Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (28 page)

“What?” Mack asked.

“TV, turn it up,” Tate reiterated and he was pulling us both to our feet.

When I gained my feet, my head tipped back and I saw his eyes were glued to the television screen so my head turned and my eyes went there as well.

There was a male newsreader on the TV and I could barely hear him talking but I could see the words “May December Murderer” in a graphic behind him.

“Oh my God,” I breathed and Mack turned the TV volume up.

“…victim yesterday,” the newsreader said. “The police of Chantelle, Colorado think this latest murder is the victim of what is known in police circles as the ‘May December Murderer’.”

“Chantelle,” I whispered.

“Our fuckin’ backyard,” Tate growled and I felt that dark energy radiating from him but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the TV.

The newsreader kept talking. “However, this incident is outside the perpetrator’s usual schedule and police and FBI are concerned these murders, now eight in total with the same modus operandi, are escalating.” The newsreader turned to another camera. “We’ll be back with more…”

I stopped listening because Tate’s body moved and I turned to him to see he was digging his cell out of his back pocket.

“Tate,” I whispered.

“A minute, Ace,” he muttered.

“What?” Carrie asked as she, Mom and Mack got closer.

I turned to them uncertain what to say. They wouldn’t exactly want me flying back home when a serial killer was on the loose.

Tate moved away and he had his cell to his ear.

“What?” Carrie asked again as my family made it to me.

“That’s um…” I started, bit my lip then finished, “the murderer Tate was hunting the last month.”

“Oh my,” Mom breathed, Mack looked over his shoulder at the TV but Carrie’s eyes stayed locked on me.

“Tonia?” she asked and I nodded. “Holy cow,” she finished on a breathy whisper.

I licked my lips.

Tate returned, got in my space and his hand came to my neck where it met my shoulder. His face was serious but his eyes were conflicted.

“Babe –” he began.

I interrupted him. “You have to go.”

He used his hand at my neck to pull me closer and I put mine to his waist.

“Ace –” he said softly.

I leaned closer. “It’s okay, Tate.”

“Your Dad –”

“We’re okay.”

“I wouldn’t –”

I pressed against him, my hands sliding up so my fingers could curl around his shoulders.

“Honey, it’s okay,” I said quietly. “Go.”

He closed his eyes and when he opened them what I saw in them made my body automatically move closer.

“Baby,” he muttered as his head dipped then his mouth was on mine.

It wasn’t a Tate kiss that took me out of mind and into my body but it was long and it was definitely sweet (and there was tongue which made it sweeter).

He lifted his head but stayed in my space.

“Text me when you get up, when you get ready to go somewhere tellin’ me where you’re goin’, when you get there, when you leave and when you go to sleep,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Be smart, Laurie.” He kept ordering.

“Okay.” I kept whispering.

“Locked doors, in cars, houses –”

“Okay.”

“Be aware of where you are, who you’re with –”

“Tate –”

“Don’t open any fuckin’ doors unless you’re sure who’s behind them.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise, Ace.”

“I promise, Captain. I’ll be safe.”

Tate stared at me.

Then he whispered, “Fucker was in my backyard.”

“Go, baby,” I urged softly.

He touched his mouth to mine, his hand at my neck gave me a squeeze then he let me go and turned to Mack.

“Give me a ride to the hotel?” he asked.

“Absolutely, Tate,” Mack replied.

I saw Carrie and Mom looking at me. Mom was smiling still, it was softer, knowing, with a hint of happiness mixed with the anxiety she’d worn the last few days and some confusion too.

Carrie was also smiling but it was in a way I figured she thought maybe me taking the plunge with Tate might not be such a bad thing.

Tate turned to Mom and kissed her cheek.

When he did she patted him on the back and breathed, “Oh my.”

Tate did the same to Carrie and she gave him a hug.

He left the waiting room and Mack followed.

He didn’t turn and look at me. I wanted to see his face but I got it this time.

He was focused.

Chapter Twelve

Sweet Dreams, Baby

I was in bed in my old room which was now the guest bedroom at my family’s farm.

I had my phone in my hand and I was punching out the words on the little keyboard.

Hey honey, going to bed.

I hit send but didn’t put down the phone. I twisted, turned out the light and settled in, all the while I kept the phone in my hand.

Over the past five days I learned Tate wasn’t a big texter. At first, as ordered, I texted him as he asked me to, telling him my every move – to the hotel, farm, hospital, when I woke up, when I went to bed. He rarely texted back and when he did they were one of two words.

Good.

And.

OK.

So on day three I stopped telling him my every move because, in all honesty, he didn’t seem all that interested.

This earned me a phone call to which, when I answered while pushing a cart through the grocery store at approximately ten thirty in the morning, Tate did not greet me.

Instead he said, “What the fuck?”

I was surprised at this opening so I non-greeted back, “What the fuck what?”

“Babe,” was his reply.

I was silent because that wasn’t much of a reply, he sounded slightly put out and I wasn’t certain why.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Where are you?” he asked back.

“The grocery store,” I answered.

“You forget something?”

I looked in the cart. “No, it’s just that Mom and I are at the farm and she hasn’t had a home cooked meal for awhile and I haven’t cooked at all for awhile so tonight I’m going to cook…”

“Ace,” he growled and realized he did that a lot. Growl. He could, with that rough voice he could definitely growl, but he didn’t have to do it so often and especially for reasons unknown.

“What?”

“Last I knew, you were goin’ to sleep,” he informed me.

He might not text but every night, from that first night, minutes after I texted him with the information that I was going to bed, he’d call. Our conversations weren’t long, heartfelt and soul-baring. They were short and informational but I thought they were sweet mainly because they were with Tate.

“Well, I’m awake,” I pointed out the obvious.

“I’m gettin’ that,” he ground out. “We had a deal.”

“A deal?”

“You
text,
” he clipped.

Well there it was, I was wrong, he was interested.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh,” he repeated.

“I won’t forget again,” I promised.

“Yeah, Ace, don’t forget again,” he warned and it was definitely a warning.

I felt my back straighten as I stood in the grocery store aisle. I turned and stared at the shelves, feeling myself getting angry.

“Well, it’s not like your King Text,” I snapped.

“Come again?”

“You don’t reply,” I told him. “I text and you don’t reply. I mean –”

He interrupted me. “Deal wasn’t that I was texting you.”

“Yes, but –”

“I don’t text,” he informed me.

“But you expect me to?” I shot back.

“Yeah, Ace. Newsflash, I’m huntin’ a raping serial killer. I think you get that he’s tweaked me, that sick fuck takin’ out Tonia. My old lady is four states away, not close, not in my control. You get that?”

“Um…” I mumbled because I partly did and the part I got felt nice. I also partly didn’t because he referred to me as not in his control and I not only didn’t get that I wasn’t sure how to take it.

He kept talking. “And last time I left you on your own, you ended up with another guy.”

Oh no he didn’t. We’d talked about that. He didn’t get to throw that in my face.

“I’m hardly going to pick up a man in Indiana,” I snapped.

“Babe,
you
don’t pick ‘em up, those fuckin’ legs of yours,
they
pick
you
.”

“Tate –”

“Text.”

“Tate!”

“Askin’ you to give me peace of mind here,” he clipped, “text.”

“Oh all right,” I relented because we were talking about peace of mind. We’d talk about me being in his “control” later.

“We done?” he asked.

“You called me,” I reminded him.

“We’re done,” he muttered and then disconnected.

God, if he wasn’t so handsome, strong, sometimes sweet, didn’t have a Harley, that beard, a tendency to play with my hair, didn’t look so good in jeans and wasn’t so danged good in bed, he would seriously not be worth it.

Of course he was, or had, all those things. Therefore unfortunately he was worth it.

I barely settled my head on the pillow when my phone rang.

Quickly, hoping it didn’t wake up my mother, I touched the button under the screen that said “Captain Calling” and put it to my ear.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Your Mom asleep?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Your Dad?”

“Color’s back, moving around, got more energy, it’s all good.”

“Good,” he said softly.

“You?” I asked.

I had learned over the last several nights’ conversations that due to Tate’s past as a police officer and his present as a bounty hunter, he had relationships on Chantelle’s Police Force. One of the FBI agents working the case was also, luckily for Tate, a huge football fan and the icing on the cake was he was an alumnus of Penn State and remembered Tate. Because of these two, unusually, they were letting Tate in on the investigation in a “consultative capacity”. In other words, they were sharing information just as he was sharing what he knew with them.

The problem was neither side had much. In fact, nothing at all.

“Wind,” Tate answered my question.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“He’s in the wind. We got nothin’. No leads, no ideas and he’s off script, could strike at any time.”

“Yes, but you said all the victims were like Tonia,” I reminded him and he did say that. He’d told me that all the women were Tonia’s age and reportedly dressed like her and acted like her prior to their deaths. Four, including Tonia and the woman just murdered, were waitresses in bars. Three were strippers. One was a prostitute.

“Yeah, they got people camped everywhere, got more people warnin’ folks. But he wants the kill, he’ll find it.”

“Right,” I whispered because this was creepy and scary and both in equal measure.

“What’re your plans?” he asked and I sighed.

I was at a crossroads with my plans. I’d talked to Krystal and she said I could take all the time I needed.

This would have been very kind except she ended our conversation with, “No skin off my nose, not payin’ you to be home.” Thus informing me I was on unpaid leave.

This was okay. I needed to be here, see to things, weed Mom’s garden, mow the yard (it took me a whole day to do the front yard, the side yard across the lane by the grape arbor and weed whack everything including around the pond – Tyler should take his boot camp out on a field trip to Indiana and force them to do that, it was killer), clean the house, ferry Mom around, visit with Dad.

But Dad was getting better which meant he was getting antsy. He wanted out. He wasn’t a staying confined type of person. In a day or two he’d be up the wall.

And I also felt the need to be home in Carnal. I’d started a life, I liked it and I missed it. Betty and Ned, the pool, Bubba’s, Jim-Billy, my visits to Sunny and Shambles, their treats, Wendy, Holly at the flower shop – I even missed Tyler’s boot camps.

Then there was Tate.

I wanted to go home.

Mom wanted me to go home too.

“Need to get on with life, hon,” Mom had said. “So do you.”

“I can stay for awhile,” I’d told her.

“I know you can but that isn’t my life and it isn’t yours,” she’d replied.

“But, you need –”

“To learn how to cope with what I got and what’s happening next. You can’t stay here forever.”

This was true. I couldn’t. I loved Mom and Dad, Caroline and Mack, Indiana and our farm and I’d spent ten years missing them and wishing I was back.

But my life was now in Carnal.

Mom had taken my hand and given it a squeeze. “We’ll be fine, hon and you can go home to Tate and bring him back when we can have a good visit. At Christmas. I can make Tate my chicken ‘n’ noodles and you all can go ice skating on the pond.”

I tried to imagine Tate on ice skates. This vision didn’t form in my brain likely because Tate’s badassness reached across four states and halted such activity.

“Mom thinks I should go home,” I told Tate.

“She’d be right, Ace,” Tate told me.

“But I could stay awhile. I think they need –”

“To get on with their life, babe, and it’s a life you don’t share with them. They need to learn to lead it without you there mowin’ their lawn.”

“These are my parents,” I reminded him.

“You movin’ home?”

“No.”

“Then what good’s it gonna do them gettin’ used to you dealin’ with all their shit only for you to up and leave? Then they’ll have to learn to deal with all their shit. They might as well learn now.”

“My Dad just had a heart attack, Tate,” I said softly.

“Yeah, and he survived it, Laurie,” he said softly back. “And he’s gonna recover and you won’t be doin’ him favors by fussin’ over him. He needs to get back to life as it’s gonna be, your Mom too.”

I considered this.

My father didn’t like idle children and we had chores. We worked in Mom’s garden, we cleaned the house, we helped him with his many “projects”. But I’d never mowed the lawn that was man’s work (according to Dad). His head would explode if I tried to mow the lawn when he was in the house. Or do anything else that would even give a semblance of “fussin’ over him”. He’d rather the grass get hip high than one of his girls mowing it (of course he would never allow the grass to get hip high, he’d call one of his buddies to do it, of which there were a million).