Shattered Dreams (Dream #1)

Epilogue One

Autumn

Six Months Later

“Hey,”

Brady says, coming into the office with two plates in his hand, and my eyes light up.

“One of those better be for me,”

I reply as he sets one plate with a burger and fries in front of me and then places his own in front of him as he sits down in his chair.

“Last time I came in here with food only for myself, you stole it from me.”

He picks up his burger and takes a bite. “Didn’t even offer me anything.”

I pick up a french fry and dip it in the mountain of ketchup the chef put on there for me. “It was delicious.”

“What are you doing?”

he asks, looking at all the paperwork in front of me.

“Preparing my speech for the State of the Union.”

I scrunch my nose up at him.

He ignores my joke. “We need to hire another server,”

Brady suggests. “One isn’t enough on a Saturday. Even you have to agree.”

“I do,”

I agree with him. “We need at least another two.”

I take a bite of my burger as my eyes go to the papers that were in front of me not long ago. Invoices that are all current with the way the bar has taken off. It’s like we are back and even better than ever. “I had to soak my feet in an ice bath when I got home.”

“Well, I’ll put the notice up on the door like I did the last time,”

he says, “and we also need another bartender.”

I look at him. “You can’t be doing the office and then the bar every night.”

“You sound like Charlie,”

I point out to him. “I’m fine. I’m more than fine now that nothing is threatening me and my family,”

I admit to him. The Cartwrights have slunk into whatever hole they are in now. Now that Harmony left Winston, they are trying to do damage control to show everyone how amazing they still are. Apparently, according to the gossip going around, she left him six months ago. Why anyone is surprised is beyond me since he makes it no secret that he cheats on her. The number of times I’ve seen him out with different women is crazy, and if I were her, I would light all of his shit on fire.

“You are, but we are doing pretty well now,”

he declares, and I chuckle. “Very well, considering all of our debts are paid off, and we have regular runs with orders that are backed up. Plus, the tours are still going stronger than ever. We sell more cases than we’ve ever sold.”

“Why don’t we wait a couple of months and see?”

I try to meet him in the middle.

“You said that last month,”

he points out, “and we’ve already passed the quota for this month.”

He then points at the whiteboard I hung in the office with a goal that we need for the month. “The private tasting events are booked solid for a whole year, Autumn.”

His voice starts to go up. “What else is new?”

I try to change the subject.

“Not much,”

he says, “I think the house next to mine got rented out.”

“The one that is run down?” I ask.

He nods. “Saw someone over there this morning trying to calm down the overgrown weeds.”

“Every single time I come and visit you, I have a feeling it’s going to fall like a stack of Jengas.”

“Hire the fucking bartender.”

He puts his hands on his hips. “Or you know what, I’ll do it myself.”

“Fine, fine.”

I hold up my hands. “I’ll do it. Jeez.”

I inhale. “I was just trying to spend time with you.”

“You want to spend time with me?”

he retorts. “Invite me over for a meal. Now I have to go out for a bit.”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer him. Instead, he just walks out of the office when my phone rings, and I see it’s my father.

“Hello.”

I put the phone to my ear.

“Did your brother talk to you?”

he mumbles, and I laugh. It’s been a rough six months; he’s getting weaker as the days go by. Even he had to admit that he needed part-time care, so we have a nurse who comes in and helps during the day for a couple of hours. I usually bring him breakfast and then Brady heads out to take him lunch and the nurse is there to help him warm up his dinner.

“Hello to you too, Father.”

I ignore his question.

“Well, did he?”

He also ignores me. “You either hire someone, or I’ll come and do it myself. Walker and all.”

I chuckle. “Simmer down there, Pops,”

I joke with him. “I am literally putting the notices in the paper as we speak.”

“Don’t toy with me,”

he barks, and I just laugh.

“Dad, I swear I’m going to put it in the paper,”

I assure him softly. “Now, if you let me go, I can do it.”

“You better,”

he snaps. “I love you.”

His tone changes. “More than you will ever know.”

“I love you more,”

I say, hanging up the phone and feeling the little pang I usually feel when I hang up the phone with him. Wondering if it will be the last time, knowing that even though we have prepared for it to happen sooner rather than later, I’m still not ready. I don’t think anyone is ever ready.

I place the ads in the paper, finish doing all the checks for the month, and I’m getting up to head to the front when the back door opens and Brady comes back in. “Have you been gone all this time?”

I ask, looking to see it’s almost five o’clock.

“Yup,”

he confirms, and it looks like he just stepped out of the shower. “Why are you still here?”

he asks. “Isn’t tonight your night off?”

“I was just leaving.”

I pick up my purse and sling it over my shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,”

he says, walking straight to the front of the bar. I get into my car and make my way over to my house, enjoying the sounds of the birds chirping all along the way. Spring is in the air for sure.

I call Charlie the minute I park my car, and it goes straight to voicemail. I’m walking into the house as I’m about to leave a message when I stop dead in my tracks. My whole house is empty. There is literally nothing in my house. The table is gone, and the couch is gone. I walk into the house and head to the bedroom and see that it’s also been stripped. I turn to head to my closet, every single piece of clothing I own is gone. Not one fucking hanger swings in place. I turn to walk back out of my room when I hear the front door open and then shut.

Walking out, I see Charlie coming into the house, and his eyes don’t even scan the room. As if my house has always looked like this. “My stuff is gone.”

I blink twice. “Like, every single piece of everything is gone.”

I turn around, wondering if I should call the police. I put my hand to my head. “How did they take all of the stuff and not leave anything?”

I look at him, and he doesn’t even look fazed that someone broke into my house. “All of my things are gone.”

“They aren’t gone,”

he reassures me, his voice not rising like mine. “I moved it out.”

He walks into the room, standing in front of me. “We moved it out, started this morning when you left. Just finished not long ago.”

“Who is we and where did you move it to?”

I ask and he just looks at me. His beautiful face tries to fight smiling at me, but he just smirks and then grins. The face I look for every single night I’m behind the bar. The face I look at right before I fall asleep. The face I wake up to each and every single day and have for the last eight months. The face I want to stare at for the rest of my days.

“Me and a couple of guys from the barn. Your brother came and helped.”

“Brady came here?”

I say, pointing at the wooden floor. “To help you move my things out?”

“Yup.”

He puts his hands in his back pockets, the T-shirt pulling against his chest.

“Where are my things?”

I ask again.

“Took them to my house, our house now.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You took all of my things over to your house?”

“Our house,”

he corrects me. “It’s been over six months. I’m done with this back-and-forth bullshit. Half here, half there. Playing heads or tails to decide where we sleep at night.”

“So you thought ‘hey, let’s just take all her stuff to my house’ instead of talking to me about it?”

“Yup.”

He nods. “Another thing, besides you moving in with me.”

He takes one hand out of his back pocket, tucks it in his front pocket, and takes something out before getting down on one knee. The phone drops from my hand, clattering onto the floor. “We’re getting married.”

My hands go to my face. “I want you to move in with me, and I want to marry you. I’m not waiting forever either. Meaning, if I could convince you, I would do it tomorrow.”

He holds out the ring. “I’m not wasting more time with you not being my wife,”

he says softly. “I want to have my ring on your finger. I want your ring on my finger. I want to have babies with you. I want to fight with you for fun.”

I laugh since we never, ever fight. It’s a strange thing; maybe it’s because we’ve been friends for so long, but there are no fights. “I want it all, and I want it with you.”

“Charlie.”

That’s the only thing I can say.

“That isn’t how you say yes,”

he jokes. Taking my hand, he places the ring on my finger, and I gasp when I look down. “I don’t want to hear anything either. I went with my mother.”

“This is massive,”

I declare, looking down at the huge ring on my finger.

“You can hand it down to our daughter or our son, whichever you want.”

“I want my father to walk me down the aisle,”

I say. “I don’t know how much time we have.”

“Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

He smiles, and I grab his face in my hands.

“That means I’ll marry you. Tonight, tomorrow, this weekend.”

I kiss his lips. “In this lifetime and the next, I will marry you each and every single time.”

He gets up from his knees, swinging me around. “You are everything I’ve ever dreamed of but thought I would never get.”

“Dreams come true, baby, we’re proof of it.”

Five days later, in the middle of his backyard, with all our family and friends, wearing a wedding dress I didn’t even think would be possible to get on such short notice, my father walks me down the aisle to the man who made me see that I am worthy. Who showed me what unconditional love is. Who showed me what real love feels like. I became Mrs. Charlie Barnes.