by Elise Faber
Tammy
I’d distantly heard the phone ring, felt Tal get out of bed—and it was funny, in the best possible way—that my body was so in tune with his I didn’t for one moment question where I was when I woke with him curved around me.
These last two weeks—with the exception of the whole assault, media frenzy, and home invasion—had been the absolute best of my life.
Finding my rhythm with this man, learning everything and anything I could, and continuing to fall deeper and deeper until I felt as though I would never surface from the bliss. I knew I would, of course. That was life, and we were two people who’d had tough upbringings, and it wasn’t like either of us were short on the whole stubborn gene thing. But those tough childhoods and the stubbornness were assets when it came to this.
I’d known instantly that Tal was different.
He’d shown me that he’d thought I was different, too.
And though it had been particularly terrifying, we’d both leaped in with two feet.
There was something safe and secure about hurtling oneself off a cliff—so long as the person who loved me and whom I loved right back held my hand as we plummeted down.
But now—I frowned, sat up—that man who was plunging down alongside me was talking hurriedly into the phone, his voice equal parts clipped and shocked and . . . I was already moving when I heard the crash.
I rushed into the hall, saw him on one knee, his head cradled in his hands.
The phone was on the floor, and I scooped it up. “Hello?”
“Tammy?”
Maggie’s voice was frantic. “Look, I’m almost there,” she said hurriedly.
“Here?” My stomach was twisting itself into knots.
“The hospital,” she said.
“Oh, my God. Are you hurt?”
“No.” A sharp breath. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m panicked here. I received a call from the hospital about the John Doe who attacked you guys. He’s awake, and he apparently asked someone to put something online for him and—”
She broke off.
My pulse was a rapid tattoo in my veins, my lungs might as well have been pulling in carbon dioxide instead of air, but I managed to push out, “What?”
“He’s saying he’s Tal’s father.”
I nearly dropped the phone myself, realized obliquely that it had been the thunk I’d heard a few moments before. “You cannot be serious,” I whispered.
“I know,” she whispered back. “I’m meeting the police there. We’ll get the nurse to take the video down, but”—a curse—“there are millions of views already. This story isn’t going away, and it’s not going to look good.”
“He came at us with a knife,” I pointed out.
“If he is Tal’s dad.”
My eyes slid closed and I said, “And the fact that he was shot and nearly killed by his son’s girlfriend isn’t a great look.”
Mag’s voice was brittle, sad laced into every syllable. “The optics aren’t good, no.”
I inhaled, exhaled, and carefully placed my hand on Tal’s back. “Will the man consent to a DNA test?”
Tal stiffened.
I moved my palm in gentle circles.
“He’s already provided a sample.”
Tal moved so fast that I could hardly blink before the cell was out of my hand and pressed to his ear. “This is bullshit, Maggie. My father is dead of an overdose, in a gutter somewhere.”
Whatever she said in response had his face falling.
I took the phone from his hand, put it on speaker.
“Maggie?” I said.
“I think Tal should give a sample, too” she said softly. “Not just because of this man, but for himself, because he’s going to always wonder if he doesn’t.”
I thought she was right.
But I could also see Talbot’s face, see the broken quality of his expression, and I knew that he wasn’t going to be receptive to anything that was logical and sound at that moment. He’d had a giant shock. He was hurt. He was . . . wondering.
“We’ll call you back,” I murmured.
“Tammy?”
“Yeah, Mags?”
“Take care of him.”
“That’s never in doubt,” I said and hung up. The resultant silence was very . . . well, it sounded stupid to say, but it was very quiet and heavy, a smothering thundercloud surrounding me, pressing on my lungs. “Tal,” I began, when I could take the oppressive pressure no longer.
He burst to his feet in another of those quick, abrupt movements.
Then he was striding away from me.
“Tal!” I called.
He didn’t stop, just walked down the hall and out the back door, not looking back, not saying a word, not even when I followed after him and called his name again. Not even as he disappeared into the dark of the property, well away from the lights of the house, becoming little more than a shadow that faded away to nothing after a few more moments.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I returned to the bedroom, threw on a pair of sweats and a hoodie, then grabbed my phone, shoved my feet into shoes, and followed him, skirting the pool, hurrying down the steps, moving in the direction I’d last seen that shadow disappearing.
The moon was high overhead, illuminating my path, but I didn’t see Tal anywhere, not even when I used the flashlight on my cell to search the nearby area.
“Fuck,” I whispered again—
And then I heard it.
A strange pounding sound.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
I followed it, saw another shadow emerge, this time one that I recognized. It was Tex, my cookie assistant. Moving toward him, I stopped just to his side.
“You got him?” he asked.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “Can you make sure we have some privacy?”
“Done.” He stepped back, blended into the shadows.
And I followed the thunk, thunk, thunk to the man who’d stolen my heart in a matter of days—no, the man to whom I’d freely offered up my heart, and who’d offered his in return.
He’d stopped near one of the large oak trees on the property, its wide expanse of branches providing Tal with more shadows, more coverage from the moonlight above. It didn’t take a genius to process what he was doing—punching the trunk. Over and over again, until I knew that his knuckles must be a bloody freaking mess.
I made my way over to him, staying well out of the way of his backswing as he threw his punches.
Stopping once I’d circled around to face him, the trunk between us, I waited, biting back my winces as the thunking continued, as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. He was like a demon possessed, the blows fast and furious, and I knew he was going to be hurting—although probably not as bad as what was tearing him up inside. Because that had been a thorn buried deep, one that had hurt him over and over again, one that was freshly uncovered and jabbing him once more.
Parents had the unique ability to wound their children repeatedly—through neglect and assault, through sharp words and insecurities prodded, and through what Tal and I had both dealt with, abandonment.
So, perhaps we’d begun filling in those gaps, the yawning, jagged crevices, but we would never be completely whole.
That option had been taken from us.
But I wasn’t leaving him.
I could wait for him to get his fury out—barely. Hate that he needed to beat up a tree—and his hands—in order to do so, even as I understood the urge and wouldn’t intervene for the moment. But I wasn’t going to stand back and watch him suffer like this. I was going to take some of this fucking burden off his shoulders because I damn well knew that he would absolutely do the same for me.
Finally, he stopped punching, stepped back, chest heaving, head hanging, and I slipped between him and the trunk, taking his hands in mine.
Just as I’d suspected, they were beat up to hell.
He’d have realistically battered hands for his knight movie, I supposed, so long as
he hadn’t actually broken anything.
That would probably mess something up.
“You should have used your sword,” I whispered.
Tal was frozen, silent for long moments. Then, “I didn’t want to hurt the tree.”
I pressed a kiss to a small patch of undamaged skin. “Baby, you hurt yourself.”
“Good.”
My temper spiked, my fingers clenching around his wrist. “No, you dumb ass,” I snapped, and here I paused for a second, considered if I should go with the soft, gentle approach. I studied his face, saw the recalcitrance there, and realized this wasn’t the time to go soft and gentle. This time, my care needed to be in the form of a woman who wasn’t going to allow her man to sink down into the depths of despair.
“No,” I said, my tone fierce. “You don’t get to hurt yourself, not because something from your past might have come up, and not because someone struck out trying to wound you.” I reached up, gripped his face. “If that man is your dad—and I’ll admit that it gives me more than a blip of guilt to think that I might have shot the person who fathered you—”
His face gentled.
And no, he didn’t get to do that either, didn’t get to turn this onto me, to try and ease my conscience.
I kissed him—hard and deep—then stared intently into his eyes. “If that man is truly your father, then you’ll have closure, baby. You’ll know what happened, and you can put it behind you. Because”—and here, I jostled him lightly—“even if he is your freaking sperm donor, the truth is from what you’ve told me, he never was a dad to you.”
Tal inhaled sharply.
“So this man, who tried to harm you, who might have harmed you when you were a child, is a fucking monster, and he doesn’t deserve a thing from you.” I slid one hand down, rested it over his chest. “But you,” I whispered. “You deserve more, and if there is even a small part of you hidden down deep inside, then you deserve to know whether or not what he’s saying is the truth.”
Quiet.
Long, tense, stifling silence again.
Tal going so still, I could hardly see him breathe.
Then he pulled out of my arms, spun away, and strode off.
Despair curled inside me as I watched him go, hating that I’d clearly said the wrong thing, that I’d snapped at him. I should have gone with soft and gentle, should have comforted and been—
Warm arms wrapped around me, hauling me against a hard chest.
“You’re right, Hazel Eyes,” he whispered into my ear.
Every nerve ending inside me relaxed, my body spinning in his, pressing my front to his. “About so many things,” I said lightly, so freaking relieved that he’d circled back around, that I hadn’t said the wrong thing, that I hadn’t ruined things. “You want to do the test?”
He nodded.
“I’ll call Maggie.”
His fingers weaved into my hair, holding me against him. “Later,” he whispered, fingers stroking down my throat. “For now, I just need to hold the woman I love.”
And that was when I learned that care came in many more forms than I’d first expected.
It could be a hug.
It could a fierce reply to snap someone out of a despairing mood.
It could be gentle touches.
It could be . . . me holding this man under the moonlight, knowing that, as unfeasible as it might seem, he had found a slice of heaven in my arms.
No strings. No rules. No barriers. Just love driving my every action, Talbot in my heart . . .
And I knew that I wouldn’t go wrong so long as I kept him there.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Talbot
I got the results just after I had lost my sword in a big battle and been captured by the enemies. The director called cut, and we all began to go our separate ways for the evening.
The P.A. came over with my cell in her hand. “Tammy’s on the line.”
Taking it with a thanks, I stepped away from everyone and headed toward my trailer. I was covered with fake blood and grime, had a simulated cut on my cheek and one down my forearm. My shirt was in tatters, my chain mail having already been removed by the costume crew, and I was holding my breath as I listened to Tammy say hello on the other end of the line.
“Hi, baby,” she said.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“No escapades with the Milk Caper, if that’s what you’re asking. How was yours? Your knight get all the baddies yet?”
“Unfortunately not.” A beat. “I miss you.”
She was back in Utah, had left on my plane with me, the pilot making a pit stop to drop her at a private airport outside of Darlington, while I’d flown on to England.
We’d been together three weeks, and I missed her like we’d been together for three years. Missed her even more when she did things like she was doing right now—a quiet sigh, her tone soft. “Tal,” she said, before her voice returned to its normal crisp tenor. “None of that. We promised.”
“You badgered,” I pointed out. “I finally just gave in.”
“And you’ve discovered the reason our relationship is working.”
I laughed. “You’re perfect for me?”
“Damned right, I am,” she said, with a laugh, but her voice was all soft and sweet, mirroring the way I loved her. Okay, that was a lie, because I loved her any which way, but most especially when she went back to her commanding, police officer tone and added, “I have the night shift tonight, so I need to tell you—”
And that was when I knew.
“He’s my father, isn’t he?”
A moment of silence.
Then a barely audible, “Yes. I’m sorry to say, he is.”
I hadn’t made it back to my trailer, and the news had my feet freezing for several long moments.
“Tal?” she asked.
I unstuck, kept walking until I made it back to the white vehicle, reaching for the door and tugging it open but not stepping inside. “I’m here,” I said. “I’m . . . not okay exactly.” But I realized now that some part of me must have known that was who the man was from the moment Maggie had called, a little more than ten days ago now.
“Do you need me to fly over?”
She would, too.
I knew that without a doubt.
“No,” I said. “I have some stuff to sort out, starting with why he’d want to hurt me, but . . . I’m going to put it aside for now and just focus on the now. On us. On the film.” And not why my father had shown up with all that rage, why he’d come after all these years, how he’d known where I lived—though I supposed the last wasn’t too difficult considering the mob I’d had outside my gate. “I just . . . I guess part of me had already accepted that it was likely, and now . . .”
“You have the answer, but not the why. The toxicology report shows numerous substances,” she said gently. “So, that’s probably a big part of the why.”
That was true, especially since it was a big part of the why of my childhood.
Drugs, and how they could devastate a family.
“Yeah,” I whispered, finally stepping inside.
“You sure you don’t want me to come over?” she asked. “I’m sure Rob would give me some more time off.”
“No, sweetheart. I’ll be okay.” A beat as I closed the door behind me. “I’ll call you if things get dicey and—”
“You’d better.”
I looked up.
Because that voice had registered both through my phone and also through the . . . air. Tammy was standing in my trailer, smudges beneath her eyes, a backpack at her feet, and the softest, gentlest smile on her lips. My cell ended up on the couch. She ended up in my arms.
“What are you doing here?”
Her fingers brushed my jaw. “I’m here because I care.”
My heart thudded, and I hugged her tighter. “God, I love you.”
Lips on my cheek, hands in my hair. “I love you, even though I’m now covered with fake blood and
dirt.”
“Shit.” I pulled back so that her gray sweatshirt was stained with smudges of brown and smears of red. “I’m sorry.”
Her fingers trailed down my chest, through the tatters of my costume shirt. “Although,” she murmured, “I do have to say that I don’t mind this look too much, even if it is a little messy.” She stepped close again.
“Wait.” I caught her wrists, not wanting to get her any dirtier than she already was.
“No, I don’t think I will wait.” Her arms came around my neck, her front pressed to mine, and I groaned at the feel of her breasts on my naked chest, even with the layers of fabric between us. “You know the best part about you in this role?”
“What’s that?” I managed, even though I was having a very hard time concentrating with her hips undulating against mine.
“You being all dirty,” she murmured, rising on tiptoe and her lips finding mine, “and you getting me all dirty means that we get to wash it off.” A brush of her mouth. “Together.”
“Together?” I asked.
“Yup.” She glanced over my shoulder. “I’m guessing you have a shower in here?”
“It’s tiny.”
Her smile turned wicked. “Well, even luckier for us.”
That wicked grin snapped the last thread of my control. I scooped her up, carried her to the bathroom and made quick work of removing our clothes. A few moments later, we were in the shower—or attempting to, anyway.
Because it was truly tiny.
And try as we might, two grown-ass adults couldn’t properly fit.
One of us always had an arm or leg out the top or side, and it was a struggle to stay warm and not flood the bathroom, let alone wash ourselves.
But then with some sheer determination on Tammy’s part, she managed to get us clean enough that we could stumble out, use towels to wipe up most of the water, make our way to the bed, and flop down. We were both laughing so hard that it was impossible to do anything but cling to each other and wait until we’d found some semblance of control.
Eventually, I managed, rolling her to her back, holding those gorgeous hazel eyes in my gaze. “Thank you,” I murmured.
Her hands cupped my face. “I love you.”
