Chapter 19
Charlie wasn’t even aware that she’d rushed Uncle Theo like an offensive lineman. She ripped the drink out of his clutches and threw it in his idiotic face, dimly registering his outrage as ice cubes avalanched down his dress shirt and bounced onto the floor.
“How dare you!” he spluttered.
The room was a symphony in shock, people’s mouths hanging almost comically open.
“How dare you?” Charlie fired back. “Have you ever saved even a burning slice of toast? Jake Braddock pulled my father out of the house first. Your brother-in-law.” She turned to Aunt Sadie. “Maybe, just maybe, you could express some gratitude to him instead of holding a grudge against him. Grandma’s death was awful, but it wasn’t Jake’s fault. She was a grown woman who made a conscious decision to go up the stairs to try to save our dog. She knew that it was a risk! And Jake was a sixteen-year-old, doing his best—better than any of us, by the way—who had a dog dropped down the stairs onto his head. So he dragged Mr. Coffee to the door before going back in for Grandma, figuring that he’d get her next. It wasn’t a crime; it was a judgment call! And he had every expectation that she was coming down the stairs right after the dog.”
The room was frozen.
“Jake was half-dead of smoke inhalation himself when he brought Grandma out. But nobody seems to get that. Or care. We owe Jake Braddock a huge thank-you, an even bigger apology for the way we’ve treated him, and drinks on us”—she paused and looked straight at still-spluttering, wet Uncle Theo—“for the rest of his life.”
“Nice speech, but he’s the one who started the fire!” Uncle Theo countered.
“No, he didn’t,” Charlie said. “There’s no proof of that. It’s a nasty little piece of fiction someone dreamed up that stuck. Maybe it was you!”
Aunt Sadie gasped and tottered backward to a chair, while Theo’s face drained of color.
“Why, you little bit—”
“Careful, Theo.” Dad’s voice was low and hostile. “That’s my daughter. And wheelchair or not, I can still kick your butt.”
“We need,” Charlie said, “to start asking some very tough questions here in this family. Especially of members who aren’t here.” She looked straight at Mom, who looked away, and then at Dad, who met her gaze steadily but sadly.
“Charlie’s right.” Dad rolled forward, into the center of the room. “Jake saved my life that night, and he tried like hell to save my mother’s. We were selfish in our shock: All we thought about was our own healing, our own grief, our own closure. We allowed rumor, suspicion, and pure speculation to misguide us into some very bad decisions. And I, for one, am sorry about those bad decisions.”
“I am, too,” Mom said quietly.
Bridezilla chose this very moment to emerge from her staircase photo shoot, sweeping into the room with Will in her wake. “Why is there, like, ice all over the floor?” she shrilled. “Oh my God, the flowers still aren’t done! What’s going on? Why is everyone acting like somebody died? This is a party, people!”
Behind Felicity, Jake came out of the men’s room, looking grim. He didn’t make eye contact; he just took the stairs down, two at a time.
Charlie went after him.
He was in the Durango and backing out of his parking spot when she ran outside after him, people in the lower level of the restaurant rubbernecking.
“Jake!” she called.
But he was out of the slot. He slammed the truck into drive, intending to speed forward.
Charlie stepped in front of it and put her hands flat on the hood. “Stop.”
She felt the shudder of the vehicle as he slammed it back into park, then emerged, furious.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing? I could have killed you!” Jake gripped her by the shoulders.
“Defending your honor,” she said calmly.
How could a man look so outraged and yet so tender at the same time?
That’s when he kissed her, his mouth hard and possessive on her own. Then he pulled back and shoved her away, leaving her bereft and breathless and wanting much more. “I don’t need you to be my white knight, Charlie.”
“Yeah, I think you do.”
“I’m not some damsel in distress—”
“True. You’d make a really ugly damsel,” she told him. “And with those pecs, you’d bust right out of a corset.”
That surprised him into a bark of laughter.
“But I do think you’re in distress, Jake.”
His dark eyes held a world of pain. An ocean of anger and regret. “That’s a melodramatic word. Seriously, I’m fine.”
“Are you? I have my doubts. And I think it’s about time that someone stood up for you.”
“Aargh.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “What you did in there—that was just . . . embarrassing.”
“Why?” She was genuinely confused. “All I did was set the record straight with the idiots in my family.”
“Yeah? Well, damn it, I love you for it, but you basically ripped off my balls and dropped them into your handbag. Now it’s going to be even harder for me to face them.”
“I don’t understand: You’d rather that I let them trash-talk you?”
He shrugged. “Sticks and stones,” he muttered.
“But words do hurt people. You, in this case. And I have a problem with that. So I countered with a Scotch in Theo’s face,” she said.
A corner of his mouth tugged up. “What a waste of good Scotch. Single malt, no less.”
“You’re welcome, Damsel Jake—”
“Don’t you even think about calling me that,” he growled, backing her against the hood of the still-running truck until she squeaked. Pinning her there between his muscular thighs. Which was both delicious and distracting, to say the least. Distraction was probably what Jake wanted, but Charlie wasn’t about to let him change the subject. Not now.
“Hey!” She pushed at his chest, but it was like trying to move a tank. Breathless, she looked up at him. “I’m defending your honor—”
“I’m not feeling very honorable right now.”
“And trying to comfort you in your distress—”
“There is no distress here.”
“Right.” She grabbed his right hand, and he winced. She turned it over, appalled at the sight of his bloody, split, swollen knuckles. Oh, Jake . . . But he wouldn’t appreciate her clucking over them. “Roger that. No distress at all.” She kissed his injuries and heard Jake’s swift intake of breath.
“I’m extremely pissed off at you,” he said. He looked down at her, those black Irish Braddock eyes making her knees weak. He pressed every available inch of himself against every available inch of her.
Oh my. “Yes,” she said a bit weakly. “I can feel your, um, anger. Up against my—”
“Don’t ever do anything like that again, Charlie. Understand?”
“Not really,” she managed.
“I fight my own battles. I don’t need anyone, especially a girl, to do it for me.”
“That is so politically incorrect.”
“I don’t care. It’s the way it is.” His face was inches from hers, and he was taking up all of her oxygen.
“Not to mention ungrateful,” she added.
“Ingratitude is one of my specialties,” he whispered against her lips.
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Would you like to hear some others?”
She smiled. “I think I just might. By the way, the hood of this truck is hot.”
“So are you, Charlie. So are you.”
“Then why are you driving away?” she asked. “Why are you ditching me? Got another date?”
He shook his head slowly. “No other date.”
“Then can you please take me—”
“Yes,” Jake said, again covering her mouth with his and then kissing her senseless. “I can definitely take you.”