Her phone rang again, echoing across the room.
“Someone really wants to talk to you,” he mumbled through another kiss.
“Probably Miranda. Go rein in your stallion while I get us some coffee.”
Audrey snaked out of the covers and sashayed into the kitchen, grabbing her phone from the dresser as she left.
Yep, Miranda.
She flung it open with a flick of her wrist and yawned. “Can’t I have at least one cup of coffee before today’s briefing, Lieutenant? At least a bathroom break.”
“Shut up and pick up the paper,” Mandy bit out.
“Whoa! It’s too early for attitude, hon.” Audrey pulled a mug down from the cabinet and started filling the coffeemaker with water. “Where’s the fire?”
“Spreading across the front page, and it’s already ruined us, Aud. Heartbreaker boy hit again.”
“It can’t be that bad, Mandy.”
Not after the night he and I just shared.
“Have you had your Xanax today?”
“Audrey! Pick. Up. The paper.”
When she opened the front door, she saw the headline through the plastic wrap sitting on the welcome mat.
HOMETOWN SCANDAL DOOMS ALLEN CAMPAIGN
Her stomach caved as all of the air whooshed out of her lungs, and her legs became brittle and pudding all at once. Holding onto the doorjamb to keep from buckling, she picked up the paper and slid it out of the sleeve, dropping the plastic on the mat.
When unfolded, Jack’s high school photo smiled out at her next to a capture of the mangled car wreck. Mandy’s voice drowned behind the roaring in Audrey’s ears. Just below the photos were four words that gripped her chest:
WRITTEN BY ETHAN TANNER
The pain shot through her arms and down into her belly. The pieces of her heart shattering into every corner of her body.
“I thought you said this was nothing you couldn’t handle?” Mandy almost cried into the phone.
“I have to call you back.” Her voice sounded hallow, eerie, as if it weren’t her own.
“No, Audrey. We have a shit storm of damage control. I’ve already had a half-dozen phone calls asking for comment.”
Audrey closed the phone.
Before her feet would move, a door opened down the hall and an elderly man grabbed the paper in front of his apartment. His slippers shuffled to move back inside, then stopped as he read the headline. His gaze instantly moved to Audrey, still frozen by her door, and his jaw sagged.
Before the neighbor could say anything, Audrey finally darted into her apartment and quietly shut the door. As if she escaped with the least amount of noise, it would cause the least amount of damage to her image. Not that she could run from the crippling words she held in her hand.
The first paragraph set the tone of her dread, knowing the rest would only get worse. With each sentence, another piece of her heart splintered and withered.
“…ran from her mistakes.”
“…wave of pain and resentment in her wake.”
“…even her brother pledges not to vote for her.”
“…stealing the hometown hero’s life and the dreams of dozens.”
She couldn’t scream. Couldn’t cry. Her body wouldn’t let what her soul begged for.
Last night was a lie. Everything out of his mouth, his eyes, his body only meant to ensnare her more.
What did you expect from Ethan Tanner? You traded your campaign and respect for one night on a fool’s hope.
She cringed through her unguarded heart.
Looking up from the paper, she found herself in the kitchen bracing her arms against the counter. The phone shrilled through the kitchen again, dancing across the counter.
“Good Lord, you’re important. Seven a.m. and they’re relentless.” Ethan’s silky voice drifted across the air on his cologne. His wide shoulders leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and he gazed at her the way only a moment ago she would have lost herself in. Like she was a plate full of chocolate soufflé to a starving man.
She wanted to throw up.
“Before your busy campaign schedule today, can you spare an hour for breakfast with me?” She could have slid across the smoothness of his voice like a figure skater on ice. If only it didn’t lead her to thinner promises.
“I’m all booked up today,” she finally croaked out.
“What’s wrong?”
“Really?” She glared into his innocent eyes. “You’re gonna play dumb? I didn’t think that was in your playbook.”
“What are you talking—”
“You, more than anyone else, had the whole story.” She cut him off, acid dripping with every word. “I thought you understood…everything you said. No. Forget that. You’re just like the rest of them.”
“Talk to me,” he cooed, placing his hands on her shoulders. But she wiggled out of it.
“I’m
done
talking to you. Get out.”
“What?”
Audrey brushed past him, forcing her face to be strong and emotionless, and gathered up his bags in the living room. When she turned around, she strode past him to throw his things out the door, trying to ignore his horrified shock as he read the front page.
“Bose, you son of a—” he murmured under his breath.
“Oh, so it’s
not
your fault.” She tossed the bags in the hallway. “Place all the blame on someone else. You mean you didn’t write that? Those words didn’t come out of your mind? You didn’t submit that to your press?”
“I swear this isn’t what I meant to publish. I had a completely different article—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Audrey flung open her front door and waited.
It didn’t matter that Ethan played hurt and stunned so well it nearly convinced her. It didn’t matter that she started to feel the anguish rip through her heart and up into her throat. It didn’t matter that she finally opened herself to another person only to have it exploded back in her face.
“No, Audrey.”
What?
“I’m not gonna run from this. Yes, this article is mine, but I wrote it before last night at the pond. When we came home to pack, I called my boss and told him not to run this. I’d have a better one for Sunday. Then after the incredible night we just had, I wrote a different one. One that would ensure your victory, but… I’m so sorry.”
Audrey swallowed hard.
Fight the tears… Peacemaker face. Peacemaker…
“You finished?”
“God, I hope not.”
“I don’t want your apology, Ethan. But you better call the Davises and give it to them instead. I told you I wasn’t concerned about myself. It was his family I wanted to protect.”
Peacemaker face had never been so painful in her life. She meant what she said: his family was more important than her own feelings. But this was one thing she couldn’t handle.
“Get out,” she finished, tearing her watery eyes away from his ashamed face.
“Please, Audrey. How can I fix this?”
You’ve already ripped out my heart so I can’t feel anymore. I’ll be immune to everything.
The phone rang again, echoing through the apartment like a firehouse siren. Audrey stood her ground, staring at the wall across from her.
Ethan slowly moved forward, gathered his bags from the floor at her feet, and stood. Without a word, he leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she pulled back and clamped her jaw shut.
When he stepped through the door, Audrey let a single tear fall down her cheek, the cheek he couldn’t see.
“I’ll make this right, Audrey.”
She slammed the door on the last ring.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ethan sped through the streets, the adrenaline as rampant in his system as the fuel in his truck. His hand hurt like hell, but the ache in his chest was worse. He couldn’t tell if the roaring sound was the diesel engine or the fury pulsing in his ears.
Bose’s used-car-salesman grin only infuriated him more. Confronting his boss was useless, but he couldn’t stop himself. It wasn’t surprising that Bose ran the more damaging article, but it was the first time Ethan had been truly ashamed. Of Bose, his profession, and himself.
But it was his own words that stunned him the most. “I won’t keep working like this,” he’d yelled.
“What are you talking about?” His boss scoffed at him in his office, the phones ringing like annoying mockingbirds throughout the scattered cubicles. “This is what you’ve always done, only better. Our volumes have never been higher.”
“It was shit, Bose. And you know it.”
“Are you saying it wasn’t the truth?”
“It wasn’t the
whole
truth.”
“Then you’re fine.”
“I’m not trying to save my ass, Bose. I’m trying to do what’s right.”
“Holy shit,” Bose murmured, staring dumbfounded back at Ethan. His slick black hair suddenly looked slimy and unearthly. Just as his eyes. “I warned you, Tanner. You grew a conscience. That backwoods hick town messed with your head.”
“No, it didn’t. I messed with my own head. I’ve destroyed her.”
“Oh, now I get it. It’s Allen, isn’t it? You’ve fallen for her. And now she hates you because of the article.”
Ethan stormed forward with shaking fists. Only when his boss stepped back, horrified, did Ethan restrain himself a mere three inches from his face. The snake was right. For all the wrong reasons, but that didn’t change the hallow cavity in his chest.
“Fuck you, Bose.”
Pacing wasn’t going to help, but Ethan did it anyway. Scraping his fist along Bose’s desk wouldn’t help either. But he did it anyway. Fighting old demons was useless.
“Tanner, take it easy.” Bose slipped his fingers through his greasy hair and unknotted his Windsor tie. “Every journalist goes through an ethical crisis at least once. But you’ve done it. Now you can move on. And as for more good news: New York is expecting you next week.”
Ethan’s jaw flinched and he stared hard at the desk.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Bose leaned forward. “You’ve got New York.”
“I don’t give a shit about New York.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Tanner.” Bose ripped off his tie and tossed in on the desk. “For years, you busted my balls for that referral. And now you’re throwing it back in my face. Get the hell out of here and come back when you’ve got your priorities straight.”
“I want a retraction.”
Bose almost swallowed his tongue. “In a wet dream.”
“A retraction and Sunday’s front page of the other article. The real one.”
“Just so you can get back between the sheets with the salacious slayer, fat chance.”
Screw fighting demons.
Ethan swung once and his fist connected with Bose’s jaw. His boss swirled and landed in his desk chair, rolling across his office and slamming against the wall.
It was one hell of a resignation notice. Effective. But painful.
Now he raced down the highway to the only person who could help him make this right. If they didn’t answer the door with a shotgun.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ethan didn’t have to worry about a shotgun greeting him at the Biddinger’s door. His truck didn’t even make it a mile into town before an army of parade floats and the high school band stopped him. Trailers covered with tissue paper flowers, streamers, and teenagers sitting on hay bales meandered down the main road at a slug’s pace. A Thanksgiving parade… on Saturday.
How quaint.
Even more podunkesque
was a lone deputy guarding the street entrance from traffic. The harsh scowl was easy to identify from a hundred yards.
Adam Biddinger.
The uniform made the gruff man even more intimidating, but Ethan could tell he’d lived most of his life in uniform, one kind or another. The wide stance, squared shoulders: he wore it proudly.
Ethan pulled his truck into the alley behind the Piggly Wiggly, ignoring the
Employees/Vendors Only
sign at the entrance. Locking the doors was pointless because he had no valuables inside and everyone was focused on the parade. Beautiful mornings like this with a chill in the air were perfect for parades. And the potential for getting punched by a cop.
“Adam,” Ethan called, crossing the street without looking. Again, pointless.
The man’s eyes narrowed like a hawk spotting prey from a half mile out. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“The hell we do. I’m workin’.”
“I need your help.”
Adam blanched, but covered it with a grimace. “Are you drunk?”
“I wish.”
“Go home, city boy.”
“Not until you help me with your sister.”
“Yeah, right,” Adam scoffed, avoiding Ethan’s gaze as he scanned the street. “That’s at the top of my priority list.”
“It should be.”
A flatbed truck rolled up and honked, carrying picnic tables and chairs. Adam moved the barricade to let them through, ignoring Ethan.
“Talk to me, dammit!”
Still no recognition that he existed.
Without Adam, there was no point to his attempted apology to Audrey. He needed the whole family to make this plan work. And starting with the most challenging member was just Ethan’s style: suicidal.
That’s exactly the method he needed to use.
The nearest thing to him was the garbage can on the street corner.
Isn’t that in the wrong spot? Damn, that should be pissing someone off.
Ethan grabbed the metal can, lifted it over his head and tossed it in the street, spilling trash as it rolled into the barricade.
“What the hell, Tanner?”
Ha! That got his attention.
“Destroying public property and littering. Arrest me.”
“Did your balls just drop, you juvenile prick?”
“Arrest me.”
“I’ll do more than that if you don’t get your ass out of here, now.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get you to help me.”
Following a fierce look, Adam lifted his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them on.
Damn, the man was trained well.
Nothing battered him when he was focused. Time for something drastic.
Ethan punched the cop in the jaw, with his already sore fist. Adam’s sunglasses flew off. The man’s face was a brick wall.
Damn, I broke a few knuckles on that shit.
But it worked.
The devil’s lair would have frozen over with Adam’s glare. Before Ethan could think “Miranda Rights,” he was tossed to the ground like a toothpick and handcuffed behind his back. “You’re either incredibly stupid or desperate,” Adam barked over him.