Saving Charlie (Stories of Serendipity Book 9) (32 page)

She let herself into the ultimate bachelor pad: mismatched, yet clean and comfortable furniture was lined up against the walls in the living room, all facing the largest flat-screen TV she’d ever seen, complete with a state of the art surround sound system mounted in the corners of the room. Some sort of video games littered the floor around a couple of bean bags. Thank goodness there weren’t any beer bottles or pizza boxes littering the room, or else she might be having second thoughts about her grand gesture.

Charlie followed the strumming guitar to a room at the end of a hallway. Les sat in a chair at a computer with headphones on and his guitar in his lap. He was singing softly into a microphone mounted on the desk and some sort of computer program with bars rising and falling with the sounds of his music flashed on the screen.

The song was fast paced, with throbbing beats against the body of the guitar and an incredibly sexy, husky version of Les’s voice ringing out into the room…

When he’d finished, she cleared her throat to alert him of her presence, beginning to feel guilty about messing up his recording session. He spun around, tangling himself in cords from the headphones in the process.

“Hey…” His hair flopped over into his eyes, and Charlie saw he was still dressed from church in slacks and a white long sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hands rested on his guitar casually, but his face belied a tension she was unaccustomed to seeing on his relaxed face. “You should have called. I would have picked up a little, if I’d known you were coming over.” His eyes darted around the room, guiltily, and Charlie chuckled to herself. He probably thought she was coming over to tell him to back off again. That’s all she’d done to the poor man thus far.

She held out her hands, palms open, in a gesture of submission. “I just wanted to say some things to you, and couldn’t wait for you to come over.”

The look of sheer terror that marred his features sent a cackle shooting out of her mouth. Now he was really scared, so she sauntered over to his desk and removed his guitar from the death-grip he suddenly had it in, setting it gently on the floor next to him.

“I’m hoping this will be a good talk, so quit being scared.”

“I’m sorry; it’s just that every time you tell me something like that, it doesn’t bode well for me…”

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she began. “We’ve talked a lot lately, about a lot of things. But there’s one thing we haven’t touched on in a while.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her, his eyes never leaving her lips. “What’s that?”

“A collaboration.” She licked her lips, trying to wipe away the nerves. Everything inside her said he would agree to this. But she was about to put herself out there in a way that she’d never done before, and fear was a powerful emotion.

“You’d asked me to come work for you. Before. I’m proposing we work together. Your remodeling/building and my inventory. I have enough space in my house for you to move your office to, and…” She gulped. This was it. “The rest of your stuff. I counted this morning. I have five empty rooms, needing to be filled.” She shifted in his lap and dug around in her pocket. Pulling out what she had brought for him, she said, “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.” When he complied, she dropped it in his outstretched palm.

It was a key, a copy of her house key, on a keychain with a heart-shaped guitar on it. She’d had a hard time finding it on a Sunday afternoon, where everything was closed in this sleepy town, but had managed to find a gift kiosk at the truck stop on the outskirts of town with the perfect keychain.

“Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“I know this may seem really fast, I mean,
really
fast. But there’s something about you that speaks to me like nobody else, Les.” She stopped and forced herself to take a deep breath. “You’ve awakened so many things in me that I thought were long buried, things I never planned to visit again. But the fact that I’m visiting them is good for me. You’re good for me.” Her eyes dropped to his throat where his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I love you, Les.”

“So, you want me to move in with you?”

She looked into his eyes and saw the eagerness there, the joy, and suddenly her heart was full. “Yes.”

“And work with you?” His eyes were wide, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Together?”

She nodded again, biting her lip.

Holy Christ, he’d hit the jackpot. Standing and swooping her into his arms, Les let out a joyful whooping noise.

“For real? You’re not messing with me?” He’d given her his everything last night, and been terrified she’d reject it. After everything he’d learned about her, all they’d shared, and everything he’d given her, Les was so scared she’d run again. But looking at her now, he saw she’d given it all back, with this one little key. She bit her lip as he realized she was just as scared of rejection as he was.

Smoothing her lip with his thumb as she slowly shook her head from side to side, he managed a croaked, “Of course. It’s an awesome idea. We’ll be a great team, Sweetness.” He kissed her, and as she melted into his arms, he fairly tasted relief on her tongue. He couldn’t stop his arms from pulling her tighter, hauling her against his body, feeling her soft curves against him, and he groaned into her mouth. “Let me get started packing.” She giggled into his shoulder as he set her back down on the floor.

He saved everything on his computer and the flash drive he had inserted, but before he started yanking out cords to pack into her truck, he turned to her, heart shaped flash drive in his hand. “Here. I made this for you.”

He watched her stare at the tiny piece of plastic and microchips in her hand, eyes glassy with tears.

“Oh, Les, you shouldn’t have.”

“I told you I would. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because, I’m looking forward to hearing you sing to me in the flesh.” Her grin was heart-stopping, and Les was tempted to start singing right this minute.

Except her smile wasn’t about the singing and he knew it.

Gripping her hips, Les pulled her against him. “Sweetness, I’ve got other plans for the flesh…”

From opening comments during a group session:

“Hey y’all. My name’s Charlie Booke. I’m not here to convert you to Christianity, or make you lead a straight and narrow lifestyle. I just want you to see that anything is possible. No matter how low you’ve been, somebody’s been there already and they managed to climb out of the hole. You’ll probably never be what society would call ‘normal’ but you’ll be better. It always gets better. Eventually. Besides, normal is a bit over-rated isn’t it? Anyway, I’m not going to spout Facebook memes at you, I’m going to tell you my story, and hope that you get something out of it…”

Les never ceased to be amazed when Charlie dressed as The Liberator. As she dressed, she changed, putting on her game face, the black clothing her armor. She tucked her emotions inside her cap with her hair. Of course, he couldn’t let her do it alone. As useless as he felt with stuff like that, he still went with her, for back-up. He got his concealed carry license when he insisted she get hers, so they were both packing. They hadn’t needed them, so far. Of course, he was dealing with his own issues of feeling useless in a conflict, but the idea of his Charlie getting into another ambush alone terrified him more than the idea of Les shooting himself in the foot.

Once Charlie’s game face was on, she didn’t speak and Les didn’t push her. He just watched her work. They drove an hour to the truck stop in silence. Sarah told them there was a trucker in cahoots with The Refuge who would “hire” as many girls for services as he could and hold them there. It only worked once, maybe twice before he had to move on and work a different stop with a different group of rescuers. But they’d take what they could get.

It had taken a while for Les to come to grips with Adam and Sarah’s role in all of it. When he first confronted Adam about his creation of The Liberator, and blackmailing of Charlie, Adam was sheepish. Les wanted to kill him for putting his Charlie in danger.

And then he thought about it. Becoming The Liberator really had helped her embrace that part of herself that needed help. She had done something for other girls like herself, and now that she’d ‘outed’ herself, so to speak, she was speaking with the girls and helping with their mental recovery. At least letting them know they have hope of leading normal lives someday. That was huge.

Adam had convinced a minor player in a larger trafficking ring to turn state’s evidence. Adam got locations in return for immunity. Of course, Les was conflicted about that. He didn’t want the bastard to have immunity, but he also wanted to be able to get as many girls as he could off the streets. So he just worked with what he had: information on locations of girls who needed help. And they would continue to keep trying to bring down the big dogs from their little corner of the world.

Pulling up next to the enormous red freight-liner with the gray pinstripes, Charlie hopped out and banged on the side of the truck before Les could even get out of the driver’s side. Few words were spoken as Charlie ushered two girls into the back seat with instructions for them to buckle up, they were going somewhere safe.

Les felt a funny mixture of pride and uselessness watching Charlie work. He was still scrambling into the driver’s seat when she turned to the girls.

“I know you may be scared, but you can be done with that life. We’re here to help you.”

The girls were young and silent, dark circles under their eyes that couldn’t be covered with makeup, no matter how much they’d caked on. Their prepubescent bodies contradicted the clothing they wore—cut-off jeans short enough to show ass cheeks, skyscraper heels, and tank tops with no bras. Like all the others, they didn’t really trust Les, eyeing him warily and not speaking.

Weakly, he said, “We’ll be on the road a while. Y’all can nap if you’re tired.” It was an hour back to Serendipity, and as the safe house still wasn’t finished for at least six more months, the girls would go to the intake center, which is also the counseling center, and the doctors’ offices. Eventually, that would all be at the safe house, and Les was working on it as fast as he could. But for the moment, the girls are living in various foster facilities with people who have been sort of trained to take care of them. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best they could do at the moment.