enough her brothers were looking at him like that, but her own father?
Lord, she prayed again, save me from the men in this family.
“What time we gotta be at the church in th’morning, Daddy?” Charity asked. She knew the answer, but she needed to divert and deflect the emotions tripping around the male members of her family right now.
Rory answered her and then one of her brother’s wives piped in with something she heard at the wake, which caused the rest of them to ask questions and before she knew it, Kolby was – thank you, Jesus – forgotten.
A while later, after her parents had gone to bed and her brothers and their families had left, Charity showed Kolby to his room.
“I’m really sorry about this,” he said when she handed him clean sheets to make up the bed. “I was all set to get a room in town.”
“You wouldn’t’a been able to, ‘cuz they’re all filled with family and friends staying over for the burial tomorr’a.”
When he didn’t respond, she glanced up from where she was tucking in the bottom sheet to find him staring at her with eyes so hot she felt the tips of her hair singe.
“What’s’th’matta?"
Kolby blinked several times, then shot her a grin so powerful she felt the floor underneath her shift.
“You’ve been here, what? Two days?”
She nodded and drew her brows together. “Why?”
With a head shake, Kolby shimmied the pillowcase over the pillow. “You sound like you never left. I noticed it at the funeral home, but with your family, talking around the table, even now, your accent’s pronounced.”
The rest of her face heated.
“You have to know how damn sexy it is, Charity, and what it does to me.”
She swallowed the golf ball in the back of her throat and averted her eyes as she moved to the other side of the bed to tuck the sheet. She had to think before she spoke again just to push the down-home parlance and cadence from her tongue.
“Sexy is the last thing anyone – anyone with a brain, that is – would call it. I worked like a dog for years to tamp it down. It’s annoyin' to realize it flows back so easily once I’m here.”
Kolby tossed the pillowcase on the bed, grabbed the top sheet, and flicked it in the air over the mattress. Charity caught the opposite side and together they smoothed it into place, the comforter over it.
“You won’t be needin’ this t’night—damn!” She shook her head in disgust when Kolby laughed. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you. Really. It’s just so.
..I don’t know how to say it. Humanizing?
No. Humbling? Still not right.” He shucked his hands in his pockets as he smiled over the bed at her.
“You’re always so perfect, so in control.
It’s nice to see you in your element, around your family. Relaxed.”
“The last thing I am is relaxed right now.” Arms crossed over her chest, she glared at him. “I’m sittin’ on pins thinkin’ that at any moment my brothers are gonna toss you around like a frisbee and I’m gonna have to kick some fraternal butt.”
That cocky smile turned her legs to the consistency of her mama’s tasty jello salad.
“You’d defend my honor? Beat your brothers up over me?
“Let’s hope it won’t come to that, but yes. They’re still the overprotective blockheads they always were, thinkin’ I need savin’ and safeguardin’. Makes me wanna spit, I get s’mad.”
Her southern roots sneaked into her voice again, and this time she embraced them.
Kolby’s smile went soft, his eyes moving to half-mast. He sat down on the edge of the bed, slipped his hands between her folded arms and tugged her down next to him.
He wove his fingers into hers. “I know the real reason you say that is because you want them to understand you can take care of yourself, but just hearing you say it in context to me is everything, Charity.”
Confused, she asked, “Why?”
“Because it tells me you care.”
“Well, of course I care. I don’t want to see anyone get beaten to an unrecognizable pulp.”
“It’s more than that.” He shook his head. “And you know it.”
His meaning hit home the moment he squeezed her hand and the soft glow in his eyes heated again. Kolby was right; she cared for him. Much more than she should.
Much more than she ever had for any other guy.
And so what if you do, Charity? Leopards and spots still blazed in the front of her mind even though he’d told her he’d changed. She should add actions and words to that cliché-stream.
But he had shown her he’d changed, hadn’t he?
He’d explained about Mandy, and in truth, she believed him.
He’d shown up at the speed dating event when he didn’t need something like that to find a woman.
All he had to do was walk into a bar and he’d never go home alone.
He’d come to Gulches End to be with her while she buried her grandmother, and she’d never asked him to.
In fact, she’d never asked him to do any of the kind things he’d done for her. Taking care of her during a migraine. Sticking up for her with rude clients – Mandy in particular.
Could she truly believe he’d changed? That family and a future were the things he wanted? Did that include her?
“I-I need to know something, Kolby.”
He squeezed her hand. “Anything.”
“Tell me the truth. The God’s truth. Why did you come here? I know what you said before about wanting to make sure I wasn’t alone, and that’s sweet. But you know the family I’ve got. I could never be alone even if I wanted to. So tell me the truth. Why did you come here when you didn’t have to?”