They were blue. Pale blue with delicate pale green lace. The color combination was striking. I thought that when I bought them. Now, even in the dark, their shades muted, I could still see the colors.
I settled them on my hips and stared at the wall opposite me, my hands lifting, my fingers sliding into the sides of my hair, nails scratching my scalp.
Colors, vibrant colors sifted through my brain. Tack’s sapphire blue eyes. Tabby’s matching ones. The bright, cherry red of the car he was working on. The purple of the flowers in the field that Celie and Nettie played in in The Color Purple. The embroidery at the back of Lanie’s robe.
Vibrant.
Tack had been in this room maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes tops and I’d had two orgasms, I’d made him laugh, I’d been angry, I’d been scared and I’d felt protected. Alive through every minute of it. Vibrantly alive.
I dropped my hands and wrapped my arms around my middle.
Oh God. Could I go back to black and white?
Then his words came back to me, not just the hurtful ones he just spoke, others. He lived in a different world and I had to fit into that world, he told me so himself. And, frankly, his world was more than a little scary. He asked me to trust him but he was who he was. He wasn’t seventeen and becoming a man. He was… I didn’t know how old but he sure as hell was not seventeen.
He was the man he was going to be. There was no more growing, no more learning. He was there.
I hadn’t known him long but I knew enough about him, about men, that I knew he would expect me to shift and change and be who he needed me to be. He’d expect it like all men expected it because women did that shit all the time. But he was who he was and I had to take him as he was, shift and change into his life and I had to make the decision now. Take him as he came and live in color but do it in his world, giving up my own. Or go back to black and white and hope my real dream man would come and color my world again.
I made my heartbreaking decision, dropped my hands from my hair, bent and grabbed my shorts, muttering, “I’ll call a taxi.”
I was pulling up my shorts while hearing movement in the bed. And I was just about to search for my shirt when two arms slid around me from behind, one at my ribs, one at my chest, both pulling my back into Tack’s hard, warm front.
I felt the tickle of Tack’s goatee on the skin of my neck where he murmured, “Baby, you aren’t makin’ the right decision.”
Feeling his arms around me, the tickle of his goatee, I had second thoughts.
But my mouth didn’t.
“I need to go.”
“Don’t fuck up, Tyra,” he warned and I pulled in breath.
Then I quietly told the shadowy wall, “You don’t know this because you didn’t ask but I jumped off a roller coaster, Tack, one that was out-of-control and jumping off that took me to Ride. I don’t need to get off one and jump right back onto another. I have to get off the roller coaster.”
His arms gave me a squeeze and his lips still at my neck moved. “Tell me about your roller coaster, darlin’.”
“Too late,” I whispered. “Too late to ask now, Tack.”
He was silent a moment then he whispered back, “Don’t do this, baby.”
“Let me go.” I was still whispering. “I need to go.”
He didn’t let me go. Not for long, breathtaking moments.
Then he did.
He let me go.
I felt tears clog my throat but I rushed through the dark room to tag my tee.
As I was pulling it over my head, I heard his gravelly voice say, “I’ll get one of the boys to take you home.”
There it was. It was done.
Done.
Oh God.
I yanked the tee down and, with difficulty, swallowed the tears that were threatening to choke me. Then I asked softly, “Can Lanie call me tomorrow?”
Tack’s voice was remote when he replied, “I’ll get her that word.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, watching him moving toward the door.
“One ‘a the boys will be in to get you,” he told me, striding out the door.
“Thank you,” I repeated quietly to the door.
But Tack was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
You Matter
It was afternoon the next day and I was sitting on my deck, Uncle Marsh at my side and he was telling me stories of growing up with my Mom in Ohio. Aunt Bette was sitting at the bar in my kitchen, her fingers flying over the keyboard of her super-slim laptop, taking care of business even though it was Saturday. Mostly, she was giving me and Uncle Marsh alone time. But from my experience, Aunt Bette shut down approximately thirty minutes before she conked out for the night. All other times she was on the go, working, scrap booking, shopping, serial communicating with family and friends and generally making everyone around her tired just by watching her.
She was, not surprisingly, none the worse for wear after being kidnapped. What was surprising was that she and Uncle Marsh were happy to let the kidnapping rest in Hawk Delgado’s hands with no police interference.
“Hawk knows what he’s doing,” Aunt Bette muttered then charged into my kitchen to set up her super-slim laptop.
Apparently, Aunt Bette had been briefed. Also apparently, she didn’t intend to fill me in.
I was happy to let it lie. I had other things on my mind.
When she and Uncle Marsh had shown that morning, I’d curtailed discussion of Tack by telling them straight off that things were over. I didn’t explain but they both knew me enough to take one look at my face and leave it alone. So they did.
As Tack promised, I got a call from Lanie who I found out was with Elliott. She was still freaked so I didn’t push her to share about her experience. I just listened as she told me that Chaos was helping them lay low and they were talking which meant working things out. This didn’t fill me with happy thoughts. Elliott might love my BFF but he also did stupid shit that got her kidnapped by the Russian freaking mob. However, I decided to throw my hissy fit later when my heart didn’t hurt so much and when Lanie wasn’t recovering from the drama to end all dramas.
Mostly, all day, I focused on getting through the day because, as I mentioned, my heart hurt. How this was, I didn’t know. I kept telling myself I barely knew Tack and most of what I knew scared me, some of it confused me and some of it I didn’t like. Even with that, the parts I did like, too much, kept pushing through and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t tamp them down.
I wanted to call him. I wanted to take back my decision. But every logical bone in my body (what there were of them which, I had to admit, were not many) kept holding me back.
His life was a nightmare, his world was frightening and he hurt me. The first night he met me, he kicked me out of his bed without a glance back and took another woman to it the very next night. Then he immediately commenced playing games. I needed to see these red flags for what they were and steer well clear. I knew it.
I knew it.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
I loved my Uncle Marsh and one of the things I loved most about him was his stories.
But sitting beside him on my deck, the kind of time I would normally cherish, I wasn’t listening.
“You got a head full of biker.”
I blinked at my backyard then looked at my Uncle.
“What?” I asked.
His eyes went from my yard to me, “Honey, you got a head full of biker. You know I know it. You’re miles away. And you know I know it’s not about you and your Aunt being kidnapped by the Russian mob.”
These were words I never expected my Uncle to say. Or anyone, for that matter. Then again, I never expected to be kidnapped by the Russian mob.
I pulled in breath through my nose and looked back at my yard.
“It’s over,” I said softly, hoping that would end it.
I should have known better. This was Uncle Marsh. He had something to say, he said it.
So
he said it.
“That might be but the day after you get kidnapped by the Russian mob, my guess, as it’s never happened to me, you’d normally have a head full of getting kidnapped by the Russian mob. Not a head full of biker and a face that says you just got your heart broken,” Uncle Marsh returned.
This was true.
I didn’t reply.
“How long were you with him?” Uncle Marsh asked.
I counted it down.
Then I answered, “Not long.”
“He seemed rooted here, Tyra,” Uncle Marsh noted, my heart squeezed at his words and my eyes went back to him.
“Pardon?”
“Him, his kids, pancakes in your kitchen. None of what I saw yesterday said, ‘not long’.”
Damn.
He was right.
“Maybe so, Uncle Marsh, but –”
He shook his head. “Don’t know the man. Do know he’s not going to win father of the year. That said, doesn’t mean he doesn’t think the world of those kids. He does. One thing about that man is clear. He loves his kids. And you don’t have family pancake mornings with your kids in the house of a woman you’re going to be together with for ‘not long’.”
I hadn’t thought about that and, thinking about it, Uncle Marsh was right about that too.
Oh boy.
“We weren’t actually even together-together,” I shared. “We weren’t actually anything.”
“Maybe you weren’t but he sure as hell was.”
I blinked.
Then I repeated, “Pardon?”
Uncle Marsh leaned into me and said softly, “I’ll be honest with you, honey. I’m not sure about that man. Circumstances weren’t such that he made a good first impression. So, truth be told, you telling me this morning that you two were over, I felt relief. You moping all day…” he trailed off but his hazel eyes held mine. “I don’t know what happened. I do know I’m surprised that the man I saw in this house yesterday morning is no longer with my niece. He was comfortable here. Rooted. Him and his kids. All of them comfortable… with you. Makes matters more surprising is you got kidnapped and that may be part of his world but it isn’t part of yours and my guess, he knows it. So I don’t understand why he’d let you go the night you had that happen to you.”
“Because I asked him to,” I whispered.
Uncle Marsh shook his head. “Man’s any man at all, that kind of shit doesn’t fly.”
“That’s exactly it, Uncle Marsh. He’s that kind of man and that scares me. He didn’t want to let me go. I made him.”
“That kind of shit doesn’t fly,” Uncle Marsh repeated.
“He can’t make me stay with him. He wanted to but I didn’t let him.”
Uncle Marsh leaned further into me. “That kind of shit does… not… fly.”
I stared at my Uncle.
He kept talking.
“Something matters to you, you do not let it go. Ever.”
My heart clenched again.
Uncle Marsh kept talking.
“Man I saw here yesterday morning, the situation we walked into, not good. Way he was with his kids, way he looked at you, I could let it slide. You mattered to him yesterday. No man who’s any man at all has something, especially someone matter to him one morning and that night, she doesn’t. No matter what happened, what was said, who was hurt and how. Your aunt tried to walk away from me, told me to let her go, I wouldn’t. I’d find a way to make her stay. Because she matters and it’s worth whatever I have to do to make her stay. That’s the way it is, Tyra. Simple.”
God, I loved him but he was killing me.
“This isn’t helping, Uncle Marsh,” I whispered because, well, it wasn’t. It was making it worse.
“It isn’t now, honey, and I know that. But it will when it sinks in. I’m telling it like it is. I’m telling you what you should expect. You matter, Tyra, and that’s what you should expect.”
I felt tears sting my eyes and turned my head away.
“I take it I should come back.”
This was Aunt Bette from behind us and I took in another huge breath, turned in my chair and aimed a big, fake, bright smile in her direction.
“No, it’s all good,” I lied then pushed up from my chair. “Take a load off. I’ll go in and see what I can rustle up for dinner.”
Aunt Bette stared at me then she looked at Uncle Marsh.
“Biker road kill,” she remarked.
So Aunt Bette, cutting right to the chase.
“No truer words were spoken,” Uncle Marsh muttered.
“Guys, can we let this go?” I requested. “You leave tomorrow. We’ve had shrieking women attacking my door, mob kidnappings and a breakup of a non-relationship that was more relationship than any relationship I’ve ever had. Not the happy-go-lucky surprise visit to sunny Denver you were expecting, I’m sure. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the time we have. Sound like a plan?”
Uncle Marsh opened his mouth to speak.
Aunt Bette got there before him.
“Marsh.”
His eyes cut to his wife.
“Let it go,” she ordered softly.
Uncle Marsh held his wife’s eyes. Then his came to me.
“Last time you were at our place, you bragged about your cooking. Dazzle me.”
I looked to Aunt Bette. She rolled her eyes. I rolled mine back.
Then I went into the kitchen and rustled up some dinner. I didn’t know if it was dazzling. I just knew there were no leftovers.
* * * * *
Standing outside security at Denver International Airport the next day, Aunt Bette gave me a tight hug.
She also slipped a business card that had the name “Cabe Delgado” on it into my hand when she was done.
“You have any problems, you call Hawk,” she told me.
I nodded.
That was when Uncle Marsh moved in for his hug. It was longer and it was tighter.
Right before he let me go, he whispered in my ear, “Tyra, never forget. You matter.”
Then he walked to the security line.
Aunt Bette looked back and waved.
As was his way, Uncle Marsh did not.
As was my way, I watched until I couldn’t see them anymore. Then I went home. Then I typed out my resignation later. The rest of the day, I waited for Lanie to call.
She didn’t.
Tack didn’t either.
And when I went to bed that night, my heart still hurt.
Chapter Seventeen
Foregone Conclusion
It was my luck the next morning at eight o’clock when I drove into Ride to deliver my resignation letter that stated I’d be giving no notice, Tack was working on the red car. He was the only one there.
Seeing him and watching his head turn my way even as he stayed bent over the opened hood of the car, I should have been used to the pain my heart clenching caused. It happened enough times the last two days. But I wasn’t.
I looked away, parked, jumped out of my car and hustled up the steps to the office. I unlocked it with the key I’d already taken off my chain and hurried in.
Drop the key and the letter on the desk and get the hell out of there.
That was my plan.
This plan was thwarted seeing as I barely made it through the door when Tack came through the door that led to the garage.
Damn.
I ignored him and went straight to the desk. I dropped the key and envelope on it. I also ignored the sound of the lock turning on the door to the garage.
Damn!
I turned and, eyes directed at my feet, I started to hurry to the outer door, escape the only thing on my mind.
I caught movement in my peripheral vision and my head came up.
Tack was at the door to the outside and he was locking that too.
Damn!
I stopped moving.
“Tack,” I whispered. “Don’t.”
His head turned and his burning, blue eyes pinned me to the spot.
Then his body turned.
At this point, I understood my mistake. I should have mailed my letter with the key.
Definitely.
“Please,” I kept whispering, “don’t.”
He held my eyes.
I held his.
This lasted a while, both of us staring at each other three feet away.
Finally, I could take it no longer.
“Please, Tack, move away from the door.”
Tack moved. He just didn’t do it away from the door.
He came at me.
My heart started hammering in my chest and my feet took me back. I bumped into the desk and scooted to the side, still retreating. Then my thigh bumped into the chair and it went flying, such was the hastiness of my retreat.
Tack kept coming at me and my retreat might have been hasty but his advance was far more rapid. My thundering heart skidded to a halt when his arm shot out, hooking me at the waist right before I would have slammed into a file cabinet. He jerked me to the side but kept coming until I was back against the wall. Then his arm around my waist tightened, yanking me against the hard wall of his frame.
My hand went to his chest to try to force him back but he stood firm as his other hand came up, palm at my jaw, fingers curled around my neck and ear.
“Please,” I whispered, bracing as his head descended toward mine, “don’t.”
Just when I thought his lips would hit mine, they veered to the side opposite where his hand was at my jaw. His fingers dug in, his arm around me tightened even further, plastering me against his body and his lips went to my ear.
“You fucked up, Red,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes tight and pushed against his chest, my other hand going to his waist and fisting in his tee, pushing there too.
“Made the wrong decision,” he went on in a whisper.
I opened my eyes.
God, I had to get out of there.
“Please, let me go.”
“You been asleep, baby.”
My body went still at his words.
Tack kept talking.
“Green tea. Yoga. No TV. Placemats for your coffee table. Thursday night takeaway. You got a night for takeaway. Scheduled. A narrow, little world. Fuck me. Crazy. Fuckin’ whacked. I woke you up, opened your eyes to a bigger world and scared you shitless.”