by Nicole Helm
He didn’t have a clue about anything anymore. So blank wasn’t even pretending—it was straight up not knowing what to do.
He took his bag to the locker room, wincing when he saw Berkley and Granger. He’d thought he’d escaped having to hear their comments when they hadn’t made a peep at roll call, but then again, Franks had been there. Now they were changing out of their uniforms after having worked the midnight shift.
“Trouble in paradise already?” Berkley said. It didn’t sound as mean-spirited as if Granger had said it, but it still rankled. But he wasn’t going to comment. What was there to say?
“Maybe he found out he doesn’t like wearing the skirt in the relationship,” Granger said with a smug-ass grin.
Marc could respond to that. A few choice words were on his tongue, the memory of punching Granger satisfying. There were a lot of things he could do. Unfortunately, all the responses felt shitty.
In fact, today, all he’d felt was like shit. Shit for losing it with Mom and Dad. Shit for everything with Tess. Not that it was his fault, exactly. But it still ached like an open wound.
He didn’t know what that meant. How to fix it. He’d never been in a relationship that meant this much, and certainly never put some line in the sand he didn’t know how to cross.
So he walked away from Berkley and Granger. Didn’t even flip the asshole off when he said something about him being a pansy.
Marc wasn’t going to waste any more energy on some dickwad with an attitude problem.
He was his own dickwad, and he had to sort that out.
* * *
TESS DROVE AROUND Bluff City for a full half an hour after Marc dropped her off at the station at the end of their shift.
She was being cowardly, and she hated that, but she also hated seeing him and smelling him and being so damn close she could touch him, and she’d gotten that for almost eight solid hours, so...this was some kind of reward.
Now she was sitting in front of the building in her car and she could go be alone in her apartment and wonder if he’d try to make things right and wonder if she should try to make things right and wonder if Dad would ever change his mind about treatment and...
Her phone buzzed and she tensed, but when she looked at the caller ID, it was a number she didn’t recognize. She debated a few moments before finally answering. “Hello?”
“Um, hi, Tess? This is Leah...Leah Santino.”
“Oh.” What the hell? “Hi.”
She cleared her throat. “So, hi. Yeah, um—jeez, Grace, be quiet. Hey, so Grace and I were wondering if you wanted to come to the book club thing with us tonight?”
“Um, I guess you don’t know that—”
“No, I know. I mean, I kind of figured things weren’t great when Marc kinda lost it at us yesterday, but you know.”
Lost it at them? Marc? He hadn’t lost it at her even when things ended between them. Oh, there’d been a little blip of emotion, an argument, but nothing more than them coming to an ultimatum.
No screaming, no tears—not in front of each other, anyway.
Which, wow, what did that mean?
“O...okay.”
“The thing is, you can still come. I mean, we want you to. Or whatever. If you wanted to. If it wouldn’t be weird. For you. I won’t be weird.” There was a pause then a snort. “Grace’s right. I won’t be any weirder.”
“Well, I—”
“Tess?” The voice was different this time. “Hi, this is Grace.”
Her head was whirling. Surely she couldn’t go hang out with Marc’s sister. Even if she’d agreed to it at the party. This...them...everything had changed. “Oh, well, hi.”
“What Leah is trying to say is, regardless of what’s happening with Marc, you’re still welcome to come. We want you to come.”
“Why?” She shouldn’t be so skeptical or so questioning, but she had no idea why these women who had met her only briefly would want to extend the invitation.
“It’s just...” Grace sighed into the line. “Whatever is going on with you and Marc doesn’t have anything to do with our invitation. I know what it’s like to go through...hard stuff, and only a few things were more helpful than Susan and Leah letting me join their little group. I know we don’t know each other, but knowing you’ve had a similar experience, it’s hard for me not to get nosy.”
Someone said something—Tess assumed it was Leah in the background—but Tess could only make out Grace telling her to be quiet.
“So, you’ll meet us at Shades at six?” Grace prompted.
Tess looked up at her apartment complex, at Marc’s truck and cruiser parked in front of it. All she felt was lonely and sad, and she’d had enough of all that.
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll come.”
“Great! We’re excited to induct another member. See you then.”
Tess clicked the phone off and walked up to her apartment. No Marc sightings—thank goodness. She changed and ate something, trying not to feel the little pang that no one was cooking for her anymore.
That had been so nice. He’d acted as though it was nothing, cooking for her, but she’d never had anyone do that with any kind of regularity and, well, crap, she missed it. As much as she wanted it to be about the food and not having to cook or clean up herself, it was about someone caring enough to make the effort.
But that missing would fade and heal. Because it wasn’t enough to ignore the fact he couldn’t agree with something she thought was important. It wasn’t enough to go on with his blank face or to do whatever they’d been doing at the farmer’s market.
That was way too painful to forget just for a few delicious meals.
What about the other stuff?
No, no thinking about that. She got her gun from her utility belt and packed it in its case and some ammunition in a bag. If nothing else, she’d get some weapon practice in tonight, since she’d been neglecting that the past few months when everything had started to get so...busy with Dad.
He hadn’t called today. Which was good. Maybe he was considering what she’d said. Considering treatment. She might not have come to the conclusion Marc wanted her to—that her dad was worthless and never going to get better—but at least she was starting to accept she couldn’t help him. Not alone. He needed professional help, and she couldn’t keep ignoring that or pretending it wasn’t the only way.
The niggling idea she should tell Marc that and try to make some compromise, come to some understanding, sneaked under her breastbone and pressed against her heart. But...
She’d asked him to find a way to understand and he’d said no. Because he’d spent too much of his life pretending. Which meant he’d never understand and she had to cut her losses. He equated understanding with pretending, which meant he was never, ever going to understand.
She blinked at the tears in her eyes. She was not crying over Marc Santino anymore. Nope, she was going to go do something that was good practice for her job. With people who seemed interested in her.
No one gives a shit about you, Tess.
She shook away that voice. A woman’s voice. Sometimes she thought maybe it was her mother’s, but mostly she knew it was her own faulty, irrational subconscious. One she didn’t listen to because it was full of lies. So many lies.
With one last check to make sure she had everything she needed, she stepped out into the hallway. And, of course, there was Marc.
Paying a pizza guy. What the hell? Maybe it was his version of drinking himself to oblivion. Eating terrible, greasy food. Which meant maybe he was as upset as her. Which meant maybe she should...
The pizza guy thanked Marc and then headed for the stairwell and Tess was caught staring. She looked away. Oh, you coward.
“Tess.”
Which made the cowardice worse. The leap in her hear
t that he was saying her name and the very fact was...
She didn’t know what to do. Her whole life had been a series of figuring out difficult situations and she straight up did not know what to do when it came to Marc.
“I’m going shooting with your sister,” she blurted.
“Oh.”
“It’s not about you. Just so you know. She and Grace invited me and it’s...nothing to do with you.” It was coming out all wrong. Kind of snippy when she only wanted him to know he didn’t have to feel weird about her being around Leah.
“Great.” He started closing the door, and she wanted to know why he’d said her name in the first place, but...
Oh, hell, maybe this was her punishment for never having an awkward high school breakup, because she felt about sixteen with all the uncertainty going on in her head.
She squared her shoulders as Marc closed the door. She was going to take a few lessons from Lethal Weapon. First, she was too old for this shit. Second, she would deal with her problems by firing her gun more times than necessary.
Bolstered with purpose, Tess went to her car and drove leisurely toward Shades. It was outside of town next to one of the conservation areas. Though she tended to go to the indoor gun range in town, where she got free ammo from the department, the laid-back atmosphere of Shades would be nice.
She wasn’t feeling too supercop these days, anyway.
When she pulled up to Shades, two other cars were there, three women standing in front of them laughing and chatting.
Suddenly and acutely, Tess wished she hadn’t come. This seemed so intimate. So friendsy. Lately everything with Dad had taken up so much of her free time that all those friendships she kept at arm’s length anyway had faded even further.
Amazing that she hadn’t noticed how much this particular round of Dad’s decline had affected her life as it was happening. But now that she looked back, wow. Yeah, it had been pretty bad.
That’s what Marc had walked into. The tail end of that. No wonder he felt the way he did. Maybe she should cut him some slack and try to explain...
Oh, you stupid heart, shut up. Shut up.
“Hey, guys,” Tess greeted, overbrightly, as she stepped out of her car with her bags. “Thanks so much for inviting me.”
“Anytime. The more the merrier.” Susan offered a smile and after a few more pleasantries they started walking to one of the target areas.
Being in law enforcement, she was surrounded by people who owned and carried firearms. Still, it was surprising to find three women who all had their own guns and routinely practiced shooting with no occupational need for doing so.
“This is quite a book club, I have to say,” Tess said, hoping she wasn’t the cause for the kind of awkward silence going on. “You all got guns because you’ve been...threatened?”
“Ah, no,” Leah said, focusing very carefully on loading her Glock. “I think we all have different reasons for it, I guess.”
“Mine was for protection,” Grace said, taking a little Glock with a design painted on it out of its case. The design matched the tattoo on her arm—an orange-and-red diamond thing. “It’s helped me feel safe when I felt threatened. I’m not sure it really did anything to keep me safe, but I’m responsible with it, so I feel like that’s okay.”
“Right.”
“It helped. It wasn’t just the attack part, but the guy getting out of jail afterward, you know? There’s a lot of factors when that kind of thing happens to you.” Grace slid her a glance out of the side of her eye. “I’m sure you deal with that in your job.”
Tess had a feeling Grace was trying to draw her out. But she was doing it carefully enough that Tess didn’t feel uncomfortable with it. Awkward, sure, but it felt kindhearted. As if Grace was trying to offer commiseration, not force her to renounce any and all contact with her father.
Which Marc hadn’t exactly done—but maybe he had. Oh, jeez, could she just stop thinking about damn Marc at every turn? This was not about him. Even if his sister—with their sibling resemblance—was standing a few feet away from her.
“He was my boyfriend, kind of. Weird situation. A few dates, I tried to break it off, then...” Grace shrugged, lining up the sights of her gun and then pulling the trigger. “You know. Coma.”
“That’s...much worse.” Tess swallowed. She hadn’t worked on Grace’s case, but she had heard enough about it to remember it now.
The guy had gotten out of jail and stalked her. Tried to kidnap her. Yeah, nothing like what Tess had to deal with. Feeling too shaky to take her turn with the target, she stepped out of the way so Leah could step up. “I... My experience was just, you know... No hospital.” Oh, gross, she was a police officer, trained to deal with difficult situations and terrible information, and she was stuttering like some kind of moron.
“A guy knocks you around, it’s wrong. Period,” Leah muttered, stepping forward and taking a shot.
“Well, sure, but...” Tess took a breath. “My father’s an alcoholic. It’s different.”
The three women all looked at her with matching wide-eyed surprise. “Your father?” Leah asked.
“I...” She’d assumed Marc had filled his sister in on all the details. Apparently not. Now she felt like a complete idiot, with a bright red face to boot.
Susan took her turn at the target. “I think we can all agree, whoever, wherever, it’s crap. The end.”
“Here’s to that.” Grace nodded and took her turn.
All three women looked expectantly at Tess. She took a breath and stepped forward to take her turn. It was such a surreal experience, talking about this with other people, even if it wasn’t in detail. Even if she didn’t know the other people that well.
So she breathed until she had control of her limbs, and they spent the rest of the next hour taking turns shooting and talking about Grace’s fall wedding, and both Susan and Grace poking fun at Leah over her relationship with Jacob.
It was nice. Nice to be able to move on from the uncomfortable moment, nice to practice an important skill for her job and nice to engage in some girl talk that didn’t make her think about Marc.
Too much.
At the end of the hour, just as the daylight was beginning to fade, they began packing up their guns and heading for their cars.
“Thanks for inviting me, guys. It was a nice distraction.” From Dad. From Marc. From being so alone.
Yeah, not a bad way to spend the evening at all.
They said their goodbyes, but as Tess put her key in the ignition, Leah tapped on the window. Tess rolled it down.
“Hey, look... You know, whatever happened with my brother...” Leah winced. “Damn, I hate sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but he’s not a bad guy. I think sometimes he’s trying so hard to be the good guy he messes stuff up.”
Tess swallowed the lump in her throat. “I think you’re right, but...”
“No, you don’t have to explain. I just wanted to get that out. Thanks for coming, Tess. I’m sure we’ll be hounding you to come next week, too.” She smiled and waved and walked back to her car.
Tess didn’t have a damn clue what she was supposed to do with any of this. All she knew was she needed to figure it out before it drove her absolutely nuts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MARC STOOD OUTSIDE Leah’s house, leaning against the hood of his truck, trying to figure out why he was here and what he was going to say.
He only knew that he couldn’t fix what was going on with Tess. If she wanted to keep going back to her father, what could he do to stop that? He wasn’t a therapist, nor could he tie her up in his apartment, so there was nothing he could do.
But with his parents, with his family, there were things he could and should do. His outburst had felt good at the time, but it hadn’t been fair. Beca
use you didn’t go from pretending everything was fine to imploding without giving the audience any warning.
Leah and Tess had tried to get that idea into his head—that he needed to tell Mom he didn’t like being ignored, that he needed to open up about how it hurt. Instead, one day it was fine, the next he was walking out on them in his own apartment.
Yeah, he was a dick. That’s what he needed to fix.
He stepped forward and stopped when Leah’s garage door began to rise as her truck pulled into the drive. Ah, so she was back from shooting with Tess. Apparently he should have manned up a little sooner.
Not that Leah didn’t need a bit of an apology, too, but his parents deserved the big one. Still, maybe it would be good to do it all together.
A family. Deep down, that’s what they all wanted. If only they didn’t all go about it so differently.
“Hey,” Leah greeted, stepping out of her garage and looking sheepish. “Was there a dinner I didn’t know about?”
“No. But I thought I should come talk to Mom and Dad before they leave.”
She nodded, looking at the house.
“And apologize.”
Her gaze finally met his. “Yeah, I think they’d like that. Yesterday was kind of...”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. That.” She shook her head. “Look, I understood yesterday to an extent, but I think that’s because we had our moment over Christmas. For them it—”
“Came out of left field. I get that. Took me a bit, but I do get that.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Everything’s kind of gone to shit lately and I’m not sure how to fix that.”
“Make up with your girlfriend?”
“Leah.”
“Come on. You were so cute together at the party. You were smiley. You. That has to mean something, and she seemed...”
“She seemed what?”
“Aha! See, you’re still interested, so it can’t be all bad. Remember when Jacob and I were kind of doing the breakup thing and you were all weirdly encouraging of not letting one little disagreement keep us apart?”
