Kadie wanted to know what priority one was, but he’d never tell her. “I’ll call you tonight when it’s done, okay?” he asked down the line. “He always pulls through. This is just gonna take time.”
There was no further farewell, he took the piece from his ear and tucked it back into his pocket. They drove another block. “She’s my best friend’s girl,” Tuck said. “Before you start cooking up shit in your head.”
That was supposed to make her feel better about his fidelity. But she hadn’t worried about where he put his dick when they weren’t together, she knew it belonged to her. His explanation didn’t make her feel better. It reminded her of how little she knew about what he did in his life beyond her. How could she be in love with him and in a relationship with him for five years and not know his best friend?
Little reminders like this cropped up all the time and she accepted them. Until she wanted to support him and he shut her out.
“You care about her?” Kadie asked.
He stopped at a light. “I don’t know her that well yet. They haven’t been together long.”
Twisting to face him, she ventured a question. “What’s he like?”
Reluctance made him tense, she could see it straight away, how his body got rigid and his expression blanked. “I can’t talk about him, Toots.”
Using her pet name after denying her his trust seemed ridiculous. When she switched focus back to the windshield, he tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. “He’s more important to you than I am?”
He scowled. “Don’t do that, don’t make it sound like that. He’s not more important. He’s dangerous and if I revealed his secrets to you—”
“He’d hurt me?” she asked because unless that was the case, she couldn’t understand his hesitation.
“No,” he snapped, glaring in offense. “He’d kill to protect you. He’d give up his life for yours.”
Whatever they did, it was serious. She’d tried to convince herself that he didn’t do anything life-threatening, but it was a lie and a part of her always knew that.
“How do you know that? He’s never even met me. Why would he put himself in harm’s way for me?”
“Because it’s what I’d do for Swallow.” Tuck would die for the woman he’d just been talking to on the phone. She felt sick. “It’s what we do, Kade.”
“Die for strangers?”
“Protect our own. Swallow would die for you too. She’d die for me.”
Tuck had always asserted that he kept her separate to protect her and she bought that. Learning that there were other women on the team changed Kadie’s perspective. She could give her life for him and for his colleagues, maybe, if she knew what they were all about and was given the chance to learn and prove herself.
“What’s priority one?” He tensed even further and pulled into the club parking lot. They got a space and he turned off the engine, but before he could get out and avoid her question, she lunged over and grabbed his arm. “What’s priority one?”
Unable to avoid it, he made eye contact and his gaze softened a fraction. Maybe it was pity that made him feel sorry for her, or he was pained at the position she’d put him in. “I can’t, Toots. I have to be careful. You have to be careful. If you said those words to the wrong person—”
“What about Swift, Swallow, the chief, or Rave—” He grabbed her shoulder.
“Don’t ever even hint at those names around anyone.” Letting her go, he banged his hands on the steering wheel. “This is fucked up. I shouldn’t have come back. It was too soon.”
Evidence that she was right. Something was wrong. Taking off her seatbelt, she stroked her hand across his knotted shoulders. “Why weren’t you ready? What happened that—”
Snatching her wrist, he hauled her off him. “Don’t you dare fucking manipulate me, Kade. I won’t betray my kin.”
“But you’ll betray me?”
“I love you.”
Until now, those words had always been enough. When she believed it was work that took him away and nothing else, she could cope. But she could see it was more than that, there were people he cared about, people she’d never met. People he kept her from. She couldn’t exist in a bubble like a fantasy woman he could return to whenever he needed a break from his reality.
“We better go inside,” she said, and their hands slid away from each other’s bodies.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I guess we better.”
All they could do was show up and smile for the others. Kadie had grown up with Dempsey and Gwen, her own mother had abandoned her as a baby and she’d never known her father. This was as close to family as she got. Tuck didn’t usually complain about socializing with them when he had to. The party was just going to give both of them more time to stew, but Kadie was determined to get to the bottom of his mood.
They’d been at the party for an hour and she’d barely seen Tuck. He’d done his duty and got her drinks, but he’d found a spot in the corner of the room and had avoided talking to anyone. Kadie watched him sulk, but deflected questions from Gwen and her friends about his mood. Most of them didn’t know how close she and Tuck were and tonight she was fine with that.
The next time she glanced up, Tuck was wearing the earpiece again, and his lips were moving. The group of people she stood with were chatting and laughing, but she was trying to read his lips, even though the low lighting and flashing lights made that next to impossible.
“What’s eating him?” Dempsey asked at her shoulder. Her cousin hadn’t missed their separation, despite his presence.
If only she knew the answer. “It’s complicated.”
Tuck began to move, he left his corner position and headed for the exit. He disappeared into the throngs of people. Those who didn’t know him read danger, and wanted a piece of it, she hadn’t been much different at the start. But Tuck ignored anyone who looked his way.
Dempsey was still in her ear. “Are you guys fighting?”
“Maybe,” she said, still looking at the mass of people who had closed in on Tuck’s wake.
“Something is going on,” Dempsey said. “If it’s going to affect business—”
“That’s not why you want to know,” she snapped, and turned to glare at her cousin.
None of this was his fault. She couldn’t place blame on anyone. Tuck did a good job of withholding the truth, she didn’t know why his mood was so erratic, and that was why she was testy. She couldn’t identify the cause of his brooding, and he didn’t trust her enough to offer an explanation. Anger was easier to grasp than heartache, and targeting her cousin was safer than confronting her love.
Dempsey wasn’t offended by her outburst, his look became pitying. “Kade—”
“Sorry,” she said, swigging from her bottle then handing it to her cousin. Despite the looks she got from the others they were with, she retrieved her purse from the bar, threw the strap over her shoulder, and began to follow Tuck’s route out.
When she found him, he was around the back of the building, pacing a narrow strip of grass in front of the chain-link fence at the boundary.
“You quit smoking when you were eighteen,” she said, leaning against the concrete roughcast surface of the nightclub building.
Tuck stopped pacing and saw her. Not that he hadn’t known she was there, he knew. But, those eyes of his saw her now. Black as night beneath the hard set of his jaw, she read his struggle. The torment riled him, making him feel out of control, which he didn’t like. So this was what she got. Hard lines, and the immovable man, not the man who held her, and whispered words of devotion after making soft, slow love with her.
Her statement went unacknowledged. “Just in case you forgot,” she said.
“It’s time to go.”
The party was never going to get any better and that wasn’t a reflection of the company or the club, Kadie just wasn’t in the mood to feign smiles. “If that’s what you want,” she said, pushing away from the corner. “I can go and tell ev
eryone we’re going home, and—”
Remaining cold, he didn’t move. “Not you. Just me.”
In one chilling reflex, her throat parched and her shoulders pulled her back straight. The idea that he was leaving again so soon, and without resolving any of their issues, scared her. “No,” she breathed and took one long step toward him. Even when he was being a prick, she still wanted him around. “You just got here.”
“Can’t be helped, Toots.”
“When did this happen?” she asked.
“Inside,” he said, in that damn blank tone of his. He hadn’t budged an inch, hadn’t flinched, how could he say this as though he were dishing out directions to a passer-by?
“You’ve never…” she said, taking a less steady step toward him. “It’s never been this quick before. You usually have at least a week…” her words drifted off because there was no point, the decision was made.
Forcing Tuck to stay here while he was in this dark place would be detrimental to them. All she could do was let him go and hope he’d work through his issues before he came back to her again. Answers were never forthcoming when she tried to coerce them.
Sometimes he stayed with her for months, sometimes it was a few days. Just as he could be away for a weekend, or a season. Once in a while, he came to her in the night, made love to her, and then slipped out, like an apparition. But if he hung around long enough to come into the office with her, he would usually be around for a while.
Arguing with him wouldn’t help the friction that had built between them. So she steeled herself to accept the inevitable. “When are you coming back?” she asked.
Her lips didn’t taste the words. All she was aware of was the ball of bile threatening her throat. Shifting her feet, she watched her sandals be enveloped by the damp grass. Ice ran through her in place of blood, and she wished for some sign that this was as difficult for him.
“I’m not.”
Her grasp of the English language faltered. The phrase, “hear it but don’t believe it,” seemed to be applicable, but she had never experienced it, not like this. “What?” she sobbed on a laugh because she couldn’t figure him out.
Making herself look up, she wanted to lash out when she saw that he was blank, vacant. He’d switched off, completely detached himself. That ability was what made him good in his line of work—he’d never done it with her. “I don’t understand—”
“Dem is right,” he said, his tone ratcheted into aggressive. “Hell, Toots, you got it on the money.”
Though her jaw moved, she couldn’t say a word. The thud of her heart in her stomach chilled every drop of blood it fought to keep pumping. Her head swirled knowing that this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real.
“Take care of yourself,” he said and marched forward.
He was going to pass her, he was going to walk away. Once he disappeared around the nightclub, he would be gone, and this time he wouldn’t be coming back. “Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm with both hands to halt him beside her.
She sucked her bottom lip, and salved it up and down with her tongue, buying herself some time to try to think of something to say. As soon as she released her lip, it dried in the bitter night air again. The moon was bright tonight, shining a glorious white, spotlighting this moment for the stars to observe her torment like onlookers of a tragedy on the stage.
“You always come back to me,” she said, forcing herself to look at him, even though she knew her eyes reflected that moonlight in her glacé desperation.
Though he held himself rigid his hand came up, then hesitated. He never hesitated in anything. Never in his life, never in all the time she had known him. Snatching his hesitant hand with both of hers, she pushed it to her cheek and rubbed it back and forth, reminding him of who she was, of their connection, of his right to touch her in any way he pleased.
Keeping him with her for as long as possible might be the key to breaking through this shell crackling around him. “You don’t have to go now,” she said, pressing her lips to his palm. “We have our routine before you leave me? And, we were going to get an early night, remember?”
“Toots,” he said, and his eyes softened as he took his hand from her face. He tried to step away, but she grabbed the sides of his leather jacket and pulled him against her.
Feeling him pull away was worse than seeing it. Holding on to him was the only way she could keep her heart beating. “I don’t understand what—”
“This was never meant to be forever,” he said over her, probably because he knew if she started to beg, he might relent. Manipulating him into staying with her might not be best emotionally, but it was better than giving up without a fight. Tuck was better at holding his ground than she wanted him to be. “I told you that. You remember the night of your birthday?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “The night we met.”
“You remember what I said to you?”
For the first time, she didn’t feel safe at this proximity. “You told me to be sure,” she said, staring into his chest. “You told me you were going to hurt me one day.”
“And, here it is,” he said. “To the people I roll with, ‘one day’ means death. It means the end, and that’s what this is.”
But she wasn’t ready to lose him. “No,” she said, shaking her head, and finding his eyes. “No, I don’t believe it. You’re not that person. You’re not the monster you make out to be.”
Shadows crept over his face. “You have no idea what I do when I leave here,” he said. “No idea what I’m doing. Where I am or what’s going on. You don’t know if I’m safe… or who I’m with…”
Immediately she started to object, then she realized, he was right. All this time she’d believed that they were exclusive, there was no evidence to suggest he screwed around, but she didn’t question him about his fidelity either, meaning he could get up to whatever he liked.
“What does that mean?” she asked, dropping his jacket from her grip.
The glimmer of his sinister smile decreased her confidence. “Do you think I waltz away from here, and go without for months? Toots, you’re good but—”
No, her man wasn’t cruel and he wasn’t a liar either. He had no reason to string her along with promises of exclusivity if he wasn’t in love with her. She couldn’t believe that their whole relationship had been a lie. “Why are you doing this?” she murmured, figuring that the only reason he was resorting to cruelty was in an attempt to wedge them apart.
“Time to walk away,” he said on a shrug. “You know I don’t like complications.”
Six months was a complication, that would be the time a woman might start to get too clingy for a player’s interest. Having been with this man for half a decade, she knew how to see through his indifference. “I’m not a complication,” she said. “You love me. You’ve loved me since the first time—”
“Toots, let’s call a spade a spade,” he said, dropping some of the act with withering patience. “You’re not happy, I’m not happy. Let’s make everybody happy, and walk away with dignity.”
Now she could get angry because without the bullshit, she had to wonder if cutting her loose had been on his agenda for a while. “Are you implying I’m making a fool of myself?”
“I’m saying we’re done, and I don’t want a long drawn out scene. We’re good, you’re a good girl, smart and sassy, we’ve had a good ride.”
She deserved more than a clichéd goodbye. “And, now it’s over,” she said, stepping away. “Just like that.”
“I’m not going to marry you, Toots,” he said, stepping into her, so she stepped away again. “I don’t want kids, or a house, or a brawd who wants to “talk” whenever I get a few days of shore leave, you hear what I’m saying?”
Her back hit the wall, and she realized he had walked her onto the gravel surrounding the nightclub. The eaves of this lean-to rear section hung only a foot above his head. “You’re scared,” she said on a wavering breath. “I think you’re a coward.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “If that helps you sleep, Toots, hold on to that thought. You think of me any time you need help to get through the nights.”
His eyes dragged down and up her body, lingering both times on her cleavage, usually the heat in his gaze made her shiver and wet all at the same time. Now, she just felt violated.
Poking holes in his story, she challenged him. “If you were so sure you didn’t want me, why didn’t you tell me any of this when you got here?”
“Like I said,” he leered and leaned in until his lips touched the top of her ear. “You’re good.”
She knew him well enough to know that his harsh words weren’t real, at least not real enough to detract from what they’d shared together. Pressing her hands against his chest, she closed her eyes and took a long inhale of his scent. Something had been up his ass since he got back, maybe a job went south or he was frustrated at not making progress with a task.
Either way, if lashing out at her was going to make his life easier, she’d take it. Making a point not to be a complication in his life had always been her default. Even when times were desperate, she fell back on the confidence she had in their love.
“If you have to go then go,” she mumbled, touching her lips to his neck. The unexpected move startled him and he leaned away from her. “You know I love you, Tuck. If you want to walk away, I’m not going to stop you. I’ve never stopped you.”
“This is exactly what you wanted,” he said. “You’re free to do what you want, with who you want.”
Swift (Kindred Book 4) Page 4
