Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT Caribbean Nights #9) - Kat Cantrell Page 0,75
lay that cross down. Whenever love is involved, so is hurt. You can’t avoid that. Your girl is at home waiting for you to let her forgive you. Waiting for you to figure out that love covers a multitude of sins. That’s the nature of forgiveness. You can’t earn it, but you can sure give it freely.”
Her logic bled through him, seeking to salve the jagged places inside, and he wanted to grab on to what she was saying so badly.
“I don’t know how to do that,” he mumbled.
“Best way is to practice,” she advised with nothing but compassion in her gaze. “So in that vein, go home and talk to your father.”
The bottom dropped out of Charlie’s stomach. “My father? What does he have to do with anything?”
Nothing. He hadn’t spoken to his father in sixteen years and ignored every overture the bastard had ever made to contact him.
Mama C clucked. “Everything. That man scarred you, and you’ve let his wounds ruin half your life. Go see him and find a way to forgive him. Then you’ll see what you need to do to patch things up with your friend and your girl.”
God, how could that be the answer? And who said he wanted to patch things up with anyone other than Audra? Jared Anderson could burn in hell right alongside Charlie’s father—
But that was exactly what Mama C was trying to get him to stop. Charlie clung to his absolutes like he’d found the Holy Grail, and life was just not that black and white.
It didn’t matter whether Audra had slept with Jared or done a pole dance naked in the man’s bed. What mattered was that Jared had been there when Charlie couldn’t be, and it was killing him. What if that happened again? He’d been secretly convinced that Audra would run back to Jared when she needed someone. Charlie was a bad bet. But she didn’t seem to think so.
He was letting history color his relationship with Audra in so many subtle ways. He had to figure out how to be with Audra without destroying their relationship. Because he loved her, and if the last year was any kind of indicator, nothing would ever make that stop.
Maybe he should give himself the same advice he’d offered to Anderson and let Audra make her own choices. After he’d given her all the facts she needed to make a decision.
The little area the locals called Town was barely that. Audra had walked from the Duchess Island Resort after hitching a ride with one of the FARC teams headed to do some research on the opposite side of Abaco.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door of number 8, the bungalow Rachel had told her Charlie lived in. Jace answered the door and swept her with an evaluating once-over laced with a fair amount of suspicion. But he stepped out of the way and ushered her inside.
Five pairs of eyes tracked her movements as she rode on a wave of testosterone into the living area. Charlie’s ice-blue eyes were not among them, which was the only reason she’d been able to do this. There was little chance she could face him while her heart was still so shredded.
Rachel and Emma came out of the kitchen carrying drinks and smiled at Audra when they caught sight of her.
“Hey, hon,” Rachel called. “I got them all here, just like you asked.”
Yeah, she could see that. And Charlie’s team appeared none too happy to be in the presence of the woman who had caused them a lot of problems, not the least of which was the absence of their leader—who had understandably gotten the hell out of dodge after the double whammy of dealing with the master of manipulation and Audra’s inability to trust Charlie with the truth. But how could she come right out and tell a man with one foot out the door that she’d blathered to Jared about her feelings for Charlie before she’d told Charlie himself?
He might never come back to her, and she had to find a way to be okay with that. All part of her stay-independent plan. Next—beat Jared at his own game. She planned to do everything she could to help this group of ex-SEALs benefit from her expertise in the field of marine biology. She’d like to have that part laid out if and when Charlie returned because, if nothing else, she owed him.