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“Shouldn’t you be home with Phire?” she asked Maverick after leading them into her living room and sitting down on the sofa. Maverick’s wife was due to deliver a baby any day now.
“Claudia is with her,” was Maverick’s response. “Besides, Phire sent me away, claiming I was driving her batty.”
Charm smiled. “I can believe that.”
“We’re glad to see you smiling,” Sloan said.
“Only because the three of you caught me at a good time,” she said, knowing that was true. There was no need to tell them she cried herself to sleep every night and still had tearful moments whenever she thought about the love she’d lost. First because of her father and then because of her own manipulative deeds.
“I talked to Bailey today and she suggested I come visit her, Walker and the boys, on Kodiak Island, for a few days,” Charm said. Their cousin Bailey Westmoreland had married Garth’s best friend Walker Rafferty a few years ago and, like Cash, they had twin boys. Yesterday Bailey had shared the news that she and Walker were expecting again.
“So are you going to Kodiak Island?” Cash asked.
“I think I will. I love it there.”
“Just watch out for the bears,” Maverick warned, grinning.
Kodiak Island, Alaska was reputed to have more bears living there than people. “Whatever.”
Her brothers visited with her for a couple of hours before giving her hugs and leaving. She was glad they had the good sense not to ask questions or mention Bart. He had called every morning and she refused to answer. He’d even left a voice message where he apologized, but she hadn’t responded to that either.
Her mother had asked last night what it would take for her father to get back in her good graces, and she’d answered that she didn’t think he could. She then told her mother that although she wouldn’t be changing her name, she was seriously considering moving to Seward. Charm and her mother both owned her grandparents’ home located on the Gulf of Alaska. She’d always loved it there, but hadn’t wanted to stay after losing her grandparents.
A part of her admired how Dylan had moved to his grandparents’ ranch after losing them. One day she’d asked him how he’d done so with so many memories. He’d said all the memories were good ones and that’s what he needed, to surround himself with his grandparents’ memories.
When Charm’s grandparents had died, she hadn’t thought about memories, just their absence and the loneliness of them not being there. She believed that now she could move back and appreciate the memories.
Dylan...
She felt a tightness in her chest just thinking about him. How could a woman fall in love with the same man twice? Probably because she’d never fallen out of love with him the first time. That would explain why she’d been unable to get serious about any other guy during the past ten years. From the day she’d seen Dylan in Professor Jovanovich’s music suite he had captured her heart. All it had taken was for her to see him again in Cancún to know he still had it.
Charm could now admit that knowing she could still love him after what she’d thought he’d done to her had been the crux of her problem, not wanting to get revenge. It all made sense to her now, although to Dylan it wouldn’t matter. He saw her as an insincere person. One she knew he could never love again and that hurt more than anything.
She decided to take a shower and start packing. Sloan had offered to fly her to Kodiak Island. When she returned home, she would make plans to move to Seward. For now, she needed time with Bailey, Walker and the kids.
Twenty-Four
“Why are you here, Mr. Outlaw?” Dylan asked coldly when he opened the door. Seth had conveniently left to go into town to grab something to eat. Some bodyguard.
“May I come in so we can talk?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say,hell no. But he knew he couldn’t do that. As much as he detested the man, Dylan knew there were things that needed to be said.
“Come in and say what you have to say.”
He stepped back and noted how different Bart Outlaw looked than when he’d seen him twelve years ago. On that day he’d walked into the dining room with an arrogant stride and a hubristic air about him. Now, although he still looked physically fit for a man in his late fifties, there was something defeated about him. Obviously, his precious daughter had returned to Alaska and given him the hell he rightly deserved. If he’d showed up here for pity then he wouldn’t be getting any from Dylan. But then, he didn’t think Bart Outlaw knew the definition of pity.
“So what do we need to talk about?” Dylan asked after closing the door.
“I owe both you and Charm an apology. As her father I did what I felt I had to do to protect her from you. Charm was too young to know her own heart.”
“But you think you knew it?” Dylan snapped. “I fell in love with Charm from the moment I saw her, and I knew I would love her forever. Maybe with your history of divorcing five wives you couldn’t see it, but I could. I come from a family with long marriages, where the men meet and fall in love early and love forever. It happened that way for my parents, grandparents and their parents before them. I loved Charm.”
He saw the man’s jaw tighten. “You and Charm disobeyed my order to stay apart. As her father, it was an order I had every right to make. She was only sixteen. She was not an adult and at the time, neither were you. Granted the way I played you and Charm against each other, along with the threats my men made about injuring your hand, that was wrong, I regret it and I’m here to apologize for it. I do apologize. I love my daughter and I didn’t know you or your intent toward her.” Then in a deep yet controlled voice, Bart asked, “Don’t you understand that I had to keep Charm from you?”
Dylan frowned. “Of course you did. I was just a two-bit guitarist who would never amount to anything, right?”
Bart didn’t say anything for a moment. “I regret saying that as well. I won’t even lie and say I was in rare form because I wasn’t. When I discovered the two of you had been sneaking around behind my back, I was furious. You’d heard what I told both you and Charm. Yet you both deliberately defied me and I knew she would not have done so without your influence. I saw you as a man I couldn’t trust with my daughter. A daughter who meant everything to me. My actions were not those of a ruthless and manipulative man, but the actions of a desperate father.”
