by Toni Blake
Tessa
Lucky just stood there, staring at the piece of paper in his hand, feeling like he’d been sucker punched.
Well, at least this answered one question. He’d been right in his fears all along. When put to the test, Tessa really couldn’t accept him for who he truly was. They really were too different for her to ever get past it.
It was only a shame he’d quit worrying about that at some point or maybe this wouldn’t be hitting him so damn hard. It was only a shame he’d been stupid enough to believe she really loved him.
Lucky focused on his work—at the moment airbrushing a candy blue skull onto the pearl black gas tank of a Harley Shovelhead. When he was done, he’d add realistic white lightning bolts shooting out from behind it.
It had been two weeks since the fire and it was still a difficult time. Insurance was paying for the repairs and a builder Mick Brody had recommended was scheduled to start rebuilding the garage tomorrow. Lucky had replaced his damaged paints and equipment—Johnny had joined him for the drive to a supply store in Cincinnati just a few days ago to pick up what he needed to resume work. For now, and while the garage was under construction, he’d draped large sheets of clear plastic from the ceiling, sectioning off a small area where he could get back to painting and get some money rolling in again. He had some in the bank, but now that he was paying child support, plus the fact that he was using this opportunity to expand the garage into a more proper paint shop, he needed all the money he could earn. And he was thankful the jobs were still coming. As he’d hoped, word-of-mouth was starting to make its way around the area and he was getting calls from bikers in Chillicothe and beyond.
As for Johnny . . . God, what a great kid. Lucky was thankful to have him around, especially right now, although he got the idea the boy missed seeing Tessa almost as much as Lucky did, given that much of the casual, just hanging-out time he’d spent with Johnny around the house had included her. And as always, he was full of questions—never afraid to ask anything—and Lucky was glad Johnny felt that comfortable with him.
“Why’s she mad at you?” Johnny had asked on the ride home from Grandma Romo’s house last weekend. She’d hosted a big family cookout, complete with all the Romo cousins, and his Mom and Dad had come up, too, especially to meet their grandson. Johnny had handled the attention well, but the second they were alone again, rather than ask questions about his new extended family, his thoughts had gone straight to where Lucky’s usually were: Tessa.
“It’s complicated,” Lucky had tried to explain. “But when the fire happened, I got so angry it made her feel like she didn’t know me anymore.” That was the simplest way he could put it into words for Johnny right now—it had been tough enough just explaining the whole ugly mess to a nine-year-old kid in a way that wouldn’t scare him, so any details beyond what had been in the local paper had been strictly out of the question. When Johnny got a little older, Lucky would sit him down and talk to him about his past—parts of it anyway—but for now, he and Sharon had agreed it was too much to lay on a fourth-grader. Hell, he felt fortunate Sharon was still letting him see Johnny after this.
“Can’t you just make up with her?” Johnny had suggested.
And Lucky had cast his son a sad smile. “I wish it was that simple, dude.” But it wasn’t. Tessa had asked him to respect her wishes, so he had. And beyond that, her letter had . . . aw hell, it had pretty much completely shattered him.
On one hand, he saw where she was coming from—she had enough problems in her life without being involved with a killer. But the idea that she could actually fear him now tore him up. And it wounded him that she would desert him so quickly. She’d been the first person to really believe in him, and over the course of their relationship, he supposed she’d started making him believe in himself, see himself in a way he never had before—she’d made him believe he was a good man. Yet now that she’d failed to stand beside him when he’d needed her most—it felt like . . . betrayal. He’d screwed up, yeah—but she’d been gone, that fast. One more little abandonment in his life.
Maybe you should ignore what she said in the letter. Maybe you should go talk to her, make her listen, make her see. But something kept him from it, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, even now. Missing her stung like hell, almost constantly—yet he couldn’t get past that invisible apprehension that wouldn’t let him go knock on her door.
As for Mike, he seemed to be doing okay after the shooting. Departmental rules had stipulated he see a counselor and stick to desk duty until the investigation was complete. He’d been more agreeable to the counseling than the desk duty, but he’d called Lucky last night to say he was officially back on patrol today. As expected, he’d been cleared of any wrongdoing, having shot only after Red refused to surrender his weapon and had begun discharging it.
Lucky had spent some time at the Romo family picnic talking with Mike and Rachel about Tessa, and it had made him feel good to find out they both wished Tessa would give him another chance. When Rachel had walked away to talk with Mike’s mom, Mike had said to Lucky, “It’s not that I like how you handled the situation, but I think if you had it to do over, you’d figure out another way.”
And Mike was right. Lucky wasn’t sure how exactly he’d deal with it if something like this ever happened again, but he’d learned something about himself that morning behind Gravediggers: that he really wasn’t a killer. When it had become about self-defense in the end, that was different—but he’d been unable to take the life of an unarmed man, even after that man had tried to take his.
“You doin’ okay about Tessa, bro?” Mike had asked. They’d been sitting atop a picnic table, looking out over all the festivities, kids running and playing all around them.
And it hurt—because in a better world, Tessa would have been there with him, should have been there with him. He’d confessed to Mike, “It’s tearing me up.” Sure, he went about his business, tried to act normal . . . but his gut clenched just telling his brother. He’d let out a cynical laugh. “To think, a few months ago, I was this bad-ass loner who didn’t care about anybody—other than Duke anyway. And now . . . hell, a loner’s the last thing I wanna be. I never knew how empty my life was until . . . I had something to fill it. And I still have the kid, and you and the family, but there for a little while—for just this short little blink in time—I had it all. She made it all work for me.”
“You done anything to try to get her back?” Mike asked.
And Lucky had just sighed and told Mike the truth. “I . . . can’t. I don’t know why.”
“Is it pride?” Mike asked. “Because if it is, you gotta get past it.”
Lucky had shaken his head in reply. “Naw, it’s . . . bigger than that. The things she wrote in that letter . . . I don’t know—every time I think about it, I figure she’s just happier without me, so why should I try to convince her she’s not?”
Lucky knew from Duke that Tessa was busy working at Gravediggers a few days a week now, making over the bar bit by bit. Duke said she was taking his hole in the wall and giving it some serious biker class, turning it into just the kind of place he’d dreamed of when he’d first bought the building almost ten years ago.
And he also knew that every time Duke brought up Lucky’s name, Tessa said she didn’t want to talk about him. “ ‘End of subject,’ ” Duke told him. “That’s what she always says—‘end of subject.’ She’s kind of a tough little chick sometimes.”
And Lucky had muttered, “Don’t I know it.” He missed that, that toughness about her. Just as much as he missed the sweetness in her, too. He missed all of her.
Duke had also informed him, just a couple of days ago, that a bar patron who owned a steakhouse in Crestview had been watching Gravediggers’ transformation and had called Tessa for an estimate on redecorating his restaurant. And in addition to that, Duke knew a biker-chick-by-night/real-estate-agent-by-day who was interested in hiring Tessa to consult with homeowners preparing th
eir houses to be sold—staging, she’d told Duke it was called. It had done Lucky’s heart good to hear all this. Even if things had turned to shit between him and Tessa, at least something promising had come out of it for her.
When he finished the skull, he set down his paint gun and stencil, then pushed through the plastic curtains for some fresh air. It was June now—officially hot out, and the plastic was practical in some ways, but it trapped in the heat. Stretching his back as he stepped from the garage, he adjusted the bandana he tied around his head to hold back his hair and caught a glimpse of Tessa’s cabin.
And—God, there she was. In a cute little pair of shorts and a tank top, dragging her garden hose all the way out to her mailbox to water the daisies he’d seen blooming there last week. His heart nearly stopped at the sight of her. And his whole body ached with wanting to hold her—or hell, just talk to her, just look back into those gorgeous hazel eyes.
He stopped himself then, shook his head to clear it. Hell, who are you, man? What happened to the dude who appreciated her mainly for the way she looked in a bikini?
But then he answered himself. The fact was, he’d been an entirely different guy then. That guy hadn’t been bad, but Lucky had changed. A lot. Because of her.
As he stood watching her, unable to push down that gnawing ache—more physical than he’d known such an emotion could feel—he considered once more the notion of walking down the hill, trying to talk to her, trying to make her believe in him again.
But he still just . . . couldn’t. Damn, that had been the one good thing about being a loner—no one had the power to hurt you, to let you down.
But he’d let her down, too—he had to remember that. And maybe . . . maybe he just didn’t want to scare her again, ever. And maybe she had a right to be scared, in a way. After all, he’d actually told her he was setting out to kill a guy. Weeks later, that almost sounded impossible to him—but that was what he’d done, what he’d actually expected her to accept and go along with like it was an everyday occurrence in Destiny.
And it was in that moment, as he watched Tessa, her form beginning to blend in and disappear among the trees that stood between him and her daisies by the mailbox, that Lucky finally understood why he hadn’t been able to go to her after the breakup.
It was more than being let down or abandoned. It was because, deep down inside, he was afraid . . . she was right.
He let out a tired sigh, leaned back against his Jeep, let his gaze drop to his feet. Shit.
What if he really wasn’t worthy of her faith, her love? What if he didn’t deserve her or any of the other good things in his life?
Hell. No wonder he hadn’t been able to face this—it was too ugly and it hurt too damn much.
But maybe when all was said and done, she really was better off without him. And maybe Lucky was just as undeserving as he’d always felt.
I have little left in myself—I must have you.
My very soul demands you.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Nineteen
On a quiet afternoon at the bookstore, working alone, Tessa found herself glad for Brontë’s company. At the moment, the kitty stood directly in front of her on the counter by the cash register, meowing up at her and lifting a paw to gently bat at the long necklace she wore.
She used both hands to scratch behind the cat’s ears. “Yes, I know—I like you, too,” she said. “And I wish I could take you home with me, but what happens when I get sick? What if I neglect you?”
Continuing to pet Brontë, her own words made her think of Lucky, and of his parents neglecting him after the loss of his little sister. She supposed they’d been sick, too, just in a different way.
And neglected things just didn’t grow. She knew that now more than ever because since summer was finally upon them, all the things she’d planted in early spring were suddenly thriving. She’d occasionally dabbled in flowers before, usually unsuccessfully—because she hadn’t put much work into it. But all the care and watering she’d provided this spring was paying off. The zinnias and snapdragons on her deck were ready to bloom, and she’d set her first tomatoes on her windowsill for ripening. Her daisies were blooming already—a bit low to the ground, but she’d read to expect that the first season, and they still made her feel happy whenever she saw them.
And she needed some help feeling happy these days, so every little thing helped. The truth was, every time she thought of Lucky, her heart broke all over again.
She was so glad he had his family back, and good things in his life. But she still couldn’t reconcile the guy she’d fallen for with the one who’d told her he was going to kill someone. She simply hadn’t seen that coming. And it had relieved her more than words could express that, in the end, he hadn’t been the one to pull that trigger. She knew from Rachel that what happened hadn’t been easy for Mike, but at least he’d been trained to handle it, and he could justify it as a professional duty and not a personal decision.
As for Lucky—she knew he’d been in danger, too, that according to Rachel, he’d almost died. Her stomach plummeted every time she thought about that—the very idea of it left her heart in shreds. And yet as happy as she was that he’d come out unscathed, in a way, it just made everything worse. To know he’d put himself directly in the line of fire. To know his life had almost ended because he’d gone seeking that Red guy out.
She missed Lucky madly, but how could she go blindly on, pretending they were the same inside—had the same values, the same way of viewing life—now that she knew it wasn’t true? How could she ever believe in him the way she had before?
When the door opened, ringing the bell above, she looked up to see a police officer walk in—and it happened to be Mike. “Hi,” she said. “Rachel left a few minutes ago—headed to the orchard.”
Mike stepped up to the counter, looking as serious as usual. “Not looking for Rachel,” he informed her. “I need to talk to you.”
“Oh?” At this, Tessa lowered Brontë to the floor behind the counter.
“About Lucky,” Mike added.
Instantly uncomfortable, she let her gaze drop to the cash register. “Oh.”
“Tessa, it’s none of my business, but the guy’s hurtin’.”
Crap. Talk about things she hadn’t seen coming. But she’d gotten to know Mike pretty well lately, so now she forced herself to lift her eyes back to his face. “Well, I’m hurting over him, too, but how can I trust that he won’t . . .” She stopped then, though, not sure how much Mike knew about Lucky’s original plan to go after Red.
“I know why you broke up,” Mike said quietly, answering the unspoken question. “And trust me, I get it. But I guess I’m just here to say . . . I believe in him. And that didn’t come easy. When that fire was set, he responded out of fear, out of habit—he went on the defensive by going on the offensive. That’s how he’s protected himself all these years.”
Tessa let out a sigh. “I understand that, but . . . how do I know he won’t always respond that way? After all, you yourself didn’t want me to have anything to do with him just a few months ago.”
“I know. And I was wrong. And admitting that doesn’t come easy, either—just ask Rachel.” When he began to back away, it relieved Tessa that he wasn’t going to stretch this out. “Look, ya gotta do what ya gotta do,” he said, “but for what it’s worth, he was protecting more than just himself that night. He was trying to protect all of us—he was trying to protect you. So I’m just saying that if you still love my brother, maybe you could just talk to him, give him another chance.”
Tessa thought that over for a minute. Because she’d considered the same thing herself many times. Yet she always came back to the same conclusion. “I’m not sure my heart could take it, Mike.”
Mike just offered an acceptant nod, then gave her a short wave as he departed.
She’d never expected to fall for Lucky, to love Lucky, and on the night of the fire, it would have been so easy to go back into
his arms—but she’d feared becoming one of those women who lived in denial, who turned a blind eye, who couldn’t see the truth about the person they loved. What if he did something else scary and she didn’t have the strength to make herself leave next time? What if he did something rash and dangerous and, next time, got himself killed? To give him another chance felt like taking the ultimate risk—with her life, and her heart. And didn’t she already have enough to deal with, like her health, and her money concerns? Even if the money part was looking up these days, thanks to Lucky.
So Tessa told herself the same thing she’d been telling herself for over two weeks. It was time to look forward, not back. Even if there wasn’t a whole lot of laughing and dancing going on in her world these days, she still had to think positive, expect the best from life. No matter how hard that felt at the moment—and no matter how badly the very thought of Lucky made her stomach clench and her soul ache.
As tears threatened, she stooped down to scoop Brontë up into her arms, seeking comfort, and she turned to one of her favorite Ellenisms, because she needed it desperately right now.
Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.
A quiet Saturday had been a good day for Lucky to take Johnny on a long—slow, cautious—motorcycle ride in the country, Johnny wearing the new helmet Lucky had painted for him using the usual NASCAR theme. And Lucky couldn’t deny that it had felt good to have his kid hold onto him while they rode and to share with him something he loved.
But when Lucky put Johnny to bed that night, it was dark out, late, and as he walked into the living room by himself, he couldn’t deny he felt empty inside, still missing his girl. Life had been easier back when he’d known how not to care about people very much, but now that those floodgates had opened, he couldn’t seem to close them up again.
He tried to relax with a little TV, but when relaxation wouldn’t come, he found himself turning it off, then reaching into the drawer on an end table where he’d stuffed Tessa’s letter. He’d kind of wanted to throw it away so he wouldn’t ever have to see it again, but for some reason, he hadn’t been able to—and he’d just stuck it into the nearest out-of-sight place handy at the time.