Explicitly Yours Series

by Jessica Hawkins

  Beau asked himself if he could go upstairs, go to bed and never think of Lola again. Bragg wouldn’t care either way. He’d walk out of the airport right now, so long as he got paid. Lola and Beau had both hurt each other, but the score would never feel even. How long could it go on? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t forget her. He hadn’t in ten years, and he wouldn’t ten years from now. He had to confront her. A small part of him wondered if she wanted him to find her. If she’d made that one credit card charge hoping he’d follow it.

  “Can we drop this already and eat some lasagna?” Brigitte asked, sighing as she pulled the oven open.

  “Why?”

  She slid the dish out and set it on the stove. “Because I’m hungry, and this discussion isn’t—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Why do I need to take this exit she’s given me?”

  Brigitte rolled her eyes, removing the oven mitts. “I don’t want to see you get hurt yet again. She’s put you through enough, and she isn’t worth it. Clearly, she doesn’t even want to be around you.”

  Beau folded his arms against his chest and leaned back on the counter. Brigitte never wanted to see him get hurt, and that was why she’d hated Lola from day one. Brigitte and Beau had always decided who got close enough to find their well-hidden weak spots. They’d only been teenagers when the car accident had killed their parents. With his dad’s death came the news of his affair with Brigitte’s mom. It’d been a day—a lifetime—of struggling with hurt and anger, loss and betrayal. Beau didn’t think of it much anymore, but it affected how he dealt with others. Until Lola, he hadn’t had a good enough reason to let anyone close.

  “Maybe it’s time we start living in the real world again, Brigitte. Where people get hurt and they fuck up. Then they come out stronger. Didn’t we come out stronger after what we went through?”

  “Yes, you and I—”

  “I mean as individuals,” Beau clarified. “Not as a unit. Maybe it made us too strong.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She waved a spatula in his direction. “Who are you right now? You sound like a therapist.”

  Beau didn’t have to be a therapist to see she was deflecting. He wasn’t ready to change the topic, though, and that was unlike him when it came to Brigitte and serious issues. Ever since his breakfast-dinner with Dina Winters, he’d been wondering when he’d become so disconnected from people.

  “Let me ask you something,” he said. “When’s the last time you went on a date?”

  She looked over at him, her eyes huge. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Since when do you care?”

  “Answer the question. Or are you afraid to?”

  “I got out with men all the time.”

  “I mean someone who actually interests you. Not a potential investor or a business contact.”

  She twisted her lips. “Don’t turn this conversation on me. This is about you and your control issues. Letting go of Lola is the best thing—”

  “I see.” Beau was annoyed with her as usual, but he couldn’t help a small smile. “So everything’s about you except what you don’t feel like talking about?”

  “Everything is not about me. You’re frustrated with yourself, and you’re taking it out on me so you don’t have to deal with it.” She dug the spatula into the lasagna. “Let’s just have a nice dinner and forget the rest until tomorrow morning. After some good food and rest, you’ll see I’m right as usual.”

  Beau’s smiled eased. He’d been supporting Brigitte financially for a long time, but she was the one who took care of him. He’d never asked for it—he didn’t even need it. Because it wasn’t for him. She did it for herself. “I’m not enough for you, Brigitte. This, us—it’s not enough.”

  She cut squares into the lasagna, the utensil methodically hitting the bottom of the glass dish. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You just want me to leave you alone.”

  “You could be happy, but you choose not to be. You’re afraid if you lose me, you won’t have anything at all.”

  She stopped moving, kept her profile to him. “And you’re an expert on what I need? You wouldn’t even know me if I didn’t force you to all the time. You think money is the answer to everything, including me. I’d bet you were the same with Lola. If a problem can’t be fixed with a check, all of us are shit out of luck where you’re concerned.”

  Anger surged through Beau, but it died out just as quickly, as if it’d been a conditioned response. He didn’t like Brigitte’s assumption he valued his money more than Lola, but that didn’t mean it had no merit. “I’m not claiming I’ve been good at any of this. Boyfriend, brother or even friend. Yes, sometimes I send Warner in my place—because I trust him to give you what I can’t.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t even know why you’re bringing him into this.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re only blind or stupid when you want to be.” Beau looked hard at her, the only person he’d ever felt really close to before Lola. Brigitte was more family to him than his own mother. Even with her avoiding his eyes, he could sense her terror. Any time Beau had to leave, whether it was for a business trip or when he moved to the hotel to get some space from her, she got this way. She didn’t think she could do it on her own, but once she stopped clinging to Beau, she’d see that wasn’t true. “If you knew what would make me happy, wouldn’t you want me to have it?” he asked.

  After a moment of silence, she said, “Yes.”

  “I want the same for you. Look who’s standing right in front of you, who’s there for you whenever you or I call. It isn’t me.”

  “That’s what he gets paid to do. I’m just a nuisance to his boss. He gets stuck dealing with me.”

  “Maybe in the beginning, but much of the time he spends with you isn’t because I send him. He wants to do it.”

  Brigitte stayed quiet. He didn’t believe it’d never occurred to her that Warner loved her or that she could have him if she let herself. But Beau obviously knew less about the women in his life than he realized, especially when it came to love.

  When it was clear she had nothing to add, Beau went to leave the room.

  “Lola,” she said suddenly.

  He turned around. “What?”

  She looked at him finally. “You said if I know what would make you happy, I should tell you. That’s what love is, right? Your happiness over my own?”

  “Neither of us is happy, Brigitte. Can you honestly tell me this is the life you want? You living here, keeping house, while I work myself to death?”

  She shuddered, but her expression didn’t change. “You’re the only person I have.” Her voice was soft. “I don’t know how to be without you.”

  “Warner could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you, but you’ll never know if I’m in the way.”

  “And what about Lola? You’re going to send a complete stranger after her when she’s alone in the middle of the country? I don’t understand your fascination with her, but I don’t need to. I see you’re going crazy without her.” She took a deep breath as if it’d required effort to speak that much.

  Beau’s eyes were dry. He blinked, the first time since she’d started talking. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear from her, but if one thing had always remained true, it was that she loved him even more than she did herself. She just rarely showed it in a non-destructive way.

  “You think I should go after her,” Beau stated.

  “I don’t want you to.” She held his gaze, also unblinking. “That’s how I know you have to.”

  10

  Beau pulled into a parking spot and rubbed his eyes with tense fingers. After a sleepless night at LAX and hours of flying and driving, he still didn’t know what the fuck he was going to say to get the information he needed. He got out and shut the door behind him. It’d been daylight when he’d left Los Angeles, but it was almost evening now. The parking lot was dark with storm clouds. The Moose Lodge’s exterior could
almost pass for a cozy hotel, except that the buzzy glare of its neon sign gave it away as something seedier. The word Vacancy was lit underneath it. He hated to think of Lola here by herself, in this slow-life Missouri town, where there was an unwelcome chill in the air.

  Across the street, a man in hunter-green camo pants leaned against the wall of a liquor store, watching Beau. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He could’ve easily been one of Hey Joe’s beer guzzlers, the ones Beau’d seen leering at Lola as she’d wound through two-top tables, her effortless confidence drawing eyes.

  Men like that and places like this had gone round and round in Beau’s mind the last nine days, a haunted carousel with Lola trapped in the center. The homeless man from the gas station was always on it, and the guy across the street looked eerily similar to him. Him, with his hands on Lola while Beau had stood there, helpless.

  * * *

  Through the gas station’s glass door, Beau watched Lola approach, her purse swinging in her hand. The corners of her pressed-together lips curved slightly upward, as if it was a real effort not to smile. In the split second before she pulled open the door, her movements were airy and light, like a woman—he hoped—in love.

  Beau would’ve shouted at her to run if he hadn’t thought startling the cagey man who held a gun to Beau’s head would earn one of them a bullet.

  She breezed in and stopped dead.

  “I told you, there isn’t a single thing in my car.” Beau had been trying to convince the man to stay inside with him instead of going out there, where Lola was. She’d come to them anyway. Beau attempted a discreet but firm jerk of his hand in her direction.

  He pleaded with her however he could—with a quick glance, with a stiffening of his body. She should’ve been far away from there. Leave. Go.

  She didn’t move an inch. Beau sent the man on a hunt for his wallet as a distraction.

  Leave. Get the fuck out of here.

  She didn’t budge, but cried out, “I have it,” and the gun was no longer on Beau.

  * * *

  Beau’d barely slept on his one-way flight out of LAX. After talking to Brigitte, he’d called Bragg to stop him from getting on a plane, but the Midwest storm had done it for him. The detective’d been at the airport for two hours trying to get to Missouri. Beau took his place, waiting out the snow, every passing hour another chance for Lola to slip back into the night. When he couldn’t take another minute of that, he demanded a flight that would get him closest to this little lodge in the Missouri mountains. He’d flown into Dallas and driven his rental car eight hours. In the meantime, the storm had mostly passed.

  Beau walked up to the front office’s glass door and stood just outside of view. That memory of the gas station was always too ready, too easy to call up. Beau still hadn’t figured out why he was there. He’d know when he saw her. He just needed to lay his eyes on her again—that was step one.

  A potbellied, balding man sat at the check-in desk, a phone lodged between his ruddy cheek and his shoulder while he pounded on a computer keyboard. He said something into the receiver and slammed it down.

  Almost immediately, a girl came out of the back, her blonde ponytail swinging. She furrowed her eyebrows, put a slender hand on his shoulder and pointed to something on the screen. The lines in his forehead eased as the splotches on his cheeks became less angry. They smiled at each other, and he stood and left the room.

  Enter Beau. He straightened his suit jacket and smoothed his palm over his styled hair. He still needed a haircut, but at least he looked presentable today. Bells chirped against the glass door when he walked in, a jingle to announce him. The girl, no older than eighteen or nineteen, looked up and froze.

  “Hi.” Beau forced a smile and leaned an elbow on the counter. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” The word barely disturbed her parted lips.

  Neither of them spoke a moment. He didn’t get this kind of thing much anymore—the curious, innocent-lust look she was giving him. The women he spent time with had already had their rose-colored glasses removed by someone. He glanced at the monitor and back at her.

  “Oh.” She jumped into action, clasping the computer mouse in her hand. “You need a room?”

  “Actually, no,” Beau said, still smiling, still leaning.

  She looked up. “No?”

  “Well, sort of. I’m hoping you can help me out—what’s your name?”

  “Uh.” She checked over her shoulder. “Matilda?”

  “Nice to meet you, Matilda. I’m Beau.” He should’ve been an actor. Or a detective. A story was already brewing inside him, a warm stew to go down easy. “My wife is staying here on business.” He declared it—no question about it. Men in bespoke suits did not just wander into motel lobbies and tell lies. “Tonight’s our anniversary. She thought she’d have to spend it alone.”

  “That’s strange,” the girl said. “We don’t get a lot of business types out here, not like Springfield or Harrison. Even then, companies usually book at the Best Western in town.” She pointed behind Beau as if he could see from where he stood.

  Beau glanced over her head at the backdoor and absentmindedly straightened his tie. “Well, the point is—I drove a long way to see her. To surprise her.”

  Matilda beat her palm once against her chest. “Really?” she crooned. “That is so romantic.”

  “I know.” Beau kept a smirk from his face. “Here’s the thing, Matilda. I don’t know which room she’s in.”

  Her face fell except for one blonde eyebrow, which rose. “Oh?”

  Beau could almost taste his anticipation. Within moments, he’d be standing in front of Lola’s door, and she wouldn’t even know it. He’d worried, as he’d driven, that she wouldn’t be there anymore, that she’d only stayed one night. But his doubts were gone now. He could sense her there, nearby, unprotected, unsuspecting. Caught in her own trap. “If you could just get me a key to her room—”

  “I can’t give you that.” Terseness clipped Matilda’s words, made her back rod straight. “That’s illegal.”

  Illegal? Did this girl think she was in an episode of CSI: Missouri? Beau blinked slowly at her. “Not if she’s my wife.”

  “Um, yes, even if she’s your wife. Why can’t you call her cell phone?”

  “I told you, it’s a surprise.” Beau sounded almost sulky. He envisioned Lola slipping out the backdoor again, right through his fingers just as he closed them around her. So he was no detective. But a starry-eyed teenage girl was no seasoned negotiator. “All right, the key is a lot to ask. I’ll just take her room number.”

  She shook her head.

  “What’s your objection?” Beau asked.

  “It’s wrong. How do I know she’s actually your wife, and you’re not some stalker?”

  “I’ll leave my wallet and ID here with you. I can get it on my way out.”

  “You’re leaving tonight?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Why, if your wife is here?”

  “I’m taking her with me.”

  “But…she has her work thing—”

  Beau’s nostrils flared. His negotiation skills were better suited to businessmen than stubborn, inquisitive teenagers. He’d once had a good laugh with a subordinate whose fifteen-year-old daughter had seen a picture of daddy’s boss and called Beau a ‘total hottie.’ He plastered on a smile and inclined a little further over the counter. “Matilda, let me ask you something—do you have a boyfriend?”

  Her mouth opened and closed. “Not anymore.”

  “He dumped you.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Because I’ve met enough women like you to know how it works. Pretty girls come and go, but it’s the ones who’re smart and pretty who catch shmucks like me off guard.” Beau shrugged. “We’re intimidated by girls like you, so we screw it up.”

  She blushed, looking down at the desk. “My dad says that too.”

  “He sounds like a smart man
. My wife—she’s one of you.” Beau didn’t have to reach far there. Lola stunned men, and she was sharp in a way most people weren’t, even without logging much time on a college campus or facing a boardroom of Harvard MBAs daily.

  But that kind of smart could get you into trouble too. After Beau, Lola should’ve run home and cried onto Johnny’s shoulder like most girls would’ve. Her life with Johnny never would’ve been the same, but it would’ve been safe. Stable.

  That wasn’t Lola, though. She’d picked a dangerous path instead, willingly entering the ring with a man who had the means—and now an ironclad motive—to bring her down for good if he chose to.

  “I’ve been to hell and back for her,” Beau told the girl. “But every time I see her face, I’m reminded why I do it. Help me out, Matilda. I just want to see the expression on her face when I walk into her room. She’ll light up with pure shock.”

  Matilda’s eyes had grown big and watery, her shoulders slumped with longing. Done deal. He held out his palm for the keycard.

  She straightened up, though, pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “I legally cannot give you that information.”

  Beau dropped his hand on the counter with a slap. This was bullshit. Bragg could’ve hacked her computer two times over by now. Beau had one negotiation tool she didn’t, though, and it was bulletproof. “How much?”

  She tilted her head, looking utterly confused. “How much what?”

  He hadn’t noticed how quick he was to resort to money until he’d done it to Lola’s mom in exchange for information. It was beginning to bother him a little, like a dull cramp in his side. It had upset Lola too. He knew, even when she didn’t mention it.

  The portly man came through the backdoor and waddled over to them. “What’s going on, Matty?”

  “Dad, this man is asking for a guest’s room key.”

  Beau cleared his throat. What was happening to him that he couldn’t crack a teenage girl? But at least going up against another man put him back in his comfort zone—because man to man, fortune favored the alpha. “Not a guest,” Beau said. “My wife. And I don’t like being kept from her like this. Do yourself a favor and give me her room number. It’ll save you a lot of hassle.”