Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Main reason? Because I wanted to be with you during this sad time. I wanted to be someone you could hang on to, who’d take care of you, look out for you. Let you cry and grieve anyway you wanted to. I know how much your family means to you. It’s one of the things about you I love so much.”
Her eyes welled up.
“And I wanted to make sure you knew those words I spoke at Liv’s event were true. I have changed. You changed me, Charity. You made me see I didn’t need to be alone, that I didn’t need to think of a future with only myself for company because of my mother’s issues.”
The tears dropped from the confines of her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks like a gentle waterfall.
Kolby shifted so their hips touched, thighs rested along one another. His gaze never strayed from hers as if he needed her, willed her, to hear and understand his words.
“I came because I wanted to tell you something and I needed to see you when I said it.”
“What?” The word was equally harsh and hushed as it spilled from her.
Kolby swallowed, then brought one of her hands up to his lips.
“I love you,” he whispered around her knuckles.
“I’ve never allowed myself to love a woman – any woman – before.
In truth,” his head dipped and that half grin that was her undoing slid across his lips as they skimmed the back of her hand.
“I’ve never felt for any woman what I feel for you, Charity. ”
Words wouldn’t form.
He loved her.
Her.
How was that possible?
“I came here because I wanted you to know when I think about you, and that’s every moment of every day, I’m happy.
For the first time in I don’t know how long.
” He shrugged. “Probably since I was a kid before my mother, well. You know. But when we’re working together, or even just hanging out in the office together, my life feels better.
Happier. When you came to Concord to make sure I was okay, I realized how much that meant to me.
How much you meant to me. And for the first time ever, I let myself. ..hope.”
Since she’d done the same, she nodded.
“After what happened with Mandy and your reaction, I knew you wouldn’t listen to me or believe me. I needed to find a way to convince you I was serious about changing. So I called Liv. Told her. Everything.”
“What do you mean, everything?”
“That I loved you and needed a way for you to listen to me, and believe me. She was the one who suggested I come to the event.” He pulled a card from his jacket pocket. “This is my ballot from that night. I filled it out the minute I took it from the envelope.”
He handed it to Charity. The number 1 was the only one circled.
“How did you know I’d be this number?” Just as she asked the question, the answer hit her square between the eyes like she was a deer who’d gotten tagged during hunting season.
“Liv told me,” he said. “She knew I was there only for you.” He leaned in and placed his forehead against hers. “Only for you.”
Charity sighed and closed her eyes.
“I went there because I wanted to tell you that I want us to be together, Charity. As a couple. Just you and me. I want you in my life and I want to be in yours. Not just in a working partnership. Not just as friends. I want more than that. I want—”
“What’s goin’ on in here?”
Charity squealed like she’d been hit with buckshot, and bolted off the bed like a rocket.
“Daddy. What in the world—?”
Kolby came to a slow stand beside her, his gaze centered on her father’s furious scowl and crossed arms as he stood in the doorway.
Clad in his typical sleepwear of white undershirt and sweatpants, the work-hewn muscles of his upper body on full display, there was no mistaking what was running through his mind.
If looks could kill was as trite a saying as there came, but it was true in her father’s case.
“I asked what’s goin’ on in here?”
“N-Nothing, Daddy. We’re just talkin’.”
“Livin’ room chairs or sofas are for sittin’ on when yor talkin’, Baby-girl. Not beds.” He stared hard at her. “Why’you cryin’?” His hot glare shot to Kolby. “What did you do to her?”
“Daddy, stop.” Charity placed a hand on her father’s arm, dragging his attention to her and off Kolby. “He didn’t say or do anything to me.”
“Them tears tell another story.”
“I’m crying ‘cuz o'Granny, Daddy.” She snuck a glance at Kolby, willing him to keep his mouth shut. “It’s been hard. A hard day, is all.”
Her father’s face changed in a nanosecond from hard and scowling to soft and mournful.
He tugged her into his arms – which she went willingly into – and hugged her close to his massive body. “Oh, Baby-girl. I miss her, too. So much. But it was her time to go be with Granddaddy. I gotta believe she’s jest as happy to see him as a June bride on a sunny day.”
Charity sniffed as a smile tugged across her lips. “She did love him so,” she said, as she pulled back.
He nodded. Then his gaze traveled to Kolby again, and that scowl reappeared.
Kolby cleared his throat. “Mr. Quinlan, please know this. Charity is always safe with me. I would never do anything to hurt her.”
Rory’s left eyebrow arched, just like hers did when she didn’t believe something. CarlieRae appeared in the doorway, tying her robe around her tiny waist.
“What in the world is goin’ on in here? I thought everyone was sleepin’.”
“Seems like there was talkin’ goin’ on,” Rory told her, his tone still reinforcing he didn’t believe a word of it. “On the bed,” he added, as if that explained everything.
“Mama—”
“Mr. and Mrs. Quinlan I’d like to say something to the both of you.”
Charity turned to him, eyes pleading for him to keep quiet. He spared her a quick look that told her he understood what she was trying to tell him.
He didn’t listen, though.
“Your daughter is a fierce, independent woman and one of the smartest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.
And even though I know she can more than take care of herself, take care of her life, please know, all I want to do is protect her and make sure she’s cared for and happy, just like you two do. ”
“Why?” Mama asked, her eyes shining.
He looked down at Charity, that vulnerable expression he so rarely showed to anyone gracing his small smile. He reached out and slid his hand into hers.
CarlieRae gasped at the move, Rory growled low in the back of his throat, and Charity stood rock still.
“Because,” Kolby began, “As I was telling her when you found us, Mr. Quinlan,” he was staring at her now and the tears she’d had in her eyes had jumped to his. “I love her. With all my heart and everything in me. I love her.”
He shifted, facing her, and took her other hand.
They could have been all alone again, her parent’s presence a distant memory as he spoke to her.
Only her. “It’s taken me a long, long time to find someone I could even think about loving.
And loving so completely. I never knew it was possible to love someone like this. You’re it for me, Charity. You’re it.”
The truth was so clearly written all over his face that she could do nothing but believe him. He really did love her.
Oh, my.
“Baby-girl?” Mama said.
With a sniff, her eyes all but glued to Kolby’s face, her hands in his, Charity said, “Yeah, Mama?”
“What you got to say ‘bout that? You love him back?”
When she didn’t respond, Kolby’s eyes flickered and lost some of their sparkle. A tiny worry line popped up on his forehead and she could tell he was holding his breath. That did more to solidify in her heart he loved her than any declaration.
He may be the hottest guy she’d ever known, the handsomest, and the cockiest, but that unshielded raw vulnerability in his eyes touched her heart and claimed it fully.
Charity took a breath, then smiled slow and wide. “I love him so much, Mama, I cain’t take a full breath for tryin’.”
His eyes almost closed from the width of his smile. With no thought that her parents were staring at them, he swooped her into his arms and spun her around.
Her mother’s sigh rang through the room, accompanied by a tiny, delicate sniff.
“What’chu bawlin’ about, woman?” Rory asked, his brow mimicking corrugated cardboard.
CarlieRae slid her hand into the crook of his arm and squeezed. “Our Baby-girl’s in love and is loved in return,” she told him. “Ain’t that wonderful?”
Rory harrumphed. “Don’t know how wunnerful it is since he ain’t made his intentions known.” He glared at Kolby.
“Now, Daddy –”
“My intentions, Mr. Quinlan,” Kolby said, interrupting her, “Are sincere, honorable and respectful, I assure you.” Charity couldn’t stop the bark of laughter that shot out of her mouth. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Sorry. Sorry.”
Kolby, steely glare aimed at her that she couldn’t take seriously because his lips quirked upward with it, shook his head and turned back to her parents.
“Honorable and lasting,” he stressed the word, “I swear.”
“Hear that, ol’man?” CarlieRae said as she squeezed Rory’s arm.
“I hear it, I’m just thinkin’ it’s all kinda fast, is all. We don’t know this man from a stray horse’s butthole.”
Charity saw Kolby flinch and knew she had to say something to allay any fears or anxiety her father had.
“Daddy?”
He looked over at her, that scowl still in place.
“Have you ever known me to do anythin’ rash, or make any decision that didn’t involve spread sheets, weeks o’debate, and countless hours o’deliberation, so much so Granny always said I was beatin’ a dead horse into the grave?”
He cocked his head, a ghost of a smile forming. “No, cain’t say I have.”
“Have you ever been able to not trust me? My judgement? My decisions?”
He shook his head.
“Have I ever done anything that made you think I wasn’t able to take perfect care of myself, no matter what the situation?”
He sighed. “Nope. I know you can ‘cuz I seen you drop-kick Junior Masterson flat on his ass, an’ he weighs three times what you do.”
She grabbed his free hand in both of hers. “Then please, please remember that I’m an almost thirty-year-old woman with a brain who knows how to use it.”
“Ain’t yor brain I’m worried about,” he said, looking over at Kolby again.
“Daddy.” She speared him a look, then turned it on Kolby. Taking her hands from her father’s, she fisted them onto her hips and cocked her head. “He don’t weigh half what Junior Masterson does.”
CarlieRae laughed out loud.
“I think I’ll be okay,” Charity said, grinning from ear to ear when her father finally smiled at her.
He considered her for a long moment, one eye closed, the other barely slit open. “Think you can, too, Baby-girl.” He shot his gaze over to Kolby and opened his eyes wide. “You hurt her, know you got me and my five boys who’ll deal with you.”
Kolby had the grace to swallow. “No worries, Sir.” He shot out his hand. Rory took a few beats until CarlieRae’s elbow bumped him again.
Charity knew it was taking every ounce of strength in Kolby not to wince at her father’s over-the-top-strength-grip.
“Let’s go back to bed, ol’man, and leave these two to talk.”
“Door stays open while you talkin’,” Rory ordered.
“Yes, Daddy.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, then gave one to her mother, too.
“’Night, Son,” CarlieRae said.
Rory just nodded.
When the soft snick of her parent’s door closing echoed down the hallway, Charity let out a breath and swiped her hands through her hair.
“Who’s Junior Masterson?”
Hands fisted on her hips again, she turned to him, one eyebrow arching into her hairline. “Local boy who tried to put his hand up my dress at a church picnic when I was fourteen.”
She wondered what he’d say if she told him the scowl presently sliding across his face matched her father’s.
“And you...what?” He rolled a hand in the air.
“Bent his thumb back to an angle the good Lord didn’t intend, twisted his arm while holdin’ the thumb, snapped my wrist and dropped him flat on his fat ass. He squealed like a pig, then cried I’d ruined his new Sears Roebuck Sunday dress shirt. Dumbass.” She added with a headshake.
The glower disappeared when he gave her a full belly shaker of a laugh.
Charity couldn’t keep her own laugh contained. After a few moments, his expression softened as he reached out and threaded his fingers into hers. When he tilted his head and peered down at her, a smirk she could only describe as self-satisfied on his mouth, she asked, “What?
He took a beat, then mimicked her cadence. “You love me so much you cain’t take a full breath for tryin.’” When he batted his eyelashes she rolled her eyes.
“Lord, protect me from men with egos the size of a canyon.”
Kolby dragged her into his arms and pressed her, full-body, against him. Had anything ever felt as good as being in this man’s arms?
Nope. Not even anything close.
Rocking her, Kolby murmured against her hair, “Now you know how I feel. When I’m with you is the only time I’m able to take a full breath. Just knowing you’re with me makes everything better. Everything.”
He pulled back, looked her in the eyes and said, “I love you, Charity.”
She’d dreamed about hearing those words. That they came from a man who’d she’d thought incapable of the emotion was astounding. That he was directing them to her? Heart stopping.
With a head shake filled with amazement, she told him, “Crazy as it seems, I love you, too.”
When he kissed her, his lips sweet and soft, she almost forgot where there were. Luckily, he remembered for the both of them.
“You’d better get to your room before your father and brothers have a valid reason to beat the crap outta me.”
“They’d have to get through me, first,” she told him, planting a quick, hard kiss across the mouth she loved so much.
At the door, she turned when he whispered her name. “Dream about me.”
She grinned. “I always do.”