Chapter Twenty-Nine
Tiffany banged on the door to the room next door. Dakota couldn’t hear a damn thing when he had that music going. She gave the door another hefty pound, putting a little foot action in there for power. She waited, but the door didn’t so much as squeak.
Thomas had texted her a few minutes ago, asking her to bring Dakota and meet them in the same place as their abortive breakfast with Luke. Screw this. If Luke and Thomas wanted Dakota, then they could use Thomas’s key.
She found them in the regular coffee shop. At least it was becoming regular, as one day dribbled into another. She really had spent more time in Utah than she ever would have imagined.
Thomas’s expression gave nothing away as Tiffany sat down.
For once, Thomas and Luke weren’t looking like they were a few breaths away from tearing into each other. “What’s going on?”
“Dakota?” Luke raised an eyebrow at her.
“I banged on the door,” she said. “I couldn’t get him to answer.”
“How loud did you bang?” Luke inserted his unwelcome drawl of derision into the conversation.
Okay, if Luke tried a little more not to light her fuse every time, this whole simmering-down thing would be a lot easier. “Any harder and I would have brought the management down on my head.”
Thomas frowned and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I thought I left him sleeping.”
“Either you did or you didn’t,” Luke said.
Tiffany glared at him. Did he really think that tone was helpful? Clearly he did, because he looked unbearably smug.
“I saw a lump in the bed.” She admired Thomas’s patience, she really did, but Thomas hadn’t been married to Captain Charisma for two very long years.
“You didn’t check?” Luke’s eyes widened. “It’s the middle of the day.”
Thomas sat back and folded his arms. “No, Luke, I didn’t check. He’s seventeen and the last thing he wants is some dude hanging over him while he sleeps.” Even Thomas had his limits.
Dakota, all on his own, so not good. “Should we go and check now?”
“I’ll go.” Thomas got to his feet. He turned to Luke before he left. “Why don’t you tell Tiffany what you told me?”
A couple of the female patrons watched him go. She had the insane urge to leap up and shout “mine.” She glanced back at Luke instead.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Well?” She had to admit making Luke squirm felt all kinds of good.
“I was a dick,” he said.
“When?”
“Come on, Tiff.” He glared at her. “Let me get this out and then you can take all the shots you like.”
“Okay.” She took a deep, deep breath.
“I should never have let Dakota think I didn’t want him with me. I should’ve said that it would be great to have him with me.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“I was shocked.” Luke fidgeted with the handle of his coffee mug. “I’ve spent the last few years of my life running from my family and all the shit around them. You arrived with Dakota and I panicked. I felt like it was all there again, waiting to suck me in.”
Tiffany got it. After he’d disappeared, she would have done anything to put some distance between herself and her screwed-up marriage. She envied him his escape across the world. Why hadn’t she run? Because she’d been busy trying to make it up to her father that she’d made such a colossal mistake in her marriage.
The waitress arrived and gave her a brief reprieve from her thoughts. She ordered a cup of coffee and the pancakes, determined to eat them this time.
“You were there, Tiff. You know how fucked up it all got, with my dad going to jail and Lola swearing blind she knew nothing about it. Then you and I imploded. I looked at what you did to the Miura and I wanted out. It wasn’t only you, though. It was all of it. Looking at that wrecked car was like looking at myself. What I had become, what my life had become, and I wanted to get as far away from it as I could.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I’m not the sort of man who screws around. And yet, I was exactly that with you. It was like I was hell-bent on destroying anything that had value in my life.” Luke took a deep breath. “I needed to get away. I needed to find who I was. And I did find him. I was even starting to like that man. Then you arrived and nightmare Luke came back. One look at you and I’m stuffed full of all this rage and self-destruction.”
“I can understand that.” He’d the same impact on her. “What now?”
“Now I find Dakota and apologize. Not just about this summer and him staying with me, but about all of it. I should have stayed in contact with him.” He made a face. “I knew how things would be in that house, with Lola. He was a kid. He relied on the adults around him to take care of him.”
“Did Thomas tell you all of it?”
Luke’s face got tight. “You mean about the drugs? Yes, he did. Dakota and me are going to make that a priority.” He shook his head and his anger blurred into a different expression. He looked almost guilty. “I fucked up, Tiff. I should have been there for him. This shit is partly on me. But I’m going to make it right.”
“Just what did Thomas say to you?” Man, she’d loved to have heard that conversation.
Luke stuck his chin out. “That’s between him and me. The important part is that it got through to me. I was halfway there on my own, he just gave me a shove.” Tiffany was less sure of that. Her expression must have said so, because Luke looked indignant. “It’s true.”
“Okay.” She shrugged. So not worth fighting about.
Thomas entered the diner. Alone.
“Did you find him?” Luke frowned.
“No.” Thomas slid into the booth beside her. Two creases wrinkled the skin between his eyes. “The bed was rumpled, but he wasn’t in it. It felt cold as well, so he hasn’t been in it for a while.”
“Then where is he?” Luke’s eyes narrowed.
“I think that’s what we’d all like to know,” Thomas said.
“You must have seen him earlier,” Luke said.
“That was a while ago.”
“What were you two doing without him?”
Tiffany’s face got so hot it might explode.
Thomas stilled beside her and dropped his gaze.
Luke stopped with his mouth half-open. He glanced from her to Thomas and back again. “You are fucking kidding me.” Luke threw himself back in the booth. “You two are fucking each other?”
Who the hell was Luke to judge her? “Not the point.”
Thomas tapped his knuckles on the table. “He could have gone anytime after that. Like I said, I saw the bed, but I didn’t check.”
Luke glared at her. “And where does your so-called fiancé fit into you doing Thomas?”
“Drop it,” Tiffany said, a little desperately.
“No way. You wrecked my car because I screwed around on you. You just lost the moral high ground, Tiffany.”
Tiffany’s jaw dropped open and she snapped it shut again. “What has one thing got to do with another?”
“You were all outraged—”
“Nothing,” Thomas said. “The two have nothing to do with each other. And nothing to do with where Dakota went and where he is now.”
Luke opened his mouth like he might argue further, but sat back in his chair with a growl.
“He could be at the mall.” Tiffany pointed to a strip mall across the road.
“What would he be doing at a mall?” Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Thomas already made sure he had something to eat.”
“He was upset,” Tiffany said. “After you left this morning, he was very upset.”
“I tried to talk to him, but he nearly took my head off,” Thomas said.
The waitress slid the plate of pancakes in front of her. Tiffany eyed them and sighed. “We’ll have the check, please. We need to split up and look for him.” Tiffany took a quick gulp of her coffee. “He doesn’t know that many places, so he can’t have got far.”
“True.” Thomas smiled at her. “Luke, you try the shop where you work. I’ll look around here.”
“I’ll try Luke’s house.” Dakota so owed her for risking another round with Luke’s nature girl.
“Good.” Thomas got to his feet. “We’ll keep in contact by cell.”
* * *
Dakota was not at Luke’s house. Nature Girl was, however. She looked plenty ready to have her say as she answered the door. Tiffany cut her off. “Dakota’s missing. Is he here?”
The woman blinked and then recovered. “Why the hell would he be here?”
“Maybe he came looking for Luke?” The woman needed to check her attitude.
“Weren’t you and the big guy supposed to be looking after him?” The woman glared at Tiffany.
“Yes.” She and Thomas were supposed to be looking after him. They’d fucked that bit up royally. “If you see him, could you give Luke a call?”
The woman nodded and slammed the door.
“Nice knowing you,” Tiffany said to the closed door. She walked back down the pathway. The Miura wasn’t parked on the curb where she’d left it. Luke must have put it in his garage or something. Tiffany stopped. Slowly she retraced her steps to the door. It was a long shot, but it made a weird sort of sense.
The woman must have been watching from the window, because she yanked the door open before Tiffany could get there. “You can’t come in and check.”
“The car.” Tiffany glanced around for some sort of garage. “Where does Luke keep the Miura?”
“You can’t have it back.”
“I know that and I don’t want it.” Tiffany took a deep breath. “But I thought maybe Dakota would be there.”
“Why?”
“Because of me.” The more she thought it out, the more sense it made. When she had been angry with Luke, she’d taken her rage out on the car. It had certainly gotten Luke’s attention. Dakota was more than angry enough to give it a try, as well. “I think Dakota is doing the same thing to the Miura I did.”
“You mean key it up?”
“Yes.”
“And carve your name into the seats?”
“Maybe.”
“Slash the tires? Break the headlights?”
A recitation of past sins was never the best fun, especially from someone who’d made up their mind to hate your guts. “Where does Luke keep it?”
“Garage down the end of the road.” The woman jerked her head to the left. “It’s locked.”
“Do you have the key?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have it?”
“Not sure.”
Tiffany dug her nails into her palms. “I’ll bring it right back. As soon as I’ve seen whether Dakota is there or not.”
“You don’t need the key. He couldn’t get in anyway, because it’s locked.”
“He could have broken in,” Tiffany said.
The woman went all squinty eyed. “I don’t trust you.”
Ditto. “You don’t have to, but if Dakota is there, then I might be able to stop him. You can call Luke and tell him where I am.”
The woman glowered at her. Her expression grew almost comical as she weighed her options.
“What the hell have you got against me, anyway?” Tiffany didn’t have time for her to decide.
“You broke Luke.” The woman snarled at her. “Before you, he could have loved. He could have had a good relationship, but you broke that in him.”
Tiffany stepped back at the woman’s vehemence. “I think you give me far too much credit.”
The woman’s mouth tightened. Tiffany braced for another helping of grief, but Nature Girl stepped into the hall and grabbed a key from a hook on the wall. She held it out to Tiffany. “I’m calling Luke and telling him where you are. If anything happens to that car again, he’ll blame it on you. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Fine.” Tiffany snatched the key. She trotted down the walk toward Thomas’s truck. Then she stopped and turned again. “You know, I think you’re the one who should forget about me. Luke already has.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Slam went the door.
Tiffany jumped into the truck and followed the road to a dead end lined with small garages. As it turned out, she didn’t need the key. The wooden barn-like door to the second one on the right was open and there was the Miura. Tiffany parked and got out of the truck. Her heels clacked loudly on the sidewalk as she approached.
From the front, the car looked okay. So, headlights not bashed in and tires not slashed. So far, if Dakota intended doing a Tiffany on the car, he was way behind. The light in the garage was on and she stepped inside. “Dakota?”
Her heels got louder on the smooth cement floor of the enclosed space. The Miura’s paintwork gleamed in the glow from the overhead light. “Hello, baby.” She couldn’t resist giving the car a stroke. The paintwork was fine. Tiffany peered through the window. The seats were fine as well. Disappointment clenched in her gut. She must have been wrong.
“What are you doing here?” Dakota appeared so suddenly she jumped. For once, her first feeling on seeing him was delight. She’d found him.
“Looking for you.” She might actually have beamed at him, she was so glad to see him.
“Why?”
“I thought you might be thinking of doing a Tiffany on the car.”
Dakota blinked at her, his eyes so heavy with eyeliner it was hard to read his expression. His mouth, though, turned down at the edges. He looked young and defeated. “I couldn’t.” He shrugged and opened his hand to show her a small pocketknife. “I was going to mess up his car, but I got here, and I couldn’t.” He stared down at the car.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Tiffany ran her hand over the curved lines of the roof. “Believe it or not, I cried for three days after I hurt her.”
“Lame.”
“Yes, I know, but I did. It took me most of this time to put her back together again. I’m glad I did.”
Dakota shifted around the side of the car. There wasn’t a lot of room and he had to turn sideways. “So, now what?”
“Now I call your brother. We’ve all been looking for you.”
“Please, he doesn’t give a shit about me.” Dakota’s top lip curled. He shifted the pocketknife in his grasp.
“Yes, he does.” Tiffany kept her eye on the knife. It didn’t have to be big to leave a huge mark. “He came around this afternoon to tell you what a dick he’s been. He would love to have you stay for the summer.” Okay, Luke hadn’t said that, exactly, but she was pretty sure that was what he meant.
“I’m thinking Chicago would be better than this place. And his girlfriend’s a bitch.”
“At least she’s not a Barbie.”
Dakota’s lips actually twitched. Then his expression grew guarded again. “Does he know?”
Tiffany nodded and he swore beneath his breath. “We had to tell him,” she said. “You can’t expect us to care about you and not do anything about this.”
He made a rude noise and pursed his lips.
“It’s up to you,” Tiffany said. “You can decide who you want to stay with. All I’m telling you is that you have options. Luke wants you. And I . . .”
He glanced up at her suddenly, alert and keen.
“I can put up with you,” she said. This time, there was an actual smile at one corner of his mouth. It was nowhere near a grin, but it was a start.
Dakota sauntered around the car to where she stood. “Are we going or what?”
“We’re going.” Tiffany barely stopped herself from putting her arm around him as they turned for the door.
Two men blocked the exit.