Chapter 18
“As nice as catching up has been, I didn’t mean to stay so long.” Eli checked his watch. “I have to meet someone in ten minutes, so pray I can get Carla to make a quick caffè mocha.”
Scott laughed. “If you get Carla to do anything quick, let me in on your secret.”
Eli rubbed his fingers together. “Money is the secret—I always give her a big tip.”
Scott did as well, but not to hurry her—Carla was a single mom struggling to keep a roof over her and her son.
Eli turned to Tori. “When are you going back to Knoxville?”
“I’d only planned to stay in Logan Point two days, but now I’m not sure. It’ll depend on what happens with Drew.”
“Makes sense.”
A shot of something Scott couldn’t analyze raced through him when Eli leaned over and hugged Tori.
“If you’re still here this weekend, how about dinner?” Eli said.
She hesitated. “We’ll see . . . I’ll be pretty focused on Drew.”
“Well, I’ll check out your podcast then.”
She pulled a card from her bag and handed it to him. “This will make it easier to find. Click on the tab for the podcast.”
“Thanks.” He looked past her and frowned.
Scott looked over his shoulder. An older woman stood at the door, scanning the room.
“Isn’t that your mom?” Tori asked.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. If I’m lucky—never mind, she’s spotted me.” He gave a half-hearted acknowledgment as she approached. “You remember Tori, don’t you? And this is Scott Sinclair. My mother, Valerie Livingston.”
“Of course I remember Tori.” Valerie’s gaze flicked over Tori, then her scrutiny moved to Scott. She held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Scott. Are you related to Nicholas Sinclair?”
“My brother.”
“Really? I would never put you two together.”
Scott had the distinct impression Valerie Livingston knew exactly who he was. “I’m the rebel in the family.”
He’d met people like Valerie before. People who made snap judgments about others without bothering to get to know them. “But I don’t hold it against Nick for being the star.”
She surprised him by laughing. “I like you,” Valerie said, giving him a big smile.
Maybe he’d been the one to make a snap judgment.
Eli cocked his head. “Did you come for coffee . . . or were you looking for me?”
“Both. I hate to drag you away from your friends, but . . .”
“I’m meeting someone in ten minutes.”
“Cancel it. We need to talk. Get me an Americano.”
Eli pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes, but his mother stared him down. He sighed and took out his phone before turning to Tori. “Duty calls . . . but get in touch before you leave town. Maybe we can get together for coffee, if nothing else.”
“Sure.”
Eli slid from the booth and walked to the counter. Scott turned to Tori. “So, you two were an item in high school?”
“You know how it is in high school, and I guess you could say we were an item.” She put air quotes around item.
“Eli’s a nice guy, and we dated, but . .
. I don’t know. We always had different goals.
I wanted to be a TV reporter. He called it a pipe dream, said I should do something like law school or business. ”
“I’m glad you didn’t follow his advice. You’ve made a difference in people’s lives. One in particular—if it hadn’t been for you, Huey Prescott would still be in prison.”
“Thanks.” She dropped her voice. “Another problem was Valerie never liked me.”
He’d gotten that impression. “You were competition. I doubt anyone will ever be good enough for her son.”
“I never cared enough to figure out why she didn’t like me, but that kind of makes sense.” She gave him a shy grin. “Oh, and thanks for bragging on the podcast.”
“No problem, and I meant every word of it.”
A comfortable silence settled between them. Tori drained the last of her coffee and set the mug down. “You know what I’ve been up to the last ten or so years . . . so, tell me about Scott Sinclair. What have you been doing?”
He’d known this was coming and should’ve had a cover story prepared, but for some reason he didn’t want to lie to her. How much should he tell her?
“You might as well spill it,” Tori said. “I’ll start digging if you don’t, and I’m really good at digging.”
He laughed and held up his hands as if surrendering. “Only on the condition that it stays between the two of us.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Now you really have my attention.”
“You have to agree first—I don’t want to hear my name on your podcast.”
“That bad, huh?” She grinned. “I promise, now spill it.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“Why not with when you came to live in Logan Point? That’s when I first met you.”
“That summer wasn’t a great time in my life—except it was.” When she shot him a question with her eyes, he said, “Remember the opening to A Tale of Two Cities—it was the best of times, it was the worst of times? Well, that was my life that summer.”
He clasped his hands in front of him on the table.
“I’d hit rock bottom with my drinking. I was accused of stalking Taylor out in Washington state.
I was a suspect in killing a man. Someone tried to kill me.
” Scott sighed. “Then Kate Adams introduced me to Jesus, and she got me into church—that’s when I met you.
She helped turn my life around. I owe her a lot. ”
“I like Kate.” Tori tilted her head, her lips pressed together, then she cleared her throat. “You don’t think going into rehab is what turned your life around?”
Scott was an expert at reading people, and she was clearly uncomfortable with his statement about Jesus.
That puzzled him. The one thing he remembered about Tori Mitchell when she was a teenager was her unwavering faith.
He drained the last of his now-cold coffee.
“Rehab would have never happened without discovering who Jesus is.”
“I’m glad it worked for you.” She stood. “I think I’ll grab another coffee.”
It was plain Jesus was a subject she didn’t want to discuss, and while she went to reorder, he debated with himself about asking her why.
“So, after rehab, what did you do?” Tori asked when she returned.
End of debate. There would be another time .
. . he would see to it. Now his internal debate shifted to how much to reveal.
The fewer people who knew he was undercover FBI the better.
It just surprised him that he wanted to share it with Tori.
“I did the usual—went to college, got a degree in criminal justice, joined a weight-lifting club, had a few acting jobs, and then I set out to see the US on my Harley. Got into a few scrapes with a couple of gangs—”
“Wait.” She held up her hand. “There is nothing usual about any of that. Are you saying you’ve spent the last few years riding around on your motorcycle?”
He nodded.
“And you tangled with gangs? Is that why you have the tats—were you trying to fit in? And how did you get shot?”
Was it lying if he didn’t reveal that the acting part was actually his undercover work? He leaned back in the booth and crossed his arms. “Which question do you want answered first?”
She laughed. “Sorry. I know better than to ask four different questions in a row. It’s just that you’ve evidently lived a very interesting life.”
He acknowledged her statement with a nod. “I don’t deny that.”
Tori tapped her lip. “Let’s start at the beginning with college.”
That was the easy part. “That’s when I started working out. By the time I graduated, I’d bulked up to pretty much the size I am now.”
The smile on her face after her quick once-over implied she liked what she saw. “Weight lifting?” When he nodded, she asked, “Did you compete?”
Again he nodded. “It kept me busy.”
“So you wouldn’t relapse.”
Knowing how she felt about addicts, he should’ve known that would be her first thought.
“Working out had nothing to do with my addiction. I’m very competitive, and I’m good at what I enjoy doing, so when the weight-lifting coach at the college approached me at the gym one day in my second year, I said yes. ”
“Oh.” While Tori didn’t sound disappointed, it was clear that she expected his weight lifting to have something to do with his sobriety.
“Not everyone replaces one addiction with another,” he said gently, ignoring the voice in his head that whispered liar. He wasn’t lying—courting danger wasn’t an addiction.
“I didn’t—”
“Didn’t you? I don’t know why, but you have a definite expectation that recovering addicts will eventually fail. Not all do, but it doesn’t mean we don’t realize the possibility is there.”
“How do you stay away from alcohol?”
“You won’t like the answer.”
She frowned. “How do you know?”
“Trust me.”