Riptide (A Renegades Novel)

by Skye Jordan

  “We haven’t yet,” she told the women. “It’s sort of”—impossible—“tough.”

  “One of my friends told me about a service that you can hire to have someone fly with your child if you can’t be there,” Rubi said.

  “Really?” Tessa said while her internal thoughts ran more along the lines of over my dead body. “That’s interesting.”

  “We don’t need a service,” Lexi said. “With the way we all travel, we could just arrange Sophia’s visit around our flight schedules.”

  “Oh my God,” Rubi said, with a roll of her eyes. “Do you even realize what a chick magnet that little angel will be?”

  The others concurred and laughed, but Tessa didn’t like the ownership they were all taking over Sophia already. She felt like she was getting squeezed out of her life, and she wasn’t even gone yet. Tessa could easily see how it wouldn’t be long before Sophia would crave the excitement and fun of this crowd to the company of her overworked, boring mother.

  “The first part of summer would be a great time,” Grace said. “Zach won’t start filming next season until late July, and Los Angeles has a million different opportunities for children. I run several different camps for kids—cheerleading, tap, modern dance, theater production. And that doesn’t begin to touch on all the others around the area—science, art. I think NASA even runs an astronaut camp in Hermosa Beach.”

  A little competitive streak flared, but she toned it down with a conversational “DC is like that too. There’s always something going on at the various museums—Air and Space Museum, Natural History Museum, even the Botanical Garden. And the Smithsonian offers amazing classes and camps all summer long—history, archeology, art…”

  She trailed off when their semi-blank looks registered. Looks that made Tessa realize that archeology and history couldn’t measure up to the fun factor in the beachy art camps given in California. But this wasn’t about Tessa. This was about Sophia.

  “I’m sure Sophia will have fun wherever she is,” Tessa said. “And I really appreciate how welcoming you’ve all been.”

  “We’re family,” Grace said with a warm smile before reaching out and squeezing Tessa’s hand.

  Her phone buzzed, and Gordon’s name came up on the screen. Tessa’s stomach coiled a little tighter. That couldn’t be good. She offered a polite “Excuse me,” picked up the phone, and wandered to a quiet corner of the deck.

  “Hey,” she answered. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m fine, thank you for asking,” Gordon said. “How’s my little cupcake—oh. Well, she sounds like she’s having a grand time.”

  Tessa glanced toward the pool, where Zach held her by the hands and spun her in circles in the water. Sophia was squealing with glee.

  “She is,” Tessa said. “What’s going on there?”

  “Word on the Hill is that Senator Styles won’t be backing Veterans Reform.”

  “What? Why? Where did you hear that? I talked with him two weeks ago, and he was firmly on board.”

  “I met a Tinder date at Bullfeathers earlier and ran into Jeremy.”

  Jeremy was Styles’s chief of staff. Tessa’s frustration rose. “Jeremy was in my meeting with Styles, totally hyping the merits of the bill.”

  “He’s still in favor, but he told me Rx Advantage approached Styles.”

  Tessa’s breath whooshed out. Her eyes closed, and dread weighted her gut. “With what? Why? We came to an agreement with them months ago.”

  “I only know they offered Styles a huge investment in his election campaign next year if he pulls support from Veterans Reform.”

  Her eyes fell closed. “Shit,” she whispered against her fingers. If they hit up Styles, they’d hit up others. “Why are they going around causing trouble now?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  Her phone buzzed. She pulled it away and saw another call coming in. “Guess who’s on the other line?”

  “Steven.”

  “Rat bastard. I’ll call you back.” She disconnected from Gordon and took the incoming call from Steven, an Rx Advantage lobbyist. “Steven,” she said, forcing her tone to be congenial but determined. “I hear you’ve been skulking around the Hill.”

  “Skulking?” he asked, his voice smug. “I don’t skulk.”

  “What do you call pulling Styles’s vote away from Veterans Reform?”

  “A deal.”

  “You mean like the deal we made months ago? The deal that said you were on board with this bill?”

  “A deal is no longer a deal when one side reneges. And I understand Veterans Affairs plans to lower their members’ pharmaceutical copay to a big fat zero.”

  “What? No. Didn’t you get the newest version of the bill? Everyone agreed to a ten percent copay.”

  “I heard this straight from House Committee Chairman Collin Rice’s chief of staff. If you haven’t heard from Daryl yet, I assume you’ll be hearing from him soon.”

  Holy. Shit.

  She shifted to damage control. “Look, I’ll talk to Daryl and Chairman Rice. I don’t know where this came from, but I’ll get this back in line. Just stop pulling votes out from under me until I can work on this.”

  “You do your job, Tessa,” he told her, “and I’ll do mine.”

  And he disconnected.

  “Mother—” She kept the curse inside her, but at great expense to her anxiety levels. She was so sick of this. And angry she had to fight so hard for a place where she could make enough money to support herself while still being there to raise Sophia.

  “Mommy,” Sophia called from the pool. “Watch.”

  She was standing on the end of the diving board, and the sight shot fear through her chest. Sophia hadn’t graduated to the diving board yet. Before she could pull in a breath to tell her daughter to wait, Sophia lifted her arms, tented her hands and bent, then pushed into the water, where Zach waited nearby to scoop her up if needed. But Sophia’s dive had been perfect.

  Tessa exhaled in relief, her hand on her heart. She met Zach and Sophia at the edge of the pool. “That was beautiful. I didn’t know you were learning that in lessons.”

  “I’m not. Daddy taught me.”

  Her gaze skipped from Sophia’s face to Zach’s. His grin was bright and proud.

  “I’m fucking crazy about you.”

  Sophia disappeared underwater and zipped back and forth along the wall at the shallow end.

  “What’s going on?” Zach asked, his smile dimming.

  “Just more work fires I need to smother.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He glanced toward Sophia. “We’ll dry off and—”

  “You don’t have to leave. Stay and have fun. I’m going to head over to the attorney’s office and make some conference calls. Do you want me to come back by and pick you up?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll have one of the guys take us back to the condo.”

  “Thanks. Sorry to leave so soon.”

  He used his arms to pull himself halfway out of the water, rested on one elbow and took her chin in his free hand. He pulled her in for a kiss. “It’s fine.” He kissed her again. “Go put out your fires. When you get home, we’ll start a few of our own.”

  19

  “This is such bullshit,” Tessa told Gordon over the speaker in the rental car as she made her way back to the condo. “Two weeks ago, I was sure I had this bill in the bag.”

  “Shit always flies at the last minute.”

  It did. And she’d always handled it. But this time…this was bullshit on a whole different level. And this time, the bullshit wasn’t just affecting her. It was going to affect Sophia. Tessa’s whole damn world looked different than it had two weeks ago.

  “What was Styles’s bottom line?” Gordon asked. “They all have one.”

  The question made her teeth clench. Tessa stopped at a red light and wrung her hands on the steering wheel. “The firm. I had to promise to take him on as a client.”

  “You didn’t,” Gordon said with sin
cere dread.

  Her stomach swirled with frustration. “I did.”

  “Did he accept it? Is he giving us his vote?”

  “He is.” But the victory felt hollow.

  “Jesus Christ,” Gordon breathed. “James going to shit a brick.”

  Yes, her boss, one of the firm’s largest partners, would be royally bent out of shape. Clients like Styles shifted James’ view of what the firm stood for. But Tessa would deal with it, the way she dealt with everything. Because if Styles didn’t vote for the bill, several other politicians would hold their vote back as well. And if this bill didn’t pass, tens of thousands of veterans wouldn’t get the care they needed, the care they deserved. And Tessa wouldn’t be getting that promotion, that pay increase, or that flexible schedule. Which meant the bullshit Tessa dealt with every day would end up hurting Sophia. And she wouldn’t let that happen.

  “As a fourth-generation vet, he’ll deal with it.” The light turned green, and Tessa drove the final two blocks to the condo. “He wants this bill as badly as the rest of us. He’ll do what he needs to do just like I will.”

  “Goddammit,” Gordon complained. “People suck.”

  Tessa knew he was referring to politicians on the Hill. And after years of slogging through the muck, she’d have to agree. People did suck.

  “I’m fucking crazy about you.” Zach’s words dissolved Tessa’s frustration. Some people sucked. But Tessa still had Zach and Sophia in her corner.

  There were countless times she’d wanted to throw in the towel over the last couple of years—when Corinne had told her she’d been hiding her cancer. When she’d sprung the news of her death sentence on Tessa along with Sophia’s care. When Tessa’s boyfriend had dumped her. When her previous firm had taken her partnership off the table because she couldn’t continue to give them five hundred percent of herself.

  The scheming, manipulative, two-faced, narcissistic shit she dealt with to get laws passed was just part of the job. The fabric of her everyday professional life. Something she accepted and dealt with for the greater good. As long as Tessa could keep a wall between that scheming, manipulative, two-faced, narcissistic bull and Sophia, she’d continue to handle it.

  “I’m sorry, Tess,” Gordon offered. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground here and let you know if anything changes.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for all you’ve done while I’ve been gone,” she told him. “Really. You’ve been a godsend.”

  “Wish I could send a couple of angels your way now.”

  Sophia and Zach came to mind, making Tessa crack a smile. “I think I’ve got a couple in my pocket.”

  She parked, turned off the engine, and sat in the quiet for a moment to level herself. To transition back into the real world.

  “I’m fucking crazy about you.” Remembering his words and the passion behind them made Tessa smile. Made her hope. Made her see the glimmer of a silver lining on the cloud of failure that had been hovering above her head, waiting to break.

  “I’m ready.” The words dissipated in the quiet car, but that didn’t diminish the surety they brought to her soul.

  She was ready for something different. Something more. The threat of having all she’d worked and sacrificed for torn away was the last straw. And she was crazy about Zach too. Crazy enough to entertain all sorts of alternate scenarios to her present life.

  She was both buoyed and exhausted by the thought of more changes in her near future. But she stood from the car with solid hopes of Zach lending all that awesome strength to help her through.

  She moved quietly up the stairs, sure Sophia would be asleep by now. Judging by the way her daughter had gleefully waved good-bye to Tessa, she didn’t envision chaos waiting. The memory of just how easily Sophia had let go was a sharp double-edged sword. But she pushed away her fears of losing her daughter to Zach and his friends as she entered the condo.

  One glance around at the orderly state of the apartment and Tessa’s stress eased. She slipped off her shoes and set her briefcase on the sofa as she continued toward the bedrooms. Pausing at the door to her room, she laid a gentle hand on the wood and eased it open to peek in. She’d expected to see Zach lying with Sophia, but her daughter was curled on her side, sleeping alone in the big bed, clutching her Pegasus.

  Tessa checked the room across the hall, but it was empty.

  A sting of uncertainty tugged in her belly. She scanned the living area again, starting toward the kitchen. That was when she heard voices. Zach’s and…a woman’s. She moved that direction, expecting to find Lexi, Rubi, or Grace who’d come along to help him put Sophia to bed, but she was wrong again. He was talking on the phone, which was on speaker.

  Her mind brought up the memory of the women who had approached them at the beach, and her insecurities snuck in. Maybe Tessa had misconstrued his “crazy about you” comment. Maybe he was crazy about a lot of women.

  She paused near the door and lifted her hand to knock against the jamb to tell him she was home, but hesitated as she scanned him from the top of his blonde head to the bottom of his bare feet. He was in a familiar wardrobe of board shorts and a T-shirt. The sight comforted her. No suit. No shiny shoes. No fancy briefcase. Tessa hadn’t realized just how attractive that was or how badly she’d been craving a different kind of man from those she’d been living and working with until this very minute.

  “I’ve consulted with a number of colleagues, from child psychologists to judges.” The female voice sliced into Tessa’s sweet moment. It was familiar. The same woman he’d been talking to when she’d gone to his room at the hotel—his sister. “And I’ve thoroughly investigated the law with your unique situation in mind. By all accounts, you have every right to custody of Sophia.”

  What? Shock slammed Tessa. Her mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. This either wasn’t his sister, or his sister was an attorney, not getting her masters in clinical psychology.

  “I would suggest going for partial custody, initially,” the woman said, her cool business tone leading Tessa to believe the prior. “Now is the time to build up a track record of caring for Sophia and building a solid relationship with Tessa.”

  Zach didn’t respond.

  Terror snuck into Tessa’s shock. She gritted her teeth, willing him to say something—anything—to make her believe she wasn’t hearing what she thought she was hearing.

  He finally sighed, shifted on his feet and muttered, “Okay, but—”

  “You’ve done the groundwork perfectly. You’ve gotten past Tessa’s initial barriers. You’ve shown her you can handle caring for Sophia and that you can be trusted with her. And you’ve done it in an environment where others can vouch for you.”

  Tessa’s heart turned to rock. Her hands coiled into fists.

  “Now, just stay on Tessa’s good side. Work out something amiable for the immediate future. This will be a process, but after a year or two of consistency, we can go back to court and petition for you to take full custody in time for Sophia to enter kindergarten.”

  Tessa’s entire body vibrated with anger. And fear. A fear that knowing her legal rights couldn’t calm.

  “Uh, look,” Zach said. “Things are pretty up in the air right now, but this is all good information. I appreciate you looking into this for me and for all the research you’ve done.”

  “My pleasure. I’m always gratified when I can reunite a child with their father.”

  Tessa bit her lip in an effort to control the hysteria bubbling beneath the surface.

  Zach thanked the attorney again, who added, “Well, you know how to get ahold of me when you’re ready to move forward. Jax has me on retainer, and he’s made it clear he’ll cover any legal costs involved in the custody arrangement. So don’t hesitate to call.”

  Zach thanked her, disconnected, and leaned his forearms on the railing, staring out at the ocean.

  So many emotions roiled inside Tessa, she didn’t know which to grab on to first. She crossed her arms tight over her mi
ddle, fisted her hands, and searched for her barriers. But they were all shredded.

  Zach turned toward the condo and froze. “Oh. Hi.” He darted a look behind her, then back. “I didn’t hear you.” He scanned her expression and lifted his hands, palms out. “Okay, I can imagine how that conversation sounded, but—”

  “That’s the same woman you were talking to when I came over to your hotel.” She crossed her arms. “So which story was the lie? That she’s your sister, or that your sister is getting her masters in clinical psychology?”

  Zach pushed the screen aside and stepped into the house. “I didn’t hire her—”

  “How long?” Despite the fear and pain and panic whipping up inside her, Tessa’s voice came out cold and dead. “Why didn’t you tell me you were consulting with an attorney?”

  “Don’t make this more than it is. Jax hired her for me so I’d have someone to talk to.”

  “You could have talked to me. I’ve been totally open with you. Totally honest. You should have talked to me.”

  “I know that now, but I didn’t know that in the beginning.”

  “Yet, here you are, still taking her advice.”

  “Tessa, be reasonable. You’re an attorney. You had an attorney draw up those papers for you. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t consult with her.”

  “I didn’t do it behind your back. And I didn’t conspire with her to take Sophia away from you. Once I discovered the truth of your situation, I never even considered taking Sophia from you.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You don’t give a shit about me.” The truth of it felt like a hammer in her gut. “You’ve only been with me because you thought that was your best avenue to Sophia.”

  “No.” His denial was quick and deliberate. “That’s not true.”

  She shrugged and shook her head. “And why would I believe you? You lied about who you were talking to on the phone. You met with this attorney behind my back. You’re conspiring to sue for custody—”

  “I’m not.”