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“I’m not talking about that,” she muttered, and scooped up another bite and poked it in her mouth.
“Here he comes. We got your favorite, buddy,” Wade said, and tossed Tate a honey bun.
“Thanks. Did you bring any Pepsi?”
Wade pointed to a twelve-pack on the counter.
Tate poured one in a cup, added some ice and then sat down beside Nola.
“Trade you a bite,” he said.
“Deal,” she said as he tore off a piece of honey bun and fed it to her. Then she scooped up a big bite of ice cream and spooned it into his mouth.
Cameron elbowed Wade, who grinned and nodded.
“We leave and look what happens,” Cameron said.
Tate heard them but ignored them, and Nola no longer cared.
She’d lost her home.
Someone wanted her dead.
The only man she’d ever loved was back in her life.
Some would say that only one out of three wasn’t optimum odds, but life didn’t come with guarantees and she wasn’t wasting a minute of it with what-ifs.
* * *
The morning had dawned clear and cool. It was a good day for early September. The flowers in Don Benton’s flower beds in front of the house were still blooming. Asters and chrysanthemums. Julia had called them hardy flowers when she’d planted them. Even though she was long gone from the house, he’d kept everything just as it had been. It was his way of pretending nothing in his life that mattered had really changed.
But it had. Seeing Tate again had rattled him, and the anger, while not surprising, had been so vicious he would not have been shocked if the two of them had come to blows. He could tell the night he stitched up Nola Landry’s arm that their relationship would most likely resume. He didn’t care. It was nothing to do with him.
When they’d first left, there had been countless sleepless nights when he’d lain awake, trying to figure out who Tate’s father could have been. Finally he’d pushed the jealousy aside and written off his wife and her bastard as a deal gone bad. It didn’t matter who she’d had an affair with. They were both out of his life, and now she was no longer of this world. It had been a shock to learn how she had suffered before she died, but as time passed, he decided life had dealt her exactly what she had deserved.
He had some paperwork to catch up on and then was thinking about a short trip to New Orleans. Maybe spend a couple of days there seeing the sights and visiting old friends. The food was amazing and he needed a break.
He was driving down Main Street on his way to the morgue when a car came out of an alley. He caught a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye, and then everything went black.
* * *
Nola was sitting at the island in her sock feet eating cereal and watching Tate make toast. Wade was in the shower, and Cameron was on the phone with the director. She could tell by the way Tate’s head was tilted that he was listening to everything Cameron was saying. Both men had filed their reports on the copycat incident last night before they’d gone to bed, and she guessed they were waiting to see how their boss reacted.
Tate had just watched Nola take her last bite when his cell phone rang. He noticed it was the hospital and assumed it was probably Beaudry, laid up and bored and wanting an update.
“This is Benton,” he said.
“Tate, this is Doctor Tuttle. Your father was in an accident. Someone came out of an alley down on Main and T-boned his car on the driver’s side. He has some internal injuries and is losing a lot of blood.”
Shock sent Tate back to his childhood, to the man who was his hero, then flashed forward to the night that same man had punched him in the face and sent him tumbling down the stairs. Finally he made himself focus.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“I know this is a long shot, but your dad has a rare blood type and with everything going on, we don’t have any on hand. By any chance are you O negative?”
“Yes. Where do I go?”
“Fantastic! Come to the E.R. I’ll have them set up and waiting for you. And, Tate…time is of the essence.”
