So Tough To Tame

Both women turned to look at her with pity, but their pity looked suspiciously avid. Scandal was so delicious, after all. Or it was as long as you weren’t involved. Charlie had enjoyed scandals and gossip herself, up until a few months ago.

She didn’t want to be defensive, but she was under attack yet again, and it grated against her bones. At least Dawn was masking her distaste in politeness this time. “All my late nights since I moved here have been spent working,” she said slowly, carefully.

“Right,” Dawn answered with a sly smile. “That’s why the facilities manager was in your place until ten last night.”

Charlie’s smile slipped as her heart thundered. She’d been worried her suspicions had been paranoia, but this was the confirmation she’d been looking for. Dawn had been watching her. Spying on her.

“We were working,” she finally mumbled.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Dawn replied.

Sandra reached out to pat her arm. “Well, Charlie, we’re just happy to see you on the right track again.”

The right track. Sure. That was why she’d come back here, wasn’t it?

For a few months, she’d been lost. Utterly lost. Shut up in an apartment in Tahoe she could no longer afford and terrified about her future. But she was setting it right now. Working hard, toning down her life. Losing the heels. Keeping her head down. Biting her tongue and biting it hard.

“I’m doing my best with her,” Dawn said, as if Charlie was her new pet project. Considering the effort she put into spying, the idea wasn’t too far off. But Charlie couldn’t be her project anymore. Anger was boiling beneath her skin. She wanted to bolt, but she couldn’t.

She was trapped, and the urge to fight back was getting harder to suppress. But she couldn’t lose this job. She couldn’t.

Her phone vibrated just in time, providing a reason to escape. “Excuse me. I’d better get this. It might have something to do with work.”

Before she was out of earshot, she heard Dawn saying, “I just don’t know what happened to her. She had so much promise.”

Charlie closed her eyes, took a deep breath and answered her phone. It was her knight in shining armor, otherwise known as her cousin Nate, calling with exactly the news she needed.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “You really did it? I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t move!”

This time when she turned back to the party, it wasn’t hard to smile. Not at all.

“Sandra!” she called out, hurrying back for one last fake hug. “I have to run, but congratulations again. You’re going to make a great mom.”

She was. Sandra seemed great at everything. Unlike Charlie, she’d actually lived up to her promise.

Before Dawn could ask where she was going, Charlie made her escape and rushed out to the valet to get her car. She pulled away with a groan of relief. Freedom. For a few hours, at least.

When she’d moved back to Jackson, she’d thought reconnecting with old friends would be good for her. After all, she really was trying to get back on the right track. At first, she’d been so beaten up, she’d thought that track had started back with high school and the girl she’d been then. Hardworking, studious and so worried about becoming her mother that she’d never even gone out on a date.

She’d obviously gone wrong somewhere, so why not start where everything had been good?

But she was realizing now that everything hadn’t been good. In fact, she’d spent all of high school scared to be herself.

Muttering a few choice curses, Charlie struggled out of the cardigan, holding the steering wheel with her knees as she yanked off the sweater and tossed it into the backseat.

“Screw this shit,” she said triumphantly as she pulled up to the resort.

Five minutes later she was back in the car in the clothes she’d worn back in Nevada. Tight jeans and heeled boots and a pretty little striped T-shirt.

Today she was going to get her groove back, damn it, and the clothes were only the first tiny step.

Charlie turned on some music and drove into town with the windows down. The breeze was too cold, but she didn’t mind. It was the first time her nipples had been hard in months. She had to take her thrills where she could get them.

When she pulled up to the address Nate had given her, she saw that the apartment building was right next to the Crooked R Saloon. Her cousin greeted her from the sidewalk with a wave.

Thank God for Nate. Charlie had a brother in town, but he never offered any help unless it could benefit him, too. Nate, on the other hand...

Charlie jumped out of her car and threw her arms around his neck to squeeze him tight. “Thank you, thank you!”

“Hey, calm down. It’s no big deal. I’m sorry the place at the resort fell through.”

“Well, you know...” She let him go and crossed her arms to hide the nervous flutter of her hands. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t know how to explain. “Construction on the hotel is behind schedule. Naturally, the last big push goes into the rooms people are actually paying for. Hopefully my apartment will be ready in a few months.”

“I think Rayleen wants to rent this place out through the winter. Six months, Jenny said.”

“Sure, I understand. Of course. I have no problem with that. It was so great of you to arrange this for me.”

“Walker was actually the one who pulled it off.”

Charlie shook her head in shock. “Walker Pearce?”

“Yeah, you remember him?”

“Of course I remember him! He’s still around?”

“Living right here at the Stud Farm, actually.”

Well, that made sense. Walker had been a hell of a stud in high school. She’d had a serious crush on him, though she’d been careful not to let him know. Half the girls in the school had had a crush on him. Any time she’d tutored him in the library during lunch, girls had made a point of sauntering by like a rotating show of blondes and brunettes and redheads. All the prettiest girls in the school. The cheerleaders and the rodeo queens. And Walker had made a point of smiling at each and every one.

Charlie followed Nate into the apartment building and up the stairs to the second floor. The two-story entryway was clean and bright, sunlight shining through the old farmhouse windows that flanked the front door.

“Here’s your key. You’ll need to go by the saloon to pick up the lease agreement.”

“Cool.”

“Just a warning. If Rayleen Kisler is there, you might want to lay low. You know Rayleen?”

“I know of her.”

“Walker talked her into letting you rent the place, but she’d much rather have had someone...” He stopped at the door to apartment C and shook his head. “Bigger and hairier.”

Charlie grinned. “She hasn’t given up her hobby, then, I guess?”

“Nope. She still likes to ogle. But she made an exception for you. Although there’s another woman living in the apartment below yours. Merry Kade. So it was a damn miracle that Walker managed to get you in here.”

“I’ll have to find a way to thank him.”

“Won’t be hard. He lives right there.” Nate tilted his head toward the apartment on the other side of the small upstairs landing.