Chapter Six
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T J was in the midst of unrolling his sleeping bag when he heard someone approach his tent where he’d set up camp for the night.
“Hey, man. Apparently, some chick’s here looking for you.”
What? He pushed the flap aside and ducked his head out of the tent to follow the guy’s gaze.
At first, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just a small group of tents and some mattresses set up under one of the quieter overpasses near the city center, with seven or eight other guys sitting around the makeshift campsite.
Then he caught a flash of bright pink out of the corner of his eye and stood there gaping as Eric’s sister appeared.
She made her way down into the culvert, wearing flip-flops, jeans, and a snug fuchsia-pink top that hugged the sexy curves of her breasts and waist. Her brown hair was loose around her shoulders, a thin shaft of light from a streetlamp above them highlighting it with shades of gold and caramel.
What the hell was she doing? She stuck out more than a clown at a funeral here.
She stopped picking her way down the side of the steep incline to scan the area. When she saw him, her face lit up with a relieved smile. “Hi,” she called out, seeming oblivious of the stares she was getting. Some curious. Others hostile. All suspicious. “Boy, you were not easy to find.”
Fuck. Me.
He strode forward, making a beeline to intercept her before she came any closer. She stopped at the hard look on his face, her smile slipping a notch.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
She faltered, took a step back. “I—”
He took hold of her upper arm, spun her around and started marching her back up the incline toward the road. Flip-flops, for fuck’s sake. She could get jabbed with a needle. “You can’t be here.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not safe,” he muttered, exasperated. She could have been assaulted out here while out searching for him. “How the hell did you even find me?”
She scrambled to keep up with him as he practically towed her up the incline. “I went to the jobsite, but they told me you weren’t scheduled today. So I asked around, and someone said to try the shelter on MLK Junior.”
He shot her a disbelieving look. “You went to the shelter to find me?”
“Yes, and then three others before one of the volunteers said you sometimes camp down here if the shelters are full.”
Jesus God. He shook his head, kept going. “Please tell me you’re not alone.”
The guilty look on her face gave him his answer.
Sweet baby Jesus. “Shit. Seriously?”
“Cassie knows where I am.”
“Yeah? That doesn’t do much to keep you safe though, does it?” He ran a hand through his hair. Why was she so damned insistent on finding him? “All right, where did you park?”
“A few blocks up that way.” She pointed up the hill toward the streets located in the roughest part of the city.
The thought of her wandering through it alone almost made him break out in a sweat. “What were you thinking, coming down here by yourself to look for me?” The sun had disappeared. It was getting dark out, for Chrissake. “And what if I hadn’t been here?”
“Then I would have asked if anyone at the campsite had seen you or knew where else you might be and tried there.”
“At night?” Because yeah, that was a great idea for a hot woman alone in this neighborhood.
“It wasn’t dark when I started. And I have pepper spray.”
Given what he’d seen of her to this point, he had his doubts about her knowing how to use it.
She lifted her chin and faced him, blue-gray eyes full of indignation. “I know you think I’m na?ve and maybe even stupid for coming here, but I assure you I’m not. I’ve done this many times before, alone, in rougher areas than this to find Eric. I’ve been mugged and forced to run for it a few times, but I’m still here. And guess what? Zero regrets.”
He stared at her, at a loss for words. She’d been lucky she’d walked away from any of it without serious injury or trauma. “And how do you know I’m not dangerous?”
She didn’t answer. The top of her head barely reached his chin. He easily outweighed her by sixty pounds or more, even though he was the thinnest he’d been since bootcamp. If he’d wanted to hurt her, she would have zero chance against him, even without his training. He had twice her strength.
The risks she’d just taken to find him made him incredulous—and furious.
“Hm? You think you’re safe with me just because I served with your brother?” he pressed when a shadow of doubt clouded her eyes. Dammit, she smelled good too. Something light and clean and irresistibly female he was struggling to ignore. He was struggling to ignore a lot of things about her that he shouldn’t be noticing or thinking about. “You don’t know me. What makes you so sure I’m not a threat to you?”
She stared right back at him, unflinching as she searched his eyes. “Are you?”
No, but that wasn’t the point. Because he could have been.
In his gut, he knew he should do or say something right now to drive the point home and scare her off for good. But he just couldn’t do it. Staring into those eyes, reading the determination and sincerity there, scaring her away like that was impossible. It would be like kicking a sweet, friendly puppy.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” he said instead. Zero idea of who he was, or what he’d done to wind up here.
She held her ground and didn’t back down, didn’t look the slightest bit uncertain or contrite. That surprised him even more. “I think that when it comes down to it, you would do whatever was necessary to survive. But no. I don’t think you’re a threat to me. Am I wrong?”
No. But goddamn it, she shouldn’t trust him so blindly just because he’d served with Eric. “Come on,” he muttered in irritation, taking hold of her elbow. Albeit gentler this time.
“How’ve you been, anyway?” she asked as they started up the sidewalk. It was past twilight, the top of the sky already turning different shades of purple and the edge of the moon appearing between some tall buildings ahead.
He shot her a dark look. “Living the dream.”
She winced a little. “Have you thought at all about the potential job I mentioned? I spoke to the owner today. He—”
“Jesus, you are relentless.” He shook his head and looked up at the heavens. Eric, you seeing this? Your sister’s insane. What the hell do I do with her?
“Yep. I had to be, to get Eric off the streets.”
“He was your brother. I’m nothing to you.” It made no sense that she would risk her personal safety to try to “help” him.
“You were his friend. His good friend and brother-in-arms. He cared about you a lot, and so, believe it or not, that means you mean something to me too.”
She didn’t know what the hell she was saying. “Are you religious? Come to lead me to the light and save my soul or something?”
“No. Why, would that help?”
He clamped his teeth together, prayed for patience and kept his mouth shut, suspecting she would shoot down any argument he made. “Which way now?” he asked impatiently when they reached the next intersection.
“Straight.”
Of all the dangers out here, of all ways his night could have gone sideways, this hadn’t even occurred to him as a possibility. The sooner he got rid of her, the better, for both of them. He had an upcoming appointment he couldn’t miss, and she needed to be in her car driving her sweet, curvy little ass back to the coast long before then. “Now where?”
“Across this way.”
He waited for the traffic to pass, then hustled her across the street. The seedier bars, strip clubs, and massage parlors along the street were all coming to life. Music pumped from the doorways they passed. Bouncers and patrons standing outside stared at them as they walked by.
TJ tugged her closer and stared them all down. Warning them all to keep their distance and their fucking mouths shut.
In darkened doorways and corners, dealers and sex workers plied their trades. A few people were shooting up on the sidewalk. Others were passed out down alleys that reeked of garbage and urine and stale beer.
Just a regular Saturday night in this part of town. He should have hated it, but it felt normal to him now.
“Right at the next light,” she murmured, giving no indication that she was scared or alarmed by what she was seeing. Though she’d probably seen it all before and worse when she’d been looking for her brother. TJ didn’t like thinking about that one bit.
He stayed vigilant as they turned the corner and continued down the next street, still disturbed that she’d come here to find him. “Now where?”
“Left at the next street.” They turned the corner. “I’m parked just up there on the right.” She dug in her pocket for her keys and amber lights flashed on a vehicle parked twenty feet from another strip club.
He walked her right up to the driver’s side and opened her door for her. She stopped to face him. Opened her mouth to say something, but he held up a hand. “Don’t. Just get in.” He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted her to go.
And not come back.
“Will you please at least give serious consideration to contacting the owner of the company I mentioned?” Framed by those glasses that somehow made her even sexier, her eyes pleaded with him. “For Eric’s sake.”
That look in her eyes was killing him. Awakening parts of him that should have died long ago. He would have looked away, but he couldn’t. She had a strange sort of power over him, and it made him twice as anxious to see her gone. “And if I don’t?”
She shrugged. “Then I’ll keep trying to change your mind.”
“By coming back here to stalk me around the city some more?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
He flexed his jaw, frustrated by her misdirected stubbornness. The deadline for his appointment was coming up fast. He’d been trying to set it up for a long time. She had to leave. Now.
“Fine, I’ll think about it. But don’t get your hopes up.” He nudged her into the car.
She slid into the seat but threw out a hand to catch the edge of the door before he could close it. “Crimson Point is gorgeous, and the job and the people who run the construction company are legit. I wouldn’t have put it out there to you if they weren’t.”
Her expression was so damned earnest and open, her hope and distress at leaving him here almost palpable. Like she wanted to drag him in the car and take him home with her to get him off the street. It might have been endearing if it wasn’t so exasperating.
“Come on,” she prompted. “What’s there to think about?”
Things she couldn’t imagine. “Go home.”
She kept a hand on the door so he couldn’t close it, still staring up at him. “My name’s Bristol, by the way.”
“I don’t care.” A flash of hurt crossed her face before she masked it. He refused to feel bad. He needed to make a point here.
“You deserve better than this, TJ. I hope you believe that.”
The steel encasing his heart hardened more. “You don’t know what I deserve.”
“I don’t think you do either,” she countered.
They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Then her expression softened with a slight smile. “Well. Thank you for escorting me to my car.”
He held back a sigh, reprimanded himself for getting trapped in her gaze. “Lock your doors and drive back to Crimson Point. And Bristol?”
Hope flared in her eyes. “Yes?”
He paused a moment for effect. “Don’t ever come looking for me again.”
He pushed her door shut before she could say anything, closing it with a solid thunk . Then he stood at the rear bumper of the car in front of hers with his arms folded across his chest and watched while she pulled out of the parallel spot and slowly drove away.
And she fucking stuck her arm out the window to wave goodbye.
He shook his head, testing the sound of her name in his mind.
Bristol.
Staring after the red glow of her taillights, the buried fragments of his conscience pricked at him like knives. Had he considered the job in Crimson Point since she’d given him the business card yesterday? Of course he had. The location was convenient. The drug scene was just as active there as it was everywhere else, the constant flow of product arriving from offshore and flooding inland all up and down the coast.
He thought of the crumpled business card still in his pocket. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to meet with the owner. Check out the area. See how things went.
It would at least get Eric’s sister off his back. And they would both be safer for it.
brISTOL BLEW OUT a hard breath of disappointment as she made the turn toward the freeway entrance, her heart heavy and her stomach still in knots.
That had not gone well at all. Maybe not as disastrous as her first couple of attempts to reach Eric had been, but still. Pretty bad.
TJ was harder than Eric. Hard enough to let the job opportunity in Crimson Point pass him by just to prove he didn’t want anyone’s help. It made her feel frustrated and powerless.
A call came in, and she wasn’t surprised to see Cassie’s name pop up on the display. She had left a string of increasingly worried texts over the past hour. So if Bristol ignored this call, Cassie might literally send out a search party.
“Hi. Yes, I’m alive,” she answered, “and driving back to the coast right now.”
“Thank God for that. Where the hell have you been, and why haven’t you been answering me?”
“I was busy.” Her tone was borderline irritable, but the last thing she wanted right now was a lecture.
Cassie released a frustrated sigh. “You are infuriating sometimes, you know that?”
“So I’m told.” Twice in the past twenty minutes by two different people, and all just because she’d been trying to do the right thing.
“At least you’re okay. I take it you didn’t find him?”
“I found him.”
“You did? Where?”
“In a little homeless camp under an overpass.”
“Bristol, seriously? While you were alone?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t done before,” she said before Cassie could launch into a tirade, feeling a little defensive. Somehow the three-year age difference made Cassie feel entitled to do the whole big sister thing. Which, okay, sometimes Bristol thought was sweet, but this wasn’t one of those times. “I was perfectly safe.” Not really, but she wasn’t going to tell Cassie that either. She’d been a bit scared wandering through the unsavory parts of the city on her own, but her mission had been important enough to justify the risk.
“Uh huh. And what did he say?”
“He told me to leave him alone and never go looking for him again.”
“Well, good. At least he’s thinking straight.”
Bristol sighed, deflated. She felt like a failure. She’d pushed her luck too far by tracking him down tonight, and ruined any chance of making inroads with him. Now he’d probably refuse to contact Beckett about the job out of pure stubbornness and pride. “Don’t lecture me right now, okay? I feel bad enough as it is.”
“It was reckless, doing that alone, and you know it.”
“I had to try. He was Eric’s friend.”
It was more than that, though. There was something about TJ. She’d felt that same surge of awareness again when their eyes had locked across the campsite, and every time he’d looked at her after that.
Along with something stronger she didn’t want to think about right now.
“I’m aware,” Cassie said.
Bristol’s throat tightened at the thought of TJ going back to his little tent in that miserable camp. “I messed up, Cass.”
She’d gone with her gut, and wound up ruining everything. Maybe if she’d given him more time and space, things would have gone differently. Maybe he would have contacted Beckett on his own if she hadn’t pushed the issue.
Cassie groaned. “Honey, I know your heart’s in the right place. But whether you want to admit it or not, some people can’t be helped. Some people don’t want to be helped, and this guy doesn’t even know you. So, of course, he’s not gonna trust you.”
Okay, now she felt completely dejected. She was stopping for a piece of chocolate cream pie at the diner at the side of the highway on the way back to the coast. “I thought he might listen to me if I came back a second time. I thought it might prove that I actually care.” She’d hoped, anyway.
“Well, you tried, which is way more than most people would’ve done. No, you went way above and beyond, at huge risk to your personal safety. If he doesn’t make the most of the opportunity you handed him, it’s his loss.”
It felt like her loss though. And it also felt like she’d let Eric down too.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Cass, do me a favor?”
“What.”
“Don’t tell my dad.” Not that she was afraid of him. Far from it. She just didn’t want to worry or disappoint him. Or hear this same talk from him.
Cassie chuckled. “Fine. But call me when you get home so I know you’re back safe. You stopping for pie?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded as sad and pathetic as she felt.
“Figured. Bring me home a slice of lemon sour cream. That’s the price of my silence.”
“That’s extortion.”
“Whatever you want to call it. You owe me.”