“Robbing people. Yeah, I look like I live in the lap of luxury.” He lifted a brow. “I wonder what she’d think if she saw just how much it’s going to cost, material-wise, to do the work.”
“I imagine she thinks you’re going to spread out your hands and turn the bread into boards, Preach.”
He rolled his eyes. “I stopped preaching years ago. Even when I was preaching, I don’t recall ever having that divine power. I was just a youth minister, remember … maybe I got left out because of that.”
“I remember.” She stood up, flicking her finger on the corner of the piece of paper. “You were my youth minister … Preach. So. You want your normal or are you going to live a little?”
A grin tugged at his lips and she remembered the mad crush she’d had on this man. It had lasted a good long while, too. He’d been one of the few who hadn’t tried to totally make her feel worthless when she ended up pregnant in high school. In small-town America, it was still enough to make a girl feel ostracized, but Noah had been there, held her hand, let her talk, asked what she wanted to do.
That had made her fall a little in love with him.
She’d just been a girl then. What she felt now for him was nothing more than friendship.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his blue eyes studying her, seeing clear through her.
She sighed and looked across the half-empty restaurant. Cara was taking care of her side, just a few late-lunch stragglers. Other than the new family, Noah was the only customer she had now that Tate had left.
“Okay?” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Preach.”
He reached out and covered her hand. “He’s a good guy.”
A slow, sad smile curved her lips. “Well, at least I improved over Scott, right?”
Noah ran his tongue across his teeth and gave a slow nod. He took his time before he spoke—that was Noah’s way. He took his time with just about everything. “Scott isn’t a happy man. He couldn’t have made you, or the boys, happy. The best thing you ever did was leave him, you know. Even if your life is a bit harder on your own.”
“Oh, I know that.” She slumped back in her chair, checking on the table where the mom sat with her child. “It’s just … hell. Tate’s not really a happy guy, either, you know.”
Noah was quiet for a minute. Then he squeezed her hand. “He’s happier with you.”
What she wouldn’t give if she could actually believe that.
She wasn’t making Tate happy. She was a distraction for him, a way for him to hide from the demons that chased him. That was it.
“I don’t know about that. Maybe I should just simplify and fall for you.” She gave him a weak smile. “You’re a stand-up guy, right? You like kids. You work hard. Wanna get married?”
He didn’t bat an eyelash. “Sure. I’m free tomorrow. Sound good?”
She laughed.
Falling for him wasn’t going to be any better than falling for Tate. He was just as unattainable. Noah barely seemed to realize women even existed. Maybe, though, an unattainable dream would be less painful than … what she had with Tate. She needed to quit brooding about this and get to work or she’d be in a funk all day. Clearing her throat, she forced a smile. “Why don’t you tell me what you want to eat, then? If we’re getting married, you’ve got to get your schedule cleared.”
“I think I’ll stick with my usual. Make sure you pick out something pretty for tomorrow.” He winked at her. “I’ll look for my cleanest pair of blue jeans, okay?”
She left the table laughing.
After she’d put in Noah’s order, the pizza for the young family came up. As she made her way over to their table, she caught sight of the scowl on the woman’s face. Her name was Trinity—Ali couldn’t remember her last name.
“Everything okay?”
Trinity gave her a polite smile. “Yeah, I just…” Then her eyes popped wide as Ali deposited the pizza in front of them. “That … wow. Okay, that smells amazing. I had my doubts about the pizza. I’m going to be honest. We’re from New York and—”
“That’s where the best pizza is,” the boy chirped up. “No place else can make pizza. They just pretend to.”
“Micah…” Trinity said, her voice soft while an embarrassed smile settled on her face.
“What? That’s what you said at home.”
Ali laughed. “It’s okay. My dad is from New York. Originally. Met my mom years ago, and they got married, but she wanted to come back home … this is home. This might be the closest you’ll get to New York pizza outside of New York. Definitely the best around here.”
She fished out napkins and passed them out. “Anything else?”
“Actually…” Trinity slid her a look and pushed the phone toward her. “I have a meeting after we leave here and I can’t find the address.”
Ali dipped her head to study the phone, as a grin crooked her lips. “Sure. I know where that isI could probably save you a trip, though. The owner is right over there.”
Then she glanced back and called, “Hey, Noah.”
The guy glanced over his shoulder.
It was weird, standing there as the two of them locked gazes for the first time. Just a few minutes ago, Ali would have sworn that Noah was all but immune to women. He never dated. Period. The tragedies he had behind him were enough to make any man leery about romance, that much was certain.
But Ali stood there, half-caught between them, while sparks practically set the air on fire.
It was like somebody had hit the two of them with a lead pipe. That was how stunned they both looked.
Then the little boy leaned over, excitedly shoving a picture under his mother’s nose.
The moment shattered.
Ali turned away, silently mouthing to herself. Whoa …
Chapter Two
A hot wind blew off the river.
He shouldn’t be here.
If he had any kind of brains at all, he’d be back at the shop, working on the mayor’s prized BMW or maybe the Indian he was restoring. If not that, there were always cars needing their damn tune-ups and oil changes and shit. The stuff he had to do to pay the bills so he could spend his nights doing what he really wanted to do—locked up in his studio with a blowtorch and bits and pieces of metal that he twisted into endless, bizarre creations. They sold at some of the small places in town and a few were even in art galleries in some of the bigger cities in the region.
Sometimes he’d get lucky and get a commissioned piece and he actually had one of those he could be working on.
His heart had led him here.
Tate knew, in his gut, he’d be spending a lot of time here over the next few weeks.
There was no other place for him.
Liar. There is one place you could be. If you’d just let it happen.
Ali.
Yeah. He could be with her and the voices that raged in the back of his mind would go silent. He could wrap his arms around her, find some small measure of peace from the demons that had chased him for the past fifteen years. The guilt that ripped at him. He could watch her boys play and maybe they could toss the ball around a while. He could be there, be happy … except happy was the last thing he needed.
The last thing he deserved.
Pushing the thoughts of her aside, Tate knelt down and laid a single rose—yellow, his mother’s favorite color—down.
“Happy birthday, Mom.”
There was no body buried in the plot. A month after her birthday, she’d disappeared. She’d been thirty-eight years old and she’d left behind three children. Tate, Jensen, and Chrissie.
It had taken years to even get a headstone erected in the small cemetery. Their dad, the bastard, had waited years before he even tried to get her declared dead. Maybe he thought it made him look innocent. Maybe he thought that giving them the money from her life insurance policy would make up for taking her from them.
Tate didn’t know.
The simple stone offered no closure, no com
fort.
He brushed his fingers down the curve of the stone and swallowed the knot rising in his throat.
Closure.
What the fuck was that?
Anger, bitterness, grief, things that had remained rooted in his heart for fifteen years twisted inside him even as he tried to avoid letting his mind take that dark, winding road.
“… trailer trash…”
His mother’s stricken face, even as she tried not to let it show. The way she looked at her three children and then back at her husband.
“We can’t do this right now, Doug. Not in front of the kids, okay?”
The way his dad had laughed, that bitter, ugly laugh.
“We’re doing it now, you. You always want to fight? Fine. Now we fight.”
“I don’t want to fight in front of the kids, you son of a bitch.”
A sound from behind him tore him out of his reverie and Tate rose, blinking back the burn of tears that threatened. Oddly enough, the grief that had been clogging his throat eased up as he saw who was on the path behind him.
His dad.
Son of a bitch.
The monster who’d taken his mother away.
“What are you doing here?”
Douglass Bell inclined his head. “I’m here to see my wife.” He tried to smile but as Tate continued to glare at him, Doug just sighed and reached up, rubbing a hand across his head. “How have you been, Tate?”
Ignoring his father’s question, he focused on the first thing Doug had said.
“Here to see your wife?”
Disgust flooded him. Closing the distance between them, he glared down at the shorter man. He stood six foot three, a good six inches taller than his father. His height had come from his mother’s side of the family and he used it to good advantage just then, but Doug didn’t look away, didn’t back down. “You don’t get to call her your wife. You lost that right when you killed her.”
“Tate…” Doug shook his head. “I didn’t kill your mother. I loved her.”
Shooting out a hand, he closed it over the front of his dad’s T-shirt. The material was old and faded and it stretched under Tate’s hand. Jerking his father close, he glared down at him. “You loved her. Yeah, that’s why one of the last things I remember you ever saying to her was trailer trash. That’s how you talk to the woman you love, Dad?”
“We had a fight,” Doug said, his voice rough. “You are never going to understand how much I regret that night. But it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t kill her. I loved your mother.”
“Stop it,” Tate said. “Just…”
Without saying anything else, he shouldered past his father, trying to ignore the ghosts and demons shouting inside his head. Too many ghosts. Too many demons.
* * *
Ali came around the corner, her feet tired, her back aching. She practically stopped in her tracks at the sight of the man across the street, striding out of the small cemetery.
Her boys, whooping and carrying on like a couple of miniature monsters, were already at the gate in front of their house and they didn’t see him.
A good thing, considering the look on his face.
The crack in her heart widened.
Seeing him now, striding out of the cemetery, wasn’t a surprise.
Nor was she surprised to see the older man, standing with his head bowed and shoulders slumped. Doug Bell looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Madison had more than its share of misery, and the Bell family was one of the sadder stories. Tate and his sisters had lost their mother, Nichole, almost fifteen years ago. Ali’s heart ached as she watched him walk away from his mother’s headstone, the grave empty, because her body had never been found.
Although Tate would never want to hear it, Ali’s heart ached for Doug, too.
She’d seen the man grieving by the graveside too often. He hadn’t killed his wife. Ali knew it, in her heart.
Tate caught sight of her and slowed. For a second, she thought he’d just change direction and she readied herself for that subtle rejection, but he didn’t. He walked right up to her and she mentally feasted on the sight of him even as she tried to brace herself.
He needed a haircut. The strands, dark, dark brown, hung near to his shoulders now, held out of his face by a rubber band. She loved pulling it free, fisting her hands in his hair as he hovered over her and drove inside. She loved brushing it back from his face when he put his head in her lap. She loved watching the way he tied it back from his face when he was working on one of the bikes he liked to rebuild—a hobby more than anything else—or when he was trying to coax a few more months out of her busted-up car. She really loved the way he looked when he was in his studio creating one of those warped creations he called art. His face would be hidden by whatever he called the shield thing he wore to protect him from the sparks from his blowtorch, but she knew under it, his face would be a mask of intensity. Sweat would dampen his shirt, gleam along his muscles. Her belly tightened just thinking about it.
If she was honest, there was very little about Tate that she didn’t love.
Too bad that wasn’t what he wanted from her.
He came to a stop in front of her just as her boys caught sight of him.
“Tate!” They shrieked out his name and came tumbling out of the yard, barreling in his direction.
A grin split his face and she wished she could react the way they did, just run toward him and see his face light up like that.
While they waited for the kids to join them, she asked softly, “How are you doing today?”
“Fine.” He shrugged restlessly.
She should have let it go. She knew that. Sliding her gaze past him, she looked at the cemetery, her gaze lingering on Doug. Then she looked back at Tate. “No, you’re not.”
A dark brow arched up but before he could respond, her oldest, Joey, reached them, out of breath and panting. “I’m going to a birthday party. I’m staying up until midnight.”
“Is that a fact?” Tate reached out and nudged him in the shoulder. “Just who is having a birthday?”
“Ryan Dolenz. He’s nine. He lives up on the hill and we’re making burgers and swimming and staying up all night.”
“Sounds like a plan, Joey. Eat some cake for me.” He rubbed his hand across Joey’s already tousled blond hair.
“I want cake.” Nolan finally reached them, his eyes big and solemn. He leaned against Ali’s leg, glaring at Joey. “I want to go to the party, too.”
“You can’t. You’re a baby.”
“I am not!”
Before a fight could break out, Ali stepped between them. “We’re staying up late on our own, Nolan, remember? Cookies? Avengers?”
Tate slid his palm down her spine, settled it low on her hip. That light caress sent a shiver through her. “That sounds like a fun party.”
“You’re welcome to join us.”
She’d made the offer before. She expected the same response she always got. He’d come by and work on her car. He’d come by on the weekends and see her sometimes, play with the boys. He’d slip in once the boys went to bed … and they’d have their own private party.
But he never did anything that might be construed as serious … no dinner dates. No dates period. Nothing that might lead the kids to thinking there was anything going on—that was how he phrased it. She’d had to bite her lip to keep from telling him he was an idiot. Kids were smarter than people thought and they’d draw their own conclusions.
When he didn’t answer right away, she moved in closer and reached up to brush his hair back from his brow. His eyes came to rest on hers and she asked, “Wanna come over tonight?”
A sad smile tugged at his lips and he shrugged, gazing out over the river. “I don’t think I’m good company right now, Ali.” He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her lips, quick and light.
Before he could back away, she caught his shirt, fisted her hand in it. “Maybe that’s why
you need company. Today’s not a good day for you to be alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Then he pulled back and without saying anything else, he left.
Sighing, she watched him for a moment. Of course he’d be fine … or fine enough.
He’d be angry. Lonely. Hurting.
He’d get by … alone. Just like always.
All without letting her in.
It’s not going to happen, she told herself.
It wouldn’t happen … and as long as she kept waiting for him to give her some scrap of something, she’d wait around, settling for next to nothing.
Maybe it was time to let go.
It was a thought that ripped her heart almost in two.
Let go … she tried to imagine going through the days without having him to look forward to. Seeing him walking through town and know that he wasn’t hers. Not in any way.
A knot swelled inside her chest and the pain was almost enough to have her gasping for air.
Right now, in some small way, he was hers. When he lay against her in the night, that long, hard body pressed to hers, his hand tangled in her hair while their bodies cooled and their breath calmed, he felt like hers.
As he continued to walk away, without even looking back, she had to wonder … was it enough anymore?
She just didn’t know.
Chapter Three
“… just get the hell out…”
Tate stood in his studio.
His tools lay spread out in front of him.
The materials he needed to make something were right there. If he could just bring an image of something to mind, some remnant of the chaos, he could make this darkness inside him spill out. Purge himself.
He’d always been able to lose himself in his art, but right now, even that escape seemed to be closed to him.
He’d tried to sleep and the nightmares sent him gasping back into awareness before he’d managed even an hour.
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