Roustabout (The Traveling #3) (38 page)

I couldn’t tell if it was the same guy that had fucked me up before—they all looked the same to me. But chances were they were the Senator’s men.

“Dude, not the bad arm!”

I’d done a lot of healing since my shoulder had been messed up, but his actions made my eyes water. I could have tried to kick the shit out of him, but I didn’t think that getting my ribs stomped on would be a great start to the evening.

Tera marched toward us, her eyes flashing with anger. Behind her, I could see her mom, grinding her teeth at the sight of me.

I grinned painfully at Tera. “Hey, sugar.”

“What are you doing here?” she gasped as her lips rose in a wide smile.

That’s why I’m here
, I thought.
To see that smile.

“You invited me,” I pointed out.

She laughed happily as the other guests shook their heads in disapproval, and Tera’s mother attempted to incinerate me with her glare.

Tera turned to the goon who was slowly forcing me to my knees.

“Would you mind not manhandling my boyfriend,” she said frostily.

The goon’s eyes widened.

“Excuse me, Miss Hawkins, but he entered without a ticket.”

“Because I have it,” she snapped.

He let go of me reluctantly, and I grinned at him. “No hard feelings, man.”

He tugged at his collar, staring at someone behind me.

I turned to look.

Senator Hawkins was barely holding it together. I had to admit I felt a bit nervous staring at the man who could have me evicted and then get his death squad to break my legs for real this time, but Tera just raised her chin and spoke clearly.

“Daddy, I think you’ve met my boyfriend Tucker McCoy.”

Tera’s tone was challenging, and she hooked her arm through mine possessively.

“Yes,” the Senator conceded, forcing a smile and shoving his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t have to shake hands.

“Hey, Senator,” I grinned. “You probably didn’t recognize me without the black eye.”

Tera nudged me with her elbow, a silent warning not to poke the grizzly.

But the Senator continued to smile. “No, I don’t think it’s that—it must be the tuxedo. But if you had a black eye with the tux, yes, I think I’d recognize you.”

It was a warning, a threat, but with Tera’s arm in mine, I wasn’t backing down. There was nothing he could do to me here without embarrassing his daughter.

Tera’s back stiffened and she glared at her father.

“Well, thank goodness there’s nothing dangerous about attending a fundraising dinner. I’m sure Tucker is safe here.”

Her father shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

I leaned down to kiss Tera’s cheek. “You look beautiful, sugar.”

Her angry frown melted and she smiled at me.

“Thank you. So do you.”

“Your mother wants to see you,” the Senator bit out, unable to hold his fake smile any longer.

“Yes, I do. Right now,” snorted Tera’s mom, closing her mouth with a snap.

Tera just smiled. “It can wait. I think Tucker deserves a glass of champagne after that.”

She held my arm tightly with both hands as we walked away.

“I can’t believe you’re here!”

“Good surprise?”

“Amazing surprise!” she laughed happily. “You scrub up well.” Then she tugged at the end of my loose bowtie. “Want me to fix that for you?”

I smiled down at her. “Does it bother you that I have no clue how to do that?”

She cocked her head to one side. “Does it bother you that I can’t cook banana pancakes like Aimee?”

“Well, now you mention it . . .”

“Shut up!” she laughed, slapping my arm before knotting the bow tie. “There. Perfect.”

“Nah, not even close.”

“Tucker, I’m quite aware that you’d rather pull out your toenails one by one than come to something like this. You did it for me—so yes, if I say you’re perfect, just nod and agree with me.”

“Yeah? What if I didn’t do it for you, Miss Hawkins?”

Her eyes were questioning.

“Maybe I did it for me.”

“Explain,” she commanded.

“Because I couldn’t stand the thought of you dancing with any other man except me.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. And if these bootnecks don’t get their eyes off of you right now, we might have a problem.”

She laughed out loud. “Probably not the smartest thing, challenging a room full of Marines.”

“No one ever accused me of being smart.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re dating me—so you must be smart enough to know a good thing when you see it.”

“Damn straight!”

I pulled her into my arms, kissing her the way I’d wanted to ever since I arrived.

“Tucker,” she sighed, melting against me. “Thank you for coming tonight. It means a lot to me.”

Something tightened in my chest. “There’s nowhere else I want to be, sugar.”

We spent the next hour sipping champagne and circling the room, Tera introducing me to a bunch of old folk that I guessed were friends of her parents. Most of the conversations went over my head as they talked politics and about people I didn’t know. I felt like an overdressed bodyguard most of the time, but Tera held onto my arm, letting everyone know that we were together.

“And what do you do, young man?” asked a woman wearing the remains of a small mammal around her neck and enough diamonds to choke a horse. “You don’t look like a young Republican.”

I grinned at her. “No, ma’am. I’m a roustabout in the carnival.”

“Good heavens!”

Tera rolled her eyes. “He’s being modest. He’s a motorcycle stuntman. In the carnival.”

“My, how interesting! And such a change from the stuffy young men you usually date, Tera, dear.”

Tera laughed out loud and grinned up at me. “Yes, I’d have to agree that he’s an improvement. It’s a work in progress, of course, but his training is coming along nicely.”

The woman shook her head, smiling kindly at us.

“Oh my dear, if you think you can train a man like that, it’ll be the work of a lifetime.”

Tera’s eyes were soft as she smiled at me, and that strange ache in my chest intensified.

“I hope so,” she said.

The moment Tera left to go to the bathroom, the Senator made his move. I’d been expecting it, so it was almost a relief when he finally strolled over to me.

This time he came alone, no goons. The dude was mighty sure of himself; that put me on edge.

He settled comfortably into Tera’s empty seat and leaned back, his hands behind his head, a professional smile masking his anger.

“She’ll get tired of you eventually,” he said conversationally, targeting in on my weak spot.

“Did Dono say the same thing to you about Kes’s mom?”

His eyes flared with fury, but he tamped it down.

“Tera would never choose to live an itinerant life. Her naïve interest will wear off—sooner rather than later.”

I shrugged. “Well, until then, I’ll do everything I can to make her happy.”

He gave a humorless chuckle. “My daughter is intelligent, well-educated and beautiful. What makes you think a dumb redneck like you could possibly make her happy?”

My chair rocked against the wall as I turned to face him. “I’m uneducated, not ignorant. I know I don’t deserve her, but I’m going to work my ass off to change that.”

“You live in a trailer—a trailer you don’t even own! You barely earned minimum wage last year! You think that’s good enough for her?”

“I don’t think a fuckin’ palace is good enough for her!”

He applauded quietly.

“Well played.”

“It’s not a fuckin’ game!”

He leaned forward, his eyes dark with dislike.

“When you fuck up, which you will, I’ll . . .”

“Save it. Kes already told me what he’d do to me if I upset Tera. And what he says means a hell of a lot more to me than any bullshit you can spout.”

The Senator looked surprised, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that Kes would look out for his half-sister.

“You think carnies are trash,” I said, my voice low and hard. “But that didn’t stop you from fucking one, did it? Four years you were with Kes and Connor’s mom. You were just too chickenshit to choose that life. You made your choice a long time ago: let Tera make hers.”

He leaned back again, his expression thoughtful.

“You’re going to pretend that you care about my daughter, that you’re not simply using her to get to me?”

I felt a flare of anger as I studied him, rich and entitled, telling everyone else how they should live and what they felt.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ love her.”

I heard Tera’s gasp behind me.

“You . . . you love me?”

I stood up quickly, catching her arms as her knees gave way.

“Tera . . .”

“Do you?”

I grabbed hold of her hand and led her away from the table, almost dragging her across the ballroom and hotel lobby, until I found an empty bench outside.

I sat down and pulled her onto my lap, running my hands over her bare shoulders.

Her eyes were inquisitive as she leaned against me, gently stroking my chest.

A warm bubble of happiness rose up inside me.

“Tucker, did you mean what you said?”

I swallowed, knowing it was time to tell her the truth.

“I didn’t know what it meant,” I said, speaking so softly that she had to strain to hear me, “because I thought I loved Renee and this—you and me—it felt nothing like it. This . . .
feeling
. . . is painful when I’m not with you. So I didn’t know that it means . . .”

I paused, unable to get the words out.

“What does it mean?” she whispered.

“That . . . that I love you.”

She stopped breathing. Or maybe it was me who stopped breathing. Maybe all the oxygen had been sucked out of the world. I wasn’t sure.

“And I didn’t want to be in love with you,” I continued, my voice rough, feeling as if my teeth would break on the words as I spat them out. “The people you love always let you down; they always leave you. That’s all I knew. But you . . . you kept coming back.”

Tera blinked, then a slow smile spread across her face and her eyes sparkled.

“You love me,” she said, raising her eyebrows as if she couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So . . . what happens next?”

I shook my head impatiently.

“Why the fuck are you asking me?”

Her eyes blazed with sudden anger, but then she burst out laughing.

“What am I going to do with you, Tucker?”

I grinned back at her. “Whatever you want, darlin’.”

She laughed happily, then wrapped her hand around my arm.

“Will you be my escort, Mr. McCoy?”

“I’ll be whatever you want, sugar.”

“Glad to hear it. And just for the record . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”

Shock, relief, satisfaction, astonishment, disbelief, hope. Most of all, hope.
So many emotions flowed through and over and around me. I drowned in them, drank them in, feeling unworthy, blessed, and determined not to fuck up.

We grinned at each other like two fools.

“Do you want to get out of here?” I asked. “Lose the stiffs?”

She nodded, her eyes glittering with excitement.

I took her hand in mine, feeling like the man, the proudest fucker in the Universe.

In the parking lot, Tera stared at my new white Ducati with red trim on the wheels.

“Another Duke, huh?”

“Yep.”

“A Duke and a ball gown,” she laughed, looking down at the midnight blue silk that hid and revealed those mouthwatering curves. “What are we going to do now?”

I helped her onto the bike, tucking the billowing silk around her carefully and passing her a helmet and my spare leather jacket.

“Other than be together? Does it matter?”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled at me.

“Guess not.”

Tera

My mother loved being of use. So I’m sure she was delighted that her determined, pointless, snobbish dislike of Tucker had opened my eyes. I was grateful to her. Between my mother’s glares and my father’s threats, I’d finally grown up.

Maybe 27 was a little on the late side to become an adult, but I’d done it at last.