Once up in her room, Charlie could hear the men closing up early, the sounds of grumbled complaints from the drunks who wanted to stay making her chuckle while she brushed her hair and changed into something that was going to drive Matthew to distraction.
Downstairs, Nathaniel saw the discarded valentines, waving them about once Eli left for his rendezvous with Ruth. Laughing over what a fool his brother had been, he teased, “I don’t think I ever saw a girl smile so big for one little box of chocolates. Wish I could’ve seen you buy it. Was Mrs. Fletcher itching to ask you who it was for?”
Everyone knew who it was for. The whole damn town had been yapping about it since they saw him dance at the Christmas Hoedown. Shooting his brother an unamused glance, Matthew went back to counting the night’s earnings.
“You are one lucky bastard, Matthew.” Nathaniel dropped the unwanted cards in the garbage. “She certainly has stars in her eyes. Best marry that girl soon before she realizes what a jackass you are.”
Matthew grunted, looking up slowly from the money. Shifting his mass out of the chair, he motioned to the door. “Head on home now and take it easy on the jar; weather’s been bad and it’s rough road to Chicago.”
Not surprised he was being booted, Nathaniel shuffled out, muttering about what a stingy prick his brother was for not sharing his pie, only to hear the door lock rudely behind him.
Turning off the lights, Matthew headed upstairs to find Charlie lying in their bed wearing something so filmy it glowed like gossamer.
Posing like a pin up, she gave him a hungry, lust-filled look. “When I made your pie, I might have had just a bit too much whipped cream left over.” He swallowed, watching her move to her knees and beckon him over. “It would be a shame to put it to waste…”
After the wild night Charlie and Matthew had shared, she woke up with a wonderful lightness of spirit. The way he had pounced for all her teasing had been nothing but fun. Her poor little gown had lasted less than ten minutes before he tore it down the middle, past caution from her fooling with the whipped cream. Needless to say, not a dollop was wasted.
Charlie marveled at the man. Matthew could be so gruff and distant with folks, completely assertive in his bearing when he interacted with the community. But when they were in bed, he doted on her in the dark. He didn’t need to speak to make it clear all his attention was hers. And he was anything but distant, took an extravagant amount of time seeing to her gratification—curious and attentive.
Feeling rather spoiled, Charlie sat up.
One look at the mayhem in the room and her jaw dropped. They had done a number on the bed; had somehow moved it several feet during the first, maybe second… perhaps the third round of lovemaking. Items had been knocked off the dresser. Beyond that, somehow the spindle chair had been broken, and for the life of her, Charlie could not recall how on earth they’d done it. When the man looked up to see what she was frowning at, she blushed scarlet, and Matthew actually chuckled at her embarrassment.
Unconcerned with the disarray, certain of one way to settle her spirits, he pressed his lips to her throat and rolled her naked body beneath him. By the time breakfast arrived, Charlie was loose limbed and smiling again.
Devil’s Hollow closed up for the day so the Emersons, with Charlie’s help, could prepare for the Chicago run. The morning and early afternoon were dedicated to filling up jar after jar of moonshine. Once dusk arrived, she was dropped off back at the roadhouse and the men were on their way.
She found herself soaking in the tub, happy for the quiet. How different it was to be there without the perpetual sounds of customers talking or the hum of the radio.
Home... this is what having a home felt like.
Her enjoyment of the peaceful revelation was shot to hell a moment later. There was a sound—the small crack and scrape of the lock being picked downstairs—that set Charlie’s hackles to rise.
Sopping wet, she moved with the speed of a woman accustomed to adrenaline, pulling on the nightshirt Matthew left hanging on the bathroom door. In less than half a minute, Charlie had her rifle at the ready and the spare shotgun swinging from her shoulder.
Whoever the fuck was breaking in was going to leave bleeding… if they left at all.
A flat tire had slowed their way as the Emersons dodged feds and non-friendly sheriffs of other, far less understanding counties. By the time they’d made their goal, they were two hours behind. Irritated, Matthew watched Beau’s men move slow as molasses on a cold day unpacking the truck.
In time, he got his money, Radcliffe got his liquor and the Emersons were back on the road. When they finally reached the Monroe county line, it was almost seven o’clock in the morning. Daylight shined off the roadside sludge, Matthew squinting as he looked out towards Devil’s Hollow. There should have been a trail of smoke coming off the chimney, Matthew wondering if Charlotte had forgotten to build up the fire before bed.
When the truck pulled up and the Emersons found a man’s corpse lifeless on the porch steps, Matthew burst out of the vehicle before Eli could hit the brakes. The stiff looked like he’d tried to drag himself away, leaving a red, smeared trail. The door was open, a second man dead on the threshold. Bounding over the body, Matthew found the grill in disarray. Several tables were knocked aside, chairs overturned, and two more corpses… men he recognized as the boys from Roscoe he’d just sold sixty gallons to three nights prior. Breathing hard, he looked for a sign of his golden girl, the Blackbird who never misses, and tore through the room mindless of where he stepped.
Another corpse lay in the back corridor, torn apart by close range buckshot to the chest, Charlie’s rifle on the ground under it. A horrible feeling clenched his gut at the sight of her abandoned gun, made worse by the nearby smear of rust colored footprints leading out the back door.
“She’s over here!” Nathaniel shouted from the main room.
Matthew ran, his brother squatting near the corner where Charlie sat hidden from view by the stove. Her blonde head was hanging down, lying at an unnatural angle on her shoulder, face covered by wild lank hair. One lily-white hand sagged on the shotgun in her lap. Her other arm, tightly bound by a tourniquet, flopped on the ground in a pool of reddish-black blood.
The awkward sprawl, the stillness of her far too pale body... Matthew stumbled to his knees. “Charlotte!”
The blonde head lolling at her shoulder was carefully moved by warm, male hands. Matthew found her chest was fluttering like a bird’s, expanding with little puffs of air in small gasps, and knew she held on by a thread.
In the pallor of her face, eyes, dim and near death, opened to slits. “One got away.”
She barely croaked the words, black and blue bruises marring the smoothness of her throat, blood dripping down the wall behind her head.
“You hang on now,” Matthew barked, scooping her up and rushing out the door, leaving Nathaniel and Eli to follow behind. He drove her to the nearest hospital at breakneck speed, certain at any moment, he was going to lose her. When he burst through the doors with the blood-soaked woman, he shoved all others aside and demanded she be tended first. Doctors and nurses rushed to take her from him, had to pry her away to put Charlotte on a gurney—to take her where he could no longer stay at her side.