His arm curled me deeper into his body and I felt his face burrow into my hair.
“You’d always shine through,” he muttered and now he sounded sleepy but I was again wide awake. “Somethin’ special,” he finished.
Oh.
My.
God.
He fell asleep moments later, I knew this when I took his weight into my back, his breath evened and his strong arm curved deeper around me in a way that I’d never be able to slide out from under it, I’d never be able to move away. I’d have to stay right there, tucked tight to Tate.
I didn’t sleep for a long time but I didn’t care. I just laid there thinking if Brad had held me like this all those years, maybe I wouldn’t have tossed and turned and driven him nuts. Maybe I would have been perfectly fine with my insomnia.
If Brad had held me like this, every night, I’d look forward to it.
Chapter Nine
Damn Baby
The phone rang and my eyes opened.
I was in Tate and my hotel room, alone in our bed.
I knew I was alone (even though the bed was huge) because I couldn’t feel him, hear him or sense him. In fact, I couldn’t sense him anywhere, the shower wasn’t running, he was gone.
I turned toward Tate’s side where the phone was and saw the note. I sat up, grabbed the receiver and the note, putting the receiver to my ear as the words on the note registered in my brain.
Ace,
Running. Be back.
Man of few words.
“Hello?” I said into the phone.
“Hi hon,” Mom said back.
“Hi Mom.”
“I wake you?”
“That’s all right.”
“You sleep okay?”
“Not really, you?”
“No,” she replied. “Listen, hon, we’re meeting for breakfast then going over. Mack says he’ll come back and get you if –”
I looked at the clock. It was six thirty. I knew two things from this. Mom didn’t sleep a wink and Tate was a seriously early riser.
“Tate’s running but I’ll be down,” I told her.
“He’s running?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“In a town he doesn’t know?”
“Um, he’s a bounty hunter, he gets around,” I guessed. “New places don’t faze him,” I guessed again. “He’ll be okay.” That wasn’t a guess. I figured Tate could run through the fires of hell and emerge unscathed.
“We’ll wait until he gets back. They aren’t letting us in for long visits and visiting hours don’t start until ten,” Mom told me. “I already called the hospital and they say his status hasn’t changed but it’s…”
She stopped and I listened to her breathing heavily, trying to control emotion.
“Take your time, Momma,” I whispered.
I listened to her inhale then she said, “They said it’s good he made it through the night.”
Darn but this sucked.
“That’s good,” I said softly.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“I’ll get a shower in, go down and leave Tate a note. He’s going back to Carnal today anyway, maybe his flight is early and he’ll need to skip breakfast and get a taxi.”
“He’s going back today?” Mom asked, sounding surprised.
“Um… yes.”
“Why?”
“Well…”
“He should stay, at least a day, see the farm.”
“He’s got things to do,” I told her.
“It’s just a day,” she replied.
I’d heard that before.
“Listen, Mom –”
“I’ll talk to him,” she decided.
“No! Mom, really –”
“At a time like this, you need him with you. He’ll understand.”
“But…” I searched desperately for something then stated, “He’s got fugitives from justice to hunt down. It isn’t like his job isn’t important.”
I didn’t like lying to my mother. It was likely Tate would go home and help out at the bar and get pissed about doing it all because Bubba liked to fish. Still, maybe there’d be some fugitive Tate had to go round up.
“There’s lots of bounty hunters, Laurie, there’s even one on TV. He can delegate,” she said like Tate worked in an office with a bunch of bounty hunters who got a call then said, “I’ll go,” or “You go,” or “No, you go,” or “Butch is up next, he’ll go.”
“Mom –”
“We’ll talk at breakfast.”
“Mom –” I repeated but there was a knock at the door and my eyes fell to Tate’s nightstand. I saw his cell, wallet and the Marriott keycard so I figured Tate went out without the keycard and he needed me to let him in. “Listen, there’s a knock at the door, Tate’s back. I’ll talk to him. If he has to go home then he has to go home.”
“Maybe, if he has to go home, he’ll come back,” she suggested hopefully.
There it was. My Mom thinking my life could begin again now that I found a man. Then again, she’d married my Dad when he was twenty-one, she was nineteen. She’d never known a life without a good man in it so she would think that.
Another knock came at the door, this one louder. Tate was getting impatient or perhaps thought he needed to wake me.