Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mine.
I couldn’t stop Tucker’s declaration from replaying. Over and over, those four letters rattled around in my brain. A single growled word that, if I let it, could erase every barrier I’d built to keep rejection and pain at bay.
Love meant nothing to me.
That wasn’t true; my love for Tucker meant something. But hearing it said to me had no meaning. People said ‘love’ all the time. But did they? Did they really love the coffee they were drinking? Did they love the song they were listening to? It was nothing more than a throwaway word. Arnie had said he loved me but he didn’t love me enough not to cheat. Fathers were supposed to love their daughters, yet I’d never, not once, heard my father utter the sentiment to me. My mom claimed to love me, yet not enough to stop making excuses for her husband.
Why did everything always circle back to love?
I was the poster child for Daddy Issues.
Living in my head was exhausting.
And now I had a new issue—why did Tucker claiming me feel so good? It shouldn’t’ve. I wasn’t a possession to keep. I wasn’t an object to own. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to belong to Tucker. And why had it bothered me so much when I washed him off my skin? Like I was losing part of him. That was just plain bizarre.
“Swear to Christ, if you don’t change your playlist to something that doesn’t include Lainey Wilson, I’m going to eject you from the car,” Tucker groused.
I blinked away my thoughts and focused on the song playing.
Sure enough, Lainey was singing about mason jars and watermelon moonshine.
“Payback,” I returned, and reached to turn up the music.
Tucker’s hand came off the steering wheel and caught mine mid-air. He guided my hand to his thigh and held it there.
“Payback for what?”
Was he serious?
“For bringing just the tip into real-life practice.”
It started as a chuckle then when it turned into a deep, rumbling laugh I turned my head to watch. I loved the sound, loved the way his face changed when he was happy and how he expressed that—open and honest and unreservedly.
Loved it .
Truly.
In the purest sense of the word.
“I’m not sure you have much to complain about seeing as you had two orgasms this morning.”
“So did you,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I did. One better than the other. But it’s not me playing shitty music to pay you back for giving me a sweet orgasm.”
I ignored his shitty music comment. Lainey Wilson was rad.
Neither of my orgasms had been sweet. The first had been mind-bending. The second one had rolled through me, not as long as the first but it had hit harder watching him take himself there with powerful strokes, dipping inside me, teasing, pulling out, seeing his biceps flex, his abs tighten the closer he got. Then there was the climax portion of the festivities— his climax, that was—and feeling it hit my belly before he smeared it in. But it wasn’t the feel of it, it was the act itself. The look of rapture on Tucker’s face.
Male beauty in every sense of the word.
Mine.
“The second one could’ve been sweeter if you’d?—”
“Liza,” he groaned.
I turned my head to look out the side window and smiled.
“Just sayin’,” I mumbled.
“I hear what you’re saying. I also hear you think you’re being cute. But just a warning, my payback won’t be country music on repeat.”
“Oh, please tell me, Master Tucker, what will payback include?” I clapped back.
I heard his growl and smiled wider.
This was fun.
Much better than thinking about scary things like love. I could happy dance my way through the rest of my day teasing Tucker instead of wanting to shut down and run away.
Yes, this was so much better.
Or it was until my phone rang, and since my phone was connected to the car Lainey stopped signing and my mother’s name displayed on the screen.
Yeah, nope. Not today, Satan. I quickly stabbed the red icon on the screen to decline the call and reached for my phone to send my mother a text telling her I was working. Lainey came back on the radio but was silenced again with another call.
“You should take the call,” Tucker said. “Could be important.”
My mother rarely had anything important to tell me, but back-to-back calls wasn’t her style. If I didn’t answer, she’d leave a message and wait for me to call her back.
Damn .
I answered the call and was in the process of putting my phone to my ear when it happened. And when it did, my stomach bottomed out.
“Liza,” my father snapped. “How nice of you to answer your phone.”
Hearing my father’s unhappy greeting, I fumbled said phone and watched it bounce off my knee and land somewhere near my feet.
“Um…hi, Dad, sorry I’m?—”
“ Um ?” he mocked.
Phone forgotten, my spine stiffened.
Unfortunately, my father went on, which meant Tucker heard.
“Your mother’s in the hospital.”
“Mom’s in the hospital?”
“That’s what I said.”
I heard Tucker’s low grumble, but more, I felt it rumble out of his chest and reverberate around the interior of the car.
“Why is she in the hospital, Dad?”
“Watch your tone, Liza. I’m not one of those men you work with.”
I closed my eyes, prayed for patience, and hoped with all my heart this was not going to turn into a lecture about my chosen line of work. It had been years since he’d laid into me about going into law enforcement, but when it came to Craig Monroe, all that meant was he’d had years to stew. He didn’t care…until he did. And when my father decided to care, he believed everyone else had to care and respect his opinion.
“Sorry.” I found myself saying. “I’m at work and shocked to hear Mom’s in the hospital.”
“Apology accepted. Now, you must tell whomever you need that you’ll be taking a week off to come home and take care of your mother. She’s being released tomorrow and will need you to see to her.”
This time, Tucker’s grumble was more of a growl.
“Dad, I’m sorry but I can’t?—”
“You can and you will,” my father interrupted me. His tone morphed into his ‘you will not argue with me’ tone I’d heard a million times in my life. “Time to earn your keep, young lady.”
“Really, Dad, I’m?—”
“Why must you always waste my time? I have more important things to see to than argue with you. Make the arrangements and get home.”
Waste my time.
I heard that a million times, too. So many times I’d stopped asking him questions. So many times I’d stopped begging him to spend time with me.
Waste of time—that’s what I was.
“Please listen?—”
I got no more out.
Not because my father interrupted me again. Because Tucker had ended the call.
Lainey played through the speakers. I held my breath. Not that there was much oxygen left in the car since Tucker’s heavy breathing was sucking it dry. Then suddenly Lainey wasn’t singing and Tucker exploded when my phone rang again.
“Do not answer that.”
I remained frozen.
He heard.
Tucker had heard my father.
And now the questions would come and I was stuck in a car with him following Allyson to the compound. We still had thirty minutes before I could escape. And thirty minutes was a really long time to be interrogated by an angry Tucker.
“What the fuck was that?” he seethed through the ring.
I didn’t know how to answer his question.
That was my father.
“Twice you apologized when you had nothing to apologize for,” he fumed.
“It’s easier to apologize,” I told him, hating how weak that sounded. “He can be…”
“A dick?” Tucker supplied.
My mother’s voice popped into my head.
He’s a busy man, Liza. He provides us a nice home and fills it with nice things. You need to be mindful of that when you bother him with silly stories.
Those silly stories were me telling him about school or sports, or later about basic then my first deployment. One of those silly stories included my convoy being ambushed. That time, me wasting his time included a lengthy lecture about how stupid women were for ‘playing war’ with men.
My phone stopped ringing, the music came back on, Tucker turned down the volume, and prompted, “Lizzy, baby, please talk to me.”
Your father means well, Liza. He only wants what’s best for you.
I was done pretending I wasn’t in love with you.
He loves you in his own way.
Mine.
Tucker and my mother battled for supremacy in my head.
Mine.
Tucker wasn’t mad at me, he was angry for me.
Mine.
He’d heard.
“Now do you get it?” I asked softly.
“Get what?”
“Why I’m exhausted.”
Tucker glanced over at me. His eyes did a quick scan before they went back to the road. Then his hand lifted, palm up, and he softly demanded, “Hand.”
I looked down at my lap to my clasped hands. I didn’t know when exactly I’d removed my hand from his thigh or how I ended up clutching my hands together so tightly my knuckles were white, and now that my attention was on them, the webbing between my fingers hurt. And not just a little. My father had set me off to the point of actual pain.
I wondered over the course of my life how many times that had happened and gone unnoticed. I was so conditioned to take his apathy, which was nothing more than hostility in disguise, I no longer noticed how badly it hurt.
“Baby, hand.”
I pried my fingers apart and set my palm in his.
I ignored the flutter in my chest when Tucker brushed my knuckles over his lips and concentrated on keeping my emotions in check. If I let go even a smidgen, the floodgates would open.
“I got it last night,” he told me after he placed our linked hands back on his thigh. “I watched you deal with Frank’s incompetence, then I watched you take it from Greg. You explained it last night, but I still think how Greg treated you was bullshit. If nothing else, he should have enough respect for you to phrase his questions in a way that fosters collaboration, not put you in the hot seat. But, Lizzy, baby…” Tucker squeezed my hand. “What I don’t get is why in the fuck your father treated you to that bullshit and for some fucked-up reason it was you who was apologizing.”
That was the second time he’d pointed that out. It was also the second time he’d done so with fury tinging his question.
“I told you, it’s just easier to apologize.”
“Yeah, you told me that. But, Lizzy, why ?”
That was a good question. It was also one I didn’t have an answer for. When I remained silent he changed tactics.
“I’m gonna preface this by saying, in no way am I excusing his behavior…”
In no way am I excusing his behavior.
Excusing his behavior.
You know when your dad comes home from work he’s tired, Liza. Now’s not the time to pester him about a karate tournament.
Excuse.
Always an excuse.
“Lizzy?” Tucker jerked my hand. “Where’d you go, baby?”
“When I was little I learned to apologize,” I blurted out. “If I asked a question he didn’t have time to answer, I said I was sorry. If I bothered him when he got home from work and annoyed him, I said I was sorry. If he showed up at one of my games and we lost, I apologized for wasting his time. If he didn’t like my tone, I said I was sorry. If I argued, I apologized. It’s easier to just say sorry than to listen to him explain all the ways I’m failing to be considerate, or how I wasn’t a good athlete, or how ungrateful I am for all he’s given me and how I don’t respect his time. It’s become a habit.”
If my hand wasn’t on his leg I might’ve missed the angry vibration rolling through him. Though when he ground out, “I’m sorry, what?” Through gritted teeth I didn’t miss the ferocity of his tone.
“He’s not a man who likes his time wasted.”
“A child asking their father a question isn’t a waste of time. A father watching their daughter play sports isn’t a waste of fucking time. And for Christ’s sake, a daughter wanting her father’s time and attention isn’t inconsiderate. That’s not even the bare fucking minimum a man is supposed to give his children. Jesus fuck, Liza, my father’s a total cheating piece of shit yet he still managed to make my football games. He’s a shit husband, a weak man, and a shit father who forced his son to live in a dysfunctional home because he couldn’t be bothered to honor his vow, but he damn well made time for me.”
If that was meant to make me feel better it didn’t. All it did was remind me how unworthy I was.
“Maybe because you’re worth it and I’m not,” I spat.
“There it is,” he whispered.
Yes.
There it was.
The confirmation, it was me. Tucker’s dad was a horrible person yet Tucker wasn’t, he was worthy of the love his father didn’t give his mother. My situation was reversed. My dad had all the time in the world for my mother, but none for me. He had time to take her out to dinner and get dressed up with her for work functions, but he couldn’t be bothered to show up at my basic training graduation, and for the record, that meant my mother wasn’t free to come either. They’d been busy living their lives childless since the day I’d moved out of the house.
“I got it wrong,” Tucker continued. “All the years I’ve known you, you never said much about your parents. So I didn’t know. I thought it was your dickhead ex cheating on you who made you afraid of love. I thought maybe it was the Franks and Gregs you worked with who made you feel less than or gave you a hard time and that dug in and festered until you felt unworthy. But it isn’t that. You’re too strong to let some asshole with a shit opinion get under your skin. It’s him . He’s the reason you recoiled when I told you I loved you. He’s the reason you don’t know how strong, beautiful, intelligent, and respected you are. And he’s the motherfucking reason you can’t give yourself to me.”
I felt a wave of heat rolling over me.
“He means well?—”
“Oh, no, you don’t. Don’t do that,” Tucker spoke over me. “Don’t try and feed me that line of shit. Right off the bat, he dismissed you and your responsibilities. He didn’t ask you to come home, he demanded your time like it was his to have. If that wasn’t enough, he got in a dig about you wasting his time, which in reality, the man was wasting yours by not listening when you told him you were at work. But he’s the type of asshole who thinks he’s the most important person in a room. I’m not even going to address the ‘time to earn your keep’ comment while I’m driving, and we’re skipping him calling you young lady like you’re a petulant teenager he’s scolding for stealing the family car, going on a weeklong joyride across the country while knocking over liquor stores. We’ll save those two when I can fully concentrate on all the ways that shit’s so fucked up, I can’t begin to explain how fucked up.”
It sucked that Tucker could be funny when all I wanted to do was crawl into the back seat and hide.
“You’re right, Tucker, he thinks his time is more important than anyone else. That’s just who he is.”
“Baby, that’s just fucked.”
“I’m not disagreeing. It’s just the way it is.”
“And, that’s more fucked.”
Tucker brought our hands back up to his mouth and blew out a breath before he pressed a hard kiss against the back of my hand.
“I need to think,” he quietly announced with none of the anger that was present moments before.
He was figuring it out.
“I told you, you were wasting?—”
“Baby, please shut up, and I mean that with every goddamn ounce of love I have for you.”
I shut up.
Not because Tucker told me to but because I felt my throat close and my chest start to burn.
His did not.
“I need to think,” he repeated. “I don’t know what my best play is here. Instinct tells me to railroad over you and make you see what I see by any means necessary. But my head’s telling me I need to show you your worth before you’ll believe me. My heart is telling me to go cautious because if I fuck this up I lose you. But you’re mine, and being that, it fucking kills knowing you think I’m wasting my time like your father’s told you you’re wasting his. So I need to think about how to proceed. But bottom line, baby, however I do that you gotta know I love you, and right now you don’t want to hear those words, but it doesn’t make them any less true. You also have to know I think your dad’s a dick and straight up if I ever hear him talking to you that way again I’m stepping in and saying my piece. It won’t be pretty. Chances are it’s gonna be ugly but my thoughts will be known and they’ll be absolute. He is never to speak to you that way again. And if he can’t find it in him to treat you like the precious treasure you are, then he won’t be treating you like anything because he won’t be speaking to you again—period. Am I clear?”
My throat wasn’t closing, it was clogged full of emotion.
So totally and completely backed up I couldn’t speak.
I think I nodded my understanding, or perhaps my body was simply seizing as some unknown feeling evaded my senses.
Never.
Not ever had anyone come to my defense, not against my father’s treatment of me.
“Lizzy, am I clear?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Good. Now we got fifteen minutes until we get to the compound. Do you need more time to pull yourself together?”
I might need a full year.
“No. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, baby, you will be,” he promised. “Grab your phone, Lizzy. Call Dylan and ask him to pull your mother’s hospital records.”
I stared at Tucker’s profile. I felt his big hand in mine. His strong, warm leg. His anger still blanketing the car, I wondered if this was what it felt like to be loved. Was this what it meant to be his?
God, I hoped so.
Hope.
How could one thing be so fragile yet feel so safe at the same time?