Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  She pinned him with a look. “Nice try.”

  A warm, amused sound tickled her ear. Inside, the heat rolled over her, taking away the sting from the frigid air. The place was nearly deserted, a drowsy trucker sipping coffee and filling out his logbook in one booth, a teenager leaning over the counter and talking to the young waitress. Patsy Cline drifted from the jukebox.

  Madeline chose the booth farthest from the door and slid in, wrestling out of her jacket and scarf. “He did not tell you I threw myself at him.”

  She couldn’t imagine Tick describing it that way.

  A roguish grin revealed Ash’s white teeth. “No, he didn’t put it that way. So why did you do it?”

  The directness took her breath, rattled her. To cover, she reached for the menu.

  “The mulled cider is great,” he said, folding his hands on the faded Formica tabletop. “Or the hot chocolate.”

  She dropped her gaze to the menu. She really did not get this guy. The hell of it was she wanted to. And he knew. He knew and he was still here.

  “Know what you want?” His deep voice tugged her free of the same old reverie. She lifted her gaze to find the teenage waitress standing by their booth, order pad open, pen poised.

  “I—” She floundered, stared at the menu again. She’d not taken in any of it.

  “How about two ciders and a couple of slices of cheesecake?” Ash reached for the laminated folder. “All right with you?”

  “Yes.” Flustered, she let him take it. She wouldn’t be able to choke down a bite, though.

  Once the girl had walked away, he took her hand. “You have to stop this.”

  Keenly aware of the warm weight of his fingers around hers, she brushed back her hair with her free hand. “Stop what?”

  “Being cagey with me. Listen to me.” He drew her hand toward him and leaned forward at the same time. “I’m here because I want to be. I’m interested in you, and I want to get to know you.”

  “You know too much.” The words were out before she could stop them.

  His mouth drew into a tight line, and he watched her a long moment.

  “When I was twenty, I met my wife Suzanne.” He rubbed his palm over her knuckles. “My dad tried to talk me out of seeing her, said she was a gold digger, that she was a lying conniver, not to mention unstable. I didn’t listen.”

  Madeline stared, taking shallow breaths between her lips. Why was he telling her this?

  “We got married five weeks after we met.”

  She flexed her fingers about his. “What happened?”

  “My dad was right. She turned out to be everything he said she was. She went through my bank account in two months, ran up close to a hundred grand in credit card bills.” He laughed, a rough sound. “Even tried to take out my dad so I’d come into my inheritance early. When that didn’t work and I tossed her out, she tried getting her hooks into my younger brother.”

  “Oh, no.” She tightened her hold on him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not looking for sympathy, Mad. It was twenty-odd years ago, and I’m over it, believe me. At the time, I swore I’d never get married again. That lasted almost ten years.”

  “So did you? Get married again, I mean?”

  “No.” His lips twitching, he shook his head. “Suzanne made me realize I had to be really sure the next time that I had found the right woman. I’m still looking.”

  With a nervous laugh, she pulled free. “You make it sound like you really want to get married.”

  The waitress arrived to set steaming mugs of cider, along with two thick slices of rich cheesecake, before them, the spicy scent wafting over Madeline’s senses. He waited until the girl had departed again to speak.

  “I’m not checking out every woman I meet as potential wife material, Madeline, but I’m forty-two years old. I’m a little beyond the singles bar and one-night-stand scene. Besides, after seeing Stanton settled with your sister and watching what Tick and Caitlin have together, yeah, I wouldn’t mind having something like that in my life.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” She reached for her cider and took a gulping sip, realizing too late what a painful error that was. She grimaced at the harsh, stinging burn on her tongue.

  “Because I want you to see that I made a really shitty mistake when I was a dumbass kid and I didn’t let it rule my entire life.”

  Stilling, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what you think I’ve done?”

  “Honestly? Yes.” He forked up a bite of cheesecake. “You let that night stop your life cold, didn’t you, honey? I mean, you had a law-enforcement career, obviously, but what about personally?”

  She refused to rub her arms against the chill his words brought with them. “You don’t know me. What makes you think you can—”

  “How many real romantic relationships have you had in the last eighteen years?”

  She opened her mouth on a denial, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “How many, baby?”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to call me that?”

  “None, right?”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Except you’re still punishing yourself for a rash decision you made when you were a confused kid.”

  Pain wrapped around her heart, pride demanding she force a light mockery. “Did I miss something? I thought you were a chicken farmer, Hardison, not a psychiatrist.”

  “Stop it.” He grabbed her hand again, his pale eyes intent as he leaned forward. “Enough hiding behind the smartass front, Madeline. I see right through it, remember? I scare the hell out of you, just like you do me, because it feels too damn real too damn soon. That’s what this morning was all about, when you couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

  She tried to tug free; he refused to let go.

  With a shaky breath, she moistened her lips. “I don’t want this.”

  “I know, but I think you need it. I think we both do.”

  A hand over her eyes, she slumped in the booth. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “I could give you some ideas. There was that little thing with your tongue you did last night…” He passed his thumb over her knuckles. “I can handle not knowing if a venture will pay off, Madeline.”

  “Considering you’re a farmer, I guess so.”

  A half-smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. “I’m willing to take a risk on this if you are.”

  “What is this exactly?”

  “What do you want it to be?”

  “You know, you do that a lot.” She scowled. “I hate it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Answer a question with a question.”

  His gaze glinting with intensity once more, he leaned toward her. “So what do you want, Mad?”

  “Right now, I want to finish this cider before it gets any colder.”

  Laughter puffed from between his lips. “And Tick thought he had it tough.”

  She froze with her cup halfway to her mouth. “What are you talking about?”

  “Stop looking at me like that and finish your cider.” He cut off another bite of cheesecake. “Cait gave him a fit. You’re obviously going to give her a run for the money.”

  “Somehow, I doubt Ms. Perfect-Society-Fed and I have anything in common.”

  “Oh, you’d probably be surprised. Just for the record, I hate when you do that too.”

  She reached for her own fork. “Do what?”

  “Change the subject when things get sticky.” He ran a blunt fingertip around the edge of his cup, then turned his piercing gaze on her. “I can’t give you what you want, Madeline, if you don’t tell me what that is.”

  “Maybe because I don’t know.”

  “So we’re going to make this up as we go along.” He looked less-than-pleased with the prospect, and she laughed.

  “Thought you could handle not knowing if a venture would pay off.”

  “Yeah, but that’s with a business plan in place.”
r />   “So maybe we do this one day at a time and see what happens.”

  “Maybe. If you can promise not to run at the first sign of something that scares you.”

  “Well, you ask a lot, don’t you, Hardison?”

  “I don’t do things in half-measures, Mad. You need to know that upfront.”

  Oh, yeah. Madeline lifted her cider and buried her nose in the warm scent. Like that didn’t scare her enough to make her want to run.

  Chapter Ten

  “Lee’s asleep.”

  Tick didn’t glance up from the Krakauer book, but made a noncommittal sound in his throat in reply. Caitlin sank onto the bed beside him, adjusted her pillow and sifted her fingers through the hair at his nape. He reread the sentence he’d just completed.

  She continued the slow stroke of her fingertips through his hair. “Tick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “It bothers you, doesn’t it? That I don’t see what happened with Madeline the way you do.”

  “That you don’t agree with me? No, that doesn’t bother me.” He gave up on reading about Chris McCandless’s journey into the Alaskan wilderness, placed the bookmark on the page and laid the tome aside. Frowning over her question, he folded his arms behind his head. “It does bother me that you can just excuse her.”

  “I’m not.” She propped her head on one elbow and traced a finger along his abdominals. “You said she never did anything without a reason?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Did you ever wonder why?”

  Eyes trained on the ceiling, he swallowed. “Honestly, I tried not to think about it at all.”

  She circled his navel, nerves jumping under the gentle caress. “So you never asked her?”

  “Precious, I haven’t spoken to the woman in eighteen years, not until Stanton hired her and I had to.”

  A small silence stretched between them. He knew better than to think the subject was closed. Instead, he counted ridges on the crown molding. She outlined his abs below his bellybutton.

  “So why do you think she did it?”

  “Cait.” He closed his eyes, keeping the exasperated huff in his throat. “I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work.”

  “Sure it is. You can’t stand unanswered questions.”

  “Well, I can stand this one.” He opened his eyes. “Can we drop it?”

  “Of course.” She twisted sideways to click off her bedside lamp. He reached for his, though why he bothered was beyond him. That had been too easy.

  With the darkness hanging around them, broken by the soft illumination of the kitchen light, she settled at his side, her cheek on his chest. She rested a hand on his stomach, rubbing her thumb over his rib cage.

  Arms behind his head again, he waited. He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stand unanswered questions, an unfinished puzzle.

  “Do you want to know what I think?”

  Unable to resist a smile, he closed his eyes on a long exhale. “Sure. Why not?”

  Her lamp clicked on, the warm glow flooding the room. She sat up, legs crossed, hair spilling about her shoulders. “It had nothing to do with you.”

  “Really?” He hefted against the pillow to a half-sitting position. “You could have fooled me, since I woke up with her kissing me and her hand in my jeans, wrapped around my balls—”

  “Tick.”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “You mean, do I want to sit in our bed and lay out the gory details of having Madeline Holton feel me up while I was drunk off my ass?” He elbowed his pillow. “Not no, but hell, no.”

  “Maybe you need to.”

  “Yeah. I need to talk about that.” Like he needed another hole in his head. He folded his arms behind his head again, the muscles so taut they ached. “You wanted to have this conversation, precious. I was trying to read my—”

  “Tick.”

  “What?”

  “I understand you’re angry. You have reason to feel violated and working closely with her can’t be helping.” She reached out to touch his jaw. “But talking about it may be the only way for you to end it.”

  End it? If she wanted it over, why did she keep pushing? “Nothing to talk about. She copped a feel, I made it awful plain I wasn’t interested, and about the time Madeline started to pull away, Allison walked in.”

  “She’s obviously impulsive, but you said she never acts without a reason.” Caitlin’s elegant eyebrows dipped in a frown of concentration.

  “Let me know when you figure her out.” He lifted his book and turned on his light again. “I sure as hell couldn’t.”

  Caitlin removed the book from his hand. “She didn’t want you.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “But she was willing to have sex…to initiate sex…with you.” Still frowning, Caitlin tucked her hair behind her ear. “Except your girlfriend walks in and…that’s it.”

  He shook his head. “What’s it?”

  “It wasn’t you. It’s the girlfriend, Allison Whatever-her-name-is.” She moved a shoulder in the easy shrug he knew so well. “Madeline was out to hurt her, to get even with her maybe, and you were the means to an end.”

  “Glad you figured that out.” He gestured at the volume lying next to her. “Can I have my book back now?”

  She picked it up and held it to her chest. “We need to finish this.”

  A grin hitched at his lips. “I can think of better ways to spend our time in bed, precious.”

  Leaning in, he kissed her, exploring her mouth with lazy flicks of his tongue. He cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss. An arm about his neck, she pulled him down and fumbled the book toward her nightstand. It hit the floor with a soft thud. He slid the strap of her camisole aside, following the line of her shoulder with his mouth. Hell yeah, this was much better than talking about Madeline Holton, trying to figure out why she’d done what she’d done.

  She trailed a fingernail along his spine, and he shivered under the easy contact, growling a little and nipping at her collarbone. Not that he really cared why Madeline had done it. The reason didn’t matter because if he could just wait out the next few weeks—

  “I wonder what she had against Allison.” The words emerged on a breathy note.

  “Caitlin.” Tick sagged.

  “Now you’re using sex as an avoidance tactic.” She outlined his pectorals with a fingertip. “You’re not going to tell me you’re not curious.”

  He opened his mouth on a denial and sighed. “Maybe.”

  “You could ask her.”

  “Yeah, and you could not bitch your brother out when he takes off on one of those mountaineering expeditions of his. Not happening, sweetheart.”

  Except, shit, now she had him thinking about it again, damn it. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want Madeline Holton in his head, let alone his marital bed.

  Caitlin walked her fingers up his chest to the tip of his chin. “Deal with it, Tick. Don’t let it have this much power over you.”

  “I’m not.” He made to pull away.

  She tugged him back. “Yes, you are, ever since she came back. You’re doing the same thing she’s done—let it take over your life.”

  “I have not.” He frowned. “You’re the one pushing the point tonight, Cait. You and Ash both. He can’t leave well enough alone either. All I was trying to do was read—”

  “You’re avoiding it because you don’t want to deal with it. Blaming her is easier.”

  “Hell.” He did push away then, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, tension gathering in a tight knot at the base of his neck. “There’s nothing to avoid. There’s nothing to deal with it. It happened a long time ago and it’s over and done with, all right?”

  “All right.” Something about her soft agreement made the strain in his muscles worse.

  He shoved up and turned to face her, hands outspread. “Fine. What do you want to me to deal with?”

/>   She watched him, her eyes soft. “How about the anger? The sense of betrayal?”

  “Ah, sweet Jesus.” Irritation trembled in him and he thrust his fingers through his hair. “There you go, with all the psychology stuff. I swear, you can be worse than Tori. Yeah, fine, whatever, what she did pisses me off. Does that count as dealing with it?”

  “I really didn’t mean your anger or sense of betrayal with Madeline.”

  He gaped for a full second before he snapped his mouth shut. “Then what are we arguing about?”

  She looped her arms about her knees and rested her chin on them, still watching him. “Your anger at yourself.”

  “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” He let the heavy sarcasm coat his words. “Why would I be angry at myself?”

  “Because you took the easy route and let her father manipulate you into staying quiet. Because you hate what she did, but you hate that you let her get away with it worse.” Caitlin tilted her head. “Because keeping quiet about it is a form of lying, and it goes against everything you believe.”

  “Don’t you dare, Cait.” The words came out gritty, from between clenched teeth. His irritation flared into something hotter, more virulent. He lifted a hand and chopped it between them. “Don’t you dare do the profiling thing on me.”

  “Then find a way to deal with this and stop bringing it into our home and our bed.” She tilted her chin, voice cool. “Because I’m not sharing you with another woman, not even like this.”

  He stared and swallowed hard. “I’m not—”

  “Yes?” She quirked one eyebrow at him.

  He released a pent-up breath. Damn it, he hated when she did this, when she figured out what was going on in his head before he did. “And what, exactly, do you suggest I do?”

  “Talk to her.”

  “I tried. The first day she came back.”

  “Oh, sure.” Caitlin’s husky laugh shivered over him. “I’ll bet you were very approachable.”

  “I was not that bad.”

  “Of course not.” A small smile tilted the corners of her full mouth. She rose to her knees, knelt at the edge of the bed, reached for the waistband of his pajama pants and tugged him to her, belly to belly, chest to chest, her lips a breath away from his. “Come on, sweet thing, I’ve never known you to dodge the hard stuff just because it’s hard.”