Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

C HARLOTTE ' S WORRY ROCKETED when she saw that look of dread on Cal's face. "No," she muttered. "Did something happen to Noah? Is he hurt?"

"No," Cal was quick to say. "It's nothing like that."

But he wasn't quick to say anything else. He looked at her as if she were a pressure cooker about to blow, and then he gently took hold of her shoulders. Maybe to be sure they had eye contact, but the contact was already there. What was missing was any explanation to go along with it. And mercy, did she need one because the worst-case scenarios were having a field day in her head.

"Tell me," she demanded when she could take no more.

He cleared his throat. "Noah wanted me to let you know that...he's breaking up with you."

Because what Cal had just said was so unexpected, it took her a moment to grasp it. And Charlotte practically sank to the floor in relief. "Noah's not hurt?" she questioned.

Cal shook his head. "He's fine. He just had to leave earlier than expected on the deployment."

Her legs wobbled more than a little, and she blew out a breath of relief that could have no doubt extinguished all the candles on Mr. Becker's birthday cake—if he were ever to have such an indulgence, that is.

"Good," she managed to say. "Because his father wouldn't be able to deal with another son getting hurt."

"Yes," Cal agreed. He kept staring at her. "Are you okay?"

He thought she was perhaps in shock or something. She wasn't. Nor was she especially surprised now that she'd gotten over what Cal had said. It had been a year since she'd even seen Noah, and while they kept up at least weekly emails, it hadn't been her pipe dream to have a double wedding with Noah's dad and her mom.

"I'm fine," she assured him.

Cal sighed. Not an ordinary sigh, either. It was the sound of a person who didn't believe what they were hearing. He was probably wondering how she could be fine when Noah had been her life for, well, her entire life.

Except he hadn't been.

That was a facade on both Noah's and her parts. Oh, they loved each other, but over the years, it had morphed into something that didn't lead to a double wedding. Or a heated rush to be with each other. Truth was, she'd gotten more out of that pretend kiss with Cal than she had with Noah in a long, long time.

She couldn't tell Cal all of that. She especially couldn't tell him all about the heat-from-the-kiss thing. No way did she want to share that reaction with him since he'd consider it totally inappropriate.

But telling him the rest would mean having a conversation that he might not be ready to hear.

After all, most people in Emerald Creek thought Noah and she were the couple. Smitten since third grade. In love with her holding down the home front while he did the hero thing in the military.

"Charlotte," Cal said, and there was even more concern in his voice. "Are you sure you're okay?" Probably because she'd gone a little glassy-eyed over reliving the past. Best for her to get the conversation moving.

"I'm fine, really. How'd you get stuck being the messenger for this?" she asked, but then stopped, sighed. "This is about that life-pact thing because Noah saved you when you were eight?"

"Yes," he verified.

"Of course," she muttered. "I'll bet you've lost count of the crappy stuff you've had to do because of that." Charlotte didn't wait for further verification. "Like asking Missy, my best friend at the time, to go to the prom with you so we could double-date."

Missy had been a temporary friend, mainly because that had been the phase when Charlotte had been obsessed with Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake and makeup. Missy had managed to wrangle tickets to both Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, and she'd had kilo stashes of various face and eye gunk. Unfortunately, Missy liked to discuss boy bands and popular shades of lip gloss so Cal had likely had a very dull night on what should have been a fun rite of passage.

"There have been a few occasions where Noah's played the life-pact card," Cal admitted.

This time she huffed because she figured there'd been a whole lot more than a few. There were likely ones that were military-related that she hadn't even heard about yet.

"You know, both Harper and I were at the creek that day," Charlotte reminded him. "If Noah hadn't pulled you out, one of us would have. So yes, Noah did a good thing, but if he hadn't gotten to you first, your life-pact could have been with Harper or me."

Something changed in his expression, and she instantly knew what. It was the mention of Harper. Yeah, that would do it. There'd never been anything romantic between Harper and Cal so they weren't the couple. Instead, they were the competition, and Harper had said more than once she wouldn't have excelled as fast and as high in her career if it hadn't been for the rivalry she had with Cal.

A rivalry that had crashed and burned.

Charlotte opened her mouth to try to apologize, but she caught some movement out the window. Cal must have noticed her eyes flicker in the direction of the sidewalk across the street, because he turned and looked, too.

And he immediately cursed.

It wasn't the reaction she'd been expecting since the two people were his brother Blue and his soon-to-be sister-in-law, Marin Galloway, who had the cool job of being a horse whisperer at the Donnellys' sprawling ranch. Even though Blue was still recovering from injuries he'd gotten the previous autumn from a crash landing, he was still his usual friendly self. Ditto for Marin. And Charlotte hadn't caught a whiff of gossip that there'd been some kind of rift between Cal and anyone in his family or anyone who worked at the ranch.

That's why his reaction puzzled her.

Not only did Cal curse, but he also stepped back. Fast. Moving away from the window and doing his level best to blend into the wall.

"Is, uh, everything okay?" she asked, dropping the plans back on her desk.

"No." He sighed, squeezed his eyes shut a moment and groaned. "Forget you heard me curse."

"Not a chance," Charlotte was quick to inform him. Cal was her friend, and if there was trouble, she wanted to know about it and try to help. "Is everything all right with your dad?"

It was a valid question, since less than a year earlier, his dad had had not one but two serious heart attacks. Serious enough to force him into early retirement. But Cal just shook his head and peered out, watching his brother and Marin stroll down Main Street.

"I just don't want to see them yet," Cal muttered.

That got her attention, too, because Cal fell into that "usual friendly self" category, too. For him to avoid his family meant something was wrong.

"Oh, God," Charlotte blurted, touching her fingers to her mouth that had started to tremble when she'd gotten a bad thought. A really bad one. "Is your sister okay? She didn't get hurt, did she?"

Again, it was a super valid question because his kid sister was an Air Force Combat Rescue Officer, a CRO. It was a highly dangerous job, often performed in equally dangerous locations. Charlotte knew all about that since it was also Noah's chosen career field.

"No. Remi's fine," he assured her.

Good. That was a huge relief. So that left his other brother, Egan. The oldest and the one who was now helping to run the ranch along with still being on active duty. Charlotte knew Egan as well as she did all the Donnellys. Knew Egan's wife, Alana, too, and was well aware that Alana was seven months pregnant. But Charlotte had spoken to Alana only an hour ago when they'd been discussing Alana providing her dietitian services to Port in a Storm, and Alana hadn't mentioned a word about anything being wrong.

"Is this about Harper?" she risked asking, and it was a Texas-sized risk. Any mention of the woman's name would no doubt give Cal a whole lot of jabs of grief.

Maybe even guilt.

She considered telling him that what had happened to Harper wasn't his fault. Charlotte knew Cal well enough to be certain of that. But just because a person wasn't at fault didn't mean they were blameless.

She had to only look at her own situation for proof of that.

Her father had disappeared from her life, and if that wasn't on her shoulders, then Charlotte didn't know who else bore guilt like that.

Great. Now she was getting images from the past that could yank her right under, into a dark pit, and Cal was no doubt right there with her. No way should she have asked about the very person who could land Cal right in that dark pit with her.

"Shit," Cal muttered.

For a moment Charlotte thought he was cursing because of her question. But then she followed his gaze and realized he was looking at the SUV that had gotten caught by the single traffic light on Main Street.

"That's Audrey," he added to his grumble.

Audrey, as in General Audrey Donnelly, his stepmother. Now, this was someone Charlotte didn't know well at all, even though the woman had been married to Cal's dad since Cal was ten years old. That lack of knowing her was because, unlike Cal and his siblings, Audrey rarely made it back to Emerald Creek. At least, that'd been the case before her husband had nearly died from the heart attacks. Charlotte had heard that Audrey was making more visits these days.

"Audrey must know," Cal said under his breath, and he tacked some more profanity onto that.

Know what? was the question that might have popped right out of her mouth, but Charlotte's phone dinged with a text from her mom. Since Izzie knew about her meeting with Becker, Charlotte figured she knew what this was about.

Did the grouch butt agree to the deal?

Sighing, she responded. Not yet. Maybe soon. Fingers crossed.

Izzie answered with a sad-face emoji and a follow-up that had Charlotte groaning. Can't wait for Noah to come home so we can do the double celebration.

"Crud," she grumbled, and that caused Cal to shift his attention back to her. She held up her phone to show him the text. "I'll have to let my mom know about the breakup."

Cal stared at her but didn't say anything for a couple of slowpokey moments. "How are you dealing with the breakup?"

She frowned. "I'll get back to you on that."

But Charlotte suspected she wouldn't be wallowing in a puddle of sorrow—something that Cal probably thought she would be. Others would think that, too, once word spread.

"I'll be fine," she added when his forehead bunched up with worry. "Just do me a favor and don't mention it to anyone else." She paused. "Don't mention the not-being-my-fiancé, either, if you're anywhere around Mr. Becker." Charlotte glanced at the plans. "So much is riding on Port in a Storm. The sooner we can get it finished, the sooner Alden and Harper can come."

Cal had been glancing at Audrey's SUV as she finally got a green light and drove off, but he did a sort of double take when his attention flew back to Charlotte.

"Harper?" he asked.

Crap. Charlotte hadn't meant to dump that on him without warning. She definitely should have eased into the news. Well, if easing was even possible, that is.

"Yes," she said. "As soon as Port in a Storm is up and running, Harper will be coming home."

Clearly shaken by that news, Cal opened his mouth, closed it and seemed to lose every drop of his usual polished composure.

"Good," he muttered, heading for the door. He repeated his response as if trying to convince himself that was the truth, and he walked out.