“Sounds good.”
24
CHARLIE-MOUSE VS T-REX: ROUND 7489
CHARLOTTE’S HEART WAS IN her throat by the time Gabriel parked his SUV in the garage she didn’t really use except for storing a few things. Getting out the instant they were inside, she pressed the remote to lower the garage door, then led the way to the door into the house. This would be the first time since the attack that she’d had anyone but Molly in the house for an extended period. Even when she’d had the plumber come in last year, she’d asked her best friend to hang out at her place.
Her fingers shook on the keys, the metal jangling.
Squeezing her hip, Gabriel said, “Want me to say something dirty and inappropriate to get your mind off it?”
A giggle escaped her. “Hush.” But his teasing did help, and she got the key in.
Gabriel hung back while she put in her alarm code, and she fell a little bit deeper for him that he’d done that, that he’d thought about what it meant to her. “Come in,” she said and, kicking off her shoes, led him to the living room. Only then did she realize a logistical problem. “My sofa is too small.” It’d make it impossible for him to sprawl with his legs up.
“I’ll sit on the floor,” he said easily. “Put my back against the sofa.” Heading over, he grabbed the remote. “Let me check when the game’s on.”
Leaving him to it, she forced herself to go into her bedroom. It was hard to do that knowing someone else was in the house, but she kept reminding herself that it wasn’t someone. It was Gabriel. Big, gorgeous Gabriel who hadn’t consciously done a single thing to make her afraid. Hanging up her handbag behind the bedroom door, she put her phone into a pocket of her dress.
When she walked out, it was to find him seated on the floor, his arm on the sofa seat as he flicked through the channels. “Game’s on in an hour,” he said, looking over. “Aw, I’m so disappointed.”
Her heart dipped. “What? Why?”
“I was hoping you went to slip into something more comfortable.”
Wrinkling her nose at him, she said, “Do you find flannel pants sexy?”
His grin creased his cheeks. “Oh yeah. Especially if that’s all you’re thinking of wearing.”
She blushed, threw a cushion at his head. Catching it, he laughed and stayed in place while she went into the kitchen to see what she had that she could put together for dinner later on. Though they’d spent most of the day together already, she couldn’t wait for more.
“Ms. Baird, I’m getting lonely.”
Walking back into the living area, she came down to the floor and tucked herself against him. That was how they stayed for a long time, his fingers playing desultorily over her shoulder and his body sexy and warm against her own. He teased more than one long, wet, luscious kiss out of her but didn’t push for anything further, and when he said good night and left her, it was after another kiss that had her questioning her sanity in allowing him to leave.
It was the best day of her life.
CHARLOTTE FLOATED INTO THE office the next day, giddily eager to see Gabriel. He was just…
She laughed at herself, knowing she was acting like a love-struck teenager, something she’d never been at that age. It hadn’t just been her shyness that had kept her from being carefree—her mom’s fight with cancer had forever changed Charlotte’s priorities.
Putting on the coffee in the break room since she was the first one in, she hoped her mom could see her now, see her happiness. They’d been so close, Charlotte often doing her homework sitting in her mother’s treatment room during Pippa Baird’s chemotherapy sessions. Her mother had also encouraged her and Molly’s friendship with fierce maternal love.
“I won’t let this disease steal your chance to live your life, Charlotte. To make friends and have fun.”
Pippa Baird had always had so much love and generosity in her heart, even during the final stages of her disease when she’d been in such terrible pain. Charlotte knew her mother had fought to stay alive that last year only for Charlotte and her father. Pippa had been the center of their small family, the glue that held them all together.
But her father, he’d been so brave too. Three days before her mother passed away, Charlotte had accidentally witnessed a moment of heartbreaking tenderness between her parents. Her father had been holding her fragile mother in his arms, tears wet on his face. Then he’d kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s okay, Pip. You can go. We’ll be all right.”
Her mother had wrapped her arms around his neck, whispered, “I don’t want to go.”