Page 24 of Unearthed Dreams

“Okay.” She straightened her shoulders back and said with more confidence, “Then I’ll have a Coke, please, Mr. Bartender.”

“Mr. Bartender?” I raised a brow, grabbing the soda gun.

“Well, I realized I don’t know your last name. I’d assumed Callaghan, but if Billy was your wife’s?—”

“It’s Callaghan. I took her name.” I grabbed a cocktail napkin and set it in front of Charlie, followed by her glass of Coke.

“Well, that’s very progressive of you.”

I shrugged. “Wasn’t so much about being progressive as it was me not wanting anything to do with my family name.”

She gave me a sad smile before that pensive look returned—the one I’d now determined to mean she was working through something. I waited, anticipating her next question.

“But if your wife didn’t know Billy was her father, how did she have his name?”

I smiled. “Always looking for the plot holes, huh, pretty girl?”

She tried but failed to stifle her returning smile.

My jaw clenched as memories of Kelsey surfaced, her rage-filled eyes as she’d ranted about her mother’s betrayal. I gripped the glass in my hand tighter, focusing on the cool condensation against my palm.

“That was the real kicker. It pissed Kels off that her mom knew where her dad was from the beginning, but never told him. Cursed her mom’s grave for years over it.”

Charlie leaned forward, elbows resting on the bar.

“They couldn’t find him after her mom died?”

I wiped down an already clean spot, needing something to do with my hands. “Social services tried, but all they had to go on was a last name, and it’s not an uncommon one.”

“No, I guess it’s not.” Charlie traced patterns in the condensation on her glass. “That’s so sad. Sounds like she had a hard life, your wife.”

My shoulders tensed. “She had thirteen good years with her mom. Was far more than I had.”

“I’m sorry.”

My head snapped up, anger flaring hot and quick. “Didn’t say it for your pity.”

“I don’t pity you.” Her voice held steel beneath its softness. “Seems like you turned out a pretty decent human after being dealt such a rotten hand.”

A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “I’d say ‘decent human’ is generous.”

“Why?”

The weight of my past pressed down on my chest. I shrugged, unable to meet those searching eyes that saw too much. “You don’t know me, Charlie.”

Her lips parted slightly, uncertainty crossing her features. “No, I guess I don’t...”

A shout from across the bar broke the charged silence. “Kai! Where’re those beers?”

I shot a glare at Andy and the other two, muttering to Charlie I’d be right back. I made a triangle with the three drafts I poured and gripped the glasses between my spread fingers. When I set them on the table in front of the guys sitting by the pool table, beer sloshed over the sides.

“You’re welcome.”

“Dude, you didn’t even give us a chance to say thank you.”

I didn’t spare them a backward glance, sights set on returning to the pretty girl at the bar.

“Where were we?”