Marrying the Wrong Man (4 page)

Damn it!
Charlie jumped back, and the door closed.

A sane man would walk away. Hell, he’d walked away from Morgan before, but Charlie wasn’t sane. Sober was all he could handle.

He knocked, but Phyllis didn’t answer. He knocked again, and she yelled, “Get off my property!”

“Charlie!” In the ruckus with Phyllis, he hadn’t heard Morgan pulling into the dirt drive. She ran toward him, red-faced and breathless. “What are you doing here?”

Confronting the bitch who broke my heart.
But he didn’t say it, because that was pathetic. He was done with pathetic. “I figured I’d save you the phone call,” he said instead. “Turns out I have some things to say to you, too.”

Her gaze flashed toward the house and then back to him again. “Fine! Say them. But out here. She doesn’t need to hear this.”

He looked back at the house, expecting to see Phyllis brandishing a rifle. That damn cat glared at him from the top step. “Why in God’s name
are
you here?”

“I’m just visiting.”

“You’re paying a friendly visit to a woman you and your family refused to acknowledge while you lived here? I’m not buying it, so let’s try this again. Why … are … you … here?” He slowed his words, even though he was out of patience.

She choked on a sob. “I have no place else to go.” Her gaze flashed behind him again. “I got fired from my job. When I tried to find another one, nobody would hire me. I’m sure the investigation against my father and his arrest didn’t help. Then I fell behind on rent and got evicted. I thought there was some money in an old credit union account, so I came to withdraw it, but my mother beat me to it. She took it all so she could leave the country with my uncle. I’m stuck … in Harmony Falls.”

“Fuck.”

“There’s more.”

“No!” He held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear any more from you until I’ve said what I’ve wanted to say for the last two years.”

She stuck out her chin and locked her jaw like she expected the words to pack one hell of a punch.

“I hate what you did,” he said. “All of it. I should’ve told you to go to hell when you broke things off, saying you wanted your daddy to be proud of you, and that meant you couldn’t be with me. I should’ve washed my hands of you then. But no, I let you cry on my shoulder too many damn times, and twice that led to … ” he sneered, “other things. Justin and I may have grown apart long before you two got engaged, but I still owed him more respect than that. I owed myself more respect than that. Falling in love with you was the stupidest thing I ever did. No wonder I ended up a drunk. You damn near destroyed me.”

Her lip quivered. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Really?” He fisted his hands and lifted his face to the sky for a roar. “Tell me you would’ve stopped that wedding had my sister not stood up and stopped it for you.”

She opened her mouth but shut it again.

“That’s what I thought.” He shook his head. “You’re sick. But the good news is, I’m not … not anymore. You might be stuck in Harmony Falls, but you better stay the hell away from me.”

Her gaze shot to the house again, but this time she gasped.

He turned in time to see Phyllis’s head. “Is everything okay? I heard yelling.”

“Shut the door!” Morgan’s whole body jerked like she was readying to run.

“I can call the cops.”

“I said shut the … ”

And then a child cried.

Charlie’s blood ran cold as Phyllis slammed the door. “Who was that?”

“Nobody.” Morgan rushed toward the house. “Leave, Charlie, or I’ll call the cops myself.”

A child. Whose child? The hairs on the back of his neck stood. “Morgan … ”

But she didn’t stop, and she slammed the door behind her like Phyllis had done, leaving him gaping in the driveway with the sound of a crying child ringing in his ears.

Damn it!
She’d said there was more. Was this part of it?

He jogged to the porch, grabbed hold of the knob and pushed inside.

Morgan spun around at the mouth of the hallway on the far side of the room. “Charlie! You can’t just barge in here. I told you to leave.”

“Who’s that crying?” He could barely get the words out his voice was shaking so badly.

“I … uh … first, you need to calm down.”

A muffled cry came from somewhere down the hall, and instinct forced Charlie past her.

“Wait!” She clawed at his biceps.

He lunged for the only closed door, and when he opened it, he came face to face with the child—all three feet of her—standing stock still beside Phyllis’s ugly quilt-covered bed. She clutched a pink blanket to her chubby cheek, while one blonde curl hung in her teary eye. She looked like a mini-version of his sister. Her sniffles shot right through him, heating the blood that only seconds ago had turned to ice.

Mine
, Charlie thought, but that couldn’t be true. Regardless of genetics, he’d signed away his rights. Morgan was supposed to sign away her rights, too. She’d found a family, a pediatrician and a preschool teacher. They were going to give the baby, who got caught up in the Parrish-Mitchell web of lies, a proper life with a backyard and a swing set and trips to Disney World instead of a mother with a warped family allegiance and a father with an alcohol problem.

“Charlotte!” Morgan’s shrill voice mixed with the bang of the door as it hit the wall. “It’s okay.”

The child squealed and lunged toward Morgan, who blew past Charlie without a word.

“Charlotte,” she said again but softer as she clutched the little girl. “I’m sorry if we upset you.”

Charlotte.
Charlie bent at the waist and grabbed just above his knees.

“Everything’s okay,” Morgan continued to soothe.

Charlie almost called bullshit. It wasn’t okay, but he couldn’t drag enough air into his lungs to stand up straight, let alone speak.

“Can you give us a minute?” Morgan asked.

Aunt Phyllis nodded, and slipped past him into the hall. “But if I hear yelling again, I’m not going to ask if you’re okay; I’m just going to call the cops.”

Anger deep and dark built inside him until it straightened his spine. He shook his head. “No need. I’m leaving. I can’t do this right now.”

“Charlie, we
need
to do this.”

He shook his head. “Not in front of … the kid.” He didn’t trust himself to keep the conversation cordial, and he wasn’t sure he could handle hearing the child cry again. Those cries had ripped right through him.

“Fine,” Morgan said through gritted teeth. “Then I’ll get her settled, and we can talk on the porch. I told you I had more to tell you.” She kissed the little girl’s head. “Wait for me outside.”

He didn’t owe her the courtesy, but he sat on the front steps among the curious cats and a few roaming chickens. They looked at him like he had something to give. He had nothing. Seeing Morgan again—with a child—wiped him clean. Emptied him out. He leaned forward with elbows on knees, staring at the worn tips of his boots.

Son of a bitch
. He thought he was beyond all this.

Finally, the door creaked behind him, and he stood.

“This is not the way I planned for you to find out.”

“Find out
what
exactly?” The burn in his throat worsened with every word. He already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“Charlotte is yours.” Shiny, fat tears spilled down her extra pale face.

He winced. It sure as hell wasn’t in sympathy.

“I couldn’t go through with putting her up for adoption. I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know when or how.”

“How ‘bout calling me the day she was born? ‘Charlie, we have a baby girl, and I’m going to keep her,’” he mocked Morgan’s voice. “Seems simple as sin to me.”

She shook her head. “I called the house, and Alice answered. She said you were finally moving on and sober, and that you’d enrolled in culinary school. So I hung up and decided to wait until I was certain and the timing was better—for both of us. You didn’t need me screwing things up with an announcement I wasn’t even sure I was ready to make.”

Rage put him right in her face. “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

She stepped back. “Maybe not, but the note you sent along with the paternity papers made me think I’d done the right thing. You said an alcoholic would make a shitty father anyway. Your words. Not mine. I wanted you sober and happy, so I respected your wishes.”

“You wanted to make it easy on yourself, so you kept it from me,” he spit out.

Her mouth dropped. “You think raising a child on my own is
easy
?”

“I don’t know what it’s like, because you never told me! If you had, you would’ve found out I’ve been clean as a whistle since the day you left Harmony Falls.”

“
Because
I left Harmony Falls.”

He wasn’t going to argue with that. He hadn’t started drinking dangerously until she’d left for law school after telling him she couldn’t see him again. He wished to god she’d stuck to that plan.

Morgan’s shoulders slumped, and the wall around Charlie’s heart developed a hairline crack. She looked so sad. For a split second, he itched to hold her.

Luckily, there were three years filled with damn-near hatred keeping his sentimentality in check.

He turned and walked away.

“I understand,” she called after him. “I don’t expect anything from you. I just wanted you to know.”

And he just wanted a drink.

Instead, he was going straight to the restaurant to viciously chop some onions.

Every time Morgan closed her eyes, she saw Charlie’s angry face. Every time she opened her eyes, she saw his nose and his smile—on Charlotte’s angelic face. It was a vicious cycle, and she had no idea how to stop it.

But she couldn’t leave town with no income, no safe place to go, and a child in tow.

That’s why she was standing on the Mitchell’s front steps. If anyone in this town was powerful enough to find her a temporary job, it was Justin’s mother, Margaret. On the other hand, if anyone in this town had reason to hate a Parrish, it was Margaret, too.

Morgan winced, but she knocked anyway.

Hopefully, three years had been enough time for Margaret to get over her oldest son being made a fool at the altar.

Constance, the Mitchells’ housekeeper, answered the door, and a rush of air-conditioned chill greeted Morgan. Constance used to make oatmeal raisin cookies whenever she knew Morgan was coming around back when she was engaged to Justin.

There’d be no baked goods now.

“My, my, my,” Constance clucked. “I never would’ve guessed it’d be you behind that knock.”

“Surprise.” Morgan managed a tentative smile. “Is Mrs. Mitchell in?”

Constance’s brows rose, and her forehead wrinkled. “Right this way.” With a sweep of her arm, she stepped to the side, allowing Morgan to pass. “Mrs. Mitchell and Mark are playing Scrabble in the breakfast room.”

If Morgan didn’t know the Mitchells, she’d be picturing a Normal Rockwell moment to settle her nerves. Instead, she cringed at the image in her head, one that included Margaret cursing at Mark a second before she flipped the game board and charged the doorway to accost the woman who cheated on her favorite son.

“Pardon the interruption.” Constance stepped into the sunny breakfast room off the cavernous kitchen, where stainless steel and stone surfaces gleamed.

The room turned dark the minute Margaret saw Morgan.

“Hello, Mrs. Mitchell. Mark.” She nodded at Justin’s brother.

“Put the game away, Mark.” Margaret didn’t take her eyes off Morgan.

When Constance left the room, Morgan almost grabbed the woman’s wrist so she couldn’t get away. One semi-neutral witness to this conversation would be a comfort.

“Well, don’t just stand there gawking,” Margaret said. “Get on with it. An apology shouldn’t take all day.”

That wasn’t why Morgan came, but she could see how it would be expected. She hadn’t seen the Mitchells since the wedding debacle. Apologizing was a good thing to do—even if she partially blamed Margaret for trying to push her son into a loveless marriage. “I am very
sorry for any embarrassment my indiscretions caused you and your family. I handled everything poorly. I put Justin’s career in jeopardy. I panicked, because I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to my father and tell him marrying Justin wasn’t what I wanted to do. No offense to your son, ma’am. He’s a wonderful man. He just wasn’t the man for me.”

Margaret sniffed. “So you cheated on him?”

“I was confused and probably self-sabotaging. I wish I had made better decisions.” But then she wouldn’t have had Charlotte.

“I hope your don’t expect to be forgiven on the merit of some pretty words. About all I can muster for you at the moment is pity.”

She’d take it. Maybe it would help her leave this house with a job. She needed a paycheck more than she needed anyone’s forgiveness.

“Fortunately, Justin has moved on nicely,” Margaret added. “His personal and professional success is helping to keep this conversation cordial. Does he know you’re back in town?”

Morgan nodded. “I saw him already. I apologized. I also … asked him for a job, which, of course, he refused to give me.”

Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “You have a lot of nerve.”

“He said the exact same thing, and you’re both right. But I’m stuck here until I can save enough money to leave. I need short-term employment. I know that’s a tall order considering my reputation and my family’s reputation in this town, but I need a job.”

“What happened to your job in Connecticut?”

Morgan swallowed her pride. “I got fired.”

“And you think I should help someone who’s been fired to find new employment when there are plenty of good people in this town who’ve never been fired, but can’t find work either? You’re just as spoiled and entitled as you’ve always been.”

Well, when she put it like that it sure did seem so. But she’d changed, and she was still changing, thanks to Charlotte. “I know I’m asking for a lot, but it’s not just me I’m asking for. I have a daughter.”

Margaret shot Mark a tight glance, and he returned the look with a nervous laugh.