Pass Interference (12 page)

She held out her hand. “Give it.” She slipped it from the small white envelope.
I won’t give up. I can shower you with flowers every day.

Nausea roiled up from her stomach. In the beginning, Nate’s clumsy attempts to effect a reconciliation had been both laughable and annoying. But this was beyond seductive, or whatever it was supposed to be. If it was from him, he needed to stop. And the phone calls, too, if he was also doing those.

Shivering, she closed the door and locked it, resetting the alarm. She was just about to take of coffee for herself when the doorbell rang again.

Fucking damn.

When she peeked out through the window beside the front door her stomach dropped, then bounced for good measure. It was bad enough that Rafe stood there, looking sinfully sexy in black slacks and a red Hawks polo shirt. She would have been licking her lips over him except for the bear of a man standing with him—her father.

Holy hell.

Shock immobilized her, and the little girl who still hid inside her was thrilled that her father had actually come to see her. He was here. Her father was right here. The man had never been to her town house in all the time she’d lived here. In fact, since she’d moved out of his McMansion and into her own place, he hadn’t given her so much as a housewarming gift.
Now
he showed up?

Well, hell.

Then she gave herself a mental kick. This was not going to be a pleasant visit. He had his combative face on, and she knew what that meant. Had Rafe told the man about the episode at Tequila Sunrise or the one at Mike’s? She’d have to kill him if he had, slowly and painfully.

She wanted to run and hide in the bedroom until they went away, but knowing the two of them—especially her father—that wouldn’t work. If, after all this time, he was here at her front door, he wasn’t about to leave quietly. Especially if Rafe was with him. Rafe, who had probably tattled on her thinking he was doing his civic duty or something.

She glanced at herself in the little mirror in the hall and suddenly wished for different clothes, different makeup, and hair artfully arranged. The disguise she always hid behind. Well, shit. What the hell, anyway? He didn’t give a damn about her. Neither of them did.

After punching in the code for the alarm, she opened the door and stood there, arms folded across her chest.

“Oh, look. It’s the guardian angel and daddy dearest. How sweet.” She figured sarcasm was her best defense.

“Good morning, Tyler.” This was Rafe. “We’d like to come in for a few minutes.” He bent down and lifted something to the left of the door. “You’d better put these in water. Someone left them for you.”

Tyler looked at the enormous arrangement of flowers and trembled all over. The damn delivery guy had apparently just left them. She wanted them gone.

“Just leave them out there,” she said. “I don’t want them in the house.”

“They’ll die out there without care.”

“Good. Then I can throw them away.”

Rafe looked at her intently then just set the flowers back outside.

Even as angry as she was with him, she couldn’t help noticing how gorgeous he was and how incredibly sexy. She wanted to run her hands through the black silk of his hair and stroke the chiseled line of his jaw. Rub herself up against him and inhale the richly enticing scent of sun-warmed leather. Of course hell would freeze over first, she reminded herself. His choice.

She reached for every molecule of the go-to-hell cloak she wore and tugged it tightly around herself. She gave both men a look she hoped would fry them on the spot.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.” She looked from one to the other. “From either of you. This is a wasted trip.”

Rafe stood in front of her father, his shockingly blue eyes now the navy color they turned when he was serious. Uh-oh. She knew she wasn’t going to like whatever this was about. Had he tattled to her father about her situation? Of course he had, Mr. I Do The Right Thing. Damn him, anyway.

“I think it’s important for us all to talk.” He glanced at the man next to him. “Your father has some things he’d like to say.”

“Finally?” She snorted. “I’ll just bet he does. No thanks.”

She started to back up and close the door, but Rafe held it open with the flat of his hand.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Tyler, but we’re coming in. So how about we go into the kitchen, get some coffee, and have a little chat.”

Tyler glared at him, torn between spitting in his face and standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on that mouth that she still remembered so vividly. Finally, she blew out a breath and took a step back into the foyer.

“Okay. Come on in. This should be a lot of fun.”

She turned and walked into the kitchen, hoping her shaky legs would support her. Behind her, she heard the sound of the front door closing and sensed rather than heard the two men follow her.

“You have a very nice place here,” Kurt commented.

“You sound surprised. What did you expect, someplace that looked like a bordello?”

When he didn’t say anything, she glanced back at him and saw that he was visibly controlling himself. Was that a flash of hurt she saw wash across his face? No. Impossible. He was only concerned about his football players.

“I want to know what’s up with you.” She gave her father a piercing look. “All of a sudden you’re interested in my welfare? Is this some kind of a joke?”

“Let’s not get confrontational before we have to.” Rafe’s voice smoothed out the wrinkles in the air. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told your father. We have important things to discuss, so let’s try to approach everything like the reasonable adults we are.”

“I’m reasonable,” she told him. “I’m a very reasonable person.” Not. She pointed a finger at Kurt. “Much more than he is.”

“Why don’t we just wait until we all have our coffee,” Rafe said in a mild tone. “Okay?”

Tyler drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Fine,” she spat out.

“Fine,” her father said.

An uncomfortable silence wrapped itself around them as Tyler rinsed her mug and set out two others then stood aside so the men could choose their poison from the carousel of single-serving cups.

“Help yourselves.” She waved a hand at the setup.

Filled mugs in hand, they waited for her to seat herself before taking their places at the table.

“Okay,” she said. “You came here to talk? Talk away.”

“I thought,” Rafe began, “that—”

But Kurt interrupted him. “Let me take the lead here, Rafe. I’ve put you in a difficult enough situation as it is.”

Tyler frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean? And yes, by the way, you have.”

Her father gave her a direct look. “It means Rafe came to me with his concerns, and based on that I’m the one who insisted on this visit.” He cleared his throat then looked down at his coffee mug. “I think we can all agree that I leave a lot to be desired in the parent department,” he began.

Wow! That was a shock. A big one.

Tyler snorted. She tightened the cloak of snarkiness. That was her only defense, the only way she could get through this. “No shit.”

Rafe put his hand on her arm, as if to settle her down. She yanked it away, but not before his touch scorched her and made her nipples swell like gumdrops.

“Hear him out,” he said. “Please.”

Too late, she wanted to say. Way too late. But they were here, they were drinking coffee, so she might as well listen. At least her curiosity about the visit would be satisfied.

Kurt took a healthy slug of his coffee. “Like I said, I won’t ever win parent of the year. I made a lot of mistakes, Tyler, when you were little and again when you were growing up. I know that.” He rubbed his jaw. “The reasons don’t matter. Let’s just leave it that I’ve been a lousy parent.”

“True enough,” she agreed, unable to keep the tinge of bitterness from her voice.

“But here’s the thing,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Lately I’ve realized just how badly I screwed up.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, as if he could wash away the past years. “I know you probably won’t believe me, but I worry about you, Tyler. I see all the stories in the media. I hear stuff.”

“Oh?” she interrupted. “From who? Your country club cronies? Is that what this is all about? You’ve finally decided I’ve embarrassed you too much to ignore?”

“Tyler,” Rafe said in a placating tone.

“It’s okay,” Kurt interrupted him. “I deserve it. Let’s just get to the point. I worry that you’re putting yourself in danger. That stuff gets out of hand. Now this new thing.” He rubbed his face again. “Rafe came to me this morning and told me—”

“What gave you the right so go to my father?”
Now her anger came surging to the surface and she practically shouted the words at Rafe, outraged. “After I specifically asked you—no, told you—not to do it?”

“Who else would he go to?” Kurt demanded. “You’re in trouble, so he came to me.”

“Maybe if you acted like a father it would make sense.” She glared at Rafe. “Are you nuts? That is a total violation of my privacy.”

“You don’t seem to worry about privacy much with your hijinks,” Kurt snapped, his face turning red.

Rafe gave him a hard look. “That attitude is not going to help things.”

“That’s the truth.” Tyler pushed her chair back and stood up. “And that right there,” she told Rafe, “is why I don’t talk to him and why I don’t want him here. Or you. So you can just leave right now.”

“No.” He shook his head, his voice calm and steady, despite the tension that rolled through the room in heavy waves. “Kurt, we discussed this. You wanted to be able to reach out to your daughter. You won’t do it that way, so let me handle things the way we agreed.”

Kurt took a deep breath, visibly pulling himself together. Tyler was torn between wanting to throw him out and curious as to why, after all this time, he suddenly wanted to reach out to her. It had to be more than this problem. He could have just sent someone to talk to her. Like Rafe.

“We’re going to discuss this because there is a serious problem.” Rafe looked at Kurt. “You told me you’re worried about your daughter. That’s why you wanted to come here. I’m worried, too. Tyler.” He looked at her, his warm fingers still curled over her arm. “You’re not stupid. You know this situation is nothing to laugh about, so we’re going to figure out what to do about it.”

“But—”

“No buts. I mean it. This is nothing to fool around with.” His tone of voice said he meant it. “Now. First things first. Like I said, I told your father about the phone calls and the tire incident. I’m going to assume those flowers are from whoever this is. Has he done this before?”

She thought about lying but then who was she hurting except herself? In point of fact, the reason she was even sitting here listening to this discussion was because the text earlier had rattled her.

“Yes.” She swallowed a sigh. “Several times.” She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I thought it was Nate. He was bombarding me when we first split up.”

“That jackass.” Kurt spat the words. “I don’t know why you ever—”

“Kurt.” Rafe snapped the word out like a gunshot. “We agreed, remember?”

“Yeah,” the older man grumbled. “Okay. Keep doing your thing.”

“Any more calls or texts?” Rafe asked Tyler.

“A text. Today.” She looked down at her lap.

“What?” Her father barked the question. “You should have told us the minute we walked in. You should—”

“Remember what you agreed,” Rafe reminded him again. His voice was still calm when he spoke to Kurt but there was an underlying core of steel to it that said he meant business.

Kurt blew out a breath, then took a hefty gulp of his coffee.

“Let me see the phone,” Rafe told Tyler.

She handed it to him, hoping he wouldn’t notice the faint trembling of her hand. He brought up the text and read it wordlessly.

“Well?” Kurt asked, barely tamping down his impatience.

“Just as I thought. This is a good sign that he’s escalating. The fact that he actually came here, to this town house, to wreck the tires means he’s not afraid to get close.”

“Then we need to take precautions,” Kurt said. “Put safeguards in place.” He looked at Tyler. “You need protection. A bodyguard.”

Her automatic reaction was to object although with the latest text message, an indication that whoever this was seemed to be following her around, even she could see that she needed something. But the idea of a bodyguard turned her off, the same way it had when Rafe brought it up. Someone in her space all the time? And with her father, the absentee parent involved? She didn’t know which choice was worse. Still, she wasn’t giving in that easily.

“No,” she insisted. “I told you that the first time you brought it up. That won’t work. Find another solution.”

“Tyler, I—” Kurt stopped, cleared his throat and looked at her across the table. “I don’t scare easily, but when Rafe came to me this morning and told me what’s going on, I was afraid for you. I’m not ashamed to say the thought of someone stalking you makes my skin crawl.”

“So you thought after all this time you’d pop into my life, wave your magic wand, and wipe your hands of me again?” God, he was so insufferable. She’d be angrier if all this didn’t just bring up the hurt she’d nurtured for so many years.

“So I have a solution.
We
have a solution,” he corrected himself.

She looked at Rafe and saw him nodding. So the two of them had figured this all out without her?

“And the solution is the bodyguard,” he went on.

Rafe nodded. “I agree.”

“And Rafe?” Kurt looked at him. “That should be you.”

“What?” Tyler shouted the word at the same time Rafe did.

Rafe recovered first. “Now wait just a minute, Kurt. You need someone who specializes in this, not me. The agency has a lot of good men it can provide.”

“You’re the only person I’d trust to do this,” the older man said. “Whatever needs to be done, I have confidence you can figure it out.”

“And what about my other responsibilities?” he protested. “The team and the stadium? I can’t just walk away from them.” He glanced at the man next to him. “This is a really bad idea, Kurt.”