Chapter 14 #2
Damn her heart for skipping a beat every time he called her pretty. “Why is it okay for your contact to hack in the name of obtaining valuable information, but not me?”
“I don’t have a good answer for that other than…” He ran his hand through his hair. “Shit. Pop would smack me in the back of the head for the double standard. Guess I shouldn’t underestimate you.”
“Sam always said you were a smart guy.” She took a sip of the energy drink.
“That looks like Frank. At first, I thought it was him too, but Frank can’t move in and out of a car half as smoothly as that.
He took a fall off a roof when I was sixteen and had to have major back surgery.
Rods and pins hold him together.” She detailed the extent of the surgery.
“Damn. That must have been a nasty fall.”
“Yeah. Last time I saw him, he still had decreased mobility.”
“If the police can confirm what you said, this is strong evidence that Frank didn’t tamper with Pop’s car and that someone is framing him for it. Do you remember the name of the hospital he was in?”
“Jacksonville Memorial in Florida. It should be easy to confirm. I’m sure there’s still a hefty bill in his name. As soon as Frank could walk, he snuck out of the hospital. We drove all night until we got to Miami and moved into the first trailer park we came upon.”
“Did he pack you and your mother up and leave town so he didn’t have to pay his bill?”
“That was one of the reasons.” Hudson didn’t need to know that she’d made up a story about a man looking for Frank with a gun.
Or that her ruse had spurred Frank into skipping out on his bill sooner rather than later when the truthful rumors the boy at the beach spread about her tore through school.
Hudson took the energy drink from her and brought it to his lips. The cleft in his chin winked as he swallowed and handed her the bottle. “Drink.”
She obeyed and pulled in a gulp. Cold blueberry-flavored liquid flowed down her throat, but that wasn’t why she shivered.
“Did skipping town in the middle of the night happen often?” He took the bottle from her and placed it on the desk.
“Frank was always pissing somebody off he stole from or conned. When he got wind that someone was looking for him, we fled.” She cleared her throat, but masking the melancholy in her tone was futile.
“My mom always had a suitcase packed for us with enough clothes for a week along with other essentials. Frank called them our adventure bags. When we went on adventures in the middle of the night, I was allowed to bring the bag and one other item. I always brought—”
She covered her mouth with her hand.
Hudson touched her hip. “What’s wrong?”
A loss she hadn’t thought about until now joined the funeral pyre. Waving off Hudson’s concern, she fought tears. Again. She’d cried so many times in the past day she couldn’t pinpoint reasons. “It’s nothing.”
He caught her wrist in his fingers. “It’s not nothing. Tell me.”
“On my eleventh birthday, my mother took me to the grocery store and told me I could pick out anything in the toy section. Frank was on a so-called business trip, so it was just the two of us, and one of the rare times she had money to spend that wasn’t stolen.
” And the first birthday since she’d learned that she’d helped steal the money they lived on.
“Frank didn’t like my mother working, but when he would disappear for days, sometimes weeks at a time, she’d pick up shifts with a temp agency. She was a nurse.”
“Is that why you became a paramedic? To follow in her footsteps.”
“Partially.” She’d save that story for another time. “Even though I was eleven and probably too old for stuffed animals, I picked out a black fluffy dog because I’d always wanted a pet.” She wiped away another tear. And then another. “And now it’s toast.”
Hudson pressed his thighs between her knees as he wrapped his arms around her. “Shit, Tessa. I’m sorry.”
She let herself bury her head in his shoulder. “I know it’s silly I’m crying over a stuffed animal, but it’s the only thing she’d ever given me that wasn’t tainted by Frank.”
“It’s not silly.” He pulled back and reached into his pocket. “Give me your hand.”
Curiosity stemmed her tears as she held out her palm. She blinked at the sinker he placed in the center.
Hudson touched the smooth metal. “That’s the sinker Pop used on his line the morning I left for bootcamp. I’ve had it in my pocket ever since.”
“That’s…wait. You said you wanted to keep the ring with something that reminded you of Sam.” She closed her palm around the sinker. Warmth spread up her arm. “This is what you were talking about?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, and it’s not silly. And neither is your grief about your stuffed dog. But please don’t tell me you named him Fluffy.”
Her mouth dropped open.
Hudson laughed. “No way. You did name him Fluffy.”
And there he went again, knowing what to say to make her smile. “I’m a math and science girl. Not the creative type. And speaking of Sam’s ring, you should keep it with the sinker. It belongs in your family.”
Something deep and raw, yet beautiful and bittersweet, awakened in Hudson’s face.
“Pop wanted you to have it.” He brushed his thumb along her knuckles, pausing on her finger.
The barely there, deliberate touch tightened her breath. He remained steady and unguarded, as if he could see the parts she kept buried.
Her phone buzzed behind her. She flinched at the sound. Glancing over her shoulder, she read a text from Lia.
Just finished talking to the police. They’re on their way to your office.
Tessa handed the sinker back to Hudson. Pushing away, she slid past him to the tall cabinet in the corner of the room. “The cops will be here in a minute.” She glanced at the broken glass and scattered seashells. “I should get something to clean up this mess.”
Hudson grabbed her wrist and spun her to him. “Forget the glass. Before you let the police in, I need to tell you why I came to your place so early this morning.”
She leaned against the wall, her strung out nerves buzzing with anxiety. “What is it?”
“You’re in Pop’s will.”
Her nerves settled as she placed her hand over her heart and sighed. “I figured Sam might have left me the duplex. He always said I’d have a home there for as long as I wanted.” Not that it mattered now because it was in ruins, but maybe she could eventually rebuild.
“I don’t think it’s the duplex. Malcolm says it’s something sizeable. Enough for somebody to potentially kill for.”
Sizeable? Kill for? Her eyes widened with each word that sank in. “Wait. What?”
Hudson’s shoulders eased as he let out a breath. “Malcolm can’t tell me what Pop left you, but he said I should start calling you an heiress."
“Heiress?” The word sounded foreign as she whispered it. “I’m an heiress?”
“You will be soon, but I’m still calling you a pretty little thief.”
She jutted her chin up. “I’m not a thief.”
“I never said you were in the material sense.” He dipped his chin, his mouth inches from hers. “And once we’re done talking to the cops, you’re coming home with me.”
His warm breath so close to her lips delayed the part of her brain that processed words. “Can…can you repeat that?”
“Home.” He braced his hands on either side of her head. “With me. I believe that you don’t have anything to do with Pop’s suspected murder, but the crash, the abduction, and the explosion all come back directly to you or to Frank.”
“Frank. Right.” She wrapped her hands around his biceps, not sure if she should shove him away or yank him against her.
Once again, she was caught up in Frank’s mess simply because she was his offspring.
Except this time, running wasn’t so easy.
Not when a wall of solid muscle she desperately wanted to prove her innocence to blocked her escape.
“So, you’re taking me home with you to keep a close eye on me? ”
“I need you close to protect you.”
“Is that the only reason?” He’d said he trusted her, yet she still held her breath as she waited for his answer.
“I have issues trusting any woman who knows about my family’s wealth, especially one who stands to gain from it, but fuck, Tessa…”
A knock rattled the door. She ignored it. “Fuck what, Hudson?”
She drew her first full, yet unsteady breath of the day as his mouth descended on hers. Tremors quaked through her body like the ground after the explosion. With a moan that welcomed all the trouble a kiss could cause while cops waited outside her door, she parted her lips and invited him in.
Surrender grated from his throat as he bound her hands in his and trapped them above her head. “Fuck if I know why all I can think about is telling the cops to screw off and getting you naked on your desk.”