Falling for Her Soldier (18 page)

No!
Ellie’s heart stopped dead—Hunter did not want to be in the spotlight. She tried to grab the mic but wasn’t fast enough. The camera followed Ealer as he moved to Hunter and took his arm, positioning him in the shot. “So, I’m sure you’re plenty nervous.”

“Yes, sir,” Hunter said, seemingly cool as a cucumber. Soldier’s mentality…always prepared to be under fire.

“Not only is this your first time dancing, but in a public venue. You’re pretty brave, son.”

“I have an amazing teacher,” Hunter said, then winked at Ellie.

Winked at her. On live TV. She loved this man, all right.

“You’re Army,” Ealer said, glancing at his phone, obviously reading notes.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, again, you’re a more heroic man than most, uh”—he glanced at his phone—“Staff Sergeant Charlie Johansson,
very
heroic. As always, you’re in our prayers. Best of luck to you both. Ellie, any final words?”

But Ellie’s entire body was numb, though she was vaguely aware that the mic was hovering under her nose. After a moment, she managed to tip her head and look at the man at her side. “What did he call you?”

The man didn’t answer.

Steven Ealer pulled the mic back. “I’m sorry.” He frowned at his phone. “Did I get your name wrong? Or your rank?”

“No, sir,” the man said. But he wasn’t looking at Ealer; he was looking at her. “Charlie Johansson. That’s me.”

Ellie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t understand what was happening. “I don’t…” She put a hand to her cheek and swayed back. Ealer said a few more things that she didn’t hear, then he lowered the mic and walked off toward the camera guy.

“Ellie—I’m sorry.”

She stared at him, at his blue eyes with the golden rings, too blindsided to fully process.

“I wanted to tell you the truth,” he continued, “but I…”

“But what?” She backed away from him, bumping into people.

“I wanted to tell you,” he repeated, following her through the crowd. When he got close, she put out her hands to stop him.

“You’re Charlie,” she managed to say. “
And
Hunter?”

He lowered his eyes briefly, nodded, then looked up, his lips pressed together.

She backed up some more, like she was seeing a ghost. “The Charlie Johansson who e-mailed me from Afghanistan?”

The guy put a hand over his heart. “You have no idea how much those e-mails meant to me. You were so sweet and…and you changed me, you helped—”

“Stop,”
she snapped. “Don’t ruin that memory.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you at first. I wanted you to like
me
, trust
me
.”

“
Trust
?” Her mind went blank, wiped so clean from shock that she couldn’t think. But she could feel…and what she felt the most was betrayed. Tricked. “You knew I had no clue who you really were—you
kept
it from me. The whole time we were together.”

“Yes.” His next words came out in a rush. “It was stupid—I shouldn’t have. But when I saw you that first day”—he touched his chest—“when I realized I was about to meet you, I didn’t know what to say.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “So you said
nothing
?” She heard the shriek in her voice. “You let me keep believing…”

“It just happened,” he insisted, stepping forward. Ellie moved back. “Sam introduced me as Hunter and I didn’t correct him—”

“Sam?”
Her eyes shot to her brother a few feet away. His face was white.

“Ellie,” Sam said, spreading his hands, “it’s not what you think.”

“You
knew
about this? Ha! Of
course
you knew. He’s your
Army
buddy, right?” She was suddenly aware of the decent-sized crowd watching them, as well as a damn news crew.

She clenched her jaw and stormed toward the exit, not making eye contact with anyone she passed. She was a few steps out the door when someone grabbed her arm.

“Ellie, please.”

She turned to see Charlie Johansson staring down at her.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she said, blood whooshing behind her ears. “That was on TV.”

“It should not have happened that way. Let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” she said hotly. “I know exactly what happened.”

“You do?”

“Sure.” She folded her arms. “What did I expect? You’re the Big Game Hunter.”

He flinched like he’d been slapped. “That’s not it at all. I wanted to tell you.”

“Yeah, you said that three times,
Charlie
. But you didn’t tell me, did you? For four days you played me, just like every other man in my life, just like Hunter plays every girl.” She felt nauseous at her own words, the truthfulness of them.

He shook his head. “I’m not that guy anymore. I swear. Remember our e-mails?”

“Don’t.”
She waved a hand angrily, but tears crept up her throat. “You stopped e-mailing me,” she blurted. “Out of the blue, no warning, no good-bye.
Why
?”

“Things had gone too far. I was becoming too…interested in you, attached, and I couldn’t, not with you being Sam’s sister. Despite how I felt—there’s a code.”

“A code?” she echoed, her mind spinning. “So instead of being honest about it with me, you disappeared. Then
poof
, a month later, you reappear as Hunter…all nice and reformed.” She shook her head at her own blindness. “I can’t believe I fell for it. I can’t believe I trusted you, after everything I knew. The Charlie I thought I was e-mailing would
not
do that to me, but it’s exactly what Big Game Hunter does.”

He flinched again, another slap. “I’m not that guy anymore,” he repeated.

“You’re
exactly
that guy.” She jabbed a finger at him. “You lied to me, you humiliated me in a room full of people, and you made me fall in…” Before she could finish, she slapped a hand over her mouth, turned, and stormed away.

…

Charlie stared after her, completely paralyzed. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. Chasing after her wouldn’t help, he knew that. While only a few feet away, Ellie suddenly turned back, a hand still covering her mouth. Charlie couldn’t help feeling an inkling of hope.

“Give me your keys,” she said.

“What?”

“Your car keys. I didn’t drive here.” She glanced past his shoulder, her green eyes growing wide.

Charlie peered behind him. Some of the crowd had trickled outside to watch. “I’ll drive you,” he said in a low rush, knowing she might not be in the best condition to be behind the wheel. “Anywhere. No questions asked.”

“No.” The venom in her voice and eyes froze him in place. “Give me your keys.”

Wordlessly, he pulled them from his pocket and handed them over.

She didn’t look at him, didn’t say a word. She just grasped the keys and ran toward the back of the parking lot. Charlie could only watch her go, more powerless than he’d ever felt.

She was right. No matter how he tried to justify the reason, he’d lied. Maybe it was one of those white lies, the ones used strictly to not hurt the other person. But he’d definitely, purposefully withheld information. For four days. And he could not explain that away.

“This is my fault,” Sam said, coming up from behind. “I shouldn’t have made you keep it from her after I found out.”

“It’s not your fault,” Charlie said flatly. “It’s mine. All mine.” A cold, raw hollowness spread through his chest as he stared straight ahead. “Why did I do that?”

“It seemed harmless at the time.”

Charlie rounded on him. “Harmless? Did you see her face? Did you hear her?” He turned back in time to see his black 1967 Impala screeching out of the lot. But he didn’t care about some damn car. He cared about Ellie.

“At least it’s out in the open now,” Sam said. “That’s what you wanted.”

Charlie shook his head, kneading the back of his neck, staring toward where she’d disappeared.

“I’ll talk to her,” Sam added. “She’ll be mad at me for a while, but it’s not like you’ll run into each other very often after today.”

“You don’t understand,” Charlie said, kneading his neck with both hands now, desperation building in his throat like a primal scream. “She has to forgive me. I don’t know what to do.”

“About what? Why are you so worried about… Ohhh.”

Charlie was still staring across the parking lot at the last spot where he’d seen her. But then Sam walked into his field of vision.

“You’re in love with her.”

It was like a machete to the heart. Charlie couldn’t answer for a few moments, but then he dipped his head and nodded.

“Hell,” he heard Sam say.

Charlie pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no idea what to do. No strategy, no plan of attack, no orders from his commanding officer. And it was too late to protect the home front—his heart was long gone. It had just driven off.

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning, Ellie sat in the parking lot, fingering the plain silver key ring. She hadn’t slept all night and her head pounded from stress and fatigue. But life didn’t stop just because one woman was stupid enough to fall for the town’s biggest player, then get pissed off because she’d been played.

It was worse than cliché; it was her pattern.

She took one last clinical glance around the car, knowing she’d never be inside it again, then climbed out and walked to the studio. Jane was at reception and greeted her with a much-too-chipper hello.

“Shhh,” Ellie complained.

Jane pulled a sympathetic grimace. “Sorry. Rough night?”

“The roughest,” Ellie said without offering further explanation, then walked toward her office. She’d only been in there a few minutes when there was a knock on the door.

“Can I come in?” Jane’s head peeked through the crack.

“Sure.”

She wandered in, hands behind her back. “So, what’s up, boss?”

“Nothing.” Ellie stared down at her nails. “Just tired.”

“You’ve been on cloud nine all week, and now it looks like you just lost your best friend…which can’t be the case because I stand before you in the flesh.”

Ellie kept her eyes down, knowing if she were to look up, there would be another burst of tears. She was done crying over this, done crying over Charlie. One night of tears was more than he deserved, more than any man deserved.

Sam had called her twice last night and left a voice mail. He’d rambled on for a while about it not being Charlie’s fault and some promise one of them had made, but after a few seconds, she’d deleted the message.

“I’m fine,” Ellie finally answered, putting on her game face, the same one she’d worn after the injury…and after her mom died. “We’ve got a busy day, right? Let’s get to it.”

“It’s the last Thursday of the month,” Jane said. “I have one class, and you have nothing.” She sat in a chair across from her. “So, do you want to tell me why someone who calls himself Charlie but sounds suspiciously like Hunter has been phoning here every five minutes for the last hour?”

Ellie looked up, feeling hopeful for the tiniest of seconds. Until she remembered. “I have his car,” she said, feeling pissed off at herself all over again. “That’s why he’s calling. He wants it back. Probably afraid I’ll breathe on it wrong.”

“Why do you have his car?”

Ellie picked at a cuticle for a moment, then sighed. “Because Charlie Johansson is a lying jackass.”

“Ahh.” Jane nodded sagely.

“Yeah…there’s that.”

“What happened?”

So Ellie filled her in, right down to how she’d practically tackled Charlie in the sand trap. She did not, however, vocalize how broken her heart was, although that was probably obvious.

Jane touched her hand. “Did you two…?”

“No.” Ellie sucked in her lips and bit down. “But we almost did, like, ten times.”

“That’s self-control for you. Good thing you had your no-dating rule, right?”

“Yeah, good thing.” Ellie scoffed and folded her arms.

“Then I guess it’s okay to give you this.” Jane held out a scrap of paper.

“What is it?”

“Phone message. Or messages, I should say.”

“Jane.” Ellie groaned. “I don’t want to talk to him. He can call here all he wants but I’m not—”

“It’s not Charlie. It’s Drew.”

Ellie blinked. “What?” Why in the world would her ex be contacting her after a year?

“He said you blocked his number on your cell, and this was the only other way he knew to get in touch.”

“What does he want?” Ellie wondered aloud. “Did he tell you?”

Jane hesitated but then nodded. “He said he’s sorry. That he’s changed.”

“Ha!” Ellie couldn’t help snorting sardonically. “That’s rich. What is it with men all of a sudden? Why’ve they all jumped aboard the
I’ve changed, baby
bandwagon?”

“He sounded sincere,” Jane added. “I think he was dying to talk about you. He kept going on and on. Are you going to call him back?”

“No,” she said firmly. “I forgave Drew a long time ago, but I haven’t forgotten.” She sank deeper into her chair, her spirits sinking, too. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a bad boy reforming—it’s a fairy tale,” she added, mostly to herself. “Anyway, I’ve got so much going on right now. The fund-raiser’s tomorrow night. We advertised the tango so I have to find another partner.” She looked down, feeling new tears, clenching her jaw so they wouldn’t spill out. “I can’t believe I fell for it. I knew what he was and I walked straight into it anyway.”

“What exactly did he lie about?” Jane asked.

Ellie couldn’t help scoffing a laugh. “Everything.”

“No, he just didn’t tell you his real name. Don’t all military peeps call him Hunter? Didn’t you meet him at the WS? How else would you be introduced to him there?”

“He was
lying
, Jane,” Ellie said, exasperated. “There’s no way around it. Technically, it was a lie of omission, but still. His
name
—that’s a pretty big fact to omit.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t lie, I’m saying he didn’t lie about
everything
. Let’s think about it for a second. He e-mailed you with information about Sam and you struck up a friendship online. If what he told you yesterday was true, he wanted to date you when he got home but knew he couldn’t because of Sam, so he stopped writing.”

“Well, that’s just
mean
.”

Jane shrugged. “Men are severely mental about things like that.”

Ellie clenched her eyelids shut and swallowed. “Yeah, they are.”

“So Charlie stopped writing,” Jane continued, “and a month later, he came home and was hanging out at the WS when this smokin’ hot redhead sashayed in.”

“I can’t sashay anymore because of my knee.”

Jane rolled her eyes but kept going. “And he was introduced to you as Hunter…
at
the WS. Who introduced you?”

“Sam,” Ellie said, recalling those weird looks shooting back and forth between the two men over the past few days. She also remembered all the things Hunter seemed to know about her…things she assumed he’d learned from Sam. But no, it was the e-mails.

“
Why
, is the question,” Jane said, tapping her nails on the desk. “Why would Charlie rather meet you as Hunter—a guy he knows you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole even with a condom on the end—and not the e-mailer, Major Hottie?”

“Staff Sergeant Hottie,” she couldn’t help correcting.

“He’s got the rep as a big player, right?” Jane asked. Ellie nodded. “Yet you said you didn’t
do
stuff.”

“We did
some
stuff,” she said, trying to recall the events impassively.

“Did he ever try anything?”

She bit her lip. “I did most of the trying.”

Jane leaned back and scratched her chin. “Hmm, don’t you think that’s a little atypical? If he’s such a player, why did he stop before he got what he wanted?”

“I don’t…” She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“Did he lie about anything else?”

Ellie had to think. She’d been to his home, seen all those family pictures. He’d made her waffles, and they’d shared two burgers. That night on the golf course, he’d told her about that last mission in Afghanistan, even confessed that he’d never talked about it with anyone, yet he’d shared it with her. And they’d danced together under the stars. He’d held her so gently, and even when she’d wanted more, he kept them from going too far…because she’d told Charlie in an e-mail how important her goal was, and he was helping her achieve it, no matter the cost.

“I don’t know,” Ellie admitted, her chest tight and achy. “I don’t think he lied about anything else.”

“Can you give him the benefit of the doubt?”

Ellie tried to swallow, but couldn’t. She could only shrug miserably. “I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t,” she said, choking on her tears. “But whatever his reason is, it was still a lie.”

“
One
lie.”

“Okay, fine,
one
lie.”

“You can always forgive him for that.”

“What?” Ellie balked. “Is there ever a reasonable excuse to lie?” It sounded rhetorical, but Ellie was really asking. “I’ve suffered the consequences of dishonest men for years,” she added. “How can I be expected to forgive Charlie? Is he any different?”

This
was
rhetorical, because, of course, Ellie already knew the answer.

“Anyway, I can’t think about him. I have to get to the WS.” She passed the silver key ring to Jane. “When he phones again, tell him to pick up his car whenever.”

“Will you call me later?”

“Sure.” She glanced at the scrap of paper on the desk. “Drew was always a pretty good dancer, wasn’t he?” she said, mostly to herself. “Maybe he’s a quick study.”

…

“You suck.”

“I’m aware,” Charlie said, rubbing his forehead.

“And now she’ll never speak to me,” Tess said from behind the steering wheel. “Why did you drag me into this?”

Charlie glared at his sister. “Why do you care? It’s not like you’ll ever see her again.”

“I liked her. And I might need a ballet teacher someday.”

Charlie groaned. “I don’t know what to do. I’m such an ass.”

“A super-ass,” Tess corrected.

“Fine, a super-ass. Does that help?”

“No, but it’s nice to hear you admit it.”

He groaned again and beat his head against the headrest. “Super-ass,” he muttered.

After Sam had driven Charlie home last night, Charlie had called Ellie’s cell at least ten times. She never answered. Then he’d tried to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t shut off, and the ache in his chest wouldn’t go away. Finally, he’d wandered into the kitchen, but all he had in the fridge was Ellie’s leftover brown sugar syrup. Everywhere he looked, he could see where she’d been. So finally, he’d laced up his Nikes, grabbed his earbuds, and took off for a run. Why did it seem like every other song on his iPod was Elvis?

“Which way now?” Tess asked, idling at a four-way stop.

“Straight then to the left up there,” Charlie directed glumly. “It’s halfway down the block.”

“What are you going to say to her if she’s in there?”

“What
can
I say? I don’t know how to apologize for something like this.”

“You better try,” Tess said, then took the left too sharply; she’d always been an aggressive driver, out to punish her passengers. Charlie felt plenty punished. A few minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot. Tess gazed up at the hot pink insignia. “Who is Anastasia?”

“Ellie’s mother, Stacy,” he said. “This used to be her studio before she passed away. She and Ellie ran it together.”

Tess grunted as she rotated around in her seat, and stared daggers at him.

“What?” he asked, flinching back a few inches.

“Apologize to her,” she said in a demanding voice. “Now get out.” She turned away from him and muttered, “Super-ass.”

Charlie felt like a super-ass, so he didn’t bother arguing. He just thanked his sister for the ride and climbed out of the car. As he passed by his Impala on the way into the studio, he couldn’t help noticing the seat was pulled closer to the steering wheel. Which reminded him that Ellie had been driving it…which made his heart ache like hell.

He paused outside the front door and ran a hand over the top of his head, smoothed down his shirt. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her. He would apologize, of course—he had no intention of being an even
bigger
super-ass. He would explain everything, starting with how touched he’d been when she’d e-mailed those pictures of the Franklin High football field three months ago, how grateful he’d been for their early friendship. He would tell her how beautiful she was, inside and out, and how he’d become a better man simply by knowing her.

After all that, he would get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness. He would promise her anything, give her everything, spoon-feed her hot fudge sundaes in bed every morning for the rest of his life, then dance a jig to damn Michael Bublé with bells on.

If she’d only forgive him.

After a deep inhale, he pulled open the door.

Jane was behind the front desk. He glanced past her into the studio. About a million pigtailed girls were running around inside the room, but he didn’t see Ellie. He probably shouldn’t barge into her office. Maybe he should wait up in the second-story bay. He could wave and get her attention. Yes, good plan.

“
Hey
.”

Charlie jumped and snapped to attention. Jane had come around to the front of the desk and was glaring at him, hands on hips.

“Come for your car?”

“Hi, Jane,” Charlie said. “How are you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m just peachy. Except that my best friend is all upset because, you see, she met this really cute guy who she thought was a big jerkwad but he was sweet and
claimed
he’d changed his jerkwad ways, so she gave him a chance but it turns out he’s an even bigger jerkwad. That’s how I am.” She pursed her lips. “How are you?”

“Not good,” Charlie said, lowering his head. “She’s still upset?”

“Still? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. Of course she’s upset. You lied to her.”

He nodded, his head still lowered. “I know. I hate myself for that.”

“And then vile Drew called and she’s gone off to see him and—”

“Drew?” Charlie cut in. “Her ex?”

“Yeah.”

“He called? When?”

“Yesterday,” Jane said, folding her arms. “I gave her his messages this morning. I wasn’t going to, but then
someone
had to be a jerkwad.”