Let Me Call You Sweetheart: Come Rain or Come Shine (8 page)

It’s important to have a fulfilling career. I’d be really pissed off if someone tried to make me feel bad for wanting to do what I was born to do.
 

I hope you forgive me.
 

Yours,

Cleaver

February 18

Dear Charlie,

There is nothing to forgive. You can’t get rid of me that easily. Love means never having to say you’re sorry but occasionally overnighting muffins from your best friend’s bakery. I’m in a sugar coma and still in love.

Love,

Jeeves

February 22

Dear Cleaver,

Thanks for sending the autographed book. I wish you could have seen Jenny’s face when I gave it to her. So now, I’m in good with the director for making his daughter happy, and with Jenny, probably the future President of the United States.
 

Shooting is going well. My part is small enough that I’ve had more free time than I’d like, so I’ve spent a lot more time watching production. There’s a choreography behind the camera that I never paid attention to before. It’s amazing, actually.
 

I’ve been spending more time alone, too. It’s not like alone in Port Grable. I’ve never been lonely before in my life—but when I go back to my trailer, I feel so empty. It’s strange for me. I feel more isolated here than I ever did in our little town in the middle of nowhere. I fill my time reading and writing to you—but I don’t like this void. Which means it’s probably good for me.
 

These are the things I know now, that I didn’t before:

Cheetos give Medusa and me terrible gas. We vow never to do that again.

I hate smiling when I don’t mean it.

It turns out I can’t write scripts, nor do I really want to.
 

I think I might be a good director.
 

Everything I see that I find interesting, my first thought is that I want to tell you about it.
 

Maybe those aren’t the things you were talking about when you said I needed to work on the inside stuff. I haven’t worked very hard at fitting in since I’ve been here, though. I keep to myself a lot. Maybe I am growing up.
 

Love,

Jeeves

February 28

Dear Jeeves,

This would be our last day of pen pal communications if you were still here. Are you sure you don’t want to add the phone? We made it a month, why are you trying to torture us some more?

I was going to tell you when you got back—but since that is still two weeks away, I’ll tell you now. I’ve been seeing a counselor. It was supposed to be once a week, but she doesn’t have a huge client list in Port Grable, so I’m going twice a week now. I just thought you should know. I don’t see myself ever going to L.A. or any other big city—but I am really trying to work through my fear.
 

You showed me that it’s possible to be the person you want to be—so I’m a work in progress, but getting there. The person I want to be isn’t afraid all the time.
 

Also, the person I want to be is naked. Come home.

Love,

Cleaver

March 3

Mr. Allencaster,

Please find the enclosed newspaper clipping. I thought you might want it for your scrapbook. It’s a nice picture of you. I especially like the way you are so wrapped up in kissing your co-star that you didn’t realize you weren’t on the set, but rather in a restaurant in downtown Vancouver.
 

Do me a favor. Don’t write. Don’t call. Just don’t.

Sincerely,

Charlotte Jeeves

March 4

Dear Charlotte,

Please find the enclosed photograph similar to one you so thoughtfully included in your last letter. The difference, however, is that this photograph does not have my co-star’s husband cropped out of it. They had just told me the happy news that she was expecting their first child. I’m afraid the kiss I laid on him was even sloppier.

I can assure you that I won’t write again. I can’t keep prostrating myself in front of the tank you use to run me down with. When you are ready to be a grown up, I hope you’ll give me a call.

Love,

Jeeves

Chapter Eight

Jeeves pulled in front of the remote cabin, turning off the engine with a sigh of relief. He turned to Medusa and said, “Never trust a female. No offense.”

Myrtle had been all charm when she asked him, no
tricked
him, into making this delivery for her.
It’s an important client,
she’d said.
Sam is busy. I just put wedding cakes in the oven
. Jeeves would have done it anyway, of course, but when she promised him a dozen muffins every Sunday for a year, he told her he’d be there in five minutes.
 

An hour and a half later, he realized he’d been conned. Sam was a very intelligent man. Jeeves had no doubt he broke the pipe in the basement himself to avoid delivery duty. This place was in the middle of nowhere. He half expected to hear “Dueling Banjos” when he stepped outside.
 

Still, it was a beautiful day, the first day of spring, and Medusa liked car rides. And he really had nothing better to do. He’d been back from Vancouver for a week, but he’d yet to see his neighbor. He knew she was there, probably simmering with some self-righteous indignation. Jeeves had almost broken down and called her several times, but he just couldn’t do it.
 

Which meant he was simmering with the same self-righteous indignation.
 

It was stupid really. All of it. Her mistrust, his stubborn pride. He missed her more than air. Just last night, he’d stayed up rereading all her letters again. She’d told him snippets about the violence, but it was the stories from before the stabbing that were the most telling.

Before that night, Charlie had been a different person. Losing everything would do that to a person, he supposed. Despite the physical ache in his heart whenever he thought of that sweet young girl with everything to live for changing overnight, part of him knew that girl could never have handled a relationship with Jeeves. Not that the jaded version was doing much better, but at least she could hold her own with him.
 

Jeeves let Medusa out to stretch her legs a bit while he got the pink box out of the back of his car. The cabin was small, rustic, but a little deceiving at first glance. It wasn’t exactly rough—the craftsmanship evident the closer he looked at it. Yes, it was tucked away in the woods like a hunting box, but it seemed more like a getaway than shack.
 

He was calling Medusa back to the truck when he heard a voice call out, “Let her run.”

He glanced toward the front porch framed in well-cared-for timber and surrounded by the first blooms of spring. On the top step, the surliest woman alive stood barefoot in one of those pretty dresses she liked so well.

Medusa leaped with joy when she realized it was Charlie up there. Jeeves would admit his heart did the same.

Her hair was down, swirling around in wild ribbons of cocoa. Her dress was loose and white, reminding him of a nightgown maybe. His first thought was to wonder if she was wearing panties. His second was that they were well out of city limits.

She’d left Port Grable.
 

The closer he got to the porch, the more he wanted to get there. Charlie looked nervous, but brave. She’d done it.
 

“It’s probably not what you had in mind when you said leave town, but it’s a different county and a start,” she said. “I wanted you to see I could do it.”

He was so damn proud and in awe of her. And. He was an ass.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted when he reached the step below her.

She arched those eyebrows at him the way she always did. “I know I’m going to regret asking, but what are you sorry for?” Then she added wryly, “This time.”

“You’re amazing.”

“You’re sorry that I’m amazing?”

“No.” He set the pastry box on the porch railing. “I’m sorry that I gave you ultimatums and trials to prove your affections. I’m sorry that I treated a simple misunderstanding like some kind of mortal transgression of my honor. I probably would have thrown a car through a window if I’d seen a picture of you in the newspaper kissing another man.”

She took a long minute before answering. “I’m sorry that I seem to be two-steps-forward-one-step-back girl. I don’t blame you for giving up on me.”

Jeeves shook his head. “I wouldn’t say I’ve given up.”

A light flickered in her eyes, something he hadn’t seen in them before. Not in all the months he’d known her. Hope.

“We have a lot to talk about.” She pushed off the post and went to the door.

Inside the cabin was just as peaceful as the outside. It wasn’t frilly, but it wasn’t exactly masculine either. It looked like a place a man and woman could both be comfortable. Since the kitchen area was twice the size of the sitting room, he figured it belonged to Myrtle and Sam. Their lovers’ hideaway maybe. What would it be like to love the same person for twenty years? As he watched Charlie curl her legs under her on the couch, his dog settling into her hip easily, Jeeves realized he’d really like to find out.
 

“It’s the first day of spring,” she said.
 

“Yes,” he answered.
 

Wow, this really wasn’t like the fantasy she’d been imagining. It was awkward and fraught with…awkwardness.

“We met on the first day of autumn,” she said. Because trivia would surely save this moment.

Jeeves smiled. “That was quite a day. I knew then you’d be more than a little trouble.”

“Oh please, you were too enamored with Myrtle to notice me that day.”

“You wore the red dress with white dots.” She must have looked surprised, so he kept going. “I remember the way the sun lit your hair from the window and the way your freckles reminded me of chocolate jimmies.”

She felt as if the sun were hitting her face right now, the way the warmth grew and spread across her cheeks and into her hairline. “We’ve been through a lot in six months.”

“I put you through a lot, you mean.”

Charlie knit her brows together in confusion. “Where is this sudden attack of conscience coming from? I’m the one that screwed up.”

“I don’t think that is true.”

She was suddenly very, very tired. “I pushed you away over and over, expecting you to just Weeble right back.”

Jeeves sat next to her. They weren’t physically touching—or even looking at each other. Like they needed the distance. “When a man falls in love, it feels a little like storming a castle. I just wanted past your defenses so bad, I didn’t give enough thought to the vulnerable part you were protecting with all your crazy moats and concrete turrets. I came through like a wrecker ball.”

“You’re mixing a lot of metaphors there.”

“I really do suck at writing my own material.”

Charlie laughed but then got serious. “I don’t want to have a weak and vulnerable part.” Her voice sounded meek to her own ears.

“Then give it to me. I’ll take care of it. I promise.” He threaded one curl around his finger. “Give me your heart, Charlie. I promise I’ll guard it with my life.”

Her breath got stuck like it sometimes used to when she thought about leaving the old apartment. Only this wasn’t a panic attack, this was optimism.

He’d better be sure.

“I still don’t want to leave Port Grable,” she warned him. “I especially don’t want to go to a city. I don’t think that will ever change, even if I went to counseling twice a day. I won’t go with you to L.A. or Vancouver or any other place you shoot your movies.”

“That’s not a problem. When you’re ready—if you’re ready—we can take vacations in small, remote places. And my mom can just spend Christmas in Port Grable from now on.”

“I can’t promise I’ll stop Googling you when you leave town.”

“I wish that were half as dirty as it sounds.”

Charlie frowned. “I’m serious, Jeeves.”

“I’ll tell you what…if this is still a problem, say, ten years from now, we can agree to revisit the issue, okay? I’m betting I’ll have convinced you of my love and devotion by then. And that you will probably be booking me on frequent trips to get me out of your hair.”

His finger left her hair and traced the line of her bodice, lightly touching her skin.
 

“Does this mean you forgive me and we can get naked?”

“Not yet,” he said, even as his hand dipped beneath the fabric.

“What do you mean not yet? Do not tell me you are going to put more restrictions on this. I thought you said…whoa.” She forgot what she was going to say when his hand went inside her bra cup. Charlie blinked several times. “I left town,” she squeaked, as much of a protest as she could manage.

“I know you left town. And that’s amazing, Cleaver, really it is.” Jeeves pulled his hands back into his lap and waited.
 

Right. There was one more thing he wanted.
 

Charlie took a deep breath. So, one of
People’s
Sexiest Men Alive was sitting on the couch next to her waiting for her to profess her love. He was charming and handsome. He wrote her letters and shared custody of his dog. He seemed to be quite taken with her body, despite it being lumpier than the steady diet of supermodels he was used to. It seemed silly now to be concerned about that if he didn’t seem to be.
 

But he was also slick—too slick. He wanted everyone to like him, and because of that, he tried too hard to fit in. She’d have to watch that.
 

Jeeves squinted at her. “I can practically see you ticking off your pros versus cons list in your head. Am I winning?”

“I love you,” she said in a rush, before her fear could swallow the words back up. “Even though I find you ridiculous most of the time.”

“Oh baby, you say the sweetest things,” he answered, pulling the hem of his shirt up and over his head.

Sweet heat flooded her skin with a rush of sensation. Jeeves might be a dork, but he was a very well put together dork. And any second now, she was going to touch him.