Southerin Nights and Secrets (Boys are Back in Town)

by Robin Covington

  “Get used to it. It’s what you get living in a small town.”

  “I don’t know what this has to do with Beckett sleeping with the woman I saw in his apartment.”

  “I don’t know, either, but it’s connected somehow,” Michaela jabbed a finger down on the desktop for emphasis. “They’re up to something and since none of the guys have any black eyes and bruises, they haven’t kicked his ass for doing what he did. That tells me that they are all in whatever it is together.”

  A brisk knock on the door and the appearance of Alex Rifkin as he opened it grabbed her attention immediately. He looked as flustered as she’d ever seen him. Long gone was the cool, calm ex-Navy SEAL. This guy looked…spooked.

  “Virginia, I’m sorry,” he paused to nod at Michaela. “There’s something going on in the ER that you need to see.”

  “Is it another gang fight?” She rose from her desk, snagging her cellphone and slipping it into the pocket on her jacket. It was quickly becoming a common thing to have to call the police to come to the hospital and sort out who was going to jail as soon as they were discharged. “Are the police on the way?”

  “The police are the issue,” he answered as he bypassed the elevator and took the stairs to the first floor. He was moving at a clip, only occasionally looking behind him to see if she was keeping up. Michaela was right on her heels.

  They burst through the doors and zig-zagged through the maze of offices and examination rooms to get to the heart of the ER trauma center. There was a crowd standing around and patients who were able were straining to peer around their privacy partitions. It was loud and chaotic, but the epicenter of the storm of people was Sheriff Burke standing next to a man who wore a blue jacket emblazoned with “DEA” across the back.

  The agent was speaking to someone blocked by his broad shoulders and Virginia followed close on the heels of Alex as he pushed his way through the crowd. Whatever was happening, Mr. Bent was going to expect her to relay the details almost immediately so she needed to see what was going on.

  The staff parted, finally letting them break through to the inner circle of activity. When the agent moved and she saw who it was in his grasp, she almost fell to her knees and only prevented it by grabbing onto Alex’s arm.

  Beckett was standing, hands cuffed behind his back, listening intently as the DEA agent finished reading him his rights. Beckett’s face was impassive, not even a mask it was so devoid of any reaction as his work colleagues watched him with gossipy delight.

  All she felt was horror.

  “I didn’t think they were going to do this at the hospital,” Alex murmured, his own skin paler than usual, giving away his personal reaction.

  “You knew about this?” she asked.

  “Sheriff Burke came to my office about twenty minutes ago and told me that they had a tip that Beck had stolen drugs from the pharmacy. They executed a warrant and found them in his car.”

  “Drugs?” Virginia shook her head, the shock of the information making the blood buzz in her ears. Between that sound and the babble of the surrounding crowd, she was sure she’d heard wrong. “You’ve got this wrong.”

  Alex turned his head to look down at her, his own face darkened with his sadness and confusion.

  “The facts are correct, but I can’t believe that’s all there is to it,” he said. “This is Beck.”

  She knew what he was leaving unsaid. How many times did you hear or read about someone leading a double life? But this was Beckett, the man who dedicated his life to keeping kids away from this stuff, to make up for the period of his life when he’d been in the life. Yes, he might be the worst boyfriend candidate ever, but he wasn’t a drug dealer.

  But productive search warrants didn’t lie.

  “Alex is right. This is Beck,” Michaela hissed in her ear. “The boys are definitely up to something, and this is just part of it.”

  They all turned when the DEA agent barked out for the crowd to move aside as he began to escort Beck out of the building. Panic rose up in her chest, hot and eruptive and she couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

  “Beckett.”

  He turned at the sound of her voice, and she strained to glimpse his face, his eyes. If she could just see him for a split second she would understand. She had to understand.

  Beckett zoned in on her right away, causing her stomach to flutter in the way it always did when she first caught his attention. But instead of the usual cocky grin or wink, she got nothing. Not a spark. Not even recognition.

  His eyes were dead.

  As quick as he made the initial eye contact, he broke it, turning his back on her and walking out of the building.

  She thought that nothing could hurt worse than seeing that woman in his apartment last night, but she’d been wrong. The pain of hope dying in her soul was worse.

  She’d thought Beck was the one man who could prove to her that the fall was worth the hard landing, worth conquering any fear. Someone who would stand with her, include her, be honest with her. A man who lived up to the hype.

  But she was wrong.

  Because Beckett was either a liar or a man who didn’t care about her enough to include her on whatever plan he was executing.

  And she didn’t want either one in her life.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I’m coming!”

  Beck stumbled in the semi-darkness of his apartment, dodging the furniture more by memory than sight as he rubbed a hand over his tired, aching eyes. He’d been up until the early morning making sure he didn’t pick up a boyfriend while he was in lockup and waiting for Teague to get him granted bail. He’d stumbled in the door, lurched into a shower, and pulled on a pair of sweats before falling face first on top of his covers.

  Sleep had been instantaneous. He was used to long hours but his body was screaming for relief from the shit storm that was now his life.

  The banging on the door continued. He peered through the peephole, a groan escaping his lips when he saw who it was.

  Sissy Landon.

  His blood cooled at the thought of facing her, but she was one of the few people in his life that he could never ignore.

  Unlocking the door, he turned the handle and opened it wide, wordlessly allowing his visitor entry. He had no choice, really.

  “Why didn’t you just use your key?” he asked as she bustled by him, bringing with her the scents of the cool air of fall and homemade baked goods on her clothes. She dumped a heavy cardboard box on his kitchen counter.

  “Ha!” She turned to face him, unbuttoning the red twill barn jacket he’d given her last Christmas as she eyed him up and down. Making sure he was okay. “I learned my lesson about using the key the day I walked in on you and your friend going at it in your living room.”

  Yeah. That hadn’t been the best day of his life. Nothing killed a boner like your foster mom walking in on you mid-thrust.

  “Well, I don’t think anyone’s anxious to jump in bed with me right now so you’re safe,” he mumbled while he slid onto the closest bar stool. “I was just getting some sleep.”

  “I would have expected Virginia to be here with you. I thought you two had worked it out.” Sissy didn’t even look up at him as she unpacked the contents of the box. “Do you want me to fix you a plate?”

  “No. I’m not hungry.” All the containers bore the Southern Comfort Diner logo, but the smells made his stomach turn. He was too amped up to eat. Even Dolly Cantrell’s home-cooking wasn’t appealing. “Ginger isn’t here, Sissy. That’s done.”

  “I’ll put these in the fridge for later. You need to eat. You’re too thin. Just like the first year of medical school.” She gathered the containers and put them away for him, shaking her head—as usual—at the lack of any real food in there. She closed the door and gave him another once-over, hands on hips as she plotted out what to do next.

  He sat patiently wondering when she was going to end this warm-up and hit him with what she was really here to talk about. Bec
k knew what the topic would be but he wasn’t crazy enough to bring it up himself.

  “You need a haircut,” she announced.

  Shit. She was pissed. He wasn’t sure he wanted Sissy to come near any part of his body with scissors right now, but he didn’t stop her when she walked back to his bathroom to get a towel.

  Silence prevailed as she draped a towel over his shoulders. Hair dampened. Scissors pulled out of her purse and removed from their protective sheath. Beck sat there and endured it, every soft touch of her hands on his skin breaking down his barriers. He didn’t know if he could take it. He needed all of them intact if he was going to see this through.

  Sissy interrupted his thoughts, her sweet drawl laced with steel.

  “I remember the moment I opened the door, and I saw John Cantrell on my doorstep with his sheriff’s hat in his hands and tears pouring down his cheeks. He was there to tell me that my David was dead, and I thought later that he was a brave man to come and tell a mother such a terrible thing.”

  Beck shifted on his seat. He had nothing to say.

  “People thought I’d break under the weight of it but I didn’t. Owen was a mess and Lucky sank into a darkness that he never did shake off until Taylor came along. But I endured. I had to be there for them. I’m a mother and a wife, and I needed to take care of my family. I struggled through each minute because I had to, but I’d be lying if I said that the gaping hole inside me didn’t swallow me up some nights.”

  “I still miss David.” Beck remembered the tall, smiling young man who loved his family farm more than anything in the world. “He told the best dirty jokes.”

  Sissy laughed, the sound choked and wet, giving away her emotion. Beck clenched his hands on his thighs, resisting the urge to reach up and stop her. She had something to say and deserved the chance to get it out.

  “I wouldn’t know that.” She pushed his head down, trimming the back. “There are some things Mamas don’t know about their sons. Or at least we pretend not to know.”

  Beck chuckled softly at that. He doubted there was much that got past Sissy when it concerned her family. Hell, he’d soaked up her interest like a sponge, never before having anyone in his life who gave a shit about him except to use him as a punching bag.

  “But there are some things a mama always knows, no matter what.”

  Her hands rested on his shoulders for a moment, as if she was bracing herself for impact, and Beck tensed at the change in mood. Here it was. The moment when she laid him flat with her anger, disapproval, and regret at ever aligning herself with Sandy Sutherland’s kid.

  “There are some things I knew in my gut, like they were part of my DNA. I knew the moment that John Cantrell and William Elliott showed up on my doorstep and told me your father was going to prison that you needed to come and stay with us. I had this hole inside me, all this love and mothering to give to someone, and I knew I’d been waiting for you.”

  Beck’s breath caught, deep down between his ribs where he kept all those emotions buried. He shuddered out an exhale, trying to steady the tremor in his hands.

  “I never tried to take David’s place. I couldn’t,” he stammered.

  “I know, honey.” Her fingers were gentle in his hair, the feather light touches in stark contrast to the heavy weight of their words pressing down on his shoulders. “That isn’t what we needed anyway, was it? We both needed to prove to ourselves that we could be brave enough to love again after so much pain in our lives.”

  Beck bowed his head, biting back the emotions raging in his soul. Anger. Helpless fury. Unworthiness. Guilt. He breathed through it. This shit mattered.

  “I guess this is my long way of saying that I know you. Like a mama knows her children—even ones that came to her at seventeen with nothing but the clothes on their backs and so much rage at the world.”

  She resumed the trim, lifting his face with a gentle tug on his hair and rounding the chair to stand in front of him to shape up the front. Sissy didn’t look him in the eye and for that grace he was grateful.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that I can’t be more than Sandy Sutherland’s son. I don’t know how to forget all the things about me that are him.” He sucked in a breath, pulling control from deep in his marrow. “I’m barely holding all the anger inside me. Barely hanging on…it’s always right there.”

  She paused, stroking his hair out his eyes as his confession settled down around them like the fog on the Blue Ridge Mountains, so thick it blocked him from reaching out to hold her and find some peace. “I grew up with Sandy, and he wasn’t always like how he is now. He was a nice guy, a sweet kid, and he grew up in good home.”

  “He never told me about his parents. I never knew anything about them,” Beck murmured, remembering about how many times he wondered what these shadowy grandparents would have been like if he’d known them.

  “I’m not surprised. He rejected everything they’d taught him. Everybody has a dark side, the ability to kill love and goodness, but you have to choose what path you’re going to follow. ” Sissy eyed her handiwork and then slid her gaze to meet his own. She was hurting. Beck hated that he was the one to ruin her smile, to crease her forehead with worry. She must have seen his regret because her expression morphed into something ferocious. “But you listen to me. Sandy had a choice. Everyone gets a choice, and he chose to feed the dark side. He chose it.”

  “That side is always there. Always pulling at me,” he whispered, not even trying to keep his agony from showing. This is what kept him constantly moving, always on the run so that the Devil couldn’t get him in his sights. “It’s all I can do to keep it from poisoning everyone around me.”

  “I know. I know you’re afraid of ending up like your father, but I know you won’t. The fact that you struggle tells me that. You’re a good man.”

  He shook his head, raising his hands to grip her arms with trembling fingers. “No.”

  “You’re a good man. I’ve seen your darkness, and I know how close it is to the surface, how much you have to fight. But you are a good man at the core.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, letting one tear escape and slide down her cheek as he blinked back his own. “And whatever it is you’re doing right now. Whatever all this drug and gang business is about, I know you.” She grabbed his face then, her cool fingers bracketing his face and forcing eye contact. The fierceness of her conviction was echoed in her expression and words. “I know you. You’re as much a part of me as Lucky—as much as David—and I know that whatever you’re doing will be all right in the end. I’ll stand by you until you’ve done what you have to do. I’ll stand by my son.”

  Son. It wasn’t the first time she’d called him that, and the word reached inside him and attached to something vital. He grabbed it greedily, soaking in everything that came with it. He wanted it. Had always wanted it. But he couldn’t make himself own it. Never could call her mom. It was another failing of his. Holding back the simplest joy from her because he didn’t trust himself not to ruin it.

  Beck pulled her into a hug so tight he felt the whoosh of air as she exhaled quickly. He loved this woman. He didn’t deserve her.

  He shook his head, the last few days and the debilitating fatigue loosening his tongue more than he ever allowed himself before. “I don’t deserve your loyalty. This love.”

  “Nobody deserves the love they get, Beck.” Sissy pushed back, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand before continuing. “We get love by some magic of grace, and then we spend our lives trying to deserve it.”

  “That’s a nice theory,” he hedged. This was never going to happen for him. He’d hurt the only person he might let in not once, but twice. Badly. On purpose. His goal had been to kill whatever was growing with Ginger, and he’d excelled at his task.

  “I already told you that mamas know these things.” She stroked his cheek and smiled at him like she had a big fat secret she was never going to spill. “You do what you have to do with this gang busines
s, and then you make it right with Ginger.”

  “Oh, no. She’s too good for me.” He attempted a smile, tried to make light of her spot-on intuition. She wasn’t letting him get away with it.

  “Maybe that’s true but she doesn’t think so. She thinks you’re perfect.” Sissy patted his cheek with her hand. “So the only question is: what are you going to do about it?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “The video doesn’t change the more you watch it,” Alex said.

  Virginia glanced away from her computer monitor to the security director sprawled across her sofa. They’d been here for almost twenty-four hours dealing with the aftermath of Beckett-gate. Reporters, the police, DEA, and the hospital board had been ravenous for more information and access.

  “Go grab a shower and some sleep. I’ll come get you if I need you,” she urged, avoiding the need to address what he’d said.

  “Nice try at deflection but it won’t work.” He yawned and stretched. “What are you looking at? Why do you want to keep on looking at it?”

  “It just isn’t right,” she said, clicking with her mouse to restart the footage from the hospital security camera.

  It wasn’t long and it wasn’t in HD, but it was enough for her to watch Beckett in a huddle outside of the hospital with the woman who’d been in his condo. They were talking, heads bent together as they discussed something very important and then the woman passed something off to Beckett in a canvas bag. In broad daylight. In a busy hospital.

  It was as if he wanted to be caught.

  “You are such a smug jerk,” she murmured when she paused the video at that point in time. “He is such a smug jerk.”

  “You said that. I believe you,” Alex said, his eyes closed as he dozed on her sofa.

  “But he isn’t stupid.” She opened her drawer to grab her purse and her car keys.

  Alex peered at her over her desk, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “I applaud you rising above the fallout of breaking up and remaining able to see Beck’s talents. Not the usual tactic of the newly dumped.”