by Angel Smits
Something moved. There. Up by the building. Leaning forward, she squinted, then felt stupid. Turning the key, she switched on the wipers so she could see. There. Near the back door. A shadow moved. Not low to the ground like a cat or dog or that pesky raccoon. No, this was taller.
A man. She smacked the button on the door handle, hearing the comforting thunk of the locks falling into place.
It wasn’t Wade. He was inside. Even his nicotine habit wasn’t standing up to these days of rain. And it was definitely a man, not any of her girls.
The man moved. First to the back door, where he lifted a hand, and she knew he was knocking, though she couldn’t hear the sound. Would anyone inside hear him?
His head bent, he leaned against the door, his hand slipping down. Tara rummaged in her purse. Where was her phone? She tried to remember where it was. Damn. She was fairly certain it was still sitting on her desk.
Should she leave? What if he broke in? What if he tried to harm one of her employees or a customer leaving this late?
She couldn’t afford to lose anything. She could drive to the police station. But what would he do by the time the cops, or she, got back here? She knew better than to confront anyone. But maybe if she drove closer, she could scare him away.
Tara pulled the car slowly across the lot. She expected the man to leave. To get away from the door. When he didn’t leave, when he actually seemed to stand his ground and face her oncoming car, she got a little ticked.
What was he doing? This was her place!
“Go away,” she said to the windshield, knowing he couldn’t hear her. Heck, she could barely hear the car’s engine over the drumming of raindrops. He just stood there.
His shadow separated from the wall as the headlight beams reached him. The light moved up his body. His big, muscular body.
“Morgan!” She slammed on the brakes before she ran into him and the building. “What are you doing here?” She shook her head, feeling like a fool again. She shoved the car into Park and stared through the pouring rain.
He stepped forward, his face appearing in the light beam. She gasped. His arm went out and his hand splayed on the hood of her car. He stumbled but caught himself, barely. She shoved open the door and jumped out.
“What happened?” He looked awful. His other arm was close to his side and the right side of his face was covered in dark purple bruises. A deep cut ran through his right eyebrow, and a trail of blood slid down the side of his face.
The eyes that stared at her were unfocused and he blinked several times as he stood—leaned—there. “Tara?”
“Come on.” Before he fell on his face and she’d never get him on his feet again, she slipped beneath his arm and leaned into him. “Come with me.” She used that voice she’d perfected when Wendy and Wade got into it, the one that didn’t allow for any disagreement. It seemed to work on Morgan, as well, as he nodded and let her lead him to the passenger door.
This one didn’t open any easier than the driver’s had, but her hands weren’t as cold as they’d been before. The heat coming off Morgan’s body washed over her, and she made herself focus on putting one foot in front of the other to get him in the car. The rest she’d deal with later. Much later.
He fell into the car, the entire chassis shifting with the impact. “Turn around.” She pushed him to get his legs in. He leaned his head back, favoring his obviously injured arm as he buckled the seat belt and settled inside the car. She slammed the door and hurried around to climb in beside him.
“What happened?” She didn’t look at him, instead focusing on cranking the heat and aiming the vents toward him and toward her freezing hands.
He didn’t say anything. For half an instant, she thought maybe he’d passed out, but when she finally looked at him again and found him staring at her, she froze. No, he was very much awake.
Their gazes caught and held. He wasn’t going to answer her. When he leaned back again and closed his eyes, she was certain he wasn’t.
“Guess we’re just going to sit here.” She could be stubborn, too. “Isn’t like this is the first time I’ve spent the night here.”
Was that a smile? She hoped so.
“Here’s the deal.” He looked at her again. “Don’t ask any questions. You do not want to know the answers. Really. Just take me to an urgent care.”
She’d take him to the urgent care, but she got the impression he expected her to drop him off. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. She’d find out, even if he wouldn’t tell her.
Setting the car in motion, she headed toward the urgent care.
He didn’t talk, and neither did she.
* * *
NOT BEING RELATED to someone you took for emergency care sucked. Tara sat in the waiting area alone. Morgan was in with a doctor, and he wasn’t letting her know anything. Nothing.
And the doctor was supporting that secretiveness. Privacy rights, really?
Except for the stupid fact that he looked like hell, looked like he was in a great deal of pain, she’d leave him here to walk to his truck. Or take a nearly nonexistent cab.
She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. Then she stood and grabbed a well-worn sports magazine.
Uninterested, she tossed the magazine onto the table.
Just when she’d decided she’d open that door—go back and demand to know what was going on—the door opened from the other side, and Morgan stepped out.
He still looked like hell, except all the broken pieces had been bandaged back together. He actually tried to smile at her, but grimaced instead. That bruise was going to take a while to fade.
Butterfly bandages on his forehead and chin told her those were deep cuts. The wrap around his left forearm looked suspiciously like a splint. He had a plastic bag in his “good” hand, which was a relative term if you didn’t count the now-cleaned and dried scrapes on his knuckles. The bag’s contents rattled, sounding suspiciously like prescription medication.
“I was pretty sure you’d dumped me here and left,” he said.
“I thought about it.”
“Thanks for sticking around.” His slight grunt of pain as he fought the smile made her heart contract.
“You’re welcome, I think. Can you leave now?”
“Yeah, the doc’s done with me.” He followed her to the doors that slid open as they approached. “I really do appreciate this, Tara.”
She stopped, turning around so swiftly he had to catch himself before running into her. “I’m guessing you’re not going to explain what all this is about, are you?”
Morgan shook his head. “I...” He barely stopped himself from running a hand down his face. That would probably hurt like hell and undo a great deal of the doctor’s handiwork. “I will. Eventually. But not right now.”
Whatever had happened, it wasn’t good, and he was still suffering, both physically and emotionally.
“Okay, you’re off the hook for now. But I want your promise you’ll tell me.”
“I promise.”
He didn’t cross his fingers behind his back—she leaned around to look—which made him laugh, painfully again. Without a time frame, who knew when he’d tell her anything? She was too tired to fight, and he was in too much pain. She’d let him off the hook for now, but she would get answers.
* * *
“WHAT THE HECK happened to you?” Wendy’s voice cut across the din of the diner the next morning. Tara wasn’t sure why the comment made her look up, but it did. She wished she hadn’t. Morgan sat at the counter, a cup of coffee in his hands, steam wafting in front of his face.
A face that sported bruises, a black eye and several lacerations. She had to stop herself from stepping toward him. It hadn’t been that long since she’d dropped him off at the truck. Was it possible he looked worse now?
&nbs
p; “Nothing serious,” he mumbled and focused on the newspaper he’d spread out. “Hey, can you get me a special?” he ordered without looking up.
Tara watched Wendy stare at him for a long minute before she answered. “Sure.” The waitress headed to the kitchen, silent.
Before Wendy caught her watching, Tara scurried around the corner and focused on the dessert tray she was prepping for lunch. She did not want to discuss Morgan with Wendy, and she certainly wasn’t explaining why she already knew about his injuries.
Her cheeks burned as other memories of yesterday followed. She focused on the frosting she was piping onto the cupcake. It had to be perfect...
“Hey,” Wendy whispered at her elbow and she slipped, blue frosting spilling off the edge of the chocolate in a glop.
“Hey, what?”
“Did you see Morgan?”
How was she supposed to answer that? She either lied and said no or admitted she knew. Wendy saved her from answering, by speaking again. “He looks awful.”
Morgan didn’t know how to look awful. Tara dragged her mind from that path. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“He’s hurt.”
He had injuries, but Tara wasn’t sure he hurt. Did the man even know how to feel? Okay, she was being uncharitable, but the ache at how he shut her out was too acute still, too painful. She wasn’t ready to forgive him yet. “He’s a customer, Wendy.” She pulled out a knife and tried to repair the damaged frosting. “His private life is none of our business.”
“Yeah, but...”
Tara hated that phrase. It always preceded something inappropriate. “No ‘yeah buts.’ He’s not our concern. Serve him and move on. I need you to focus on your job today.”
They didn’t have time to get caught up in every customer’s little problems. Lord knew there were plenty of them here. Which reminded her. “Have you seen that little girl in here again?”
Wendy focused on the order tray, prepping Morgan’s special. “Which one, the little girl with the purple dragon?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I haven’t.”
The swinging doors slammed open, the metal frame smacking the edge of the counter hard enough to scare them both. Tara nearly dropped the frosting bag, and Wendy did drop the plate of toast she’d been about to set on the tray.
“What the hell is with you?” Robbie yelled from the kitchen.
Morgan stood in the doorway, his eye swollen and red-rimmed, his chin a once-bloody mess. He looked like he was on the verge of killing someone or morphing into a monster who would. Tara took a step back, not sure what to think. Was he having a reaction to those meds they’d given him?
Robbie stepped out from behind the wall between the kitchen and the prep area, his scrawny frame no match for Morgan, but the knife he had in his fist would sure do damage if need be.
Morgan’s eyes flashed with a fever’s level of emotion, something Tara couldn’t quite identify, but he tamped it down quickly, as if he’d had a lot of practice. He didn’t leave, and he didn’t retreat from the offensive stance, but he did relax. “You saw a girl with a purple dragon?” His gaze flew between Wendy and Tara. “Was she with Sylvie?”
“Who’s Sylvie?” Wendy asked.
“His friend,” Tara sneered the second word, figuring she was somehow a part of what had happened to him last night. Morgan glared at her but didn’t disabuse her of the notion.
“It wasn’t her.” Tara said, feeling a twinge of sympathy for him, just a twinge as pain sparked in his eyes. “It was a young woman, a girl really. She was here with her boyfriend. The little girl said she was her babysitter.”
Could a man, so big and strong, look crestfallen? If he could, Morgan did. “The little girl. What did she look like? How old was she?”
Something didn’t match here. Tara put the icing down and wiped her hands on the towel. “What’s going on, Morgan? Why would that matter?”
His hands were in fists at his side, and she could tell he was clenching his jaw. It had to hurt. He turned to leave. She couldn’t let him go. “She was five or six years old. Blond hair, in two ponytails.”
“What color were her eyes?”
“Uh—” She had to think. “Brown.”
“The dragon. How...how big?”
Tara frowned and tried to remember that, as well. “This big?” She spread her hands about a foot apart. “It had plastic black eyes and a green bow around its neck.”
The anguish in Morgan’s eyes was too painful to watch. Yet she couldn’t look away, unable to abandon him like this. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Morgan didn’t answer. He was pulling his phone out of his pocket and heading to the door. She didn’t know who he was calling, but the intensity on his battered face told her something had changed. Drastically.
* * *
MORGAN DIDN’T LIKE SURPRISES. So, the next morning when he walked into the diner and found Jack on the stool at the end of the counter where Morgan sat nearly every day, he stopped and glared at his brother. “What are you doing here, Jack?”
Wendy and Tara stood behind the counter, pretending to be busy, but both of them shot furtive glances between the brothers.
“Looking for you.”
“Why?”
Jack took his time taking a sip of his coffee. He set down the cup carefully, slowly, before looking at him again. “Someone—” he glanced over at the women, as if just noticing their interest “—told me you’re fighting again.” He took another deep drink of his coffee. “Looks like they were right.”
Damn Dewey. He’d only talked to him this morning. He had a lot of explaining to do, but Morgan would deal with him later.
“What of it?” Morgan moved closer to his brother and sat beside him. He gave Jack credit for having the chops not to move or flinch away.
“Morgan, are you nuts?” Jack turned on him, anger blazing in his eyes. “This isn’t the answer. We’ll find the money. Haul a few more—”
“This isn’t about the money.” He stared, incredulous, at Jack. “I’m not that stupid. Give me some credit.”
“Then you’d better start explaining.”
“She’s there,” Morgan whispered.
“Brooke?”
“No, idiot.” Morgan rolled his eyes. “Sylvie.”
“Where’s Brooke?”
“I don’t know.” He nearly pounded his fist on the counter as Jack’s words illustrated his frustration. But he didn’t want to startle Jack or Tara’s staff. He’d done enough damage yesterday when he’d lost it. “If I knew that, do you think I’d do this?”
“I didn’t know.” Jack shrugged. “You used to do it all the time.”
“Yeah, when I had to.” Morgan looked over at Tara. This was not something he wanted to discuss in front of her. She probably already thought he was nuts. This wasn’t going to help.
But she surprised him then, walking over to stand on the other side of the counter. He didn’t dare look at her, didn’t dare face her and see the censure in her gaze. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
The sweet scent of her wrapped around him, and her heat followed, tugging at him. He wasn’t good at resisting her. Damn. He finally gave in as the silence grew and met her gaze.
No anger, no pity, no disgust. Just curiosity. “Who’s Brooke?”
He knew everything hinged on his answer. Knew without even asking or thinking hard about it that the future was there for the taking, there for him to reach out and grab hold. He cleared his throat. “My daughter.”
The look of pain on her face, as if he’d slapped her, surprised him.
“The little girl with the toy dragon?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, her hurt all too painful to him.
“She’s seen Brooke?” Jack interrupted. “When?” To Tara he said, “Do you know where she is?”
“I—”
Morgan looked at Jack, at Wendy, who stood there drying the already dry plate. Finally, at Tara. The only person here whose opinion really mattered. “Not yet,” he answered Jack but didn’t look away from Tara. “I tend to focus on Sylvie. If I find her, I find Brooke.” How did he explain that thinking about Brooke was too painful, too hard?
She gasped. “You didn’t trust me enough to share that?” Her anger flashed bright.
“No.” This wasn’t going to go well. “I trust you. I—” Slowly, Morgan stood, then took a couple steps backward to keep from vaulting the damn counter to reach for her. “I can’t take the risk.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He didn’t answer, simply turned and headed out. He’d never be able to explain.
He’d lost too many people in his life. They’d left him. Death. Drinking. Hell, his wife had actually run away from him.
He’d been stupid to even toy with the idea that maybe he’d be different with Tara.
Brooke...might be all he had. If he had anyone.
The rain had returned—had it ever really stopped?—and the ice-cold drops fell over him. He didn’t care. Not this time. He walked with purpose to the truck. He revved the diesel engine and roared out of the parking lot.
In the rearview mirror, he saw Tara come out of the diner’s door. He saw Jack behind her, saw his brother reach out to grab her as she started to run after the truck.
Safety be damned, he flipped the mirror aside and focused on the road. He needed to call Dewey and get a fight lined up. It didn’t matter how badly Morgan was beaten or if he lost. He’d forfeit the fight and go after her if he caught even a glimpse of Sylvie.
Once that was done—he prayed Sylvie was there—he’d get his daughter and go home.
CHAPTER TWELVE
