Page 53 of Eighteen Bowties and Counting

He gave her that dazzling, flirty smile and headed down the hall to his bedroom. If they could talk about the horses tonight, then Charlotte wouldn’t have to tell him why she’d retreated a little bit.

Maybe she could just make a comeback and never have to say anything about it at all. She scoffed as she moved toward the back door, where Pepper and Ruby ate their dinner with crunches and slurps.

She sank onto the floor there and absently stroked Ruby’s pretty fur. “He’s going to make me talk, isn’t he?”

The collie didn’t answer her. In fact, Ruby rarely used her voice. That was more Pepper’s style, and Charlotte simply wanted to escape the four walls of the cabin. The walls that she’d put up around herself needed to come down too, but she wasn’t quite sure how to do it.

“If you don’t,” she whispered to herself. “You’ll lose Beau.”

And that struck like a bolt of lightning right into the fleshy part of her heart. She didn’t want to lose Beau. Not to her own stubbornness, her own inability to rely on someone who wanted to take care of her.

“You don’t keep secrets,” she told herself. “You’ve changed.” She leaned her head back and looked up to the loft, where Beau kept his live-streaming supplies: tripod, ring light, extra cords. “I’m different, right, Lord? I feel so different.”

She’d been praying for a way to talk to Beau, for a way to know how she felt about him. Precisely know. No answers had come.

But as she sat on the kitchen floor while the dogs finished their dinner, she knew one thing. She had to talk to Mason before she could take the next step with Beau.

“Mason?” she wondered. Why would she need to talk to him?

She wasn’t sure, but she seized onto the feeling, because it felt very much like God telling her what to do, and she didn’t want to ignore that.

Charlotte also didn’t want to talk to Mason. At all. Not even a little bit.

But she got to her feet and opened the back door. She and the dogs went outside, where they settled in the shade of the tree where she’d found the canines on moving day, and she tapped to call her brother.

Mason always had his phone with him, she wasn’t surprised when he said, “Heya, Char,” only a moment later.

Something stormed inside her, muting her voice. Something she recognized as…angry. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been truly angry at Mason before. He’d done so much for her over the years. Provided her way of life, took care of her, protected her.

Shielded her. Talked down to her. Criticized her. Caged her.

Maybe not all true, but she let the feelings romp through her however they wanted.

“Charlotte, are you hurt? Are you there? Do you need help?”

She took a breath, and said, “Just the fact that you think I’m hurt and need help says so much.”

“It says what?” he fired back. “You didn’t answer when I answered. You called me.”

She didn’t want to fight with him, and all that negativity simply streamed out of her. Someone had definitely just helped her, because she hadn’t been able to let go of so much until that very moment.

Yes, I am with you.

Buoyed by the strength of Jesus, she took another breath. “I’m okay,” she said in a much softer voice. “Mason, how did you know you loved Felicity and wanted to be with her?”

“I—” he cut off, clearly not expecting this radical change in Charlotte’s demeanor. She could go from hot to cold and back at any moment, and she’d been working on her temper. She really had been.

And she really wanted Mason to know that, to see it, to understand that she was capable of taking care of herself.

“Thank you for all you did for me,” she said next, the words just there. The sweetest feeling of forgiveness ran through her. “I’ve been blaming you for some things that might not be entirely fair, but it really hurt when you told Beau I was an expert at keeping secrets.”

“Charlotte,” Mason said just as quietly. “I know I overstep with you sometimes. I’m sorry about that.”

She leaned her head back against the trunk of the tree behind her. “You and Felicity and the kids have been so good to me. I love it here at Three Rivers so much.” She pressed her eyes closed. “And I really like Beau, Mace. I really like him.”

“I know you do.” His tone carried a hint of displeasure, and Charlotte wanted to root it out and watch it die.

“Why does that upset you?”

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