Revel (Second Chance Romance #1) Read Online Free Page A

was concerned, the city of Charleston was cursed, and he refused to ever visit Charlotte there, no matter how much she would have liked him to.
    Charlotte supposed part of it was that her mother’s death was still such a mystery. They had never found out who had hit her and fled; there had been no witnesses and no one had come forward with any information. It killed her to know that there would never be justice for her mother and by proxy, for her family. Charlotte struggled with that, and maybe part of her felt if they stayed in this city, if they showed the town they weren’t afraid of it, they could somehow be presented with the answers the Sanders family was so desperate to know.
    But Charlotte knew that, in reality, it was ridiculous to think they would ever know what happened. It had been almost 7 years and there were still no answers. Her mother’s ashes sat in a vase back in Nashville, one that stayed right by her father’s bedside, something he saw every morning when he woke up to a life without the woman he had loved so much.
    Charlotte and Vanessa had walked on egg shells around him since that night, afraid to disappoint him in any way after what he’d lost. Maybe that was another reason Charlotte had to leave him. She couldn’t breathe in a house full of such anguish. And she knew where she’d chosen to go, her father would never follow.
    But now she was fucking it up. As she walked up the Ravenel from East Bay she could feel tears coming down her cheeks. She brushed them away, embarrassed to be showing such demonstrative emotion in a public place. Sorority girls ran in packs by her, their ponytails swinging behind them, sweet smiles on their faces. They were so happy and Charlotte envied that; beyond the privilege they had, she envied their contentment. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to know what that was.
    And they had each other. And Charlotte had no one.
    Dammit , she thought. This walk was supposed to help me feel better, not make me have a nervous breakdown.
    Once she reached the middle of the bridge, she sat down on one of the benches overlooking Charleston Harbor. A pair of mothers with jogging strollers sat adjacent to her, both blathering on about disposable versus cloth diapering. The discussion seemed curiously heated and Charlotte was tempted to join in, just to see what the big deal was. She was just so desperate to talk to someone, anyone. To be seen.
    But instead she looked out onto the harbor and thought about how much she wished her mother was here. That thought crossed her mind at least a couple times a week, but it had been crossing her mind almost hourly the last month or so. She’d see girls around campus walking with their parents, or sometimes just their mothers, and a pain would hit her heart. She’d never know what it was like to talk to her mother about the things happening in her life, or to get her advice that only a mother can give you.
    The tears were coming again and she was positive the stroller moms were looking at her now. It was time to walk back and get some much-needed sleep. Facing Allyn and figuring out the living situation could wait until tomorrow.
    She stood up to start walking back, and all of a sudden she heard someone say, “Hey, watch it…” and she was knocked over, catching herself with her arms, but not before they skidded across the cement of the walkway.
    “Shit,” she said, pain shooting through the scrapes. “What the hell?”
    “Are you okay?” a male voice said. “I’m sorry, it was bad timing, I was running by, and you stood up and we collided…”
    She turned to see who was speaking and that’s when she first laid eyes on Declan DeGraff.
    He was shirtless, and his tan pectorals had a sheen of sweat across them. His hair was “ash blond” as Vanessa, her sister, would have called it, and it was wet from perspiration. His face was handsome, his blue eyes concerned over her welfare. He looked like the type of guy that Allyn