All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story) (17 page)

She’ll ruin everything.

So Meg swallowed, her hand shaking as she casually placed it on top of the table. She kept her mother’s gaze as she inched her hand, slowly, carefully, as inconspicuously as possible, toward the picture.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Meg asked, trying not to sound too acidic or anywhere near panicked. Distant politeness. Like what Mom always employed.

“A friend of mine called me up and told me she thought she saw you here, and we were just so surprised after all the times you told us places we frequented were beneath you.”

“I never said that,” Meg returned, feeling cold all over.

Mom pursed her lips together, and then Meg made a fatal mistake. She flicked her glance to the picture on the table because her fingers were
so
close. One more inch and she could casually lean her arm over them and obscure—

“What’s this?” Mom snatched the picture up right before Meg could place her arm over it.

“Baby...?”

It was Mom’s turn to pale, and Meg wished she could get some satisfaction from it, but all she felt was sick.

“It says Baby Carmichael, Jeffrey,” Mom intoned dully, tipping the picture so Dad could see.

The nausea waved through Meg, hard and uncompromising. “I... Excuse me.” She pushed out of the booth and hurried to the bathroom, making it into the fancy stall just in time to heave the contents of her stomach.

Tears burned and fell. Her stomach heaved again. Her parents knew. They knew.

And she’d left them alone with Charlie.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

C
HARLIE
STOOD
TO
RUN
after Meg, but two middle-aged people stood firmly in his way.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need to make sure she’s all right.”

“Don’t be silly,” the woman said with a dismissive wave. “You can’t go into the women’s bathroom.
I
will check on her.”

“Why would I let you do that when the sight of you sent her running?”

The woman pursed her lips and gave him a dismissive once-over. “And just who are you?”

He came up a little short at that, because he knew Meg wouldn’t want this woman to have that information. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put together these people were her parents. Partially because of the way they’d acted, but also because he knew the name of the man standing there.

Jeffrey Carmichael.

Charlie had golfed with him once, was all he could think. Some customer outing with Carmichael Grocery and he’d been put on the CEO’s team.

These were the parents who’d treated Meg so poorly.

Directly tied to a business he hadn’t been trying too hard to get back into because he’d been so wrapped up in this weird new world.

He didn’t know how to tell them to go to hell, considering Jeffrey Carmichael likely knew exactly who he was.

And Charlie knew exactly what the head of Carmichael Grocery could do.

“Let’s sit, son,” the man said, genially enough. “Lisa will go check on Meg, as it
is
a women’s bathroom, and regardless of what Meg might have told you about us, we aren’t
evil
.”

Charlie swallowed down the retort. Partially because...hell, it was natural. This man could make it so he never got a job in the St. Louis area in anything related to food ever again. But also because he didn’t want to make a scene.

He would be reasonable and rational and careful, because he knew so very little. When Meg reappeared from the bathroom, he would do whatever it was she wanted. He would whisk her away, he would spit on these people, he would do whatever she needed him to do in order to take that terrified look off her face.

“Sit, son, sit.” Jeffrey slid into the seat Meg had vacated, and the absolute
last
thing Charlie wanted to do was sit. Sit with this man. A man who likely knew far more about what put that scared, faraway look on Meg’s face time and time again than Charlie did.

“You look familiar. You’re with Lordon, aren’t you?”

“I was,” Charlie returned dully. It felt like a betrayal to be sitting here with this man, but he didn’t know how to avoid it. What he should do instead.

“Ah, you got booted in the buyout, then.”

Booted.
It sounded a little less pleasant than
laid off
. But he couldn’t deny the fact that he had indeed been
booted
. “Yes.”

“So what are you doing now?”

Charlie didn’t know where to look. At this shrewd man obviously assessing him in some way, or the hallway that led to the bathrooms. Perhaps he should be barging in there, women’s room or no women’s room.

But he didn’t know how Meg wanted him to handle these people, because she’d kept avoiding the subject. Changing the conversation whenever he brought it up. She didn’t seem to want him to know anything, and so he didn’t know what to
do
.

Which pissed him the hell off. “I’ve been doing some consulting,” he said, purposefully vague, purposefully giving as little as possible.

“I see.” There was a harsh gleam in the man’s eye that nearly made Charlie’s blood run cold.

Charlie had met the man before, but he’d never developed an opinion about him. A golf outing, and seeing each other in passing rarely. He was the head of a customer company, and therefore Charlie hadn’t formed any judgment.

The idea was to sell, not make friends.

But he had some judgments now, and they weren’t all based on what little tidbits Meg had told him. It was the way the man held himself, the way he surveyed Charlie as though he were a
thing
rather than a person, let alone the father of his grandchild.

This man would be his child’s grandfather. It was deeply unsettling.

“I don’t blame you for being uncomfortable.” Jeffrey lounged in the booth Meg had vacated with a simple kind of ownership. A sense of rightness about his sitting there.

Charlie had to fight not to sneer.

“I’m sure Meg’s filled your head with all kinds of stories. Her childhood was most definitely not an easy one, and she’s found that the best target of blame for much of what she brought upon herself is...well, us.” There was such a calculated way he looked across the table, as if he was trying to size up just what Charlie knew, what he felt.

It was uncomfortably familiar to the life he’d been leading not that long ago. Sales was about reading people, finding their weaknesses, using them against them. He’d never put it in quite those words before, and Mr. Carmichael wasn’t a salesman, but...

It felt the same. It felt grossly the same.

“It’s difficult to watch your child struggle the way Meg struggled.”

Charlie wanted to believe it was a genuine statement, but he couldn’t get past the way this felt like chess. Like a game. If his parents had talked about one of their children’s struggles...his mother would have been visibly emotive—not casual. His father would have been tight-lipped and hard, but not...assessing.

Whatever Mr. Carmichael was getting at, it was to get a response, an answer, something.

There was one positive to Charlie having been like this man, even if only a little bit. He knew how to play the game. He knew how to give away nothing.

“I’m sure it is,” he said. The best play was always to say as little as possible, to force the other party into the moves. Because the more they moved, the more you could dodge.

The old tactics came back so easily, and yet he didn’t feel good about it. He felt a little sleazy. He’d been a good salesman, and he hadn’t bent the rules or played dirty. He’d never compromised his morals.

But that didn’t mean some of the tactics he’d employed weren’t problematic when you used them in real life. Actual life with actual people.

He could see how he’d always done that, without meaning to, without purposefully thinking to. It had just...been easy.

“You see, we poured a lot of money into—”

Mrs. Carmichael huffed back to the table, slapping her purse onto the smooth top, making the silverware rattle.

“She said she’s fine and she’ll come out in a moment.” Mrs. Carmichael scowled at Mr. Carmichael. “She literally
tore
the picture from my hands.” She gave an injured sniff before turning her cold blue gaze to Charlie.

She looked like Meg, but she was different too. Something cold and hard ran underneath this woman, and even when Meg was closed off or changing the subject, she was never cold. She was never hard.

It was the thing that drew him to her the most. Her warmth. Her light. Even when she was struggling, she was like...home. Something comforting and where you were supposed to be.

He knew he couldn’t sit here anymore. He couldn’t take this. He had to get to Meg.

* * *

W
HEN
M
EG
MANAGED
to step out of the bathroom, Mom and Dad were sitting in the seat she’d vacated. Sitting at her table. With Charlie.

She nearly doubled over and wretched again, but Charlie was too quick. Before he’d even looked up to see her step out of the bathroom, he’d been out of the booth and on his way to her, quickly taking her by the arm as she approached.

“Tell me what I need to do.”

“Just get me out of here.”
Far, far, far away.
“Home. Please take me home.”

“Are you hurt? Are you okay? Should we go to the doctor?”

She felt like she’d been physically assaulted even though Mom hadn’t deigned to walk into the stall. That was Mom’s specialty. To peck away until Meg felt like she’d been stabbed, over and over again.

You really think you’re capable of raising a child? You really think he’ll let you keep that child if he knows you’re nothing but a drug addict?
When
he knows, because I can assure you, Meg, no grandchild of mine will be raised by
you
. This baby is a Carmichael.

She was too numb to cry. Once upon a time she would have numbed her pain with alcohol or drugs, bad decisions certainly, but she had Charlie supporting her and moving her toward the door, the ultrasound picture tucked securely in her pocket.

Meg straightened as they passed where Mom and Dad were now standing, arguing with a waitress.

She was going to be a better parent. She was going to give her child everything,
everything
. She’d never believed in the surface world her parents worshipped like a religion, and she never would value anything over her child like that.

They’d be dead sorry if they ever tried to take Seedling from her.

Dead sorry.

Though Mom’s words had crawled into her, were likely doing damage even as she walked into the sunny summer afternoon, arm tucked into Charlie’s, she felt...
strong
. She felt sure.

She would fight anyone and anything to keep her child safe. Healthy and safe and
loved
.

Charlie led her to the car, but by the time they’d reached it she could walk fine on her own. The initial shock might have cut her off at the knees, but grabbing the ultrasound picture back from Mom while Mom had gone through a veritable list of why she wasn’t capable of being a mother...

But she
was
a mother. She slid into the passenger seat, resting her palms over her stomach. She couldn’t help wishing she could feel something. The picture helped—to know something really was in there, living, moving,
heart beating
.

But still, she’d love a little comfort, a little surety. Something she could feel.

Charlie climbed into the driver’s seat. He was silent, and she was glad. There was so much going on in her own head, her own heart, she didn’t know how she’d answer any questions he might have.

He started the engine, pulled out of the parking lot, not uttering a word until they were on the highway, on the way home. Home. Home, where all the poison couldn’t touch her.

You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?

Charlie flicked her a glance, and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. “You’re all right, then?”

Meg looked down at her stomach. All right? Probably not, but... “I didn’t cry in front of her, isn’t that something?” She laughed, the sound escaping her mouth. Part giddy, part probably insane. “I mean, I cried, don’t get me wrong, but once I heard her voice, I didn’t cry. I didn’t cower. Because I wanted to protect Seedling more than I wanted to...” She couldn’t finish that sentence. It gave her away.

Maybe she wasn’t that strong at all, because Mom’s words had penetrated. They’d left their mark. Things she’d already thought—
do you think he’ll let you keep that child if he knows you’re a drug addict?

You are.
She’d wanted to tell Mom she
had been
, not currently
was
.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do. “Do you still want to get married?” Because that would offer a certain blanket of security. If they got married, and he found out about the drug addiction...maybe that would make it okay. He could trust her if they built a marriage.

Charlie’s already tight grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I don’t think this is the time to talk about it.”

“It’s the perfect time to talk about it.” Panic beat through her, determined panic. Her parents couldn’t—and even more maybe wouldn’t—touch her if she was
married
to
Charlie
. “They’ll leave me alone if they think I’m married to the likes of you,” she said, more to herself than Charlie. More because the plan was
brilliant
and she couldn’t keep that inside.

This would solve all their problems. Maybe not permanently, but she couldn’t think about the big picture when her mother’s words were echoing in her head. It was just important to get this sorted now. To protect herself and Seedling
now
.

“The likes of me,” he echoed.

“You talked to my father.” She didn’t mean it to sound so accusing, but he seemed hurt by how she’d phrased things and that wasn’t fair. He’d been sitting there
talking
to her parents.

She didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want to know what they might have talked about, what might have been said. She didn’t want to know what Mom might have offered in the seconds she’d been with them.

She didn’t want to know anything about what they might have told him, or what Charlie might have told her parents. She wanted to pretend that had never happened. That these separate worlds had not collided.

They could do that. They could—

“I know your father.”

Her skin went cold, that numb feeling spreading farther, deeper. He
knew
her father. So he had worked with him.
Grocery contacts
rang in her head, over and over again.

“He recognized me,” he continued, each word pushing that cold deeper and deeper into her chest. “Maybe not enough to put a name to a face, but he recognized who I was.”

“Because you know him,” she echoed stupidly.

“I golfed with him once. I let him win, of course. He was the customer. The customer is always right.”

The silence that followed was heavy and dark. The kind of silences Meg remembered from her childhood, when everyone was hurting and broken, and silent with it. Drowning in it.

“You don’t want to marry the
likes of me
, Meg,” Charlie said at length, such contempt dripping off those last words. “We’ll get you home to your goats and you’ll realize it soon enough.”

She stared at him, the way he held his jaw so tight it must hurt. He must be grinding his teeth to dust. Handsome and hard, and so many sides to him. So much depth and strength to him, and she wasn’t so certain she didn’t want to marry him—at least in part—because of him. Because of who he was, because of what he gave her.