Tristan (The Ruins of Emblem #1)

by Cora Brent

  “Stalking? You’re the one who told me you were staying on Globe Street with your grandfather.”

  “There’s more than one house on this block.”

  “Tell me about it. I had to knock on eight doors before I found you.” Tristan shoved his hands in his baggy pockets and leaned against the door frame. “So can I come in?”

  “No.” My purse was on my shoulder already and I straightened the strap. “I was just about to leave.”

  “Oh. Where are we going?”

  “We aren’t going anywhere. I am going to have dinner at my sister’s house.”

  He was interested. “Which sister?”

  Shit. I’d forgotten he had a reason to ask that question.

  “Cassie,” I admitted.

  “Perfect,” he declared. “I haven’t seen my brother in a while so I’ll tag along. What’s for dinner?”

  My response was an octave below a shout. “You weren’t invited!”

  A non-issue to Tristan. He didn’t falter, widening the grin that promised to solve the world’s dilemmas once it was finished disintegrating my panties.

  “And imagine just how surprised and happy Curtis will be when I show up. You want me to drive?”

  I could have said no. I should have said no. He was qualified to drive himself if he wanted to crash his brother’s party. Plus the concept of being closed into a car beside Tristan Mulligan for the hour long drive to the valley was robbing my brain of oxygen and I needed that stuff to remind me that I didn’t like him. No matter what he looked like.

  Tristan was unmovable so I had to edge around him in order to exit the house and lock the door. His eyes remained locked on me and I congratulated myself for choosing the violet dress that somehow magnified my boobs and minimized my hips.

  “We’re taking my car,” I insisted and he raised an eyebrow but followed my lead to the street and slid into the passenger seat of my Honda seconds after I unlocked it. He took up a lot of space, man spreading his long legs and resting one muscled arm on a knee while the other drummed on the dashboard. I tossed my purse in the backseat and focused my eyes on the turns leading out of Emblem so I wouldn’t notice inconvenient things like Tristan’s muscles and Tristan’s rugged profile. I even breathed through my mouth in order to blunt the aphrodisiacal effects of Tristan’s aftershave.

  To my surprise as I piloted the car out of the neighborhood he decided to initiate a normal conversation.

  “Do you like living with your grandfather?”

  I smiled. “Yes, I do. I’m glad he was eager to let me crash there for as long as I need to since Emblem seems to suffer from a lack of apartments.”

  “Double wides are plentiful. You could always rent one of them”

  No I couldn’t. My attitude toward trailers was hopelessly snobby. But I didn’t say that because for all I knew Tristan lived in one.

  “I like staying with my grandfather.” The sun was right on the horizon and as I turned down Main Street it hit me directly between the eyes. One handing the steering wheel, I blindly reached toward the backseat, intending to seize my purse and fish out my sunglasses, but my hand managed to brush Tristan’s thigh.

  “Pull over and I’ll give you what you’re looking for,” he said, the words low and seductive and dripping with dual meaning.

  My hand snapped back to the steering wheel. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Why are you always so quick to insult me, Cadence? I’m just trying to help you.” He was playing hurt but didn’t quite hide the laughter just below the surface.

  So why the hell am I so turned on?

  “If you want to help me then find my sunglasses. They’re in my purse.”

  Tristan’s arms were long enough to reach into the backseat without being obnoxious about it but of course he took the opportunity to unbuckle his seatbelt, swivel around and dive into the space separating our seats while ensuring parts of his upper body contacted my shoulder. The project should have required maybe eight seconds of effort but after a full minute he still kept rummaging.

  “They are in the large black case,” I informed him through gritted teeth, trying to squash my body’s reaction to the heat of his skin radiating through the thin fabric of my dress.

  I don’t want him. I don’t want him. I don’t want him.

  Repeating it to myself a thousand times might make it true, might purge the craving to pull over and rub one out so I could think straight again.

  “Here they are,” he announced with triumph. His hand found my thigh and rested there, pretending he needed the leverage to get back to where he belonged.

  I refused to react. “May I have my glasses?” I asked sweetly.

  His hand slipped away and he sank back into his seat as he handed them over.

  “You’ve got a lot of shit in your purse.”

  I plucked my glasses out of his hand and slid them on my face. “I didn’t ask you to take inventory.”

  “There were at least four empty packs of gum floating around, not to mention a bundle of Target receipts. You should throw things away once in a while. I promise it won’t kill you.”

  I took a left on the two lane highway that would eventually lead to the sprawling suburbs crawling out of the city of Phoenix in every direction. “Put your seatbelt back on,” I ordered, aware that I was using the same clipped tone I inflicted on my students when they misbehaved.

  Tristan noticed too. “Yes Ms. Gentry,” he chuckled.

  While Tristan was maneuvering around the sleeve of his shirt skidded high enough for me to see the snake-like black lines winding around his biceps. My father owned a tattoo parlor and I’d been around tattooed men all my life so the sight of ink ordinarily didn’t make me swoon and drool. At least until now.

  Tristan suddenly decided to start messing with the knobs on the dashboard. “Do you always listen to crappy talk radio?”

  “It was NPR.”

  “My point exactly.” He flipped around until the Rolling Stones started telling everyone to get off their cloud. “That’s better.”

  “You should call your brother and tell him that you’re coming.”

  “Nah. Curtis will be cool with it.”

  “Don’t you think it’s rude to show up to a dinner that you weren’t invited to?”

  “A technicality.”

  “Decent manners are not a technicality.”

  He changed the subject. “Do you have dinner with your family a lot?”

  “Not so much now that I’ve moved to Emblem. But Cassie’s a born hostess and she wanted to celebrate the good news so she invited my parents as well as Cami and her husband.”

  “What they’d do, join a church?”

  “Huh?”

  “Isn’t that what people mean when they start talking about the good news?”

  I had no idea how often Tristan spoke to his brother but he obviously hadn’t talked to him in the last few days. “No, they didn’t join a church.”

  He was watching me. “So then what’s the meaning of this good news?”

  I hesitated. I shouldn’t be the one sharing this information. “I’m sure Curtis will tell you.”

  “I’m sure he will. But since he isn’t here why don’t you tell me?”

  I bit the corner of my lip, wondering if I should tell him and then deciding he wouldn’t leave me alone until I did. “Curtis and Cassie are expecting.”

  “Expecting what?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be dense. A baby.”

  He considered that information in silence. I wasn’t a fan of silence.

  “You’re going to be an uncle,” I said and tried to sound cheerful.

  “Yeah, I figured that part out.” He gazed out the window at the passing brown landscape. “I’m just trying to picture my big brother as a daddy.”

  I could imagine Curtis Mulligan as a father very easily. He’d come from a tough background but then he’d straightened out and become an excellent guardian to Brecken. Plus he treated my sister
like a goddess.

  “They’re very excited,” I told Tristan.

  He turned his head and stared at me. “Obviously. That must be why they couldn’t wait to broadcast the news.”

  The comment sounded sarcastic and I didn’t know what to say. My sister had called me within an hour of seeing the home pregnancy test turn positive. Maybe things were automatically different between brothers but I didn’t think that was the case judging from how close my father was to my uncles. Tristan had attended Cassie and Curtis’s wedding a few years ago and I vaguely recalled hearing that he’d made an appearance at Brecken’s graduation this past spring, an event I’d missed because I was wrapping up finals at college. But his attendance at family functions were sporadic. I had no doubt that Curtis loved his brother and vice versa yet there was some tense history there. Perhaps it had taken a toll.

  “I’m sure he intends to call you,” I said.

  Tristan didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He wanted to talk about something else. “So what have you been doing with yourself ever since you told me to go to hell the other day?”

  “I didn’t tell you to go to hell.”

  “The sentiment was implied. It made me sad.”

  “Oh for crying out loud you were not sad.”

  “Sure I was. I moped around beside the field in that heat for a good ninety seconds waiting to see if you’d return. But you heartlessly left me there.”

  I snorted, smiling even though he was being ridiculous. “I have a feeling you recovered. But as for your question, I haven’t had much time to go out aside from stopping in at the Dirty Cactus on a few occasions. In fact I was there last night. A bunch of us met for happy hour.”

  “A bunch of what? Teachers?”

  “Yup. Members of the English department and a few others including the Emblem High football coach. I hear the team is supposed to be pretty good this year. Ernesto’s on the team, right?”

  Even through the shade of my sunglasses I could see all the sarcastic humor leave his face and give way to inexplicable wrath that narrowed his eyes and clenched his right hand. His anger made no sense. Did he hate football? Was he nursing a grudge against the English department?

  “Be careful,” he said. “That guy’s a real piece of work.”

  “What guy?”

  “Ward.”

  Rod Ward seemed harmless, maybe a little bland. He’d parked himself beside me at the Dirty Cactus and asked if I watched The Bachelor. He also asked if I enjoyed disc golf. Then he ran out of things to talk about and began taking questions from the other Emblem High staff about the state of the football team. In a town where Friday night entertainment choices were slim the home games were a big deal. I had approached the bar to go chat with Leah for a few minutes and exited the scene early so I could go home and grade essays in order to have the weekend free. Rod Ward had happily waved to me as I headed out the door.

  “What do you hate Coach Ward?” I asked Tristan. “Did he used to make you run excessive laps or something?”

  “Or something.”

  The topic obviously bothered him and there were still a lot of miles to cover so I submitted a different question.

  “Can you tell me what it was like growing up in Emblem? I mean, my parents grew up there too but that was a long time ago. I’d be interested to hear your perspective.”

  Tristan stared at me head on. There was a peculiar expression on his face, like he was internally warring with the temptation to irritate me to pieces once again. But instead of flinging out one liners he talked about the good years before his father was murdered, about going off roading in the desert and camping out under the stars. Once again I wondered why he’d never even finished high school. He obviously wasn’t stupid and if he’d bothered to make an effort then he’d probably be in a very different place now, not scrounging for cash dealing black market sex meds.

  There was a limit to how much sharing Tristan was willing to do and when he grew tired of answering my questions he stared at his phone until we reached the neatly packaged neighborhood where Cassie and Curtis had bought a home. Cami’s minivan was already parked at the curb and my father’s pickup truck squatted in the driveway.

  After I parked across the street I led the way to Cassie and Curtis’s attractive little Santa Fe style house complete with a wrought iron sign over the front door that read Mulligan. Tristan didn’t follow immediately. I was already ringing the doorbell when he’d barely left the car. I swiveled to peer at him through the evening shadows and saw his hands were stuffed in his pockets as he slowly walked up the path. Either he was shy or he believed that nothing meaningful could happen until he arrived. From what I knew of Tristan so far I’d place my bets on the latter.

  Someone shouted from inside to come on in so I obeyed and cracked the door open. Cami’s husband Dalton was the first person I saw. A former pro athlete who still looked like he’d been manufactured to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated, Dalton Tremaine was the ultimate good guy.

  “There’s the missing Gentry girl,” he declared and moved in to give me an affectionate hug.

  People came from all directions after that. My mother wrapped me in a hug that reminded me of home and a thousand bedtime stories. She only relinquished her hold when my father insisted it was his turn and squeezed until I thought my ribs would crack. No matter how old I got I’d never tire of being hugged by my mom and dad.

  Cassie appeared wearing a pink and red I Love Lucy-style apron and blushed when I made a big deal out of checking out her stomach, which was still flat although her boobs looked like they were enjoying a hormonal surge. She saw I was craning my neck around in search of our precious niece Annabeth and said Cami had just taken the baby to the master bedroom to change her diaper.

  My brother-in-law was suddenly on the scene, wielding a silver serving spoon in one hand and curling a protective arm around his wife with the other. He was grinning until an abrupt double take caused his bearded jaw to drop.

  “Tristan?” Curtis said his brother’s name but looked to me for an explanation.

  I jerked my thumb toward the door. “Check it out, I had a stowaway from Emblem.”

  The rest of the Gentry family began to take notice of the unplanned guest that hovered in the doorway. For the first time Tristan seemed a little unsure of himself.

  “Hey there, Curtis,” he greeted his brother with a bashful grin. Cassie was the first one to approach him for a hug. Curtis followed more slowly. I watched the Mulligan brothers exchange a stiff handshake.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” Curtis said.

  Tristan met his eye. “And I didn’t know you were going to be a father.”

  The brothers stared at each other for a few seconds. Luckily Cassie came to the rescue.

  “We just found out,” she beamed. “We’re so glad you’re here though. Come in, Tristan. Sit down. You know you’re always welcome in our home.”

  Tristan took hesitant steps into the living room, gazing around as if he’d reached the boundaries of a foreign country, or maybe an alternate dimension. I wondered if he’d ever even been to his brother’s house before. As he took a cautious seat on the couch I heard him ask if Brecken was around but it seemed Brecken was working at the pizzeria tonight.

  Cassie sort of nudged her husband over to sit beside his brother and then she returned to the kitchen, our mother trailing after her.

  “Auntie Cadence is here!” announced Cami as she found us in the living room with a freshly diapered pink-cheeked baby Annabeth in her arms.

  I practically snatched my niece away from her mother and took a few blissful seconds to revel in the warm feel of her tiny body. She’d grown plumper since the last time I’d held her and her light brown hair had begun to fill in. I breathed her in, silently pledging my eternal devotion to this tiny creature who had already captured every heart in the family.

  “Um, I’m here too,” my big sister reminded me.

  I stopped sniffing the
baby long enough to give her mother a peck on the cheek.

  “She’s gotten bigger.”

  “Yeah, babies do that.”

  “And soon there will be another one in the family.” I had the urge to squeal over the thought of becoming an aunt for the second time.

  Cami looked around. “Where did my radiantly pregnant twin go?”

  “To the kitchen with Mom, presumably to put the final touches on dinner.”

  Cami’s mouth twisted. “Should we go help?”

  “Considering our culinary talents they’d probably be grateful if we didn’t.”

  She snorted and urged me to go take a seat on a wicker bench in the foyer. She would have had to fight with me to surrender baby Annabeth but she was content to let me hold her daughter for the moment.

  “Holy shit,” Cami swore as I cozied up to her on the bench with the baby.

  “What?”

  She jerked her head. “Is that who I think it is?”

  A peek into the living room revealed Tristan and Curtis were awkwardly sitting side by side on the couch. Neither of them appeared to be having a good time.

  “Yup, that’s Tristan.”

  “I’m a little surprised Curtis invited him.”

  “He didn’t. But why would you be surprised if he did?” As far as I knew Curtis was always anxious to reconnect with his brother.

  Cami lowered her voice. “Cassie’s let a few hints slip here and there. Curtis assumed Tristan would have tried to shape up by now. He’s not a mixed up kid anymore. He’s a grown man and one of these days his actions are going to have consequences. Curtis is frustrated that Tristan still doesn’t seem to understand that. Or care.” She focused on me. “What do you mean he wasn’t invited?”

  “I mean he insisted on tagging along with me.”

  “You guys drove here together all the way from Emblem?”

  I set Annabeth on my shoulder and rubbed her back, eliciting the sweetest of tiny sighs. “Yes.”

  Cami was thoughtful. “That’s interesting.”

  I didn’t want Cami to spend too much time dwelling on the idea of me hanging out with Tristan. Cami was the star of investigative reporting and if I kept talking it wouldn’t take her long to guess that some (well, most) of my many Tristan-centered thoughts have not been rated PG.