The Awakening

by Jana DeLeon

  She’d asked about his visit with the sheriff, but he’d only said he’d given Bobby the information and at this time, the sheriff didn’t need to speak to her. She had no doubt about that. If Bobby had even taken a note during his conversation with Tanner, it had probably gone straight into the trash as soon as Tanner had left the sheriff’s office.

  He’d remained silent while driving back to her house, staring straight down the road, his expression one of concentration and aggravation. She could appreciate the sentiment. Bobby tended to leave her feeling aggravated, as well, and she supposed he was thinking about how to find her attacker. But his attitude was such a departure from the tenderness and care she’d seen the night before in her bedroom that she was a little confused.

  As he pulled up in front of her house, he blew out a breath and looked over at her. “We need to talk.”

  “Okay...” His tone led her to believe she wasn’t going to like the conversation.

  “Are you broke?” he asked.

  Her jaw involuntarily dropped open and she clamped it shut. Of all the questions in the world that she’d expected, that one hadn’t even been on the list.

  “I don’t see what business that is of yours,” she said, offended at the question and his tone.

  “It’s my business if you’re staging this creature sighting to get business for your bed-and-breakfast.”

  A flush started up her neck and crept across onto her face and she struggled against the urge to slap him, because she knew that idea hadn’t originated with Tanner. “If you believe that, then I guess your work here is done. Please have Alex send me an invoice.”

  She jumped out of the truck, slamming the door behind her, and ran into the house, holding back tears of shame and frustration. This was exactly the kind of situation she’d been trying to avoid. Even worse, it had been thrown in her face when she was completely unprepared and by the person she least expected to hear it from.

  Itching for a drink, she hurried into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, then changed her mind. Alcohol wasn’t the answer. It never was. During her modeling career, she’d seen too many people ruin their lives with alcohol and drugs. She’d made it this long without using a crutch, and she wasn’t about to start using one now.

  Instead, she grabbed a Diet Coke, walked over to the picture window in the breakfast nook and stared out across the lawn. What in the world had she done to deserve all of this? Maybe she was making a huge mistake in fighting to keep her family home. Her family was all gone and aside from Adele, no one in Miel seemed to like her much. What was she sticking around for—a bunch of wood and grass that she couldn’t even afford to maintain, much less pay for?

  A single tear rolled down her check and she brushed it away with her fingers. At one time, she’d loved it here, had felt safe here. Now everything had changed. She’d come home hoping to start a new life with familiar, happy surroundings and now she didn’t even feel safe in her own home. She’d felt completely and totally alone when she’d fled France and come back home, only to find that back home, she was totally alone, as well.

  “I’m sorry,” Tanner said, his voice soft.

  She brushed another tear from her face and turned to look at him. “Sorry you were wrong, or sorry for assuming that horrid gossip about me was true?”

  “Both, but I’m not going to take the entire blame for my question. Only for the way I presented it.”

  “So you still think I’m lying? That I’m the kind of person who could risk my own safety and drag other people into my plot just to get some free marketing?”

  “I saw you last night, and I think your fear was real. So unless you’re the best actress in the world, I don’t think you planned the attack. But I do think you’re lying. Even if only by omission, the truth is, you’re not telling me everything I’m dealing with here.”

  She bristled at his words, knowing they were true, but unwilling to explain herself. “My personal business is none of your concern. You’re supposed to track the vandal, not get involved in things that don’t concern you.”

  “That’s true enough, but when your personal business limits the amount of cooperation I get from law enforcement and even your own foreman, it becomes my concern. I can’t do all of this alone. Even if I wanted to be in two places at once, I can’t track the vandal while protecting you, and you need protecting. That should be clear after last night.”

  She turned back to the window and sucked in a breath, blowing it slowly out. He was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. If she forced herself into his point of view, she could understand his frustration. She was setting him up for failure. No one man could do everything she needed.

  Perhaps in the beginning, she’d only needed a tracker and could have kept her embarrassing secrets to herself, but things had changed and now she had a decision to make—either she told Tanner the truth and asked for his help working through the mess she was in or she called Sam and took his client up on their offer to buy her property.

  One of those options was only slightly less painful than the other.

  Stupid. You’d let pride ruin what you want?

  Her dad’s voice echoed in her mind. He’d been a strong, prideful man himself, and stubborn as they came, but he’d always told her that there came a time in everyone’s life when they had to ask for help. It would likely be embarrassing and it made one feel like a failure, but the reality was, at some point in time, one person couldn’t do it alone.

  She’d thought she could never feel more mortified than she had that day in France. That day that her entire world had come unraveled, but standing here in her kitchen, she didn’t even know how to start the conversation with Tanner without dissolving into tears.

  He placed his hand on her shoulder and lightly squeezed. “I want to help, but you’ve got to trust me.”

  His words were that last chink in the brick, and the entire dam burst. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as she sobbed. Tanner stepped in front of her and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close to him. She circled his strong body with her arms and pressed her face against his chest, unable to stop the flood of emotion.

  She had no idea how long they stood that way, but finally, the last tear had fallen and relief washed over her. Sniffing, she pushed back from his chest and realized his shirt was damp with her tears.

  “I’ve ruined your shirt,” she said, unable to meet his eyes.

  “It’s nothing that a washing won’t fix,” he said softly. Then with one finger, he lifted her chin up so that their eyes met. “I didn’t mean to upset you like this.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not you. Your words were just the final straw in years of pushing things to the back of my mind instead of facing them. It was going to happen eventually. I’m just sorry you caught the raw end of it.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Yes and no. I think I need to talk about everything, but at the same time, I’m horribly embarrassed about a lot of things, feel like a failure over others and...”

  She stared down at the floor for a moment, then blew out a breath and looked back up at him. “I have a problem with trust. There’s only one person left in this world who I trust right now.”

  “Adele?”

  Josie nodded. “It’s not personal. It’s just that everyone else I’ve known aside from Adele and my parents have disappointed me. The fact that I believed in people wholeheartedly and found my judgment so sadly lacking forced me to retreat into trusting no one.”

  “I understand.”

  “Everyone says that, but do they really understand?”

  “I think I do. Remember what I told you about my parents? Clearly, my dad wasn’t trustworthy and beyond that, he was a horrible father. Always making promises that he never kept. That’s hard on kids.”

  “But you had your mother.”

  “My mother drank herself to death, pining over a man she couldn’t have all to herself. She never bothered to raise m
e. She barely noticed me.”

  The hurt and anger were so clear in his voice that Josie hurt for him—the little boy inside whose childhood had been robbed by two selfish adults. Immediately, she felt guilty for her accusation. Tanner had a lot more reasons not to trust people than she did. At least she’d had two loving, caring parents who thought the sun set on her.

  “Now I’m the one who needs to apologize,” she said. “You’ve had worse reasons than me to stop trusting people.”

  “Perhaps, but if we’re going to figure all this out, we’re going to have to trust each other, no matter what our better judgment tells us to do.”

  Josie nodded and reached out to clasp his hand. “I’m going to trust you with the truth, despite the fact that it’s messy and embarrassing. No more secrets.”

  “No more secrets,” he agreed and gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it and motioning to a chair at the breakfast table.

  She slid into the chair and he took a seat directly next to her, turning his chair so that he was facing her.

  She took a deep breath. “Bobby was telling the truth.”

  Tanner’s eyes widened and she rushed to correct herself. “Not about faking the monster to get free advertising. I would never do something dishonest, no matter how bad things were. But he was right about my being broke.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really. It’s in the past and nothing’s going to change it. The short version is that my dad trusted the wrong man with his money. That man is currently in prison, but the money he stole from clients is nowhere to be found.”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry. It takes a special kind of evil to steal people’s life savings. I hope he gets what he deserves behind bars.”

  “So do I.”

  “I thought modeling paid big money. I mean, I see framed pictures all over the house of you in ads.”

  “It paid well, that’s true. Unfortunately, I’d sent a lot of the money home to my dad to invest for me. I knew about the trial, of course, but I didn’t find out just how much we’d lost until after my dad died. I guess he couldn’t bring himself to tell me.”

  “You didn’t find out before you bought the horses,” he concluded.

  “No, or I wouldn’t have done it, but my dad’s investor isn’t the only place I lost money. I invested a good amount in a man I thought loved me, a photographer. Turns out he was more interested in the financial backing and connections I could get him. Once his career took off, he pursued sleeping with my friends as diligently as he had his career.”

  “They weren’t your friends,” Tanner said quietly.

  “You’re right, of course. But I was young and foolish and not in the least bit ready for the brutality of the fashion world.”

  “How long were you with him?”

  “Three years. We’d celebrated our dating anniversary one night with a romantic dinner. He’d begged off the after-dinner fun claiming he didn’t feel well. Being the dutiful girlfriend, I tucked him in and tended to him until I had to go to work the next morning. I was halfway to the work site when I realized I’d forgotten a pair of shoes I was supposed to wear for the shoot.”

  She stopped for a minute, that day playing through her mind as vividly as if it were happening right now. No matter how much time elapsed, she could still see it all so clearly. Her quietly unlocking the apartment door, hoping to slip in and get her shoes without waking him from his sleep.

  Instead, she’d interrupted her boyfriend and the woman she’d thought was her closest friend in the middle of their bedroom activities.

  “You walked in on him,” Tanner said.

  “Yes. And the woman I thought was my best friend. It had been going on for months, and I was horrified to find that I was the only one who didn’t know.”

  Tanner slid forward in his chair, until his face was only inches from hers. He ran one finger down her cheek as his eyes locked on hers. “He was a fool.”

  Josie’s breath caught in her throat as he leaned in. He was going to kiss her and at the moment, she couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted more.

  His lips brushed softly against hers, and she closed her eyes, relishing every second. He deepened the kiss, parting her lips with his own. Every inch of her skin began to tingle as her tongue mingled with his...softly, tenderly.

  “Josie!” Emmett Vernon’s voice boomed from the front of the house.

  Tanner jumped up from the chair and went to stand by the window, his back to her. Josie sighed and called out to let Vernon know she was in the kitchen. It figured the foreman would finally get industrious about his job at the worst possible time.

  The foreman’s heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, and a couple of seconds later, he entered the kitchen. Immediately, he gave her a once-over.

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “He said I’m fine.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s it?”

  “No, he said to take it easy for a couple of days.”

  Vernon frowned. “Which you have no intention of doing, of course.”

  “She’ll take it easy,” Tanner said, and turned from the window. “At least for a day.”

  “You going to stick around here and make her?” Vernon asked, the skepticism clear in his voice.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  Josie shook her head. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll be fine here alone. You two gentlemen can just go about your business.”

  Vernon narrowed his eyes at Tanner. “Shouldn’t you be trying to track her attacker?”

  “I was out before sunrise. It didn’t take me long to discover everything there was to find.”

  “Which is what, exactly?”

  “That the tracks led in a big loop that came out of the swamp right on the back lawn near the barn.”

  Vernon narrowed his eyes at Tanner as Josie sucked in a breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

  “Because I was more concerned about your health, so I was going to wait until we knew you were in the clear. There’s nothing you could have done about it this morning any more than you can now.”

  “You’re sure about the tracks?” Vernon asked.

  Tanner nodded.

  “But why would someone do that?” Josie asked.

  “Because he wouldn’t leave tracks across the pasture,” Vernon said. “And from here, he can easily access three roads in a half-mile stretch. He probably had a vehicle parked somewhere.”

  Josie looked at Tanner for confirmation.

  “He’s right,” Tanner said.

  “So it’s a dead end?” Josie asked. “There’s nothing you can do?”

  “Not about that particular incident.”

  Vernon shook his head. “Well, she’s not paying you to sit around in the house playing nursemaid.”

  Tanner looked Vernon straight in the eye, his posture rigid. “Who says I’m on the clock today?”

  Vernon studied him for several seconds and Josie could practically feel the testosterone moving through the air. Finally, he gave Tanner a single nod and turned back to Josie. “I’ve got the crew working on the southeast fences today. If you need anything, send Tanner to get me.”

  Josie watched Vernon walked down the hall and waited until she heard the front door close before turning back to Tanner.

  “You’re not telling me something. We said no secrets.”

  “I know, but I could hardly tell you that Vernon could have been your attacker while the man was standing in your kitchen.”

  Josie sucked in a breath. “No, he couldn’t...he wouldn’t...”

  “Perhaps, but when I ran out of the swamp with you, Vernon was leaning against your barn smoking a cigarette. He claims he couldn’t sleep and came to check on the horses, but it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to stash the suit in the swamp, then calmly stroll across the pasture and light one up.”

  Josie’s mind raced with the possibilities, but she couldn’t
think of a single thing to say that would prove Tanner was wrong. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, Emmett was in the right place at the right time to have been her attacker.

  “But what would he have to gain?” she asked.

  “You’d have to tell me that. The man was your father’s employee for a long time. Did your dad leave him anything in his will?”

  “Yes, he left him ten percent of the business. There wasn’t really anything else and the ranch was already in trouble, so even that was more of an albatross than an inheritance.”

  “Was the property part of the business?”

  “Yes.”

  “So if you sold it, he’d get ten percent of the proceeds.”

  “Yes, but once the bank takes their share, the sale would net maybe five hundred thousand. His cut would only be fifty thousand and he’d have to pay capital gains tax on that. Hardly worth going to jail for.”

  “Maybe, but people have gone to jail for a lot less.”

  “I—” She blew out a breath. “I know you’re right, but I just can’t believe Emmett would do something like that.”

  “There’s something else.” He told her about the conversation he’d overheard between Vernon and the store owner the night before.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he said, “but things got a little crazy. Do you have any idea what they’re up to?”

  “Not with any certainty. I know Emmett’s always talked about hunting alligator during season. All landowners get tags, but we’ve always sold them to professionals for the hunting. Depending on the price for the gators, it can pay very well if you can land the big ones. Emmett knows every inch of these bayous. He’d know where to find the big gators.”

  “Alligator season is in June. Would he be planning something for it now?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “The longer this goes on, the more I think I don’t know anything at all, and that what I thought I knew is all wrong. I want to believe Emmett and Ted are just plotting an alligator hunt or starting a fishing tour business or something else equally as innocuous, but I understand that you have to investigate every avenue.”