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He felt rather than her heard her little huff of laughter.
“What?” He lifted his head to look at her. Once in the bedroom, Charlie had turned on her lamp so he could see her while they made love. The silver shadows that played over her body in the living room were mysterious and sexy. The golden lamplight in the bedroom was soft but honest.
“Corgi.”
“They have the cutest butts.”
“She did have a cute butt,” Tatum agreed.
“How long did you have her?”
“Six years.”
“We had a retriever,” he told her. “On the farm.”
“I still can’t picture you as a farm boy.” She turned her head and rested her chin on his chest to look at him. “No, maybe it’s more that I can’t imagine your mom as a farm wife.”
“She’s strong,” he answered simply.
“Oh, I have no doubt. She’s also beautiful and so put together.”
“True.” He nodded. “What about your mom? What’s she like?”
Charlie felt Tatum’s body tense against his. He hated to do it, to kill the sweet moments, but this was the important stuff. Tatum needed to trust him, and he wanted to know all the hurt and pain she kept bottled inside. He could fight for her and fight back when she wanted to run if he knew her secrets. But he was helpless when she kept him in the dark and assumed he would be the same as the other boys or men who had broken her heart.
“I have no idea,” she answered. “She left when I was sixteen. Haven’t seen her since.”
Eyes locked, Charlie saw her struggle to control her emotions. She wanted to be tough, vicious, or maybe just indifferent. But at the moment, the face looking back at him was that of a young girl who’d been without a mother far too long.
He was close to his parents, and Charlie knew his mom and his sisters all had a special bond. It was hard to imagine being a kid or a teenager and watching a parent just walk out, never to return.
“My dad was an alcoholic,” she continued quietly. “We lived in a nice brick house. And we had nice things. And my sister and I had all the fancy clothes, and it was all a lie. They fought. All the time. Until one day, she left.”
“What did you do?”
She stirred in his arms and broke the eye contact. “What could I do? I finished school. Went to a community college for my associate’s degree. Which doesn’t mean anything. But I couldn’t go away to college. Not with Sutton still at home with him.”
“You raised your sister.”
Tatum laid her cheek on his chest. “She was just a kid.”
“Was he abusive?”
“No. Just absent. Not sure he even remembered our names.”
Charlie played with her hair. He wanted to turn her over, pin her to the mattress, and protect her. From everything and everyone. Making a big deal of her confessions, of her hard truth, would probably be a mistake, so he simply touched her—his fingers in her hair, his hand on her back, his leg against hers.
“Sutton started drinking when she was fifteen. I was working. Taking care of the house. And she was cutting classes. Sneaking out at night. Drinking. She graduated to stealing prescription drugs from there. She and her friends took anything they could find in their parents’ medicine cabinets. They had pharm parties—”
“What’s a farm party?”
“Pharmaceutical. The kids would take the prescription drugs they found and throw them in a bowl. They’d all take a handful.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. She got pregnant when she was seventeen. Two of her friends took her to a clinic for an abortion. Brought her home to me and dumped her off. I didn’t know anything until then when she spent a few days in bed.”
“Was she upset?”
