“Shit,” she cursed, hanging her head. “Fine, you can come. But separate rooms, separate everything.”
He nodded, willing to agree to whatever demands she made if it meant he’d be by her side. “I’ll call the airline. Hopefully the commercial flights are moving.” He dialed the familiar number, then pulled up the weather radar while he waited on hold, frowning at the intense colors swirling just off the eastern coast. If the planes were flying, they’d be grounded soon, and HERO Force’s chopper couldn’t fly in weather like that, either.
One way or another, he’d get her there. He’d walk through the flames of hell to make that woman happy. A little snow wasn’t going to stop him. He met her stare.
She looked tired.
Worried.
Sad.
He would get her to Maine and help her with her grandmother. But most important, he had to make Charlotte love him again, and he only had a couple of days to do it. “It’s going to be okay, Char. I promise.”
“You don’t know that.”
He wasn’t sure if they were talking about their relationship or her grandmother, but it didn’t matter which. “I will do everything in my power to make sure it is.” He could only hope at least one of those things was within his control.
2
Charlotte’s stomach dipped with the plane, the turbulence doing nothing to settle her nerves as she gripped her scotch with one hand and the airplane phone with the other.
This day was not going according to plan.
When she’d woken up this morning, she heard Cowboy digging in the front yard and peeked outside with a frown. He was moving plants without her permission, though she clearly remembered telling him she wanted it done. Everything felt like an encroachment lately, every action designed to tie her down, to railroad over her vision of the future and replace it with his own.
She’d tried telling herself that wasn’t what he was doing, but his incessant talk of marriage was wearing her down—and not in the way he intended. Not one to stand for being bullied, her tolerance for Leo’s shenanigans was wearing thin.
Charlotte didn’twantto break up with him. Sheneededto.
Marriage had run roughshod over her once before. She knew what it felt like to be dragged through the mud, kicking and screaming and desperate for her freedom.
What she’d had with Leo these past two years had been nothing like her relationship with Rick. Leo had made her feel safe again, had built her up instead of tearing her down, had taught her what it was to truly be loved.
But all that had changed. She no longer felt safe and loved—she felt ignored and badgered. There were moments when her old feelings for him shined through, but the dappled rays of happiness peeking out from a thick layer of dark clouds only reminded her of her first marriage—tons of awful shit punctuated by bits of good.
She wasn’t doing that again.
So she’d finally gotten up her courage and ended it, yet here he was, sitting beside her on an airplane bound for Maine.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“You want another scotch?” he asked.
She frowned and finished her drink, the alcohol making her throat tingle on its way down. “Sure.”
She told herself she should be grateful he was here, but she wanted space, needed it. To make matters worse, she’d dreamed of bringing Cowboy to the island more times than she could count, introducing the man she loved to the woman who meant more to her than almost any other person on the planet.
Grams never told Charlotte to change. No matter how sassy Charlotte dressed or behaved, Grams always had her back, telling her she was beautiful and confident and strong—not inappropriate or out of line as Charlotte’s mother did. That alone was reason to love Grams.
But it was more than that. Her house was a magical old Victorian on a hill overlooking the ocean, just a short walk from a red-striped lighthouse that had once sent out a beam of warning over the sea. Water lapped in the distance, Gram’s veined hands holding Charlotte’s and teaching her how to skip rocks that danced along the surface before dropping into the waves.
She could smell the sea in her memory, hear the water crashing on the rocks and the squawk of gulls nearby. Her brother Logan used to taunt her on their family trips, saying the island was haunted. He said it was the ghost of the old lighthouse keeper, who died trying to save the drowning crew of a ship caught in a terrible storm.
He’d damn near scared the bejeezus out of her.
When she was eight or nine, she’d asked Grams if there was any truth to it, and Grams had just smiled, saying, “I’m sure a man who gave his life trying to save others would be a very fine ghost to have. I don’t imagine I’d mind his company, would you?”
That had done little to calm young Charlotte’s mind.
