Empty Net (43 page)

The guy took it, shaking it softly, and Tate couldn’t help but notice the guy’s hand was softer than his. “Rob Slater, I have been Fallon’s assistant for over seven years, so I feel like I’m Audrey’s older brother.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Tate said with a nod.

“You too. You’re way hotter in person. Audrey did good, very good,” he said with a flourish of his hand. Rob then winked at Tate before throwing Fallon’s door open. “Tate Odder is here to see you, and may I say, our girl did very good!”

When Tate saw Fallon’s face, he didn’t think she agreed. She stood up, looking classy
and polished, in a form-fitting gray suit as her large hands gripped her hips. “Tate, I wasn’t expecting you.” And she didn’t look happy to see him, either.

“Yeah, we need to talk,” Tate said sternly as they both glanced back at Rob.

“Okay, and that’s my cue to leave,” Rob said as he quickly left the room, shutting the door with a slam.

Fallon didn’t sit back down, and she didn’t offer Tate a seat either as he held her gaze. “What do we need to talk about?” she asked, with her glossy red lips pursed.

“I know you have a problem with me, and instead of taking it out on Audrey, why don’t you come to me?”

Fallon narrowed her eyes, biting down on her lip as if she were choosing her words. Finally she asked, “Audrey sent you?”

“No, she doesn’t even know I’m here. This is between you and me, and we need to get this taken care of because you, Lucas, and Aiden are like a family to me. Ever since I said what I said, Lucas has been treating me different, and I guess you have been on Audrey about dumping me.”

Fallon nodded slowly as she lowered herself in her chair. “You’re the first guy to come ready to fight me. Usually all Audrey’s guys stand in the background and don’t care what I have to say.”

Tate nodded. “I’m not like those guys. I love Audrey.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes,” he said, taking a step toward her desk. “Yeah, I messed up trying to talk to my friends about my concerns about my future. But, Fallon, I have no one but my friends and Audrey to talk to. I never meant to hurt her, and you know I am a good guy. It was a big mistake
on my part because those feelings I was feeling didn’t even have just cause. I was confused. I wanted Audrey and I wanted children and I had to think it out and I really didn’t think it out.”

“So you don’t want children,” she said with her eyes narrowed.

“Yes, I want children, but I want Audrey more. She is my everything, Fallon, you know that. I’ve told you that, and I’m not going to let you try to tear us apart.”

“If I don’t feel that you are going to make her happy, I’ll do what I need to do to make sure she is happy,” she said. “I am her sister. I am her blood. She has given her life for me, and I will do the same for her. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but it would be best if you just walk away now.”

Tate put his hand up, confusion on his face. “What game, Fallon? There is no game. I questioned what was right for my future and my priorities once. I just did it in not the best way. I made a mistake in how I handled it. I promise you, I am not going to hurt her. Audrey believes me, why can’t you trust her? Audrey is a smart beautiful woman. You need to trust in her ability to make the right choice for her.”

Fallon let out an empty laugh as her gaze held his. “Really? You want me to believe her when I have watched her go from asshole to asshole?” She yelled as she stood up. “I believed her when she said Derek Rambles was the sure bet, the one she was gonna marry. Look what happened. He got her pregnant, left her to my father, and you know the rest.”

Tate looked away as she went on, counting on her fingers, “Then we have Ken, Jerrod, Mike, Leon, Jordan, and in between all those winners were more winners, but then we come to the biggest one of all, Levi Moss. She lied to me. Told me not to worry about it. She wouldn’t tell me who he was, but that he did horrible things to her. Did she tell you he used to hurt her? That he would call her a fat cow, when my baby sister is not fat! Did she? I detested that man,
wanted to kill him for the things he did to my sister. I hated him so much that I knocked the fuck out of him when I found out that it was Levi doing all those things to her.” Tate shook his head, looking up as anger boiled inside him. He already hated Levi. But let him run into Levi again and his fist would be visiting Levi’s nose. Looking over at Fallon, he saw the tears pooling in her eyes as she held her ground. “No, she didn’t, so before you ask me to trust her judgment, look at her track record, Tate, and then maybe you’ll see that I have just cause for doubting you now.”

“No, you don’t,” Tate shot back. “I have never hurt her. I have done everything to make her happy. I am good to her. I care about her. I would bend over backward for her. I treat her the way Lucas treats you!”

Fallon paused, her lips quivering as she said, “Yes, now you do, and I have no doubt that you love her, but what’s going to happen when in ten years, Audrey can’t give you that baby you want. The one with the big blue eyes and brownish blond hair? Are you going to be honest then, and leave? Or will you cheat maybe?”

“I would never do that, and you know it! I love her, Fallon! I love all of her, the damaged part, the beautiful part, and everything in between. Yes, there is a chance she can’t give me a baby of my own, but what if one day she can?”

“And what if she can’t?”

“Then we’ll have a lot of dogs until we can adopt. I don’t care about anything but her and helping her live her dreams,” Tate said, pounding his chest, his own tears springing to his eyes. He didn’t know if it was his anger or if it was the fear of not connecting with Fallon. He loved her, he thought of her as the older sister he never had. But she was pissing him off, and he felt like he was failing. He thought she was going to be easier to convince, but man, was he wrong. “My heart is hers, Fallon, what else can I do to prove that to you?”

Fallon shook her head, looking away. “Tate, I want to believe you, I do, but I am just so scared for her. She loves you,” she said meeting his gaze again, “so much, more than any of those other guys, and it will crush her if you ever leave her.”

“I’m not going anywhere. She is everything I need, and I don’t need anything else, just her. She is enough.”

“So you’re ready to get married, adopt a kid, and live Happily Ever After? Because that’s what she wants.”

A smiled tugged at his lips at the thought. He didn’t care how young he was, and how much everyone frowned upon his desire to be married young, because he knew what he wanted. He loved Audrey, so much. Everything about her made him smile. She could bring him to his knees with one kiss, and he knew for a fact that he would love her for the rest of his life. When he told her that he felt that she was sent to him, he wasn’t just blowing hot air. It was the truth. He felt like his family in heaven handpicked her for him. Then they sent him to America, to Florida, and then to the Assassins where she was. What were the chances that their lives would already be so entangled with him being her neighbor and also being Lucas’s best friend before he woke up beside her? It was an act of God. He wanted them together. Tate believed that deep down in his heart. He also believed that he was the missing piece to Audrey’s Happily Ever After.

Her Prince Charming with some flaws here and there.

“Call me Prince Charming, Fallon. I’m hers.”

Fallon shook her head. “You’re so young, Tate, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Because I’m passionate about someone, I am too young to know my feelings? How is that fair? Because I know what I want, and found her young, that makes it not real? Because I
feel that it is real. Didn’t you find Lucas at an age younger than me? Yeah, you two went through hell, but look at you guys now: blissfully happy. Don’t Audrey and I deserve that chance no matter our ages?”

Fallon held his gaze for a long time; the tension could have been cut with a knife. When he saw a smile tugging at her lips, he smiled fully at her. He had her, he knew he did. “I’m not going to hurt her. I promise you that.”

She ran her hands through her hair, placing her hand over her stomach as she said, “I’m trusting you, Tate. Don’t fuck me over.”

Tate smiled as he came around the desk, wrapping his arms around her. She hugged him tightly, and he finally felt that things would go back to normal for them. He had missed her, Lucas, and Aiden, and it would be great to be able to go back over there. It also felt great to have her trust. He wouldn’t let her down. He wouldn’t let Audrey down. He cared too much for both of them. Tate had no doubt that he was going to marry Audrey and have a family with her, so he had to have a good relationship with her family or things would always be tense. He wouldn’t wish that on Audrey, it wasn’t fair. He loved her too much, and he would always go to bat for her.

Pulling back, Tate looked deep into Fallon’s eyes as he said, “Wouldn’t think of it.”

Audrey sat at her kitchen counter, looking over different spots for Audrey Jane’s, when Tate finally arrived back home from his mystery errand.

“Awesome. You are ready and look really good, come on, we’ve got to go,” he said, still standing at her front door, letting the cold air in.

“You said you wouldn’t be gone long,” she said, grabbing her coat before rushing toward him. He gave her a quick kiss, taking her hand.

“Sorry about that. Got caught up. Come on, I don’t want to be late,” he said, pulling her out the door. She followed him across the lawn. It would be her first time driving with him, and she was nervous. She had seen his own nervousness firsthand as a passenger, and that did not go well. And one other time he explained his anxiety to her on one of their late night calls when he was away with the team. But holding his hand now, Tate seemed okay. So maybe her nervousness was unnecessary, she thought.

That hope changed when they reached the front of his truck. His hand gripped hers tightly as he walked with her to the passenger side and opened the door for her. She could see his hand shaking as she got into the truck. Shutting the door, he went around to the driver’s side, and she watched as he stood by the door for a moment, shaking his arms out by his sides. She gave him another minute, and when he didn’t make a move to get in the truck, she jumped out and came around to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, looking at her.

She said to him, “Look at the handle of the truck, I read that this is all about breathing, and training yourself to be calm. You got this,” she added, putting her hands on his waist and resting her head against his back, feeling his heart beat out of control. “Now, breathe baby,” she whispered, moving her hand up and down his side.

His heart wasn’t slowing down, but he reached for the handle and opened the door. She wanted to cheer for him, but he was nowhere near done. She continued to massage his side, slowly coaxing him to take each step. Moving her hands around his navel, like the news article said, she slowly rubbed, encouraging him to get into the truck. When he did, he looked down at
her with a grin as he reached over to put the key in the ignition. She watched his hand shake, then took his other hand, stroking it slowly until he finally inserted the key in the ignition. The truck started with the roar of an F-150 engine, and he squeezed her hand.

Glancing up at him, she said, “Did it help?”

Tate nodded, a shy smile on his face. “Kind of, but it mostly just turned me on.”

Audrey laughed. “Well at least it took your mind off of your anxiety,” she said as she shut the door. She ran around to the passenger side and climbed up into her seat, to find her scrumptious boyfriend grinning at her.

“You are lucky it is cold outside and our neighbor is over there raking his leaves or I would be taking advantage of you,” he said.

Audrey giggled as her face warmed. “Drive, Ooooodder.”

Tate took her hand in his, kissing her knuckles. “Fine, Parker,” he groaned.

Audrey grinned as they backed out of the driveway. She was excited about their surprise date. He had been talking about it for weeks, and she was glad it was finally here. She usually hated surprises, but Tate made them kind of fun. As they drove out of Nashville, she tried to keep the conversation going so Tate wouldn’t get anxious, and it seemed to work.

“I don’t think I’ll ever find a spot for Audrey Jane’s,” she pouted.

“Sure you will, love, it just takes time. This isn’t a quick process, baby.”

“I know,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m just so impatient.”

“I know you are, that’s why I love you so,” he said softly as he kissed the back of her hand. “This is off the subject, but I have been thinking of something lately.”

“Okay?” she asked, looking over at his profile. He hadn’t shaved in days, and his face was delectably covered in his coarse blond hair. She loved the feel of it along her skin, and she
would lie for hours running her fingers through it. Reaching out, she cupped his chin, running her thumb along his jaw.

She was rewarded with a smile before he asked, “Did Levi hurt you?”

Her thumb stopped as her brows drew in. “How do you mean?”