Page 19 of When You Saved Me

She’d gone out of her way to bake me a thank you gift and even though the muffins were fucking terrible, she’dthoughtof me. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me in a while.

It didn’t take me very long to decide I enjoyed the feeling and if being around Charlie let me have more of it, then Icould learn to live with the discomfort our shared memories brought.

Metal pounding against metal struck through the sound of the river rushing below me as I worked another nail into the new board running across the dock. When I finished the row of nails, I noticed the swish of a white tail out of the corner of my eye.

Peering to my left, I saw Casper trotting over the frozen ground while Charlie struggled with her hands full of what appeared to be paint supplies. Slipping the hammer back into my toolbelt, I rose from the middle of the dock and crossed the yard to the back patio of the cabin.

“Let me help you with that.” I grabbed the large white canvas from under her right arm while she set up the wooden easel.

“Thanks,” she said breathlessly from the effort of carrying too much. After she finished setting up the paints and brushes, she took the canvas from me and settled it onto the middle of the easel.

“I didn’t know you were an artist.” I took a step back as she brought the kitchen stool in front of the easel and sat on it. She reached for a paintbrush, and it was the first time I noticed how slender and delicate her hands and fingers were.

I looked down at my right hand that I sprawled out. Dirt was buried under my fingernails and scrapes from splinters in the wood I’d been cutting and hammering all afternoon darted in all directions over the top of my hand. I didn’t have to look at my palm to know callouses from years of hard labor had formed beneath each digit.

“Yup,” she responded. “I went to Savannah’s College of Art and Design. My parents helped support me until my paintings started finding buyers.” When she turned to settle her eyes on me, there was a brightness there I hadn’t seen before. Like talking about her art made her beam from the inside out. “I’m one of the lucky ones. I landed some spots in a few amazing galleries and found buyers pretty immediately. Now, I do a combination of commission work and selling original pieces.”

“Wow,” I said with genuine surprise. “I’ve never met an artist before.”

Her brows pinched together. “Sure you have. Your friend Sarah does incredible work with her pastries. The chocolate croissant I had was art in food form.”

I snorted. “You have a point with that. Her pastries are pretty incredible.”

“Speaking of, did you have one of the chocolate muffins I made you yet?”

My stomach gurgled as I thought back to the chocolate paste I had to spit into the garbage earlier this morning. But there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to tell Charlie that her efforts were wasted. I’d eat every single one of them if it meant putting a smile on her face.

“I did. It was pretty good. Thank you again for making them for me.”

A long strand of her hair fell forward against her cheek. My fingers ached to reach out and tuck it behind her ear, to draw my fingertips along the edge of her smooth jaw until my thumb stopped on her bottom lip.

The blue depths of her eyes shuttered for a moment, like she could see right past the walls I’d built between us, straight to the desire that roared through my body. I had a tight leash on it, but when I was this close to her my grip loosened.

She cleared her throat and looked down at the paintbrush in her hand. “I’m glad you liked them.”

With the moment between us severed, I took a step back. I knew I was doing everything wrong. It wasn’t fair for me to tell Charlie that I didn’t want anything to do with her one day and then turn around and gawk at her like she was one of the seven wonders of the world the next.

I knew this…and still I couldn’t stop acting like a fool when she was around—because the connection she’d spoken of last night was one I’d felt the day of the fire too. Maybe it was real, and I was avoiding any sense of emotions that tied me back to that time in my life. Or maybe I had some fucked up savior complex that ignited when I saw a beautiful woman in need of my rescue.

But there was a nudge deep in my core that told me I wouldn’t be feeling this way about anyone else. It washerwho had haunted my thoughts for years on end. The image of her suffering from my mistake was branded into my mindand if I wanted any chance of things being normal between us, I was going to have to figure it out.

I shoved my fists into my jeans pockets. “Okay, well I’m going to leave you to it and get back to working on the dock.”

A question passed over her face as her lips parted for a moment. Then, the moment was gone. Instead of urging her to say what was on her mind, I retreated down the steps to the dock where I was safely away from saying something stupid that I would surely regret.

We both worked until the sun faded behind the trees across the river. My arm was sore by the time I gathered the scrap pieces of wood into a bucket to haul away in my truck. The dock was finished in record time. I chalked up the accomplishment to the frustration I felt towards myself and as I looked at the heavy hammer marks surrounding each nail in the boards, I realized just how much heaviness I’d been carrying in my mind.

Finally looking up, I saw Charlie was packing her painting materials up. The easel and canvas were already gone, probably moved inside already. My throat cinched as I tried to come up with something to say to her. Anything that would retract what I’d spewed from my mouth last night.

Because the truth was that I’d lied. There was no part of me that wanted to stay away from Charlie. Every bone in my body ached with the need to be closer to her and it made me wonder if that was why I’d been so miserable the last seven years. I’d run away from the only person my heart ever yearned to be near.

That was the thing about haunting memories though. They created barriers that stopped us from getting to what we needed most.

And when it came to haunting memories…I had more than most.

Chapter 8

Charlie

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