Chapter 23
TRUTH SLIPPED OUT
“Ican’t believe you had the police call me!” Billy screamed into the phone.
Arden winced, lowering her voice even as his rose. She sat on the patio beside Blaze, the phone held a few inches from her ear. She didn’t know if she had another confrontation in her.
But at least being with Blaze she felt much safer.
“I had no choice,” she said evenly. She could have ignored the call. Could have put it off, like Billy used to do with her. Ignore, avoid, deflect. She’d become a pro at that.
But she needed this handled before tomorrow. Before she dropped Gracie off for the visit.
If he gave her any reason to cancel, she would.
Part of her wanted to do it for her fragile nerves alone.
“Yes, you did,” Billy shot back. “You could have left my name out of it.”
“Billy, I had to tell them everything going on in my life. That includes my ex-husband showing up unannounced when he’s supposed to keep his distance.
Then, not long after that, I get the first note.
Your girlfriend leaves a gift for Gracie without your knowledge, and now my tire is slashed. Any idiot can connect the dots.”
“It’s not me! For God’s sake, give me a break, Arden. I’ve never laid a hand on you, never threatened you.”
He hadn’t laid a hand on her, but threats? Yeah, he’d given her plenty and half he said he didn’t remember. “But I don’t know her, and that’s what Officer Lancaster was asking about, wasn’t it? That’s the problem, Billy.” His silence told her she was right.
“Do you really think Tina would do this?”
She threw her free hand up, frustration ripping through her. Blaze stayed silent beside her, his profile hard, jaw tight, every muscle in him coiled. She hated he had to hear another ugly fight she didn’t want witnessed, let alone by him.
The first man she let into her life when she’d shut down the possibility for years.
Billy’s voice rose louder. She glanced through the sliding glass door thankful Gracie was asleep upstairs.
“I don’t know her!” she snapped. “I don’t even know her last name! I didn’t tell Julie about the gift yet, but I’m going to tomorrow. You knew that. I’ll be handing over copies of the police report too.”
“Don’t do it,” Billy snarled.
“Don’t tell me what to do. This is my daughter.”
“Our daughter!”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to focus on that when all this crap keeps happening to me.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not Tina.”
“You don’t know that! Where was she this afternoon? With you? Can you vouch for that?”
“All you’re doing is pissing me off by accusing us of something we didn’t do. That’s your MO, Arden. Always has been. Little perfect Arden. Never wrong, always looking for fault in everyone else.”
Next to her, Blaze’s hand curled into a fist against his knee, silent but seething, the intensity of his body bouncing off hers. At least he was keeping his presence unknown.
She took a breath, her voice shaking, her fury barely contained.
“All I can tell you are the facts. Things are happening, and the timing lines up with our fights. The police will decide what to do with that. If this were happening to you, I’d expect you to do the same thing.
I’d ask if you were okay. If Gracie was okay.
But did you ask me any of that?” Her voice broke, it cracked toward the end.
“No. Because it’s always about you. It always has been. ”
The silence that followed was deafening. She knew she’d hit home. It was the same fight they’d had for years. His selfishness, his deflection, his inability to see beyond himself.
“That’s your fallback in every argument,” Billy said finally, quieter now, but no less bitter.
“Billy,” she said, exhaustion weighing on every word. “I can’t do this again. I’m tired. I’m mentally done. And this…” She gestured uselessly, as if he could see her through the phone. “It’s wearing me down.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to say in front of Blaze, but the raw and unguarded truth slipped out.
Billy pounced. “Are you going to be there with Gracie tomorrow, or do I need to get my attorney involved?”
“I’ll be there.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Blaze frowned. His jaw was clenched like he wanted to argue or step in. She shot him a look, silently warning him not to. She didn’t need another man trying to control the moment.
“You better be,” Billy snapped.
“I’ll be there early,” she said, her voice solid again. “With copies of every report for Julie and for your attorney. Mine’s already getting them too. I’m not hiding anything, Billy, and for your sake, I hope you’re not either.”
“Morris. It’s Tina Morris.”
“Thank you,” she said, then hung up.
“What did you thank him for?” Blaze asked.
Billy had lowered his voice when he’d given Tina’s last name. Probably because Tina was there and her ex would have to fight that battle on his own. She couldn’t be any part of it.
“He told me Tina’s last name.”
“What is it?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to help. You don’t have to do this alone. I thought you understood that by calling me.”
He was right. “It’s Morris. A common enough name. Not sure what I can find. I don’t know what she looks like or her age. I’ve got social media accounts I don’t post much on, but Billy doesn’t have any at all.”
“Maybe check if she does and see if there are pictures or any comments about Billy on them.”
“Good idea.”
“Go get your computer,” he said.
“Now?”
“Yes. You’ll feel better knowing if you find anything.”
He wasn’t wrong. She pushed herself up from the chair and went to get her computer, detouring up the stairs to make sure Gracie was still asleep.
She pushed the door open a crack. Her daughter was hugging Marshall close to her chest, so she backed up and pulled the door closed behind her, then went back to get her laptop and join Blaze.
“I just wanted to check on Gracie.”
“I’m sure she’s still out. She was excitable tonight.”
“Thanks for taking care of dinner. Pizza is one of her favorites. Now cheesy bread is going to be right up there with it.”
He smiled. “That was an easy thing for me to do.”
“And thank you again for fixing my tire. Tomorrow I’m bringing it to the garage to get a new one put on. I hope they can do it. I don’t feel comfortable driving it to Saratoga with the donut on.”
“If they can’t, call me. You can come get my SUV and leave yours in the lot until you come back.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can,” he insisted. “It’s just sitting there anyway. I mean it.”
She opened her laptop. “I’m sorry you had to hear that fight with Billy.”
“Don’t apologize for him. Sounds like a dick to me. The first thing he should have done was ask all those questions you’d brought up. Even if it’s only to see how Gracie is doing.”
She blew out a breath. “You’d think. I get it. There’s no lost love with us. But I’m the mother of his child. I still think of him as Gracie’s father.”
“Let’s see if we can find this woman,” he said.
She went to Facebook and searched for Tina Morris. Just like she figured, more than she could count.
After ten minutes, she narrowed it down by location, scrolled through the feeds of three that lived in the area and said, “I bet that’s her.”
“Why?”
“Because that looks like Billy’s truck in the background. I don’t remember his license plate number, but he’s got a blue Dodge Ram.”
She scrolled through some more and finally found a picture at a party, Billy in the background. It was taken seven months ago and her ex had a beer in his hand. Her teeth hurt she was grinding them so hard.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She couldn’t lie and say nothing. This was seven months ago. Before he met Tina. Maybe they met at this party and could be he’d been clean since.
Anyone could argue one beer wasn’t him falling off the wagon. She wasn’t at this party to know differently.
“That’s Billy there.”
Blaze pulled the laptop closer, brought his phone out and snapped a picture, then moved the feed up and got one of Tina.
“I want to know what they look like.”
“Why?”
“To keep an eye out around here. I mean, I know what Billy looks like but would like the reference on my phone too. Problem with it?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m so sorry, Blaze.”
He shut the top of her computer. “Don’t apologize again. Please. You’re only going to tick me off.”
“Do you ever get mad?”
He laughed. “I do. I have. I control it much better, but you should have seen me as a kid around my brothers. Someone was always beating up the other. They fought dirty too.”
She smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Did you throw punches?”
“I had to. It’s the only way to defend myself. But no one really hurt the other that hard. Just boys being boys.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done. Not just today, but before. I know I’ve got complication written all over me.”
“You do. But maybe I like that. It keeps me on my toes.”
“Now you’re trying to get me to laugh.”
“It worked,” he said.
“You work. Not to lay it on thick or put the pressure there. But you, this, you coming to my rescue. Whatever words you label it, it works. And if it’s too much for you, I’ll understand.”
“It’s not. Never think otherwise. I’m not your ex.”
“No,” she said, running her hand down the side of his face. “You’re not.”
She got up and moved closer, sitting in his lap again. The position was becoming her favorite place to be.
His mouth lowered to hers, his kiss tender. Gentle.
His lips slowly brushed hers.
It wasn’t what she wanted.
It wasn’t what she needed.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.
“No. I don’t want you to. I want you to kiss me with everything you’re really feeling with us both wishing we weren’t sitting out here in the yard.”
His mouth slanted across hers, his tongue invading.
Her arms went around his neck and held on tight while he took her on a rollercoaster of head angles, open and closed mouths, the taste of each other so intoxicating and turning her body on, that she might be tempted to just go another step further.
Just once to let go and feel. Let her body have a release it hadn’t felt in years.
Maybe it’d help her get a good night’s sleep because she knew damn well sleep wasn’t going to come now.
But Blaze pulled back, he kissed her on the forehead and said, “Our time will come. And when it does, I don’t want any distractions, interruptions, or regrets.”
And that was why she was losing a tiny bit of her heart to him.
The man had more honor in his pinky toe than any other man she’d ever been with.