He was smiling again when his face disappeared in my neck. “I’ll let it go,” he agreed, “since Deke told me you kept yourself out of trouble.”
It was unfortunate he mentioned Deke.
Deke was kind of a new addition to my life, the “kind of” being that I didn’t know much about him, didn’t talk much to him, he rarely talked to me but he was around a lot.
Deke was a mountain of a man. Six foot eight and big. He made Bubba look like a slouch because Deke didn’t have a belly; Deke was solid from head to toe, solid as in solid.
Deke was also Tate’s friend. Deke also met me at the airport even though I’d arranged it with Wendy that she would meet me. When I walked out of the terminal, Deke came straight up to me and I knew he was of my new people just looking at him (the hint was the motorcycle boots and the leather vest with patches on it but the jeans, black t-shirt and multitude of tattoos helped).
His hazel eyes in his big, blond, ponytailed head looked right into mine as I stared up at him, mouth agape, and he asked, “You Tate’s old lady?”
I nodded.
“I’m Deke. Tate and me are tight. I’m also your ride,” he informed me then took my arm and marched me to the luggage carousel. Then, when I went for my bag, he thrust me aside, hefted up my bag, took my arm again and marched me to a dirty truck where he dumped my bag in the back and shoved me in the cab. Then off we went to Carnal.
Deke wasn’t much of a talker and as I was marathon texting everyone in two states informing them of the fact that I was home (as well as texting Tate, ascertaining that he was, indeed “tight” with a mountain of man called Deke) I was busy.
The next night, my first night back at the bar, Deke was there. He was also there the minute Wood walked in, his eyes on me (my eyes were on him too and I was pretty sure they were wide and a little panicked). Deke also planted a hand in Wood’s chest and shoved him straight back out the door.
That was the last I saw of Wood but not the last I saw of Deke. He was a regular when I was on at night and he was a regular when normal day working hours were done for the rest of Carnal. He wasn’t just my ride from the airport, he was my ride home too. This I found out when I left the bar that first night only to discover Deke leaning against his bike just outside the front door. The minute I exited, he came to me, grabbed my arm and marched me to his bike where he ordered simply, “On.”
I got on. I might be able to trade words with Badass Tate but there was no way I was taking on Powerhouse Deke.
In other words, Deke was a regular when Wood wasn’t working and also Deke was my bodyguard.
My hands slid to Tate’s chest and I tried to push back. Tate’s hand in my t-shirt became an arm wrapped tight around my back.
I gave up pushing and stated, “Let’s talk about Deke.”
“Ace –”
“That was unnecessary,” I declared and watched the soft humor leave his face as it got deadly serious.
“All right, babe, I’ll give this a minute. A, you talk to Wood after I talk to Wood and not before. And B, I’m not here, you’re safe and I do what I gotta do to make that happen. Pull favors from friends and keep you outta Wood’s path.”
“It’ll likely be uncomfortable for me but I will eventually need to talk to Wood to explain things.”
“He doesn’t need explanations.”
“Tate –”
“Or, I should say, the only ones he’s gonna get are gonna come from me.”
“Tate!”
“Babe.”
“It’s rude for me to…” I hesitated, uncertain what word to use then I settled on, “be with someone and then the next day be with someone else without explaining to that first someone what happened. I owe him that.”
Tate’s arm tightened around my back and his hand cupping my head brought my face even closer.
“You don’t get this because you don’t know Wood. I know Wood. Trust me, you knew Wood, you’d get it and you’d know you don’t owe him shit. I’ll explain to you about Wood later. I ain’t gonna do it when you’re astride me, you’re on a fuckin’ break and I just got home.”
I stared at him and he held my stare.
Then he sighed before he muttered, “After bein’ gone weeks at least I got your tongue down my throat and your legs wrapped around me before you showed me the edge of that tongue.”
Although there were more than a few things we needed to discuss, he did just get home, we had been separated for weeks and since the beginning with him I’d been mostly shrew and partly stupid. He told me he “just got home” which meant, again, he’d come straight to me.
I decided I should probably stop being a shrew and I should definitely stop being stupid.
“We’ll talk later,” I said softly.
“Yeah,” he said softly back, his hand left my hair and I lifted up a bit but kept my hands flat on his chest. “Gotta get home, clear out the truck. I’ll be back to pick you up when you get off. We’ll have dinner at my place.”
I felt another shiver, this one internal, at the thought of having dinner at his place. I had no idea where he lived but I wanted to see it. I also wanted to have dinner with him. We’d never had dinner just the two of us. That would be nice.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“We’ll swing by the hotel first,” he told me.
“Why?”
His brows drew together. “Get your shit.”
“My shit?”
“Yeah.”
“What shit?”
“Whatever shit you need.”
I stared at him.
“Babe, your shit. You’re spendin’ the night.”
“Oh,” I breathed and the internal shiver went external. “Okay,” I finished.
Tate’s eyes roamed my face then he noted. “Figure you got about five minutes left on your break.”
“Yes?”
He lifted up, his head slanted slightly to the side and his mouth got close to mine.
“What you gonna do with it?” he muttered, his eyes looking into mine, his words a dare.
My hands slid up his chest to curl around both sides of his neck, my head tilted the opposite way to his and, like any good employee, I used my five minutes with my boss wisely.
* * * * *
I was on the back of Tate’s bike, my arms wrapped around him, my chin on his shoulder, the wind whipping through my hair.
It was after my shift, after we’d popped by the hotel to get my “shit”, after I’d waved to Ned and Betty. We were heading into the hills, we were surrounded by pine and aspen and we were going to Tate’s place.
After he left the bar, I had spent the rest of my shift contemplating my actions from the moment Tate arrived.
I wondered, this early in our relationship, if I should be running across the bar in front of our customers (and Bubba and Twyla), throwing myself in his arms and necking with him. That said a lot, maybe more than I wanted it to say. Granted Tate seemed to appreciate it but I wondered if I should be playing it cooler. Running through a bar and launching yourself at your new boyfriend like he’d just returned from war, not like you’d been separated a few weeks, was far from cool.
I also wondered, since Tate brought that out in me, the desire to throw myself at him in front of an audience and the ability to do it without thinking, why, minutes later, I was, as Tate put it, showing him the edge of my tongue. Tate seemed to draw that out of me too.
This was, I decided, because he was not like any other man I’d met.
Brad got his way nearly all the time but he didn’t do it like Tate did it. Brad controlled my emotions. I’d realized of late that Brad had insidiously planted that seed that I was less than him and lucky to have him and, for some fool reason, I nourished that seed. Brad had done what he wanted when he wanted and I fell in line because I was terrified of losing him or not living up to the false gloriousness that I had thought was him.
Tate did anything he wanted too and expected me to put up with it or give int
o it. This was annoying. I was all for Tate being a macho man, badass, bounty hunting biker because all that was immensely attractive but I’d spent more than ten years being in the control of a man. I wasn’t looking for that kind of thing again no matter what form it came in.
That said, as Caroline noted, Brad thought he was all that and wasn’t but Tate was. No man liked a bitchy, nagging, argumentative shrew and, I would guess, definitely not a man like Tate. If I didn’t cool that too, maybe I’d turn him off and lose him.
So I was at a loss, thinking I should be both harder to get and easier to deal with. I needed to sort myself out, I just didn’t know how. What I knew was Tate was who he was and that was unlikely to change and most of it I liked so I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.
I stopped chewing on this in my head when Tate turned into a long drive. This drive ran the length of a long house that was built into a hill, it’s first floor raised and it’s ground floor tucked into the hill, the windows only two or three feet from the ground. It fit cozy in a clearing of trees. It ended in a two car garage and had a deck that ran high the length of its front at the first floor but it jutted out to a kind of balcony on the end.
Tate drove around the side and parked the bike. I hopped off and he swung his leg off, alighting in front of me. He opened the leather bag on the side of his bike where he’d stowed my stuff, tagged my small bag, grabbed my hand and led me to the side door of the garage. He dropped my hand to unlock the door then took it again to lead me through the garage, where his dusty Explorer was parked in the middle of the big space, to the side door of the house.
He pushed open the door and led me into a mudroom that was so big, you could fit a couch and TV in there. There was a window through which I could see a patio out back and the hill had been terraced. There were wildflowers, some perennials but those had been planted haphazard, they obviously weren’t tended and I doubted Tate planted them (and wondered who did). In the mudroom there were two big alcoves with hooks that were full of stuff. Jeans jackets, leather jackets, canvas weatherproof parkas. On the floor I saw that Tate not only owned one pair of black motorcycle boots but around fifty. There were also muddy work boots, a pair of dusty cowboy boots shoved in a corner and there was a mess of running shoes in different states of newness from totally battered and falling apart to brand spanking.
Tate didn’t give me much of a chance to look around before he was pulling me through the room. I saw a doorway that led down some stairs and about three feet beside that we went through another opening. This one led to a hall. As we walked through, to the left I saw a utility room that was the utility room to end all utility rooms. It was awesome. It was better than Brad and my utility room in Horizon Summit which I thought was a danged fine utility room. I might not have liked my house but my utility room was the bomb. Tate’s had a big washer and dryer, side by side. A long, deep counter opposite it. Hooks on the walls. Doors to a big built-in cupboard. A deep bowled utility sink.
Tate tugged me further down the hall and the space opened up into a kitchen and beyond that was even more open space, a dining area feeding to the side into a living room.
He dropped my hand when we entered a big, u-shaped kitchen with a middle island and I stopped but he kept moving into the dining area.
I looked around.
He needed new appliances. His range, fridge and the front of his dishwasher were almond colored and probably worked fine but they were far from new. His cabinets were great, a glossy, lovely, warm, honey-colored wood that I couldn’t place and there were tons of them. The countertops, I noticed, were battered and needed to be replaced. But there was a big, wide, rectangular island in the middle that was covered with well-used butcher block top and it was phenomenal.
I stopped looking around when I heard a soft “mew” and I looked toward Tate to see he was crouched. He straightened and turned to me.
I froze and stared.
Tatum Jackson, ex-pro football player, ex-cop, now bartender/bounty hunter, tall, beautiful and more man than I’d ever experienced in my life was standing on the edge of his kitchen holding a cat.
And it wasn’t just any cat and he wasn’t just holding it. He was cradling it. It was white with big splotches of tiger-striped ginger. Its hair wasn’t long or short but in between and it looked thick and soft. It was not small but not large, kind of petite and, no other word for it, dainty. What struck me most were the cat’s eyes, which were just as ginger as its tiger splotches and downright striking.
Tatum Jackson owned a beautiful, dainty cat. He did not own a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler. He owned a dainty cat.
And he cradled it, the cat’s lower body resting on his forearm, the cat’s tail gliding across his bicep, the cat’s front paws straddling Tate’s wrist and the cat’s head resting in Tate’s big hand. It was purring loudly because Tate’s fingers were giving it scratches and I understood that, I purred in my way too when Tate’s fingers were in my hair.
My eyes went from the cat to Tate as he walked back into the kitchen, still holding the animal.
“You own a cat?” I asked.
“Yep,” he answered and I moved further into the room because he went to the fridge and I had to get out of the way. He opened it and looked inside. “You like BLTs?” he asked.
“Sorry?” I asked back, still processing the fact that Tate owned a cat.
He turned to look at me, the cat contentedly purring in his arm, the fridge door still open.
“Bacon, lettuce and tomato,” he said.
I pulled myself together and answered, “Yes,” then pulled myself together more and amended, “without the L and the T and with ketchup.” I stopped then remembered something and finished, “And the bread has to be toasted.”
Tate grinned at me. “So, you’re sayin’ you like bacon and ketchup sandwiches.”
“Um… yes,” I affirmed.
“Right,” he muttered, bent, dropped the dainty cat, straightened and reached into the fridge. The cat kept purring and started winding its way around Tate’s ankles as Tate closed the fridge door and moved to the counter by the stove.
I dropped my purse on the top, leaned a hip against the island and watched the cat follow Tate, staying close and still winding and rubbing against his ankles. This was obviously a practiced dance because Tate moved naturally and the cat avoided his boots but remained close.
“What’s your cat’s name?” I asked.
“Buster,” Tate answered, opening a drawer and pulling out a knife.
I looked at Buster. Buster was no Buster. He looked like a girl.
“He looks like a girl,” I informed Tate.
“That’s ‘cause she is a girl,” Tate informed me and my eyes went to his back.
“You named a girl cat Buster?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me as he slid the knife through the plastic on the bacon.
“Yeah,” he answered.
I looked back at the cat who was now sitting by Tate’s feet, sweeping her tail along the tiles of the kitchen floor and staring up at me with intelligent curiosity in her ginger eyes. She’d obviously just noticed my existence. Definitely female. Tate was around and showing you attention, all else in the world ceased to exist.
The cat and I stared at each other and I decided she was no Buster. She looked more like a Princess Fancy Pants.
“She doesn’t look like a Buster,” I declared, “more like a Princess Fancy Pants.”
Tate was bent and pulling a skillet out of a cupboard.
His head tipped back and his eyes locked on mine. “You call my cat Princess Fancy Pants, Ace, we got problems.”
Oh dear. Seemed Tate had bonded with his cat even more than it appeared he’d bonded with his cat and it was pretty clear he’d seriously bonded.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Tate straightened with skillet in hand and his mouth moved while he did it. I noticed this and knew it was him fighting a smile. He turned to the stove and put the sk
illet on it. I crouched down and cooed to Buster. Without hesitation, she pranced to my outstretched hand, gave it the barest sniff then rubbed her head against it.
“She’s friendly,” I noted.
“Yeah,” Tate agreed.
“Where’d you get her?” I asked.
Tate was yanking open the bacon packet and dumping its entire contents in the skillet without separating the strips. I bit my lip at witnessing these actions and rubbed Buster who was still rubbing back.
“Someone put a box with Buster’s entire litter at the front door of Bubba’s. Fuck knows why. Krystal brought them in and was gonna take them to the Shelter. I got to the bar, Buster fought her way outta that big box, ran toward me and put her claws in my jeans. I was claimed. Nothin’ I could do,” Tate told the bacon.
He was wrong. There was something he could do. He could have put Buster back in the box. He could have let Krystal take Buster to the shelter. He wasn’t claimed. You didn’t claim a man like Tate. A man like Tate did the claiming.
Something about this story struck me and I really wanted to ignore the silken feeling of the blow. I didn’t get it but I liked it and I didn’t want to like it and I didn’t get why I didn’t want to. It said something about Tate that was unexpected and even astonishing. But it gave me a warm, sweet feeling knowing it. And that warm, sweet feeling terrified me.
To take my mind off this feeling, I scooped up Buster, doing it carefully just in case she only liked Tate cradling her. She relaxed instantly in my arms and I turned her to her back, holding her close to my chest as I gave her scratches and wandered further into Tate’s house.
There were lots of wide windows showing views of the trees surrounding his house. He had a six-seater dining room table which sat by a sliding glass door that led to the deck, the door flanked by windows. The table was oval, u-shaped backs to the chairs and somewhat beat up. I moved to the right into the huge living room. It had a long opening but was delineated from the kitchen by a counter of about four floor cabinets you could see over. More beat up furniture, a couch, some comfortable looking chairs, a TV, coffee table, end tables, all of it looking like it had been there for awhile or been somewhere for awhile.