“What?”
“Self-esteem.” Saying it made his using Tess for sex even more heinous. How would he return to Denver and face himself in the mirror after recognizing how he’d taken a part of her, no matter how freely offered, and used her for self-gratification? Yeah, she’d agreed, no complaints. But coming from Marissa’s viewpoint, now that he knew better, how could he ever go back to girls like Tess?
“Oh. I hadn’t considered that aspect of the female psyche,” she said. “Women who don’t realize they deserve better. Still, there are other places and ways to belong.”
“Some girls might not see it that way,” he admitted, his voice raspy with guilt. “They act like doormats for a scrap of attention or a decent fuck.” God, he was the biggest asshole on the planet. “Makes it easier to treat them that way.”
Marissa straightened. “Doesn’t make it right.”
“No, you’re right,” he admitted, humbled. “It doesn’t.” He rolled his shoulders. “But that’s what guys in Butcher’s gang are used to, and maybe they don’t think they can do better than those girls.”
“They can’t. They’re trash.”
Tru-dat. Adam wished he couldn’t relate.
“How do they live with themselves?”
“Okay, time to go.” Adam shifted into drive, considering thoughts he should’ve admitted long ago, when it came to women.
Even when it came to women like Tess. Easy and available. Just his type. Didn’t mean it was right. His inadequacies had ruled his life for two decades. He should’ve treated Tess better, regardless if she’d presented herself as his own personal fuck doll. He’d slammed a door in her face, for God’s sake, when he’d thought of holding Marissa while his arms were wrapped around Tess. Asshole. Never again, he promised womankind.
As they drove the two miles back into town, Marissa made a sudden request. “Stop here, at the gas station.”
Applying the brake, he stopped his truck just inside the apron of the gas station.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
He idled until she returned to the cab of his truck, paper in hand. “Okay, let’s unload our things at the motel. It’s another mile up the road.”
But unloading was the last thing on her mind, as she combed through the pages to the obituary section.
Greg Kinsman, Robertstown reporter, earned himself a pat on the back. Local celebrity barkeep William “Bill” Tate, friend to all, left behind his beloved haunt in a town that cherishes its ghost stories. No doubt his generous spirit will live on in the hearts of his patrons, and in his beloved bar where memories recall kindness beyond measure of a man who will be truly missed.
Yes, exactly. No one could ever replace her grandfather. And Mr. Kinsman had captured Grandpa Tate perfectly. She wanted to find reporter Greg and kiss him on the lips.
At the same time, the kind reminiscence tweaked her heart, releasing the water works. Fat tears dropped onto the page she smoothed across her lap lovingly.
“We’re here,” Adam announced, pulling to the back of the parking lot, forcing her to look away from the newsprint.
Great, she thought weakly. A sad, cheap motel.
Another reminder of the truth of this sad, cheap town.
She almost wished she hadn’t returned. Maybe if she’d sent away for Kinsman’s lovely article, she could’ve lived with his portrayal alone, and spared her and Adam this expensive, possibly useless expedition.
“Maybe I was wrong to come back,” she blurted out, as he parked and she stared down at the paper in her lap. “This should be enough, right?” Tears ran down her cheeks though she hardly felt them. “I mean, someone commemorated Grandpa Tate in writing. I don’t need pictures, or photo albums, or his Vietnam medals of honor. Right?” Her chest shuddered. “Kind words are enough, right?”
The passenger door opened, and Adam reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt. “You tell me, sugar.”
The instant the belt gave way, she collapsed against his chest. He was right there to catch her, collecting her against him with strong, powerful arms. “It should be enough…right?” she sobbed, so glad she didn’t have to face the searing loss alone.
Never had she grieved for anyone or anything the way her floodgates let loose in Adam’s embrace. She clawed his t-shirt until her fists caught the fabric and clenched tight. “It’s not fair.”
“I know, honey,” he soothed, his arms around her securely. If she tumbled out of the passenger seat, he’d catch her. So she did. “I’ve got you,” he assured, as he helped her out of the car door and led her toward the motel room. “Hang on to me. I won’t let you go.”
Nodding against him, she refused to unclench his shirt, now covered in her tears and probably snot. Lovely, she thought, too distraught to care about her bodily fluids impacting his impression of her. She couldn’t help collapsing in the worst moment of her life. She could only thank him for catching her before she fell.
“Thank you, Adam. For being here with me,” she whispered, pouring her soul into the expression of gratitude.
“Anytime. I’ll always be here for you.”
Adhering to his brawny support, she felt bereft when he leaned her against a motel room door. “Hang here.” He propped her up, placing her hands on the wooden trim. “I’m going to check in and get the key from the front desk. I’ll be back in under a minute.”
As much as she wanted to curl into a ball of emotional wreckage, she forced her knees to lock, keeping her upright. She braced one palm against the door, staring at the only thing of interest in sight.
The cart outside the next motel room held layers of linens, the scent of bleach and fabric softener drifting to her nose. Breathe. Just breathe .
Alongside the linens sat an ashtray overflowing with orange butts and ashes. The sight pulled her briefly out of herself, reminding her of her former best friend, Brittany.
They’d worked together at Tate’s Bar after high school. A natural destination, and probably, at the time, their only solution to earning a living in this town lacking for decent jobs. Back then smoking indoors held no restrictions. It was a way of life, especially in the bar business, and Brittany had kept the local minimart in business with her habit. She’d smoked Marlboro reds, as if its packaging offered some kind of Red Badge of Courage —a great novel they’d read in ninth grade, about wartime heroics…or misdeeds, depending on a reader’s point of view. Brittany had defended her choice of cigarettes.
If I’m going to smoke, I’ll smoke the real thing. Cowboy killers, she boasted. But only halfway. She’d never smoked an entire cigarette, stubbing each one out partway, because she couldn’t stand to keep her hands still, especially in the bar. The cigarettes burned themselves out half the time before she returned to them, so she lit a fresh one every time. Drove Marissa bonkers, even though she’d personally never smoked a cigarette in her life.
Glancing again at the overstuffed ashtray, the Marlboro logo clear on the half-smoked cigarette butts, Marissa wondered if Brittany had stayed local. She doubted it. She and Brittany had talked endlessly about leaving town for bigger, better things. Phoenix, L.A., Denver—Colorado had ranked highest on their list of must-live places for naive twenty-year-olds.
Ironic, Marissa now lived in Denver, the former ultimate destination for her and her former BFF. But for obvious reasons she’d never reached out to Brittany. The contact could’ve proved lethal to her best friend. Marissa continued to keep her identity secret from everyone she cared about.
Still, the notion of a reunion plucked at her heartstrings. Brittany knew her, the real her, and the tug of nostalgia proved too much to bear. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
But those cigarettes could belong to anyone, she told herself. The brand and the way they were smoked weren’t exclusive to her best friend. Desperate for connection, she’d probably see any detail as a tie to the past.
Through her bleary eyes, the broad-shouldered image of Adam came into view. “So
rry it took so long.”
“It’s okay,” she said on a faint hiccup of emotion.
“They still use keys.” He held up the tarnished gold, saw-toothed edge of metal to prove it. “Real friggin’ keys. How old school can you get?”
With one longing glance at the ashtray overflowing with memories, she let Adam lead her through the door he’d unlocked. Movements mechanical, she entered, looking around without seeing, and sat on the edge of the bed. She had no idea what to do with herself. How to tame the wild range of emotions stampeding her heart.
“We need to get this all out of you. Today.”
Startled by the sharp tone in his voice, she looked up. “What do you mean?”
“We need to bite the bitter bullet, Marissa. Before it tears you apart.” He sighed. “C’mon. Get up.” He grasped her arm gently but firmly. “We have to get this over with. I’m taking you to see your grandfather’s grave.”
CHAPTER 5
First, Adam stopped off at a flower shop. Something she might not have thought to do, in her current state of mind. He kept the motorcycle idling on the kickstand, returned with a dozen roses, and pressed them into her arms. Then they were back on the road, cruising at twenty-five miles an hour, the best speed this town offered. Yeah, he’d promised her a helmet the next time they rode, but this seemed a good a moment as any to buck the rules. He seemed to do that a lot around her.
When he’d asked her to guide him in the direction of the nearest cemetery, she’d thrust her arm south. So when he found a set of open metal gates, creaking in the wind louder than his v-twin engine, barricading what appeared to be a field of headstones, he steered his handlebars onto the dusty, rarely-traveled road between them.
The place looked as worn, sun-bleached and forgotten as the rest of this godforsaken town. His tires crunched over small stones, flattened crispy patches of brownish grass. He scanned the terrain, keeping an eye out for recently disturbed soil. They passed weather-beaten headstones, some sitting cockeyed in the ground with dates carved into them from 1890 to 1930. During small talk on the drive in, Marissa had revealed most of the town’s miners left after the stock market crash of 1929. Sure seemed like it.
After passing a spider web of deep cracks in the parched earth, he angled toward a collection of newer looking plots. He shifted down to second gear and rolled along slowly. The grass looked greener in this part, less depressing. A couple sprinklers spat arcs of water, as if for show, since most of the drops dried up before hitting the ground.
Finally his glance fell on a fresh grave. He shifted to first gear, clenched the brake. Marissa hopped off the seat behind him before he came to a complete stop. Crushed red rose petals drifted behind her, falling like thick, shiny drops of blood onto the desert floor.
Shoving his heel against the kickstand, he rested the bike and shut off the engine. He stared at the painfully bright gleam of sunlight bouncing off his handlebars.
This was about Marissa’s loss, her grief. He needed to be strong for her, and he would be, but memories of his own father made his eyes well up.
Damn, I miss you, Pops. Something fierce.
*
A fierce sense of betrayal cut through her like shards of glass in her veins. The anguish of coming here too late scraped her raw. Her heart burst into a flaming ball in her chest. A funeral pyre of regret. Hot tears slid down her cheeks. Sadness greater than she’d ever known spilled out of her soul. Followed by brittle emptiness, as if any second her nerves might snap and she’d collapse into a pile of fragile tinder.
“I should’ve stayed,” she whispered, her fingertips caressing the temporary white cross that bore his name. The way she’d wanted to reach out across the distance so many times and touch his weathered face, look into his vivid blue eyes… Now she’d never have that chance.
Home had remained a real, living, breathing possibility as long as Grandpa had been alive. His spirit embodied the concept, this place, where he’d created a decent life for her. This place, carved from dust and stone, miners’ hopes and dreams, offering the hint of possibilities for a better way. But home no longer existed, because he no longer existed. One more spirit swallowed up in the vortex of this dead-end, nowhere ghost town.
Hopeless defeat bowed her shoulders. Now where do I belong?
Witness protection had erased her from this place. Her lips twisted bitterly at the irony. She was a ghost here, too.
Glad for Adam’s thoughtful foresight, she unclenched her hands from the long-stemmed roses in her grasp. So she could commemorate Grandpa’s memory in some small way. She hadn’t noticed the wicked thorns piercing her palms and fingers.
A few flecks of her blood mingled with the rose petals as she placed them on the newly turned earth. Fitting, she thought. The angry red pricks on her hands reminded her she was alive, the only relative left to venerate his passing. His memory would continue on through her, a living tribute to his life of hard work and sacrifice so she’d have a better future.
A ray of hope sliced through her regret. She would do whatever it took to keep him alive in her heart. This beautiful man, who’d given her so much…more than a million thank-you’s could ever convey. She prayed he might somehow feel her gratitude, without the words she wished she’d told him face to face.
She collapsed cross-legged beside his grave, sitting there for a long time. Breathing in all the wonderful times with him, when she’d been the love of his life, when he’d saved her, watched over her, cherished her. And she had worshipped him right back.
In her mind she flung open all the locked doors to those memories, doors she’d shut to protect her secrets and her sanity. Images, conversations, and laughter echoed inside her grieving heart, softening the pain of loss.
“I will make you proud.” Her fingertips traced the petals of the rose nearest her. “I promise.”
The words brought on a fresh flow of tears, but they caught on her upturned lips. She hadn’t expected to walk away from his grave with a smile, let alone the lightness filling her chest. As if he were right beside her, helping to hold her spine straight and proud, telling her everything would be okay.
To her amazement, she believed him.
Maybe she wasn’t so lost after all…?
Minutes passed like hours, as she sifted the dirt, watching it flow through her fingers. Sand through the hourglass of this finite life. She promised from now on to make every tiny grain count. Since she no longer needed to protect him from her remade identity, perhaps in the future she could share their adventurous stories with someone.
A certain someone came to mind. She glanced over her shoulder at the man who’d stepped in to make this trip possible, offering the protection she’d needed to come here.
Adam leaned against the seat of his motorcycle. Black boots crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. His features appeared drawn, the corners of his eyes pinched behind aviator sunglasses, his jaw tight with the effort of containing something powerful behind his typically careless façade. Sweat glistened on his forehead and upper lip, but he remained still as a statue carved in bronze. A shell of hard masculine beauty encasing sensual, softer parts she’d only glimpsed in passing, when he thought she wasn’t looking.
She stood, dusted off her hands, and made her way to him. His stoic expression didn’t budge as she approached. She wished she could remove his sunglasses, look into his eyes—piercing green disks that revealed more than they hid…not that she’d ever tell him. If he knew, the stone of his exterior might invade those beautiful windows into his soul, and she’d hate to be shut out of that narrow access to his true emotions.
Briefly she flicked her glance behind her at Grandpa’s grave, then refocused on Adam. “Thank you. I needed that time. More than you can know.”
His chiseled lips parted. “Maybe I do know.”
Capturing her in a fluid movement, he widened his stance and clamped one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders. He dragged her against the hard pla
nes of his body.
The burst of affection surprised her. His heart beat hammered against her ear like a wild Mustang, untamed but in need of care and kindness, even a gentle touch.
Answering the call, she reached around his waist and clasped her hands between the taut ridges of muscles along his spine. Dampness met her wrists through his black t-shirt. The pleasant male musk of deodorant, cologne and sweat filled her nostrils. She breathed him in, releasing a sigh of appreciation.
The bristle on his chin nuzzled against the top of her head as he gripped her in a powerful embrace. “You know I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you,” he murmured.
At a loss for words, sensing the weight of his admission, she nodded against him, closing her eyes and absorbing the moment. His heat and strength. Her awe and acceptance. Together they entered into a space of silent understanding that, unexpectedly, they needed each other more than either of them had thought.
Despite what he believed, and had told her insistently, they weren’t so different. Perhaps he’d finally opened himself to the possibility.
Maybe I do know… His words cycled through her mind. What did he know? What did he understand about her experience no one else did? She tucked the thought away to unpack at a later time.
The blast of a dozen motorcycles split the air like a bowling ball striking pins. She jumped and he instinctively tightened his arms around her. He turned at the waist and they both glanced toward the road, where Bucher and his gang roared past the gates of the cemetery.
“Shit,” Adam muttered. “We don’t need him all up in our business.”
She swallowed against the growing tightness in her throat. “We should go, before he sees the new roses on Grandpa’s grave.”
“Right.” Adam straddled his bike in one fluid movement and she hopped on behind him.
She followed his movements, climbing onto the seat behind him. Please let them leave us alone.
The Harley beneath them hummed to life. With the minimum of noise, Adam lifted the kickstand and sped toward the cemetery gates. They reached the apron of the entrance as Butcher and his crew made a sharp U-turn and descended on them.
The Billionaire's Dare (Book 4 - Billionaire Bodyguard Series) Page 8
