Page 17 of Too Broken to Love

Malcolm pulled out. “Hungry? Diner’s still open twenty-four hours.”

“No.” The rumbling in his stomach disagreed, but everyone at the diner knew Pop. He couldn’t handle another story he knew nothing about.

“Want me to call the guys and get a game together on the beach?”

Rugby sounded like just the kind of outlet Hudson needed. He could blame sand in his eyes for his tears when he tackled someone. So, why the hell did he want to drive to the duplex instead and ask Tessa to tell him everything he’d missed these past twelve months?

He wanted her answers, but for reasons he couldn’t explain, he wanted her comfort too. But he couldn’t seek any of that. He had a duty and it wasn’t to the Navy this time.

“Let’s head home.” He closed his eyes as they passed a billboard for the fishing tournament. He’d made it home for it, alright, but not in time. “Tell me everything about Tessa.”

“She reiterated everything she told us in the car. She was tense the whole time, but cooperative. Frank’s record was as dirty as Tessa’s was clean, but that’s all the detective found on record about him. She said they lived in so many cities and towns throughout the Midwest while she was young, she couldn’t remember them all.”

“Or didn’t want to remember.” Hudson had traveled all over the world with his parents on humanitarian assignments. He remembered every place they’d lived before they died in a car crash when he was twelve. He breathed through the old wound that still hurt after twenty-six years. “When did Tessa come to New Jersey?”

“After they left the Midwest, she lived in a couple places in Florida. After high school, she convinced her mom to leave Frank and moved to Long Island, N.Y. where her bestie, Lia the paramedic, was headed. She worked with Lia until she was twenty-four. Her mother died in a car accident around the same time.”

“Let me guess. Tessa fled New York and came here after her mom died.” He understood that. Right now, he wanted to get behind the wheel and drive.

Malcolm nodded and pulled into a burger joint. “You look pale. You need food.”

Hudson didn’t argue. The words on the drive-thru menu wavered in his vision as they stopped to order. Damn, he was tired. Maybe eating would give him strength to face going home to a house without Pop. “Tell me what I don’t know about Tessa.”

“She said Sam had been more of a father to her in two years than Frank had ever been. She didn’t seem to be bullshitting.”

Christ. Had Pop needed a grandchild so much he’d adopted Tessa as his own while Hudson was gone?

Was that so bad?

Maybe in a few days or a few weeks it wouldn’t be, but right now, irrational, or selfish, it still made him jealous as hell. Confused too, since his curiosity about her trumped his anger.

What had been so important this past year that he couldn’t find time to come home?

Duty.

Dammit. He’d thought reaching the pinnacle of his career, that being the best of the best in his field, would be satisfying. He even knew the duty that went with it might cost him his life. He hadn’t factored in lost time.

Malcolm handed him a bag. Hudson pulled out a fry and popped it into his mouth. “What’s your take on Tessa?”

“She’s hot.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Damn, did he get it. “Did Pop tell you about her?”

“Nope. He never told you about her?”

“Briefly. I thought she was his age.”

Malcolm reached across the seat and grabbed a handful of fries. “Besides being hot and young, I think she’s scarred from growing up with a scumbag father like Frank.”

“Agreed.” Hudson didn’t buy for one second that Frank didn’t have something to do with why she flinched when he touched her cheek. And now she was his responsibility, whether he was ready for her or not.

Hudson stepped through the heavy double doors of the mansion. For the first time in his life, the place didn’t feel like home. Striding through the vaulted foyer where he’d hugged Pop for the last time, he swept past Vivian. Malcolm could deal with his hysterical aunt. Right now, he needed bourbon.

With every inch toward Pop’s study, the old man’s absence dragged him deeper into the darkness he’d skirted all night. He stopped at the door and laid a hand on the thick wood.

“Hudson.”

He turned to Josie, Pop’s housekeeper since before Hudson was born.