3. Tucker
"Where are you guys?" I asked, zipping my coat as I stepped into the crisp morning air. After being cooped up in that sterile hospital room for the night, it felt good to be outside.
"At the B he was the perfect wingman, and he was someone who’d had my back for what felt like my entire life. I hadn’t thought of my injury as a big deal while it was happening or while I was getting loaded into that ambulance, but hearing Colt’s voice? It somehow had sand clogging my windpipe, and I had to clear my throat before I could speak again.
But then I scowled, shaking my head as I walked toward the center of town. "Wait, the B&B? Really?"
"What? Where else should I have taken him? The kid needed a safe place to sleep last night."
Hanging my head, I pulled back my attitude. “No, you’re right. Thanks for taking care of him."
"Of course."
I took a minute to settle myself as I walked, taking in the show of fall in this tiny Tennessee town. The trees lining the streets blazed with shades of crimson, gold, and copper. Pumpkins and scarecrows littered the porches and shop windows I passed, and the breeze carried a hint of wood smoke.
What I wouldn’t give to sit by a fire with a beer in hand right about now. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t plan on sitting anywhere for at least the rest of the day. Maybe two.
I still couldn’t believe I’d gotten shot—not to mention where the bullet had grazed me. But worse than that, I couldn’t believe my little brother had witnessed it.
"Colt,” I said, almost afraid to ask but needing to know. “How's the kid holding up?"
"Oddly enough, he's good. Excited to see you. Won't stop asking me questions about the case."
The chill in the air burned my nostrils as I snorted. "You tell him anything?"
"You think I wanna be the next one laid up for a bullet wound in my—” He stopped short, chuckling as he course-corrected. " Backside? "
"Nice save."
"He's gonna have the same questions for you, though, so get ready."
I heard the humor in Colton’s tone as he raised his voice slightly, and my lips tipped up as I pictured Austin's wry smile as he listened in from somewhere in the room. I could practically see his lanky form sprawled across the B&B’s bed, with his tousled brown hair and sharp blue eyes locked on the ceiling as he listened in. And I bet he hated the bed, with its probably outdated floral bedding, and it’d be just like him to show that by having his muddy boots propped on the antique footboard.
"Find anything out while you were in the hospital that you wanna share before you get here? Ya know, for my ears only? " Colt asked.
A faint voice in the background called out an offended, "Hey, not fair!" and I grinned.
"Well, first, one of the women we saw with Hope the other night was a nurse at the hospital."
"Really?"
"Yep."
I would've recognized her anywhere. When Colt and I staked out the town to learn more about our target, I'd had to do a double take when I first laid eyes on Dakota Cole. There was something magnetic about her, and no matter how much I needed to watch Hope and learn about her ... I couldn't keep my attention from drifting back to Dakota.
It was annoying… but I also hadn't fought it too hard.
"Did you ask the nurse about her friend?" Colt asked.
"Nah. I didn't get a chance. Started to, but then a cop walked in and made her leave the room."
My teeth ground together just thinking about the air of protectiveness—not to mention the affection—wafting off the officer. It wasn't subtle at all, and something inside me had come alive right along with it when he'd fired it up in her direction.
I wasn't sure what their relationship was, but I knew he cared about her, and that bothered me for reasons I didn’t care to explore too deeply.
"Do you think she'll know anything about what we're after? Maybe you can get to know her a bit. See what you can get out of her."
Colt’s suggestion bothered me for two reasons: First, I didn’t like the idea of using Dakota for information, even though it would make total sense.
Second, I didn't want her anywhere near this case. Or me, for that matter. She was too... friendly. Kind. Sunny… but in a way that told me if I hung around her too much, I’d surely get burned.
She didn't have a place in any of this.
"We'll see," I said dismissively, opening the door to the B&B as a group of kids in puffy coats scrambled past me. They dove off the wraparound porch and made a beeline for the giant piles of leaves on the inn’s lawn. "Short walk. I'm coming up."
I headed through the bed and breakfast. It was one of those overly charming small-town joints that seemed to ooze quaintness from the top down. Everything smelled faintly of cinnamon, and the hardwood floors groaned underfoot like they were protesting anyone who dared disturb their slumber. The hallway was too narrow, the wallpaper too floral, and I didn’t trust a single piece of the vintage furniture not to collapse under its own weight, let alone mine.
As I passed a side table, a calico cat darted out of nowhere, nearly tripping me as it zipped past. I barely dodged the thing, thanks to my embarrassingly painful butt wound, muttering under my breath as I straightened up and kept moving.
The room wasn’t much farther, thankfully. My patience was running thin due to the effort it’d taken to do something as simple as climbing one flight of stairs, and I was one wrong step away from taking my work boot to the next piece of antique furniture just to watch it shatter.
Finally, I made it to the door, where I could hear Austin and Colt inside. I knocked twice, then entered before they had a chance to answer.
"Tuck!" Austin exclaimed the second I walked through the door. "You okay? I'm so sorry."
I winced, not from the literal pain in my rear but also because I hated the obvious guilt on my little brother's face. I held out an arm, and Austin rose from the chair and stepped into it. The hug was brief, and then he inched back, staring at his shoes.
I brought my hand up to where his shoulder met his neck, giving him a gentle squeeze. "Austin, it's not your fault I got shot. If anything, you showing up when you did saved my life."
His gaze shot to mine as he took in a sharp breath. "I… Wait, what?"
I smiled, shaking his shoulder. "It’s true. If you hadn’t called my name, I still would've been crouched in the bushes when that gun went off.”
Meaning… my forehead would’ve been right where my butt wound up being. I was staking out Hope’s house when I'd heard Austin whisper-shout my name through the trees, and I was so thrown off—so utterly confused as to why he was there—that I stood from my hiding spot and whirled to face the sound of his voice.
Then, I felt the sting of the bullet as it grazed me.
If I hadn't stood when I had, would that shot have landed in a much more deadly place? I'd never know. Maybe whoever shot me did it when they saw me stand, and it hadn’t been all that close of a call. Either way, my kid brother shouldn’t carry an ounce of guilt over what happened, and I’d stop at nothing to make sure he didn’t.
"It wasn't the girl you're after, by the way," Austin said, brightening a little as he met my eyes. "Uncle Colt found out Hope was at work when it happened."
My hand slipped off Austin's shoulder and landed at my side as I faced my best friend. "Seriously?"
"What?” Colt asked. “You really thought it was Hope?"
“Not why I’m mad.”
“Then why are you mad?” Austin asked, Colt’s expression telling me he was just as lost.
I hooked a thumb at my brother, eyes on Colt. “Why does he know so much about the case if you didn’t tell him anything?”
Colt’s broad shoulders slumped, and then he raked a hand through his messy, dirty-blond hair, the weariness of the last twelve hours etched into his features. He usually seemed so unshakable—so quick to make a joke to lighten the mood, so smooth with his words when we needed to get out of a jam. But right now, I saw the cracks in his armor, and I hated that my getting shot was what put them there.
"Tuck, man, you got shot,” he said, sighing heavily. “I was on a mission to figure it out, and I couldn't keep it from the kid. He’s nosy. Plus, he was too worried to be kept in the dark."
Right. And what exactly was Colt supposed to do? Austin had probably been pacing like a trapped animal, badgering him for answers until Colt finally caved.
I couldn’t fault him for giving in, even if it grated on me that my little brother had any part in this mess. It wasn’t Austin’s world, and it shouldn’t be. But I knew my brother. There was no keeping him on the sidelines when he decided to get involved—a point he proved by showing up here the way he did.
I gave Colt the side eye, then crossed my arms. "So, Hope was at work?"
"Yeah. Wasn't her. Which is actually kind of a bummer. It probably would’ve made our job a little easier. But now… we've got a wild card to worry about."
I wanted to reply. I had questions, and I wanted to spitball with Colt. But not with Austin here.
I flicked him a glance, then looked back at Colt. He seemed to be thinking the same thing. Neither of us wanted to work this case right in front of the kid, but now that he was here, what were we supposed to do? Not work it at all? That seemed like the only choice, though. The alternative was finding somewhere to put the kid, and being that I just got shot for getting too close to that house, I didn't want to let Austin out of my sight.
"Wanna grab some food? I'm starving," Austin suggested, looking between us. “The pizza place down the street has arcade games.”
He was observant. I’d give him that. He knew we were trying to find a way to talk about this without him around, and I had to hand it to him for tossing up the perfect plan to make that happen.
Colt tilted his head. "Not a bad idea."
"Sounds good,” I said, wincing as I turned toward the door. “Though, we'll need to eat at the counter so I can stand."
An hour later, Colton and I had compared notes about what we knew so far, and Austin had played about a million bucks worth of Pacman and pinball. Thank goodness for the classic pizzeria with its old-school games.
Now, Colt and Austin were in the grassy town square, throwing a football back and forth. Colt insisted on traveling with one because he did his best thinking while tossing it around, and I watched as his former quarterback muscle memory allowed him to deliver tight spirals to my brother as naturally as breathing.
But we couldn’t all stand around and play games in the nippy fall air. I had to call the only person in the world who would be just as upset about Austin being here as I was: our mom.
"He's with me," I said, not even letting her get the full question out.
Austin had told me over pizza how he'd managed to track us down and the escape plan he'd executed that'd likely given our mom a heart attack. She'd called me several times since she'd discovered him missing, but every time I tried to call her back, she hadn't answered. The woman was forever leaving her phone in every room she went into—on silent, of course—and then couldn't find it.
I listened as she went on and on about how that boy was a hundred times worse than I was when I was his age, which was over twenty years ago at this point. Mom had been young when she'd had me with her first husband, and then when she’d had Austin, she was old enough to be called "geriatric” by her doctors. That hadn’t sat well with her, yet she acted like she was an elderly woman when it came to her ability to handle him.
"What are you gonna do?" She asked. "You can't send him back the way he came. It's bad enough he took a Greyhound across the country the first time. You can't just stick him back on one to come home."
"I would never do that," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.
"Are you gonna stop working and drive him back, then?"
"I can't do that either."
She scoffed."Okay, so what's your plan?"
"You could fly out and get him, then fly back with him."
I knew she wouldn't, but I had to try.
"Tucker."
I sighed. "I'll just keep him with me."
"While you work a case?"
"It doesn't sound like I have an option, Mom."
She hummed, and then I could practically hear her nodding as the wheels turned in her head. I could picture her wearing a hole in the floor of the house she rarely left, biting her nails. "If you're sure you can't stop working the case, that's what'll have to happen, I guess. Will he be safe?"
I bit back a dry laugh. She didn't know I'd been shot—and I didn't plan on telling her. You'd think that would give me pause about whether or not my brother would be safe, but it didn't. I'd die before I let anything happen to him.
"He'll be safe," I promised.
"Okay. Well, thank you for being you, Tuck. I love you, baby."
"Love you too, Mom. We'll keep you updated, okay?"
She agreed, and then, as I tucked the phone back into my pocket, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
Someone was watching me.
I turned, half-expecting to come face-to-face with my shooter. Like I’d somehow know him when I saw him, or maybe he’d have the gun cocked and ready for round two.
But, no. It wasn’t my shooter. It was worse.
Dakota —walking right toward me, her smile as bright as the sun.
She looked different than the other two times I’d seen her. The first time, at the painting class with her friends, she’d worn jeans and a red sweater beneath the paint-splattered apron with the studio’s logo on it. Her dark brown waves were tied up into a bun that had me wondering what I’d rather do: pin up the messy strands that’d fallen loose or take the whole mass down and run my fingers through it.
The second time, though, her bun was neat. Tidy. Nurse-like, since no one wanted loose hairs wrapped up in their bandaged wounds. But that didn’t stop me from once again wanting to run my fingers through it.
And now, as she walked toward me with her hair curling in thick waves over her shoulders, I had to clench my hand at my side just to keep from reaching toward her.
What is wrong with me?
What kind of creep imagined getting his hands tangled up in the hair of a perfect stranger? That was the kind of thing stalkers and serial killers probably thought about while hunting their next victim. While I wasn’t holding my breath for a Boy Scout badge anytime soon, I wasn’t a danger to womankind.
No, I wasn’t that creepy. We could call the hair thing a minor fixation. Nothing to worry about. Unless you were me, because as Dakota reached my spot beneath the nostalgic clock tower in town square, it was only then that I realized who she was walking with.
Somehow, I’d managed to let that minor fixation on Dakota’s hair distract me from noticing that Hope Calhoun—the target of my investigation, the entire reason I was even in this town—was walking right toward me.
Over my shoulder, Austin let out a peel of laughter. I turned to find Colt rubbing the side of his head with the football at his feet, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Hope’s approach had distracted him just in time to take a football to the dome.
“Well, if it isn’t Tucker Black,” Dakota said when she reached me.
Now I was the one hit in the head—and it wasn’t by a football, but by the way my name sounded on those perfect lips.
Once again, what is wrong with me?
I scowled, monumentally unsettled. This wasn’t how I handled myself around women. In fact, before this woman had entered my world, I would’ve considered myself to be perfectly immune to a woman’s charms.
I could be interested, sure.
Attracted? Often.
But… charmed? Not on your life.
“I knew you were tall, but this is just wild,” she mused, not all bothered by the surly expression that I made a point to aim her way. “How tall are you, anyway? Six-four?”
“Six-five,” I muttered.
Hope whistled. “Yep. That’s tall.”
I had to play this cool. How would I handle this situation if my sole purpose for being here wasn’t to investigate one of the two women before me?
But I didn’t get a chance to play it cool because Dakota opened that perfect mouth again. “So, Hope and I were just curious about what you were doin’ sneakin’ around her property when you got yourself shot in the rear.”
I blinked down at her. Her hands were on her hips, which were cocked to the side to show me that she meant business, and her eyes were just as bright as her smile. It was awful. Way too bright. Worth squinting, for sure.
“That was your house, huh?” I asked, playing dumb as I turned to Hope.
“Yep. Her house,” Dakota answered for her. “And before you ask, no, she doesn’t have a rifle strapped to a tree like a Home-Alone -style boobytrap against intruders. I asked, so I figured I’d clear that one up for ya right off the bat.”
I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t. Colt had been right earlier. It would’ve been way easier if Hope had been the one to shoot me—whether with her finger on the trigger or with a boobytrap. She was the reason we were hired to do this job, and if the client who hired us was right, she had about 1.2 million reasons to shoot at us for being on her property. Easy peasy. Case closed.
But that wild card he spoke of? It wasn’t whoever actually shot me. We’d figure that out, just like we always did. Then, we’d be off on our merry way.
No, my wild card was Dakota Cole, and I had no idea what having her here would change for me.
But before I could decide just how big of a problem that would be, a loud pop sounded behind her, and I was forced into action.