Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  Looked like Santa had just taken a big ol’ piss in Jonah’s stocking.

  4

  In the hallway outside her newly purchased condo in an Asheville mid-rise, Tessa touched her lips, still tingling from Jonah’s earlier all-consuming kiss and the scruff around his mouth. He’d kissed her as if he wanted to get inside her. Not just inside her body, but inside the deepest darkest parts of her.

  From the second he’d walked into the downtown bar tonight, he’d been restless. It didn’t take a trained mental health professional to figure that out. He’d smiled and chatted with the people gathered, but the easygoing expression had never touched his eyes.

  Why did she seem to be the only one who ever saw that?

  Other people constantly said things like “Jonah’s so chill,” “Doesn’t get in much of a hurry about anything,” and “Hard to rile.”

  Tessa unlocked her front door and placed her purse and keys on the foyer table—keys in the aqua art glass bowl and her bag in a gathering basket.

  From his kennel, Badger was giving her a doggy grin and frantic tail wag.

  “Hey there, King B,” she crooned, hurrying over to release him. Tonight, she didn’t care that she hadn’t changed into her comfy clothes before he leaped into her arms. What was a little dog fur on a night like this, when she was feeling so uncertain? So shaken by her own decisions. “How’s my good boy?”

  From the way her piebald miniature dachshund was licking her chin, he was ecstatic.

  Letting his wriggling body soothe hers, she blew out a breath and looked at her living room. Although her move was recent, she’d put a rush on her furniture delivery and everything was unpacked and in its proper place. Even the ten-foot artificial Douglas fir in the corner hung with white lights and matching ornaments.

  Normally, having all her belongings organized made her feel calm and controlled.

  Not tonight.

  But her pup was helping. The feel of his smooth short fur under her hand. The warmth of his body against hers. The gift of his unconditional love.

  She quickly kicked off her heels, purposefully allowing them to lie askew on the cool tile under her feet, and slipped on a pair of scuffs.

  “Park time, buddy.” She’d chosen this building because of the bark park in the central courtyard. When she reached for Badger’s leash, his body went into overdrive, his tiny butt doing the bump with her chest.

  In the hallway, she put him on the floor and he pranced down it as if he were ten feet tall, his head up and pointy chest bowed out.

  If only Tessa could feel so confident all the time. She’d learned that little rituals—like putting her belongings in their appropriate place—helped to remind herself she was in control, that she had climbed her way out of something that might’ve wrecked a lesser woman.

  But Jonah Steele could still wreck her inside if she let him.

  Maybe she could call her mom and tell her about tonight. Then again, if she did that, her mother might give her the advice to move on, that she deserved a man who saw her for the woman she was now instead of the shattered girl she’d once been.

  But Tessa wasn’t willing to give up. Not until she’d really tried to connect with Jonah. When she’d first been brought on at Steele Trap, she’d been grateful, but had been intent on proving to Jonah that she’d made something of herself. That although she appreciated what he’d done for her, she no longer needed a protector.

  She hadn’t been prepared for what seeing him as a man would do to her emotions. The physical attraction had been electric and disconcerting. But she’d also found herself pulled in by the way he kidded around with the people who worked for him, the charitable donations he made without asking for acknowledgment, the spark in his eyes when he played video games in the employee lounge.

  She wanted a chance to get close to that Jonah.

  Outside in the doggie park, Badger did his business, then spent a few minutes trying to woo a Doberman. She ignored him, much to his disappointment.

  “You might have more luck with that corgi from 603,” Tessa told him.

  The side-eye Badger gave her said, “I’ll thank you to stay out of my love life.”

  Back in the condo, she scooped up her heels and headed for her bedroom, where she stored the shoes in their color-coordinated plastic box. She took off her pants and top, saw the amount of fur on them and tossed them into her dry cleaning pile. The camisole underneath she left on and pulled on a matching pair of silk lounge pants.

  When she let her hair out of the twist, the kinky curls fell and brushed her back. Her chest loosened, allowing her to finally take a full breath. Jonah’s kisses had the power to do that to her—steal all her air.

  A glass of pinot grigio, a snuggle with Badger, and her cushy couch were exactly what she needed right now. But once she’d settled into the down cushions and pulled a cashmere throw around her and Badger, her nerves were still jumping just under the surface of her skin.

  She placed her glass on the coffee table and reached for the TV remote. “How about a Firefly marathon?”

  It wasn’t Badger’s favorite—he much preferred back episodes of Meerkat Manor—but tonight Tessa needed to escape into another world.

  As if she could really be distracted from the way Jonah’s mouth had felt on hers—strong and soft all at once—and the way his hands had felt on her body. Like he never wanted to let her go.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have if she hadn’t pulled away. But the taste of beer on his lips had sent her hurtling back to a place she never wanted to return to. She’d worked hard to handle the smell in social settings, but still couldn’t deal with it on a man’s breath when his mouth was on hers.

  So instead, she was spending the rest of her evening with Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Firefly-class Serenity.

  Her cell rang, making her heart jump. Maybe it was Jonah.

  Stop acting like a twelve-year-old girl with a crush. You can call a man your own self if it’s so important.

  But when she checked the screen, it was a Seattle area code. She hit the talk button. “Hello?”

  Badger, never one to be ignored, tried to insert his long snoot between her mouth and the phone. His nose touched her lips, and she pushed it down and tucked his head under her chin.

  “Is this Tessa Martin?”

  “To whom am I speaking?” She gave her corporate clients her private number for emergencies, but she wasn’t stupid enough to give out information when she didn’t know who was on the other end of the line.

  “This is Carson Grimes. Remember me?”

  He’d been a developer at Steele Trap, one of the first of Jonah’s employees to see her after she was contracted to help the staff with things like stress management and work/life balance. She resettled Badger into the crook of her arm. “Of course. How are you?”

  “Honestly, I’m not worth dick.” His tone was harsh and his words were clipped.

  Tessa tensed. He’d never once spoken to her this way while she’d been at Steele Trap. Now she was no longer on retainer, and Carson wasn’t even an employee anymore. But she wouldn’t turn him away. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “Not really,” he said, “but you damn well need to do something about this.”

  “About what?”

  “Get online and go to the Q13 website.”

  “Give me a sec to open up my laptop.” Something was obviously very wrong here, so she scrambled up from the couch, which made Badger give an admonishing yap, and ran for the spare bedroom she’d set up as her home office. It took a few clicks to open her browser and navigate to the right site. “Okay. I’m here.”

  “Scroll down to the story about the Aurora Bridge.”

  That uneasy feeling inside her expanded. That bridge was a famous spot for jumpers in Seattle. She tried to swallow back her alarm, found the article, and quickly scanned it.

  Oh, God. Her pulse quickened. “What happened?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

&n
bsp; “Carson, I’m sorry, but you’ve caught me at a disadvantage. I don’t know what you want from me. Obviously, I’m devastated to read this.”

  His laugh was raw and mean. “You don’t know what I want? I want you to fucking stop e-mailing me.”

  E-mailing him? She’d barely had her laptop open recently. “What e-mail are you—”

  “Davey was little more than a kid.” He plowed over her question. “He couldn’t take your bullshit. But I swear to God, you mess with me anymore, and you won’t like the outcome. Davey killed himself. I don’t know what your game is, but if one of us is going down, lady, it’s gonna be you.” The phone went silent on the other end.

  “Carson? Are you there?”

  Nothing.

  Tessa’s earlier agitation had been microscopic compared to what she was feeling right now, and Badger sensed it, because he hopped into her lap and put his front paws on the keyboard, making the article scroll back to the beginning. She pulled her chair closer to her monitor and reread the news slowly, looking for any clue as to why Davey Sinchilla, another Steele Trap employee she’d counseled and Carson’s close friend, might’ve committed suicide.

  But the write-up was all about the facts. David Stanley Sinchilla. Age twenty-four and a native of Redmond, Washington.

  “Oh, King B, this is horrible.” Her heart felt as if it had been squeezed into a hard little ball. She’d met Davey’s parents once. His dad was a high-school biology coach and his mom was a mail carrier. They’d been so proud of their son, working at a big, famous game company. Making excellent money. What parent wouldn’t be thrilled to have their child find such purpose and stability?

  Especially after he’d been such a wild kid as a teen. When he’d come to see Tessa, he’d given her his background, including all the drugs, rebellion, and a couple of rehab jailbreaks. When he was seventeen, his brokenhearted parents had been close to writing him off.

  Finally, Davey had hit rock bottom after his so-called girlfriend had OD’d on a chemical cocktail of painkillers, sedatives, and muscle relaxers. He’d woken to find her dead beside him in the bed. That was when he’d gotten clean.

  But it hadn’t been without struggle over the years. He’d known the pressure of video game development would test him. Any time the pressure mounted, he’d schedule a coaching session with her. And between talking with her occasionally and keeping up with his NA meetings, he’d been coping well.

  At least he had been the last time she talked with him. In fact, he’d been dating someone new, a woman he thought might be the love of his life.

  As she scanned the scanty details in the article, Tessa’s few sips of wine felt like Drano in her stomach. Davey’s life had been reduced to less than five hundred words.

  Tessa pushed away from her desk, and Badger jumped down to trot behind her. Absently, she picked up her glass, carried it to the kitchen, and poured the wine into the sink. Then she washed the glass and placed it on the drying rack.

  When she made another lap around the house and found herself opening the fridge and organizing the contents by food groups and color, she knew she needed to sit down and think. Some people sleepwalked when stressed. Tessa, on the other hand, woke to alphabetized canned goods in her cabinets.

  She needed to understand what had happened with Davey. He’d had a regular therapist in addition to her. She made it clear to all her clients that her focus was on workplace coping skills, productivity, and performance.

  Stress and overwhelm, she could handle. Addiction and suicide were on an entirely different level.

  What had Carson said? Something about wanting her to stop e-mailing him. Which didn’t make any sense because she hadn’t seen or spoken to him for months.

  She hurried back to her computer and again Badger hopped into her lap. She opened her e-mail and clicked on her sent items.

  Scrolling through the outgoing e-mails, she mentally flicked through all the names. Her dad, the closing company for her new condo, the organizations she’d talked with about Martin & Associates corporate coaching.

  This was stupid. She could just search, so she typed in Carson’s name. A list of a dozen e-mails popped up, most of them to schedule sessions months in the past. But one was much more recent, just a few days ago.

  That was the day the movers had delivered her furniture and household goods. All her time had been spent directing placement and unpacking boxes. She hadn’t opened her computer all day, and she certainly hadn’t sent an e-mail to Carson.

  Something solid blocking her airway, Tessa clicked on the message.

  Carson,

  You trusted the wrong person. You should’ve been more careful who you told about that little stalking incident when you were in your early twenties. Because that information could sure be dangerous if it gets into the wrong hands.

  But half a million could make it go away.

  Let’s stay in touch,

  Tessa M.

  With shaking hands, she stroked Badger’s back. “King B, what is happening here?”

  Why she’d even tried to sleep, Tessa had no idea. Her mind had whirled around like a lopsided ceiling fan all night. Turning, clanging against itself, making a godawful racket in there.

  So at six she slid out of bed, pulled on a long sweater, and took Badger out to the doggie park. The chill outside made him frisky, and he bounded around the enclosure, his ears lifting parallel to the ground and giving him the appearance of a 747 during takeoff.

  But he also knew breakfast was coming, so he didn’t object when she put him on leash and headed inside. In fact, it was amazing how hard an eleven-pound dog could pull a full-size human.

  While he was eating, she took her laptop out to the balcony overlooking Reuter Terrace. The sun was still trying to decide its plan for the day, creeping up like a skittish animal, only to be eclipsed by a horde of winter clouds.

  I could use some Carolina sunshine today.

  She flipped open her computer and stared at the e-mail still on the screen. When she’d read it last night, it had been like a knife to the lungs, and she’d snapped the laptop closed immediately.

  Denial. As a professional, she knew the label for her own actions. But all humans, no matter how self-aware, used defense mechanisms for a reason. Survival.

  And fixating on that e-mail wouldn’t get her one inch closer to figuring out what was going on with Carson and Davey, so she clicked it closed. The Seattle news channel websites didn’t offer up much more information than they had the last time she looked. In fact, the newer articles barely mentioned Davey, and only in the context of the increase in suicides around the holidays, which was a myth.

  It made Tessa want to pick up the phone and berate someone for their lack of fact-checking, but she reined in her displaced anger and refocused on the real issue.

  Maybe something had happened with Davey and his new girlfriend. He’d been honest about how hard breakups were for him. Or maybe he’d quit attending meetings and started using again. His suicide could’ve been triggered by any number of things.

  Suddenly, the lopsided fan in Tessa’s mind straightened its trajectory and sped up to high. Trigger. The e-mail she’d supposedly sent Carson had triggered his call to her. If someone had been blackmailing Davey with her account, too, wouldn’t that mean—

  Her hands were shaking so badly that it took her three mouse clicks to switch over to her e-mails and access the sent folder again. She typed “Sinchilla” into the search box.

  Of course, a string of scheduling e-mails popped up, but one was grouped alone, having been sent within the past few weeks. The subject line was “Things to think about.”

  That was ridiculous. She never sent messages with such ambiguous subject lines. She used terms like “Upcoming appointment” and “Helpful resources” with her clients.

  Her eyes narrowing as if it might make the words easier to read, she opened the sent e-mail addressed to Davey. Whoever had sent it wasn’t worried about varying his or her approac
h much. Change out Carson’s name with Davey’s and insert a sly insinuation about his addiction and they were essentially the same text.

  Whoever was doing this was efficient in their deceit. And if someone had sent two false e-mails from her account, what would’ve stopped him from sending more?

  Her heart plummeted in her chest. She knew that feeling.

  It was dread.

  5

  Tessa quickly changed her e-mail password, then forced herself to scroll through her outgoing messages. It didn’t take her long to find another, similar to the first two with the exception of name and youthful transgression. Lauren Caldwell.

  Surely Lauren would never believe Tessa was capable of sending something like this. After a few sessions together, Tessa had referred her over to a private practice therapist, explaining she felt Lauren would get better results with someone who specialized in addiction disorders. And since Lauren was no longer Tessa’s client, they’d become friends.

  Casual friends. Occasional weekend lunches and Pike Place Market shopping friends.

  But friends nonetheless.

  Lauren would understand an early morning call, so Tessa grabbed her cell and dialed.

  “’Lo?” Lauren answered in a sleepy voice that said she’d either had a very late night or a very early morning. Tessa could picture her, blond hair cut in a messy shag and smudged eyeliner as black as the leather jacket she always wore.

  “Lauren, it’s Tessa Martin. I’m sorry to call so early, but it’s urgent. I need to talk to you about an e-mail.”

  Some shuffling from the other end made it sound as if Lauren was sitting up in bed. When Tessa heard the flick of a lighter, her heart sank. Lauren had given up smoking over a year ago and had claimed nothing would make her go back to sucking down lungfuls of tar and death.

  “Are you smoking again?”

  Another long drag, then Lauren finally said, “What the hell do you care?” The sleepiness was long gone, replaced with a jagged bite.

  “I care because I know how hard you fought to beat that addiction.” Along with several others.