Page 6 of Unearthed Dreams (Sable Point #3)

Chapter Five

CHARLIE

Four days back in Sable Point and I was suffocating.

The TV downstairs blasted another episode of Judge Judy ; Dad’s preferred volume somewhere between “shake the windows” and “wake the dead.” Every word traveled straight through these paper-thin walls, along with the dying wheeze of our ancient AC unit.

I loved my family—they were just… a lot.

I pulled my pillow over my head, trying to block it all out. The scratchy cotton case still smelled like the lavender detergent Mom insisted on using, the same brand she’d bought since I was kid. Even my bed felt wrong after four years away.

The best part about living with Shelby had been her very active social life. She was barely ever home, which meant our apartment had been a sanctuary of blessed silence—broken only by the occasional thump of bass from the party house across the street.

Here? There was always something. If someone wasn’t yelling, the TV was blasting. If the TV wasn’t blasting, the pipes were groaning. If the pipes weren’t groaning, Chase was stumbling in at odd hours, or Dad was snoring loud enough to register on the Richter scale.

I missed the quiet.

From my prone position, I stared at stack of manuscript pages on my nightstand.

The ancient Disney princess alarm clock—still here from middle school—showed 8:47 AM in cheerful pink numbers.

The same pink that covered my walls, what had once been my dream shade of bubblegum but now looked more like industrial-strength Pepto-Bismol.

Even the remaining NSYNC poster in the corner—Justin’s face slightly water-damaged from that time the roof leaked—seemed to judge my life choices.

“MOM!”

Chase’s booming voice vibrated my bedroom walls.

I had to squeeze my eyes shut and remind myself for the umpteenth time that this was all temporary. I just needed to find a job, get an apartment, and get back my peace.

“MOM!” he yelled again.

I leaped out of my bed and yanked open my door, glaring down at Chase from the second floor. “Would you shut up?”

My older brother spun around, palms raised in mock surrender. His usual disheveled appearance looked even more chaotic this morning, dark hair sticking up in all directions. “Woah, sorry, Charlie girl.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “I didn’t think you’d still be in bed. Hell, even I’m awake.”

I rubbed my bleary eyes. “I didn’t sleep well.”

I wouldn’t be sharing either of the reasons for my sleepless nights—one six-hundred pages long and the other six-foot-something of hot as hell .

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Chase’s brow furrowed as he patted his jeans pockets with increasing urgency. “Have you seen Mom?”

The distant sound of running water echoed through the old house’s pipes. “Sounds like the shower’s running.”

Chase cursed under his breath. “I can’t find my keys.”

My gaze drifted to his beat-up running shoes by the front door, a familiar storage spot from his teenage years. “Did you check your shoes by the door?”

The floorboards creaked under his feet as he crossed to the entryway. Crouching down, he plunged his hand into one shoe, metal jingling as he retrieved his keys.

A triumphant grin spread across his face as he looked up at me. “Well, whaddya know? Thanks, little sis.”

I rolled my eyes and retreated to my room, but not before catching the slight tremor in his hands as he gripped his keys. There was a story there, but asking Chase about his problems was like trying to catch smoke—the harder you grabbed, the faster it slipped away.

Back in my pink prison, I flopped onto my bed. The stack of manuscript pages stared at me again, all 439 of them, like they were waiting to be better. Waiting to be good enough .

Editing my book in this house had been impossible.

I’d no sooner gotten comfy again than my phone began to buzz.

SHELBY

Hey C! Sorry we didn’t make it to the opening

The guilt hit immediately. She’d been such a good friend, and here I was, relieved she hadn’t shown up. Relief that I wouldn’t have to pretend to be more exciting, more outgoing, more... everything I wasn’t.

SHELBY

Can’t wait to see you for graduation!

If I didn’t still have furniture at the apartment, I might have just skipped the ceremony. That, and Mom and Dad never would have allowed it. They loved a good photo opportunity and any chance to celebrate their kids.

So, I’d do it for them.

And for the desk I missed greatly—the desk where I’d written most of my first draft, tucked into the corner of my bedroom overlooking the apartment courtyard.

Where I’d spent countless nights typing away, building my high fantasy world where magic came with a price and immortality made falling in love complicated—especially when centuries stood between two people who were never meant to meet.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that while my characters were dealing with magical bonds and five hundred years of age difference, I was still stuck in my childhood bedroom, haunted by very real, very non-magical thoughts about a certain bartender and his comments about age gap tropes.

For now, I needed to find something to do with my life. If there was no hope of working on my book here in the house, maybe I could find somewhere quiet in town.

CHARLIE

No big deal! See you Sunday!

A puff of air escaped my lips as I hit ‘send’ on my text and gave up on the possibility of falling back to sleep. Instead, I trudged with leaden feet toward what was affectionately named “the kids bathroom.” Growing up with three older brothers and one shared bathroom had been a nightmare.

One look in the mirror and I regretted not trying harder to get some sleep.

My hair was a tangled mess, frizzing in places and flat in others, like it couldn’t decide what kind of bad hair day it wanted to have.

Dark smudges marred the skin beneath my eyes, like little drop shadows behind my glasses.

Even my skin looked tired, probably from too many nights spent rewriting the same paragraph over and over while trying not to think about the way Kai’s hand had felt on my lower back last night.

I pressed my fingers against my temples, willing away the exhaustion, the writer’s block, the memory of his voice saying age gap—my favorite trope .

None of it worked.

God, I needed to get out of this house.

Three slices of Mom’s French toast and the world’s largest cup of coffee later, I felt human again. More than human—I felt like I could actually face this manuscript of mine without wanting to set it on fire.

The morning sun beckoned through the kitchen window, and I decided a walk into town would do me good. Sure, I could’ve driven, but after spending the last four months hunched over my laptop like a caffeinated gremlin, my body needed the movement .

Said laptop was tucked safely in my backpack, along with the pages of my manuscript and my favorite red pen.

I had a system—read and markup one chapter of the physical copy, then update the digital version. Sometimes seeing the words on actual paper revealed all the stupid mistakes my screen-tired eyes had missed a dozen times before.

I made it exactly three minutes down Orchard Lane before realizing I had severely underestimated the Michigan summer heat.

My cut-off shorts, which seemed perfectly reasonable in my air-conditioned bedroom, now felt like a tragic mistake.

My thighs were staging a protest with every step, and my boobs.

.. Lord. Most days, I didn’t mind my body.

Today was not one of those days. Today, I wished I had a body like Tessa or Natalie—lean and lithe—instead of walking around like I was smuggling water balloons under my shirt.

But I’d inherited Nana Everton’s curves and none of her sass.

Ten sweaty minutes later, I’d made it to Main Street.

My shoulders were tinged pink from the sun beating down on me, the thin straps of my army-green tank top leaving pale lines against my skin.

I’d probably be sweating less if I’d chosen to wear flips flops instead of my Chucks, or pull my hair up instead of hiding it under a baseball hat, but this was why they said hindsight was twenty-twenty.

Oh well.

I was on a mission, and I wouldn’t let a little sweat deter me.

First stop on my find-a-quiet-place-to-write quest was The Bean Counter.

Its faded green awning came into view as I crossed the intersection of Main Street and Orchard Lane, familiar faces bustling in and out for their morning fix as I approached .

“Morning, Charlie!” Mrs. Henderson shouted as she made a beeline for me. “Good to have you back in town, dear.”

Her bright smile and floral perfume enveloped me as she pulled me into a hug. Her silver-streaked auburn hair tickled my nose.

“Thank you, Mrs. Henderson.” I stepped back from her embrace, adjusting my backpack strap. “It’s nice to be home.”

Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she patted my arm.

“You know, I’ve got an opening at the Harbor Pantry if you’re looking for work.

Just lost my morning cashier to college out west.” She leaned in closer, her floral perfume mixing with the scent of her morning coffee.

“Pay’s better than minimum wage, and you’d get first pick of the day-old pastries. ”

Yum.

“That’s really kind of you to offer.” I forced a polite smile, channeling my inner Emma Everton grace. “But I actually have some other projects I’m focusing on right now.”

Mrs. Henderson’s bangles jingled as she waved off my response. “Well, the offer stands if you change your mind, dear. Your mother says you’re still figuring things out after graduation.”

Still figuring things out? More like trying to figure out how to tell everyone I’m a writer without hearing ‘but what’s your real job going to be?’

The bell above the door chimed, stealing both our attention as Mr. Henderson met his wife on the sidewalk. “Here. You forgot your cronut.”

My stomach did a funny little flip watching Mr. and Mrs. Henderson share a quick peck. Even after fifty years of marriage, they still looked at each other like teenagers stealing kisses behind the bleachers. Love like that made my writer’s heart swoon.

“Ms. Everton,” Mr. Henderson said by way of greeting.

In addition to owning the only grocery store within a twenty-mile radius, they also ran the farm that sat on the property just across the major country road that split Sable Point in half.

On one side, there was Ever Eden Orchard.

On the other side, there was the Henderson farm.

At the end of the road had once been Vintage Point Vineyards—now defunct, thanks to the Belmonte scandal.

Together, our three families made up the economic triangle of Sable Point, and I worried what Tessa’s father’s shady dealings might still unravel.

“We’ve got an opening over at the stor?—”

Mrs. Henderson swatted her husband in the chest.

“I already asked her. Give the girl some space.”

The lines around Mr. Henderson’s eyes deepened as he frowned.

“Christ, alright.”

My backpack strap dug into my shoulder as I shifted my weight, desperate for an escape. The Hendersons meant well—everyone in Sable Point meant well—but if one more person asked about my post-graduation plans, I might scream. Or cry. Or both.

“I’m going to grab a coffee,” I said, hoping to break free from this sweet but repetitive conversation. . “I’ll see you both later.”

I waved over my shoulder and stepped into the coffee shop, hoping for a quiet corner to hunker down and edit, but the moment I crossed the threshold, I knew I’d made a mistake.

The espresso machine hissed, steaming milk for a latte.

Someone near the counter let out a loud, hacking laugh, the kind that made my shoulders tighten.

Near the window, a pair of old men debated the weather with the intensity of meteorologists, their words punctuated by the occasional slap of a newspaper against the table.

Behind me, a toddler banged a plastic spoon against his high chair like a tiny, sugar-fueled drummer.

I sighed, gripping the straps of my backpack tighter. Peace, quiet, the ability to hear my own thoughts—apparently, those things didn’t exist here, either.

I ordered my iced latte to go and set off for stop number two: Books and Crannies.

Unfortunately, it meant walking past Callaghan’s bar and now I was sweating again, but it wasn’t from the heat.

In an attempt to put distance between myself and the older man plaguing my inexperienced thoughts, I crossed the street at the next crosswalk, eyes darting back to the side I’d come from as I passed the bar.

It was still dark inside, the neon Open sign flicked off.

My traitorous mind wondered if he was up in that apartment above, maybe fresh from the shower...

Stop it, Charlie.

But there was just something about him—the way his white hair caught the light, how his shoulders filled out his t-shirt, the little smirk he wore when he called me ‘pretty girl.’

God, what was wrong with me? He was old enough to be.

.. well, my brother. And yet here I was, crossing the street like a coward because I couldn’t trust myself to walk past his bar without turning into a complete mess.

Tessa would probably say something about age being just a number, but she had also fake-married my brother, so her judgment was questionable at best .

I picked up my pace, desperate to escape these unwanted thoughts. The familiar storefronts of Main Street blurred past, my focus turned inward instead of watching the busy sidewalk ahead.

I slammed straight into a solid mass of muscle. A masculine grunt echoed my startled yelp as I stumbled backward, my backpack swinging wildly. Strong hands gripped my shoulders, steadying me before I could fall on my butt in the middle of the street and spill my precious nectar of the gods.

Shoot! I’d been so lost in my head I’d literally walked right into someone.

Nope. Not just someone.

Kai Callaghan.