Chapter Seventeen
Tiffany mulled their conversation over in the silence. People didn’t decide they were dumb. Thomas called that right. So where had she gotten the idea? And her book? If she was really dumb, would she have the book? Thinking about this made her head ache. “Tell me about Zambia?”
Thomas glanced over. “What do you want to know?”
“What it’s like?” Talking about him seemed a better option than digging around in her head.
“It’s . . .” Thomas tapped his long finger on the wheel. “It’s Africa, and like nowhere else on earth.” The quiet passion in his voice hooked her. His strong face softened as if he had gone to his happy place.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Zambia has this immediacy. Life and death are right there, so close you can touch them on a daily basis. When I’m there, I feel alive, really alive. The colors are brighter, somehow.” He gave a soft, half-shy laugh. “I love it and it drives me crazy at the same time. It gets under your skin.”
Tiffany didn’t think she’d ever felt that kind of connection to a place. She could picture him there, Big, blond, and tanned, striding through his own National Geographic feature. He belonged someplace like that, and she’d like to see it.
“Hey, does anyone want to play a game?” Dakota leaned over the back of her seat.
“Sure.” Thomas’s gaze flitted to Dakota’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “How about I Am Botticelli?”
“Say what?” Dakota blinked back.
“It’s really easy,” Thomas said. “You pick a famous person and we have twenty questions to guess who it is. Only the answers have to be yes or no, it can’t be a long explanation.”
“That’s called Twenty Questions.” Dakota curled his lip.
“Not in my family.” Thomas’s jaw clenched. “Now, do you want to play or not?”
The familiar knot tightened in Tiffany’s stomach. The only person she could name was Britney Spears. Thomas and Dakota would die laughing at her. “You play,” she said. “I’m going to read my book.”
Thomas shot her a glance.
“I am.”
He raised his brow. Whatever.
“How can you read that shit?” Dakota spoke from over her shoulder and made kissy noises in her ear. “It’s so stupid.”
“You know what’s stupid?” Thomas cut in before she could say anything. “Stupid is when you put someone else down.”
“Yeah, but they’re romance novels.” Dakota added tongue action to his kissing noises.
Her cheeks burned. Dakota majored in mean sometimes.
“And you play music that shakes your brain cells to death,” Thomas said. “But nobody is calling you stupid.”
“Jeez.” Dakota rolled his eyes. “I was just saying.”
“Don’t.” Thomas didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
Dakota dropped his chin onto his chest and shrugged.
“Okay,” Thomas said. “I’ve got someone, ask your questions.”
Tiffany kept her focus on the book, but listened to the game.
Dakota fired questions at Thomas. His high-pitched laugh jarred her. She gave up pretending to read her book and watched him surreptitiously. Something was a bit off with him. Then again, how would she know? She had only seen him in bits and pieces since her “divorce,” and he’d sneered at her and called her Barbie ever since.
Dirt and stones kicked against the wheel well as Thomas suddenly pulled over to the side of the road.
Tiffany looked up at him in surprise.
A muscle jumped in the rigid line of his jaw. He hopped out of the truck and wrenched open the back door. “Out.”
Dakota jolted back and opened his mouth to argue.
“Get. Out.”
Tiffany stared. A whole new Thomas stood beside the truck with Dakota locked in his crosshairs. Uh-oh! Thomas looked ready to rip Dakota a new one. He was a difficult little shit, but he was still just a kid. “Thomas—”
“Don’t.” His eyes blazed.
Tiffany shut up. Damn, Thomas got scary when he was mad.
Dakota hopped from the truck.
“Stay there.” Thomas nodded at her and stalked off into the brush at the side of the road.
Dakota followed him, dragging his feet in the dust.
* * *
Thomas breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. For all the good that did. He was so pissed off right now he ached to punch something. Tiffany and her dumb thing got him mad enough, but Dakota pushed him right over the edge.
Dakota’s feet scuffed the dirt behind him.
When they were far enough away from the truck not to be overheard he turned. “What are you on?”
Dakota’s eyes widened and he swallowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Thomas took a step closer. “I know you’re on something and I want to know what it is.”
“You’re crazy.” Dakota glanced to the side. He swung around and headed for the truck.
“Don’t do it.” Thomas didn’t know what he would do if the kid took one more fucking step, but it was not going to be pretty. The little shit was high as a kite. His best guess would be cocaine. Whatever it was, he must have taken it in the bathroom before they left the rest stop. Like he’d taken it the other day when he and Tiffany were at the Grand Canyon.
Dakota’s eyes bugged out and his dilated pupils almost swallowed any eye color. It would be better to wait until he came down before he attempted another conversation. So be it, but this getting high shit stopped now. Thomas knew Luke well enough to know the other man would freak out if he found out his kid brother was taking drugs.
Dakota stopped. The first smart move he’d shown in days. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cocaine?” he asked.
Tiffany peered through the window at them, her forehead puckered in a frown.
“I don’t do drugs,” Dakota said.
“Bullshit.” Thomas almost lost it. “Is there more in your bag?”
“You’re losing your mind.”
“Wanna come clean before I check your bag, because I got no problem doing it.”
“No.”
“No, what?” Thomas wasn’t going on a ride along with some kid and his fucking idiotic habit.
“There’s none in my bag.”
“Where did you get the stuff you’re on?”
“I had it.”
“Go get your bag.”
“I told you, I don’t have any.” Dakota glared up at him, his breath coming hard.
“Get it.” Stupid damned kid, maybe if he grabbed him by the ears and drop-kicked him into next week he’d get some sense out of him. Jesus. Seventeen and putting shit up his nose like a seasoned junkie.
“You’ve got no right to check my stuff.”
“I’ve got every right when you’re in my car, underage, and doing illegal shit. Now, get your bag, or I will.”
“You’re fucked in the head.”
“No.” Thomas got right into his space. “You are, and you’re not going to get that way again. Not on my dime and not when I’m the adult that’s going to catch shit for it. Get. Your. Bag.”
“You’re a total douche.” Dakota blinked rapidly.
So be it! Thomas spun on his heel and stalked back to the truck. He leaned in through the open door and grabbed Dakota’s bag.
“Hey.” The kid reached out to snatch it back.
The look Thomas gave him had him backing off, fast. Thomas could feel Tiffany’s stare on both of them, but he didn’t look up. She didn’t deserve this crap. None of them did. Least of all Dakota. He searched the bag thoroughly. The kid was either telling the truth or it was too well hidden.
“I told you there was nothing in there.” Dakota snatched his bag and shoved it in the back. “Maybe you get off putting your hands all over my stuff. Is that it? You’re like a perv or something? You like touching other men’s underpants?”
Thomas strode around to the driver’s side.
“What is it?” Tiffany whipped around in her seat, glancing between them. “What’s going on?”
Thomas thought about lying to her and then abandoned the idea. “Dakota’s high.” She might be fragile as all hell, but she still deserved to know. “I was making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Seriously?” She made a soft noise of disbelief beneath her breath. “And he calls me stupid.”
Dakota got into the back, slamming the door so hard the entire truck rattled. He retreated immediately behind his Beats.
Thomas got back on the road. “Did his mother tell you what kind of trouble he’s in?”
“No.” Tiffany shook her head. “She got in the cab so fast, I didn’t have the chance to ask questions. Do you think it’s drug related?”
“Shit, I hope not.” Thomas glared at the dark strip of tarmac stretching out in front of the truck’s hood. He hoped like hell he was wrong, but his Spidey sense shrieked at him. Whatever this kid was into, it wasn’t going to be good. And where was his mother in all of this? Taking the sun in Africa. Fuck. What the hell was wrong with the woman, anyway?
He jerked his head toward Dakota. “His mother do this a lot?” It couldn’t be further from his own mother. Donna was always there when someone needed her. Always. “Take off, I mean, and leave him with someone else.”
Tiffany shrugged. “I think so. I really haven’t had much to do with them since my di—since Luke left. But I think I’m still some sort of legal guardian or something because they didn’t get around to changing it.”
“Why is that?” He wanted to know all of a sudden. He didn’t get any of this messed-up situation.
“I would guess Lola is too lazy to bother with changing a legal document.”
“Not that.” Frustration soured his gut. “Why are you still married to Luke?”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know why you’re not divorced?” He found that hard to believe.
“I tell myself it’s because I couldn’t be bothered to track Luke down, but I don’t think that’s the truth.”
Thomas waited. There was more to this story. A hell of a lot more.
“I think the truth is more like I’m scared to see Luke again. But then, that doesn’t really wash either because I could have had the papers taken to him and gotten him to sign them like that. Maybe what I’m really scared of is letting go.”
Her honesty rocked him a little. He stared out at the road for a while, not knowing what else to do. Man, her party pack full of surprises kept coming. A drop-dead body wrapped around a tender heart. Fragile, like one of those ornamental balls his mother hung on the Christmas tree. So beautiful, perfect to look at, but ridiculously easy to shatter.
That dickhead Ryan didn’t deserve someone so beautiful and delicate. He had her all tied up in knots, trying to be something she wasn’t. Who gave a shit if she’d never read Tolstoy? He shook his head. Why was he wasting so much mental energy on this shit? He would take her to Luke, get them all sorted, and get the hell on with his life. Back home, his family waited for him. Babies didn’t hang around for their people to be ready. His brother Josh said he was making headway in getting his kick-ass girlfriend to marry him. And he missed it, going round and round the world chasing whatever he fancied. Time to plug into family again and feel their love and warmth. He teetered off center, too big for his own skin. A trip back home would right-size him pretty quickly.
“Are you still in love with Luke?” Was that his mouth that just opened up and asked the question? It must be.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. They were the most incredible green color and surrounded by lashes as thick as a Disney princess’s. “No.” Her teeth went at that bottom lip again. Perfect white teeth making indents into that lush pillow of a lip. What a crying shame to do such a thing to a mouth like that. “Maybe.” She sighed. “I don’t know. The thing with Luke and me, it was so intense and it burned so bright. I don’t know what that means.”
“You and the almost fiancé, you don’t burn bright?” There he went again. Exactly what was this crap to him? Nothing. That’s what it was. Nothing. Still, he listened for her answer.
“Oh, no.” She laughed. “Ryan and I have a mature relationship. It’s not all up and down, in and out, and burning hot one day and blowing freezing the next.”
Sounded like a snore to him. “No?”
“No.” She slashed the air with her hand. “I am done with that shit. I want stable and secure. Ryan is that and more. I want peaceful.”
Thomas stopped himself from shaking his head. Peaceful? How could anything be peaceful when you had a woman this amazing in your life? The way he saw it, you had a woman like this in your life, it was passion. All the way passion, burning hot and strong and pretty much all the time. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.
Images of Tiffany lying spent and drowsy in his bed took up room in his brain. He shook them off. He had no business even going there. Her life was one massive hot mess. The best thing he could do was steer clear. Way clear. This time next year, if he got those results, he would be breaking ground in Zambia.