The Secret of You and Me - Melissa Lenhardt Page 0,93

called from outside.

The three of us looked at the front door. “Who’s that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. My x-ray vision is on the fritz,” Mary snapped.

I rolled my eyes and opened the door. Charlie Wyatt stood on the other side of the screen holding a six-pack of Mockingbird Toasted Pecan porter. “Hey,” he said. “I knocked, but don’t think you heard me.”

“Charlie,” Mary said. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Charlie smiled like a good politician, but there was doubt there. What had he heard? I grabbed his arm and practically pushed him off the porch as I left the house. “Help me check the chickens.” I glared at Mary and slammed the door behind me.

“Family spat?” Charlie handed me a beer as we walked around to the barn.

I twisted the cap and threw it against the house. “Something like that.” I gulped the beer. “God, that’s truly awful beer.”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s all we had left over from last night.”

“No idea why,” I said.

“Poor Trent can’t seem to settle in on anything. It’s a real tax on Jamie.”

The chickens were squawking and scratching the dirt for feed when we walked into the barn. I grabbed a handful of seeds and tossed them into the coop while Charlie opened a beer. He watched me with narrowed eyes and a sly knowing smile. Could he somehow tell I’d been making love to his wife only a few hours earlier? Impossible. Charlie didn’t like to lose, and his wife cheating on him, especially with another woman, would never cross his mind. I upturned an empty bucket for him to sit on as flashes of my time with Sophie flittered through my mind: the subtle scent of perfume in the hollow behind her ear, tracing her full lips with my finger, Sophie counting the freckles on my nose, her hand lightly stroking my arm while we talked. My heart raced with longing. Christ, the mere memory of being with her was softening my resolve to leave.

I leaned against the stall door to keep my legs from buckling beneath me and tried for nonchalance. “What brings you out here?” I said.

He sat down and placed the six-pack at his feet. He shrugged and drank. “I haven’t gotten to spend any time with you alone since you’ve been back. Thought it might be nice to.”

I nodded and drank the skunky beer. No conversation ideas came to mind, and Charlie seemed more interested in analyzing me through narrowed eyes than talking. I remembered that Charlie’s favorite subject had always been himself. Young, in love (or so I thought), and raised to believe in a female’s subservient, secondary role to men, I’d never given it a second thought when we’d dated. I’d long since grown out of that and silently thanked Ray for freeing me from Lynchfield, Charlie, and the old-school outlook I was raised to have.

“It looks like you’re right on track for the governor’s mansion.”

Charlie grinned, showing the Deadly Dimple. “It’s early days yet, and our current governor is pretty well entrenched. But, there are other offices besides governor.”

I nodded. “So, the GOP is grooming you for greatness?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “They seem optimistic. I have the background, the family, the right outlook on the issues.”

I clenched my jaw, knowing full well that right outlook on the issues meant restricting my rights. It wasn’t worth arguing with Charlie. Texas had nothing to do with me. I would leave here in two days and return where I was accepted. Or at least I wasn’t overtly hated. “To the future of the party,” I toasted.

He lifted his beer. “As long as there’s no scandal to derail me.” He drank his beer but kept his eyes on me.

I nodded. “You might want to stop sleeping with Jamie Luke, then.”

“What makes you think I’m sleeping with Jamie?”

“Do you want me to list the ways I know?”

Amused, Charlie said, “Sure.”

“Jamie was protective and territorial when I visited your office, she couldn’t take her eyes off you last night, but you did your level best to avoid her altogether. I don’t think you ever even looked at her. Probably didn’t want Avery to catch on.”

“I’m sleeping with Avery, too?”

“Yes. She’s probably safe. She knows how Washington works, and as long as you don’t betray her professionally, she’ll keep the secret. You aren’t the first politician she’s slept with, and you won’t be the last.”

Charlie’s smug smile slipped. Poor thing, he’d been the golden boy in little Lynchfield for so long he didn’t realize