Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(74)

She squirmed. But not in a sexy way, in a nervous way. “Oh no.” Her hands pulled from his neck.

“Lyon,” he guessed.

“Knocking?” she whispered frantically, attempting to disentangle her arms and legs from around his.

“Probably not.” The rap came again, soft knuckles. Patricia. Had to be.

Charlie buried her face in her hands and dropped her forehead to his chest. He let her go, moving her aside to answer the door.

When he pulled it open a crack, Pat was outside the door, one thin eyebrow lifted in suspicion.


*


Nightmare.

Charlie was having a waking nightmare. This was like being caught by a parent. Only worse. Because this was Rae’s parent.

Patricia had caught Charlie and Evan making out in Rae’s old bedroom.

Oh, this was so, so much worse.

Ack! Sorry, Rae.

“I heard crying,” Patricia said from the hallway. Evan had one arm braced on the door frame on his right, the other palm holding the door open a crack. A crack he filled with his body.

It was the wrong time and place to appreciate the way his worn jeans cupped his amazing butt, or the way the dark T-shirt, wrinkled from a day’s wear, skimmed along his shoulders and back and made her want to peel it up, but Charlie did appreciate it. Until appreciating it was interrupted by Pat speaking again.

“I came to check on Charlotte. Make sure she’s all right.”

He looked over his shoulder, gave her a wink, then turned back to Pat. “She’s good.”

Then, to Charlie’s mortification, he let go of the door and pushed it open, revealing Patricia in a fuzzy pink bathrobe, a very “Momma is not happy” scowl on her face.

Pat’s gaze raked down Charlie’s barely dressed body. “I see,” she said tonelessly. Charlie promptly covered her breasts with her crossed arms. “I thought I heard crying.” Her eyes snapped back to Evan. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”

Charlie opened her mouth to say she was crying, and further explain why—because they’d been discussing Rae, but he spoke before she could.

“What brings you to this half of the house, Pat?” He crossed his arms, too, but not in a protective gesture, more in a combative one. If he planned on taking on Patricia Mosley, Charlie needed to find a window to climb out of.

“Originally?” Pat crossed her arms now, as well. “Lyon woke wanting to eat and I wake up and eat this time of night anyway. I came to find you and make sure a midnight snack was okay, when I heard”—her eyes tracked to Charlie—“something coming from this room.”

“Mom.” Evan unlooped his arms. “You don’t have to check with me for things like that. I trust you to make the right decisions for my son.”

Her face turned from scorning mother to guilty grandmother. “I thought that, too, before the accident. I turned away for two seconds, tops. I never—”

Reaching out, he pulled Pat into his arms. “Come on, Mom, what’d Cliff and I say?”

Pat wasn’t crying but she clasped on to Evan tightly enough to make Charlie think she was struggling not to. After holding on a few seconds, she patted his back with both hands, pulled away, and gave him a tight-lipped smile. Keeping it together. “Today frightened me so very much. I was right back to four years ago when you called us about Rae—”

Oh gosh. Rae. Evan not only had to call Charlie, he had to call Pat and Cliff that day. There was another thing she’d never considered. She had underestimated what he’d gone through.

Completely underestimated him.

Holding Pat’s hands, he listened while she talked about Rae, about Lyon falling, about the frightening trip to the ER. Then Pat directed her gaze to Charlie.

“Sweetheart, there’s another robe of mine on the other side of that closet. Feel free to borrow it.”

That was it? Pat found Charlie mid-clinch with her son-in-law, her late daughter’s husband, and all she had to say was feel free to borrow her robe?

“Are you two hungry?” Pat asked. “Since we’re all awake, this calls for eggs.”

“Ace?”

She blinked at Evan, the dynamic in the room confusing her.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Um…”

“Eggs are good,” he told Pat. “Meet you out there.”

Pat nodded her head and turned down the hallway as he shut the door. Charlie smacked her palms to her face and groaned.

She heard a low chuckle as he grasped her wrists.

“She thinks I’m a horrible person,” she whispered. He removed her hands and lowered his face to look at her.

Cupping her jaw in his palms, she watched as a thoroughly amused tilt took over his lips. “You’re okay, baby. Let’s eat.”

“How can you say that?” she whisper-screamed, if that was a thing.

Continuing to look at her with that same immovable smile, he stated simply, “You’re a grown-up. I’m a grown-up.”

“She caught us… almost kissing!” she hissed.

He shook his head, annoyingly amused. “We weren’t dry-humping in the hallway, Ace.”

The sound she made was sort of a choke and a laugh. He took it for the latter.

“That’s my girl. Grab that robe.”