Once a Charmer Read online

  He’d always been there for me. Nearly sixteen years ago, he was my miracle the night I went into labor a month early, alone in the storeroom, doubled up on the floor and screaming as a tiny human was demanding her way into the world. Bash was my angel as he delivered Angel Elizabeth Greene before the paramedics and my dad could get there.

  No one else ever knew that. No one at school. Not Carmen, my only other friend from the park. Not anyone. Nobody knew that Bash Anderson had probably saved both our lives, then held my hand all the way to the hospital saying, “I’ve got you, Al.” And he did. He argued with the nurses when they only let family see the baby, telling them he was family.

  He didn’t tell, and neither did I. I just became the girl who had a baby in high school, who got knocked up by some loser who left us behind. Bash became Uncle Bash, he loved my daughter fiercely, and all was good.

  Then there was the night. It seemed a million years ago now, but lately it had become like a source document in my head. Angel was almost one, and we were living in a tiny little apartment my dad made for us over the garage. I’d just put her to bed when Bash came over with a fifth of whiskey, two paper cups, and some news. He’d signed up for the marines. He was leaving.

  He had to go, he had to get out of Charmed and get away from his dad, and while I understood that, all I could see was no Bash in our lives. I was crushed, we killed the bottle, ended up in a three-minute wild thing on my couch, and then he was gone with an awkward goodbye.

  That was fifteen years ago, before he left for six years and I became jaded, before he came back a little less lighthearted, a lot more guarded. Before we both grew up and never spoke of that drunken night again, deciding without words that we were what we were: friends. Family of a sort. Something much more important that neither of us could afford to lose.

  It worked for us. All these years, it was good and it worked, and then I went and stirred that shit up.

  Damn it.

  Now, I needed him. Nobody understood my ties to this place like he did. No one else could understand the need to hold on to something that houses your soul. Bash did. And now—now we were awkward and weird and he was consorting with the damn enemy.

  I looked up at the ceiling again, at the spreading stain, and forced my anger to spread throughout my body. I was no weakling. I knew where the ladder was, and I could get on the roof and take care of my own business. I didn’t need a man to do it for me. It was still my damn diner—sort of. Forty-nine percent of it, anyway, belonged to my father. I went to the storeroom, grabbed a flashlight, and headed out the back door to where an aluminum ladder lay horizontal against the building on two hooks. I hoisted it and trekked around to the side of the building, leaning it up against the roofline and peering up into the darkness.

  The shakes began.

  No. Screw that. I took three deep breaths and shook out my hands.

  I’d managed most of my life to be pretty tough, but anything requiring me to leave the ground for more than a few feet stripped me of the role. My irrational fear of heights could be pretty inconvenient when trying to do normal things like jumping off the high dive or riding a Ferris wheel. Not to mention stupid things like—oh—climbing up on the diner roof to prove a point.

  I could put on a badass front, but the trembling of the anxiety attack always gave me away. I was too pissed off tonight to let that win, however. Shakes or no shakes, I was getting up on my roof.

  The squeak of the rungs as I made it up each step echoed in my head. No big thing. I glanced down and shut my eyes immediately, gripping the ladder tighter with clammy hands.

  Don’t look down, idiot.

  It was dark, and it was only maybe sixteen feet or so, but looking down for me was always the game changer. Didn’t matter if it was six feet or sixty, up went down, right went left, and panic took over.

  “Keep going,” I whispered, feeling the cold sweat break out over my body. “People do this shit all the time. It’s not climbing Mount Everest.”

  And yet, reaching the roofline sure as hell felt that way. My breathing grew shallower, and it felt like there was nothing underneath my feet as I looked out over the flat concrete top of the diner. Or at least about five feet of it before it disappeared into shadow. The flashlight hung around my neck, but I’d have to let go of the ladder to mess with that and my hands weren’t having it.

  “How the hell do I get from here to there?” I asked the air.

  I’d never been up there. My dad certainly knew better than to ever deal with me having a nervous breakdown on top of the diner, so I’d never had to contemplate the logistics of ladder to roof. Did I assume that handles magically sprung from the top? Rails morphed on either side so that one could just keep walking up and traverse the space without fear?

  I don’t know what or how I thought it was going to happen up there, but standing at the top hyperventilating on trembling legs I could no longer feel probably wasn’t the best time to figure it out.

  “Okay,” I breathed, sliding my hands one at a time from the ladder to the rough concrete of the roof’s surface without ever breaking contact because empty air would send me plummeting to my death. I pictured normal people doing this. Roofers did this all the time and didn’t die. Contractors did this. Maintenance guys like the one I should have called did this. “Okay. You can do this, too.”

  I took one more step up, putting more than half my body above the roofline and forcing confidence through my blood—when my equilibrium shifted. And so did the ladder.

  It was just a little shift. Metal scraping against concrete. To me, however, it felt like the entire world came out from under me, and all the panic I was trying to tamp down came rushing up in a tsunami-sized wave.

  “Shit!” I yelped, lunging forward as the ladder wiggled again.

  The flashlight banged against the roof and broke from the lanyard around my neck, clattering off into the dark. Half of me sprawled over the concrete and brick, while everything from my ass down hung off the building. Okay, really, I was hanging over the ladder, but to truly go with the deep-seated terror coursing through my veins, I was hanging off the building by an invisible thread, like something in the movies. Probably ten stories up instead of one.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, reaching out at a snail’s pace to find something to grab onto. I didn’t want to move too quickly. Plummeting, and all that. My phone was in my pocket, but there was no way I could get my hand down there. Tears sprang to my eyes as the anxiety-ridden paralysis washed over me. “Oh my God, please get me off this building. I promise I won’t ever touch this ladder again, just—” There was a click from below.

  “Who’s up there?”

  Relief mixed with mortification flooded my brain.

  “You like messing with me, don’t you God?” I whispered through my tears.

  “I see you,” Bash said, his voice harsh. “Identify.”

  “It’s me,” I said, my forehead pressed against the rough cold of the concrete. “Allie.”

  There was a pause and another click as what was likely a nine-millimeter un-chambering a bullet.

  “What the hell?” Bash said. “What are you doing?”

  “Laying here trying not to die,” I said. “You?”

  “Jesus,” I heard him mutter, just before the ladder moved again and rapid creaks sounded as he sprinted up.

  I felt the jolts as the ladder bumped me, and I sucked in a breath.

  “Don’t!” I yelled in a cracked voice. “It’ll pull me down!”

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” he said, suddenly right below me. “I’ve got you.”

  I’ve got you.

  He had no idea how good those words were.

  “I can’t move,” I said, my eyes filling with hot tears of frustration and embarrassment.

  His hands on my ankles startled me, but the slow movements as they moved to my c
alves quickly calmed my blood.

  “I’m putting your feet back on the rungs, Allie,” Bash said. “Do you feel that?” His hands moved back down to my feet, pushing down on my toes, shoving the balls of my feet against the metal.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, just stay like that,” he said. “I’m coming up higher behind you.”

  Like I had a choice. I felt the ladder move a little as he came up another rung and his hands slid slowly up my jeans to just above the backs of my knees. If I weren’t so terrified, or mortified beyond measure, I might have been turned on.

  “Take one more step down,” he said. “I’m right here.”

  I shut my eyes. “So my ass is basically in your face.”

  I felt him laugh. “Yeah, it’s rough to be me.” He reached up slowly and took hold of my hips. “Come on, I’ve got you.”

  “Yeah, so you keep saying,” I said, trying to calm my trembling hands and stem back the tears. “But who has you?”

  “Come on,” he repeated. “You just need to stop thinking about where you are, and concentrate on feeling the rungs under your feet. Just get standing upright again and get off the building, then it’s a piece of cake.”

  “Oh hell, that’s all?” I said under my breath. “Damn, you’re a genius.”

  “Hey, I can leave—”

  “No!” I yelped. “Just—it’s just not that simple. It’s—”

  “I get it, Allie,” Bash said, letting the pause that followed fill the space. “But you’re going to have to trust me. I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

  I blew out a breath and flexed my fingers. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “I’ll count to three.”

  “Do you have insurance?”

  “Medical or life?” he asked.

  “Both?”

  “We aren’t falling off this ladder,” Bash said. “We’re adults and we know how to use our feet.”

  My eyes popped open. Was that a slam? I was pretty sure that was a slam.

  “You—you think I’m just being a wuss here?” I kicked at where I felt he was, but then panicked when I couldn’t find the rung again.

  “You’re trying to kick me off the ladder?” he asked, shoving my foot back into place.

  “Just—” I swallowed hard. “Just get down and hold it still so it doesn’t move,” I said. “I’ll make it down.”

  He did. Thank God. Sort of—because now I was up there by myself again, and that hadn’t worked so well the last time. Hell if I was going to cave this time, however. Not with his cocky-assed smart- (and sexy) mouth patronizing me with we know how to use our feet.

  It was chilly out and I hadn’t worn a jacket over my jeans and T-shirt, but I was sweating from head to toe and my heart was about to come bouncing right up my throat. What the hell was I thinking?

  One inch at a time, I thought. Slowly, methodically, I pushed back in tiny increments until I could theoretically stand up on the ladder, and then I inched some more till I was sliding my body down to the next rung like a sloth.

  “There’s a technique I’ve never seen,” Bash said, closer than I thought he was.

  “I thought you were on the ground,” I said, finding a foothold.

  “Just keep going,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Sliding was working. I could not explain why slithering down slightly spread-eagled with no real grip to speak of was less scary than stepping the traditional way, but it was. It was faster. More productive. Until—

  “Oh!” I screamed as my grip-that-really-wasn’t slid off track and my calm sliding concept turned into a spasmic moment of grope and flail. Landing hard and ungraceful, straddling Bash’s torso.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Strong hands clamped down on my thighs and lowered me to a position sandwiched tightly between Bash’s body and the ladder. Even in my terror-riddled state, I was aware of everything I moved against, as well as the arm held tightly around my middle.

  “Put your feet down,” he said, his mouth just above my right ear. “Open your eyes and breathe. It’s all about perspective. You’ll see where you are.”

  My eyes fluttered open, but breathing was a challenge with him pressed against me like that. There had been whole dreams with similar—

  “You okay?” he asked. “You’re all sweaty.”

  And that killed it.

  “I’m fine,” I said, looking down. We were halfway. I could see the ground. “You can—you can go.”

  Bash let go of me and stepped down, and I pushed my disgusting sweaty, shaky self down the rest of the way.

  Concrete never felt so sweet. I sank to my knees and pressed my palms to the cold surface, letting that sink in.

  “Allie.”

  “I’m good.”

  I tucked damp tendrils of hair behind my ears, realizing my standard messy bun was now probably a hot mess.

  “The hell you are,” he said. “What were you doing up there?”

  “There’s a leak,” I said, standing carefully.

  One eyebrow rose in question. “And you decided to take that on by yourself at eight-thirty at night?”

  “It’s eight-thirty?” My head was still spinning and I reached out for the brick and mortar wall. “Crap, y’all’s driving practice.”

  “Already done,” he said. “We took my truck. But when we got back and you still weren’t home, I got worried.”

  A little tingle went through my belly, but I quickly wrote it off to post-anxiety nausea.

  “Well, you didn’t need to,” I said, one hand on my hip. I was desperately seeking my bad-assness and it had clearly stayed up on that roof. “I’ve been a big girl for some time now.”

  “I didn’t need to?” Bash laughed. He headed three rungs back up the ladder before I could process it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning out your grates,” he said, nearly to the top.

  “My—my what?” I asked, peering up from the bottom. “Bash, you don’t have to do this—whatever you’re doing.”

  “I don’t suppose there was a flashlight in this scenario?” he called down.

  “There was,” I said indignantly. “I wasn’t going to climb around up there in the dark. It’s probably—still up there, though.”

  My voice trailed off as he disappeared over the top like those imaginary rails showed up for him.

  “God help me,” I muttered under my breath, leaning back against the brick.

  After tonight, there was no reason for sex dreams to continue plaguing my nights. Except for his hands gripping my thighs as I straddled him, and then pinning me to a ladder, I had probably killed any sexual fantasy between us. Nothing screams hot like dangling off a building like a sweaty defeated rag doll.

  I didn’t have long to ponder that, however, as a sudden rain of something gooey and slimy began to fall on me.

  “Shit!” I yelped, recoiling in horror, batting at the foul-smelling, nasty-textured crap that was oozing down my neckline. “Ew!” I pushed off the wall and attacked my neck and hair like I was being invaded by snails. “Get it off me!”

  “It’s leaves, Allie.”

  I stopped and looked up toward the voice I couldn’t see.

  “You threw this on me?”

  “I’m sweeping leaves out of the grates,” he said.

  “Grates.”

  “Around the drains.”

  I took a couple of breaths. “Drains.”

  “This is a flat roof,” he said. “So there are drains in place to divert water to the gutters.”

  I pulled a section of rotted goo out of my hair.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When the drains and gutters get blocked up with leaves and shit, the water has nowhere to go but sit at the joints, and it being an old building, there are probably cr
acks letting it into the structure.”

  Great.

  “When’s the last time this was cleaned?” he asked.

  I shook my head at no one and stared at the ground. It was like the day was hell bent on kicking my ass.

  “Well, since I’m just hearing about it,” I said, letting that speak for itself.

  “Probably your dad,” he surmised.

  “Yeah.”

  “Over a year ago,” he added.

  “Most likely,” I said. “Where did you get a broom? And how did you know what it was?”

  “Because he used to send me up here to do it when I worked here,” Bash said. “And we left the broom so we wouldn’t have to drag it up and down. I figured he might still do that.”

  I nodded, although he couldn’t see it.

  “So you might want to move,” Bash said. “There’s more.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered. “Thank you, Bash. You didn’t have to do all this.”

  Ten minutes later, we were standing in front of the door, the roof de-leaved and the ladder re-hooked. I was past the mortification of my behavior and the highly sexy look I had going on. He’d seen me worse. Bash once pulled a human out of my hoo-hah while I was contorted in pain and covered in more sweat and blood than should be possible. This was nothing.

  “Get someone out to do that once a month and you’ll be good,” he said. “And you probably want to get your ceiling joists checked for damage. Just in case.”

  Yeah. Someone like Landon Lange. Let him climb up in the attic and check that. He could get up on the roof and sweep rotted leaves. He owned more, it was his right.

  The thought gave me a screaming headache, and I covered my eyes with my hands.

  “That’s not that big of a deal, Al,” he said.

  That wasn’t. But something else was.

  “What were you doing with Landon Lange this morning?” I asked, dropping my hands and forcing my gaze to stay on his. I needed to see his eyes.

  Surprise crossed his expression. “You know him?”

  “You pointed me out to him,” I said. “I saw.”

  “Yeah,” Bash said. “He asked me who owned the place, and I told him.”