Page 4 of Resurgent
Chapter One
Charlotte
Eight months later
It’s dusk, my favorite part of summer in Charleston when the sky sheds the bright, cheerful blue she wears by day and wraps herself in a mysterious and broody cloak of purple embellished with jeweled stars. I sigh. Well, it used to be my favorite time. Now the stars just remind me of Liam, and what will never be. I shake my head.What never was in the first place, I remind myself firmly.
Pulling out the color-coded key to McKenzie and Gemma’s apartment I keep on my keyring, I let myself in. It feels dark and empty without Gemma’s bubbly chatter and Kenzie’s quiet presence. I’ll be glad when my best friends are back from traipsing around the world—Kenzie from sailing the Philippines with the gorgeous stranger she met in Las Vegas whom she’s falling in love with, and Gemma from San Francisco, where she’s currently with Walker Kinkaid, her best guy friend. It hasn’t been a big deal for me to keep our wedding business running while they’re gone—after all, I put the “plan” in our wedding planning business—but I miss them. And, if I’m honest, it kind of sucks always being the responsible one stuck working and keeping things going while my friends are off having fun.
I instantly feel guilty for thinking that way. It’s not like they’re on vacation; they’re both just doing what they can to get to the bottom of Liam’s mysterious death and clear his name. It’s not their fault they’re having exciting adventures in the process.
I sigh as I flip on the living room light. It’s a mess. The whole situation—not just my friends’ apartment. But the apartment’s pretty bad, too, with empty Chinese takeout containers and a pair of chopsticks littering the coffee table, pillows strewn all over the floor, and one black-and-white upholstered chair randomly planted in the middle of the room. I love Gemma to pieces, but we couldn’t be more different. How she up and left for San Francisco with Walker, leaving her apartment untidy, is beyond me. I automatically start straightening up, as if righting everything in the living room will somehow make sense of everything that’s happened over the last few months.
It’s been surreal. First, the news that Liam had been killed in Pakistan rescuing an American aid worker. The subsequent rumor, which was substantiated by Noah—McKenzie’s new love interest who, as it turns out, is a former Navy SEAL and current NCIS officer—that Liam illegally smuggled guns out of Iraq and sold them to La Frontera, a Mexican drug cartel. Then—after someone tried to kidnap McKenzie—the discovery that Liam hadn’t delivered the guns the cartel had paid for before he died. Now everyone—the drug cartel, Noah, and Walker—thinks Liam’s bucket list is actually a map to where the guns are hidden, and Noah and Walker are racing to find them before the drug cartel does. They’re also hoping to figure out what really happened in the process. Liam was larger than life even before he died—the ultimate hero. None of us can believe he would have committed what the news is calling treason, even though the evidence is pretty convincing.
Walker had filled me in on all the details a few days ago before he and Gemma took off to San Francisco chasing more things on the bucket list. Then last night they’d called and asked me to come by Gemma and Kenzie’s place to look for Liam’s passport, thinking if they could determine where he’d been in the months leading up to his death, they could find a clue that would narrow down where the guns are hidden.
Well, I could use a clue of my own—such as where the hell I’m supposed to find Liam’s personal effects in McKenzie and Gemma’s mess of an apartment. I give the living room a quick once-over, straightening up and putting the pillows back on the sofa in the process. My gaze falls on a framed quote on the fireplace mantle.Never Underestimate the Power of Fuck It.It was Liam’s motto. I vaguely remember one of his SEAL brothers giving the framed picture to McKenzie at his memorial service.
I feel a little pang of something. Envy? Regret? Wistfulness? It doesn’t matter. That philosophy is fine for a guy like Liam, but I don’t have that luxury.Someone’sgot to be the responsible one, and it’s usually me. It always has been. Growing up, I made sure my two little brothers were fed, did their homework, and were shielded from the ugliness of our parents’ marriage. Even at Tying the Knot, the wedding business I’ve built with McKenzie and Gemma, I’m the one who keeps things on track. I’m so detailed and organized, my calendars have calendars. But I like it that way. People can call me uptight or anal all they want, but life goes smoother when things are structured and planned. Just ask my clients. Me keeping everything meticulously organized means they get hitched without a hitch. Ha. Maybe we should makethatour tagline.
I sigh, smoothing a white, faux-fur pillow with my hand before placing it perfectly angled in the corner of the sofa. The power of fuck itwaspretty amazing in Playa del Carmen. For the first time in my life, I’d done whatever I wanted without thinking about the consequences, and what had happened between me and Liam that night had been unlike anything I’d ever experienced before or probably ever will again. He’d made me breathless with his kisses, and I’d come in ways I’d never imagined even in my wildest dreams.
But it was so much more than that. There was some sort of deep, unexplainable connection between us that made me both comfortable with him and drew me to him physically like a moth to a flame. We stayed up most of the night making love on the beach under the stars—laughing and talking, and then making love again until I finally fell asleep in his arms in one of those curtained beach cabanas reserved for the super-elite. He’d woken me up with kisses as the fingers of dawn began swirling colors across the morning sky like a child finger painting, and in those predawn hours, he whispered things that made me believe that maybe I’d been wrong about not letting a man into my life. That maybe love could be real, and not the bastardized version I’d grown up with and run from my whole life.
Of course, reality had come crashing down as it always does. Eventually, we’d snuck back into the beach house before our friends realized we were gone, grabbing an hour of sleep before we had to pack for the trip home.
“This isn’t over. I’ll come back for you,” he’d whispered at the airport in Miami where Gemma, McKenzie, and I waited for our connecting flight to Charleston. He and Walker would catch the red-eye a few hours later to San Diego. But a part of me knew, even then, that it wasn’t real.It was a one-night stand, plain and simple. Liam wasn’t boyfriend material. The only thing he was serious about was pursuing thenext big thrill on his bucket list, and he was out of the country more often than he was home.Andthere was no room for a relationship onmy ten-year plan, either,I remind myself firmly.
Then six weeks later, I stopped by McKenzie and Gemma’s apartment after the gym and found Liam sitting on the sofa, looking sexy and even more gorgeous than I remembered, and my heart skipped a beat. Seeing him there in person, that physical pull between us as strong as ever, made me realize that somewhere in my subconscious, I had unwittingly fallen for him and hoped maybe, just maybe, he felt the same. Somewhere deep inside, I’d thought hewouldcome back for me.
“Charlotte!” His eyes lit up, but almost immediately became shuttered.
“Hi,” I said lamely, wishing I wasn’t a sweaty mess from the gym. You always want to look like the hottest version of yourself any time you run into someone you once had sex with. Especially when it was a one-night stand. Instead, I looked like hell. I didn’t even have on my yoga pants that made my butt look good. I’d thrown on a pair of athletic shorts and an old T-shirt and put my hair in a messy bun, then run seven miles on the treadmill. Definitely not looking my best.
Desperate to fill the silence, I asked, “How was Afghanistan?” My voice sounded overly bright and cheery, and I immediately wanted to kick myself. It wasn’t like he had been on vacation.
His lips twitched slightly. “Hot, dusty, filled with people who want to kill me. You know, the usual. I just got back in the States on Thursday.” My heart sank a little as I realized that was three days ago. Three whole days during which he could have called or texted or told me he was coming to Charleston and wanted to see me. Reality sunk in. Of course a guy like Liam would never be interested in a girl like me. He’d just been caught up in the moment at the airport in Mexico. “I spent a few days in San Diego, and then came here to take care of a couple of things before I ship out to Pakistan.”
“Want to come to dinner with us?” McKenzie asked, blissfully unaware that my heart was breaking into a million sharp-edged pieces.
“No. I have to go.” I could feel the tears pricking my eyelids, and suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there before I burst into tears. I had known all along Liam was just a vacation fling. Damn my traitorous heart for missing the memo.
“But you just got here!” McKenzie protested.
“I, um, just remembered I have a meeting with a bride.”
She eyed my athletic shorts, old T-shirt, and messy bun skeptically. “Now?”
Oh God. Wrong excuse. “No. Soon. I need to um, go shower. I just came by to get the uh, the…” My mind went blank. Liam still had the same effect he did on me in Playa.
Luckily McKenzie saved me. “My dress design book? Who is it? Does she want to talk to me? We could meet you there, and then the three of us could go to dinner after.”
I knew the less time I spent with Liam the better. I just needed to save face and get the hell out of there. Go home, have a glass of wine, and organize a closet or something to relax and forget all about Liam.
“No!” I said too quickly. I took a deep, calming breath, realizing I was practically shouting. “I mean, no, it’s a new prospective client. I don’t know how long it will take. You guys go ahead. I have tons to do.”
“Oh.” McKenzie’s lips turned downward in a disappointed pout. “Okay, maybe—”
