Danny's War (Rolling Thunder Series Book 3) (25 page)

Tammy’s throat became dry and she needed to lick her lips. He was offering her something she'd dreamed about since Scott released that video in the first place. He slowly deposited the thumb drive into his pocket, buttoned his jacket and moved away from the desk. He started to turn to leave, when he stopped. “I’ll give you two hours to decide. I’ll call you later.”

Before Tammy could say anything he was gone. She stood transfixed on the door, her knees shaking as she thought about it. She could go to Seattle, get the video, wait for him to wipe it away from the internet and quit. She’d come back here to Danny and it would all be good for them.

ENTERING THE KITCHEN
from the garage, Tammy smelled something delicious. “Hey, Tammy, welcome home.” Lex’s smile was electric.

“Hi, Lex. Wow, you look happy.” Tammy returned his smile with a brilliant one of her own.

“Hey, stop flirting with my girl.” Danny walked into the kitchen wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, the ridges and planes of his muscles shown easily through the soft gray material. Sexy.

He walked straight to Tammy and wrapped her in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into her hair and breathed in deeply. She felt his heart beating strongly against her cheek and she closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. This. Is. Where. She. Wanted. To. Always. Be.

Danny felt a shiver run through Tammy’s body and he squeezed. He knew she'd been having a rough time of it lately. His guilt that he'd been enjoying his friends visiting and failed to see all that she'd been going through made him feel like a dick. Sucky boyfriend he was. He needed to start thinking like a teammate and less like an individual, because, he wanted Tammy here with him.

Pulling back he looked into her eyes. “Wine?”

Her full lips spread into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. “Yes, please.”

Danny kissed her nose and turned to pull the wine out of the refrigerator. Tammy watched him a moment and then realized Lex was…cooking. She cocked her head and Lex smirked.

“Schaefer taught me how to make pot roast.”

“That’s fabulous, Lex. Some lucky woman is going to snap you up in a heartbeat.”

Lex’s face flushed as he looked over at Danny, who was walking toward Tammy with a glass of wine. “See, Schaefer, your woman likes me.”

“
Pfft
. Don’t get all full of yourself because you learned to make pot roast.”

They all burst out laughing.

“Well, hello, Tammy, welcome home.” Charles’ salt and pepper hair was slicked back and he was dressed in nice jeans and a blue three-button placket shirt. He smiled as he made his way across the kitchen to look into the pot Lex was scooping vegetables from. He clapped his hand on Lex’s shoulder as he praised the food. “Looks as good as it smells, Chaz.”

“Thanks, dad. I think I could do this on my own.”

Charles smiled at Tammy and Danny. “When you both have a bit of time, I’d like to fill you in on what my partners have been pulling together.”

As Tammy looked around the table, Danny’s friends were smiling, happy and so supportive of each other, she made a split second decision.

“If everyone is finished, I think we should talk.”

Danny looked into her eyes and saw determination. He reached over, wrapped her hand in his and squeezed for support.

Dirks pushed his plate back and patted his belly. “I’m finished. If I eat one more bite, I believe I’ll explode, and it won’t be pretty.”

Chuckles were heard and Tammy gave Danny’s hand a little squeeze before pulling away and folding her hands on the table. Taking a bolstering breath, she began. “Danny’s been keeping a secret for me, because, I’m embarrassed and, well, actually mortified to tell you this.” She tucked her hair behind her ears with a shaky hand and began again. “More than a year ago, I dated Scott. We'd been dating only about six weeks when…” She looked at Danny. At his slight nod and wink, her lips quivered into a soft smile. “Scott videoed us having sex without my permission. I didn’t know he was recording. The next morning I woke to the video plastered all over the Internet. He sent it to his friends, co-workers, uploaded it to several social media sites and YouTube. I was devastated.”

Tammy continued telling the gory details as the guys all sat and listened without interruption. She finished her story with, “The reason I’m telling you this is because…” She looked at Danny and then Charles. Swallowing to force the fear and tears down, she continued. “Because the man you saw Zeke Hamilton with today was Scott. Zeke came into my office this afternoon, showed me the thumb drive and told me it was the video. He said he’d make it go away forever if I go to Seattle with him and ‘work’ for him.” Work in air quotes.

Slowly Charles said, “Well, that son-of-a-bitch never ceases to lower himself one notch lower than before.”

Tammy looked at each of the guys one-by-one and nodding once she said. “I’m sorry guys. I hope you can forgive me.”

Lex’s brows pinched together as he looked at her. “Tammy, there’s nothing to forgive. You’re the victim in this and that bastard Scott should really fry for doing something like that. But worse, is Hamilton. Blackmail is absolutely bullshit.”

Tammy’s lips formed a straight line across her pretty face.

Dirks spoke up next. “Is this Hamilton bastard the man trying to purchase Stateside?”

“Yes. And it appears he’s also interested in Tammy.” Danny’s voice held a dangerous growl.

Coop added quickly, “Thank you for telling us, Tammy, I’m sure that was hard. You didn’t have to.”

Tammy smiled. “I did though. Danny was right today when he told me that coming clean would stop the video from controlling me. I’ve been so stressed trying to keep it a secret since you guys got here. I had alerts set up on the Internet and it’s been terribly active again. I think it was Zeke, trying to turn the knife to get me to follow him to Seattle.”

“Well, now it’s my turn,” Charles said. “My partners have come together as I expected they would. Travis, our business manager, called me just before you got home. We’ve submitted an offer to Purchase Stateside to FMS and it was approved this afternoon. LexRanch, our corporation, is the new owner of Stateside.”

Tammy sat up straight as she looked at Charles’ clear blue eyes and the beautiful smile on his face. “For real?”

Laughing, he nodded, “For real.”

Tammy gasped as she jumped up, ran around the table, and hugged Charles. “Oh, my God, thank you so much. Thank you. I’ve been so worried about where these men and women would go. There are few places for them with their income levels and most of the facilities they could go to have long waiting lists.”

Tammy turned and hugged Danny. He pulled her down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I told you it would be okay.”

Looking into Danny’s eyes, Tammy teared up as the relief began washing over her. “You’re right. I never doubted, though I simply didn’t see how it would ever be.”

She lightly pecked his lips as Coop said, “Now how do we get rid of Hamilton?”

Tammy’s phone started playing “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon. She smiled as she stood and pulled it out of her pants pocket. “Zeke said he was giving me two hours to decide whether to take his job offer.”

The men around the table started laughing as the ring tone and the caller came together in their heads. Danny quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket and laid it on the table next to Tammy’s. He tapped his record icon and winked at Tammy.

She answered her call while at the same time touching the speaker icon. “This is Tammy.”

“Ms. Davis, your two hours are up.”

Wrinkling her face, Tammy reached over and held Danny’s hand. “I didn’t need two hours. At the risk of repeating myself, I’m not interested in your job or anything you have to offer.”

A moment of silence while they all waited for him to respond. Tammy’s heart began a rapid beat as she wondered what he was thinking.

“You do understand what this means, don’t you?”

“Yes. It means I’ll be staying in Green Bay with Danny and my family.”

“It also means you’ll be out of a job by the end of the month and the little issue of your video will not go away. You may find I don’t have the power to keep it from attracting attention in the days to come.”

Danny’s jaw tightened and he curled his hands into fists. His lips drew together as he looked over at Lex and saw the same reaction on his friend. Glancing at Dirks and Coop, Danny saw them both shaking their heads no. Dirks motioned with his hands - - brush it away.

“It’s a chance I’ll have to take. I’ve been through it before. It’s unpleasant, but, I can handle it.”

Surprised at her own confidence Tammy actually smiled. Still standing next to Danny, she laid her palm on his strong shoulder and took strength. He looked up at her and she felt it, he loved her through all of this.

“You’ll find it difficult to obtain new employment with this nasty piece of imagery chasing you, Ms. Davis. I’ll leave you with this, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Are you staying in Green Bay much longer? In case I change my mind.”

He chuckled on the other side of the phone. “Well now, are you offering to pay me a visit at my hotel?”

“I might be. I’m wondering if I'd be able to change your mind. About the video, I mean.”

Silence. Danny looked at Tammy with what could be described as horror on his face. She winked at him and gently ran her thumb over his furrowed brow.

“
THIS WAITING IS SO INTENSE
,”
Tammy said as she paced the living room, rubbing the back of her neck. The men were sitting around on the various pieces of furniture. Dirks was tapping away on his phone while sitting in the tan upholstered chair across the room. Lex and Charles were on the sofa, each seemingly calm and attentive to each other. Coop was sitting on the floor, leaning into the sofa next to Lex’s legs and Danny was sitting in his recliner, forearms on his knees, watching Tammy pace.

“Maybe we should play a game or put in a movie to pass the time. A watched pot never boils.”

Danny glanced at Lex, “When did you get so philosophical?”

Lex chuckled. “I’ve heard my share of clichéd sayings since coming home, Schaefer. Watching your leg laying yards from your body haunted me to no end. Coming here to see you doing so well is not only long over-due, but has put everything into perspective.” Brushing his hand through his chestnut hair, he smirked. “Did dad tell you he’s also negotiating with FMS to purchase two veterans homes in Kentucky, not far from our ranch? I’m going to counsel men and women there like you’re doing here.”

Tammy and Danny both looked at Charles. Sliding her hands into her pockets, a slow smile spread across her face. “Really? That’s fantastic.”

“Just seeing the change in him since he came here and talking to Dan this week has me hopeful that Chaz will heal completely and help others in the process.”

Danny nodded still leaning forward. “I actually think those guys counsel me, not the other way around. Either way, it helps and they seem genuinely happy to talk to me, so it works.”

Tammy’s phone rang and she quickly pulled it out of her pocket. “Hello, this is Tammy.”

She quickly looked at Danny and nodded. She listened intently for a few minutes. “Thank you, Sergeant. What happens next?”

Finishing her call, she walked to Danny. He reached up and took her hand in his waiting for her to tell them what'd happened.

“They have the thumb drive. The police knocked on Zeke’s hotel room door and when he opened it, they told him he was in the possession of property secured by a restraining order. I’m so glad my mom and Attorney Gratz spoke today. Apparently, Scott wasn’t allowed to do anything with the video. Not downloading to another media device or anything else. It’s off-limits.” Looking into Danny’s eyes, Tammy continued. “However, Zeke's lying about how he got the video. He told police that he didn’t know what was on it and that Scott is a friend and asked him to hang on to it because it's valuable.”

Lex jumped in. “Well, you have pictures of the exchange. You can prove he exchanged money for it.”

“The pictures don’t show what was exchanged, just that there was an exchange. Scott’s going to need to fess up for it to hold water.” Danny stood, clearly irritated with the turn of events.

“The police are on their way over to Scott’s to see if they can get him to talk.” Tammy ran her hand across Danny’s back to soothe him.

Dirks wrinkled his face, his bright blue eyes slightly squinting. “Well, at least that prick Hamilton can’t do anything with the video. Provided he didn’t already download it to his computer.”

Tammy’s eyes grew wide and a gasp escaped her throat.

“Sorry, Tammy, but you need to be real about this.”

“God, I didn’t even think about that.”

“Well, the way it looks now, the police know that Hamilton had the video. If it shows up on the Internet again, they'll be able to trace the IP address of the computer. There isn’t a restraining order against him, but, it’ll be fairly easy to get it. You can create reasonable doubt with the pictures and the money, so a judge may just decide to slap a restraining order on Hamilton, too,” Coop ground out. His face took on the hard lines of a big brother protecting his sister. Tammy smiled at his concern. All of their concern.

Danny wrapped his arm around Tammy’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

***

“What do you intend to do about it?” Ryder asked as they sat in the break room at lunch the following day.

“I’m going to go over and beat some truth into that shit bag, that’s what I’m going to do.” Danny threw his sandwich wrapper into the waste basket with force.

Ryder’s eyebrows shot up as he watched the wrap smash into the garbage and Danny slam his fist on the table top. “You can’t go alone, Schaefer. You’ll do something that'll make this all worse.”

“I’m not taking Tammy to go and see that prick. I don’t want her within fifty miles of him. I’d prefer it if he moved across country.”