CHAPTER 22
CHARLIE
As far as Charlie could tell, Miss Anna Lafferty was being awfully cagey. But it wasn’t his business, so he decided not to pry. And now she wanted to go on a walk to tell him something, which he could only assume would be related to her odd behavior. He opened an orange soda for her, grabbed a beer for himself, and left the house with her.
Charlie could have walked around his property with his eyes closed and not even stumbled. That was how well he knew the place. But walking around it with Anna made him feel lost for some reason. She took forever to start talking, too, sipping her drink slowly while she made her way along with him. Usually, Charlie found it easy to wait for people to come to things in their own time. This time, though, the more Anna hesitated to talk, the more uneasy he became. She was clearly scared to tell him something, and he didn’t want to think about what.
After twenty minutes or so, he finally lost his patience and asked, “Anna, are you okay? What’s going on?”
She stopped walking right outside the old barn where they’d fixed the roof together. Right now, she looked so small. Charliehad the instinct to keep her safe no matter what. He hoped she would open up about whatever was bothering her. “Remember that night we spent together?” she asked him.
For no reason at all, Charlie’s throat went dry. “Yes.”
She shuffled her feet and went on. “Was there… a reason you got cold right after?”
“Cold?” Of course, he knew what she meant, but he was stunned and he needed time to think. Asking for clarification would give him a moment to sort out what he was dealing with.
“You stopped talking to me, started answering me with one word. You barely looked at me.” She seemed to be getting mildly choked up at the memory, which baffled Charlie. “I thought we had something going, you know?” she said. “But then you didn’t want to be anywhere near me, for some reason. It made me feel like I’d made a huge mistake.”
He shook his head. “No, you didn’t.”
She went on. “I was so confused. I talked to a friend who told me this sort of thing has happened to her lots of times. She said most guys, they just disappear after they get what they want. Got me thinking you would have ghosted me if I hadn’t been on your property every day.”
Anger rose up in Charlie when he heard that. “Firstly, I don’t know what you mean byghosted, but I don’t abandon people after I supposedly ‘get what I want,’ especially not women. Okay? I would never do that, not to you or anyone else.”
She clenched her teeth and lost a little more height as her posture changed. “Then why? Why would you treat me like that?”
“I was protecting myself,” he said, showing his palms in surrender. “I felt…” Now it washisturn to stumble over his words. He was about to admit something that made him incredibly vulnerable. “I don’t usually get attached to people easily, but I felt myself getting attached to you.” He paused and corrected himself. “That’s an understatement. Listen, I know you have a whole life, and I don’t want to get in the way of it, so I stepped back. I’m only telling you this so you don’t feel I’m guilting you when I tell you that I… had started having strong feelings. I was falling for you,” he finally admitted. “I felt like I was falling for you, and I knew you were going to leave, so I… tried to stop it.”
“You tried to stop me from leaving by ignoring me?” She crossed her arms and glared up at him. What a monumental misunderstanding!
“No, no. Not that. I tried to stop myself from getting attached, from falling in love with you, because you have a life outside this town, a big life you shouldn’t be forced to give up.” He chuckled at himself a little. “I don’t often get attached to people, but when I do, I don’t ever let them go. I wanted to be able to let you go.”
As far as he could tell, the relief that flooded her was unexpected. She was suddenly breathing a sigh of relief and then looking baffled about it. He couldn’t begin to guess what she was going to say next. When she finally did say it, he realized that, even if he’d been able to guess, he would have been dead wrong.
All at once, she just spit it out. “I’m pregnant.”
The shock made it impossible to respond. For several seconds, Charlie couldn’t even be sure of what he’d heard. It went into his ears and got stuck in some kind of processing area, apparently. Then the wordpregnantfound its way into his consciousthoughts, followed by the contractionI’m, and his heart started to race.
There were two possibilities here, and neither one was exactly desirable. Either the baby wasn’t his, which meant she had been seeing someone else right around the time she was seeing him. That made him want to punch whoever this faceless man was. Then again, the baby could be his, and then what was he supposed to do? She still wasn’t going to stick around, was she? And he wasn’t going to fight her for custody, not when she didn’t evenhaveto tell him she was pregnant. But if he ever had children, he always knew he wanted to be in their lives. There was no question about that.
He braved a question. “Is it… mine?” That option made the most sense, after all. Why would she bother telling him otherwise? There would be no need.
“Unless I have pretty bad amnesia about some other relationship I had around that time, it would have to be.” When he didn’t say anything in response, she clarified. “I wasn’t with anyone other than you. I haven’t been, not in a long, long time anyway. I don’t date much. I’m pretty career-focused.”
Charlie nodded and said, “I can tell.” Then he thought better of it. “I don’t mean it like that. I just mean, you know, it’s obvious you care about your work.” He pivoted right away. “I’m the father?”
Anna nodded. By the look in her eyes, he could tell there was no chance she was lying. She sighed and continued her explanation. “I want you to know, right off the bat, I have no expectations. I don’t need any money, and you don’t have to be in the kid’s life if you don’t want. I won’t even tell them you’re their father.”
“Them? Twins?” There went his heart again.
She shook her head and laughed. “I doubt it. It’s just a gender-neutral pronoun. I don’t know the sex yet.”
“Oh, well…” He leaned back against his barn to try and look far more nonchalant than he felt right now. “I was going to say that would be wrong.”
“Having twins?” she asked.
This conversation was getting more awkward than it had been when it started, if that was even possible. “No,” he answered. “Not telling the kid who their father is would be wrong.”
