All Summer Long (Fool's Gold #9)

“Lucky guy.”


Charlie blinked at him. “He didn’t see it that way. He invited me to a party.... I went. When he asked me up to his room, I said yes. I was young and stupid. I didn’t realize he expected to have sex. I thought we’d...” She shrugged and looked away. “I wasn’t thinking. Things went too far. I told him to stop and he didn’t.” She turned her attention back to him and pain filled her blue eyes. “I wasn’t strong then.”

Clay felt a rock hit the bottom of his stomach. “He raped you,” he said flatly.

She nodded. “I fought, but he was bigger and he knew what he wanted. After, when I was crying, he told me to grow up, then he walked away.” She drew in a breath. “You know, there really can be blood your first time. I grabbed the blanket and took it with me, then I went to the police. He was brought in and questioned. I could hear him in the next room. When they asked him what happened, he laughed. God, I remember that sound. He laughed and asked them if there was any way a guy like him would have sex with a girl like me unless she’d begged. And even then he’d had some trouble getting it up.”

Clay considered himself an even-tempered guy. But right then he wanted to find the man in question and break every bone in his face.

He consciously controlled his breathing, his anger. Charlie had been through enough. She didn’t need to deal with his reaction to her experience.

“I’m sorry.” Stupid, but all he could think to say.

“Thanks.”

“They believed him, right?”

She nodded. “Everyone did. Even my mother told me it was wrong to tease boys that way. I left college, ended up in Portland.”

“Oregon, not Maine.”

She managed a slight smile. “That’s the one. I got strong. Now I can take care of myself.”

More important to her, she was safe, he thought. No man would have the physical upper hand again.

“I want to tell you it’s behind me, but it isn’t,” she said, staring down at the chair. “I haven’t... I can’t imagine being with someone.”

He stared at her, digesting the meaning behind the words. Charlie had to be close to his age. Which meant she hadn’t been with a guy in over a decade.

“I want kids,” she said quickly, meeting his gaze. “I’m not sure how yet. IVF, adoption, there are a lot of options. I want to have a family.”

“You’ll be a good mom.”

“You don’t know enough about me to be sure about that, but thank you for the support. The thing is I know I have to be emotionally strong as well as physically strong to be a parent. I don’t like it, but there we are. Until I can make peace with my past, I shouldn’t take on a kid.”

She paused, as if gathering her thoughts. “I’m afraid I’ll pass on my mistrust of men to any child I have. I don’t want that. If I have a son, I want him to be proud of who he is. I want him to have male role models in his life, which might be difficult if I don’t get over my problem. If I have a daughter, I want her to grow up with the idea that it’s good to be open to love. I don’t want to pass along my fear.”

“You’ve thought this through,” he said slowly, thinking that Charlie was brutally honest—even with herself. Something he admired and respected.

“I’ve thought about a lot of things. Including your problem.”

He frowned. “I have a problem?”

“Getting accepted into the volunteer program. No one is going to take you seriously. It doesn’t matter how well you do, they won’t get past who you are and how you look.”

A blunt assessment that was probably accurate.

Was she relating their situations? If so, what was she offering and what did she want in return? Sperm? A character reference?

“Deep breath,” she said softly.

“Are you telling me or yourself?”

“Both of us.” She swallowed. “I want you to help me get over my fear of being physically intimate. I want to be able to be with a guy without running screaming into the night.”

“Is that what happens?”

“I’ve only tried a couple of times, but, yes. I freeze up. I panic. I run. I can’t do that. I want to be over this. I want to be like everyone else.”

“Being like the rest of the herd isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“So speaks someone who’s perfect.”

“I’m not perfect,” he said automatically. Then the meaning of what she said slammed into him. Charlie wanted him to have sex with her. Not just sex for the night. She wanted him to help her heal.

Now it was his turn to stand, but once he was on his feet, he didn’t move. Not toward her or away. He stared at her, watching color flare more brightly on her cheeks. He saw her vulnerability, her fear that he would say no and her terror that he would say yes.