Texan Home- Innocence

Chapter Eight

Hank and Lizzie both made it up to the beach house, they took a cab from the airport and arrived at the house at five o'clock. It was a long plane ride and they were both kind of tired but they went into the house with smiles on anyway. Lizzie opened the door with the key she had taken with her from the ranch while Hank brought in their bags. Lizzie saw Charlie in the kitchen and he smiled when he saw her walk through the door. Lizzie smiled big and brightly as she walked over to her father with open arms, 

"Hi Daddy!" she said with a childish expression while giving him a hug. 

"Oh my goodness is that Honey? My little honey, I can't believe how much you've grown up and you're even more beautiful then the last time I saw you." Charlie said placing a hand on her cheek. 

Lizzie smiled bigger trying to keep the tears that were forming in her eyes from falling. She didn't want to cry in front of them; she really didn't want to cry while she was on this trip but she could already feel the inevitable happening. Charlie gave her another big hug not wanting to let his daughter go again. Hank watched from the opening of the kitchen with a small smile. Charlie looked up catching Hank in his eye and he slowly pulled from his daughter to greet Hank. He gave him a strong handshake and they brought each other in for a quick hug. 

"How have you been?" he said a bit too sympathetically. 

Lizzie caught the tone in her fathers voice and looked at him strangely, Hank's eyes went from her to Charlie and he whispered his response, 

"I don't want to talk about that, she doesn't know." 

Charlie nodded, he gave him a smile and then quickly turned to his daughter with a clap of his hands and said, 

"Well, why don't we get you settled into your rooms first?" 

"Rooms? I thought there were only two bedrooms in the house?" Lizzie asked. 

"Oh we actually changed the office into another bedroom we figured it's better that way; we don't use it when we come down here anyway. Wait where did you plan on having Hank sleep?" Charlie said immediately becoming suspicious. 

"Oh well we actually talked about that, he was goin' to sleep on the couch down here and I was goin' to take the bedroom but I guess if there are two bedrooms we can just forget about that right." 

Charlie gave her a suspicious look and Lizzie smiled as if she figured out what his look was saying. Charlie shrugged his shoulders and told Hank and Lizzie to follow him. Before they headed upstairs, Charlie lead them down the hall to the first door on their right. Charlie opened the door and showed them a small but gorgeous room, it a had a small TV sitting on a night stand and a bed that could probably fit two people on it. The walls were a café brown color and the floors were hardwood like in the hall. The bed sheets were a dark brown with gold pillow cases; despite the size of the room it looked really luxurious no doubt the taste of her mother. Lizzie smiled at the room and although she liked it she was going to take the one upstairs any way, she liked looking out from the balcony in the mornings when she woke up. Charlie asked which one would stay in that room and Hank volunteered already knowing that Lizzie had her heart set on the bedroom upstairs. Hank dropped his luggage in that room before he headed upstairs with Lizzie and Charlie. Lizzie dropped her luggage in the room and came out to lean against the wall, they all spoke in low voices, 

"So how is she really?" Lizzie asked. 

Charlie looked a little sad, 

"Come on one of us was gonna to have to mention her, it's the reason I came down here anyway." Lizzie said. 

"Really? I thought you came down here for business." Charlie said trying to change the subject. 

Lizzie looked at her father knowing exactly what he was doing. He gave her a small smile, she figured that Roy may have lied to her about her mother's condition which is why she was asking.