Chapter Twenty-Two
Tiffany picked shit up and dropped it again, her best effort as far as tidying went. Whatever the cops did in her room took forever. They jotted down her statement, but there wasn’t a lot she could tell them. Nothing appeared to be missing, just a whole mess of damage. The police took a few things away with them, but left the rest of the room for her to tidy. She barely had the heart to do it. It would be easier to toss a match and move on.
Thomas dove right in, sifting through her stuff with a huge black garbage bag in one hand. Even Dakota helped, taking the stuff Thomas handed him and piling it to go to a dry cleaner. He did a great job of sorting through her shoes.
Any embarrassment she might have felt about the two of them handling her underwear vanished beneath a big layer of numb. The entire thing was so random. As she halfheartedly sifted through her things, it pissed her off more and more. She felt grubby knowing someone had their hands all over her stuff.
It took most of the afternoon to get the room sorted.
The manager found her another room, two doors down, because she sure as hell wasn’t sleeping in this one tonight. Her handful of wearable stuff sat in a crumpled heap on her bed. She had to find something to wear in that, because these assholes were not stopping her from going to find Luke tonight.
Her phone rang and she checked it. Ryan again, that made it call number six, and she hit Ignore. Ryan could damn well wait until she was ready to speak to him. What would she say to him anyway? She’d pretty much said it all that morning.
And Ryan might be a dickhead, but he was a sharp dickhead, and she couldn’t take the chance he’d pick up that something other than their fight that morning was wrong. The questions would start and go on and on until he dug out the truth.
Dakota’s voice came through the paper-thin motel wall from their room next door. The kid kept arguing and arguing until all of them were ready to scream. She didn’t know where Thomas found the patience to deal.
They’d hit a bit of a snag with Dakota and the plan for tonight. They couldn’t take an underage kid to a bar, and leaving him alone at the motel didn’t look like a great option, either. In the end, they had to trust him, because time was running out and if Luke found out who was looking for him, Tiffany didn’t put it past him to pull another disappearing act. God, Tiffany wanted to rip every hair from Lola’s pampered head. Dakota needed help and he needed the people around him to give him that help. Luke also had some stepping up to do.
She poked through the clothes the assholes hadn’t touched. They’d whittled her four suitcases down to barely enough to fill one. Slim pickings for a girl wanting to look her best. She settled on a new pair of skinny jeans, a knockout pair of heels, and a flirty little blouse that left her shoulders bare and showed a hint of cleavage. She took extra care with her hair and makeup. It took a bit longer to achieve effortless.
A knock on the door interrupted her as she finished up. She opened the door to find Thomas outside. He’d replaced his tee with a white button-down. Holy shit, he cleaned up nice.
“Here.” He handed her a bag.
“What’s this?”
He shrugged and shifted uncomfortably. “Just something I picked up at the store down the road.”
In the bag was a book like the one she’d lost, but this one had huge multicolored polka dots all over it. Her belly flopped and she got a bit squishy inside. It was the best gift ever. Tears prickled under her lids and she blinked rapidly. If she cried now, she’d totally ruin her makeup.
“There wasn’t much to choose from,” he said.
“It’s perfect.” And it was. Tiffany tucked the plastic around the book and hugged it to her chest. Turning back into her room, she laid it carefully on her bed. She ran her fingers over one of the dots. Later.
Thomas waited by the door. Raising herself onto the very tips of her toes, she kissed his cheek. He smelled like slightly spicy cologne, and the touch of his cheek tingled against her lips. She may have lingered there a moment more than strictly necessary. “Thank you.”
He curled his hand around her hip and kept her close to him. “You’re welcome.” His voice deepened. “But there’s a catch with this one.” His beautiful eyes grew solemn and the look on his face implacable. “You can’t keep hiding all the stuff away and pretending it’s a dirty secret. You want to know something, you ask me. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said. “But you’re not allowed to laugh at me when I say something dumb.”
“Babe.” His face softened.
She got it. He didn’t think she was dumb. Could he get any more perfect? She probably looked like a total idiot grinning up at him right now, but who gave a shit.
His leer swept her from head to toe and a bad-boy grin spread over his face. “You look smoking.”
Good, because she needed all the help she could get.
* * *
Tiffany paused outside the bar and eyed it dubiously. So not her sort of place. A number of dusty, mud-spattered SUVs filled the parking lot of the wood-clad structure. A hand-painted sign of a man panning gold announced its name as Prospectors.
The door opened and a man and woman tumbled out. The man was tall and dark, just like Luke.
“Relax,” Thomas said. “It isn’t him.”
And thank God for that. She wasn’t ready. Would she ever be ready for this?
The couple stumbled to their car, arms locked around each other’s waists. They didn’t even glance away from each other. She and Luke had been like that, in the beginning.
Tiffany stopped at the door, her feet stuck to the ground. She rubbed her sweaty palms on the sides of her jeans. “Do you think he’ll be here?”
“Maybe.” Thomas watched her. Not pushing her to go forward or back, just waiting to see what she did.
Tiffany took a shaky breath. Five years and she was about to come face-to-face with a man she never wanted to see again. Her heart hammered so loudly, it almost drowned out the bass thump coming from the other side of the door.
Thomas leaned forward and wrapped his large fingers around hers. “Hey, I’ll be right there with you. And if all else fails, you can call up Delilah.”
How did he manage to make her smile at a time like this? Tiffany curled her hand around the warm comfort of his grip, her lifeline. “The last time we saw each other, it didn’t go well.”
His smile warmed his features and reached out to her. “But this is a whole new day.”
“I have to do this.” She stared at the closed door.
“Yeah, you do.”
“I need to get my divorce and then I can get on with the rest of my life.”
“That’s up to you to decide.” He shrugged one large shoulder. “But you can’t do anything or make any decisions by staying in the same place.”
“You’re right.”
“You ready?”
“Nope.”
He grinned and gave her hand a squeeze. “At the very least, you won’t have to put up with Dakota anymore.”
A hysterical squeak of laughter came out of her. Man, she needed to get a grip. “I feel bad for him.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t make it easy on himself, poor kid. Come on.” Thomas tugged her hand and took a step forward. He pressed open the door and Tiffany let him lead the way.
The bar was—a bar. A wooden counter with glasses and bottles on display behind it made it pretty much like any normal bar. Tables filled the wooden floor between them and the bar. Talk about an anticlimax. What had she expected? Maybe something like the Rabbit in Red Lounge. One or two people turned to see who had entered, but for the most part people seemed intent on their conversations. A classic rock ballad thumped, but set low enough for conversation. Most people wore cargo shorts or long pants like they were dressed for the outdoors. One or two men wore cycling gear. Thank God she hadn’t worn a dress.
Thomas moved toward the counter, propelling her along with him. Tiffany ticked off the tables one by one. Thirty-two tables, ten of them high-topped; eighteen bar stools. Not all the seats filled, so she’d guess 83 percent occupancy. The numbers stilled her mind enough to concentrate on the faces. No Luke. Then again, if he wasn’t there now, she’d only have to get all geared up another time. Well, shit.
“I’ll ask at the bar,” Thomas said.
Tiffany pulled her shoulders down from around her earlobes. They’d expected to get there earlier, so perhaps he’d been and gone. Or maybe he hadn’t even come in tonight. She took a deep breath. If Luke wasn’t there, then she’d been granted another reprieve for the night. The bar looked like a nice enough place. Perhaps they could relax and have a drink. No tequila, but a relaxed drink or two.
“What will you have?” Thomas turned to ask her.
“Martini?”
Thomas turned to place the order.
“No.” Tiffany stopped him. “Actually, I don’t like martinis. Could I have a beer?”
“A beer?”
“Yes, a beer.” She hadn’t had a beer in years.
His eyes twinkled. “Did you count the calories?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I’m living wild tonight.”
He gave her a big grin that made her feel much, much better and turned to place their order. He pulled out a bar stool for her, and Tiffany sat. Now that the danger was over, she really looked at the bar. It was a nice place. Nothing fancy, but clean and well ordered. Pictures of extreme sports hung on the walls, interspersed with the normal mirrors and signs advertising various alcoholic beverages. Huge picture windows framed a beautiful view of the mountains behind.
Imagine Ryan sitting here in one of those loud cycling outfits drinking a beer. That was if she could get past imagining Ryan somewhere like this at all. She and Ryan didn’t go to bars, as such. They preferred clubs or restaurants. The sort of upscale places where people went for a drink after work. Or to check out who else was out and about, who they were with, what they were wearing, that sort of thing.
The barman slid two beers and two frosted glasses across the polished wood counter in front of her.
Thomas took a beer and poured it, then slid it in front of her.
“You always act the gentleman,” she said.
He shrugged off the compliment. “My dad raised us that way.”
“It’s nice.”
A comfortable silence settled between them. Propping his hand on the bar, Thomas turned sideways to her. “We probably shouldn’t be gone too long.” He surveyed the bar as he sipped his beer. “I don’t trust Dakota on his own.”
That was another thing about him she’d noticed. He had this way of taking care of the people with him. And he didn’t do it in a bossy or pushy way that made her feel managed. He quietly and competently took charge. Of course, Dakota probably didn’t feel the same right about now.
Tiffany sipped her cold, sharp beer. She savored the bitter bite of hops on her tongue. She didn’t drink beer because Ryan thought it was uncouth. Thomas would have lots to say about that. He would tell her to make up her own mind what she wanted to drink. He was right. She should make up her own mind. And if that meant she never had to drink another martini, all the better.
“Fuck, no.” Luke’s voice cut through all the noise around her, deep, rough, and a tiny bit husky. She would know it anywhere. All the blood left her head as she gripped the edge of the bar. Her knuckles whitened as she dug her fingers into the wood.
One of Thomas’s big hands covered hers. He gave it a warm squeeze as he turned and said calmly, “Hey, Luke.”
“What the fuck is she doing here?”
Slowly, she edged around on the bar stool. Thomas still had her hand in his and she gripped it tightly.
Shit, Luke looked good. He had let his hair grow. It hung over his ears and around his neck in a dark tangle. He’d lost weight and looked lean and tanned. The clean lines of his face were carved into predatory angles that were very, very sexy. Luke had always been good-looking, but now he’d added a whole new level of animal hotness. And he still had those dark toffee eyes that could draw you in and hold you. A rush of heat swept her nerve endings. Luke still had it, whatever it was. “Hello, Luke.”
He glared at her and folded his arms over his chest. The muscles in his jaw worked in the silent expression of fury she’d seen facing her for most of their marriage.
“Have a seat,” Thomas said, not quite an invitation.
Luke glanced between the two of them. “What is this? Some kind of lynch mob?”
A woman stepped closer to Luke and put her hand on his arm. “What is it, baby?”
“My worst nightmare.” Luke growled.
The woman swung her gaze to Tiffany. “Who is she?”
“My fucking ex-wife.” Luke spoke to the woman but kept his glare locked on her. Cold as ice, stripping her bare and leaving her raw.
“Actually, that’s why I’m here.”
Luke jerked his chin toward Thomas. “With him?”
“We came looking for you.” How the hell did Thomas manage to sound so calm and relaxed while the air around the three of them flickered and snapped with tension?
Tiffany straightened her spine and took a deep breath. She could do this. She’d left the girl who married Luke in the past and grown up. And after this, she would never have to see him again. “I need to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
“Actually, we do.” Her voice came out a bit shaky and she cleared her throat.
“Fuck.” Luke dragged his hands through his hair. “I’m looking right at you and I can’t believe you’re sitting there. Just how far do I have to go to get away from you?”
Shit that hurt and it shouldn’t because she knew he felt that way. “I need some of your time and then we’re done forever.”
Luke took a deliberate step toward her.
Thomas shifted his weight, putting the solid comfort of his presence beside her.
“I don’t have any time for you. I have nothing for you, and as far as I am concerned, we are done,” Luke said.
“Hey.” Thomas stepped forward. “Why don’t you hear her out? You need to hear what she has to say.”
“Don’t give me that shit.” Luke turned on Thomas with a snarl. “I know exactly why you’re here, and it’s got nothing to do with her.”
“Then if you know that, you can give me those survey results.” An edge of steel encased Thomas’s voice.
“No way.” Luke curled his lip, almost exactly like Dakota. He spun on his heel and stalked toward the exit. “I’m done here.”
Tiffany sat, frozen to her bar stool, as Luke stalked out.
“Wait here.” Thomas disappeared after Luke.
Luke’s friends stood there staring at her. The woman’s eyes were openly hostile. “Why don’t you just leave him alone?”
“I’d like to.” And boy, would she like to, but she’d come all this way to see this done. Now or never. She dropped some money on the bar and chased after Luke and Thomas. “But right now, I need him.”