“I have a surprise for you today.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Where I come from, surprises are never a good thing.”
He laughed, drawing my attention to his deep dimples and perfect white teeth. I’d never been so affected by a smile. People who smiled that wide usually had a hidden agenda. Not Tucker. He was truly smiling for the sake of expressing his joy.
I loved Tucker’s ear-to-ear, and damn him, it was impossible to resist the pull of my own lips in response.
“You’ll like this one, I promise.”
I believed him. Hard not to. He hadn’t done me wrong yet. And the knives? He couldn’t have given me a more perfect gift. Which reminded me…
“Tucker?”
“Hmm?” he mumbled with a mouthful of oats.
“Why the knives?”
“Why not?” was his knee-jerk response.
No buttering me up, no kissing my ass. No making himself look good with some well planned, self-exalting explanation.
“What’s the matter?” He laid his spoon down and wiped his hands on his napkin, giving me one hundred and ten percent of his attention. “Don’t like them?”
“I love them.”
Tucker stared at me long and hard, the crinkle of his eyes softening. “I knew you would.” Apparently relieved, he picked his spoon back up and got back to business.
“How’d you fit them to my hand so perfectly?”
“I have my ways,” he said to his bowl of oats.
My brain reeled. When had he taken measurements? It had to have been when I was sleeping. Unnerving, really, knowing that I’d slept sound enough for him to size my palms and fingers without me knowing. More unsettling, was the fact that I could fall into deep slumber around him. I wasn’t on my usual jagged edge. I couldn’t afford to let my guard down, yet I’d done it night after night with Tucker.
I could’ve pursued the matter. Instead, I ate my oatmeal, which, I’d decided after my first bite, I no longer hated.
“What’s my surprise?”
“Patience, Bambi.”
I gave him my stink-eye, a look that sent most cowering into dark corners. The bastard remained unaffected.
Tucker’s phone buzzed. He answered with a “What do you have for me?” His face broke out in an infectious grin. “Yeah? All good? You’re the fucking man. No words, dude. No words.”
He ended the call, practically jumped over the table, and kissed me with an air of possessiveness I couldn’t wrap my pride around.
“What was that for?” I asked, choking on my food.
“Get your shoes on. We’re going for a ride.” He shuffled into his Red Wings and grabbed his wool hat off the rack.
I waddled his way, feeding off his excitement. He helped me into my coat while I slid my feet into my snow boots.
Tucker didn’t say a word. Only grabbed my hand and guided me to his Jeep.
Twenty minutes and four country songs later, he turned up a private road littered with no trespassing signs. The sun disappeared through the thick cover of pines and reappeared when Tucker pulled into a clearing, and next to a two-story, sprawling, modern log home.
He parked, jogged to my side of the vehicle, and helped me down.
I could barely keep up as he climbed the steps to the front porch. Stomping the snow from his shoes, he pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and gestured for me to enter.
He had a key. And he was smiling like the cat that ate the canary. My stomach lurched. “Tucker.”
“Yeah, Bambi.” He shook his arm like a mad man, hurrying me through the door.
“You didn’t,” I mumbled, stepping over the Welcome Home mat.
“I most definitely did. Waited four years for this baby to hit the market.”
A gasp escaped my lips when I stepped into the open foyer. Straight ahead, a massive, open, polished wood staircase led to a balcony-style hallway with three sets of doors spread across the length of the wall. To my right, a sunken living area, the centerpiece, a wide, stone fireplace surrounded by a leather couch, and oversized matching chairs. To my left, a modern black and stainless steel, open kitchen. Behind the stairwell, a floor-to-ceiling window that opened to a giant barbecue pit. Everything in the space was large. The windows, the furniture, the ambiance.
“You bought it furnished?”
“No. Furniture arrived last week. Come upstairs,” he said, already halfway up the open, wide stairwell.
By the time I reached the top, Tucker had pushed open a set of hand-carved double doors, revealing the massive master suite. The window, opposite the door, and spreading the length of the room, overlooked a large yard, snowcapped trees, and in the distance, Lake Willow. I pressed my palms to the glass, awed by the sprawling, pristine, snow-blanketed property below.
A private, mountain oasis hidden mere minutes from town.
Warm hands slid around my stomach. A solid chest pressed against my back. Tucker buried his nose in my hair and inhaled. “Can you imagine, making love, right here, right like this, against the window?”
My knees buckled. My eyes snapped shut at the illicit thrill running through me. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” I rasped.
Tucker backed away from me. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Just do it,” he ordered, grabbing my hands and raising them to my face.
I obliged.
With one arm wrapped around my shoulder, he guided me for twenty-three paces, turning right twice. A door hinge squeaked, he pushed me ahead three more steps, then sighed, loud and hard, his chest pressing against my back.
His hands shook as they lowered mine to my sides. “Okay. Open.”
My heart beat thunderous and violent against my ribcage.
I stood inside a luxurious, white and pink, frilly and fluffy, airy and bright nursery. I half expected birds to fly through the windows and hang floral garland from end to end. The furniture was white, and clearly hand-carved, and definitely not baby store, mass market furniture. I was staring at furniture that had been designed. Planned. Furniture fit for a princess.
I knew what his gift meant. The finality. The trust. The commitment. The blind faith. I knew what the nursery meant to him. It meant next year, and the year after, and the year after that. It meant forever. A forever I didn’t know how to give.
Tucker loomed dangerously close behind me. He let out a long breath. “What do you think, Bambi?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything.” I could feel her slipping away. Retreating.
I’d known it was a crap shoot, building a room for her, for her baby. I’d known it was a risk. Yet, I needed to prove I was in for the long haul.
“Wait here,” I told her and ran downstairs to grab my cell out of the Jeep, and to take a breather, also giving her a breather. When I returned to the nursery, Aida was bent over the crib, running her fingers along the quilted bedspread. She picked up the stuffed animal I’d placed in the center—brown with white spots on its back, a butterfly on its shoulder, oversized brown eyes, and exaggerated lashes.
“It’s Bambi,” she mumbled, clutching the toy to her chest.
“C’mere.” I curled my arm around her waist, gripping her hip, and headed to the matching rockers.
I helped her sit, then dropped into the chair next to hers.
“Why two chairs?” she asked, rubbing her hands over the smooth, white stained wood.
I could’ve admitted that I wanted to be by her side while she nursed, while she rocked her princess to sleep. Instead, I answered, “Why not?”
“This is quite a surprise.”
“This isn’t the surprise.” I fired up my browser and Googled her name. “Not all of it, anyway.”
Photo after photo of Aida popped onto the screen. “This is the surprise.” I turned the phone to face her, and watched, with baited breath, while she studied the details presented. Every photo was of Aida Voltolini. None of the images looked li
ke my Aida.
“Tucker,” she said, breathless, wary. “I don’t. I mean.” She choked on a sob. “How?”
“You’re free, Aida.”
While Aida didn’t have a huge internet presence, no social media pages, no tabloid scandals, her face had shown up here and there over the years, candids that were unavoidable, especially for the daughter of an infamous crime lord who’d liked to be seen on the arms of wealthy men. However, the pictures were no longer an accurate representation of Aida. They’d been tweaked, distorted, just enough to ensure nobody could match the flat images to the flesh and blood face that sat next to me.
No fucking idea how Conner pulled it off. No clue how I’d ever repay him. We played news footage from when her father had been killed. Those images reflected a different Aida as well. Conner had worked a miracle. Good fucking guy to have in your corner.
“You did this?” she asked, voice breaking.
I nodded. Unease slithered through me at the dark set of her eyes.
“How?”
“I know a guy.”
“No more Aida Voltolini,” she mumbled, eyes glassy, unfocused. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”
“Aida. You’re free. Free to live in peace. Free to make whatever the fuck you want out of your life.”
“Tucker.” She slapped my phone into my palm.
Click. Click. Click.
Not the fucking nails. “You’re not happy.”
“I don’t know if I want to be free. I don’t know if I can give up my birthright. My name. My blood. Just like that. And how can I leave everything so open-ended? Somebody took down my father. Somebody needs to pay.” The pink in her cheeks spread. So did the fire in her eyes.
“Why?” Fuck, I was losing her.
“What do you mean, why? That’s how it works. You fuck with Luciano Voltolini, you pay. In blood.”
No. No. No. No. No. She didn’t mean it. “Aida.”
“No, Tucker.” She rose to her feet. “I know what you’re going to say. And you’re wrong. I can’t put all that behind me. I can’t forgive and forget. It’s my history. It’s my ugly, fucked up life. You can’t possibly understand. I’ve killed people for lesser crimes. I’ve carved, I’ve dismembered, I’ve choked the life out of men twice my size. I’m good at it, too.”
Aida paced the whitewashed floor, the heels of her boots loud and rhythmic in the quiet space, her fingers twisting, pulling, wringing the shape, the life, out of poor Bambi.
I was about to speak when she yelled, “God damn you, Tucker,” and threw the innocent toy across the room. “And now I’m just expected to play house? Pretend I’m sweet and innocent Aida Suarez? Sit at home, change diapers, bake cookies, while you’re off to work every day? You want me to play wife? Is that what this is about?” she asked, gesturing, quite aggressively, around the room. “Did you think I’d fall to my knees and thank you for this? For this room? For the assumption that I even wanted to shack up with you? I don’t need a fucking white knight, Tucker.” She stopped in front of the big window, one hand rubbing her belly, the other pressed to her mouth.
When she turned to face me, I could swear, her eyes glowed red. I was fucked.
“Oh my God.” She shook her head, loose waves bouncing around her face. “Oh my fucking God. It was you. You arranged my fake death.”
Fire beat my cheeks. Dread squeezed the blood from my rapidly beating heart. I could’ve easily choked out a denial. I hadn’t been the one to pull-the-plug, so to speak, regardless of my intentions. “No, Bambi. It wasn’t me.” I pushed off the rocker and retrieved the stuffed animal from the floor. With a long sigh, I confessed. “But I won’t lie. I had arranged for it to happen, only—”
“Only what?” she screamed.
“Somebody beat me to the punch.”
Her mouth dropped open. Snapped shut. Pursed. Then she shook her head, throwing her arms out wide. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That you’d be free. To live the way you deserve, the way your baby deserves.”
“That’s noble, Tuck. There’s just one problem.”
Yeah. I sure didn’t want to hear what was coming next.
“I’m not yours. My life isn’t yours. My baby. Is. Not. Yours. These huge fucking life decisions were not yours to make. You didn’t give me freedom, you took it from me. I choose my own fate. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Sure. Part of me knew she was right. Justified as her indignation was, it didn’t stop me from unleashing the alpha beast. Especially after the I’m not yours comment. ’Cause really, whether she would freely admit it or not, she was mine. Which also made her baby mine. Which, by default, made her life, mine. That’s how I was built. Not a damn thing the fiery-eyed, razor-tongued, she-devil could do to change that fact.
I tossed Bambi—the stuffed one, not the knocked-up one—back into the crib and met Aida toe to toe. Tension hung in the air, a poisonous gas, choking rational thought and gentlemanly guise from the room. “Let me tell you something, Princess. When you spread your legs for me, begged me to fuck your uptight little brains out, you gave up any right to criticize my actions, or judge my intentions. I won’t apologize for doing what needed to be done. You’re my girl. Makes you my responsibility. It’s my job to take care of you however I see fit. That’s how I’m built. Understand?”
Too late, I regretted my outburst.
“Understand this, douchebag. I’m nobody’s girl but my own.” Aida rolled up on her toes, which brought her eyes level with my chin. The devil himself couldn’t have rivaled the glare she shot me. “You’re a good fuck, Cowboy, but I’m done. We’re oil and water. It was never going to work.”
Like hell.
“You love me,” I reminded her.
Without pause, she retorted, “I told you what you wanted to hear. Only because I wasn’t ready to give up that monster cock of yours. That’s all you are to me, Tuck. A good fuck. A means to an end. Just like every other man in my life.” Aida turned and sauntered away.
I stood, dumbfounded, wounded, and breathing through the sting of that awful sucker punch.
Ugly words. That’s all they were. A ramshackle wall to guard her tender heart.
“Bullshit.” I stormed toward her, rage and pain fueling my nerves. I reached for her shoulder, to stop her, to slow her down, to pull her to me, hell, to just connect.
Wrong move, apparently. What happened next can only be described as hormone-induced fists of fury.
I woke some time later, on the floor of the nursery in my new house, with a throbbing pain in my temple. My Jeep was gone. And so was Bambi, the stuffed one, and the knocked-up one.
“NEW WAITRESS STARTING TODAY?” I asked, struggling to adjust my bra.
Slade stood in my bedroom door, looking pert as ever. Tall, lean frame. Legs that stretched to the moon. Perfect blonde hair and flawless, peachy, glowing skin. She made even the unexceptional Truck Stop uniform, red T-shirt and khakis, look amazing.
I looked down at myself and wiggled my toes. At least I could still see my feet, if I leaned forward a bit. Oh, who was I kidding? To see anything below my knees, I’d have to bend at a ninety-degree angle. I couldn’t even do that anymore. I waddled to my bed and parked my ever-expanding ass on the mattress.
“She’s starting today. Her name’s Tuuli. You’ll like her. Sweet girl.” Slade snagged my boots out of the closet and squatted at my feet to help me slip them on.
“You don’t have to do this every morning, you know.”
“I know.” Huge smiling eyes blinked up at me. “I can’t stand watching you struggle. You look like an overturned beetle trying to right itself.”
I laughed, because truly, it had to be quite the sight, me trying to bend and dress my feet. Hell. Trying to dress at all.”
“Tango said your doctor appointment went well yesterday.”
“It did. Baby is healthy. I’m healthy. Everything’s good.” Except my heart. My ticker seemed to have malfunctioned, or a
ged a thousand years, aching all the time, creaking and moaning while it pumped blood through my rusty pipes.
Slade rose to stand. I followed her gaze to Tucker’s flannel coat draped over the end of my bed. Shit. I’d meant to hide that in the back of the closet.
I ignored her eyebrow wiggle, and her infectious smile.
“You talk to him?” she asked, offering her hand to help me up.
I slapped my fingers into her palm. “No.” And then I asked the one question I didn’t want to ask, but needed answered in the worst possible way. “Have you heard from him?”
“This morning. He just got back from a run.”
My pulse quickened. A run? Or a hunt? A little thrill shot through me. Shameful, really, how the thought of Tucker rescuing young girls, possibly making their rapists bleed, or, better yet, choking the life out of the perverted fucks, made me shiver with pleasure. I’d been obsessively watching the news for reports that The Reaper had struck again.
“You ever gonna tell me what happened?” she asked.
And expose my weakness and fears? Hell to the N.O.
Could I tell her I panicked? Confess that Tucker’s gesture, the nursery, the color scheme, everything, was perfect, and the thought of living with him, raising my daughter, with Tucker, scared the ever living shit out of me? “I’m a heartless bitch, Slade. I used Tucker, led him on. He wants more than I can give.”
My only female friend crossed her arms over her chest, raised a brow, and stared me down. “You and I both know your story is bullshit.” She picked up Tucker’s jacket and tossed it at me. “Don’t worry. I won’t push the issue. He’s my brother, but you’re my friend, my sister, and we ladies need to stick together.”
Slade headed to the living room. I followed, my heart warming at her friend and especially her sister comment. For the first time, I shared a deep, soulful connection with another female. And I knew, for the first time, that I would do anything to protect our special bond.
“The baby furniture will be delivered today. I told Tango to have them set it up in your room, but if you’d rather, we can move all your stuff upstairs into the extra bedrooms. That way you and the baby can have separate space.”
Truck Stop Tryst Page 21