Truck Stop Tango

by Daniels, Krissy

  We’d been damn lucky to avoid any backlash after dragging my pregnant friend out of their clutches. If we hadn’t checked Addy into the hospital under my name, they would’ve found her, and who knows where Rocky would’ve ended up, or if he would’ve survived.

  I needed to hug my boy. Hold him tight and never let go. As soon as I finalized the sale of The Stop, I would be on my way. I dialed Tucker’s number and Rocky answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Mom!”

  “Hi, Rocky. Do you miss me yet?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you danced today?”

  “Yep. I danced with Grandma. She’s not as fun as you, but I taught her how to do our booty shake.”

  “Did you?”

  “She said I was silly.”

  “Will you dance with me now? I miss you, and I don’t have anyone to dance with.”

  “Okay. Ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  I kicked my slippers off and jumped to my feet. Rocky hummed a tune I didn’t recognize, and I danced around my room, shaking my head and ass, tossing my hair and flailing my arms. If anyone were watching, they’d think I’d been possessed. Rocky sang until he was breathless.

  “Did you dance, Mom?”

  I caught my breath and fell across my mattress. “Yes, baby. That felt good. I needed that.”

  “I gotta go. Grandma says dinner is ready. She makes the best noodles and cheese. She puts pepperoni in it.”

  “Okay, have a good dinner. I love you, Rocky.”

  “I love you too, Mom. And tell Tango I can’t wait to play football with him again.”

  He may as well have punched me in the gut. “Goodnight. I’ll see you in a few days.” I ended the call and tucked my phone under the pillow.

  Folding my comforter over my body, I rolled to my side. It hurt thinking about Tango. My heart ached more than it should. My blood pumped harder, too, especially between my legs. I hated how he affected me that way. Worse yet? I missed him. I wanted to talk to him about my problems. Only, he was my problem.

  I buried my face in my pillow and screamed. I had to stop this. Tango Rossi was not mine. I had to get him out of my head.

  I needed to hate him. Couldn’t afford to love him anymore. It made me vulnerable. Made me drop my guard. If he knew that Rocky was his son, he’d take him away. It’d put not only me in danger, but my father, his wife, and my brother.

  I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep.

  “Let go of me, you fucking bitch. Do not take me to the hospital. They’ll find us. They’ll kill all of you. Ow. Oh God, it hurts.”

  “Shhh … calm down, Addy. You’re in labor.”

  I don’t want this. It hurts, Slade. Make it stop. Kill me. If you ever loved me, you’ll kill me now. I can’t be a mom. I can’t do it.”

  “It’ll be okay, Addy. We’ll take care of you.”

  “You stupid fucking bitch. They won’t let me go. They’ll find me. If they think I ran away…” She hunched over, digging her nails into my wrists. “Oh God, it hurts so bad. I can’t do this. I can’t. Let me out of the car. Stop the fucking car.”

  We pulled up to the emergency room doors. Addy shoved her hand into my hair and pulled hard. Her eyes danced in their sockets, frantic with fear and pain. “I hate you. I hate you for doing this to me. They’ll find me. They will hunt you down and kill you.” She held me tight, forcing my head back. Then, she started to laugh. “You think you’re helping? I don’t need to be rescued. They’ll take care of me.”

  She wasn’t the Addison I grew up with. I couldn’t imagine what they’d done to her over the past few months. The girl was not sane. Her eyes were vacant. Where her bright spirit used to shine, there was nothing but a dull shell of the girl I used to love. I pulled at her arm, but she wouldn’t loosen her grip on my hair. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Addy. Let’s get you inside. You’ll see. Everything will be better. We just have to make sure the baby is okay.”

  “I don’t want this baby!” she screamed. “It can fucking die for all I care. They’ll sell it anyway. Or kill it. One less Rossi in the world.”

  Her harsh remarks unhinged me, and I had no doubt that her unborn child was in grave danger. Refusing to listen to another word, I snapped my free hand back, curled my fist like Tango had taught me, and punched Addison Reynolds in the face, knocking her unconscious.

  “UGH,” I MOANED. “What a long day.”

  I finished dividing tips and laid them on the counter for Charlie and Kim. I was just about to lock the door when Tango barreled through with a clumsy sway to his step. When he locked eyes with mine, my knees gave out, and I gripped the counter for purchase.

  His face. His beautiful face. Swollen. Bruised. Battered.

  Hatred and disgust burned behind his haunting glare.

  Oh shit. My stomach rolled in warning. Before I could retreat, and damn did I want to slink away, his large hand wrapped around my upper arm. “You’re coming with me.” His breath reeked of liquor. His bloodshot eyes looked right through me.

  Ignoring Charlie and Kim altogether, Tango pulled me into my office and slammed the door behind us. “No more lies. Tell me what the fuck is going on.” He tossed a file folder at me, and papers spread across the floor at my feet.

  Self-preservation urged me to back away. My calf hit the front of the couch and I fell onto it, losing any chance of standing my ground and putting on a brave face. He leaned over me, pounding his fists against the cushions.

  I folded into myself. The only other time I’d seen Tango drunk was the night he broke my heart. I hadn’t a clue what he was capable of in his inebriated state.

  “You’re scaring me, Tango.”

  “You haven’t seen scary.” He retrieved a photo off the floor and held it at eye level. “But you will if you don’t explain this.”

  I snatched the grainy print from his hand. Addison’s bruised and scarred face glared up at me. Oh God. My life was over. He knew. The room spun around me and my chest constricted, stealing my vital oxygen.

  “Tango.”

  “Explain!” he shouted, spraying spittle on my face.

  “I. I. Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” I’d lose everything. My son, my home, my diner. I would go to prison. What would happen to my father and Lettie?

  “Sorry for what, Slade? Say it. Goddamn you, say it!”

  “I did it for you!” I screamed, losing my battle of nerves. “Addy was crazy, fucked in the head. She wanted to get rid of Rocky. I had to protect your son. Addy wanted him gone. Your mother wanted him dead. I protected him.”

  “And you couldn’t fucking tell me? Why?”

  “Because I thought I’d killed Walter.” The room spun around me. “Because I lied to the hospital. I gave them my information instead of Addy’s. I didn’t want the club finding her. Then Lettie and James covered for me. I didn’t want them to get in trouble. They were only protecting Rocky. I thought Addy would come to her senses and that we could reach out to you, but the second I took my eyes off her, she disappeared. She ran right back to those sick fucks. And they killed her. Tango. They killed her, just like they would’ve killed Rocky.”

  Tango stood straight and stumbled backward until he hit the wall. Wild-eyed, he scuffed his hands across his scalp and slid down the rough wood, dropping to his ass. “Am I supposed to thank you?” He fisted his hair and dropped his gaze to the pile of papers. “You stole my child. You kept him from me, for years. Am I supposed to be grateful to you? What the fuck were you thinking?”

  If ever I’d wished for a black hole to open up and suck me into oblivion, that would be the day. Tango had been angry with me before, in the past, on more than one occasion, but never to the point where I’d feared retribution.

  “I was scared. I had to protect James and Lettie. And I fell in love with Rocky. I fell in love with him, and I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone taking him away from me. I know what I did was wrong. It’s been eating me alive all this time. But I’d do it aga
in. I’d save him again. I would die for that boy.”

  “My mother wouldn’t turn away her grandchild. She was cold, but not heartless.”

  Oh shit. He’d just lost his mother. How could I reveal her ugliness? I slid off the couch and crawled over to him. God, how I wanted to touch him. “Your mother gave Addy money for an abortion, set the appointment and everything. I talked Addy out of it. When Marta found out, she was irate, kept calling, threatening to send Addy away if she didn’t go through with it, calling the baby an abomination.”

  “No.” His face crumpled. “Why would she do that?” he asked, shaking his head back and forth. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  I pulled his trembling hand into my own and stroked his long fingers. “I took Addy with me to Montana to get her away from your mom. I’d only recently found my Dad. He took us in. Somehow, Addy’s uncle found us. I don’t know what he said to Addison, but she left with him. I searched for months.”

  Tango bounced his head against the wall, crazed and oozing anguish. “How the hell does Dane play into this?”

  “Dane wanted her away from the club. He knew what they were doing to her, what Walter was forcing her to do. We planned for weeks, waiting for an opening, for a chance to pull her out of there. When we’d finally caught a break, it was too late.”

  Tango jerked his hand from under mine and pushed to his feet. He moved to the opposite corner of the room, pressed his head against the wall, and screamed into his hands. My heart shattered, exploding into jagged shards and piercing every nerve in my body.

  “My God,” he cried, shoulders trembling. “He’s my son, and you stole him. You should have told me, Slade. You, more than anyone, should have told me.” He turned to face me, his thick lashes clumped and wet.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I stepped closer. Tango moved away. “I tried, once. I tried to find you. Before everything got out of hand. But you weren’t in Texas, and your parents wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone.”

  “You didn’t try hard enough,” he said, low and menacing, pointing his finger as if he wanted to stab me through the heart. “I’m taking my boy, Slade.”

  “No. You can’t. Please. He’s all I have. You can’t do that to him. Please.” I ran to him and gripped his shirt, desperate to make him listen. “We’ll figure something out; just don’t take him. He’s all I have.”

  Long, trembling fingers tightened painfully around my wrists. He turned, taking me with him, and flattened me against the wall. Tears rolled down his face. I wanted desperately to wipe them away. To erase everything.

  “He’s all I have left of you.” I sobbed, sagging against him.

  Tango slid a hand around my throat, then up to my jaw, forcing me to lift my face and meet his deadly glare. “You could’ve had me. You could’ve had me and my son. You should’ve trusted me, Slade.”

  He squeezed hard enough that a surge of panic pulsed through me. Slamming his eyes closed, he yelled “fuck” against my lips, and let me go. “I need air,” he murmured, stumbling backward, then heading for the door. “I can’t fucking breathe.”

  Slade stole my breath. Deadly pissed as I was, her mere presence sucked the oxygen from my lungs.

  Highlighted by the dusty glow of the moon, her blonde hair lay fanned across the dark blue pillow, reminding me of angel wings. How deceiving. That beauty, the girl I’d once considered mine, was no angel. Divine beings didn’t steal babies and claim them as their own.

  A sliver of conscience urged me to comfort her—muscle memory, I supposed. Tenderness was the last thing I had to offer. Instead, I hid in the shadows and watched her bleed. Reveled in the knowledge that I wasn’t suffering alone. Fuck, my heart was hemorrhaging.

  When she cried her last tear and gave in to exhaustion, I settled on the floor next to her and leaned against the small bed frame. The room smelled of musty shoes and the beach. I wondered if that was a usual scent for a child’s room, or unique to my son.

  My son.

  Fucking hell.

  I had a child.

  I turned around and slapped Slade on the ass. “Wake up.”

  She flew to the sitting position, kicking my shoulder in the process. “Ow. Shit.” She grabbed her toe and rocked on the bed. “Jeez, Tango. What? You scared the hell out of me.”

  I snatched her phone off the nightstand and tossed it on the bed. “Call them. Tell them to bring Rocky home.”

  “What? No. No,” she argued, swiping at the hair on her face. “He has a few days left. Let him enjoy them before you rip his world apart.”

  “Before I rip his world apart? Don’t pull that shit with me.” I stood and paced the room twice, then sat next to her. “I’ve missed five years. Bring him home. Don’t make me wait another goddamned day.”

  “What are you gonna do, Tango? Tell him you’re his father? Take him away from his mother, drag him to New York?”

  The bite in her tone pissed me off. Had I not been on the downswing of drunk, I would’ve controlled my emotions, but this had been one shit-storm of a day and she’d plucked the wrong nerve.

  I leaned in, too close for comfort, hoping to inject the fear of God into her. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do. The only thing I know is that I have a child. I am his father, and he’ll damn well know it. No matter how this shit plays out, he’ll know who his father is. Don’t fight me on this. You’re lucky your ass isn’t sitting in jail right now.”

  She held my gaze, her red-rimmed, swollen eyes thick and glossy with unshed tears.

  “Pick up the phone and call them. Now.”

  Slade stretched a trembling hand across the mattress to find her cell. “What do I tell them?”

  “The truth.”

  Lifting the phone, she paused, then tucked it against her chest. “Tango. Please, do what you have to with me. Just don’t bring them into it. They’re good people. They love Rocky so much. Please, hurt me if you need to. Not them. They were only trying to help. I sucked them into the lie.”

  “Shut up. Stop talking, and dial.”

  Slade made the call, talked to her father, James, for half an hour. She cried, apologized, reassured him everything would be okay.

  My heart raced, like it wanted to fly.

  “No,” she whispered into the phone, wiping her eyes. “Tango won’t do anything to hurt Rocky. He’s drunk right now, and angry, but he’s a good man.”

  I huffed. Good man? She didn’t have a clue what I was capable of.

  Turning her back to me, she mumbled, “Yes. I trust him.”

  I watched her shoulders slump, her body crumple to the floor.

  “I love you, too. Good night.”

  Her cell hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud. On hands and knees she made her way back to the bed, curled under the blue and silver comforter and pulled it over her head. “Tucker will bring him home first thing in the morning.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you found your father?” I asked, collapsing onto the bed beside her.

  “I don’t want to talk right now.”

  “I need this. Talk me down, like only you can. My head and heart are buzzing so hard I want to hurt someone. Please.”

  “I didn’t tell you because it didn’t concern you. And I couldn’t afford to give you any more of myself. I didn’t want to let you in, because it would hurt all the more when you left again.”

  Bullshit. She’d only been trying to cover her lies. I didn’t voice my opinion. Instead, I asked, “How did you find him?”

  Head still buried, Slade told me the story. “I found a box of photos. There were pictures of a man. A lot of them. They weren’t dated, but they were taken at The Stop before the new highway was built. James stood in front of his eighteen-wheeler in most of them. The Slade Trucking logo stood out. I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. Slade? I mean, seriously, who names a girl Slade? Mom must’ve had it bad for him, huh?”

  “So you hunted him down.”

  “I did,” she mumbled.

&nbs
p; “How did he take it?”

  Slade shifted under the blanket. “He knew about me. He wasn’t surprised when I reached out to him.”

  “No?”

  “He’d told his wife years ago about his affair with my mom. She’d actually encouraged him to look me up. He never did, but I’m not sure why.”

  Interesting. Our fathers had something in common. Unfaithful, fucking bastards. “He’d cheated on her, and she forgave him?”

  “Apparently,” Slade answered on a sigh.

  “And she put her job, her life, on the line to help you and Rocky?”

  “I told you, they are good people.” Slade curled the comforter away from her face. “Tango?”

  “Yeah?” I asked, avoiding eye contact.

  “What are you going to do?” She sniffed, and I suspected, if I had it in me to look, I’d find a new wave of tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Still, I lacked the compassion to care. “I don’t know, babylove. I don’t know. Right now, I want to sleep.”

  “Do you hate me?” she asked, voice trembling.

  I rolled to my side, away from Slade, and studied the blanket of stars out the window. “There are no words for what I’m feeling right now.”

  “MOM!” ROCKY SLAMMED against my chest, coiling his arms so tight around my neck I struggled to breathe.

  “Hi, sweetie. I missed you so much.”

  “Me too.” Rocky squeezed tighter, then gasped and wiggled free of my embrace. “Tango!”

  I turned. Tango stood in the doorway, disheveled and looking like he’d survived a ride in a tornado. His hair stuck out every direction, his wrinkled shirt was half-tucked into his jeans. His bloodshot eyes, full of emotion I couldn’t decipher, locked onto my boy, who ran toward him in a full sprint.

  Rocky bounced up the steps and jumped into his arms. When Tango hugged him tight and buried his face in Rocky’s neck, I fell to my knees, no longer able to bear the weight of my grief and worry. Tango’s shoulders heaved, as if he were sobbing, and he turned and carried his son into the dark shadows of my house.