Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (12 page)

“He isn’t a bartender, sweetie, he’s a bounty hunter.”

“What?” I breathed.

“Good one ‘a those too, I hear. When Bubba isn’t playin’ hooky and Krystal’s got a full staff, Tate gets called all over the country to find fugitives from the law.”

“Really?” I was still only talking in breaths.

“Yeah, Laurie. Tatum Jackson’s not the kind of man to spend his life behind a bar.”

My eyes moved to the door.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Drink your coffee,” Betty urged and I looked back at her and just sat there so she prompted, “Coffee, sweetie.”

“Right,” I whispered and I drank my coffee.

* * * * *

Five minutes later there was a knock on the door.

Betty ran to get it because I was sitting cross-legged on the bed taking a sip of coffee.

Tate nodded at Betty when he walked in but he came right to me, stopped, tossed a phone charger and a shiny box on the bed and looked down at me.

“Night swims are done, Ace,” he declared in a hard voice.

I stared up at him and whispered a shocked, “Sorry?”

He bent at the waist, put a fist in the bed on either side of my hips, got in my face and I was too stunned to move.

“No more swimmin’ unless its daylight and Ned or Betty are around,” he ordered.

“But, how do you –?”

“You get in your room, you put the chain on and you stay in it, got me?”

“But –”

“You don’t open the door unless you know for a fact who it is and that they’re alone,” Tate went on.

“I –”

“I programmed my numbers into your phone. You need to go somewhere and it’s night, you call me, I’ll come down and you’re on the back of my bike.”

I swallowed but the tears still filled my eyes.

“She’s bad,” I whispered.

“She’ll be lucky to survive,” he whispered back.

“Tate,” I kept whispering, calling him by his name for the first time ever.

I watched with some fascination as his eyes closed and something weird rushed into his features. It was weird because it appeared both warm and painful.

He opened them and said quietly, “I cut her loose last night.”

My hand moved to wrap my fingers around his forearm. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I cut her loose,” he repeated.

“Tate, don’t,” I whispered.

“I wasn’t nice about it,” he went on.

“Don’t –”

“Last thing she heard from my mouth was me callin’ her a bitch.”

“Tate –”

“She was on shift –”

My fingers squeezed and I leaned closer, “Honey,
don’t
.”

He was silent and we stared into each other’s eyes for awhile.

Then he ordered, “No more nighttime swimmin’, babe.”

“Okay,” I replied softly.

He pushed away and walked to the door, saying to Betty, “She may need some aloe vera.”

“Right, Tate,” Betty replied to no one because he was out the door.

Betty turned to me and grinned in a way that, if I wasn’t strung out on a variety of emotions, I would have thought, especially considering the circumstances, was bizarrely, happily hopeful.

But all I could say or think was, “How did he know about me swimming?”

“Why he was a good cop, why he’s a good bounty hunter, Tate Jackson knows all,” Betty answered.

I didn’t think that was good news, not for me.

I just hoped it was equally bad news for the man who hurt Tonia.

Chapter Five

Exhausted You

The next day, it was just passed two in the afternoon and it was another slow day at Bubba’s when he came in.

I was on and Dalton was behind the bar.

My body ached from boot camp, all over, and I spent some time that morning trying to figure out if it was my leg muscles, arm muscles, ab muscles or butt muscles that hurt the most but I couldn’t decide since they all hurt equally bad.

When Jim-Billy came in, Dalton and Jim-Billy spent time discussing Tonia. Dalton looked slightly strung out, like he had no sleep, looking this way probably because he was freaked about Tonia. They talked about Tonia until they saw it was distressing me, Jim-Billy gave Dalton a look and they’d both shut up about it.

I ran out to get Dalton, Jim-Billy and myself sandwiches from the deli, popping by La-La Land to buy us all brownies with peanut butter morsels in them.

“Peanut butter’s the theme this week, babeeee,” Shambles had shouted upon my entry that morning to get my coffee and breakfast so I had to go back for treats for the boys if peanut butter was the theme. I loved peanut butter.

I was spending the day finishing up the stock take I hadn’t quite finished two days before, running back and forth to the front to make sure Dalton was good. I had just finished my task and was mentally designing the spreadsheet I was going to create on my laptop that night and present to Krystal. I was walking up the hall when I saw the front door open and Tate walked in.

I took one look at his face and tripped over my feet.

“Hey Tate, got news?” I heard Dalton ask almost the instant Tate arrived.

“Ace,” Tate called, his eyes on me, not answering Dalton’s question. “Turn around. Office,” he ordered.

I didn’t protest. I nodded, turned, hurried down the hall and waited for him outside the office door. When he arrived, he unlocked it with his keys and pushed it open, holding it so I could precede him. I flipped on the light switch as I entered, took several steps in and turned. Tate closed the door and put his back to it.

I opened my mouth to speak.

“She died this mornin’,” Tate announced.

I closed my eyes and mouth then opened my eyes and started to him.

“Don’t,” he gritted and I jerked to a halt. “Don’t come near me, babe.”

“Captain –”

He cut me off. “Called me my name yesterday, Ace.”

I swallowed then mumbled, “Um… Tate –”

“Talked to Betty and Ned,” he interrupted again. “They’re movin’ you to a room closer to their place. Don’t want you on the end. Too far away.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“You walk to work today?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I’ll be here at seven, take you home,” he told me.

“I’ll ask Jim-Billy –”

“I’ll be here, Lauren.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

He stopped speaking and we stared at each other.

Finally, I got brave enough to say, “You aren’t responsible, Tate.”

He didn’t answer.

I took a step toward him and stopped when his hard face got harder.

“You aren’t,” I whispered.

“Why do you swim at night?” he asked and my head tilted to the side at his change in topic.

“Why do I swim at night?”

“Yeah.”

“I have insomnia,” I answered. “Always have, even when I was a kid.”

“You can’t sleep?”

I shook my head. “Sometimes I can’t drop off. Sometimes I wake up, two, three times a night. Sometimes when I wake up, I can’t get back to sleep.”

“So you swim,” he stated.

“Well, not normally, though at home I had a pool, I just never used it for some reason. But here…” I didn’t finish because I didn’t know why I rarely ever used Brad and my pool or why I so often used Ned and Betty’s.

“Your man, he didn’t help you sleep?” Tate asked and I drew in breath.

This wasn’t any of his business, none at all.

Still, I answered, “I’m not sure he could do much about it. It kind of…” I paused then finished, “annoyed him so in the end if I knew I was going to have a rough night, I’d move to the guest bedroom.”

“He let you do that?”

“Let?” I was confused. “He asked me to.”

“He asked you to leave the bed he shared with you,” Tate stated like Brad asking me to move to another bed so he could get a good night’s sleep was like asking me to give up our life, pack a few belongings in a big bandana, tie it to a stick and become hobos.

“Why are we talking about this?” I asked quietly.

“You sleep after you swam?” Tate asked back, not quietly, still shooting questions at me like this was an interrogation.

“Sorry?”

“Those nights you swam, when you got in, did you nod off?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wake up again?”

“No.”

“Exhausted yourself,” he surmised.

“Maybe, listen –”

“So, maybe, if he exhausted you, you wouldn’t have had trouble sleeping.”

“Exhausted me?”

“Yeah, Ace, fucked you so hard you couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but sleep. Exhausted you.”

I couldn’t move at that moment, couldn’t do anything but stare.

“You were in my bed, couldn’t sleep, that’s what I’d do,” he told me.

“Tate,” I breathed.

“Wanna come to me now?” he asked like it was a dare.

“I…” I swallowed, “I don’t think so.”

“That’s probably a good call.”

“You’re angry,” I said softly, deciding that was it. That was why he was acting in this alarming way, saying these insane things. He told me he said a lot of stuff he didn’t mean when he was angry, that had to be it.

“Yeah, babe, I’m angry. I was angry when I fired her ass and said shit I shouldn’t say. She left, got nabbed by a goddamned psycho who tied her up and cut her up, inside and out. She was alive while he was doin’ it, all the time he was doin’ it. He cut all her hair off at the scalp, he even cut
into
her scalp and it didn’t bleed all that much because she didn’t have all that much blood left to give. Then he left her, naked, exposed to the elements and covered in blood, to be found by an old lady walkin’ her fuckin’ dog. So now I’m angry about that.”

I hated what he just told me, hated knowing it, hated the images it invoked, hated that it happened to Tonia and her beautiful body and her gorgeous hair. I hated everything about it.

But I knew he had to let it go. I didn’t know why he trusted me to let it go with but he did so I also knew I had to take it.

“You aren’t responsible,” I repeated.

“I kicked her ass out and she was as good as dead not an hour later.”

“Tate, you aren’t responsible. It wasn’t Tonia, it would be someone else.”

“But it was Tonia.”

We stared at each other awhile longer.

Then I whispered, “Can I come to you now?”

“You ready for that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You gotta cross the room, Ace, I ain’t movin’.”

I didn’t think. I just crossed the room.

When I made it to him, I fitted myself to his long body, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my cheek against his chest. When I was done, his arms came around me so tight, he squeezed the breath out of me.

I felt him rest his cheek against the top of my head.

“Now, how’d I know you’d do that?” he asked a question he didn’t expect an answer to which was good because he might have known but, until I did it, I didn’t know.

“You aren’t responsible, honey,” I whispered to his chest.

“Keep sayin’ it, baby, maybe it’ll sink in.”

“You aren’t responsible.”

He gave me a squeeze.

“Betty told me what you do,” I said quietly.

Tate didn’t reply.

“Are you gonna find him?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m gonna find him, though they think they want me to but they sure as fuck don’t.”

I tipped my head back to look at him and his head went up when I did.

“Why not?”

“I find him, Ace, I’m gonna rip his dick off and shove it down his throat.”

I couldn’t stop my face from scrunching together and my mouth muttering, “Gross.”

He smiled at me, my face unscrunched and I stared at his mouth.

He released me with one of his arms so his hand could come up to my cup jaw.

“Laurie, I’ll find him,” he promised.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“So you don’t worry,” he said.

I nodded and my nod didn’t disengage his hand. “Okay.”

“You believe me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered and I did.

“So you’ll have sweet dreams?”

Oh.

My.

God.

My body melted into his of its own accord.

“Tate,” was all I could say.

I watched and held my breath as his face dipped close to mine, he used his hand at my jaw to tip mine further up toward his and I closed my eyes at the last second, thinking, even hoping he was going to kiss me but I felt the side of his nose brush the side of mine then I felt his lips against my forehead.

“Seven o’clock, babe, on my bike,” he muttered there then kissed me, let me go, set me away, turned and disappeared out the door.

I stared at the empty hall for very long moments.

Then I stared at it for more.

Then I asked the empty hall, “What just happened?”

There was no reply.

* * * * *

At a quarter to four, the door opened, Krystal walked in and I stared.

Her hair was no longer platinum blonde but ebony. The change was startling and it looked good on her.

When I could unglue my eyes from The New Krystal, I saw there was a man at her heels and then I stared at him.

He was huge, as in mammoth. He had to be nearly seven foot tall; he had light brown hair and a full, thick beard. His shoulders were broad, his legs like tree trunks, his arms like stout branches and he had a big belly that worked on him because it, too, looked solid and it fit in with the rest of his massive physique. He was wearing a loose-fitting white t-shirt, faded jeans and Carnal’s requisite motorcycle boots.

His eyes hit me and got big then he boomed, “Right on!” and came right at me.

I didn’t have time for an evasive maneuver before his fingers curled around my shoulder, giving it a rough jerk and my body collided with his. His arms wrapped around me and he swung me side to side.

“Lauren, Super Waitress!” he shouted over my head and I tipped it back to look at him when he stopped rocking me.

“Um… hi,” I said.

He looked down at me and introduced himself, “Bubba.”

“I guessed that,” I told him and he smiled and his smile was as huge and overwhelming as everything else about him.

“Krys told me about you. Told me you were the shit,” he informed me and my eyes slid to Krystal who was standing by Jim-Billy at his end of the bar and she was watching us with an expressionless face (outside of looking mildly annoyed).