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  “Where are we going?” she yelled over the wind as she tightened her arms around his waist.

  The tightening of her arms was just one more thing he’d missed, and he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing it. As they came to a red light, he took that moment to bring his gloved hand to where hers were clasped around his waist and give them a little squeeze.

  “Someplace we can be alone without prying eyes,” he yelled back as the light changed.

  She held on tightly as he drove out towards the clubhouse, and she wondered why, because there was no way in hell the two of them could be alone there. Silly her, she’d assumed all they were going to do tonight was go for a ride, but it looked as if Drew wanted to talk about a few things.

  As he turned the bike onto Porter Pike from Louisville Road, her breath caught, and she tightened her arms around his waist. These roads were home for the two of them. These pieces of asphalt held their dreams, their secrets, their tears, and the love of two crazy teenagers who had known they wouldn’t have tomorrow. She buried her face in the curve of his neck and inhaled deeply. This was what she had missed.

  Not knowing when they were going to stop allowed her to fully appreciate the ride. She didn’t want to miss any of it, considering she hadn’t been on the back of a bike since the last time she’d ridden with him. There had been one or two guys she’d met in the past few years who had ridden bikes, and they’d asked her if she did too. She’d always told them no, that she was scared of them, but the truth was, she wasn’t sure if she could get on the back of a bike without Drew in front of her.

  Bits and pieces of her teenage years flew past her, and she realized that at every important time, Drew had been with her.

  Before she was ready, Drew slowed the bike down and turned into a driveway. She couldn’t remember this house being here before. Of course, it had been years since she’d been on these roads, but back when she had lived here, this had been an empty field. As they went further down the drive, she saw that a house now sat in the middle of what had been the field. They came to a stop, and they each got off the bike.

  “Who lives here?” she asked, shaking her hair out from the wind.

  “Me,” he answered softly.

  She gasped, looking at the house and then looking back at him. When she had left to go to school, he’d made a big production over the fact that he would be no more than a halfway decent mechanic who would make minimum wage and that was all he’d ever be. “Really? Drew, you should be so proud of yourself.”

  “I am.” He nodded. “I helped a buddy of mine, Cash, go into business for himself. When he made enough money, which was two years ago, he bought me out. Which was fine because that had always been our plan, but with that money, I was able to buy this land. At the time, it was being foreclosed on, so I got it cheap, and then Tyler, Dad, and some of the other Heaven Hill members helped me build the house.”

  Charity couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from her stomach. “And here you always thought you’d be nothing more than a halfway decent mechanic.”

  His face got serious, and he leveled her with a gaze. “When you left, I started taking things seriously. I knew if you ever came back, no matter how slim that chance was, I would need to have my shit together. I wanted to make sure I had it together. I’ve worked hard to have it together.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Should she tell him about how crazy she’d went that first year of school after they’d left one another? She had almost landed right where she’d never wanted to be, on stage, taking her clothes off, because she’d almost fucked up her scholarship. There were so many years separating them, this big ravine that they needed to cross in order to be able to relate to one another again. It wasn’t insurmountable and she knew it wouldn’t happen in one night, but she wanted to know he’d work on it with her.

  “C’mon, you wanna see the inside?” he asked, holding his hand out for her to grab.

  “Drew, why’d you bring me here?” she asked, her heart in her throat. With everything she had, she knew her feelings were on her face. He couldn’t look at her and not tell what she was feeling; she knew that without a doubt.

  He dropped his hand. “I want you to trust me, Char. If only for old times, trust me. Damn, I’ve missed you.” The words were yanked from his throat. It was as if he were trying to hold onto them.

  “I do trust you, Drew. I trusted you back then and I trust you now. I just don’t understand…” She let the words trail off.

  “You will, maybe not today or tomorrow, but you’ll understand.”

  Accepting it, she put her hand in his. “Okay, big guy, show me your little piece of Heaven.”

  That’s always been you.

  ‡

  Chapter Ten

  He’d given her a tour of his house and his garage before they came back into the residence. Now they sat on his couch, each nursing their own beer.

  “Are you ready to tell me why you brought me to your house?” Charity questioned as the two of them sat on the couch. “Why didn’t you take me to the park or even into town to get some ice cream?”

  “I wanted to be alone with you, and I think we already established that I’ve had dessert. I don’t want to share you with anyone else. If I take you to the clubhouse, everyone will want to know what you’ve done the past few years and they’ll want to catch up. I don’t have the patience for that.” He situated himself so that he leaned back against the arm of the couch.

  “I’m gonna be real honest with you.” He took a deep breath. “You coming back has thrown me into scramble mode. I had convinced myself you’d never be back.”

  “I had almost convinced myself I’d never come back too, especially with it being ten years,” she admitted. “It felt like the window of opportunity for that time in my life had passed. But when Meredith called me and asked me the way she did. You have to understand, Drew, I couldn’t say no.”

  “And I wouldn’t have expected you to, but I went through some very dark times when you left. I don’t care to get into them.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “But they were dark. I kinda scared myself.”

  She wasn’t sure how far she should go with her own confessions. “It wasn’t easy for me either, I hope you know that. I went through my own dark times. I hoped you didn’t have any. I hoped that you would be able to live a happy life.”

  Right, with the reminder of her everywhere? His temper went from zero to sixty, and he had to let her know how far he’d gone. “So what? You want me to tell you it didn’t hurt when you left? You want me to tell you I went on about my life, not wondering what the fuck you were doing?”

  Charity flinched as Drew yelled at her. The way they’d left each other, she’d known she’d been deluding herself thinking it was going to be easy to come back into this life she had left. Fact was, they’d been on their best behavior the first time they’d seen each other, and now the gloves were off.

  “I never said that,” she argued. “I never said I want you to lie to me.”

  “But that’s what you’re asking me to do. Do you believe for even five minutes that I didn’t go to North Carolina and try to find you? I knew where you lived; I knew your condo number. I waited until you were out of school before I did it, but I did it. The only thing I had to offer you were flowers and the promise that I would love you no matter what, but someone beat me to that.” He was on a roll now, face red, eyes hard.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” she yelled back.

  “You had some dickhead with you. One of those types who wears a suit and fucks women missionary style. I looked down at the clothes I wore, dressed up for me, but they couldn’t compete with a Brooks Brothers suit. I am who I am, and I will always be the man who likes the simple life. I like my country house, I love my bike, and I like to raise a little hell now and again. I’m not going to change.” Drew’s voice had progressively lost its anger as he continued speaking.

  “How dare you?” she qu
estioned, getting up and walking over to the window, looking at his property. This is the type of shit that made her want to run. This was the stuff that made it hard for her to trust him. “How dare you think you can make a decision for me? It was my decision to make, Drew. You’re no better than everyone else.”

  Now that straight pissed him off. “How about I take you home?”

  “That would be perfect.”

  This wasn’t at all how she’d expected this night to end.

  *

  “How’d it go with my brother last night?” Mandy asked as they unpacked the last of what was in the office.

  “It was okay,” Charity answered carefully.

  “It was okay?” Mandy scrunched her face up. “You make it sound like he was a bad lay or something. What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Charity shrugged. “We got into an argument, and then there was this tension.”

  Mandy nodded. “Totally sexual. Right?”

  “No, that’s the thing. It wasn’t anything like how it used to be with us. I don’t know how to explain it. We were talking about the things that had happened the first year we’d been apart from each other. He didn’t exactly tell me, I didn’t exactly tell him, but it put such a huge elephant in the room.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know.”

  Sitting down on the floor, Mandy pulled a box towards her and began unpacking it. “Well, that kind of makes sense, I guess. There’s a lot of time that’s passed, a lot of water under that bridge.”

  “There is,” Charity agreed as she sat down and started in on another box. “It just felt so fucking awkward.”

  The two lapsed into a silence, and Charity’s mind was preoccupied with Maggie, Skylar, and Drew. None of them were quiet in her head as she continued unpacking. Finally, she couldn’t take it. “Did you get any of the research done on Dixon?” she asked Mandy.

  “I did.” Mandy nodded over to the one desk they had cleaned. It had papers and file folders sitting on top of it. “He’s definitely not a boy scout. He’s got a record, but most of it is petty crimes. He’s never had anything huge put on him. If what Maggie and Skylar is saying is true, it would put him and a few other people away. Federal time. I just don’t know how safe the two of them are at the CRISIS house.”

  Charity didn’t even want to think about it. She was still trying to come to grips with all the things Maggie and Skylar had told her the day before. It varied from weapons violations to synthetic drugs, but for some reason, she’d thought Maggie hadn’t been completely straight with her. She knew, without a doubt, she had to have her shit together if she was going to bring any of this to a judge.

  “My first thought is witness protection, but then we still have to make sure the two of them testify. I have a feeling that most of the evidence is long gone in most of these cases, and without them knowing specific information; it’s their word against Dixon’s. I worry he’s going to get hold of them before we can even bring charges. How is it that he doesn’t know where they are?” she questioned Mandy. “If it were me, and someone was that close to me, to know that much shit on me, I wouldn’t leave them out in the wind like he appears to have done.”

  “Cockiness? He beat the shit out of them and left them both for dead. At this point, he probably thinks they’re too scared to go to anyone. More than likely, he’s fucking some neo-nazi pussy somewhere and thinks they’ve high-tailed it as far away from him as they can.” Mandy ripped the box apart as she finished emptying it. “Most men like that are smart, but they’re careless too. Beating her up made him feel like a million bucks. When he left her, he wasn’t sure if she was alive or not. It’s going to feed into his ego and his hard-on if he thinks she was scared enough to run away.”

  “I don’t know.” Charity shook her head. “Does he expect her to never have a thought of her own? I mean you can only beat someone down for so long.”

  “But think about a dog. You yell at it enough times, it learns what not to do wrong.” Mandy took a drink of her water. “They don’t rebel, not usually. Know what I mean? They may leave home, but in how many instances do they turn on their owner?”

  “Almost never,” Charity whispered.

  “Exactly.”

  Charity couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. Dixon McCall wasn’t going to know what hit him, and it was going to be the best moment of her life.

  ‡

  Chapter Eleven

  Drew was in a foul mood. Anyone who was working today at Walker’s Wheels was staying as far away from him as they could. As soon as Drew had gotten off his bike, put his motorcycle boots on pavement, and marched towards the bay doors, everyone had known this was not going to be a good day.

  “You alright?”

  Drew glanced up from where he was fabricating a piece to put on the front fender of a bike, and saw Liam, worry apparent in his eyes. On days like this, sometimes even Liam wouldn’t approach him; he was damn unapproachable.

  “Last night went to shit, fast, and I’m not sure why.”

  He also wasn’t sure why he was spilling his guts to his dad. It wasn’t like they weren’t close, he shared a lot with Liam, they were as close as they could be, but he normally didn’t bring his female problems around. Maybe it was because Liam had watched Drew go through the motions after Charity had left, maybe it was because Liam was the one who’d picked him up and tried to put him back together after everything had happened. Either way, words spilled out of his mouth.

  “I wanted to talk to her, ya know? The way we used to talk. There wasn’t anything we couldn’t tell each other.” Drew threw his tool down and turned around in a circle, his hands on his hips. “But we got alone and it was like pulling fucking teeth. There wasn’t that comradery we had. All I could keep thinking about was, is there some guy in North Carolina she left behind the way she left me behind? It was a cluster fuck. Eventually we argued. Today I’m fuckin’ pissed about it because I don’t know where it went wrong.”

  “First of all,” Liam put his hand on Drew’s shoulder, “calm down. You aren’t going to get anything accomplished being this worked up over anything. You have to remember there’s ten years of living that the two of you have done without one another. While it was awesome to see her for a few minutes and to invite her to go for a ride with you, did you really think you would pick up right where you left off?”

  Drew bit his lip. “I didn’t think we’d be fucking each other the first night, no, but I at least thought we’d be comfortable enough with one another to carry on a conversation.”

  Liam grinned. Drew had always been the kid who wanted things to happen, didn’t matter how hard he had to work for it, he wanted action. “Maybe the Charity that she is now needs a little coaxing; maybe you’re gonna have to work a little harder for her than you did back then. Things have changed, and while you were both comfortable when she left, you’re two completely different people now.”

  “I just didn’t expect it to feel that uncomfortable. It’s almost like I didn’t know who she was anymore, and I wasn’t prepared for that,” he admitted. “It pissed me off. I’ve always known Charity; I’ve always been able to read her like a book. Last night, sitting on my couch, she felt like a stranger.”

  “Then the two of you are gonna have to get to know each other again.” Liam leaned in closer to his son. “Think about it. You’ve got to be way more experienced at twenty-eight than you were at eighteen, at least I fuckin’ hope so. Put that shit to good use.”

  Drew couldn’t help the blush that colored his cheeks. “Dad,” he laughed, running a hand over his hair. “I haven’t blushed since I was a teenager, and both you and mom have managed to do it twice in two days.”

  “And that was because of Charity. Y’all have a long history; don’t let a little bit of miscommunication and awkwardness ruin it.”

  Drew took a deep breath and ran his hand over his buzzed head. All in all his dad was right, but at the same time he wasn’t sure how to fix it. �
��I hear you.”

  “Then hear this,” Liam said, getting up from where he’d had a seat. “Stop scaring everybody with that look on your face.”

  The older man left, leaving Drew alone with his thoughts. Against his better judgment, Drew pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted before he lost his nerve.

  Do-over? This time we don’t go in with a ton of expectations on our shoulders. You pick the place and we’ll meet there.

  ‡

  Chapter Twelve

  Charity blew out a deep breath as she put her car in park. It had been years since she’d been to this parking lot, especially since she’d sat in a car waiting on a guy driving a motorcycle. She grinned to herself as she heard that motorcycle pull up and park next to her. Rolling her window down, she waved.

  “Really?” Drew asked, a smile on his face. That smile offered the hope that maybe they could move past their argument from the night before.

  She shrugged. “I can’t help it. I feel at home here, more at home here than I even felt at my mom’s house. You have to admit I was here more often than not.”

  Walking over to the driver’s side, Drew opened her door, glancing up at the Wet Wanda’s sign. “You were, and we did share some good times out here in this parking lot.”

  It gave her hope that he was open to this, hope that he would help them overcome their awkwardness. “I figured for old time’s sake we could go in.”

  Drew was surprised as hell, but he escorted her into the building, his hand on the small of her back. They had a seat at the bar, each ordering Cokes and wings. Neither one of them felt like drinking tonight or eating anything other than bar food.

  “So,” she sighed. “I need to say I’m sorry.”

  “What? You’re not the one who flew off the handle,” he argued, taking a drink from his glass.