Whisper Falls (11 page)

Then her gaze dropped to the small building next door to the bar.
Its
neon lights glowed, despite the early afternoon hour. Mother’s Tattoo Parlor was open for business.

Her car was parked facing both places, and as she sat inside, eating her sandwich, she watched a typical-looking middle-aged woman exit the tattoo shop with a broom to begin sweeping the front stoop. Hmm, tidy. And she looked like a nice enough lady. And Tessa thought again, for some reason, of Lucky’s tattoos.

After finishing her quick meal, she started the car and pulled out—only instead of turning toward Destiny, she . . . found herself crossing the highway and parking in front of the tattoo place. She wasn’t sure why—curiosity, she supposed. And she then even found herself getting out and walking up to the front window, where myriad designs were displayed. Some were unappealing to her: dragons, swords, cartoon characters. But then she noticed some clearly meant for girls: butterflies, hearts, a palm tree. And . . . she thought about daisies.
Yeah
,
if I were gonna get a tattoo
,
I might get a daisy. Or . . . even more than one.

Not that she was going to get a tattoo. She was about as much of a tattoo girl as she was a motorcycle girl.

But then she was forced to remember how much she’d actually
enjoyed
riding Lucky’s motorcycle with him, how exciting and exhilarating it had been. And that’s when the door opened again, and the lady from before came out, this time with a lightbulb in her hand. She said hello, proceeding to unscrew the bulb from a light next to the door, then twist in the new one. She smiled at Tessa as she began to go back inside, then paused to say, “Can I help you with anything? Answer any questions?”

“Oh—no,” Tessa replied quickly. And then she heard herself say, “But . . . would it be possible to get a daisy chain? Like, around my ankle?”

“Sure,” the nice woman said. “Come on inside and I’ll show you some pictures.”

“Okay,” Tessa said, her heart in her throat. And then she followed the woman through the door at the same time as she asked herself,
Oh God
,
what am I doing?

And then she answered herself.
You’re living. You’re being devil-may-care.

You’re getting a tattoo!

. . . yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable . . .

Charlotte Brontë,
Jane Eyre

Six

T
essa drove home in a state of shock. A chain of ink daisies now circled her ankle. It was a little swollen at the moment, and getting the tattoo had felt like having shards of glass scraped over her skin, but somehow she’d clenched her teeth, stayed very still, and not shed even one tear. Her head swam with the reality that she’d actually just gotten a tattoo!

She’d never before even considered such a thing—it had truly been an impulsive decision. And she’d already decided to keep it hidden for a little while, under jeans or her usual long skirts—because she had to contemplate how to share this with her friends and family. Her mother would probably have a heart attack. Heck,
Amy
would probably have a heart attack.

As she pulled into her driveway, she glanced up toward Lucky’s house, but didn’t see any movement. Then she grimaced in his general direction.
This is all
your
fault.

Yet as she exited the car and walked around to open the trunk, she pulled up the hem of the gauzy skirt she wore and glanced down. Five white-petaled daisies with yellow centers were joined by thin green stems and leaves. And then . . . she smiled. She wasn’t at all used to the idea of having it, or even wanting it, but . . . she liked it. And it
did
make her feel the way she’d yearned to: alive, and filled with daring.

Only, just as quickly, another revelation hit her as well.

That she might like it and be glad she’d done it, but already she knew—it wasn’t enough. She still wanted more. Of something. Maybe she’d thought such a devil-may-care act would take the edge off her desire for Lucky. But it hadn’t.

So she dropped the edge of her skirt and sighed.

M
ike sat in his living room, flipping through an old photo album. His parents had taken most of the family albums when they’d moved to Florida, but he’d found one in a bookcase after they’d gone and never bothered to give it back to them. Maybe on purpose. Not that he looked at it a lot. But occasionally.

It was filled with snapshots of him and Lucky. Anna was in a few of the pictures, too, as were his mom and dad, but mostly it was him and his little brother, when Mike was around ten or eleven, which would have made Lucky eight or nine at the time. They were in Boy Scout uniforms, and in swim trunks chasing each other around the yard with a hose. They were riding bikes, or playing baseball at Grandma Romo’s house. Damn, it seemed so long ago. A lifetime. Those had been good days—only he’d had no clue at the time just
how
good; he’d had nothing to weigh them against yet.

He’d never held himself responsible for any of Lucky’s decisions or the ways he’d gone wrong over time. Nope, he blamed himself for losing Anna, but losing Lucky—that one wasn’t on him. Except now, as he studied his little brother’s face in these pictures, it forced him to remember just how much Lucky had looked up to him back then. They’d done everything together as kids, and even when Mike had wanted to get away from his brother, he couldn’t, because Lucky had always followed him around.

Mike had done better in school than Lucky—but when Lucky had struggled, Mike had helped him, every night, with math and spelling. Later, probably around the seventh or eighth grade, Lucky had quit trying, yet at the time this album had been put together, Lucky had tried hard, at everything. Thinking back, Mike could almost still see the frustration in his brother’s eyes as they sat at the kitchen table, toiling over short division. Lucky had been smart but impatient, easily defeated. He’d wanted everything to come to him as easily as it had to Mike.

And maybe . . . maybe Mike hadn’t been very nice to Lucky about that sometimes. Despite knowing Lucky looked up to him and wished to be like him, he’d never made things easy for his brother. He’d helped him in math, but he’d never given him the answers, not even once. In baseball, when Lucky had struggled with batting, Mike never threw him an easy pitch. Mike was naturally competitive—to a fault, Rachel had recently informed him—and he’d always had to be the fastest, the smartest, the best. And when Lucky had beat him at something—like the board games that had given him his nickname—Mike had been pissed, stomping away mad.

And now, for the first time ever, Mike asked himself:
Was
that
my fault
,
too? Did I do something to make my little brother turn out the way he did?

He let out a heavy breath. Part of him couldn’t believe he knew Lucky was right on the other side of town and he still hadn’t gone to see him. But a bigger part of him still couldn’t believe Lucky had run away in the first place and let them suffer all these years when they’d already had
enough
to suffer over. He couldn’t get past that. He couldn’t make himself let Lucky off the hook.

When the front door opened, he glanced up to see Rachel walk in. As always, she looked gorgeous, even after a day at the orchard, especially when she flashed a sexy smile. “My, my, officer—still in uniform, I see.”

He glanced down at himself. Shit, how long had he been sitting here? As much as he liked being a cop, he wasn’t crazy about his confining uniform, so he usually changed as soon as he got home—which had been over an hour ago. Damn, he’d been sitting here thinking about Lucky that long?

Apparently, Rachel read the look on his face and realized the uniform didn’t mean he was planning any naughty cop games—which they had indulged in on occasion. Their gazes met as she crossed the room toward him. And as she sat down on the couch beside him, peering down at the open book, she said, “You should go see your brother, Mike.”

His voice came out low, resolute. “Maybe my brother should come see
me
.”

She let out a sigh, and he understood why even before she spoke. “Could you be any more childish? I know you’re a stubborn guy, Officer Romo, but maybe, this once, you should be the bigger man and make the first move.”

He stayed quiet, realizing his muscles were tensed. Maybe they’d been that way for a while now. Maybe ever since he’d found out Lucky was in Destiny. He was starting to get a headache behind his eyes. “Maybe I
should
. But that doesn’t mean I
can
.”

L
ucky sat at the bar at Gravediggers, nursing a beer. It was Saturday night and the place was packed, but his mind was somewhere else.

He still couldn’t believe how open he’d been with Tessa when she’d found out his secret a couple of days ago. He wasn’t in the habit of spilling his guts to anyone, and he’d especially thought he wasn’t ready to talk about suddenly having a kid—but looked like he
had
been ready, more than he’d realized.

Despite himself, it really
had
felt good to share the news with someone besides Duke. Maybe it was just good to have someone in his
life
here besides Duke. He’d been through hell and back with Duke Dawson, and the dude was like a brother to him. And Lucky was glad to be living near his best friend again for the first time since they’d made their escape from California, but . . . maybe the time had come when he needed something more. Maybe being a loner was finally getting old.

“Somethin’ wrong with that beer, compadre?” Duke stepped up behind the bar to ask.

It jerked Lucky from his thoughts, forced his eyes from the bottle in front of him up to his friend’s face. He gave his head a short shake, and took a light stab at a smile that didn’t work. “Beer’s fine. Just not thirsty, I guess.”

“Maybe I oughta kick your ass outta here then.” Despite that he was joking, Duke
didn’t
smile—that was just his way; Lucky always thought Duke must reserve smiles for special occasions.

Scanning the bar, Lucky found it filled with denim and black leather—the guys mostly big and bearded, the women scantily clad. Metallica blared from speakers overhead, vying with the
clack
of pool balls from the two tables in the corner. “Don’t you have enough to keep you busy here without hounding
me
?”

Duke just planted his hands on the low counter behind the bar, narrowing steely gray eyes on Lucky. A shadow of stubble surrounded his dark brown goatee. “What’s the problem, brother? The kid or the chick?”

Duke knew how uneasy Lucky was about stepping into the dad role. And he knew about Tessa, too, but not as much. Only that she was his cute neighbor, that he’d gladly make a move on her if he could—and that he’d now hired her to work on his house. The part Duke didn’t know was, “I’m really starting to be . . . into her.”

“Damn,” Duke said offhandedly. “I’d have laid money on it being the kid.”

Lucky shrugged, trying not to feel too overwhelmed by all the changes in his life. “Oh, I’m still worried about that, too. But she’s . . . on my mind lately. She knows about Johnny,” he added.

And Duke raised his eyebrows. “Shit, you turning into one of those sensitive types who’s gotta bare his soul?”

Lucky cast Duke a look that said,
Watch it
, informing him, “She found his room. And maybe it’s for the best. I think it made her a little less scared of me.”

Duke’s brow knit, just slightly, and everything they’d shared, everything they knew about each other, hung in the air around him. “You tell her she
should
be scared of you?”

Hell. Maybe he
should
be telling her even more than he already had—enough to let her know why things couldn’t go any further between them, enough that she wouldn’t want them to. Seeing Duke tonight . . . there was something about being face-to-face with the man who’d come through hell with him that reminded him of the cold, hard truth in a way nothing else could. Time and distance helped, but there were some things you couldn’t outrun. What was done was done and he couldn’t change the outcome, or the fact that he feared any woman in his life might always have to watch her back. And maybe when he was by himself in that quiet house on Whisper Falls Road, that truth began to elude him, and normal life and all that came with it began to seem possible—but Duke had just stated it plain and simple: It wasn’t. Not for Lucky.

Now, Lucky sucked in his breath, remembering—and trying to ward off—the blatant desire he’d suffered when Tessa had fallen into his arms. The lust had almost paralyzed him. And if it had been only
that
, simple lust, it would have been okay. If she was some chick like the ones decorating Gravediggers tonight—someone looking to get horizontal for a few hours—it wouldn’t have mattered. It was the fact that he felt
more
than just lust for her that created a problem. For both of him.

When he finally replied to Duke, he got straight to the heart of the matter. “I get hard just thinking about her.”

“So party with her a little. Get it out of your system. It’s not like you’re celibate, brother,” he said on a laugh.

Yet Lucky just shook his head. Duke didn’t understand. “Trouble is—it’s not like that. I wouldn’t want to do her and just be done with her. I wouldn’t want to treat her that way.”

At this, Duke lowered his chin, looking surprised and a little skeptical. It wasn’t that either of them went around trying to use women for sex—it was that most of the women who crossed their paths weren’t into more than that, either. And if they
were
into more . . . well, Lucky usually made it real clear up front that he liked things fast and easy. “This must be some chick,” Duke said.

“She’s just . . . different. Than any woman I’ve been with.”

Duke looked matter-of-fact. “Then maybe you’d be wise to get back to some women who
aren’t
so different.” He glanced down the bar to a girl Lucky had noticed—the kind you couldn’t
not
notice. She wore a tiny purple dress that hugged her from chest to thigh, with tall black boots the same color as the wild mane that hung to her ass. “There. That chick’s been flirting with me all night. She’s definitely ready for a good time.”

Lucky arched one brow. “Then why aren’t you having it with her?”

Duke only shrugged. “Was thinking about it for later, if she’s still here at closing time. But she’s all yours if it’ll get the little neighbor babe outta your head.”

That’s how it was with the women they’d known—they were . . . almost interchangeable. And Lucky had no doubt the woman down the bar could rock his world—but he just shook his head. “Naw, dude, wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“I’d still be thinking about Tessa afterward.”

Lucky waited for Duke to lecture him—or push him harder toward the dark-haired chick—and when he didn’t, Lucky glanced up to find his buddy staring past him, toward the door across the room. “Holy shit,” Duke whispered.

When Lucky turned to look, he swore softly, too. Even ten years later, it was easy to recognize Red Thornton. He was a little older—probably in his forties now, and sporting a little less hair, but it was definitely him. He looked more grizzled than before, like maybe life hadn’t been too kind since they’d last seen him. And his shocking red hair had started to lighten—so much that the spotty beard he now wore was pale gray and so unkempt that Lucky decided the guy was just too lazy to shave. If there was anything comforting in his appearance at all, it was that his eyes looked a little less crazy. Still, every nerve in Lucky’s body went on alert.

“How the hell is this even possible?” Duke muttered, his gaze going dark.

Lucky’s chest tightened as he observed the worse-for-wear biker. He was striking up a conversation with someone at a pool table, maybe looking to get into the game. “I always hoped,” Lucky said to Duke, “that we’d gone far enough away. But looks like we didn’t.”

The two men exchanged wary looks until Duke said, “On the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

True enough. Red had gone from being a hang-around to a prospect during Lucky and Duke’s last year with the Devil’s Assassins, but he wasn’t even a full member when they’d left—and now that Lucky thought about it, it was hard to imagine Red ever achieving high-ranking status in the club. He’d worshipped the Assassins’ bad-ass president at the time, Wild Bill Murphy, but Bill had treated Red like dirt. “Red always just seemed like one of those guys who was wandering around looking to fit somewhere,” Lucky mused.