The Truth About Love

by Sheila Athens

  Scott, too, seemed evasive. Secretive. He inclined his head toward the senator’s doorway, making it clear he wouldn’t be joining Landon inside.

  The senator was gazing out the window, toward the capitol, when Landon entered. “You wanted to see me?” Landon asked.

  The older man turned. “Shut the door, son.”

  Landon closed the door behind him and only then caught a small movement out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t in the room alone. He turned around to see who was with them.

  Gina.

  She glanced at him with a worried look. He crinkled his brow, a silent question to see if she knew what this was about. She gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

  “I guess the two of you know each other.” The senator’s voice boomed.

  “Yes, sir.” They answered one right after the other.

  The older man glared at them. “Apparently that’s a fact that all of Tallahassee knows by now.” He motioned for Landon to sit in the chair next to Gina’s, across from the desk. “Sit down, son.”

  Landon sat, though he was tempted to tell the old man to shove it.

  “Did you see it on TV last night?” the senator asked.

  Landon sat up straighter. “No, sir.”

  The senator nodded toward Gina. “She said you didn’t like working here.”

  Landon looked over at Gina, hoping something in her countenance would help him decide what to say. Part of him wanted to tell the truth—that he hated being used for his notoriety—but the self-preservation part of his psyche took over. He decided to remain silent.

  Senator Byers raised a questioning eyebrow. “What would have given her that opinion?”

  “I hardly ever know what women think . . . sir.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gina’s head turn toward him, her mouth open in shock. Or anger. Or both. But she’d gotten him into this mess, so maybe it was time for him to dish out a little trouble of his own.

  The senator leaned down, placing both palms flat on his desk. “You may think this is all cutesy and fun, but let me tell you what the rules are going to be from now on. If your friend makes another comment like that. On TV. In the newspaper. On the Internet.” The senator slashed his hand through the air. “To anyone, then we’ll fire your ass that very same day. You got that?”

  Landon swallowed and tried to see Gina in his periphery without making Senator Jackass think he wasn’t focused on him. Getting reamed in front of her was embarrassing, even if all this was her fault. “Yes, sir.”

  “We hired you because we thought you’d be an asset,” the senator continued. “Don’t let yourself become a liability.”

  Landon’s body tensed with anger. He wasn’t some donor list or a trade secret. And he sure as hell didn’t like being told he was a liability. Especially not in front of Gina.

  The senator continued. “Reelection’s going to be hard enough this time around as it is. We can’t afford the negative publicity.” He sat down. “And since you can’t seem to keep it in your pants when you’re around her, I’m pulling you off the task force. Effective immediately. You’re not to see her anymore—not for work. Not after work. You understand?”

  Landon’s ears grew hot. His jaw tensed. He hated that the guy was talking to him like a third grader. He was a grown man. If he wanted to see Gina, then he was going to see her.

  “I don’t think you can do that.” There was a sudden silence. Both men turned toward Gina, who’d spoken for the first time since Landon had entered the room. She leaned back, as if aware of the sudden attention. “I don’t think you can tell your employees who they can date, especially if both parties don’t work within your organization.” Her eyes widened with realization. “Not that we’re dating or anything.”

  “And you.” Senator Jackass came around the desk to face her, aiming his venom at his new victim. “You’ve gone to one year of law school and now you think you’re an expert on employment law?”

  She held his gaze. “I didn’t say that, sir.” Landon was proud of the way she stood up to the bastard. He admired a person—anyone—who stood up for what they thought was right.

  “You are never to mention me to the media again.” The old man pronounced the words slowly, as if to make sure Gina understood. “Or Landon. Or anyone else on my staff.”

  “Yes, sir.” Again, she held his gaze.

  “Does Suzanne know you’re sleeping with him? Doesn’t that violate some kind of lawyer code of ethics or something?”

  Landon had had it. He leapt to his feet and towered over the senator. “That’s enough.” His voice was stern. This might get him fired. But at this point, standing up for Gina was more important.

  The senator let out a sarcastic chuckle. “So, I guess there is a relationship here.”

  Landon pointed to her. “She has been nothing but professional. She didn’t even know who I was the night Donna Crocker was talking about. Yeah, I kissed her. But look at her. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing.”

  The senator glanced at her face, then her breasts before he seemed to realize what he was doing. His face paled.

  Landon continued. “She screwed up. She gets that.” He looked at her as she stood. “You won’t do it again, right?”

  She shook her head as she picked up her purse.

  “Is there anything else you need from us?” Landon asked the senator.

  The older man regained his composure. He stood to his full height, but was still several inches shorter than Landon. “You’re dangerously close to saying something you’re going to regret later.”

  “Then we should go. You ready, Gina?” Landon heard rustling as she headed toward the door, but he held the senator’s glare, challenging him.

  Ten minutes ago Gina had been the enemy—the one who’d screwed up his life in yet another way—but she didn’t deserve this. He felt a protectiveness toward her. Sure, she’d held her own, but this was what men did. They protected their women.

  Except she wasn’t his.

  And he didn’t think she ever would be.

  “That wasn’t much fun,” Landon said as he slid into the booth at Carmine’s about fifteen minutes after the senator had reprimanded them. The dark, casual atmosphere had made this one of his go-to places since his freshman year.

  “Are you sure we should be seen in public together?” Gina asked, looking around the nearly empty tavern. “The senator seemed pretty serious.”

  Landon gave her a dismissive wave. “No one’s ever in here. That’s why I like it so much.” Besides, he was so ticked at the senator right now that he’d love to go toe-to-toe with him on whether or not he could see Gina outside of work. He felt like seeing her just to spite the guy . . . not that he’d have to be convinced to be near her. Just watching the way her light blue shirt hugged the sides of her breasts was reason enough for any man to hang around.

  He raised two fingers in the air when Carmine looked at him from behind the bar. The guy would know to bring them each a draft beer.

  “I can’t believe he said he’d fire you for something I might do.”

  Landon grunted. Yeah, the guy was an asshole.

  Crimson rose on her cheeks. He wondered if that always happened when she got fired up like this. “Does he realize that men don’t control the actions of women anymore?” she asked.

  “He’s a state senator. I’m pretty sure he’s used to people doing whatever he wants, regardless of their gender.”

  “I think he might be stuck in the 1950s. And besides, I don’t even live in this state full time.” Carmine placed a beer in a frosted glass in front of her. “Thanks.” She paused until the bar owner left the table. “If I’m not one of his constituents, then he can’t really expect me to bow down to him like everybody else does.”

  He gave her a teasing grin. “I’m about to lose my job, but this is all about you
?”

  She smiled back. He wished he could see that smile every day. “I guess a lot of this is my fault.”

  Landon scoffed. “You think?”

  “I’m really sorry.” Her gaze held his.

  “For what?” He wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive her for all that, but the run-in with the senator seemed to have made them comrades for the time being.

  “The picture of the basketball team. For talking to the media about you. For getting you yelled at by your boss.”

  He shrugged. She’d gotten chewed out, too, so he wasn’t sure that one counted.

  “I’ll make a deal.” She stretched her arms out toward him. “I’ll tell you some good news I’ve discovered about the case. To at least start to make us even. What do you say?”

  He wasn’t sure what kind of good news she could have. She’d blown into his life like a maelstrom and toppled everything he’d ever known like lawn furniture in a hurricane. But maybe it was worth a shot. He still wasn’t sure where their professional relationship ended and their friendship began. Assuming what they had could even be called a friendship. It was a wary one at best. “What is it?”

  She leaned forward, an excited look on her face. “Your dad was a district manager for Davidson Auto Parts when you were a kid.”

  “My dad?” The company had stores all over north Florida and south Georgia.

  “After what you said the other night about my dad having a steady job, I figured you didn’t know.”

  “Was this when my mom was killed?”

  She nodded. “And for a year or so before that.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “My dad wasn’t drinking when it happened?” He suddenly didn’t feel like having his beer. His hands shook as he pushed it farther away.

  “Or he hid it pretty well.”

  “And he had a good job?” Even saying it out loud didn’t help it seem any truer.

  “That’s good news, right?” She didn’t seem to understand the impact the news had on him. “You can help him remember the time when he was successful. Encourage him to try to live like that again.”

  “He wasn’t a drunk then”—he took a deep breath—“and he still didn’t want us.”

  She touched his arm from across the table. The gentle contact was so loving, so caring, compared to the stark realization that had just plowed him over like a diesel. His dad had been a regular guy, with a job and everything.

  Landon had always thought his dad loved the liquor more than anything else. But now he had a new fact. His dad just hadn’t loved him. Period.

  “She wouldn’t have been in the store.” His voice sounded hollow, like it belonged to someone else. “She wouldn’t have had to work in a dive like that if we’d been a family.”

  “I’m . . . sorry.” She slouched back against the booth. “I thought this would make you happy. I should never have told you about it.”

  He looked in her eyes, at that look of pity he’d gotten all his life. Saliva poured into his mouth as bile churned in his esophagus. He thought he might vomit right there in Carmine’s.

  He’d invited her out for a beer. Thought maybe they’d commiserate a while over what the senator had said to them. How he’d treated them. But instead she’d shown Landon—once again—how he wasn’t good enough. How his dad had held a good job and still didn’t want his son.

  He’d thought he and Gina might be friends. That they might someday joke about what had just happened with the senator. But he wasn’t sure they’d ever be friends. Because she was perfect and he was . . . not.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Landon stopped in the entryway of Ace’s, his body rebelling against the thick smell of smoke that hit him even before he’d gotten in the door. As much as he hated this place—this icon of his father’s drunkenness—he had to confront his dad. Had to find some answers to what he’d found out from Gina tonight at Carmine’s.

  “How’s it going?” He nodded to the same bartender who’d been working the last time he’d been here.

  “He’s over there.” The other man jabbed a thumb toward the back of the dimly lit bar. A haze gathered around the neon beer sign over the pool table where his dad was playing.

  “You’re becoming quite a regular around here.” The cigarette in his dad’s mouth bobbed as Landon approached.

  “Why weren’t Mama and I living with you when she was killed?”

  His dad’s gaze slid to Landon’s, then back to the pool table where he was bent over for his next shot. He didn’t say anything.

  Landon felt the heat rise in his face. A table full of bikers sat in the back of the bar, but at this point, he didn’t care who overheard them. “You were a district manager for Davidson Automotive.”

  “Yep.” The cue ball smacked against the three ball, sending it ricocheting around the table.

  “You could have afforded to have us with you. At least put a roof over our heads. She didn’t have to be working in that place at all, raising her kid in the back room.” He waved his arm behind him, as if gesturing toward the place he’d spent so many of his early years.

  His dad walked toward him, the cigarette still clinging to his lips. “Where’s all this coming from? You just now find this out?”

  “I’m finding out a lot of things now that Morgan’s Ladder is looking at the case.”

  “Are you going to barge in here and yell at me every time you find out something new?” His dad walked to a nearby table and chugged what was left of a mug of beer.

  “So how come you didn’t rescue us, Dad? Were you not paying child support? How come she had to be there?”

  “Are you telling me”—he squinted as a trail of smoke snaked toward his eyes—“that if any girl you ever screwed had gotten pregnant, you’d have married her? What about that redhead I met the other night?”

  “I would never screw her.” Make love to her, sure. Revel in her soft curves. If things were different between them, he’d savor that beautiful body all day, every day. But Gina wasn’t the type of girl you screwed.

  His father grinned. “Hit a little nerve there, did I?”

  “What do you know about me, anyway?” He charged toward Martin with his fists balled. “It’s not like you were ever around to talk to me about . . . sex . . . or condoms . . . or other things dads talk to their sons about.”

  Martin’s gaze held steady. “I wasn’t going to marry a woman I wasn’t in love with. That would only be piling one mistake on top of another.”

  “And you didn’t want to talk to your son? To see if maybe you could stop him from making the same mistake you made?”

  “You gotten any girls pregnant?”

  Landon’s shoulders dropped. The son of a bitch wasn’t getting the point. “Not that I know of.”

  “Guess you didn’t need me, then.”

  Landon shook his head and decided to take another approach. “What happened to you? What happened to your job?”

  “That was twenty years ago. I don’t see any reason to hash over old news.”

  Landon glared, wondering for the billionth time why he cared so much. Why he’d always had this driving need to get closer to the man who’d disowned him. “You’re not going to tell me what you were like back then?”

  His father’s eyes challenged him. “I was the same simple guy, son. The one who’s never good enough for you.”

  Landon stepped back from his father and thought about what his dad had said. Had he been this guy—with the scraggly hair and untucked shirt—when he’d shipped Landon off to live with his aunt and uncle? Or maybe the murder had caused him to start drinking more than he had before? On the other hand, maybe he’d been a regular, go-to-work-every-day kind of guy, who only later started the downward decline? Landon wasn’t sure which was worse. All he knew was that he needed to get the hell out of there. “I’ll see you la
ter.”

  His dad grunted and turned to take another cigarette out of the pack on the table behind him.

  Landon headed toward the front of the bar. Another thought struck him as he reached the entrance. He thrust the door open, not wanting the thought to settle in.

  Maybe his dad had started drinking more because he’d been the murderer.

  Landon stumbled out onto the sidewalk, jolted by the thought. No—his father had an alibi. He couldn’t have done it.

  So why was he so damned evasive?

  Damn Dad.

  Damn liquor.

  Damn Gina.

  Dealing with his dad was bad enough, but at least he’d had years to get used to being the son of a drunk.

  Then she’d swept into town for the summer, just long enough to disrupt his life. To change everything he’d thought about Mama’s murder case, reexposing the part of his life that he’d worked so hard to have everyone else forget. Making him contemplate things he’d never wanted to think about.

  She thought she was helping him by telling him his dad had been a district manager.

  But he didn’t need her help. He didn’t need her. He’d been just fine before she came along.

  He walked a few feet to his truck and got in, then slammed the door shut, mad about the truth he had to admit.

  She’d brought bad news and heartache into his life.

  But that had nothing to do with why he couldn’t get her off his mind.

  Gina wasn’t sure why Landon wanted to see her this evening. He’d called midday to ask if he could come to her apartment after work. His voice had sounded empty. Apathetic. Resigned to some fate that was out of his control.

  It had been two days since she’d divulged the fact that his dad had been a district manager for Davidson Automotive at the time of the murder, and she still wished she hadn’t told him.

  It was the apathy that bothered her most. She’d seen the passion in his eyes on many occasions. During his playing days. That night they’d first kissed on the deck at the Twilight Pub. The day he’d barged into Morgan’s Ladder because he thought she’d known who he was the night before. He was a man filled with passion, so the apathy was out of place. Like he’d given up.