Hot Alphas Page 21

  His art, the twisted works of metal, sold for a lot—some of the prices had left her jaw hanging and she knew he could afford the pretty purse in front of her.

  It wasn’t the money.

  It was the fact that he’d noticed.

  He’d seen her staring at this purse, then he’d gone out and found it. He had the heart to notice, and he’d taken the time to find it.

  He wouldn’t let them have a chance at a future.

  Pulling it to her chest, she sank to the floor, her back pressed to the cabinets, while she stared up at the ceiling, willing herself not to cry.

  The warm, luxurious scent of leather surrounded her.

  Unable to hold the tears back another moment, she started to sob.

  * * *

  Gritty-eyed from lack of sleep, Tate slumped in the chair and stared up at the ceiling.

  It had been less than twelve hours since Ali had tossed him out of her life.

  His heart felt like it had withered up and turned into nothing but a ball of dust. Dry and useless.

  Sleep had evaded him and because he had been going mad inside the four walls of his empty little house, he’d escaped.

  There was no place left for him to really escape to, though, so he’d found himself here, with one of the few friends he had.

  Sadly, that friend was a deputy with the county sheriff’s department, and he was also currently on duty. Guy watched him over the rim of his coffee cup, his gray eyes shrewd.

  “You look like hell.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He eyed the coffee Guy had gotten him with resignation. Well, if he was going to die, he might as well get it over with. Poison was relatively fast, right? He took a sip, grimaced as something akin to motor oil rolled over his tongue. “Shit. That stuff is awful.”

  “Well, you don’t come here for my coffee.” Guy shrugged. Then he leaned forward, eyeing the monitor in front of him for a moment before sighing. “Tate, I don’t have anything new for you. You know that. If I did, I’d let you know … you wouldn’t have to come to me.”

  Guy and Tate had either hated each other’s guts or been best friends for most of their lives. For the past ten years they’d been best friends, except when Tate started thinking too much about how Guy looked at Tate’s little sister, Chrissie.

  Then he wanted to hate the bastard again.

  He made peace with it by yanking the guy’s chain whenever possible, and by using the man’s law enforcement connections. Rarely more than a few months went by without Tate asking Guy to poke around in his mother’s file.

  Today, he wasn’t here to yank Guy’s chain, though. He needed to fill his mind and he needed to stop thinking about Ali. Ali. Fuck. She was done with him. Unaware he was even doing so, he reached up to rub at his chest, the ache all but ready to end him.

  Yeah. She was done with him. Why wouldn’t she be?

  Aware of the curious look in Guy’s eyes, Tate pushed all of that aside and focused on why he’d come. His mom. Almost fifteen years. To the day. That date was drawing down on them, closer and closer. Sometimes Tate thought it was like a dragon, breathing fire down his back, but instead of heat, this dragon’s flame was made of ice. Ice and death.

  “Nothing new? How do you know? Have you thought about reopening her case?” He dared another sip of the deadly coffee. It hadn’t killed him yet. He knew, because the misery was still eating him alive.

  Guy sighed and gave him a level stare. “Tate. It’s been fifteen years. You have me doing this, all too often. I can tell you, Jensen doesn’t go more than a couple of months without poking around. Anytime we hear anything that might be remotely connected, she’s already on top of it. None of us have forgotten Nichole. There’s just nothing for us to find.”

  Tate opened his mouth. Then, without saying a word, he shut it. Giving up on the coffee, he slumped forward and braced his elbows on his knees, staring at the dingy gray carpet and reaching for something, anything, to say.

  It didn’t even have to be related to this at all. He just needed something to occupy his mind. Anything to keep him from thinking about Ali.

  It’s over, he thought dully.

  It was really over.

  What was he going to do without her? When he needed somebody to talk to? How did he get by without spending some time with her kids? He adored Joey and Nolan.

  He loved her. So much, he felt hollow inside thinking about the days and nights stretching out in front of him. Days and nights that wouldn’t have her in them.

  “Have you questioned…” He swallowed and forced the words out. “My father?”

  “I asked him if he remembered anything new,” Guy said quietly.

  “Like he’ll tell you.” Tate closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose while the memories tormented him. They were getting worse, those memories.

  The anniversary of his mom’s disappearance was just a few weeks away now, and he’d be alone—

  “You selfish bitch.”

  Memories of that long-ago night rose up, grabbing him.

  Him hugging the girls once he’d crowded them into his room after he’d realized the fight was just getting worse and worse. Chrissie’s thin arms wrapped around his neck, Jensen shivering against his side, him a mess of frustration and fear and confusion—he should have stopped him. He’d sat in his room with his sisters, like a pussy, instead of going out there and telling the man to shut the fuck up.

  Instead, he’d just sat in there with the girls and tried to figure out what in the hell was going on. His parents just didn’t fight. They might argue back and forth, but they didn’t fight like that.

  “Doug, just stop. We’re not doing this in front of them.”

  “The hell we’re not. You started it, so let’s finish it. I was never good enough for you, was I?”

  “You know, living in the past is a damn sure way to drive yourself crazy,” Guy said, shattering the awful spell that had held Tate captive for a few minutes.

  Turning his head, he looked over at the other man. “I can’t help it.”

  “Sure you can. You just need to decide you’re going to move on.” Guy shrugged. “You think I don’t have bad memories of my folks?”

  “Your dad didn’t kill your mother and get away with it.” Tate stared at the brick wall in front of him, but he wasn’t seeing anything. He was seeing that night. Hiding in the room with his sisters after his mom had left. The way his dad had slammed the door, locking himself in his room.

  Then a little while later, Doug had left, returning hours later.

  Fourteen years old, he’d tried to convince his sisters everything would be fine.

  But nothing was ever fine again. His dad woke up. They asked where Mom was. He didn’t know. They waited. They all waited.

  Fifteen years later, they continued to wait.

  “No, he just beat her to death in front of me, and when I tried to stop him, he put me in the hospital.” Guy straightened in his chair, staring out at nothing.

  Tate closed his eyes, swore under his breath. “Fuck. I’m sorry. That was—.”

  “Don’t. It’s okay. Neither of us were the picture for normalcy. My dad beat my mother to death and went to prison. Your mom…” Guy sighed, and then shifted his attention back to Tate. “Look, there is no proof that Doug killed your mom. None.”

  He shot Guy a dark look. “Who else would have done it? My mom didn’t get into a fight with some other husband that night. Nobody else reported seeing anything. There’s shit for evidence. Besides my dad, who else was angry with her that night?”

  “Sometimes, there isn’t a point.” Guy stood from behind his desk and moved around to stand in front of it. “Look, I’ll poke around, see what I can find. But there’s not much hope here. We don’t have a body. We don’t have any witnesses. There is nothing to go on. She just…”

  “Disappeared.” Tate closed his eyes. He knew all of this. It was the same shit he’d lived with all this time.

  “Let it go, man.”
Guy rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Go chase Ali down, make her marry you. Just let all of this go. That’s what your mom would have wanted, you know. All of you happy.”

  “Chase Ali down.” He looked up at Guy. “I think Ali is tired of waiting around for me. Besides…”

  He paused, struggling to keep the words trapped inside him. But the misery over Ali and everything suddenly came spilling out and, for the first time, he gave voice to the fear that had lived inside him all of his life. “Something in him snapped that night, Guy. Just snapped. How do I know I won’t do the same thing?”

  For a second, Guy just stared at him, and then he swore.

  Turning away, he moved to the window and stared outside. After long, tense moments, he turned back to him, watching Tate with burning eyes. “You’re a fucking moron. Do you really believe that? Is that why you keep pretending there’s nothing between you two even though the whole damn town knows you’re crazy about her? You think you’re going to go crazy and hurt her?”

  “My dad never would have thought he’d hurt my mother, but he sure as hell did it.” He glared at Guy.

  Guy closed his eyes, blowing out a breath. Then he opened them and pinned Tate with a direct stare. “Okay, Tate. We need to have a talk—we should have had it a long time ago.”

  * * *

  The river unfurled under the sun, a long, glinting ribbon of blue and gold, stretching between the wooded shores of Kentucky and Indiana. It was the dead of summer and there wasn’t even a breeze coming off the water. But that didn’t seem to bother the boaters out there. Some sailboats, more than a few people out fishing—although it was possible they were just out there drinking and the poles were just for looks.

  Tate walked alongside Guy, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he waited. It had been nearly thirty minutes since they’d left the sheriff’s department but Guy hadn’t said much of anything.

  “You know, if I’d known you were in the mood for a nice, romantic walk along the river, we could have set up a date in the evening when it’s cooler,” he finally pointed out.

  “Why? So you could say no?” Guy sneered. “Then again, you might say yes … after all, you aren’t in love with me. You’re in love with Ali, but you won’t take her on a nice long walk along the river, will you?”

  “Shove it, Guy.” He shot Guy a dark look. Then he smirked. “Besides, you’re not my type.”

  “Ali is. You push her away. All the damn time.”

  “My relationship with Ali is—” Over. He swallowed the bitterness that rose up inside him. Stopping along the walkway, he turned and looked out over the river. A breeze blew up and he closed his eyes, lifted his face to it. “It’s none of your business, Guy.”

  “Maybe not. But you, being a friend, are my business. If you’re avoiding trying to reach for anything real with her because you think you’re going to turn into your dad…” Guy stopped and blew out a breath, then he crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes, gray as the storm clouds piling up overhead, met Tate’s. “I don’t talk about this with you. I’ve tried before and you never listen. You never want to listen, but dammit, this time you are going to, even if I have to chase you down and sit on you. Tate, your dad isn’t a killer.”

  “Oh, don’t start—”

  “I fucking will start and for the first time in your life, you’ll listen to me,” Guy said, his voice flat. “I know bad guys. I know scum. I know guilty men and I know men who could kill and not feel a damn thing. I came from that. I saw it, every time I looked at my father. I know killers. I also know the weak-ass bastards who snap and do awful things and regret it. I know that is who you think Doug is, but you’re wrong. If I had to stake my badge on this, I’d be willing to do it. I don’t think your dad killed your mom—I know that man and if you’d stop being pissed off at him, for just a little while, long enough to look at him, you’d see it, too.”

  Tate glared at him. “You weren’t there,” he snarled, leaning in, nose to nose. “You didn’t hear them.”

  “No.” Guy shook his head. “But I was there, day in and day out, when my dad threatened to kill my mom. I walked in when he was doing it … when he was beating the shit out of her and when I tried to stop it.…”

  Guy looked away.

  Tate jerked out of his grasp and put distance between them.

  Back in high school, their senior year, there had been a morning when all the teachers had been … off.

  Guy’s seat was empty. They’d shared almost all their classes and come lunch, Tate finally heard.

  Guy was in the hospital. His mom was dead.

  Guy’s father had been sentenced to twenty years for her murder. He’d been released on parole a few years ago, but hadn’t even gone nine months before it was revoked. So he was back in jail.

  Tate rather wished the fucker would rot there.

  He looked down, staring at the battered leather of his boots. “Guy, our parents were different people. Your dad was always…”

  “A monster?” He turned his head and met Tate’s gaze. “Yeah. He is. He was always a monster. He beat me. He beat my mom. He beat that mean-ass pit bull of ours and threatened to kill anybody who stepped foot on our property or looked at him sideways. He’s a monster. I know monsters. Your father isn’t a monster, Tate. I’ve spent too many nights talking to him. I cannot believe that man is the kind of man who’d kill the woman he loved. I don’t believe it.” He closed the distance between them and leaned against the railing, staring out over the town while Tate continued to stare at the river. “But even if I didn’t know your father, I know you. You would cut off your arm before you harmed a woman, man. It’s just not in you. Stop thinking that you’re some fucked-up kind of fruit from the poison tree. You’ve got a woman who’d make you happy. She’s got two kids who love you and you adore them. But instead of reaching for a life where you could finally be happy, you run from it. Out of fear? Shit, Tate. Fuck that. Think about it. Would your mom really want this kind of life for you?”

  Then Guy shoved off the railing and walked away.

  Tate stood there, staring at nothing.

  * * *

  “Instead of reaching for a life where you could finally be happy, you run from it.”

  Those words haunted him. Whether or not Guy had intended that, Tate didn’t know.

  But as he bent over the twisting metal, watching the image in his head take form, he couldn’t block them out. There was no escaping the truth of what Guy had said.

  The truth of what Ali had said.

  He was in love with her.

  Had been for … hell.

  Forever, maybe.

  Sometimes, it seemed like he’d just been waiting for the right moment to take his spot in her life. It hadn’t been a sudden thing. He could remember seeing her with that fuckwit, Scott, back in school and thinking how much better she could do. He remembered seeing her push little Joey around in his stroller, and the kick he felt in his heart, seeing the two of them.

  Forever. Yeah, that seemed about right.

  Once again, memories rocked him, but this time, they weren’t the brutal ugly memories of his past.

  He thought about nights spent in her backyard, her behind the old, brick grill he’d helped her repair, while she wielded a spatula and threatened to beat him if he came near her while she was cooking. The boys laughing as he pretended to cower away.

  He thought of Nolan, the way he’d laugh when Tate threw him up in the air and vague memories of his own father doing the same tried to creep in.

  Then there were bittersweet, beautiful memories of nights spent in her bed. Her arms, soft and strong, wrapped around him as he moved over her, her voice a hungry little whisper in his ear.

  He’d felt so … right.

  With her.

  It was the closest to real he’d ever felt.

  He was letting it slip away.

  He did run.

  “Fuck.” He glared at the sculpture in front of him, the blowtorch fe
eling too heavy, awkward in his hands.

  Swearing, he stepped back and lowered the tool.

  If he kept this up, he was going to ruin the damn thing or put himself in the hospital.

  He stowed his gear and moved away, staring out the grimy windows, but seeing nothing.

  Except Ali. He saw her everywhere, felt her even when she wasn’t there.

  The need to be with her, to tell her everything he had inside him was choking him.

  He wanted to be the man she deserved.

  The thought of seeing her in town one day, with some other guy was enough to gut him.

  It would happen. Madison was about the size of a postage stamp.

  He couldn’t stand the thought of her being with somebody else, but could he be what she wanted?

  “Instead of reaching for a life where you could finally be happy, you run from it.”

  Reach for a life.

  Dropping his head, he rubbed the muscles along the nape of his neck while the storm built inside him. How in the hell did he reach for a life anyway? He’d never had one. It had all stopped one hot summer night fifteen years ago.

  Reach for her, he thought.

  That was how he started.

  If he was going to do that, though, he had to face things, figure out the mess that was his life, his past.

  All of it.

  * * *

  There used to be a car shop there.

  Tate stood at the corner, eyeing the empty building. The sign wasn’t readable anymore.

  For the longest time, even after his dad had stopped trying to make it work, he could make out the words Bell’s Auto Care. A few others had tried to make a go with the place, set up a business, but nothing had lasted.

  When Doug Bell had owned it, it had done okay. More than okay, actually, although Doug had worked long hours. For a few months, right up until Mom had disappeared, Tate had been working there, too, and that had helped some.

  Tate tried not to think about that time of his life. Tried not to think about how his mom would tease his father, making the somber man laugh, even when he didn’t know what to make of her sometimes.