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Whatever line they were treading was easier for her than him. She didn’t owe her father anything. Daire didn’t feel the same.
“Home doesn’t have to be a location,” he said, noticing her tongue darting out to moisten her lips. “Damnit.”
His eyes closed before he turned his head. The finger shielding hers moved away too. No expectation. She had no expectations of him. Everyone in his life wanted something from him. Amidst her embarrassment over his double-cross, it was easy to keep her distance. It didn’t seem to matter how disparate their lives were supposed to be, how different they were, they were together, connected. Even when neither of them should want it.
The rest of the journey went by in silence. The cab driver took them right up to the Beast’s plot. As Daire paid the guy, Tess got out of the vehicle.
The silver trailer had been the closest thing to a home she’d had in a long time. Not just because they’d lived there, dragging it from one side of the country to the other, but because she’d been happy there.
The truck was parked right next to the trailer. Daire would have to attach one to the other and then pull it back to Three’s house. Except Tess wasn’t so sure that she wanted to go back there. Not while her happiness was in front of her, so close.
The cab drove off and Daire passed by, retrieving keys from his pocket. He’d unlocked the door and freed the stairs before she noticed his frown. Yeah, she couldn’t stand there on the road indefinitely.
Jumping to it, she started to move, so he went inside. Tess wasn’t far behind and was careful to close the door without letting it bang.
They’d parked the Beast and gone straight to the hotel. So they didn’t have to worry about any kind of hook ups or draining anything. Still, Daire was moving around in a much more methodical way than Danny, ensuring everything was secure and nothing was loose.
“Grab anything you need,” he said. “It’s easier to get it now than going up and down the stairs once we’re parked in the garage at the house.”
Yes. Okay. Made sense. Why was she all over the place? His prompt was appreciated; someone needed to kick her.
They’d only packed essentials for the hotel. Most of her things were stowed in the Beast. She opened the closet to grab one of the paper grocery bags. The only other option was her suitcase, and that was in the bed of the truck. That’s where it was the last time she saw it anyway. Her sewing machine was there too. They’d be taking the truck back to the house. If Tess could get some fabric, she might be able to start making money again. Work would keep her occupied.
Tossing a couple of things from the closet into the bag, she continued to the bedroom. Upon opening the nightstand drawer, other than the abundance of condoms, the first thing her eye fell to was the envelope standing against the side. Sinking down to sit on the bed, the bag fell from her hand, then her fingers were on that envelope, retrieving it from where it had been since Danny put it there.
With it in both hands, she stared at the white rectangle, almost afraid to slip the paper from its cocoon.
“You okay?”
Daire’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
She looked over her shoulder at him standing in the mouth of the hallway, on the threshold of the bedroom.
“Yeah,” she said, her attention returning to the envelope. “We should show this to Harry.”
“Sure.”
Had she wanted him to agree with her so readily? In some ways, Harry was unshakeable. If she hadn’t read his letters to her mother, she might believe that he didn’t have any feelings at all. Seemed that was the way he wanted his men to think anyway.
She was still trying to convince herself that it was a good idea when Daire spoke again. “I got something for you.”
He wasn’t on the threshold anymore; he was sitting on his side of the bed with his back to her. Tess laid the envelope on the nightstand and slipped off her shoes to curl her legs as she twisted around to look at him.
“You got something for me?”
“When we were in Florida,” he said. “Before you figured out the numbers.” His drawer closed and then he was turning. A long ball-chain hung on four of his fingers while he cradled something in his other palm. “I didn’t know when to give it to you or if I should.”
“What is it?” she asked, scooching closer to see what was in his palm. It looked like a bullet, black, maybe a couple of inches long. The chain was threaded through a metal loop at the top.
He coughed. “It’s a… Your mom’s ashes are in it. You can twist the top off. It’s no big deal. I just thought you’d prefer her with you. Near to you.”
Speechless, Tess couldn’t believe he’d done something so thoughtful. That he’d done something so personal. Danny wouldn’t do something like that. Danny wouldn’t think of it. But Daire, he knew the value of traveling light, of how quickly she had to move sometimes. And he knew how she missed her mother, how she cherished that relationship.
He cleared his throat. “If you don’t want it—”
“I want it,” she said, bouncing to the middle of the bed. “I do.”
Without meeting her eye, he raised it up, and she ducked forward to let him loop the long chain around her neck. It fell to her chest, and she curled her fingers around it, holding the bullet in her fist.
