your stepmother.”
Charlie shook her head. “She told social services that she wasn’t up to taking care of me. Anyway, I was fine. It wasn’t like she and I were ever close. With Lindy gone... I doubt she wanted to see me anyway. I’m sure she felt that I was the trouble in the house, not Lindy. Like with the haircut, Lindy told our parents that I begged her to cut it even when she kept saying she didn’t really know how.”
“I can’t imagine what you went through back then and in the years since she died. Even in foster care, you had to be better off without your stepmother.”
“I used to have dreams where I would wake up and Kat would be standing over my bed with a butcher knife saying, ‘I know what you did.’” She swallowed the lump growing in her throat and looked away for a moment, remembering how terrifying the nightmares were. In her dreams, Kat had known about the lie. She’d known why Lindy had been outside. “She’d plunge the knife into my chest, screaming, ‘You killed my baby girl!’ I woke up drenched in sweat every time, unable to breathe.”
When he said nothing, she looked over at him. “You think she might be involved in this?”
“It’s a thought.”
“My father hadn’t gotten around to changing his will so I inherited everything—not that I could touch it until I was twenty-one. But I used some of it to pay off my college tuition and other expenses. The lawyer who explained everything to me told me that Kat had made overtures to overturn the will but their marriage had been too short that she would have failed.”
Charlie thought of the woman who always left the house dressed to the nines on her new husband’s arm. “I got the feeling that money might have been one of the reasons she married my father. He wanted to give her whatever she desired. It’s why he sold the house where I grew up and rented the old Victorian. It was going to be temporary. My father was building Kat a new home. They’d already hired an architect and were just looking for the right lot.
“Kat didn’t like the neighborhood where we were renting. She thought it might be dangerous and wanted us out of there as quickly as possible. As it was, we were there only a few months. But she was right.”
* * *
“WHAT ABOUT YOU?” Charlie asked as they finished the meal he’d cooked. “What happened to you after Landusky’s boot camp?”
“I got my GED, enlisted in the army, put in my time, came back and went to college. I realized while in the army that I had a talent for math and teaching.” He got up to take their dishes to the sink. “Pretty dull, huh?”
“I can’t imagine you ever being dull.” She rose to join him at the sink. “I might not cook, but I can handle dishes. I’ll wash.”
“I guess I’ll dry then,” he said. He turned on the old-fashioned radio she had on a shelf in the kitchen. It looked like an antique and he marveled at this young woman who still got a printed newspaper delivered to her door. She had the radio turned to a country station, and a slow song came on. “But first, do me the honor of a dance.”
She laughed as he pulled her into his arms. “I didn’t know you danced.”
He met her gaze. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, but you know everything that’s important.” He pulled her close and she relaxed into him and the song.
When the song was over, they cleaned up the kitchen and he challenged her to a game of gin rummy as he pulled a well-used deck from his backpack.
“I knew you were a card shark the moment I saw that worn deck you carry around with you,” she said hours later. Tossing in her hand, she yawned.
“I’m just lucky at cards and unlucky at love,” he said, putting the cards away. She looked exhausted. “Tomorrow’s another day. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
She smiled as she rose from the table, but it never reached her eyes. He could see that she was afraid her luck had run out. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I’ll be happy to beat you at any card game you pick.”
“Thank you for being here.”
He saw how hard that was for her to say. He was messing up her relationship with Daniel. He’d also forced her to relive the