CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WINDSwere the first thing I noticed as I came awake. The second was being in bed, with the comforter around me and a weight across my chest. I turned my head to the side and my stomach clenched when I realized I was in bed with Charlie. I pushed his arm off me and bolted from the bed.
He blinked open his eyes and smiled at me. “Good morning. Coffee ready?”
“Get out,” I snarled.
The memories came back slowly. Last night I’d needed him so much. When he led me to the bedroom, I thought it was a dream. He laid me down and covered me, then crawled in beside me. He spooned me, and his warmth allowed me to sleep. But today the anger surged back.
“Have you looked outside?” he asked. “I did about two hours ago when I got up to use the bathroom. The snowdrifts almost cover the truck. So I’m kind of stuck here. I mean, unless you want me to hobble back down to town. Which should only take until I freeze to death.”
He was trying to play on my sympathies, and the bastard knew I wouldn’t send him out.
“Why are you here? No, wait. How did you even get here?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Your brother drove me back to town. Suffice it to say he wasn’t happy about the situation. He didn’t say a word to me until he got to my place. That’s when he let me have it. He told me I’d turned you against him, how I’d messed you up even more, and that I should, quote, ‘get the fuck out of Fall Harbor.’ Then he pretty much kicked me and my stuff to the curb. When I got to the door, Teresa waspissed off. She yelled at me and called me quite a few colorful names, but I think a lot of that had to do with the weather. She always gets cranky when it snows.” He rolled over on his side and leveled his gaze at me. “As soon as I got into the house, I grabbed her keys and told her I was coming back here. She took them from me and refused to let me leave the house. So I waited until she fell asleep, took them from her purse, and here I am. Driving was a pain. You never notice how much you depend on your right foot until you can’t use it. But I was determined to get back here, because I couldn’t let things end. Not like that.”
“Why did you come back? You should have just stayed in town. It would have been better for both of us.”
He pushed himself up until he was leaning against the headboard. “For you, maybe. It wouldn’t have been better for me. You might want to sit down for this, because it’s going to be a long story. Actually, we might want to eat first, because I’m famished.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “Get on with it.”
A much put-upon sigh was my reply. The bastard was milking this.
“At least come back to bed. It’s cold, and you generate a lot of body heat.”
My stomach roiled at his statement. He wasn’t wrong. My teeth were already chattering. I opened the closet and pulled out another comforter, which I wrapped around myself. The heavy down immediately began to warm me. I sat on the chair from the desk and stared at him.
“You may not believe me, but I did try to tell you before Clay showed up. I don’t want to lie to you about anything.”
“No, the two of you would rather just plot behind my back,” I snapped.
“It’s not like that,” Charlie assured me. “Maybe after I explain, you’ll understand.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he leveled his gaze at me, holding my complete attention. “About a year and a half ago, not long after I arrived, Clay came into the library. Like I said. I was pretty new here, and I was looking up town facts—weather, precipitation, and things like that. Clay struck up a conversation, and I found him to be funny and friendly. We started meeting for coffee at the Clover a couple times a week. Anyway, after about a month or so, he mentioned he’s got a brother who lives far out of town. When I asked him why, he said you had your reasons and they weren’t for him to tell me.”
I leaned forward because I wanted to hear more. Yesterday I was angry at Clay, but it had simmered into a deep hurt. I knew Clay loved me, and sometimes he did stupid things, but he was my brother. Charlie was another matter entirely. How well did I really know him? Months of jogging by my house, and a few times with a bit of conversation? Did that really let me understand him at all?
“Every time we talked, he would mention you. How proud he was that you’d made a life for yourself, how incredible you were, and so forth. I admit, I was intrigued. The more we met, the more I learned. The more I found out, the more I wanted to know. Finally Clay tells me where you live, but he also mentions you’re shy around people you don’t know, and that if I wanted to meet you, I had to let you come to me.”
The bastard made me sound like a wounded animal? Yet it worked, didn’t it? He got me to talk to Charlie, and he got my guard down.
“So I asked him how he thought I should go about it. He knew I liked to run. I would do it every day in town, and more than once, he saw me as he was driving by. So he suggested I start running down this road. He said your nature would win out eventually. So I figured, why not? He was very specific that if I was going to do it, it would need to be at the same time every day, and that if I deviated from my schedule, you would panic.”
Okay, how had I not known that Clay knew me so well? A chill went through me. I wrapped myself tighter in the comforter, but that only dulled it.
Charlie reached out a hand, and I took it. “Come back to bed, Matt.”
My mind fuzzed out. I got up, threw the comforter on the bed, and then crawled in beside Charlie. Though I worried he would try to kiss me again, he merely reached down and laced his fingers with mine.
“I started coming up here, mostly out of curiosity. But then I noticed you watching me from your window, and I… I don’t know. I was drawn to the shy man who needed to be the one to approach me. One day, I figured I’d let you know I wasn’t here to hurt you, so I waved. Your eyes went wide and you ducked down. You were so freaking adorable. I had a smile on my face the rest of my run.”
Adorable? I squeezed his hand hard, so he could see howadorableI was. The smug bastard smiled and squeezed back, though not hard enough to hurt.
“When I talked to Clay that afternoon, I told him what had happened. Now this is where the story might get uncomfortable for you, but please, try to keep in mind that Clay and your mom love you very, very much.”
My mom? Shit. What did she have to do with this?
“I got invited to dinner that night. When I met your mom, she hugged me and welcomed me into her home. When Clay explained to her who I was, she flashed me a smile and told me she’d read one of my books. That made me feel ten feet tall. As she was putting the food together, Clay told me the reason why he wanted me to get you out. He said he worried about you, out here alone. He said he hoped that if you got comfortable with me, you’d come back to town. I was angry because I felt like he was using me, and I told him so. But then your mom came back into the room, and she said she hasn’t spoken to you for years. I didn’t understand that, but when Clay tried to explain, I told him I didn’t want to hear it from him. I only wanted to hear your story from you. And to do that, I needed to keep coming back.”
