[Tulsa Thunderbirds 01.0] Bury the Hatchet Page 19

  Although I made a mental note to be sure I wasn’t biting my tongue anytime there was a possibility the T-Birds could score when we were at home, at least as long as they insisted on those damn drums. I’d probably end up biting my tongue clear off if they started up when I wasn’t prepared. I had every intention of talking to anyone and everyone I could about getting rid of the drums, though. The thought of having to hear them every time someone scored at home was enough to give me the shakes.

  The players on the ice changed after the goal, and a new line came out to take the face-off at center ice. This time, Razor was one of our D. He looked back at me and shouted something, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I could hear him over the drumming. I just nodded, letting him know I was ready, regardless of whatever he’d said.

  After the puck dropped, the drums finally stopped. I shook my head, trying to clear the reverberating sound from between my ears.

  Shouldn’t have done that.

  Benn and his linemate, Tyler Seguin, were bearing down on me. Those two might very well have been the most lethal twosome in the whole fucking league at the moment, and only Razor was anywhere close to catching them. Razor took a diving pass at knocking the puck free from Benn’s stick. He missed. I had to decide which of those two was the bigger threat. I skated out from my crease, cutting down Benn’s angle and trying to poke-check the puck away from him. I missed. He passed it to Seguin. I flailed, trying to contort my body back into position. Too late. Seguin snapped off a wrister, and the puck just grazed my glove hand before flying beneath the crossbar and in.

  Razor skated up to me, tapping his stick on my pads. “Sorry, bro.”

  “How about you try to fucking do your job instead of being sorry next time?”

  “How about you try to fucking take a pregame nap instead of boning your wifey before the next game?” he shot back before skating back to the bench.

  If only that was what had me off my game.

  DANA’S LITTLE BOY, Ryan, was squirming around in my arms. He kept trying to contort his body so he could put a Thunderbirds sticker on my cheek—never mind the fact that he’d already put six others on me in various places by then—when Hunter came up to the wives’ room to collect me after the game.

  Dana was a tall, athletic blonde, a little bit on the tomboy side of things, but absolutely gorgeous and as sweet as could be, if slightly shy. She was also the mother of two toddlers, who kept her on her toes. Ryan, in particular, being all of fifteen months old, had a rambunctious streak a mile wide, not to mention some seriously sticky fingers. I wasn’t sure what he’d been into, but it was now all over me, too.

  When Hunter looked down at me, he seemed as dour as I’d ever seen him. That was probably to be expected after the team had been thoroughly trounced, twelve to one, in the game. Dana had reassured me when we returned to the wives’ room to wait for our husbands that tonight’s game wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but I doubted Hunter’s ego would agree with that assessment.

  Dana glanced at Hunter when he reached us, stretching out her arms for the squirming toddler. “Come on, buddy. Back to Mommy. Looks like Hunter and Tallie are ready to go.”

  Ryan apparently didn’t want to give up yet. He grabbed on to my upper arm, digging in his fingers over my fresh bruises.

  I bit down on my tongue to keep from crying out in pain. Dana’s eyes shot up to mine, worried. Apparently, I didn’t do such a good job of keeping my face a mask. She tugged him over to her lap.

  “Sorry,” she said, glancing between me and Hunter and back. “He’s got quite a grip. Taking after his daddy.”

  “It’s all right, really. He’s just a little boy.” And Ryan hadn’t been trying to hurt me. Not like Lance.

  “You ready?” Hunter asked me. He held out a hand. I took it and got to my feet, fighting back a grimace at the pain in my upper arms. He didn’t say anything, and his face betrayed nothing, but his barely contained anger was seething just beneath the surface, crackling between us where we touched.

  I nodded, gathering up my purse and phone, but Dana practically leapt to her feet before we could go.

  “I forgot. There’s one more thing I need to talk to you about before you go.” She gave Hunter an apologetic look. “Do you mind?” Without waiting for him to respond, she plopped Ryan over into Hunter’s arms and guided me away with a gentle but insistent hand on my elbow. She didn’t stop until we were together in a quiet corner of the room. Her legs were long, and I had worn heels—a habit that was hard to break, particularly since there might be an opportunity for Hunter and I to perform for the cameras while we were out—so I’d had to hurry to keep up with her.

  “What’s up?” I asked, trying to come off nonchalant even though I was almost positive I’d interpreted her behavior correctly. She thought Hunter was hurting me. There wasn’t a better explanation for her reaction.

  She and I had already made plans, along with a few of the other Thunderbirds’ wives and girlfriends, to get together later in the week for lunch and an afternoon of girl time and charity event planning. Dana had spearheaded it all, but I’d agreed to be her backup in everything since I’d been involved in so many other charitable endeavors through the pageants I’d been part of over the years. It looked like she was going to need my assistance to get all of these women on the same page, too. I’d rarely seen such a catty group, and that was saying something considering I’d spent all of my twenty-one years as part of the pageant world.

  Regardless of all that, I’d already given Dana my phone number, and we were planning to see each other again in a few days. I didn’t understand what the problem was or why she couldn’t talk about it in front of Hunter unless she believed he was the one behind the pain in my biceps.

  She eyed me up and down, as if she was assessing every inch of me. In an overly subconscious move, I crossed my arms. Not that it would do any good. My face always gave everything away. Couldn’t hide a darned thing unless it was airbrushed, but even then, they could only conceal so much. Photographers always told me it was because I had such expressive eyes, which I found to be both a blessing and a curse. Plus, crossing my arms like that only reminded her of my injured hand by bringing that bandage back to the forefront for a moment.

  Finally, Dana frowned, her brows coming together over her nose, but she blurted it out. “Look, I know you don’t really know me yet, so you don’t have any good reason to tell me this, and I honestly don’t want to think anything bad of Hunter because Eric and I have known him for several years now, and I would never have believed it of him based on that, but is he hurting you? Because if he is, you’re not leaving here with him. I won’t let you. You’re coming home with us and—”

  “He’s not hurting me,” I cut in. I took her hand and squeezed, trying to reassure her.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, scowling. “You may not have bruises I can see, but I saw how you reacted when Ryan dug in. Don’t get me wrong. I know those little fingers can pack a punch, but your response wasn’t normal unless you’re hiding something. You can’t ask me to pretend I didn’t see it.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that. And I’m not denying that I’m hurt, either. But it wasn’t Hunter. He would never do anything like that.”

  “Then who?” Dana clearly had no intention of letting the subject drop. “Does Hunter know? Of course he knows. You’re married. There’s no way he hasn’t seen whatever you’ve got going on. What’s he doing about it?” She kept scanning me, as if she could see through my clothes to everything hidden underneath.

  “We’re going to talk about it when we get home,” I replied.

  “Why haven’t you told him yet?” she asked, suspicion creeping back into her tone.

  “Because it happened right before we had to leave to come here. I didn’t want him to be late for the game, and I needed time to process it.” Not to mention, I needed time to figure out how to tell Hunter what had happened without him killing my forme
r pageant guru, but Dana didn’t need to know that part. The less anyone else knew, the better. “I promise, that’s the first thing we’re going to do when we get home.”

  “You won’t tell me who did it, though? You won’t let me help? Because I’m ready to take you home with me and Eric right now, especially if you’re trying to cover it up and it really is Hunter. We can wait until Eric and a few of the other guys get up here. We can get security involved. We can get you out of here safely.” Her eyes flickered over to the security guard standing at the door.

  “It wasn’t Hunter, but I think he deserves to hear the story first.” Once I’d finished figuring out how much to tell him. Then I could keep all the details the same whenever I told anyone else, if it came to that. I supposed I would have to tell Dana now, since she’d already learned this much, but I’d rather keep it from anyone else if at all possible.

  She chewed on her lower lip. “You swear it wasn’t him?”

  I nodded.

  Then her eyes strayed over to where we’d left Hunter with her son, indecision making her tap her fingers on her crossed forearms. I followed her gaze to find Hunter’s suit now covered with the same Thunderbirds stickers I was wearing. He didn’t seem to mind too much.

  Might as well bring Dana’s son into the equation. “If you really believed he had hurt me or anyone else, would you have left Ryan with him?” I pointed out. “I mean, like you said, you’ve known him a long time. You never thought he was dangerous before now, huh?”

  “No.” She gave me a half smile. “Not a chance.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Have you at least called the police?” she asked, finally starting to relent. “Filed a report? Gotten a restraining order against whoever did this?”

  “Not yet,” I hedged.

  Going to the police hadn’t been in my plans. That was why I’d been so worried about telling Hunter what had happened, because I had no doubt it would be one of many things on his to-do list, right after hunting down Lance and rearranging a few of my former guru’s features. But going to the police would only lead to the wrong sort of exposure, just like allowing Hunter to go full caveman on Lance would end up being. Either of those things would be counterproductive in terms of getting the public to see the pair of us in a different light.

  “Well”—Dana gave me another thorough once-over—“if Hunter doesn’t go with you before practice tomorrow, you call me and I will. You can’t let whoever did this to you get away with it. All right?”

  I agreed more to get her to let me leave than because I had any intention of calling her for a girl’s day at police headquarters. Once she’d collected her son from Hunter—an exercise requiring all three of the adults involved prying his sticky fingers free from my husband’s hair—Hunter and I headed out to the car, peeling stickers off as we went.

  He didn’t say a word until we were halfway home, and my guts were tied up into a knot the size of a bowling ball. There was so much emotion roiling off him. It poured over me and filled every crevice in the car until I thought I would choke on it. I wanted to roll down the window so I could breathe, but I couldn’t bring myself to even move a finger toward the control panel. I needed to get a sense of where Hunter stood on things so I knew what direction to go in.

  “So Dana thinks I’m beating you?” he finally spit out.

  I drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as I weighed my words. “That was her initial gut reaction, yes, but she never really thought that or she wouldn’t have left Ryan with you. I told her it wasn’t you.”

  “And you think that’s going to be enough, do you? Women deny their boyfriends and husbands are beating them all the time, especially when there’s something they think they need to hide.”

  “But you haven’t ever laid a finger on me, and you wouldn’t, so there’s nothing to worry about there.”

  “You think she’s going to take your word for it?” he asked, his tone loaded with sarcasm.

  “Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise. Is there any reason she shouldn’t?” I shot back, quickly losing any semblance of patience. If I wasn’t careful, a big dose of Southern sass was liable to work its way out of my mouth, and that was the last thing I needed right now. When I lost control of my filter, all sorts of things came out of my mouth without me thinking through them first. That was what had happened the day we’d first met, and I’d been doing everything I could to keep it in check since then. Mama always told me it wasn’t fitting for a lady to speak like that.

  Hunter grunted. “Did you happen to tell her who it was?” he asked after a tense silence.

  “No.” I studied my fingernails in my lap, determined to put a lid on my sass before it boiled over.

  “You planning on telling me who it was?” His tone was softer now but no less strained.

  “I think you already know.”

  Hunter turned into our driveway and stopped to wait for the garage door to open. I lifted my head to find his jaw working overtime, the muscles in his neck tense. He kept a grip on the steering wheel, flexing his hands over the leather repeatedly. “You weren’t gone long enough to have filed a police report,” he finally said.

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I thought it was for the best not to.”

  The garage was open, but he didn’t pull in. He put the car in park and left the engine idling, then turned to stare at me. “In what world could it possibly be better to let that slug of a human put his hands on you and not do a damned thing about it?”

  “In our world!” I snapped.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning in this world where every single move we make is reported all over the media, publically scrutinized, and dissected to the nth degree. The last thing either one of us needs is for them to have something else they can latch on to about us that’s anything less than a happy-ever-after ending. Not right now.”

  “You’re giving public opinion too much fucking weight in this.”

  “Or maybe you’re not giving it enough!”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone says about me,” he ground out. “Or you. Or us.”

  “Well, it’s high time you started caring, then.”

  “Oh, I care plenty, just not about things that don’t matter.”

  “It matters to some people.”

  “Who?” Hunter demanded. “Who does it matter to?”

  “Your team. My family. All the people who’ve been supporting me for all these years.”

  “But not you?” he pointed out.

  I opened my mouth to deliver another saucy retort and quickly shut it again. Because he was right. I didn’t really care what anyone had to say about the two of us. I was only worried about it because I’d been told to worry about it.

  “Exactly,” he said after a moment of silence. “You don’t give a rat’s ass. Not really. And I don’t, either. I haven’t ever before, and I’m not going to start now.”

  “What the heck do you care about, then?”

  “You, all right?” Hunter roared. “I care about you.” Then he whipped his head around to stare straight ahead out the windshield.

  My heart thundered. I needed to touch him in order to ground myself, to remember that this was truly happening in the here and now. He’d said it in the heat of the moment, but that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t true. Maybe the way he felt about me was keeping pace with the way I felt about him. I couldn’t help myself. I reached across the center console and placed my hand on the back of his forearm.

  He glanced down at where I was touching him before turning to face me, his eyes green pools of need. Then he closed his eyes and ground his teeth. “What happened?” he asked. “Explain it to me.”

  I tried to take my hand away, but he put his over the top of it, preventing me.

  My tongue was thick with dread that tasted like bile, but I swallowed it down. “Can we go inside first?” The last thing I wanted was to give him all th
e details, only to have him put the car in reverse and try to find Lance. That wasn’t what either of us needed, and I was almost positive that Hunter knew it even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

  In lieu of answering, he put the car in gear and drove into the garage. He shut off the engine and hit the button to close the garage door.

  I’d bought myself another minute or so, but that wasn’t much. I only hoped it was enough to help me get through the telling without breaking down so much that he decided to act, anyway.

  “SO TELL ME why I shouldn’t go to wherever that son of a bitch is right this second and bash his face in,” I said as we headed inside. The second we stepped through the door, I removed my jacket and tie and tossed them on the counter alongside her purse. That still wasn’t enough, though. I undid the top couple of buttons on my shirt, trying to get as comfortable as I could for a conversation I knew would be anything but comfortable. She toed off her shoes, meticulously placing them just so in a corner of the kitchen, near the garage but out of the way so we wouldn’t trip on them, taking her time about it. When she shot her gaze over to me, eyes as expressive as I’d ever seen them, I kept myself as calm as I could. But given the circumstances, that wasn’t saying a hell of a lot. “Tell me why I shouldn’t wring his neck the next time I see him, because that’s what will happen if you don’t give me a damn good reason not to.”

  Tallie didn’t answer immediately. She went into the living room and took a seat. I followed and sat next to her, not close enough to touch her even though I absolutely wanted to wrap her in my arms and try to forget everything we needed to talk about.

  She looked so fucking fragile, sitting on the couch with one leg tucked underneath her, the other foot swaying forward and backward, constantly in motion. I couldn’t help but notice her perfectly painted toenails. Even her feet were pretty. That either meant I was falling for her harder than I wanted to acknowledge or I had a foot fetish. Either way, every bone in my body was screaming to draw her into my lap, as if that would make anything better besides potentially lowering my blood pressure. But I couldn’t protect her in reverse. I couldn’t go back in time and keep that fucking bastard from laying his hands on her.