Page 84 of Guarding My Love

“Sorry. My mother wants to meet you.” The phone rang in his hand. “I can just tell her you said you didn’t want to meet her.”

“No,” Charlotte said, laughing. “I don’t want to get on her bad side.”

He slid the button to answer. “What took you so long?” his mother asked.

“I was checking to make sure Charlotte wanted to talk to you. I gave her an opportunity to run.”

“She wouldn’t run,” his mother said. He knew Charlotte could hear his mother at this point. “Not after what I heard last night. She is going to stick by you.”

He let out a sigh. Foster didn’t need his mother stirring things when he was feeling guilty over the fact that he couldn’t get the words of love out of his throat on Friday night.

At least it wasn’t awkward between him and Charlotte.

Though after this call it might be.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he said. “Depends on what you say to her. You’re scary.”

Charlotte laughed when his mother said, “I love her already. You’re cracking jokes and not being sarcastic about it either.”

“Don’t be so positive,” he said. He turned his phone around. “Aileen Carlisle, meet Charlotte Moore.”

“Oh,” his mother said. “You’re so pretty.”

Charlotte blushed. “Thank you. Can I say you’ve raised a bunch of great kids? At least the ones I’ve met.”

“They had a lot of nice things to say about you last night,” his mother said.

“How many of them did you talk to?” Foster asked. He expected Laken. Maybe even Nelson, but not Braylon and West.

“I talked to all the women,” his mother said.

“Which means Nelson too,” he said.

His mother laughed. “I won’t tell him you said that, but yes. I got in touch with him today at the airport. I think he only answered because he was bored sitting there waiting for his flight.”

“Or he missed his Mommy,” he said.

“Charlotte, you are a miracle worker through and through. You have to be to have him joking this much.”

Foster didn’t think it was anything different than he normally did around his siblings. But maybe his mother didn’t see it as much anymore.

“I’m not so sure anyone has ever thought I was a miracle worker,” she said. “But it’s nice everyone thinks so.”

“Could be her age,” he said.

Charlotte’s jaw dropped. His mother scolded him. “Maybe you need an older woman to keep you in line when you say things like that.”

“I’m not that old,” she said.

He burst out laughing. “I’m in the doghouse,” he said. “I know it.”

“You’ve been in it enough,” his mother said.

“Not as much as Rowan,” he said.

“Rowan just didn’t care enough and got in trouble because you could dare him to do anything.”

“So Foster was an instigator?” she asked. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

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