“I’m here. I want to know about her background. What do you know about her?”
“What? Whoa? What’s her status? What aren’t you telling me, here?”
I clench my fist at my side as my feet eat up the sidewalk outside of the facility. I need to slow down, know it’s important to tread lightly considering Rafe is my friend but also my boss who might look down on coworkers who sleep together. Especially when my stability is already being closely watched after Stella’s death.
The last thing I need is for him to see that as misplaced grief over Stella, and that I fell for Beaux with misguided feelings.
After a deep breath, I relay what the nurse told me about Beaux’s status. “But when I arrived, her husband was here. She never mentioned having a husband, Rafe. She just referred to a bad situation at home…” My voice trails off, and I let him infer what he will, hoping it’s what I want.
“And your point is what, Tanner?”
“My point is that my gut instinct is zinging here that something’s off, and I wanted to know if you knew she was married.” I’m toeing the edge of mistruth with my friend, hoping he doesn’t see right through me.
He blows out an audible sigh that hangs on the connection while I wait him out to hear the answer. “Man, I’m her employer… I can’t give out that information.”
I harden my jaw in frustration because I knew this was going to be his answer. “Throw me a bone here, Rafe,” I groan into the phone, sick and tired of being railroaded. “How about if I ask this way instead: Does her job application have something written in the spot that says maiden name?”
“Damn it, Tanner.” He sighs, and I can tell he’s conflicted over professional versus personal obligations. Silence stretches for a moment before he continues. “But if you were concerned for her safety, for instance…”
“Yes. I might be,” I tell him without hesitation. I’ll take any out I can to get information to validate my feelings or justify hers if there is any such thing.
“That’s not really a question I can ask in an interview because it implies that I can discriminate if she is or isn’t married, but I did ask her if being away for extended periods of time for work would cause any problems. She said no and didn’t elaborate.”
“What about a wedding ring?” I ask, unable to give the topic up.
“Kind of hard to see when the interview was done over the phone. She was already freelancing. All I had were her bio with her picture, her portfolio, and an urging from the bosses to hire her.”
“You’re not giving me shit to go off… Can’t you look at her file, see what it says?” I hang my head back, my feet stopping as I come to the edge of the grounds lined with huge trees.
“I can’t. It’d flag HR, and they’d want to know why I’m looking at her info. Personal data is kept under lock and key around here since you guys are in the public eye.”
“Guess I shouldn’t expect anything less from you, should I? You used to break rules with me left and right to get what we needed. I guess when you slipped on that suit, you gave up your personality too.”
I end the call without another word and lean back against a short retaining wall behind me, not caring at all that I just hung up on my boss. My finger slides across the screen to those damn photographs again. When I pull up the one of the two of us together, I just stare at it as frustration builds inside me because there is no way in hell that moment was fake, that the happiness in our eyes and the smiles on our lips were not authentic. It takes all I have to tear my eyes from my phone and at the same time not throw it away from me in anger.
Instead, I sit there for a moment with my face up to the sun, enjoying the warmth since the heat here is so different than in the Middle East.
My phone rings again and I’m immediately pissed. I don’t want to speak to anyone, but when I look down and see it’s Rylee, I have to answer it.
“Hey, Bubs.” Shit, I sound like a dejected puppy dog.
“How are you feeling?” she asks with concern in her voice. It’s only been twelve hours or so since we talked last, since I reassured her and my mom and dad that I was completely fine, just a little worse for wear, but I know she’s a worrywart and is going to call me often. And in a sense I’m okay with that because everyone loves to know that they are loved. On the other hand, I’m not home much, and so I’m not used to her being in my business.
“I’m fine. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“How’s Beaux?” My hesitation must clue her in immediately, because before I can respond, she continues. “Tanner, is she okay?”
“Fuck, Ry.” My breath comes out in a whoosh as I try to find the words to tell my sister, the one person I’ve always tried to be a good role model for, that I fell in love with a married woman. What is she going to think of me now? “They think she’ll be okay… It’s gonna take some time but not as bad as I feared… but… my head’s all messed up…” I let my words trail off, anguish as prevalent as the uncertainty in my voice.
“Well, of course it is,” she says, misunderstanding my comment. “You just took a blast —”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Talk to me.” Her simple statement means so much to me right now since I feel so very alone.
“How did I not know she’s married?”
“What?” I can envision from memory the look that’s probably on her face.
“I got here to the hospital, professed my love for her as she’s lying there, and then her husband’s fist met my face.”
“Oh shit,” she murmurs, those two words expressing what I feel perfectly. “You had no clue?” The shock in her voice fires so many emotions within me because of course I don’t want my sister to be pissed at me for something I had no control over.
“No, Ry. None. And a part of me thinks something is hinky here. Like she took this job to escape him.”
“Tanner…” She draws my name out in disbelief.
“I know, but I fell for her, Ry… and not just because she was there. We fought like cats and dogs at the beginning, but I really fell for her. She challenges me and makes me laugh and is a really good person and… damn…” I sigh because even as I’m telling my sister these things, I know she already hates Beaux for hurting me. “She was so closed off about her past, so adamant that it was bad and you know me, you know what a good instinct I have when it comes to people, so I’m just…” I force myself to stop rambling and try to hear myself through Rylee’s unjaded ears.
“Telling the truth is easy. It’s deceiving someone that’s hard work.” Silence fills the line as her words resonate with me. “Trust your gut, but just don’t be blinded by love when it’s founded on mistruths from the start.”
“When did you get so wise?” It’s my attempt to stop the advice I need but really don’t want to hear.
“The same time you got so handsome,” she says, a line we’ve exchanged a hundred times over the years that brings a small slice of normalcy to me right now when nothing seems normal.
“Ha. So that means forever.”
She laughs, but I can tell she’s trying to do me a favor in doing so, to lighten the mood some so that we hang up on a good note. “Tan?”
“Yeah?”
“I believe that you didn’t know,” she says softly, understanding how important that is to me. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Once we hang up, I wander the grounds, unable to sit any longer in a waiting room and unwilling to walk away without some answers. Although I’m not sure how I’m going to get any since I’ve been banned from the third floor. I’ll find a way. Somehow.
Next I buy some coffee from a cart on the grounds but don’t even taste it as I sip it, my mind lost in turbulent thoughts and my chest aching from so much more than the blast. Rylee’s words come back to me occasionally, drag me back to reality when I’d much rather be lost elsewhere. I ignore Rafe’s texts and his apologies that he can’t give me more, and his questions about why I’m
so invested when I hated her from the get-go.
I can’t speak with him right now or he’ll see right through my transparent emotions.
At some point night falls and forces me to realize that my nomadic wandering has pushed me to the point of mental and physical exhaustion, my body still recovering and needing to rest. As I trudge toward the main building, I realize for the first time that my doubt is winning out over hope. The whoosh of the entrance doors greets me as I head on autopilot to the elevators to take back my chair in the second-floor waiting room.
A part of me wants to waltz onto the third floor like I don’t give a fuck who’s there and see her again. The idea finds purchase in my mind as more and more people pile on the elevator around me.
“Floor?” an elderly lady asks me since I’ve been pushed on the opposite side of the car from the controls.
“Three, please,” I respond without hesitation, because sometimes you just have to fight for the girl. I was blindsided before, didn’t tell John to go to hell, and right now I’m primed to do just that, because until I hear from Beaux’s lips that she doesn’t want me, I’m not going anywhere.
I exit the elevator car with several other people and walk with them right past the nurses’ station where the same nurse is still on duty. I keep my head down when I approach Beaux’s room, yet I notice a flurry of activity that makes my heart fall because I immediately fear that she has taken a turn for the worse. Not caring about anything but her, I rush to the doorway, only to be met with the sound of her voice.
“Beaux?” Her name falls from my lips, relief mixed with anger, and I must say it loud enough because I catch a very fleeting glimpse of her before John and two other men are in my face with hands on my arms pushing me out of the doorway. “Beaux!” I struggle against them.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” one of the guys says harshly in my ear as they start to pull me away.
“Not until I hear her say it!” I shout, my muscles burning and head pounding, but my resolve is stronger than ever. We’re causing such a scene that staff are starting to come out of other rooms, and a nurse at the station picks up the phone to dial for more security, but I just can’t let this go. “Not until she tells me herself!” I shout, hoping she’ll hear me and call out to me.
“Fine!” John says, which makes the men cease their forceful advance, but their grip on me remains firm. He walks over to me with a fuck-you smile on his lips and fists a hand in my shirt. I try to jerk back from his grip, but the men have too strong a hold on my arms. “You want to hear it yourself? Go right ahead before you’re escorted from the hospital for good.” I match him glare for glare. “Hey, Beaux, do you want to see your lover?” he says toward her open door. All I can see from my position is her feet beneath the sheet, but his mocking tone and his knowing chuckle hit me like a knife in the back.
“No. I don’t care if I ever see him again.”
If John’s words were a knife in my back, Beaux’s soft but steady voice is equivalent to her twisting the knife over and over in the open wound. And that sliver of hope I was hanging on to – that when she woke up, she’d want me, choose me, and not John – dies a quick and horrid death.
I’m escorted from the hospital grounds by the base police after the military clearance I need to do my job effectively is threatened if I don’t go peacefully. I follow their orders without resisting, my head and heart trying to wrap themselves around the fact that the worst part about Beaux’s lying to me isn’t the lies themselves.
No, it’s the fact that after everything the two of us shared, she didn’t think I was worthy enough to warrant her telling the truth.
Chapter 24
“R
afe.” It’s the only greeting I have for him because frankly I don’t want to speak to anybody right now.
“It’s a miracle. You actually called me back.”
“There’s been shit reception since I got back.” I grunt the lie as I look around the chaos in the hotel room.
“Convenient, don’t you think?” I greet his sarcasm with silence. “So you got my messages, I take it?”
“No.” I sigh as I run a hand through my hair, not wanting to get into it with him about how many times he’s called. And luckily he’s filled my voice mail with unlistened-to messages, so at least I know there will be no more.
“No? What’s going on with you, Tanner? Pauly says —”
“We’ve got a problem here.” I cut him off as I look around the destruction of Beaux’s room. Dresser drawers tossed through, cords left plugged into outlets but unattached to the cameras and laptops they were charging, her things upended all over the place in the careless robbery.
“You’re right, we have a lot of problems… especially if you don’t get back in the saddle.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Rafe.” I wave a hand at the chaos in the empty room around me; tears of frustration that I don’t even understand are forming, burning the back of my eyes. “Someone broke into her room.”
“What in the hell are you talking about? Beaux’s room?”
“Yeah, Beaux’s room,” I answer, irritated that he has to even ask. “Who else did you think I was talking about?”
“Wait…” He exhales slowly in obvious frustration. “Why are you in her room?”
“Because —”
“No. Don’t answer that!” he says, cutting me off. “For someone who told me that nothing was going on between the two of you, you can’t seem to let anything about her go.”
“Someone broke into her room and stole all of her shit,” I say, completely ignoring his comment, not having the wherewithal to go there right now. It’s been almost seven days since I left her in the hospital in Germany. Seven days where I sat in my damn hotel room in an attempt to avoid every memory of her and move the fuck on because I’m a guy and that’s what guys do. That’s what I do.
But I can’t.
Shit, when I returned after Stella, sure there were ghosts I had to face, but this time was different. This time when I walked through the lobby and up the stairwell, I wasn’t only assaulted with the recent memories of my time here with Beaux, but I was also overwhelmed with questioning whether every memory was in fact real or fueled by deception.
Her panties that were tucked between the sheets and the bedspread, the game of Scrabble sitting half-completed on my table waiting for her to finish it with me, the bottle of her shampoo in my shower. It was like she was everywhere, and that simple notion made it so much worse.
So I threw every reminder of her out. All of them went into the trash can with an amazing flare of melodramatics that did absolutely nothing to make me feel better. My initial theory was that I needed to wipe her away, act like she’d never existed.
But memories are a bitch sometimes. They haunt you in the middle of the night when nightmares jar you awake with her name on your lips because you didn’t get there fast enough. They sit in a trash can you refuse to empty because if you do, that means she wasn’t real and therefore your feelings weren’t either.
And just when I thought I was getting a handle on it all, on the deception and the heartache because yes, call me a sap, but there’s no other word for that burning pain in my chest that feels like it’s eating me apart, I got the call from the hotel staff about her room. The one place that I refused to venture because if I did go in there and snoop around, I just might find something that would mess me up further: a love note to her husband or a journal entry about how much she loves me.
Not worth the goddamn risk when I’m trying to get her the fuck out of my head. And of course the minute I walked into her room, where her perfume was still haunting the stale air and her bed was unmade from when I’d propped the pillows under her hips as we’d had sex, was like a cruel assault on my senses from every possible angle.
The funny thing was, I thought I didn’t want confirmation that she was madly in love with her husband, but now seeing all of her equipment gone – laptops, cameras, len
ses – it’s almost as if I need to know. To the hotel staffer who supposedly stole the items, the equipment had a monetary value, something they could sell. To me it was the intangibility of her absence, when something – possible e-mails or photos from back home – could exist, something that could answer my questions.
“Tanner? Tanner?” Rafe’s words break through the disbelief that’s deafening me and draw me back to the present.
“Yeah?”
“We’ll deal with the stuff in her room in a minute, okay? For right now, though, I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen. Capisce?”
And here comes the lecture. Probably similar to the one Pauly gave me last night. I lie back on the bed and the damn mattress springs squeak in a bittersweet sound that makes me want to jump off the bed and at the same time shift my body so that I can hear it again. One more thing to solidify in my mind that what we had was real.
And since we didn’t tell anyone, it’s not like I can admit to Rafe his assumption is true. Everyone here thinks I’m moping around because I’m upset that I couldn’t protect her from the IED and that the déjà vu of not being able to get to Stella in time has fucked with my head even more than they thought.
Too bad my head is fine. It’s my heart that hurts like a son of a bitch.
“I can’t wait to hear your words of infinite wisdom,” I say, not really caring that I’m pushing the boundaries with my boss. “Lay it on me, Rafe.”
“We’re on a strict don’t ask, don’t tell policy right now. I’m not going to ask and you’re not going to confirm what I’m asking without asking because it’s none of my business and one hundred percent my business all at the same time. You guys built a bond as partners, she got hurt, so now the bond is stronger. So strong in fact that you caused a serious scene at Landstuhl, risking your security clearance. There’s only one reason in my mind why you’d react so strongly, call me up and ask me questions about Beaux’s marital status, and then get pissed when I don’t give you answers… but that’s all supposition from the outside looking in. That and the fact that I’ve never seen you act like this before, even after…” His words trail off, the implication of after Stella died left hanging on the line like a goddamn white elephant, and I bite back every smart-assed comment on my tongue because it’s just not worth it.