Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Nothing says small town like a Davy Crockett truck stop,” Liza muttered from beside me, leaning forward to look out the windshield at the sign as I exited the highway. “And a general store slash antique mall.”
I relaxed the death grip I had on the steering wheel and took my first full breath since Liza had gone silent on me. She hadn’t said anything after she’d called Dylan to ask him to look into her mother’s condition. I wondered if she was hiding her concern for her mother behind her silence, or her father had gotten under her skin and locked in her head, or if it was a combination of both.
My problem was, I didn’t have the time needed to draw her out. But I needed to see where she was at.
“Lizzy—”
“Leave it, Tucker. Please.”
Fuck .
“Just tell me you’re good to continue and I’ll drop it. If you need a few more minutes, I’ll pull over.”
“I’m good.”
She wasn’t.
“Liza—”
“Fine. I’m not good. But I’m no longer hurt. I’m angry and that’s better than hurt. That’s not going to change in the next five minutes or five hours so there’s no need to pull over. It’s also the best I’ve got right now so I’m going to suck it up and be good .”
“What can I do to help you?”
“The only way to help is to leave it alone.”
My chest was tight and I was fighting the urge to call Dylan and set him on Liza’s father, yet I cracked a smile when she leaned over the center console, deep into my space, and continued her commentary. “Never seen that before, a Family Dollar and Dollar General side by side. They even share a parking lot. And there’s the coffee shop Allyson told us about.”
I glanced at the coffee shop up ahead. Then I made a decision.
I grabbed my phone, pulled up Allyson’s name, and hit send.
Two rings later, Allyson picked up just in time.
“Hello.”
“Swing into the coffee shop.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I saw Allyson’s brake lights, then her blinker, and followed suit.
“Park and wait for us.”
As soon as I disconnected, Liza asked, “What are you doing?”
I was buying us more time. I didn’t tell Liza that.
“Getting a lay of the land. Getting Allyson comfortable.”
“A trial run,” Liza muttered.
That would indeed be a happy byproduct. When we’d left the hotel in Knoxville Allyson had been on edge. She’d had an hour drive to tie herself in knots and worry.
“We need her relaxed.”
I felt Liza’s eyes on me as I swung into the parking spot next to Allyson.
“You mean me,” she whispered.
“Actually I mean all of us,” I corrected. “Before we hit the compound, we need to see where Allyson’s at. I need another few minutes to talk myself out of asking Dylan to get me your parents’ address so I can take a detour after this is over and knock some sense into him. And you need some caffeine in you, and if they’ve got something edible in a pastry case, you need something sugary. The blueberry muffin you had at the hotel has worn off.”
“It’s annoying how well you know me.”
That almost made me smile.
“I bet it is. But just to point out, you know me just as well, it’s just that you’re still firm in your denial so you’re watching what you say because you don’t want me to point it out.”
“That’s annoying, too,” she groused.
That meant when I shut down and got out of the CR-V that Greg had delivered to the hotel last night, I was smiling.
I met Liza around the back of the car, tagged her around the waist, and tugged her to my side. She didn’t stiffen, but neither did she seem comfortable with the PDA—something she was going to have to get comfortable with and quick. Not because we were a couple who had been married for ten years after dating for three, and according to my wife’s social media profile, she was madly in love with her husband. And not because we were standing in a public parking lot ten minutes away from the compound we’re going to infiltrate, which meant our cover had officially begun. And not because I was into PDA and wanted to force that on her.
It was because the woman next to me had been starved of love and attention and affection and that had now ended for her.
There was a reason I’d been handpicked for the undercover assignments the DEA had sent me on. I was known as a man who went the extra mile to get the job done. Not that I’d crossed lines; I’d just learned how to bend those lines and still live with the repercussions of my decisions. I wasn’t opposed to manipulating a situation to attain my desired outcome. I’d exploit the fuck out of my cover to get close to Liza, and use every waking hour under the guise of the case to show her exactly what she was missing. I’d bend reality until even she believed she was my wife. I’d make it impossible for her to walk away from me when this was over, and that started now.
“Do we need to stop at the grocery store before we head to your house?” I asked Allyson when she joined us.
The woman nearly jumped out of her skin before her eyes scanned the parking lot.
I leaned closer to Allyson, taking Liza with me, and in a quiet voice reminded her, “We’re friends stopping for coffee after a long road trip from Georgia.”
“Right.” She nodded.
“Ally?” Liza called.
Allyson blew out a breath and relaxed.
“You’re gonna love the chocolate chip latte here,” Allyson said smiling.
“I would kill for some chocolate,” Liza returned, relaxing into me.
An old, rusted-out, cool-as-fuck, red Ford F-150 pulled to a stop next to us. The condition was such I wasn’t sure if the owner of the truck should be arrested for not taking care of it, or if I was going to commit grand theft auto in the middle of an operation to save the old bullnose and rescue her from her current state.
I dragged my gaze from the truck to the driver—a pretty brunette who was working hard to roll down the window.
When it was halfway down, the driver, excitedly if not a little out of breath exclaimed, “You’re home!”
“Hey, Sarah,” Allyson greeted.
“Coming or going?” the woman named Sarah asked.
“Just got here.”
“Cool! I’ll meet you inside.”
Sarah slowly pulled forward and Allyson turned to look at me and Liza.
“That’s Sarah Barclave. She lives on the property. North end, in one of the newer houses.”
I searched my memory for a Sarah Barclave. There were twenty homes on the compound. Most single occupancy, those of course being the unwed women who lived there. Eight were inhabited by married couples.
“The baker,” Liza smoothly put in.
“Yeah. She was an advertising executive. Got burned out and started a cottage bakery.”
“You coming?” Sarah called from the front door of the coffee shop.
We started Sarah’s way. The closer we got, the more relaxed Liza became. It could’ve been the promise of imminent coffee, but more than likely she’d flipped on. That “on” being Liza Michaels.
For now that would have to do.
But when this was done, I’d see to it her name changed again—permanently.
“Oh my God, it smells amazing in here,” Liza breathed.
Sarah’s gaze landed on Liza and she smiled.
“Sarah, this is my friend, Liza. And her husband, Tucker. Liza, Tucker, this is Sarah.”
“Sarah?” Liza queried. “ The Sarah who makes the best croissant bread known to man?”
Someone had done her homework.
“I don’t know if it’s the best known to man, but it’s a bestseller.”
Sarah stuck out her hand.
Liza took it. When they were done, Sarah waved at me with a smile but retracted her hand.
I followed the women to the counter. Listened as Allyson and Sarah gave their complicated orders.
When it was Liza’s turn she turned to Allyson and asked, “Chocolate chip latte, right, Ally?”
Sarah rolled her eyes but they were smiling when she said, “Ally and her sweet tooth.”
“My sweet tooth is responsible for at least ten percent of your monthly sales.”
Liza’s head tipped back. She gave me a beaming smile that made me want to kiss it off her lips. And since we were married, I did just that.
Closed-mouthed and quick. Not exactly what I wanted but it was something.
When I lifted away, leaving Liza wide eyed and stunned, I quickly ordered her latte and a bottle of water.
The women went to find an open table that thankfully this time of day wasn’t hard to find. I paid, waited for the drinks, and scanned the interior of a hole in the wall coffee house, in a tiny town off the beaten path in the mountains of East Tennessee. I didn’t know the profit margins on selling coffee but the décor didn’t say small mountain town with a median income barely over the poverty line, a DG and a Family Dollar side-by-side with a dilapidated single wide across the street with a tarp over the roof. It said something else—money.
The robin’s egg blue wall looked to have been recently painted. The machines behind the counter top of the line, the pick-up area surface thick butcher block. The tables and chairs scattered around the small space were gleaming black melamine and if the unblemished state of the tables were anything to go by—new.
How a coffee shop that sold seven-dollar coffees and nothing else could stay open in a place like this—let alone turn a profit that would support new paint, top-of-the line machines, and new seating—was beyond me.
Something wasn’t adding up.
“Here you go,” the barista said as she set the trayed coffees on the butcher block. “Have a great day.”
“You, too.”
Juggling the tray and a bottle of water, I made my way to the women.
“That’s amazing.” I caught Liza saying.
“What’s amazing?”
It wasn’t until each woman had their latte that Liza answered me.
“Sarah was just telling me the owner of the coffee shop is going to start stocking her baked goods.”
“Melanie, that’s the owner, used to have a full bakery case, but she lost her baker when her daughter moved to Chattanooga and the shop hit a rough patch.”
I glanced around the space again and noted, “Looks like things turned around.”
“Yeah, Melanie was on the verge of closing but Mackenzie Archer stepped in and invested,” Sarah explained.
“I didn’t know that,” Allyson told her friend.
“Sometime last year.” Sarah leaned forward and lowered her voice. “This place used to be a total dive. Great coffee and Melanie’s daughter made amazing muffins, but the inside was drab. People don’t want to stop and get a coffee and muffin when the place looks like the health department’s moments from shutting you down. Mackenzie’s always looking for ways to help the community, plus Melanie’s a great gal. They closed the shop for a week and…” Sarah lifted her hand, waved it at the room at large then declared, “Voilà. A pretty, modern, clean coffee shop that people want to patron.”
More like Mackenzie was buying the owner’s silence to sell her drugs in the parking lot.
“And great business opportunity for you.” Liza smiled. “Win-win.”
“How long are you two staying in town?” Sarah asked.
I waited and let Liza field that.
“Not sure. At least a week. We’re going to look at some properties.”
“Are you staying with Ally?”
“Yes! And I can’t wait to see this place she calls paradise.”
“It is that,” Sarah sighed. “When I finally made the decision to leave the corporate rat race that was sucking my soul dry, I was so blessed to meet Mackenzie and get a tour. The moment I saw the community kitchen, I was sold. But the peace and tranquility keep me here. The place is heaven. I bet after twenty-four hours you’ll never want to leave.”
“Peace and tranquility,” Liza repeated. “I’d sell my soul for some of that.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.” Sarah beamed.
Yeah, that was the problem. We had come to the right place and a lot of good, honest people, who believed in a message Mackenzie was selling were going to be affected when we dismantled Nu Dawn. Not only would they be homeless and out a lot of money, their spirits would be crushed.
Mackenzie Archer was the worst kind of bitch.
Greed was the least of her sins.
She preyed on the hopes and dreams of women who were trying to make something of themselves.