Chapter 4
Tessa’s knuckles whitened around the knife as she sliced into a tomato. If Sam didn’t walk through that door in the next minute, he was a dead man.
Cursing over an eighties hard rock song, she waved the knife at Hudson’s picture on Sam’s refrigerator. “If your grandfather doesn’t get his ass home soon, I’m going to skin him alive.”
The hard glint in his two-dimensional gaze dared her.
As she rinsed her hands, her gaze landed on the ring she’d taken off to cook next to the vase of red roses Sam always kept by the sink. Dammit, where was he? And why wasn’t he picking up his phone?
Memories from the last time someone she loved hadn’t answered knotted her stomach. Relief flushed her system as footsteps thudded across the deck. She paused the music. “About time you showed up, Sam Langley. You’d better have a big ass bass with you?”
The screen door creaked open. A shadow too wide to be Sam’s spilled over the threshold. Her pulse punched against her skin as she reached for the knife and tensed into a defensive stance.
A tall man in cargo shorts and a gray T-shirt stepped inside. The intruder didn’t flinch. Instead, the man’s lips—the same ones that stared at her from his photo on the fridge—tilted up in a smirk.
She blinked. “You’re Hudson. You scared the crap out of me.”
“And you surprised the hell out of me with that knife.” His smirk blossomed into a full-blown smile. “The way you hold it like you know how to use it is adorable.”
Real honey-colored eyes, not the two-dimensional ones in his photo, assessed her from head to toe. “I do know how to use it.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Glad you didn’t argue the adorable part.”
Irritation rose as she placed the knife on the counter. “Knowing how to defend myself has nothing to do with being adorable.”
“I didn’t think so either up until today.
” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe.
“I’m sorry I scared you. You didn’t answer when I knocked out front.
Guess you didn’t hear me over the music.
” His lips pressed into a line. “Mind telling me why you were talking about my grandfather’s big ass bass? ”
The innuendo in his tone triggered a flinch. Did he think she and Sam—?
The implication shot heat up her neck. “I was talking about the striped bass Sam caught today.” She dipped her thumbs into the pockets of her jean shorts. “I’m Tessa.”
He straightened from the doorframe. A deep moan grated from his throat as he pressed his hand to his torso.
“Are you okay?” She stepped toward him. This close, the color of his eyes echoed the rich, tawny gold of the aged bourbon Sam loved. “Did you bruise your ribs?”
“Broke ‘em.” He pulled in a breath. “I’m fine.”
“Broken ribs are a bitch. Does Sam know you’re in town? He’ll be so surprised to see you.”
Hudson stepped further into the room and gripped the back of a chair. “Not as surprised as I am.”
“I’m guessing Sam didn’t mention me to you?”
Sam also hadn’t mentioned that his grandson had added about twenty pounds of muscle or let his military cut grow into thick waves. Even the midnight hue of his dark brown hair appeared richer. His lips were fuller, the sexy cleft in his chin deeper, and the sharp angles of his face more regal.
Damn. She didn’t have to wonder any longer if the flesh-and-blood Dr. Langley lived up to his photo.
Now she knew.
His gaze swept over her. “Pop mentioned that his neighbor could fish and appreciated good bourbon. He didn’t mention she was a young, beautiful woman.”
“Um…” His beautiful comment and his slow perusal, from her messy bun to her toes, blazed her cheeks as red as her nail polish. “Sam is special to me too. He’s my friend.”
“So, I’ve been told. Still, I’m surprised he gave you his spare key. Pop doesn’t trust easily. How did you come to live next door to him?”
Tessa opened a bottle on the counter and poured bourbon into two tumblers.
“I met Sam and Ralphie at the pier about two years ago when I moved in here with my friend, Lia. She rented the other side. She moved out shortly after Sam bought the place, but I stayed and agreed to be his property manager.”
Hudson accepted the bourbon. “That’s quite a convenient arrangement, don’t you think?”
Something electric sparked between their fingers. The jolt startled her as much as the suspicious edge in his question. Did he think she had befriended Sam to gain entrance to his money?
Hudson stepped in front of her. Raising his hand, he wiped bourbon off her cheek. She jerked her chin as a violent memory flared at his soft touch.
“Sorry.” He stuffed his hand in his pocket.
She touched her cheek. “It’s okay.”
Something flashed in his eyes as he sipped his drink. “Do you have any idea who my grandfather is?”
She opened her mouth to say she hadn’t known Sam was the Sam Langley. Instead, she swallowed her defense as Frank’s not-so-nurturing advice slithered into her mind.
The more information you give the cops, the more they have to hang you with.
Shut up, Frank.
She pushed his voice away, but the truth in his warning lingered.
Hudson wasn’t a cop, but he exuded power and strength, and he didn’t trust her intentions with his grandfather.
She’d done nothing wrong—this time—and she wouldn’t give him a speck of ammunition to think otherwise.
“Sam is my friend, and the kindest, most caring man I’ve ever met. ”
Unlike his grandson who couldn’t hold a conversation without unwarranted judgment. So much for her superhero on the fridge.
Hudson set his drink down and crossed his arms over his chest. “And that’s all you know about Sam Langley?”
If Hudson’s stance didn’t holler distrust, his tone did.
With a tilt of her head, she mirrored his pose, minus the chiseled forearms and biceps threatening to rip the stitching of his shirt sleeves.
“That’s all I need to know. I’m going to check on him again.
” She stepped toward the counter and reached for her phone.
Her present lay next to it. Picking up the ring, she rolled it between her fingers. “Where the hell is he?”
“Son-of-a-fucking-sea bass.”
Tessa spun toward Sam’s favorite saying. Hudson’s gaze locked on the ruby.
Her breath hitched as he reached for her hand. She tried to snatch it away. The evasion techniques hammered into her by Frank had conditioned her to be quick, but Hudson was quicker.
“Is that Pop’s ring?”
Hudson let go of the woman he’d thought was Pop’s age who may or may not be a gold—well, ruby-digger. But the flash of panic he’d caught in Tessa’s eyes when he’d reached for the ring wasn’t a manufactured sympathy act.
Shit.
He’d caused that visceral reaction with his aggressive move, but the doctor in him sensed her distress had been building long before today.
The tears she couldn’t contain hinted at a relationship with Pop deeper than tenant and landlord.
“Mind telling me why you’re holding my grandfather’s most prized possession? ”
She’d better have a good explanation. It gutted him that he didn’t already know about Pop and Tessa’s friendship.
Tessa glanced from the ruby she held to the velvet box on the counter. “Sam gave me the ring. Not sure why. My birthday was last month.”
Hudson caught the defensive tone in her voice. “And how old are you?”
“Thirty.”
His estimate of her age had been off a few years, and not in the direction her looks suggested.
Since he’d walked into the house, he hadn’t stopped looking.
He had a weakness for women with sun-blushed, freckled cheeks. “Shouldn’t you be spending your Saturday with your friends at the Tiki Bar instead of having chili with an old man?”
“Their chili sucks. And Sam’s bringing home a striped bass to cook up.”
The deep red ruby in her hand caught the sunlight as she pulled up a photo on her phone. Despite his questions about the ring, Hudson couldn’t help but grin at the respectable-sized fish Pop was holding. “Nice catch.”
She shrugged. “Not as plump as the one I caught last week, but I’ll be able to get some thick fillets out of it.”
“Pop lets you fillet his fish?”
“Yes. Doesn’t he let you?”
“Of course. I’m better at it than him.”
She shoved her hands in her shorts pockets and rocked on her heels. “That’s not what Sam says.”
The snark in her tone flamed like the red glints in her auburn hair. But even though her shoulders relaxed and the little divot between her eyebrows disappeared when she spoke about cutting up a bass, he still needed answers.
“Pop never takes that ring off from around his neck. Ever. It doesn’t make sense that he’d give it to anyone.”
“Well, he did.” She grabbed a piece of paper from the counter and handed it to him.
The scent of roses drifted toward him, warm and soft beneath the sharper notes of bourbon and tomato sauce, as he took the thick stationery he’d given Pop for Father’s Day. Blinking once, twice, he read the familiar handwriting. All it said was, “Love, Sam.”
Love?
Tessa glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Oh shit. Now he’s almost thirty minutes late. I hope he didn’t cut himself again.”
“He cut himself? Where? How bad?”
She held her phone to her ear. “He sliced the tip of his finger cutting a line last week. I closed up the wound with a butterfly bandage. He’s fine.”
Fine? First, she filleted Pop’s fish and now she was determining his health status. Fuck no. That was his job. “How do you know he’s okay? All kinds of infections from raw fish could kill a man Pop’s age.”
“Trust me. I used to be a paramedic.”
He did want to trust her, but hell, despite jealousy about the time she’d spent with Pop this past year, he still liked her. “The old man has a lot of explaining to do when I catch up with him.”
“Agreed. He’s not answering. I’ll try texting him. You try him too.” As she typed on the screen, the ruby slipped from between her fingers. “Crap.”
“I got it. You text Pop.” Hudson bent to pick up the ring, his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out and frowned.
Tessa slid next to him. “Is it Sam?” She glanced at the name on his screen and made a gagging sound.
Hudson chuckled. “I take it Pop told you what a prick Nathaniel is.”
“You mean pompous prick.”
Hudson laughed harder as he pressed the phone to his ear. “What?”
The laughter in his throat dried up. Cold fear numbed his body with each frantic word Nathaniel shouted. He shoved Pop’s ring in his pocket and clamped the sinker between his fingers hard enough to break it. “Where?”