Roustabout (The Traveling #3) (21 page)

“Shitty with a cherry on top.”

“You look awful,” I said, bitchiness and honesty combined in one short sentence.

He grimaced. “Yeah, I know. You look great though.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m serious, you look amazing. But then you always do.” His eyes dropped to the lapels of my jacket. “Classy.”

We lapsed into silence as Tucker studied the faint scratches on his helmet that he’d propped on his knee, and I drank my coffee.

The silence became unbearable, but talkative, laughing, joking Tucker remained mute, and I wondered why he’d bothered approaching me in the first place.

“Are you getting your motorcycle shipped back?” I asked at last.

Tucker sighed and looked up.

“Nope. Sold it.”

I gaped at him. “You sold it? Just because you can’t drive it for a few weeks?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. I needed the money, so . . .”

I put two and two together.

“Backdated child support?” I said briskly.

His mouth twitched and I saw a spark of anger behind his eyes, and I regretted my bitchy remark. But this man had the power to hurt me even worse. He’d warned me he didn’t do relationships so it would be my own fault. Maybe if I made him angry enough, he’d just walk away. Because even now, I didn’t know if I could.

“Anyway, didn’t my father pay up?” I said bitterly. “Surely you’ll get something for staying away from me?”

“I never took any money from him,” Tucker snapped. “He never offered, but even if he had, I wouldn’t have taken it.”

His voice burned with sincerity and his eyes begged me to believe him. And I did. Dad had looked surprised when I’d mentioned a pay-off.

“You could have taken it for your son,” I said quietly.

Tucker shook his head.

“No. I’ll figure something else out about that. I’ll be making good money again—soon as my shoulder is fixed.”

“So you’re leaving them behind again,” I said, my voice flat with contempt.

He froze, his eyes glaring at me, then he slumped in his seat.

“Not exactly. They’re leaving anyway. Scotty has a chance at a basketball scholarship to some fancy school in Richmond. Renee is taking him there. When they’re settled, I guess I’ll go visit. Try and . . . I don’t know . . . be a father or something. I have no fucking idea how, but I want to be part of his life. I’ve just got a few things to figure out first.”

“So, you and . . . ?”

“Renee. She was my first girlfriend. We’d started . . . dating . . . when we were 13.”

“And you left home when you were 17 because of her?”

“Yes!” he snapped, loud enough to make people stare at us. “Yes,” he said again, in a slightly more reasonable tone. “But I didn’t know she was pregnant, I swear.”

He looked straight at me.

“She told me about Scotty two minutes before the funeral. I sat there the whole time feeling like I’d woken up in a nightmare. I was so fucking shocked. And then . . . what she said to you . . .”

“So, you really didn’t know about Scotty?”

He shook his head vehemently.

“No.”

“Then why did you leave all of those years ago?”

His lips twisted and he looked down.

“She was . . . seeing someone else.”

“She was cheating on you?”

“I caught her with . . . another guy.”

“Your brother Jackson?”

I couldn’t hide the horrified tone in my voice.

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “Later, obviously,” and he laughed without any drop of humor.

“Then who? Who was she cheating with?”

“I don’t know if you could call it cheating exactly . . .”

Tucker

Grow up, Tucker.

The memories play like a horror movie behind my eyes.

The day Harley Law crashed his bike, the day my life changed . . .

I rode home to get my tools to fix the dents in Harley’s engine casing. I should have gone to the shed, but something drew me inside the house.

I remember walking into the living room.

I remember the breath catching in my throat, my lungs freezing.

I remember the blood draining from my face.

I remember seeing my step-daddy’s hairy white ass pumping away between a pair of creamy thighs.

She looked up at me, her eyes impassive as her tits jiggled with every thrust. She watched me watching them.

She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t do anything.

He groaned as he came and then pulled out roughly. Renee winced and closed her legs, but not before I saw his cum spilling out of her. Randolph rolled over and grinned when he saw me.

“Nice piece of pussy you got there, boy. Not as tight as it was, mind you.”

Ice cold, shocked and humiliated, I stared at my stepfather, and I didn’t know if I wanted to vomit or hit that motherfucker. I tore my eyes away from his grinning face and turned to look at Renee, waiting for her to say something, tell me he made her, something.

Randolph narrowed his eyes.

“I can tell what you’re thinking, boy, but me and Renee got an arrangement.” Then he jabbed her in the stomach. “Don’t we?”

She lifted one shoulder in a callous shrug, then sat up to pull on her clothes. The crotch of her panties stained darker as his jizz leaked out. If she noticed, she didn’t care.

“Same time next week, sweet thing,” he said, sticking a couple of bills into her bra and smirking while his eyes stripped her bare again.

She brushed past me on her way out the door, and I followed, dazed.

When the front door slammed behind us, I grabbed her arm.

“Why?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

She pulled her arm free and scowled at me.

“You weren’t supposed to be here.”

“Answer me!”

“I’m saving up for college,” she said defiantly. “In a couple of years I’ll have enough to . . .”

“A couple of
years?
” I roared. “You going to keep whoring yourself with him?”

Her chin tilted up. “It’s nothing and he pays real good.”

Nothing?

I knew I sounded pathetic when I asked, “What about me?”

What I really wanted to ask was, did it mean nothing when she did it with me, but I was too weak to ask—or to hear the answer.

She shook her head. “Nothing has to change.”

For the first time I could remember, I felt tears prick my eyes. “You think I could . . . when he . . . ?”

She huffed impatiently.

“Grow up, Tucker.”

Then she walked down the road and out of my life . . .

Tera covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes crinkled with horror and disgust.

“She was . . . prostituting herself with your stepfather?”

And probably both my stepbrothers, too
. Renee hadn’t said and I hadn’t asked—but it explained a few things.

“Yep, that’s about the size of it.”

“Oh my God,” she said sadly.

I looked up, seeing nothing but pity in her face.

“I’m sorry you got hurt too, Tucker. I can’t imagine how . . . what drove her to make those choices. She must have wanted to get out so desperately. Why didn’t she apply for scholarships, a student loan? Anything but
that.
”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know. She never said anything to me. I didn’t know. If I had . . .”

Tera reached out and took my free hand in hers.

I’d made my peace with the past, and now my son needed money from the Duke more than I did. I could always earn a living—assuming my shoulder wasn’t too fucked up.

I looked down at Tera’s hand, the skin paler than mine, although not by much, but way, way smoother. There were no scars or scabs to spoil it.

I reveled in the feeling of her soft fingers stroking over the back of my healing knuckles.

“Now she’s got her way out,” I said quietly.

Tera’s hand stilled, and I wished she’d go on touching me.

“What do you mean?”

I glanced at my helmet, abandoned on my backpack.

“Oh,” she said softly, leaning back. “Your bike. You gave her your Ducati.”

I winced at the reminder. “Yeah, well, I sold it and gave her the money. Most of it, anyway. She’s taken Scotty and left. Dropped me off at the airport an hour ago.” I looked up at Tera and gave a thin smile. “She said that if I saw you, I should tell you that she was sorry.” Then my expression turned serious. “And me. I’m sorry too, TC. So damn sorry.”

I could see tears gathering in her eyes, and hell, if I didn’t feel like crying myself.

“You’re forgiven,” she whispered.

Tera

My emotions were in complete meltdown. Tucker’s grim story appalled me.

I read the newspapers, I knew what happened when poverty and hopelessness combined, but it had never affected me personally. Until now.

Tucker sat there and told me every part of his life story, holding nothing back. The beatings, the near starvation, eating dog food to silence the hunger pangs, stealing to survive.

In some ways it was banal and pathetic, the mundane drudgery of everyday living, but the raw honesty in his voice cut me deeply. I kept asking myself,
how could this happen?
We had a welfare system, a society that was largely well-meaning.
How did whole families, whole towns slip through the cracks like this?

I had no answer, nothing easy to offer, but I looked at this bloodied, bruised man in front of me and wondered how he survived to smile, to laugh at the world? Yes, I knew that was his shield, but it seemed as if he’d simply chosen to be happy, in whatever way he could.

And it also explained the string of one night stands: not getting serious meant not being hurt again. An easy equation.

And yet . . .

And yet the moment he’d heard about his son, he’d done the honorable thing.

My flight was called and Tucker stood up at the same time.

“You don’t have to see me to the plane,” I smiled.

He raised his eyebrows, “Uh, that’s my flight.”

“You’re going to San Francisco?”

“Yeah, then I’ll get the bus to Arcata.”

“Oh! You’re staying at the cabin?”

He nodded. “I talked to Kes and he says I can stay there till my shoulder’s fixed.”

I picked up my carry-on bag and Tucker frowned. “I’d take that for you, but . . .”

I smiled. “I’m not a damsel who needs rescuing, Tucker. In fact . . .” I snagged his helmet from the table, “ . . . let me carry that for you.”

It was so cute seeing him protest, but I winked at him and walked to the gate where boarding was about to start.

“Where are you sitting?” I asked.

“Um, 37C,” he said, studying his boarding pass.

“Not for much longer.”

Then I turned to the two air stewards.

“Hi, I wonder if you can help my friend. I’ve just found out that he’s on the same flight as me, and as you can see, he’s badly injured. I’d be able to take care of him so much more easily if he were next to me. Do you think you could upgrade him? Oh, I’m a Gold Card Club flyer, by the way.”

The stewards exchanged a look, then set their approving eyes on Tucker who was grinning from ear to ear.

“It surely would be a kindness, ma’am,” he said to the woman, using a more pronounced version of his usual honey and molasses accent.

I withheld an eye-roll as he seemed to be having the desired effect without any further help from me.

“I’ll see what we can do, ma’am, sir,” said the man, glancing at Tucker from under his lashes.

Ten minutes later, we were both seated in First Class.

“What would you have done if they’d said no?” Tucker asked, leaning back in the comfortable leather seat.

I shrugged. “I have a ton of air miles that I would have used instead. But I knew they’d take one look at you, all banged up and pathetic, and feel sorry for you.”
Or the fact that you’re seriously hot.

And a father. He’s a father to another woman’s child!

“I could get used to this,” he smiled. “But not if I have to use my face as a punch bag.”

“Hmm,” I muttered, my mood darkening.

“Hey, I deserved it,” he said quietly.

“What? How on earth did you
deserve
it?”

My voice was incredulous, but Tucker just gave me a rueful smile.

“Your dad told me to stay away from you. I didn’t. Hell, if I had a daughter hanging with a guy like me, I’d want to beat the shit out of him, too.”

“Wait, what? When did he tell you to stay away from me?”

Tucker grimaced and looked down.

“The first night in town, before we were supposed to meet for dinner. This guy was waiting for me. He said it was my first and last warning. I guess your dad was serious—the guy plays hardball.”

All sorts of conflicting emotions were at war inside me: fury at my father, irritation that Tucker hadn’t said anything before, surprise that he’d stood up to the Senator, annoyance that he thought he deserved to be hospitalized, and a growing sense of joy that he’d wanted me enough to fight for me.

“So . . . he really never tried to pay you to stay away from me?”

“No.”

“But you let me think that about you?” His gaze dropped. “Why?”

Tucker sighed.

“I knew you were better off without me. I didn’t want you to hate your dad because he was taking care of you.”