“Oh, and you aren’t?”
“First off, I’m a dude. We’re dirty every second of our lives. But you’re nice—no one expects it from you.”
“Oh, for the love.”
“Seriously. It’s like a science project for horny guys. Take one Betty Sue, mix with merlot, and blammo—cue the Bunsen burner.”
Lyla shoved at his chest, but naturally, he didn’t budge. “So what? Probably ninety-five percent of the women I know are like that. Why do you think people write so many country songs about it?”
Tate cocked his head and mused, “I might need to broaden my musical tastes.”
“Among other things,” she snorted. “And you’re not fooling me, Tate Monroe. I’ve seen you two-step, remember?”
“Good. Now take off your pants,” he fired back.
Lyla eyed him archly. “I don’t understand why you think I’m so newsworthy, anyway. You might as well be the poster boy for the stripper with the heart of gold.”
“You got that right. Lady in the streets, freak in the sheets,” he agreed with a smile. “Now, how about you ditch those jeans so we can actually get to the freak part?”
Lyla stared at him. For a long, laden pause, Tate stared right back. And then, they both broke at once, doubling over and laughing hysterically.
After a while, still wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, Tate tried to speak again. “Oh my God. You’re…that’s…that was…” He broke down into helpless giggles once more.
Lyla grinned at him. “You’re fun.”
He pulled himself together and lunged for her, taking Lyla down to the mattress in a way that was both rowdy and careful not to hurt her. “You take that back, you big bully,” he said, nipping at her neck.
She squirmed, trying to slip out from under his bulky frame. “Never! I enjoy your company immensely and I’m not afraid who knows it!”
Tate wedged a hand under her ass and squeezed. “Damn it, Lyla,” he chuckled. “Straighten up and fly right. I’m a hard-assed warrior, not some good-time Charlie. I eat things like fun for breakfast.”
He blew a raspberry right on her sternum, making Lyla laugh so hard she could barely lob her next volley back at him. “That’s so weird. All this time I thought it was oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal! Shows what you know. That’s the ground-up bones of my enemies.” And then he started tickling her ribs.
Lyla screamed. “Wait! Wait, leave me alone! I—I have something that you want!”
“You’re right about that, Slick.”
“I’m serious! I’ll trade you if you stop!”
He lifted his hands and narrowed his eyes, ready to dive back in if she was bluffing.
Lyla rolled away, digging into her pocket to find the slip of paper she’d stuck there earlier for luck. She pulled it free with a triumphant, “Ha! See this?”
Tate blinked in sudden confusion. “Is that my list?”
“Oh, so you admit this belongs to you?”
He scowled. “I admit nothing, you shrill little harpy.”
Lyla unfolded the paper and read aloud, “Buy snacks. Get gas. Call Mom.”
“That could belong to anyone,” he scoffed.
“Tell Lyla she’s beautiful,” Lyla crowed, delivering her death blow.
Tate flopped on his back and covered his face with a groan, his neck turning a vivid shade of red.
“You think I’m pretty,” she teased, “Don’t you, Captain? And you wanted to make sure I knew it, too.”
“I threw that list away,” he mumbled from under his arm.
“It was in plain sight, on the floor next to my shoes,” Lyla fired back. “And by the way—you’re not supposed to throw away a list without completing all the tasks, Tate.”
“I added it to the next day’s list, okay?”
“And to the day after that, too? Because I found this one three days ago.”
“And you kept it?” he protested, outraged. “What kind of psychopath are you?”
“One who wants to hear you say it.”
Tate sat up and opened his mouth and suddenly, a duck began quacking somewhere in the other room.
They both froze, listening to the bizarrely incongruent sound. And then, in the time it took Lyla to inhale and ask what it was, Tate was up and off the bed, lunging for his cell phone.
“Hello?” he asked breathlessly. “This is Captain Monroe.” He listened a moment, and his spine snapped ramrod straight. “Sir. Yes, sir.”
Lyla sat up, too, and ran her hands over her hair and clothes even though no one but Tate was here with her. She trailed after him, curious.
When he saw her, Tate turned to the side and sat down on the couch.
“Yes, sir,” he said. And then a tentative, “Right.”
Lyla paced a couple of feet away, but it wasn’t like that amount of space was going to give him any more privacy. It did give her a better view of Tate’s face, though.
He held the phone to his ear and pinched the bridge of his nose as he listened for a while, then massaged his forehead. He dragged his hand down his face and glanced quickly at her.
Lyla smiled, then busied herself with unpacking the food they’d gotten for dinner. She laid out all the cartons on the hotel desk and fished around in the bag for the napkins and utensils.
When she checked on Tate again, he was staring at the ceiling with a look of frustrated disbelief. “Okay,” he said at last. “I appreciate you letting me know.” He paused, then replied, “No, let’s set it up in Cleveland again, with Dr. Ross, if that’s okay.”
Lyla looked away, all traces of her former buzz completely extinguished by what was obviously a call from one of Tate’s doctors. Maybe he’d be leaving for duty even sooner than she’d expected. If that wasn’t a mood killer, then she didn’t know what was.
Behind her, Tate murmured, “Yes. I understand. I will, thanks.”
Lyla fumbled with one of the drinks in the take-out bag, the sweating can slipping out of her hand and dropping loudly on the desk.
She heard Tate stand up. He said, “Thank you. That’s the plan,” and then, “Okay, you too. Bye.”
Lyla turned slowly around and met Tate’s eyes. He didn’t look frisky anymore—he looked wild. Almost…feral.
“Everything okay?” she asked, even though it was patently clear it wasn’t.
“Yeah,” he lied. “But you know what? I’m wiped out, and I’m only going to be more tired once I have a full stomach. Do you mind if I jump in the shower real quick now, just to get it out of the way?”
He wanted to get away from her, that much was clear. Unfortunately, their arrangement meant that Tate couldn’t go very far.
Lyla choked back on all her other questions and told him, “Sure, go ahead. I’ll probably shower in the morning, anyway.”
“You don’t have to wait if you’re hungry. Eat without me if you want.”
Lyla turned back to the food, stung that he wouldn’t confide in her. “Okay. Thanks.”
Tate plugged his phone into an outlet next to the TV, grabbed some things from his bag, and ducked into the bathroom without another word.
Lyla picked up her tofu pad thai and sank into the ergonomic desk chair. Something was going on, but what? While she nibbled on her lukewarm noodles, she shuffled through possibilities.
The Army could have told Tate he was going back, or they could’ve said he wasn’t ready yet. They could also have been calling Tate to tell him he was never going to return, and Lyla knew by now that he’d take that news the hardest.
But would he tell her which it was? She wanted to think they’d become friends, at least, if not something more than that. But maybe Tate could already sense that Lyla’s feelings for him were crossing the line into something hard to manage.
Maybe keeping secrets was how he would keep her at arm’s length until he was finally free to leave.
Over on the television console, Tate’s cell began ringing again. Lyla wandered over and peered at the screen
, and saw her boss’s name flash before the call rolled into voicemail.
Shoot. They’d been waiting for that call—and Tate would be even more unhappy once he realized he’d missed it. Lyla bit her lip and tried to decide what to do.
A moment later, her phone began ringing, too. “Hey, Red,” she said in relief. “You don’t give up easily, do you?”
“Understatement of the year. Where’s Tate?”
“He’s in the shower. But his phone is next to mine, so I saw your call come in.”
“Got it. Anyway, I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you guys earlier. Piper and I thought we’d check out the Catskills this weekend and cell service has been shitty, to say the least.”
“It’s okay. Did you listen to Tate’s message?”
“I did. I’m sorry you’re having to go through this, Lyla. Wayne’s working with Trident PR to scrap as many of the remaining events as possible, okay? We might try to set up a few more back in town, but otherwise, we’ll just shift the budget into alternative advertising for now. Oh, and Wayne’s going to email you in the morning, so keep an eye out.”
“Okay.”
“I did leave him a voicemail, but will you reassure Tate that this stalker character isn’t one of our people at Trident? We’ve looked at everyone, and so have the cops. They’re all fine.”
“That’s good to hear. And Red, I do want to apologize for this whole mess,” Lyla said. “I feel really bad that you took a chance on me, and now my weird fan could ruin the whole Red Devil launch.”
“Lyla, it’s not your fault, and it won’t ruin a thing. We’ll just pivot and attack it from a different angle.”
“But if I don’t do the last events, will my new series even have enough buzz to help you?”
“The book tour was a great idea, but it’s not going to make or break the bigger picture. And we’re not going to let your new books flop, Lyla. I promise.”
“I’m not worried about myself. I just mean that—”
“I know what you meant. But the top priority right now is your safety. Everything else can be sorted out,” her boss assured her. “How’s it going with Tate?”
“Fine, so far. All things considered,” Lyla told him a little guiltily. “We get along well, so there’s that.”
“I thought you might.” Red paused for a minute, then asked, “How’s Tate doing, otherwise? Does he seem like he’s feeling okay?”
Lyla went on alert, wondering if Tate’s friend was asking her to tattle on him. It felt disloyal, somehow, to report on Tate’s continuing light sensitivity, or his dizzy spell from a few days back.
She said, “He seems to be good. I haven’t noticed anything off at all.”
She’d noticed other things, though—many handsome and enticing things, that Lyla wouldn’t be allowed to keep.
“And he seems to be sleeping okay?” Red prompted.
Lyla squinted—it was a landmine question, obviously. If she and Tate were behaving themselves, she shouldn’t know the answer to it.
“I assume so,” she answered vaguely, and threw in a casual shrug that her boss couldn’t even see. “You’d have to ask him that.”
Red was quiet for a minute, then laughed loudly. “Nice save.”
“What?”
“Hey, I gotta run. Piper says hi, and wants you to call her when you and Tate get back to town, okay?”
“Okay. Have fun on your trip.”
“Will do. Call if you need anything else, and Lyla—stay safe. Let Tate help you.”
“I will. Bye, Red.”
Lyla disconnected the call and looked up to find Tate standing there studying her. His hair was damp, and he’d changed into a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, but his eyes still looked haunted.
“Feeling better?” she asked him.
He walked over and nodded but didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Sure. Just…” he trailed off and poked at the food containers. “Which one of these is mine?”
“The one with the wide noodles, I think. It looks like it has beef in it.”
Tate opened the lid, snapped apart a pair of disposable chopsticks, and crammed a big bite of food into his mouth. “I’m starved,” he mumbled, chewing.
Lyla set her pad thai aside. “That was Red. He called while you were in the shower.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He called you first, then tried me. He said he left you a message, and that my fan can’t be anyone at Trident. They’ve all been cleared, supposedly. And they’re working to cancel as many of the remaining events as they can, too.”
“That’s good,” Tate said, swallowing. “So much for you getting out of New York being helpful, though—clearly, that was wishful thinking.”
“Clearly.”
Lyla watched Tate as he shoveled more food into his mouth, as industrious and efficient as a machine. She’d never seen him leave his food unfinished, and this time was no different. In minutes, he’d cleaned the container and was looking for more.
Tate was still restless and distracted, though. Troubled. Lyla was going to have to be the one to make the first move if she ever expected to draw him out of the shell he’d retreated into.
He grabbed the box of spring rolls, sat back on the sofa, and finally met her eye.
Lyla held his gaze, and then asked him softly, “What is it? What’s going on?”
TWENTY-ONE
TATE LOOKED INTO Lyla’s sympathetic face and thought seriously about making something up, even knowing that she’d heard his half of that fucking conversation.
He simply couldn’t do it, though.
“I got a call back from my PEBLO,” he told her. At Lyla’s look of confusion, he amended, “The Army caseworker assigned to me. I, uh…I left him a message this morning.”
“And?”
Tate took a deep breath. Even though he should have expected something like this, it still felt like a punch in the gut. He’d had to go hide in the shower like a goddamn pussy, just so he could pull himself together enough to sit in the same room as Lyla without losing it.
“Well, I was expecting to be removed from the TDRL—essentially the disabled list, like they have in sports. I failed my first evaluation back at home, but I did another one in New York, right before we left.”
“I see,” she said, calm as can be.
“I failed again.”
Lyla looked thoroughly aggrieved on his behalf. “What? Why? Look at you—you’re fine.”
“Apparently they disagree. They want to see me again in six to eight more weeks.”
She picked up one of her chopsticks and poked grumpily at what was left of her dinner. “In Cleveland, right? I think I heard that at the end.”
“Yeah,” Tate agreed. It was hard to gauge her expression. He explained, “The doctors there know me a lot better than the ones who reviewed me in New York. I figure maybe they’ll give me a fair shot. Fair-er, anyway.”
Lyla’s voice was laden with compassion when she spoke again. “Tate, I’m so sorry. Maybe this job was a bad idea. We’ve done so much driving and had some really late nights, and…hell, the stress alone has been a nightmare. If you still weren’t feeling a hundred percent, I wish you would have said something.”
Tate sighed. Her concern was sweet, but he couldn’t let her think she was at fault in any way. “Okay, Slick—here’s the deal. My head’s got to be healed by now. I haven’t had any major episodes, and as long as I avoid high-intensity exercise for the next few weeks, I should be good. I swear.”
“But you had that bad dizzy spell. And it’s obvious when the light is hurting your eyes.”
Damn it—she wasn’t supposed to mention that. “That’s all better,” Tate fibbed.
“Oh, really.”
“And luckily, you’re not in the Beatles, so we don’t exactly need to hotfoot it out of your book signings, you know?”
“Not yet, anyway,” Lyla said. “But you should know, this next book is going to be pretty awesome.”
�
�And here I thought Trident was taking care of all your publicity.”
“Every little bit helps, wiseass.”
“Now you tell me.”
Lyla dimpled over at him while she sucked on her soda straw. “I tell you everything. For example…”
Looking at the nervous expression that crept over her face, Tate couldn’t help the flare of panic he felt. He also couldn’t help what came out of his mouth next.
“There’s more, though. Something no one else knows.” That stopped whatever she was about to confess really quick.
“You know I love a good secret,” she breathed, leaning in.
“I do. Which is why I’m going to tell you this, and then you are going to put it under super-spy lockdown, forever.”
Lyla’s eyes got wide behind her glasses, and she instantly mimed turning a key in front of her delectable peach-colored lips before throwing it over her shoulder.
“I don’t think it’s my head injury benching me anymore, Lyla.” Tate could not believe he was telling her this. “I think it’s my psychological evaluations.”
Those perpetually kissable lips dropped open. “What?”
“I got a little too talkative when I was in the hospital in Germany. They’ve had me checking in with a shrink ever since. It’s completely ridiculous.”
“Is it? That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing they’d do for no reason.”
“Trust me, I’m fine. I said some stupid stuff and the Army overreacted, thinking I have survivor’s guilt or some shit. That’s why I don’t want you to tell anyone. It’s pointless—and my parents, and Red and Luca, are already acting like nervous nursemaids as it is.”
Lyla studied him in that incisive way she had. Unfortunately, any vestiges of her earlier tipsiness appeared to be gone, so Tate couldn’t count on her being inattentive or forgetful here.
In an even more depressing development, she’d also lost all traces of the silly affection she’d been lavishing on him when they’d entered this damn room.
“You’re right. They all would be worried about that,” Lyla mused. “But…what do the doctors in charge of your reviews think?”
This was the part that was utterly confounding him, because Tate didn’t know. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “During both evaluations, they asked me a lot of questions, and it was obvious they were waiting for me to say something specific. I just can’t seem to figure out what it is.”
The Hero Was Handsome (Triple Threat Book 3) Page 19