Charles stood again, needing to end this before he dug himself into a hole his lawyers couldn’t dig him out of. “You had your people feeding you information and I had mine, and that’s all I’m saying on that.” He thought of Doc, Crack and Ashcroft, the only employee he trusted enough and whom he knew would be more than willing to help him out, contacting him with disposable cell phones to pass on information and the sacrifices they had made for him. Crack had moved to Hope just to watch over Piper for him and Ashcroft, one of his best dealers, had kept him apprised of everything happening with the Empire, especially after Pasquino had become a regular patron. It had been sheer luck to have Pasquino’s man show him Christina’s picture while he was gambling at Ashcroft’s table and it was Ashcroft who had made sure both doors to the secret passage were unlocked last night. “I’ll answer any other questions you have with my attorneys present and not until then. I was hoping to clear the air with both you and Piper. After I meet with the board and get caught up here, I plan to go see her in person. Until then, I’ll be here. You know where to find me.”
Brody didn’t have time to argue or question him further. Some facts were obvious. There had to be a reason for the hit Pasquino put on Sandoval and there had to be a reason Charles thought Pasquino was a threat, or about to be one, to Piper. But obvious didn’t mean provable and they both knew it. “Just so you know,” he said as he turned to the door, “I plan on returning to Missouri, and Piper also. Your plot worked better than you thought.” With that admission, Brody hurried back downstairs, anxious now more than ever to end this case once and for all.
Chapter Sixteen
Hope, Missouri
One Month Later
Charles Sandoval sat in a corner booth in Rowdy’s, his eyes glued to the door, his body taut with anticipation and worry. Piper, the young woman it had taken him too long to realize he loved like a daughter, was on her way and he would have his first glimpse of her in five long years. He had no one to blame but himself for that, no one to blame for making the worst decision of his life by taking Pasquino up on his lucrative offer and definitely no one else to blame for the things he had done to try to set things right not only for himself, but for Piper also. He was back among the living now, back doing what he loved, running the Empire twenty-four seven. The Feds were off his back, finally conceding they didn’t have anything on him concerning either his alleged money laundering for Pasquino or his involvement in the drug lord’s murder except suspicions. Now, all that remained to be seen was if Piper would forgive him, not only for the jeopardy he had put her in, but for what he had to do to see that she was kept safe from his mistakes.
He didn’t feel guilty for sending her overseas when they both lost Christine. He had done the best for her at that time that he could. Living in a casino, with him working around the clock, would have been no life for a young child, and, frankly, he had no desire to change his life to become a surrogate father for the next ten years. But he hadn’t deserted her, hadn’t wanted to and over the years, during those monthly visits that he had enjoyed more than he had ever imagined he would, he had grown to love Piper as the daughter he never had. But it wasn’t until he saw her face, the look of utter shock and devastation when she had seen him get shot, that he realized she had become more important to him than the Empire that he had always put before her.
Neither did he feel guilty for the extremes he had to go to to free both of them from Pasquino. It had been relatively easy seeking out a professional to handle the matter. He hadn’t asked for details but Doc filled in the gaps for him, guessing the duo assassins had worked together, planting the knife before anyone showed up, probably slipping a drug like valium into his drink, making it easy to lead him out of the room and to a quick, relatively painless death. Since Charles was still on Catalina when he got the call about a murder taking place in his casino, there was no way to connect him to it. The professional hit team knew how to cover their tracks and his involvement with them and he was more than ready to put the whole ordeal with Pasquino behind him. He only hoped he could do it with Piper still an important part of his life.
Piper hurried down the walk towards Rowdy’s wondering what was so important that Crack had to see her right now. She had worked her tail off this past week getting some new items finished for Haley’s shop as well as fulfilling her mail orders so she would be free to attend the big retirement bash they were throwing for Sheriff Norton this weekend. Ever since returning from Atlantic City four weeks ago, she had been going non-stop working on her designs and sewing, and when she wasn’t doing that, she was working outside or trekking through the woods on long hikes, anything to keep busy. The busier she was the less time and effort she had to dwell on things she couldn’t change. By falling exhausted into bed each night, she was too tired to think about how much she missed Brody, how big her bed seemed without him in it, how much her body craved to be filled by him again.
Before Brody had re-entered her life so unexpectedly, she had gone months without sex, without even thinking about sex. But now, sex with Brody was all she thought about, that and the way both he and Ian had so protectively, irritatingly, looked out for her, the possessive way Brody had kept close to her that weekend at the Empire, the way her pussy would moisten and clench when he glared at her, the way he looked at her when he didn’t trust her, the way her body ached to feel his hard cock slamming into her over and over, the way he smiled at her. And she had discovered that not even both physical and mental exhaustion could keep her from wanting him.
Entering Rowdy’s, she vowed, once again, to put him out of her mind for good. Cole was coming back this way in another month or two and she’d be ready to resume their relationship again, the last hurdle to resuming her life.
“What’s up, Crack?” she asked him as she leaned on the bar, glad to see him despite her busy schedule. “What couldn’t wait until I saw you tomorrow at Sheriff Norton’s party?”
“Who, not what,” Crack told her, hoping she was still smiling when she left here. He had told Charles it’d be better if he let Piper know he was coming, at least let her know ahead of time he was alive, but he had adamantly refused. It wasn’t worth the risk, he had said, of Piper refusing to see him at all. Nodding towards the back, he said, “Just give him a chance, Piper, that’s all he’s asking for.”
Piper turned, expecting, or maybe hoping, she would see Brody, but instead she saw the last person she had ever thought she’d see again. “Dad?!” she whispered incredulously before turning shocked, accusing eyes back to Crack. “You knew?”
Nodding his head slowly, he cursed his long-time friend for making her look at him with such disbelief and now, mistrust. “He’ll explain. Go talk to him.”
Piper walked slowly to the back booth, struggling to suppress both the pleasure and the anger consuming her as she sat across from Charles, her eyes glued to his face, his eyes shining with some emotion she had never seen before. “Charles,” she managed to address him softly with little inflection despite the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. ?
??Welcome back to the living.”
“Piper,” Charles choked, fisting his hands under the table to keep from reaching for her, heartbroken that for the first time she hadn’t called him dad. She looked good, had matured into a beautiful woman who was the spitting image of her mother. The pain of seeing her again, of seeing Christine in her, was almost unbearable. “You look more like your mother than ever. I’ve missed you, Piper.”
She had managed to get her emotions under control, enabling her to answer him calmly. “Not enough to let me know you survived though. I spent a long time mourning you.” That last came out more as a painful accusation than a simple statement of fact.
“And I’ll add that to all the other things I’m sorry about. Will you let me explain?”
He had never looked at her that way, with such caring and worry, as if he needed her now as much as she had always needed him and she found that late was better than never. “Yes.”
Charles closed his eyes briefly as relief washed over him before he told her how his wounds were worse than they looked, how he and his good friend Doc had managed to get him out of the country, not out of fear of the Feds, but fear of Pasquino and what he would do if he learned he was alive and out of fear for her if he learned she existed. “When I found out you had returned here, I imposed on another good friend to keep an eye on you for me, to let me know if there was ever a sign of a threat against you.” His eyes went from hers to across the room.
Piper turned, saw Crack nod at them, smile then shrug as if to say ‘that’s the way it is’. “He moved here just a few months after I did.” And she had never suspected that the hard looking, gruff ex-biker she had grown so fond of was a friend of Charles, there to look after her. “He didn’t mind?”
“No, not at all. I imposed on him at a good time, he was ready to lead a quieter, less stressful life, and from what he told me, he has grown genuinely fond of you, which doesn’t surprise me. What saddens me, Piper, is that I didn’t realize how much I love you until I saw you at the Empire that night, saw the fear and devastation that I had caused on your stricken face. Everything, and I mean everything, I’ve done since then has been, first, to keep you safe and second, to give me a second chance to be more of a father to you. Will you give me that chance?”
Piper barely heard him as certain pieces fell into place. She had been here, at the bar, the night she disappeared, had felt tired and woozy by the time she left with Crack and had passed out in his car before they reached her cabin. “It was Crack who took me until Brody and Ian arrived, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, him and Doc. You were perfectly safe. I remembered how you had taken Ambien in college and how it not only knocked you out, but you were one of the few who suffered the side effects of lost time and memory. And, before you ask, yes, Doc gave you a new aphrodisiac, a strong dose of it, when Crack relayed that Pearce and MacGregor were on their way.” At her recoil, Charles reached for her hand, desperate now for her to understand. “Please, Piper. I had to first get them here then I had to make sure the bond between you and Brody was reinforced to get them to stay until I could end the threat against you.”
“Pasquino didn’t know who I was,” she told him as she tried to wrap her mind around how far he had been willing to go to protect her. It was just dawning on her that he couldn’t have proven his love for her any more effectively than by doing that which he found abhorrent but necessary. And really, she thought pragmatically as she held onto his hand, hadn’t she benefitted greatly from his mechanisms?
“Not yet, but after seeing a picture of your mother, I knew it would only be a matter of time until he dug deeper, found out she had a child and looked for you. I couldn’t risk that. I’m sorry if what I, we did, caused you any distress. Tell me now, honestly, sweetheart. Have I lost you anyway?”
How could she walk away from him after hearing what she had waited so long to hear? How could she turn her back on him after all he had done to see she was safe here in her home, with her friends and the life she had made for herself? She didn’t have Brody, never did, but it just dawned on her that all this time she had a father. Charles was sixty-eight now and she wasn’t about to let any more time go by bemoaning past mistakes.
Scooting over, she wrapped her arms around him, whispering shakily, “Thank you.”