HAWKE
“Are you sure, Mr. Duncan?”Tate asked the frail old man who just kept shaking his head. Frustration coursed through me and I felt the urge to throw something. I took a step back on the small, rickety porch and braced my hands behind me on the porch railing so I wouldn’t be tempted to do just that with one of the half dozen dying potted plants all around us.
“Ain’t seen Buck or Denny for almost two years now,” Mr. Duncan announced. “Rumor has it they died in that explosion.”
Tate glanced over his shoulder at me and I did my best to school my reaction. We’d been interviewing people for several hours now and I knew the walk down memory lane wasn’t good for Tate, especially considering how many people had looked at him with open distaste. I had no doubt that despite Tate’s inherent goodness, he hadn’t been able to escape the negative association forced upon him simply because he carried the Buckley name. Mr. Duncan, who it turned out had once been Tate’s math teacher, had been the only one who hadn’t spoken to Tate through the door. And so far he was the only one who’d had more than a few words to say about what may or may not have happened to Buck and Denny.
“Do you mean the explosion at the meth lab near theWeathersby farm?” Tate asked as he turned his attention back to the old man who was rocking back and forth in a decrepit rocking chair.
“Yup…they had the State Police down here for that one. Found a couple bodies too,” Mr. Duncan said with a nod of his head as he reached for his glass of lemonade. “Course there wasn’t much left to identify.”
I ground my teeth together and turned around so that I was facing the street instead of the two men since I didn’t want Mr. Duncan or Tate to see my building anger. In all the years I’d been searching for Buck and Denny, I’d never even considered the possibility that they were dead. My one goal had always been to see the two men dead and buried, but now that I faced the prospect that they already were, it felt hollow. I hadn’t realized how much the prospect of hurting the two men, of making sure they suffered, had meant to me. Before it had just been a bonus, but now that I might not get it, I felt cheated.
Fuck, what kind of man did that make me?
Certainly not the kind of man who deserved to be with someone like Tate. Or Matty.
Jesus, I needed to get a fucking grip. I didn’t want Tate or his kid. I wanted Revay. I wanted our son. Tate was just…a distraction. A warm, sweet, kind, gorgeous distraction.
It was my own voice that called me a liar this time around. I hadn’t heard Revay’s whisper in my ear in a while…not since I’d actually buried myself deep inside of Tate’s body two nights ago. And worse, the only voice I now heard when I remembered the words scrawled across my body, my wife’s final ode to what we’d had, was Tate’s.
“You ready to go?”
I flinched when Tate’s arm brushed mine as he leaned against the railing next to me. I hoped to God he hadn’t noticed my reaction, but when he put several inches between us, I knew that he had. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Mr. Duncan had gone inside at some point.
“Nothing?” I asked, since I’d ended up tuning out the end of their conversation.
Tate just shook his head.
Despite the intimacy we’d shared this morning in the motel’s bathroom, we hadn’t spoken much since then and I’d been incredibly careful not to touch Tate. Because he’d already seen me at my lowest. And touching him the way I wanted to just wasn’t an option – because I couldn’t give him more of what I’d only given to Revay. I would give him pleasure with my body and I’d take the same from him, but I couldn’t give him what I knew he wanted…what I saw in his eyes every time he looked at me. What I’d felt in his embrace this morning as his skin had soaked up the few tears I hadn’t been able to keep from falling.
“We could try talking to the sheriff about the explosion, but I’m not sure he’d tell us anything.”
“Why not?” I asked as I followed Tate down the steps and towards my truck.
“He always looked the other way when it came to Buck and Denny. Pay was better, I guess.”
“Buck paid him off?”
Tate nodded.
“How do you know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tate said as he reached for the truck’s door handle. Despite my promise to myself not to touch him, I did just that and gently turned him to face me before he could open the door.
“It matters to me,” I said as I backed Tate up until his back hit the door. He didn’t struggle in any way and, in fact, he looked almost relieved.
“I asked him for help once.”
“The sheriff?”
Tate nodded. “Buck made me run drugs for him when I was younger. I thought if I had the proof in my hands, the sheriff could arrest Buck.”
“What happened?” I asked, though I pretty much knew the answer.
“He put me in his squad car along with the drugs, drove me back to my house and told Buck what I’d done. Buck handed himsome cash, told him to keep the drugs as a bonus and then beat me so bad I blacked out right there in the driveway. I have no idea how long I was laying there for, but Denny dumped some water on me, pointed a gun at my head and told me he’d managed to talk Buck out of killing me. But if I ever opened my mouth again, Denny said he’d shoot me himself.”
“Tate-”
