Page 5 of Charming But Reckless

CHAPTER 2

SOL

Why is therea big version of the kid from the photo on Dad’s nightstand here? The one with the two of them smiling side by side?

And why does he keep looking at me like that?

Does he know who I am? Is he going to call Dad to come get me?

He’s going to be so mad. All this is my fault.

If only I’d listened when he told me those kids weren’t good people. If only I’d headed straight home that day.

But no.

I didn’t listen, and I didn’t do what I was supposed to.

And now I’m broken.

What’s the point anymore? I wish they’d never found me.

Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much.

CHAPTER 3

ORION

I satwith the boy for a while as I contemplated my next moves. There was no one I trusted to take him in. No one aside from the men in the office down the hall.

They were the only family I had left. Everyone else was long dead.

As I wracked my brain for some solution that wouldn’t have the team losing their shit on me for lying to them, the boy sat still and quiet. He looked as if he was barely breathing from how steady he kept himself.

I knew the move all too well.

If you made yourself invisible, then the bad men couldn’t get to you. Or sometimes the bad women. In my case it had been both.

Pushing the memories away, I focused on what was an immediate need — finding someone to watch him for me while I hunted down his father. Or at least, who I suspected to be his father.

In an attempt to think outside the box, I went through my phone contacts. There were several there, some I’d consider acquaintances and other clients. Very few would swing toward the category of friend.

It was one of the people in the latter category that I eventually settled on as a possibility. I dialed the number, then waited for them to answer.

“Orion? Is that you, sugar?”

I smiled at the familiar greeting from Beau. He was a friend of a friend, though I couldn’t even remember how the two of us connected. Maybe it was because we both had a way with people that we found our way into a friendship that didn’t make sense.

He was a ranch hand that lived a couple hours away from the city. We rarely talked these days, but I knew enough about him to know a lot had changed in the time since I’d last seen him.

“How is life treating you? Stepdad duty still fun?”

His laugh was just as lively as I remembered. I smiled at the sound.

“It’s the best damn job around. I never saw myself in this role, yet I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I love my little family so much."

I cut my eyes to the boy, hope filling me as I thought of what I was about to do. This would either be a great idea, or one I’d come to regret later.

“That’s wonderful,” I said.

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