Small-Town Redemption (15 page)

Irene Ellison was blonde and petite, an older and still beautiful version of Sadie. Her husband, a well-respected ophthalmologist, was average height with a slight paunch and dark red hair.

“Besides,” Charlotte continued, rinsing a plate and setting it in the dish drainer, “I didn’t have any dates in high school.”

“None?”

“’Fraid not.” Her voice was light, but she didn’t look at him. Embarrassed, maybe? “Like I said before, I was a late bloomer. All arms and legs. The braces and an unfortunate haircut probably didn’t help things.”

The boys in her school had been idiots. “I’m sure you’ve made up for lost time.”

She flashed a smile at him, her dimple evident, and it about knocked him on his ass. “I’ve tried my best.”

Now that he’d been around her more, he couldn’t imagine her spending many weekends by herself. She was too vibrant. Too bright and smart and open to be alone.

“I had a really nice time tonight,” she continued, rinsing another plate.

“Everyone has fun around Estelle.” His kid was as gracious and charming as her mother.

“I don’t doubt that, and I knew I’d enjoy her company. It’s yours I wasn’t so sure about.”

He liked the way she always spoke the truth, no sugarcoating for Charlotte. “I’m wounded.”

“You’re not. You didn’t even want me to come.”

True. But Estelle had been right to ask Charlotte over after everything she’d done for them. It didn’t seem like enough, but he wasn’t sure what else he could do. How much he could give. “I may not have been crazy about the idea.” The idea of having Charlotte back in his apartment, around his kid, when he couldn’t stop thinking about her. About their kiss. “But I’m glad Estelle did this.”

He’d enjoyed himself, he realized with only a hint of trepidation. Had enjoyed spending time with his daughter, yes, but also with Charlotte.

“We’re running late,” Estelle said as she hurried into the kitchen, “so Andrew’s not going to come up.”

“But he’ll walk you to the door at ten,” Kane said, accepting her kiss.

“Yes, Daddy.”

Estelle turned and hugged Charlotte, hard. “Thank you for coming. It was so much fun.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said. “If you don’t have plans Friday, why don’t we get some lunch? Maybe head into Pittsburgh?”

Estelle’s face lit up. “I’d love that.”

“Great. I’ll call you tomorrow to set it up.”

Estelle left with a wave and a smile.

“You don’t have to do that,” Kane said.

Charlotte frowned at the silverware she washed. “How else are they going to get clean?”

“No. You don’t have to take Estelle to lunch.”

“I want to. I like her. You and her mother have done a great job.”

Pride filled him. Yeah, his kid was great, but he knew he didn’t deserve any credit for it. “Estelle’s a good girl.” Spoiled and a bit flighty, but with a big heart and a sunny disposition that always astounded him. “Meryl’s the one who’s done a good job. I’ve only been a part-time parent.”

He hated it. He wasn’t the only person who saw their kids a few times a year, but it was still tough.

“I think you may have had a hand in there at some point,” Charlotte said, draining the water and wringing out the dishcloth. “I loved watching you two at dinner. You’re a really good dad.”

Her praise warmed him. “She makes it easy.” He pressed his lips together, but couldn’t stop the next words from coming out. “She wants to stay. With me. She wants to live with me, permanently, until she goes away to college.”

Wiping off the table, Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide. “Wow. Does her mother know?”

“I don’t think so.” He hadn’t wanted to say anything to Meryl in case this was just one of Estelle’s whims. He didn’t want to hurt Meryl.

“Do you want her to live with you? Or are you worried a daughter will ruin your carefree bachelor ways?”

He frowned. Was that what she really thought? Worse, why did it bug him?

Because, he admitted to himself, for the first time in longer than he could remember, he wanted someone to think better of him. He wanted Charlotte to think better of him.

He must have suffered some undiscovered brain damage in his motorcycle accident.

“I’m an ex-addict,” he said, his soft tone not hiding the ugly reality of what he’d been. “I already told you that since I left the service, I haven’t stayed in one place very long. I’ve broken laws and went through rehab four times before it finally stuck. Do you know how many women I’ve slept with? How many I’ve used?”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not sure if you’re confessing or bragging.”

“Neither. Just putting the truth you deem so important out there.”

“Here’s how I see things. Everything you mentioned is in the past. Even if you committed a crime yesterday and slept with four different women last week, it’s over. It’s what you do from now on that matters.”

“A person’s past stays with them.”

She waved it away as if it were that simple to brush aside his sins. “A person’s past shapes who they are, sure. But you can always choose to change. To become a better version of yourself.”

Had she been raised under a rainbow by benevolent fairies and happy elves? He wanted to set her straight on the real world, to help her understand you couldn’t change the core of who you were, no matter how hard you tried.

He took a step toward her, then another, forcing her back until she was pressed against the counter—shades of the first time she’d come here. “You want to help me become a better version of myself?” He smirked. “You trying to save me, Red?”

She held the dishcloth in both hands in front of her chest, a pathetic shield against him getting too close. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Why?”

She opened her mouth then shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you must be expecting something, some reward for your time and effort. What is it? Free drinks for you and your friends on the weekends? A picture in the local paper of you with a shiny good-deed medal?”

“You haven’t had many people be nice to you, have you?”

He thought of all the people who’d treated him like royalty because of his last name. How eager they had been to please him, to keep him happy in the hopes of getting a hefty tip, entry into his inner circle or a good word in with his old man. “I’ve had people bowing and scraping to me since I was born. Which is how I know the only reason people do anything for someone else is if they get something out of it.”

He could already feel the ropes of expectations, of indebtedness, wrapping around him, growing tauter with every one of Charlotte’s small acts of kindness. But he wouldn’t fall for it. Wouldn’t step into a trap laid with seemingly innocent gestures and outwardly harmless generosity.

Holding her gaze, he waited for her to hiss at him, to put her thin nose in the air and take a verbal swipe. What she did was way, way worse.

“That,” she said softly, “is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

* * *

C
HARLOTTE
WANTED
TO
hug him.

She wanted to wrap her arms around Kane, pull him close and just hold him. To tell him everything would be all right, that no matter what happened with him and Estelle, things would work out in the end for both of them. That he deserved to have his daughter in his life, as much as he wanted.

She gripped the cloth tighter, the water dripping down her arm. She was losing her ever-loving mind. Hug Kane? It was a crazy thought. An insane urge. He wasn’t exactly the hugging type, especially when he towered over her, his face bruised, his gaze cool, his hair rumpled.

Sexily rumpled, of course. She wouldn’t expect anything less from him at this point.

Everything about him, from his expression to his words, proved her right. He wasn’t a man seeking warm embraces and sympathetic assurances. He was a loner with a bad attitude and a dangerous edge.

Yes, he was suffering—and she didn’t just mean his physical injuries. He was suffering on the inside. If ever there was a man conflicted, a man fighting intense personal demons, he stood before her now.

She wanted to help him.

But that didn’t mean she was dumb enough to believe she could actually save him.

He inched closer. She knew it was a tactic, meant to put her on edge. She prayed he couldn’t tell how well it worked. “You really think I’m a good role model for a teenager?” he asked.

“I think you love her. What more could a child want from a parent?”

He intense gaze pinned her to the spot. Her breath caught, almost choking her. Potent. The man was definitely potent.

“What if love isn’t enough?” he asked quietly. “What if I do something to screw it up? Screw her up?”

Char tossed the cloth onto the counter, then, despite her intentions to keep her distance, laid her damp hand on his. “Everyone makes mistakes. There are no perfect parents, believe me, I’ve seen my fair share at work. More importantly, I’ve seen you with Estelle. You’d never do anything to hurt her.”

He exhaled, the breath seeming to shudder out of him. “That’s just it.” His voice was ragged, his shoulders slumped. “I did. I hurt her... I almost killed her.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

K
ANE
’
S
WORDS
ECHOED
in Char’s ears. Her blood went cold. Denial, swift and sharp, cut through the haze in her brain. No. He was exaggerating. Or there had been an accident, one of those freak things that happened when a parent, even the most vigilant of parents, turned his attention away for a moment.

Kane would never purposely put his own child in danger.

You don’t know anything about me.

Char inhaled, slid her hand away from his. He’d been right the other evening when he’d said that to her. She didn’t know him.

She’d managed to convince herself he was some sort of tormented soul. An honorable man doing his best to overcome a dark, troubled past.

What if he wasn’t? She’d deluded herself before. Had believed in a fantasy, one she’d scripted from once upon a time all the way to happily ever after.

“What’s the matter, Red?” Kane asked, his quiet voice rubbing against her nerve endings. “No words of compassion and understanding? No assurances that I can overcome my mistakes if only I want it badly enough? Or maybe you’ve realized some mistakes can never be forgotten. They sure as hell can’t be forgiven.”

His tone was as cocky as ever, his smirk firmly in place, but his eyes were bleak.

“You’re right,” she said, surprising them both with her admission. “Some things never can be forgotten. But everyone deserves forgiveness.”

He deserved forgiveness. Even from himself.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to confess, wasn’t sure she was strong enough, tolerant enough to listen without judgment. But she couldn’t turn her back on him. He needed her more than he had the other night.

And she needed him. Or, rather, she needed to face the truth about him. No matter what that truth turned out to be. “What happened?” she asked.

For a few long minutes, the only sound was the refrigerator running and their mingled breathing. When Kane spoke, his voice was soft and filled with pain. “That car accident I told you about?”

“The one that made you so upset when you remembered it at the E.R.?”

He nodded. “I was twenty. I’d just gotten out of a stint in rehab a few days earlier and had a scheduled visitation with Estelle.”

“How old was she?”

“Two. But I’d only known about her for just over a year.”

“How is that possible?”

“When Meryl and I slept together, she was home on break—and engaged to some guy she’d met at college. After that night, we both went our separate ways. She got married and for a year, thought Estelle was her husband’s child. When he found out differently, they divorced and she moved back to Houston.” He paced the small confines of the kitchen, his movements slow and stiff. “After my second go-round with rehab, I stayed clean for a few months, started taking classes at a local community college. That’s when she told me. She hadn’t wanted our daughter to have anything to do with me if I was still using.”

Charlotte sat down on a kitchen chair, hoping he’d do the same eventually, but restless energy rolled off him like waves. “That must have been hard for her.”

“Meryl’s stronger than any of us realized. She was willing to raise Estelle alone if it meant keeping her safe from me.”

“But you were clean and you did get to know your daughter.”

“I stayed clean until Christmas of that year. By July I was back in rehab. When I got out, all I wanted was to spend time with my daughter.” He sat on the edge of a chair, his left leg bouncing. “I picked Estelle up. She was so excited to see me, it was like a miracle. No matter how many times or how badly I screwed up, this little person loved me. It was huge, like this weight of responsibility on me. I wasn’t sure I wanted it. Knew I didn’t deserve it.”

He finally leaned back, let his left hand rest between his knees. “We spent the day together, went to the zoo, then to the park. She fell asleep in the car on the way home so I put her to bed at my apartment. I...I thought she’d sleep all night....” His voice dropped off. He cleared his throat. “I took oxycodone. Told myself it was to take the edge off, that it wasn’t really using again if I just did it once.”

Oxycodone was a highly addictive opioid and could affect people even if they took the recommended dose. “What happened?” she asked gently.

He hung his head. “I thought she’d stay asleep,” he repeated. “She didn’t. She woke up screaming, said her ear hurt and she wanted her mommy. I couldn’t handle the crying so I called Meryl and told her I was bringing Estelle home.”

Char was getting a really horrible feeling about what happened next. She laid her hand on his knee. “Kane—”

He shook his head. “About a mile from Meryl’s house, I lost control on a curve,” he said, his voice flat, his gaze somewhere over Char’s head. “We crossed lanes and flipped over before hitting a tree.”

Oh, Kane.
Her heart broke for him.

“I was knocked out, got pretty busted up—cracked ribs, broken leg, concussion...” He swallowed. “When I came to, they were loading me into the ambulance. I couldn’t see Estelle. They had me strapped to the gurney as they took me into the hospital and I couldn’t move, couldn’t get to her and no one would tell me where she was, if she was okay.”

No wonder he’d been so upset getting his stitches, being in the hospital again. Char edged forward so she could touch him, offer him some small amount of comfort. She gripped his hand with hers, let the other one stay on his knee. His skin was ice cold, his muscles tense. “How long until you found out she was all right?”

“Hours. Finally, after they’d run their tests and set my leg, my father came into my room. Told me Estelle was fine, that Meryl was with her and she’d be taking her home within the hour. I wanted to see her, but he suggested that might not be the best idea,” Kane said, his mouth twisting sardonically. He glanced at Char’s hand as if surprised to see it on his. Kept staring as he continued, “It was about the only time I can ever remember the old man being right.”

“Did you...were you sent back to rehab?”

He shook his head. “The police wanted to press charges against me—reckless driving, driving under the influence, endangering a child. I didn’t care. I knew I deserved to be punished for what I’d done. Dad had other ideas.”

Kane stood, crossed to lean against the counter, his good arm bent protectively across his sling. “He made it all disappear.”

Char frowned. “Made what disappear?”

“Everything. Charges were never filed so, just like that, I was free to move on with my life, as if nothing had ever happened. No consequences. No punishment.”

She wasn’t so sure about that. Seemed he was still punishing himself. “Your dad has that much influence?”

Kane’s face was unreadable. “He has that much power. More than enough to convince a judge, the police chief and a top hospital administrator to alter the reports and make a criminal act go away.”

“I can’t imagine going to such lengths.” Lengths that were not only illegal, but also highly immoral. “Not even to protect my child.”

Especially when that child was an adult and obviously needed to face consequences for his actions.

“The old man didn’t do it to protect me,” Kane said, the fingers of his left hand curling. “He did it to protect the family name.”

That, somehow, was so much worse. “I’m sorry.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “Don’t feel bad for me, Red. I knew the real reasons behind his actions, just like I knew there would be strings attached if I didn’t break free of him for good. I checked myself into another rehab facility, this time paying for it myself.”

“When did you join the service?”

“After I was released from the program. One of my counselors was a former Ranger who thought the Army would be a good fit for me. My father hated the idea, which only made it that much more appealing. It hasn’t been easy but I’ve managed to stay clean for fourteen years.”

What he’d done had taken incredible courage and willpower. She’d seen addicts come into the E.R., complaining of a variety of ailments in the hopes of getting drugs. The desperation in their eyes always tugged at her soul. She hated knowing Kane had been like that. That someone so strong had been controlled by his addiction.

“Meryl must have forgiven you,” Char said, though she couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been for the other woman. “She obviously trusts you with Estelle now.”

“It took time. I wrote them every day while I was in rehab. I think that’s what got me through, knowing they were reading my words, seeing my progress, how hard I was working. Meryl let me see Estelle for an hour before I went to boot camp, and during my first leave, they met me in New York for a few days. Eventually, Meryl gave me a second chance.”

He sounded shocked, as if no one had ever done that for him before.

Kane’s mouth quirked into that smirk of his she loathed, but this time, she wondered if it was self-directed. “Still think Estelle would be all right living with me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Char said simply. Emphatically. She stood and crossed to him. “You’re not that person anymore. What you did, what you’ve been through and have now become...” She smiled. “I think you’re incredibly strong. And resilient.”

And brave. Brave enough to live with his past mistakes, to face those demons inside him every day and still stay sober.

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

The only reason people do anything for someone else is if they get something out of it.

His words came back to her, made her realize he not only meant what he’d said, but that it seemed to be some sort of personal mantra. As a way to protect himself.

“Now,” he said softly, “you know all my secrets.” He angled his body toward her, leaned in close. “What are you going to give me for them?”

A chill raced across her skin, foreboding or anticipation, she was afraid to define it. “Nothing’s free, is that it?”

“Nothing worthwhile.” He scanned her face, his gaze sliding from her forehead to her cheek to chin before settling on her mouth with an intensity, a heated interest that threw her, had her thoughts tumbling round and round in her head. When he touched the indentation above her upper lip, the tip of his forefinger lightly rubbing her skin, she about jumped out of her clothes. “But some things,” he continued, his gentle touch hypnotizing her, the lazy cadence of his voice lulling her into believing every word he said, “some things are worth the cost.”

Charlotte swallowed. Hard. Holy spit, he was going to kiss her again. She could see the intention in his eyes, feel it in the way his hand slipped to cup her jaw. Sense it with some instinctual, inner feminine certainty she’d never known she’d had.

She wanted his kiss, she couldn’t deny it. All she had to do was stand still, maybe shut her eyes and let him do his thing.

But their first kiss had knocked her for a loop, had sent him running from her as if she’d lit his hair on fire. Letting him do that again would be the dumbest thing ever.

His head lowered, his mouth inching closer to hers. Mindful of his injuries, she decided against the hearty shove she should give him, opting to go with the uninspired, yet universal, turning of the head.

His lips brushed her ear.

“Ouch,” he murmured, his lips sweeping up the side of her neck. Well, she hadn’t exactly pushed him away, hadn’t moved at all. “Don’t be like that, Charlotte.”

The combination of him saying her name and his mouth vibrating against the sensitive skin of her neck made her shiver. “You kissed me the other day and couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

His mouth slid up and he pressed a warm kiss behind her ear. “This payback?”

“Yes,” she said, shooting for a dry tone, but it came out as a gasp when he gently sucked her earlobe into his mouth. She really, really should back up. “Because the only reason a woman would reject you is because they have been previously scorned.”

Finally, thankfully, he leaned back. Watched her out of hooded eyes. “If it’s not payback, then what is it?”

Self-preservation, pure and simple. A woman had to be smart and very, very careful when it came to men like Kane.

“I suppose it could be pride,” she said, still unable to move an inch. It was as if he’d put some sort of force field around them, keeping her close. She tapped her forefinger against her chin, pretending to give her next words great thought. “Or it could be that I’m not all that interested in kissing you.”

His grin flashed, sharp as a scalpel and incredibly sexy. “That a dare to see if you can get me to prove otherwise?”

She gave a short laugh. “Good Lord, no. I don’t need you to prove anything. Even with my limited experience, I imagine you can be very...persuasive. Especially when it comes to getting what you want from a woman.”

“You sure this isn’t some sort of petty revenge?” he asked, exasperated, irritable and suspicious. She bet he didn’t often get turned down. For anything.

“I’m sure.” She smiled. How could she not when he looked so put out by her rejection? It was flattering. And went a long way toward stroking her ego, which had taken quite a beating by him not so long ago. “Okay, maybe part of it—” She held her forefinger and thumb close together. “A teeny, tiny, insignificant part was for revenge.”

“Like I said. Petty. And beneath you.”

“Hey, I didn’t say I was proud of it.”

His lips curved. The brief glimpse of humor lighting his eyes hit her square in the chest, hard and swift.

Forget self-preservation and pride,
she thought.

And she launched herself at him and pressed her mouth to his.

* * *

C
HARLOTTE
KNOCKED
HIM
back a step and he bumped into the edge of the counter. Pain shot up from his ribs, traveled from his shoulder to his wrist. It was worth it. Any pain was worth it because she was kissing him.

She
was kissing him.

God, she was warm. And her scent wrapped around him, beckoning him closer. He wished like hell he could put both arms around her, but he’d have to make do with one. He wrapped his arm about her slim waist, tugging her forward until their bodies aligned. Chest to chest. Hip to hip. Thigh to thigh.