No Turning Back

by Nancy Bush

  “Hey,” she greeted him, worried. “Haven’t you been home?”

  “Yeah.” He was tongue-tied. The events of the evening had left him empty and unconnected. “I’ve been there.”

  “Was Aunt Liz there?” Tawny’s eyes were huge. “I told her about your dad and she got really mad and just tore out of here. Did she talk to him? Was he there?”

  Jesse couldn’t respond. I want my son . . . I never had a chance to be a mother . . . I want you . . . He shook his head. It felt like something had broken loose inside. Everything was rattly and jangling.

  “Are you okay?” Tawny’s fine brows drew into a line of worry.

  “We gotta leave,” he burst out. “Right now. We gotta get outta here.”

  “What do you mean?” She drew back instinctively, into the security and light of the little house.

  But Jesse was outside. On the porch. In the heat of summer and the wildness of night. That same raffish desire to be untamed and defy all rules swept over him and he embraced it. “Come on,” he urged, unknowingly seductive in his urgency. Tawny hesitated, eyeing him, a part of herself she’d never known existed heeding the cry.

  “I—can’t. Aunt Liz . . .” she protested, her eyes begging him to understand.

  “Aunt Liz isn’t who you think she is,” Jesse replied scornfully. “She’s . . .”

  “She’s what?”

  “C’mere.” Jesse stepped toward her, taking her hands in his, staring down at her through the curtain of his hair. She tugged one small hand free and brushed back silken strands. Within her amber gaze was a message he read clearly: convince me. He kissed her without a second thought, drew her against his fast-beating heart and held her tightly. “You’ve gotta come,” he said roughly into her hair. “Your dad’s coming to take you away.”

  “What?”

  “I heard—Aunt Liz—say he’s coming this weekend. You can’t stay or I’ll never see you again.”

  “I won’t go! I won’t.”

  “Then c’mon. Now. Don’t think, just do it.”

  Her lashes swept downward. Her body was tense as piano wire. Indecision lasted a split second, then she slid a glance upward and he read rebellion in the set of her jaw. “Do you have money?”

  Jesse expelled air through his teeth, furious with himself. He should have stripped his father clean. Tawny put a hand on his arm. “Give me a minute,” she said, and disappeared to the back of the house.

  She was gone so long he grew anxious, worried she’d changed her mind. But when she returned she had sweatshirts for both of them, a roll of bills, and a flashlight.

  “Jeezus.” Jesse was impressed.

  “My life savings,” she said ironically. “For saving my life. I keep it with me all the time. I guess I kinda thought I might need it someday.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  He kissed her once more, hard and fast. The phone started ringing at that moment and they both jumped guiltily. Tawny hesitated, then tucked her hand inside Jesse’s, and they slipped away into the waiting arms of night.

  * * *

  Liz ended her phone call and tucked one hand beneath her chin. She glanced out the front window. The moon was high now, illuminating the grounds but not sliding fingers of light into the house.

  She was fully dressed, unwilling to succumb to the warm pleasures of being Hawk’s bedmate again, aware that it would only hurt her in the end. He was asleep. Exhaustion had erased the lines beside his mouth and only a tiny furrow remained between his brows as he breathed deeply. She’d wanted to trace that small crevice with her finger but had resisted. Instead, she’d dragged on her clothes for the second time and headed for the door.

  A quick call to Tawny and she was out of here, or so she’d thought. But she’d rung the house twice now to no avail. Could she be sleeping through?

  Maybe Jesse’s with her . . .

  That thought galvanized her into action. Without further ado, she drove back to her house, way too cognizant of the man she’d left sleeping so soundly. She shook her head in amazement. She had to get over this.

  A light burned from the back of the house. The bathroom, Liz realized, as she entered the front door. Glancing at the couch, she realized Tawny wasn’t there. She must have decided to climb into Liz’s bed. Strange, but then, she’d been pretty upset.

  Liz flipped on the light to the bedroom. Nothing. Except Tawny’s small pile of belongings, a pile that seemed to ebb and rise depending on how much time she spent at Liz’s, had been rifled through. Liz knew because she’d neatly arranged it after Tawny’s last visit.

  With a growing feeling of dread, Liz checked the kitchen and finally the bathroom. She gasped at the lipsticked message on the mirror.

  I’m with Jesse. I can’t go with my dad. I’m sorry.

  “Oh, Tawny,” Liz whispered, sick with dread.

  Within seconds, she was speeding back to Hawk’s cabin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hot-wiring cars was a Hawthorne Jesse Hart specialty. At the edge of Woodside, a decade-old red Ford sedan looked beat-up, neglected, and lonely. Jesse tinkered beneath the dashboard while Tawny held the flashlight.

  “I feel like a criminal,” she whispered.

  “Don’t think about it.” Good advice. He wasn’t thinking now. He was running on pure adrenaline.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Aberdeen,” he told her, to which she made a noise of recognition.

  Touching wires together, he heard a satisfying fizz and zap with a tiny burst of fiery connection. Jamming down the accelerator with his left elbow, the little car revved excitedly.

  “C’mon,” he ordered, scrambling behind the wheel. Tawny jumped in beside him, eyes huge.

  “You sure you know how to drive?”

  White teeth gleamed in the moon’s glow. “Been doin’ it for years,” he assured her, and with a quick jerk of the stick shift, the car leaped forward and they were out of town.

  * * *

  “She wrote you a message in lipstick?” Hawk questioned, frowning.

  “On the mirror,” Liz reaffirmed, pacing around Hawk’s kitchen. He was perched on a stool, wearing only boxer shorts, his casted leg stretched straight. His hair was mussed and his eyes were lazy with sleep and sensual fulfillment. No amount of anxiety on her part could get him stirred up. “I guess she knows Guy’s planning to pick her up this weekend because she specifically said she wouldn’t leave with him.”

  Hawthorne rubbed his hands over his face, trying to remove the effects of alcohol and lovemaking. He wanted to be sharp here. He hadn’t been sharp all night.

  “Did she know her father was picking her up before? Why’d she get so upset now?”

  “Maybe Jesse talked her into leaving,” Liz guessed.

  “Has she done this kind of thing before?”

  “No. She would never leave her mom. But then, Guy hasn’t been so persistent. She’s scared he’ll take her away.”

  “So she left before that could happen.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Hawthorne wasn’t completely sure. “She came to you because I upset her. She poured out her heart. Did she mention the worry about her father?”

  “No . . .” Liz felt the thrum of a deeper worry. Hawk was picking at it and she didn’t like it.

  “Maybe she just wrote that to give herself an excuse to be with Jesse,” he said.

  “But she was already with him. Why come home at all to talk to me? They could have left after you had your fight with them.” Now Liz picked up his train of thought and fretted over it even worse. She sucked in a sharp breath. “I know Kristy didn’t tell her about Guy because she didn’t want her to know yet.”

  “And you didn’t tell her?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “The only person I told was you.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell her,” Hawk pointed out reasonably.

  “Jesse,” Liz whispered.


  The last vestiges of sluggishness evaporated in Hawthorne’s brain. Crystal connections. Obvious answers. “Jesse came back and overheard our fight.”

  “Oh, Hawk!”

  “He knows,” he whispered, clenching his jaw at his own stupidity. “He sneaks in the back window sometimes.”

  Liz moaned in pain, a hand pressed to her mouth in horror.

  “He went straight to Tawny. He talked her into leaving with him.”

  “Where . . . where are they?” Liz choked out.

  Hawk was grim. This wasn’t a question he could answer because Jesse was notoriously hard to read, especially when he thumbed his nose at adult expectations and responsibility, an action less evident of late but never, as Hawk had just been reminded, that far out of range.

  “We’ve got to find them,” Liz declared. “We’ve got to find them. Kristy! Oh, God. I can’t tell her.”

  “Calm down. They’ll be fine. Jesse’s—resourceful,” he finished after a long moment of searching for the right word.

  “Well, thank God for small favors,” Liz responded with an edge.

  “You should be proud.”

  “Damn you,” she said, near tears. “We should have told him from the start. Oh my God. What if he does something rash?”

  “Something rash?” Hawk repeated in disbelief, lifting a brow. He couldn’t help it. He was starting to get amused. And though he sympathized with her anxiety, he’d been here so many times before that he’d learned to cope.

  She flushed. “Stop patronizing me.”

  “There’s nothing to do but wait.”

  “Send out the police! Do something!”

  For an answer, he slid off the stool and hobbled toward where she was currently standing in the doorway from the kitchen to the living room, her hands in her hair as if she wanted to rip it out by the roots.

  “I’ve got to call Kristy,” she moaned. “I’ve got to tell her.”

  “Wait ’til morning. They could be back any minute.”

  Liz closed her eyes and leaned her head backward. Her lashes dampened. “You were right. I’m no kind of mother. This never would have happened if I’d been more careful.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Hawk snapped, growing impatient. “Anything can happen when it comes to our son.”

  Our son. It echoed into the sudden silence. Hawthorne had never fully addressed the fact that Liz was Jesse’s mother—unless he was denigrating her. Liz opened tear-starred eyes and regarded him gratefully, and he regretted being so harsh these intervening years. He hadn’t been fair, he realized now. He had put all kinds of judgment calls on her.

  “Do you really think they’ll be back soon?” Liz asked, fragile hope in her voice.

  “I don’t know.” He wished he could tell her differently, but he couldn’t. “If it’s any consolation, Jesse’s a good man to be on the road with.”

  She choked out a laugh. Hawk found himself almost smiling, which was ridiculous considering the situation. He was afraid to tap into his feelings for Liz Havers just yet—apart from lust, which he had to admit was definitely part of the mix. But the rest of it . . .

  “How do you do it?” she marveled, shaking her head. “How do you wait for him to come home?”

  “You can’t do anything else,” Hawk answered.

  “He knows, Hawk. He knows.”

  Because she couldn’t stop bouncing from one crisis to another, Hawk was powerless to console her. Still, she was right here. Right in front of him. He reached out a hand and dusted his knuckles along the hill of her cheek. She swallowed hard.

  “I feel completely lost,” she whispered.

  Gesturing to the couch, he followed after her in his ungainly manner. When Liz sat down, Hawk sank next to her. Their relationship was tentative at best, and now, with Jesse’s probable knowledge about the whole affair, it was bound to get stickier.

  As he’d already said, nothing to do but wait.

  * * *

  Aberdeen at dawn. Coastal. Gray. Depressing. Dark older buildings that to Jesse’s youthful eye looked ancient and decrepit stabbed into a thick, hovering sky. The only color were streetlights; shots of red and green in an otherwise homogenous slate-colored day.

  Tawny lay asleep in the passenger seat, her smooth brow clear and untroubled. Jesse eased his stolen wheels to the side of the road, cut the engine, and leaned over to kiss her forehead. She stirred and opened one eye. Memory washed over her and she sat bolt upright.

  “Where are we?”

  “Aberdeen.”

  “Did we just get here?”

  “Nah. I’ve been drivin’ around a while, just lookin’.”

  Tawny blinked several times, yawned, and finger-combed her hair. Her expression grew grim. Jesse knew how she felt.

  “I shouldn’t have left,” she said in a worried tone. “What was I thinking? Mom’ll have a heart attack.”

  Jesse gazed out at the gray day and stated flatly, “I’m not goin’ back.”

  “Why not? What happened?”

  “I just hate it there, that’s all.”

  She gazed at him searchingly, her amber eyes way too knowing. He half-turned away, aware that she could see right through him. “Something terrible happened.”

  He shrugged.

  “Something with your dad?”

  Jesse chewed on the inside of his cheek until the pain penetrated.

  “Tell me or take me back,” she said, watching him closely.

  “I can’t take you back! This car’s been reported by now. We gotta drop it and get the hell out of sight.”

  “What is it?”

  He turned on her, furious, wanting to bite her head off and anyone else’s within range. But it was only Tawny there. His friend. The girl he loved. The fire flamed out of him and instead, a lump filled his throat, choking him. To make matters worse, she reached out, touching his arm, curling her fingers in the sleeve of the sweatshirt she’d given him, which was too small and nearly choked him but helped keep him from freezing to death.

  “Aunt Liz . . .” he struggled, his voice thready and uncertain.

  “Aunt Liz,” she prompted.

  “She’s”—Sucking in a breath, he exhaled in a rush—“my mother.”

  She waited. Simply waited. The words didn’t compute, so she waited for further explanation. There was nothing more to say, so Jesse waited as well. He could almost see the words penetrate through the wall of her brain and travel along a nerve to reach that part of her that assimilated information and drew conclusions. It was a slow process. The brain threw out thousands of roadblocks to the truth.

  “I don’t understand,” she mumbled, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “I overheard my dad and her fighting. She’s my mother. My dad’s wife, Laura, never was. It was all a big lie.”

  “Are you crazy?” she demanded, angry.

  “No!” Jesse threw open the door and charged into the chill morning air. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.

  “You got it wrong!” Tawny declared emphatically, climbing from her side of the car and slamming the door. “That’s all.”

  “I know what I heard,” he rounded on her. “Don’t you get it? Your wonderful Aunt Liz is my mother and I hate her. I hate ’em both. They lied to me and now Aunt Liz wants to be my mommy. A little goddamn late! Well, I’m not stickin’ around. I’m outta there. Forever.”

  Tawny inhaled and exhaled several times, hard. Jesse hunched his shoulders, afraid of histrionics. He was no good at this. Goddamn it.

  “I’m going to faint,” Tawny said in surprise, staggering.

  Jesse ran around the car and scooped her into his arms just before she crumpled to the ground.

  * * *

  Woodside Police Station looked cold in the early glow of fluorescent lights without the warmth of day to overcome that eerie illumination. Liz sat huddled in the chair next to Hawk’s desk while he checked with the night staff on sightings of teen runaways.

  “A car’s bee
n reported stolen,” he told her, handing her a cup of coffee, presumably from a pot located in a back room. She was surprised how good it tasted. She rarely drank it black.

  “You think Jesse took it?” she asked, hoping against hope he was wrong.

  Hawk gave her an ironic look. “Yes.”

  Liz nodded. Not that many stolen cars reported in a town the size of Woodside, and Jesse had a history, after all.

  And motivation, she reminded herself. She shuddered, wondering what he was thinking of her now. If only she’d had a chance to tell him the truth face-to-face.

  “I need to go tell Kristy,” she said, rising to her feet and feeling like an old, old woman.

  “I’ll go with you.” At her look, he pointed out, “He’s my son, too.”

  * * *

  Liz stood by the back window of Kristy’s house, listening to Hawthorne’s deep voice answer Kristy’s questions with patience and apology: patience because he was a policeman who dealt with these issues on a regular basis; apology because it was his son who’d talked Tawny into leaving.

  A detached part of Liz was impressed; he was doing a better job than she could, given that it was Jesse and Tawny, two of the most important people in her life. Maybe the most important. And Kristy was taking the news well. She knew enough about Jesse and Tawny to believe in their safety.

  “What should I tell Guy?” she asked in a small voice. “He’s coming down tomorrow to pick Tawny up.”

  “That’s one of the main reasons she left,” Liz pointed out.

  “Will he call first?” Hawk asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Then tell him the truth.”

  “Should I do that now?” Kristy asked, her face reflecting her reluctance.

  “Wait ’til he calls,” Hawk suggested. “We could know something by then.”

  “He’ll blame me,” Kristy said.

  “Don’t let him,” Liz broke in. “He doesn’t know anything about Tawny or any of this.”

  “He’ll use this as an excuse. I know him. Once he made up his mind to have Tawny, it was just a matter of time before he got his way.” She smiled wanly. “He’s probably sorry I’m in remission.”

  “Kristy . . .” Liz ached for her.