“You’re wrong,” Laurie shot back, but her voice now held a fast, desperate edge. Her legs started to shake.
Denise laughed and crossed her arms, letting the bottle dangle from her fingers. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong. You’re sitting with Rebecca Motherfucking Booker, all tight with her son. You’re trying to cut me out, little girl, but you cut me, and I cut back. I offered you a fair deal. I’d keep quiet about a few inconvenient facts you preferred the insurance company never know, and all I requested in return was half the money. But you’re selfish. You think you’re so much better than me. Always have. Well guess what, Lauralie, we’re exactly the same, and I’m going to make sure everybody knows it.”
She felt rather than saw everyone at the table shift their attention to her, and her cheeks burned. Booker reached Denise and took her arm. She tried to jerk away and fumbled the bottle. It crashed to the terrace and shattered.
“Godammit! Look what you made me do.”
Laurie stepped over the glass to Denise’s other side. “Booker, please.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Go back to your family. This is my mess to deal with.”
He wasn’t a man who lost his temper often, but the grim look he sent her told her he barely had a lock on it now. “This is not your mess to deal with. It never should have been, but it sure as hell isn’t anymore, and I thought we were clear on that. Apparently I was wrong.”
“Booker—”
“Sit down, Lauralie, or I’ll charge you with obstruction.” He hauled Denise around and marched her toward the terrace doors just as two members of hotel security and two deputies arrived.
“Am I under arrest?” Denise slurred.
“Hell yes,” Booker answered.
She burst into loud, dramatic sobs.
Cut, print, wrap. Scene complete. Numbness settled over her as she watched Booker hand Denise off to a young deputy. The poor kid’s expression said he’d rather touch a live rattler than touch the drunk-assed, bitch-load of crazy that was her mother, but he steered her toward the exit.
Booker spared a backward glance at the group. “Kate, Aaron, congratulations—”
“Booker, wait…” She took a hesitant step toward him, but he shook his head, turned away, and followed the deputies.
She turned to find the entire table staring at her, silent and shocked. Hot, sharp shame split the cocoon of numbness holding her together.
Get out of here. Now.
“I—I’m sorry,” she offered, and managed to propel herself forward despite her unsteady legs. “I should go.” Her purse dangled from the back of her chair—the satin bag she’d deliberately chosen so as not to offend Booker’s mom.
Good news. Your purse didn’t offend anyone.
She snatched it up and hurried toward the doors. Behind her, a voice called, “Laurie…”
Booker’s mom. She quickened her pace. By the time she reached the lobby she was running, heels skidding on the marble. The voice in her head kept repeating the same thing. Go. Go. Go.
She went, as fast as physics and speed limits allowed—almost crashing into a line of garbage bins as she took the turn into her complex—but not stopping until she closed her apartment door behind her. Then came the crash. Her, to the floor. Tears started. And once they started, she couldn’t seem to stop them. She curled up on the hardwood and sobbed into her fist until her head pounded and her lungs ached. Drained, she got to her feet.
The sofa beckoned, but as soon as she landed there everything she’d run from piled on. She shot up and walked to the window. Then back to the sofa, then to the window again.
Pacing her living room left her fidgety and exhausted, but every time she stopped moving the appalling scene from the rehearsal dinner replayed in her mind—Mommy Dearest stumbling in, spewing venom while everyone within earshot stared on in horror or fascination. Worse, the look on Booker’s face haunted her. She didn’t need to imagine what he thought of her right now. His shuttered expression told her better than words.
Her fault. She could blame Denise for being a malicious drunk, and ruining his family’s happy occasion without the slightest hesitation, but she couldn’t blame her mother for the rest. Underneath all the woman’s insults and rage lay the ugly truth.
She’d fucked up completely—even in her one noble intention of keeping Booker at a safe distance from her mistakes. Her worst-case scenarios never included watching the ticking time bomb she’d failed to defuse explode all over him. She’d known the fallout was going to hurt like hell, but she hadn’t counted on him being right there at ground zero with her while his poor family looked on.
The knowledge cut deep—past her pain, and her battered conscience, and straight to her soul. She had to fix this. Apologize. She didn’t know how, but prowling around her apartment wasn’t going to get it done. Screw it. She’d drive over to the sheriff’s department and wait. The worst he could do was send her away.
Propelled by purpose, she grabbed her purse from the floor, pulled her front door open, and…stopped short. Her heart bounced around in her chest and then sank heavily to her stomach. Booker stood there, jaw tight, eyes dark, fist lifted in mid-knock.
…
Red-rimmed eyes moved over him, wary and urgent at the same time. She stepped back and wrapped her arms around her middle, turning herself into a beautiful, devastated island. “Booker. Come in.”
He shut the door behind him and then turned to her. A part of him wanted to shake her senseless, and then do whatever it took to erase the misery from her face. But touching her now, defaulting to the one connection they had that she could never deny, avoided the real issues.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The soft words, the obvious truth in them, banked his temper—somewhat. “What, specifically, are you apologizing for, Jailbait?”
She let out a miserable laugh and flung her arm in an all-encompassing gesture. “Everything…my mother showing up drunk and ruining your sister’s rehearsal dinner.”
Yeah, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Fixating on the ruined rehearsal dinner was like fixating on the tip of an iceberg. Despite the last ten years and six weeks spent proving she could rely on him, her natural instinct when faced with a problem was still to put her guard up and block anyone who might try to help. Including him. Whether it stemmed from pride or fear didn’t much matter. It came down to a lack of trust, and if he didn’t call her on it, nothing would change. “You have no control over or responsibility for your mother’s behavior. Try again.”
She looked down, and worried her cuticle. “I’m sorry for not telling you she contacted me, and why.”
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. “Why didn’t you? We agreed your mother was a problem I could help solve. You promised to pull me in the next time she contacted you.”
Still looking down, she shrugged. “I guess you’d call it taking the fifth.”
“I don’t think that’s the reason, but we can detour there since you bring it up.” He pulled a folded document from his jacket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” Shaking fingers closed on the paper.
“The good news I had for you. The insurance company sent Nelson a copy of their report.”
She skimmed it while he waited, slowly settling on the arm of the sofa as the information sank in. Then her eyes found his. “Their investigator agreed it was an electrical short?”
He nodded. “In the circuit behind your refrigerator. Old wires serving too much voltage. The fire started behind the wall and burned up and out. It’s irrelevant whether you were in the bakery that morning, because nobody can move a thousand pound fridge, fuck with the outlet in an undetectable way, and then move it back to exactly the same footprint without leaving a single scratch or nick on the floor.”
She let out a long, shuddering breath. The report fluttered like a leaf in her hand. “I honestly didn’t have anything to do with the fire.”
“I know. I never thought you did. I never would have tho
ught otherwise, even if I’d had all the facts. Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth that morning? Who were you trying to protect?”
Stormy eyes flickered his way. “Me…and you.”
“I’m not the vulnerable one in this scenario.” He said the words firmly. “I’ve got a badge, and all the power and authority behind it. As of now your mother’s under arrest for DUI, public intoxication, trespassing, and battery. She also has an outstanding bench warrant with Los Angeles Superior Court for failing to appear in another matter, and the neighbor she ‘borrowed’ the car from reported it as stolen.” He closed in on her. “She’s out of action for a while. Longer if you tack on a blackmail charge.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Defeat dragged at her voice. “Eventually she’ll shoot out the other end of this, and she’ll be back. As long as she’s alive and kicking, I’m always going to have a target on my ass.”
The resignation in her voice rekindled his temper. “Bullshit.” The word came out. “When she shows up, I’ll bust her again. And again, if necessary. I can play that game for as long as it takes to show her there’s no winning. When I told you to let me know the next time she contacted you, that wasn’t my ego talking. I’m in a position to make it impossible for her to get to you, just by doing my job. If you’d been honest with me weeks ago, everything tonight could have been avoided.”
She prowled the room like a caged animal. “I was ashamed, all right? My mother mortifies me. The only reason Denise creeps into my life is to bleed me for money. Nothing I have is off-limits. Not my reputation. Not my business. Not my…friends. That’s the kind of person I come from. I’m ashamed of her. Worse, I’m ashamed of the level she pulls me down to every time she comes around. She threatens something I care about, and I pay. I hate the kind of person it makes me. I hate feeling weak and desperate and under her fucking thumb. I’ve spent my life keeping the whole pathetic situation out of people’s view, because…” She broke off, sagged against the wall, and rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. “You wouldn’t understand.”
His heart hurt for her, standing there with her back in a corner, looking alone and miserable. The thing to remember was she’d backed herself into that corner, and she’d have to take the steps to get herself out. Even so, he closed the distance. “You might be surprised what I understand, if you mustered up the courage to tell me.”
“How in God’s name would you understand?” Her head snapped up. “You come from a different world, Booker. The reality is you’ve never”—she swept her hand through the air, clearing an invisible surface—“never had to compromise your morals, ethics, or anything else to protect something you care about. That’s not a trust issue. It’s a simple reality.”
And there it was. The rest of the iceberg, and not a damn thing he could do to change the shape of it, because it was him. “No.” Suddenly he was bone tired. Tired of the ache in his chest and the burn in his gut. “I’ve had advantages. I can’t deny that—hell, I’m thankful for them—but I know what it means to work for something I wanted. Nobody handed me a badge. I earned it. Still, some people can’t see past the advantages. I know that, and for the most part I don’t give a shit, but I never thought you’d be one of them.”
“Booker—”
“Since you’re such a fan of reality, let me give you some more. I love you.”
She flinched. “Don’t—”
He braced his hands on the wall on either side of her head and kept talking. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you love me, too. But you don’t want to. You don’t want to be vulnerable. You don’t want to trust. At heart, you’re the same scared, defensive kid I pulled off the beach ten years ago.”
Her hand landed on his chest, over his heart, as if to protect it. She blinked, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Dammit to hell. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment, and breathed her in. Then he forced himself to straighten. “I don’t want you to be sorry, Lauralie. I want you to grow up.”
Unfortunately, only one of them could make that happen, and it wasn’t him. He only had one move left, so he made it.
He walked away.
Chapter Sixteen
Thirty minutes spent getting Maytagged in rough, five-foot surf synchronized mind and body—just not the way Laurie had hoped. She’d grabbed her board and taken refuge in the ocean at dawn, looking for an escape from the endless churn of her thoughts. Instead of emerging energized and clearheaded, she trudged up the shore utterly wrung out.
After laying her board on the sand, she sat, tugged open the neck closure on her wetsuit, and wrangled the zipper down a few inches. The efforts did little to relieve the strangled sensation plaguing her since the moment yesterday evening when Denise had stumbled into the restaurant. She rested her arms on her bent knees and squinted at the water while memories tumbled through her mind like breaking waves.
Booker accused her of being the same girl he’d dragged off this beach ten years ago, emotionally at least, but it was true in a lot of other ways, too. All the time she’d spent scraping and scrambling to make something of herself hadn’t gotten her very far. She was grown up enough to know that much.
A seagull screeched overhead, startling her. She released a breath and dug in her bag for her phone. Maybe Chelsea had texted with a meet time for later today. Thanking her for offering up her bonus, and then explaining why it wouldn’t help, after all, wouldn’t be easy, but just seeing her best friend would level her out. Chelsea had that effect on people.
The screen lit with a new message. Her fingers trembled as she read the communication from the insurance adjuster. He thanked her for her updated statement, and advised her they’d completed their investigation. The evidence concerning the cause of the fire conclusively pointed to a short in the wiring. A check for the total amount of her claim was in process. Some legal mumbo jumbo followed, but she barely skimmed it because, holy crap, she’d actually managed to rescue something she’d almost blown.
“Mind if I join you?”
Laurie jolted, and turned to find Rebecca Booker standing there. She shook her head, but inwardly braced for a confrontation. She had it coming after last night.
Booker’s mother executed a graceful descent and took a seat beside her, absently brushing sand off the knee of her workout leggings. “I came down for a run on the beach this morning and spotted the Babycakes logo on the SUV in the parking area. I figured you were nearby.”
Who knew the Expedition was such a mom magnet? She doubted an apology would cut short whatever dressing down was coming her way, but she owed the woman a big one, and now was probably her best chance to offer it. “I’m sorry about last night.”
Rebecca frowned. “So you said last night, and then rushed off before I could reply. I’ll tell you now what I would have told you then, if you’d stuck around. I don’t want your apology.”
“Fair enough, but it’s all I’ve got. I can’t turn back time and un-ruin the dinner—”
“You misunderstand.” Dark hair gleamed in the sun as she shook her head. “You didn’t ruin anything. First of all, it takes more than an over-served party crasher to get between my family and a good meal. Second, even if the disruption had ruined the dinner, it wouldn’t be you who owed an apology. It would be your mother. Now, if she wants to send me an apology, I’ll happily accept it, but yours?” She waved her hand. “Unwarranted.”
The tightness in her chest loosened a fraction. “That’s nice of you to say.”
She waved her hand again, batting the comment away. “It’s the truth. Will we see you at the wedding this evening?”
“Um…no.” She forced a laugh and sank her fingers into the sand. “I’m sure that comes as a relief. I know I don’t fit your brand.”
Rebecca shrugged. “You fit Booker’s brand, and that’s what’s important.”
The tightness in her chest came back with a vengeance. “I don’t. I’m not the kind of woman he needs.”
“He’s wrong this time. He deserves more than—”
“The woman he loves?” Rebecca challenged.
“I—It’s not that simple.”
His mother got to her feet, and brushed the sand off the seat of her pants. “No. Like most important things in life, love takes strength and courage. I wouldn’t have pegged you as lacking either. I hope you don’t prove me wrong.”
…
“You know, Booker, a lot of people find weddings happy occasions. Some even crack a smile.”
He turned to see Aaron step onto the patio of the pool house the groom and his entourage had been relegated to until the appointed hour.
“I’m happy,” he said, and resumed his study of the bougainvillea leaves floating on the calm blue water of the pool.
Aaron came up beside him and rested his hands on the iron railing separating the patio from the pool. “Yeah, that’s why you look like you want to bust somebody. I don’t want that surly expression standing up with me on what’s supposed to be the happiest fucking day of my life. It makes me nervous. Come on.” He punched Booker in the shoulder. “Talk it out, mate.”
Booker grunted from the slug. “There’s nothing to talk out.”
“Sure there is. Tell you what, I’ll start. Delightful meeting Laurie’s mum last night.”
“That’s one word for it.” Resigned to the discussion, he turned to face Aaron and folded his arms across his chest.
“Have the situation contained, do we?”
“Yep.” Just thinking about it pissed him off. He pushed away from the rail and crossed the patio, trying to walk off the frustration. “I could have contained it weeks ago if she’d told me what was going on, but no. Why confide in me? I’m only the sheriff.”
Hard Compromise (Compromise Me) Page 18