Secret Love

by Tabatha Drake

  “That doesn’t mean anything, Fox,” she says, shaking her head.

  It crushes me. I expected this from Bennett. I expected tears from my mother. Of all of them, I expected Dani to be on my side.

  “They call themselves Snake Eyes, Dani,” I say out of desperation. “The man who cut your face is named Mercer Black. They’re more dangerous than you can possibly imagine—”

  “Then, let the authorities take care of it!” Bennett nods at the hired hand behind me. “You got ties in the department, right?”

  “They aren’t equipped to deal with something like this,” I say.

  “And you are?”

  Dani sits back in her chair, a conscious effort to get farther away from me.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  Bennett taps a finger against the table. “I’m not about to risk my daughter’s life on a dead man’s hunch.”

  My mother sobs quietly, unable to say a word.

  “It’s not a hunch,” I say. “They killed Lamb to send me a message. I know it sounds crazy but I’m telling you the truth. It’s why I came back. If I didn’t, they’d kill her and—”

  “That’s enough,” Bennett interrupts.

  “Where have you been?” Dani’s stiff, dry voice cuts me off.

  “Like I said, Dani…” I sigh. “I will answer everything after I get you out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, Fox.”

  She means it. I can see it in her eyes. She’s always had the most expressive eyes.

  “Dani, please—”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Dad’s right. You could have told us you were alive. Instead, you just let us wonder what happened to you. For years.”

  “I know, but—”

  “That wasn’t fair, especially after…” She stops, forcing her lips tight, but she doesn’t have to say it.

  “Dani, I’m sorry.” I say it only to her, throwing every bit of my sincerity into it.

  Her eyes grow dark. “I don’t care.” She stands up from the table and her chair legs drag loudly across the wooden floor. “I can’t do this right now. I’m going upstairs.”

  “No, wait. Dani—” I stand but she holds up her hand.

  “Leave me alone, Fox.”

  She charges through to the main hall and Smith follows her out.

  Bennett rises to his feet. “You heard her, kid.”

  My mother pulls herself up, but her eyes stay low. “I just need a minute…”

  “Mom…”

  She doesn’t stop for me. I listen to her shoes clack across the front hall toward the stairs, leaving me alone with Bennett.

  “You’re making a mistake,” I say. “She’s not safe here and your little rent-a-cop isn’t going to do a damn thing to protect her.”

  “I’ll get more of them,” he says.

  “It won’t be enough.”

  He laughs like a man chuckling at his kid for still believing in monsters under his bed. “I’ll decide what’s enough when it comes to protecting my daughter. Not you,” he growls. “Obviously, I need to remind you about our little arrangement.”

  “Arrangement?” I lower my voice. “I wouldn’t call you telling me to get the hell out your house an arrangement.”

  “I find it a little bit suspicious that the second something bad happens to her, you’re suddenly back from the dead, Fox.”

  “This has nothing to do with feelings I may have had for her—”

  “May have had?” He scoffs. “Please, kid. I saw the way you were looking at her. It’s the same way I caught you looking at her five years ago and I will not have you coming back into her life and mucking it up all over again. She’s a good girl with a good career and your little crush isn’t going to ruin that.”

  “You mean it won’t ruin your little money factory.”

  He flexes his jaw. “You’re out of line, Fox.”

  “That’s all she ever was to you.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “Then, let me protect her! She won’t be lining your pockets anymore if she’s dead.”

  “Get the hell out of my house, Fox. And this time, don’t come back.”

  Fucking idiot.

  Bennett has always been overprotective of Dani but in all the wrong ways. He treats her the way a real estate mogul values a new subdivision. She’s an asset to him, not family. Sure, he likes to throw the d-word around as much as possible but it’s a novelty, nothing more.

  “You’re going to regret this, Bennett.”

  I step back into the front hall and my shoes echo across the marble floor. My pace slows as I pass the stairs, like a bit of muscle memory wanting to charge them. I look at the top and see the door to my old room at the top. I’ve always wondered if Mom kept it the way it was or if Bennett had it converted into a home gym that never gets used.

  She’s up there. Now. I feel the urge to veer off course and run up the stairs to appeal to her myself but there wouldn’t be enough time before Bennett broke the damn door down.

  As I step outside, I see the flashing bulbs down the driveway. The paparazzi. I should be more concerned about my face getting plastered all over the internet. Who is this mysterious man going in and out of Roxie Robert’s childhood home? Is there a new love affair on the horizon?

  I keep my head down and throw myself into my rental car, but I didn’t come all the way home just to be booted out after an awkward twenty minutes. I can’t just pack it in and go back to Mrs. Clark’s guest house.

  My eyes jump to her window, pulled by a magnet, and I find her there. She’s discreet about it, only opening the curtain enough to peek her little nose through — that perfect snub-nose I kissed about a hundred times.

  The curtain pulls back even further. She knows I’m looking at her. I imagine her racing down the stairs and out the front door. I’d get out of the car and run to her and we’d hug and kiss. Cameras be damned.

  But happy endings are only for movies.

  She shakes her head and drops the curtain down.

  I still can’t go back to Iowa. I won’t leave her, no matter what the great Bennett Roberts and his team of moderately-trained cop monkeys want. There’s no way I will be able to live with the guilt if anything happens to her — although, it’d just be the cherry on top of everything else I’ve done in this life.

  It’s time to go see an old friend, but I’ll be back.

  Assuming she doesn’t kill me first.

  Chapter 9

  Fox

  I park in front of the pawn shop and sit in the car for far too long. When my life was taken from me two years ago, I had to abandon more than family. I left my unit a man short in the midst of war. I left friends, some even closer than family.

  Especially one.

  The old fluorescent sign flickers above the entrance with a few missing letters. Fawn’s Pawn sits between a barber shop and a pet store, though it’s so small it’d be easy to blink and miss it. That sums up my memories of Caleb, too. All my days in Snake Eyes, I was truly afraid I’d blink and forget her. Or that she’d forget about me.

  Finally, I stand up out of the car. A bell chimes when I open the door, but it doesn’t get a reply. Another man lingers on the right side of the shop, perusing a collection of old coins.

  “No, he’s not here.”

  I hear her voice somewhere behind the counter and I smile. She paces in the office doorway with a cell phone pressed against her ear and an annoyed sneer on her face. She looks exactly like she did out in the desert, but her auburn hair is much longer now. No sunburn either.

  “I don’t know when Caleb will be back. He didn’t say.”

  I pause in front of the counter to listen in.

  “Yeah, well. I guess you’ll get your money when you get it. Gotta go. Bye.”

  She hangs up and deflates, quickly tossing the phone down onto her desk as she stomps into the shop.

  “Excuse me,” I say.

  Caleb pauses mid-step and looks at me. Suddenly
, we’re three years younger, surrounded by nothing but war and sand. In the span of a second, her heart breaks and fuses back together again. Mine, too.

  “Get out,” she says.

  I ease a step back. “Okay…”

  “No. Not you.” She snaps her fingers twice at the other man in the shop. “You. Get out.”

  He realizes that she’s talking to him and he holds up a shot glass. “I want to buy this,” he says.

  “Just take it.” Caleb shoos him away as she steps around the wide counter. “On the house. Move it.”

  He shuffles toward the door in confusion, but he sets the shot glass on the nearest shelf on the way out. Caleb yanks the door closed behind him and bolts it as she flicks the open sign off. She pauses there with her hand on the door and her head down in a thick, heavy silence.

  I take a step forward. “Caleb.”

  “If this…” she slowly turns, “is some kind of sick joke…”

  “It’s not.”

  “You died.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  “There was a funeral,” she says. “I met your fucking mother.”

  “I didn’t die. Not… in the traditional sense, anyway.”

  She laughs. “What the hell does that even mean? Where have you been? What happened to you? No.” She waves her hands. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Just…”

  Her shoulders drop and she goes quiet with her hands resting akimbo on each hip.

  I step closer. “Cal…”

  “You died,” she says again, her voice cracking. “And I…”

  “I know.”

  I open my arms and she leans into the embrace. She takes her time, her hands slowly rising to hug me back as if I could disappear at any moment again. I wish I could say something more, something that would bring her comfort and closure.

  But all I have is the truth.

  “I need your help,” I say.

  Caleb raises her head and nods.

  Chapter 10

  Dani

  “Wait here.”

  I roll my eyes and lean against the wall as Smith enters my apartment alone. “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars there’s no one in there!” I call out.

  He passes by the door, traveling in and out of rooms with his pistol locked and loaded at his side. I heave a sigh of impatience. All I want to do is get in there, strip naked, and soak myself in a bath for two days.

  Fox. He’s alive. He’s home. And he’s even more handsome than he was when we were younger.

  I shove the thought away. He’s also bat-shit crazy.

  Snake Eyes? What the hell is that supposed to mean? They hurt me to send him a message? It’s a fucking cut. The guy turned around, recognized me, and thought it would be funny to mark up my face. That’s all. And what kind of name is Mercer Black anyway?

  “All good, Roxie.”

  I push off the wall and walk inside. “See?” I say, kicking the door closed. “I told you. Now gimme.” I hold out my hand for the money he owes.

  “I never agreed to that,” he says. He slides his gun back into the holster and pulls his jacket around to conceal it.

  “Lame,” I say. “Whatever — you probably don’t even have a thousand on you right now.”

  “Honey, no one has that kind of money on them at all times.” He raises an eyebrow. “Except entitled rich kids, of course.”

  I laugh. “Because I’ve never heard that one before.”

  Smith steps around me into the kitchen and plants himself at the table. I wait for a few moments, hoping it’s just a temporary rest of his feet, but he leans back with his phone in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  “Go about your business…”

  “Why aren’t you leaving?”

  He barely glances up. “Because your father is paying me to be here.”

  “You’re staying the night?!”

  “Yep.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He sets the phone down. “Look, kid. I don’t like this either. I got a family, too, ya know. But mine doesn’t have a crazy, bearded, dead guy running around who’s obsessed with me.”

  “He’s not…” I pause, realizing that I have no reason to defend Fox. “He’s just a little confused.”

  “Well, pretty starlet found strangled in her own bed is the last thing I want to read about in the morning, so I’m staying here. Daddy’s orders.”

  I sigh. “Fine. I’m sure there’s plenty to eat in there.” I point at the fridge. “Just stay in this area. I’m going to take a bath.”

  “Don’t take too long.”

  I pause in the door frame. “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll get all pruney.” He peeks at me once before his eyes fall back to his phone.

  I walk away and I feel my stress spike a little more. Great. Not only is my hot stepbrother back from the dead, I now have to spend my evening alone with a middle-aged man haunting my apartment.

  I pause in the living room, sensing a bit more light than usual. The window blinds are open. I usually like to leave them closed. The maid must have opened them. Or Smith did. I quickly close the blinds and continue on through my bedroom toward my en suite.

  I tilt the faucet and let the hot water fill the tub. Steam rises into the air in perfect, gentle wisps. I unbutton my blouse and let it fall to the floor as I reach behind me to unclasp my bra. It falls halfway down my arms before I realize the window blinds are open in here as well. I lay an arm across my exposed chest to pin the bra in place. I didn’t open these either.

  Everything has been a crazy blur since the moment I watched Senator Lamb get shot. I remember the hospital. My father barking orders at the nurses. Today’s consult with the plastic surgeon. It’s the little details that are gone. Post-traumatic stress, they told me. It’ll pass, they told me. Smile for the camera, they told me.

  I close the blinds, lock the bathroom door, and slide my blouse off my shoulders.

  The water is hot — too hot — but it’s how I like it. If I’m not seeing red as I lie back in the tub, then it’s not hot enough. My toes curl and sweat breaks instantly on my brow. I lay my head along the folded-up towel on the porcelain edge. With my eyes closed, I let my mind wander to places it never goes during my busy days. Places of peace and quiet and—

  Fox.

  I open my eyes and lick my lips.

  No. Not Fox. Think of something else. Anything else.

  It’s been there since the moment I saw him today. That irresistible thirst. I haven’t felt it since the day he left home and it was immediately replaced by seething hatred. He took my virginity — on my birthday — and then ran off without even saying goodbye. Who does that? What reason could he possibly have? Did he hate it? He seemed to like it. Maybe I just wasn’t good at it and he was too much of a coward to let me down gently.

  I slap the water with my palm, annoyed that this topic has once again dominated my thoughts. It was five years ago. I’m a completely different person now and — by the looks of it — so is he. He’s not the same Fox I met when he was fifteen and my father started dating his mother. Back then, he was that guy. The popular kid in the halls with his backpack hanging from one shoulder and a hot cheerleader on the other. That devil may care attitude everyone loved, teachers included. It’s what let him get away with so much with little effort on his part.

  We had nothing in common. I was an average kid on the opposite end of the spectrum. Quiet and shy. I didn’t like crowds or cameras or being the center of attention but that didn’t stop my father from pushing me into theater classes and auditions.

  Fox and I didn’t get along, at first. We were just too different. It was awkward enough going to the same school. When he and his mother moved in, it got worse. Fighting, bickering. Little did we know that our feelings for each other sat just beneath the surface, forbidden urges neither one of us dared to say out loud until that day…

  No, he’s not the same boy. He’s changed. Now, he’s the one hiding i
n the shadows.

  Honestly, he probably should have just stayed there.

  I inhale a deep breath before submerging my head. The doctor told me to keep the bandage on my cheek dry, but I don’t really care about that right now. I just want to get his rugged, bearded face out of my head.

  A dull slam echoes from the hallway.

  I shoot up in the tub, my eyes darting toward the locked door. Water pours over the tub’s sides, sprinkling down to the linoleum floor. I refuse to move or even breathe. Was it real? Or was it all in my head?

  “Smith?” I ask.

  I sit up a little more, focusing my ears on the hallway. Any second now, I’ll hear his loafers tap down the hall. He’ll knock twice and I’ll hear his authoritarian voice ask, “Is everything okay in there?”

  Silence.

  I raise my voice a little louder. “Smith?”

  Nothing. No answer. No shoes. No annoyed sigh.

  I wrap my fingers around the tub’s edge and push myself up.

  Glass shatters, echoing from the kitchen. I freeze, suspended between standing and kneeling, as something falls to the floor in the living room. Something stiff and loud.

  Like a body.

  “Smith?!” I shout again.

  I step out of the tub and grab my robe to cover up before rushing over to the closet. I reach behind the door, wrapping my fingers around the handle of a baseball bat — the one a young, single girl living alone keeps stashed away for times just like this. I hold the bat tight and move to the door. There’s still no sound coming from the hallway. I grit my teeth in nervous anger. Smith isn’t the type to mess around. If he is playing a prank, it’s entirely unwelcome. However, I’d much rather this be a prank than anything else.

  The floorboards creak in the hall.

  I grip the bat a little tighter. It doesn’t sound like Smith’s black loafers. These are boots, hard and loud. They tap down the hall, inching closer toward the bathroom door. My entire body shakes. Water drips down my legs. Muscles twitch and ache.

  The doorknob turns twice.

  I lay a palm against my mouth to keep from screaming.

  The door flies open, smashed in by a single kick of a boot. I slip in the water beneath me and fall to the floor. The bat clatters away, rolling toward the sink in the corner.