In a tux.
Have mercy!
She cleared her throat.
Luke:Before you fall in love with him, know that one of his ears is shorter than the other.
Charlie belted out a laugh before she typed out a reply.
Charlie:I’ve outgrown my infatuation with princes, so I think he’s safe from me.
Luke:Well, since you’re not going to marry him, at least shine some of that good heart in his direction. I think he could use it.
Charlie:Sounds like he could use some direction in the geographical sense, too, if he’s lost in Mount Airy.
Luke:Clearly, looks don’t equal smarts. Except in my case.
Charlie shook her head with a sigh. Rescue a troublemaking prince? That’s exactly how she wanted to spend her evening.
Her gaze caught sight of her shadowed reflection in her rearview mirror. Large gray eyes stared back at her, highlighted by the glow of the streetlamps.
Her daddy had always said she looked like her mama, but thankfully, he’d never held that against Charlie. He’d rarely spoken about the woman who married him, bore him a daughter, and then disappeared when Charlie was nine.
Without one look or note back.
In fact, last Charlie heard, her mama still had a few years left of her prison sentence for armed robbery.
Charlie pulled off her hat, and strands of her ash-brown hair fellaround her pale face. Maybe the hair and face shape resembled her mom’s, but the vulnerable eyes staring back didn’t at all. One of the last memories of her mama flashed through her mind, the woman’s expression tightened into a customary frown.
“I had hoped you’d be blond like my mama.”
“Why don’t you have the fine bone structure of some of the other girls?”
A dozen other phrases echoed from the past with a rush of condemnation.
“Your eyes are too large.”
“Your nose is too small.”
Charlie closed her mind to the memories, returning her cap and starting the truck.
Raised with boys.
Works with boys.
How on earth was she going to learn to dress and act like a lady?
She shifted the truck into gear and drove twenty minutes to the nearby town of Ransom to her somewhat-restored brick Victorian. Her dad had purchased it with a plan to renovate and sell it, but he’d only partially completed things before unexpectedly dying in a construction accident two years ago. Her heart twinged at the memory, as it always did.
Though her daddy had been no Prince Charming, he’d done his best to love her enough for two parents. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. What she wouldn’t give for one of his hugs right now.
She blinked away the sting in her eyes and stared back at the massive house. She really ought to sell the place, but the idea of getting rid of it somehow felt like losing another piece of him.
The fancy sconces her daddy had placed on either side of the front door shone into the night as if they were a private “welcome home,” so she nodded toward them in acknowledgment and stepped from the truck.
As soon as Charlie’s feet hit the drive, she froze.
A low growl reverberated nearby, sending a chill from the base of her spine to the crown of her head. She took a slow turn and looked down the quiet street populated with old houses and flickering streetlamps.
