TITLE – Saving Charlie
SERIES – Stories of Serendipity
AUTHOR – Anne Conley
GENRE – Contemporary Romance
PUBLICATION DATE – Nov. 15, 2014
LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 75K
PUBLISHER – Anne Conley
COVER ARTIST – Vanessa Booke
100,000 children are sexually trafficked every year in the US. In the 1990s, Charlie was one of those children. She’s spent her adult life getting past that, trying to become a successful business owner in Serendipity, TX. Relationships are not goals for her. In fact, she’s not even sure she has what it takes to be a part of one.
Les is a fool for love. All he’s ever wanted was a girl. Now that every last one of his friends are married, and in happy relationships with families, he can’t stop thinking about the sexy lady who sells house parts, even if everything about her screams at him to stay away. He just can’t.
When they are thrown together on a cross-country road trip, Charlie’s past comes back to her full-force, long-buried memories inundating her. Les seems to be the only thing grounding her to the present, when everything else seems to be trying to tear her apart.
While it has a HEA, the road getting there is long, rough, and dark. Enjoy the ride.
They were passing a sign for White Sands when Les tugged gently on a piece of her hair. “Let’s stop here for a little bit and stretch.”
She agreed and when they pulled into the national monument, Charlie was overwhelmed. “Wow…It looks like a beach with no water.”
Les climbed out of the truck and walked into a pristine patch of sand, unmarred by footsteps. She laughed as he proceeded to mess up the unadulterated landscape by doing cartwheels and whooping. She watched his transformation with blatant amusement and a little bit of jealousy. He was so carefree in almost everything he did. It was breathtaking to watch this grown man play in the desert like a child.
“Hey, Charlie! Come here!” He called her over to where he was making a snow angel in the sand, flapping his arms and legs wildly. She couldn’t help herself. She stood next to him and fell back with a thud, making her own angel in the sand.
She was close enough that her hand brushed Les’s when she flapped, and he grabbed it and clasped. She turned her head to look at him and saw his face breaking into a smile that matched her own.
They gallivanted around, Les piggy-backing her around the park, having sand fights, and stealing kisses. Charlie couldn’t stop the giddy feeling erupting from her. Her entire adult life, she’d tried to stay away from being a part of something like this, and now that she’d finally let herself do it, she felt like a teenager. She wanted to touch Les all the time, walking hand in hand, or better yet, with her arm around his torso. She stole looks at him, and the best were the kisses he pretended to steal from her when she wasn’t expecting them. She was a part of something special with Les, a half of a whole, and the possibilities she allowed herself to ponder filled her with an unfamiliar longing.
They snapped photos of each other clowning around, and themselves together. Charlie couldn’t remember when she’d had more fun, just laughing at herself and someone else.
Les deposited her on a hill, with her back to him and told her not to look until he said so. She closed her eyes and nodded, then with a mysterious grunt, he was gone. She waited, a small smile on her face, wondering what he was up to. When he finally called to her from some distance, she looked.
Les was at the bottom of a hill in an enormous heart he’d made by shuffling his feet in the sand. Inside the heart were the initials, C + L. It was an impossibly juvenile endeavor, and it brought a tear to Charlie’s eyes. She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture.
Back at the truck, she watched, amused, as Les tried to shake all of the sand out of his clothes before climbing into her truck. He stripped off his shirt, socks and shoes before shaking everything out. She ignored the flutter in her belly at the sight of his shirtless chest, and instead poked fun at him slapping at his jeans.
“Are you always so anal about dirt in vehicles?”
He looked at her, his eyebrows waggling, an impish smirk on his face. “Why, Sweetness, did you just suggest Anal?”
She blushed furiously, “No.” Getting into the truck, she was suddenly worried. Did he do that sort of stuff? He seemed so sweet, like a missionary type guy, maybe doggy-style, but anal? Was he into the hard-core stuff? Would he want to tie her up? Charlie didn’t do bondage, in any form.
Back on the road, the silence was uncomfortable for Charlie as she tried to wrap her mind around the alarming thoughts racing through her head. Finally, she decided to just put it out there.
“Are you into stuff like that? Anal?”
He snapped his head around, shock evident on his face. “It was a joke, Charlie. I didn’t mean anything by it.” His fingers reached over for a tendril of her hair, and she rested her cheek on his hand.
“I was just checking. I don’t...” she took a deep breath. “I don’t like sex like that.”
His hand drifted down to her leg. “I just like sex, Charlie. And I have an idea if it’s with you, it’ll be amazing, no matter what kind it is.” He squeezed where his hand was on her thigh. “I don’t need all that other stuff, blindfolds and toys and stuff. I just like your basic sex.” Just the image in her mind of the two of them together had a warm pool of moisture coating the inside of Charlie’s panties.
“So, you’re a missionary man?”
He chuckled and adjusted his crotch while an adorable blush crept up his neck. Charlie liked that the conversation was getting to him, too. “Missionary, cowgirl, doggy-style, I like it all, but I like using the correct holes, and have never felt the need for aids in the bedroom.”
Charlie heard the exhale of relief from her mouth, as well as Les’s soft chuckle, but she couldn’t concentrate on the relief she felt, she was too busy tamping down the images of Les making love to her in ways she didn’t really want to think about right now. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She totally wanted to think about them.
#2
The shed at the end of the row held all of her molding and some of her flooring. Filled with stacks of old wood, it was a critter haven.
“Watch out for snakes. ‘Tis the season.” In fact, it was unseasonably warm and dry this year, which had the snakes out and looking for water in unlikely places. “The molding is all over against this wall back here.” She picked her way through the piles of wood, watching where she stepped, leading the way to where Les needed to look.
A low whistle came from Les. “This is some pretty nice stuff. Where’d you get it?”
“Um, some of it came from a remodel Mr. Burt did last winter, some of it came from an auction in Jacksonville, and some of it came from the old Lancaster place on Serendipity Road when they tore it down. I made a deal with those folks. They let me come in and take what I wanted for a small fee.”
“Cool,” Les murmured as he pulled pieces away from the wall, choosing what he wanted to take with him. Suddenly, he dropped everything with a girlish shriek and jumped back. Charlie was at his side in an instant, gun drawn.
Sure enough, a copperhead about two feet long lay there, coiled up and looking deceptively innocent.
“Good eye, Les. Those things are bad news.” Carefully, she aimed at the head, and as soon as she drew a bead on it, the head disintegrated with a loud bang. Smoke hung in the air along with the gunpowder’s acrid smell.
“My hero. I hate snakes.” Les tried to chuckle good-naturedly, but Charlie could see he was shaken up. “They don’t travel in pairs, do they?” He was looking around them, eyes wild while he shoved his shaking hands in his pockets. Charlie suppressed her giggle. He probably hated clowns, too.
“No, that’s water moccasins. At least, that’s what I’ve heard, anyway.” She picked up the pieces of molding he’d dropped and led the way out the shed, lithely dancing between piles of wood.
“You always packing out here?”
“Yeah, it’s snake shot in a .22 revolver. Won’t really hurt a man, but it’ll blow off a snake’s head in a heartbeat.” This was her home now, and as distasteful as snakes were, she’d learned to co-exist with the non-poisonous ones and she had a bullet for every poisonous one she ran across.
“I feel so safe with you.” The teasing lilt in his voice brought a smile to her face.
“I aim to please,” she drawled.
#3
When the crowd began to disperse, there was a small torrent of people standing and walking past her chair, just before someone whispered in her ear. The voice froze her in time, and she closed her eyes as it grated across her skin.
“You are my diamond in the rough.” Not someone. Him. His voice sounded weaker than she remembered, but it was unmistakable.
Her head and body spun around to see The Man while her heart stopped. There was nobody behind her, where the voice had come from.
Les asked her, “What’s wrong, Charlie?” When she turned back to her front to face him, her eyes caught on her empty place setting, where the servers had cleared everything away.
The raccoon was sitting on the table in front of her. He’d left it for her.
“He’s here…” She whispered it to herself, but Les heard her.
“Who? Charlie, you’re so pale.” He grabbed her hand and saw the small child’s meal toy on the table. “What’s this?” He picked it up, and she smacked it out of his hands. It bounced across the table, where Les’s friends were all looking at her, mouths in various stages of openness, silently staring at her outburst. Charlie didn’t care.
“Don’t touch it. It’s evil. He put it there.” She wasn’t making any sense, but didn’t see how she could. Her vision was tunneled on the innocent looking creature, lying on its side on the other side of the table, a child’s toy that represented a childhood she’d never had.
Her heart pounded in her ears, a loud whooshing sound that wiped out all ambient noises. Her bowels loosened and she could feel the blood drain from her face. She knew she would pass out if she couldn’t get her body under control.
Charlie stood, her entire body shaking, as she spun around, trying to find The Man. She knew he was here, and she was angry that he had reduced her to a trembling mass of fear. She suddenly wanted to kill him.
If she could find him.
“Charlie, what’s wrong?” Les’s arms were around her. “Oh God. You’re shaking like a leaf. Let’s get out of here.” He tried to turn her, to lead her away, but Charlie resisted.
“Find him, Les.” Black started creeping around the edges of her vision, and she knew the night wasn’t going to end well for her and Les.
“Who?”
“The Man.”
Les’s face was fading away into a fog, but she saw concern clearly etched on his features, as he asked the final question of the night. “What man? Charlie?”
Holding her limp body in his arms, Les felt impotent. Frantically looking around, he found Rachel’s astute gaze on them.
“You know something about this?” She shook her head.
“Not really, but I think I can find out. Let me go make some calls.” Rachel stood and stoically left the table, while her husband, Sam, came around to take Charlie’s pulse.
“She’s okay,” Sam said after a quick examination. “She’s just fainted. She might need some oxygen, and I’ve got a tank in my Jeep, but other than that, she’ll be fine.”
Les scooped her up in his arms and started carrying her out of the crowd. “Move back, please. I just need to get her some fresh air.” He heard the command in his voice and honestly had no clue where it was coming from. He was scared shitless. Somebody had come into his function and scared the life out of his girl, and he was going to find out who it was, and what had her so terrified.
Renae followed him to Sam’s Jeep while Sam unlocked it. Rachel had disappeared when he’d given his instructions to find out what Charlie was talking about, and Les knew she was on the job. Her tireless efficiency and endless resources were a boon to the Refuge, and Les would use them to his advantage.
Renae’s voice broke through his fog. “I saw who it was, Les. I mean… I didn’t know him, I’ve never seen him before, but I got a look at the man who was talking to her when she… reacted.”
Sam had the Jeep door open and Les deposited Charlie on the seat. “Get with Rachel. She may want you with one of the composite artists to get a picture. I want this guy.”
Putting the oxygen mask over her face, Sam asked, “Who do you think it is?”
Les raked his hand through his hair in a gesture of complete and utter frustration. “I have no fucking clue, but he’s the key I need to unlock what the hell has happened to her. And I’m going to find him.”
Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She's been writing for public consumption for the last four years. Currently she is writing two romance series. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God's four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head.
Ebook of Saving Charlie
Autographed postcards
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