Flawed Beauty (23 page)

Looking up, she could see her angel,
the one who’d always been on her side – her comfort.

But the angel only smiled sadly as
Jace
had done. “I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have strayed
from the path. I tried to warn you.”

Tate woke as fear ripped through
her. She really had strayed from her path and she was in deep trouble. She
didn’t know if she could make it back this time. Nothing that had happened to
her in the past – not what her father had done, not what Nick had done, nothing
was as painful as this. And she’d known better… she known better than to get
involved. When his internship was over in three months, he’d be gone and she’d
be a far-off, distant memory. He might miss her at first, but eventually, she
would fade from his mind and he’d move on to someone else. It was obvious
Brittany wouldn’t have any qualms about filling her shoes. She clamped her
hands over her ears as if that could stop the image of
Jace
stroking into Brit’s perfect body.

When she’d calmed somewhat, Tate
glanced at the clock, it was nearly five a.m. She’d gotten about an hour of
sleep and knew she’d not get any more. Slipping from the bed, she cringed when
her foot kicked the bottle of chocolate syrup which had been kicked partially
under the bed. Picking it up, she threw it into the wicker wastebasket. She
brushed her teeth and hair, before throwing on some workout clothes. She hopped
on her bike and rode through the quiet, dark, Sunday morning.

Using her keycard, she entered the
gym and stepped to the treadmill. At this time of morning, especially on a
Sunday, the place was deserted. She plugged in ear buds attached to her iPod,
and turned the volume up as loud as it would go. She closed her eyes and ran.
She continued running, even when her chest burned. She continued to run when
her legs began to burn. She continued to run when sweat began to pour down her
face. But no matter how long or how hard she ran, the pain in her chest… in her
heart, refused to be extinguished. After showering, she taught her two-hour
self-defense class, leapt onto her bike, and rode until she reached the bike
trail. Putting her ear buds back in, she turned the music up once more. Heading
off onto the trail, she rode and rode, but still the pain lingered.

It was dark when she arrived home.
Mentally and physically she was tired. She thought long and hard and knew what
she’d always known:
Jace
needed to move on. She knew
he’d fight it in the beginning. But eventually, he’d come to see the truth of
the situation. Their existences in life were on alternative universes. He just
needed to return to his.
I’ve ruined you for all men
, Nick had said in
her dream. Well, he wasn’t alone.

She’d left her
cellphone
on her dresser purposefully. She saw where
Jace
had
tried to call her periodically throughout the day. She closed her eyes against
the pain spiraling in her chest. She deleted the messages without listening to
them. Taking the coward’s way out, but not wanting him showing up at her
apartment, she texted him:
Sorry, was at the gym, then the bike trail, and
forgot my phone. Hope you’re having a nice visit. See you tomorrow
.

When she tried to sleep, different
versions of the same dream from the night before plagued her. She finally gave
up when Mr. Smith backed her up against the pool table and ran his dirty,
grubby hands down her body and whispered, “This is the world you belong in.”

She rose from the bed, knowing she’d
not get any more sleep, and put the coffeepot on. She hated the thought she
didn’t even have school to distract her this week because of Spring Break. When
light began to streak across the sky, she dressed, hopped on her bike, and
headed back to the bike trail. She needed to separate herself from
Jace
… for both their sakes. Her heart squeezed painfully at
the thought of never being with him again.

Later in the day, after receiving a
message from
Jace
, begging her to join them for
dinner, she texted back once again:
I’m so sorry, I
w
on’t be able to
make dinner. Was able to get into a one-night-only Personal Trainer class. Please
extend my apologies to your company. See you soon.

So that she didn’t actually have to
add lying to her long list of travesties, Tate called
Teto
at the gym and begged to just sit in on his class. He was reluctant, but
finally agreed.

Teto’s
class ran long and it was midnight
when she biked home. She’d had approximately three hours sleep in nearly
thirty-six hours and she was bleary when she showered, slid in between the
sheets, leaving the bathroom light on with the door cracked, and drifted off into
a thankfully dreamless sleep.

It was sometime around four a.m.
when she was nudged gently from her much-needed sleep by the feel of hands
brushing up her skin beneath her nightgown. She smiled at the sensation and the
familiar smell of Dr.
Jace
Staton
.
He pushed her gown over her head and laid his already naked skin against hers.

“I missed you,” he whispered.

“
Mmmm
.
I’ve missed you, too,” she
whispered back as sleep began to recede from her mind. She told herself, just
this one last time,
then
she’d be strong enough to
resist him.

She moaned when his lips found her
breasts and shuddered when he blazed a fiery trail down her stomach and below.
As fire settled in her belly and her desire wound her tight, she begged for
relief from the raging storm within. He rose up over her and kissed her sweetly
before lowering himself into her. With long, measured strides he, like the
musician he was, played her body with alternative soft touches then aggressive,
needful ones. Like one of his guitars, he tuned and touched, tightened, then
released; the strings within becoming tight and taunt beneath his strokes.

Tears flooded her eyes at the beauty
of his touch. Passion, want, need, desire, and fire consumed her as he
continued to stroke, slow and easy.

“Please, please. I can’t endure it.
Please faster. I need you faster. I need you now,” she begged.

He laughed in her ear. “I got you.
Not yet. Just wait. You feel so good. I want you so much.”

She arched her back at his words as
her legs stiffened around him.

“Oh, God!” she cried, throwing her
head back.

Her cries incited his passion,
causing him to ignite, and his strides became harder and faster. What started
as soft and easy was now fast and furious, wild and untamed. He rained kisses
over her face and neck and nipped against her skin, crazed by passion. Finally,
he reached his peak and called out her name.

“Tate, I love you,” he moaned.

He fell to his elbows, leaning his
forehead between her breasts, gasping for air.

Once he could breathe, he raised his
head and stared into her eyes. “Where have you been?” he asked softly.

Knowing he didn’t mean the missed
dinner, she whispered, “Right here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she answered after a brief
hesitation.

“Are
we
okay?”

“Yes,” she answered after an even
longer hesitation, her chest tightening.

“Tate, you’re what I want.”

“I know,” she whispered, but the
words,
for now
, flitted across her mind.

“Brittany will be gone in a day or
two and our lives can go on as before. Okay?”

Instead of answering, she pulled him
down to her and held him against her breasts. She lightly stroked his hair as
they drifted back off to sleep.

When she next opened her eyes, he
was gone.

Chapter 8

The
next afternoon,
Jace
called, but Tate let it go to voicemail.
She’d already learned she couldn’t be strong when he was around. Her muscles
ached from all of her excessive exercise and she had a severe headache from her
broken sleep patterns. She thought about making an appointment with Dr.
Randall, but knew there was no cure for what ailed her.

She was in the middle of heating
soup when her
cellphone
rang again. Assuming it was
Jace
again,
she exhaled deeply and
glanced at the screen. It was Zeal’s. With raised eyebrows, she clicked it on.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Tate.
It’s Ramona. I’ve got someone here
who wants to talk to you. I didn’t want to give him any of your personal
information, so can you come down?”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Yep.
He gave me his card. It’s a
detective from Illinois.
A Detective Alan Tracey.”

Tate couldn’t contain her gasp. Alan
Tracey? What was he doing here? It probably had to do with Nick; it was the
only explanation.

“I’ll be right down. Thanks,
Ramona.”

Tate turned off the stovetop, and
pulled her hair back into its standard ponytail, and made her way down to
Zeal’s. Her stomach fluttered with an attack of nerves. While he’d always sent
a card on her birthday, she’d not seen Alan Tracey in eight years.

As it was early in the day, the bar
had very few patrons and Alan was easy to spot standing, leaning as Nick had
done, against the bar. He was as tall as she remembered and really hadn’t aged
very much. If he had any grey hair, the sandy-blonde of his hair covered it.
She took a deep breath and walked slowly towards him. He straightened at her
advance. A smile curled his lips.

“Tate. You are beautiful,” he
exclaimed softly.

“Thank you.”

He hesitated in hugging her until
she gave him a small nod. She felt him tremble against her.

Glancing around, she asked, “Is Beth
here with you?”

He blushed and looked away. “No,
she’s not. She… doesn’t know I’m here. In fact, I have a flight back in about
an hour.”

As it was what she expected, she
simply nodded.

“It’s so good to finally see you
after all this time. How have you been?” he asked.

Slipping up onto a barstool, she
shrugged, not sure how to answer. “Fine, I guess. It all… worked out. Thanks
for the cards and the money. It was very thoughtful.”

He heaved a huge sigh. “It was the
very least I could do. I’ve been so tore up about what happened to you in my
own home, by my own son. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am… for so many
things.”

“Things happen for a reason,” Tate
murmured the words she’d heard time and time again.

“If I would have had any idea how
deranged he was, I promise you, I’d never have petitioned the court for you. I…
just meant to help you. I just didn’t know,” he seemed to plead to her.

“What doesn’t kill us makes us
stronger,” uncomfortable with the conversation, she recited yet another cliché.

He eyed her for a long time. “Tate,
is there any of you left in there?” he said, tapping a finger against her head.

She flinched and with quivering lips
she responded breathlessly, meaning to be humorous but coming out watery, “When
life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”

Sadly, he shook his head. “I’m so
sorry. You didn’t deserve any of the things done to you.” Clearing his throat,
he continued, “I have something important I need to discuss with you. Do you
mind if we sit at a table?”

Her stomach clenched. Did he know
about Nick coming here? She nodded her head and led the way to a private table.

She sat in silence with her hands
folded tightly in her lap. He sat and studied her for a long time before
scrubbing a hand across his face.

She swallowed hard at the
seriousness of his expression. He lowered his gaze and tapped a fingertip
against the tabletop.

Finally unable to stand it any
longer, she begged, “Please just tell me whatever it is.”

Exhaling deeply, he said, “Tate, I
hate to tell you this, but Travis Moon died last week. He had pancreatic
cancer.”

It was her turn to exhale and sit
back heavily in her seat. “My father?” she whispered inanely, as if she didn’t
know her own father’s name.

He gave her an odd look, but nodded.
This wasn’t at all what she expected. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to
feel about that. She’d hated him for so long and now, she felt… nothing. Not
better, nor worse for his passing.

She blinked back to the present when
Alan began to speak again. “There’s more, Tate. Worse things, I’m afraid…”

“Okay,” she said warily.

“Travis Moon called and requested to
speak with me in person. I was hesitant, but he was persistent, so I went. He
was dying and apparently found religion while incarcerated. Because of his
‘newfound’ change, he wanted to make amends for some of the things he’d done in
his life. One of those things pertained to you.”

Calling upon all her years of
containment, Tate refolded her hands and sat up straight. “Okay.”

Alan looked away from her, allowing
his eyes to glance around the room as he seemed to be gathering his courage to
tell her whatever horrible thing he needed to say.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,
so I’m just going to come out and say it.
Do you know what
human trafficking is, Tate?”

Slowly, she nodded her head. “It’s
what he did with me online, right?”

Just as slowly, he nodded his head.
“Yes, but I’m afraid it was worse than just that. You see,
Tilda
and Travis Moon didn’t actually have any children of their own. According to
him, he abducted little girls at an early age – specific girls, blonde, blue
eyes, usually anyway. Then when they turned thirteen, he’d sell them.”

Blood roared in Tate’s head. She
couldn’t get her mind to absorb his words. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

Alan moved his chair until he sat
next to her and wrapped his arm around her.

“Travis and
Tilda
Moon weren’t your parents. I checked her medical records after I left him.
Tilda
never gave birth.”

Whispering on a shaky breath, she
asked, “Who am I?”

He gave her a bittersweet smile, “I
don’t know, exactly. He could only tell me where he took you from. It seems
Tilda
was from a small town in Tennessee called Bulls Gap
and when they’d go back to visit, on the return trip, they’d abduct the next
girl, usually from one of the surrounding towns.” Alan scrunched his eyebrows
in mystification. “He said they had some type of ritual. They always bought the
girls ice cream then took them to some sort of caverns. A place called The Lost
Sea in…”

“Sweetwater,” she choked.

He lifted confused eyes to hers.
“You know it? You remember?”

“I don’t know… maybe… I don’t know.
Do you know who my parents are? Where I belong?”

“Travis Moon didn’t really remember.
Before I left Illinois, I ran a check of children kidnapped at the time Moon
said he took you. There are thirteen open cases close to Bulls Gap. I marked
off the ones whose descriptions didn’t match yours – that leaves you with three
possibilities. I haven’t done anything more than that. I’ll leave that decision
up to you. It seems to me that your whole life, people have been making
decisions for you instead allowing you the chance to decide for yourself. I’ll
give you that chance now.”

Alan reached into his shirt pocket
and withdrew a piece of paper. “On this paper are the names and addresses. The
choice is up to you. If you need help, I’m there for you, Tate. I want you to
be happy.”

Tate’s eyes were bright with unshed
tears. Shock kept her rooted in her seat.

Alan rose and pressed a kiss on her
head. “I have a plane to catch. You have my number. Take care of yourself, Tate
Morgan. You deserve an amazing life.”

Tate didn’t move when Alan left. She
was numb. Who was she? She began to shiver, a deep cold seeming to invade her
body. She was nobody.

Eventually, she felt hands on her shoulders.
Startled, she suddenly became aware of her surroundings: the clicking of
glasses; the murmur of voices; and the radio softly playing an old seventies
song –
Just take those old records off the shelf
… The continued pressure
on her shoulders caused her to glance upward. Thor stood looking down at her
with concern in his eyes, the light above glaring off his shiny, bald head.

“You okay, little one?”

Use of the endearment hurt her chest
and she rubbed against it. She lowered her head and whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Who was that man?”

“Someone I knew from a long time
ago.”

Thor moved to sit next to her. “What
did he want?”

“To tell me my father died.” A
bitter laugh escaped her dry lips. “Father,” she snorted, “a father gives life…
that man stole mine.”

“What do you mean?” Thor asked with
concern.

Tate tossed her eyes over at him and
finally saw him – really saw him.
“Nothing.
It’s…
nothing. I need to go,” she murmured as she rose woodenly and walked out of the
bar. Her brain and body were on autopilot and she just walked as her chaotic
thoughts spun in her mind. Her sisters hadn’t been her sisters. Her parents
hadn’t been her parents. She guessed that made sense in a way. Would her life
have been better or worse had Travis Moon not stolen her? Did her parents even
miss her? Had they looked for her? Did they even remember her… want her?

The next time Tate became aware of
her surroundings, she was surprised to find herself standing in front of the
lighted fountain, staring at the swans swimming. She heard her
cellphone
ring and answered it absently.

“Hello.”

“Hey, baby. Are you okay? Thor
called here looking for you. He was worried but wouldn’t say why. Are you
sick?”

Jace
.
Beautiful,
considerate
Jace
.
She remembered asking him
how much he could take before it became too much. This was too much… even for
her.

“I’m fine. I must have lost track of
time. I need to go. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.” She slipped her phone in her
pocket and the next time it rang, she ignored it. With her shoulders hunched,
she move to the bench and sat down wearily. What was she supposed to do? What
if she contacted the families and they ended up being even worse than the
Moons?

The night had cooled and she
shivered. She knew she should get up and go to work, or at the very least, go
home.
Home?
What home? She’d never had a home. It was
a terrible thing to not belong anywhere.

“Tate?”

Tate lifted her blank eyes up to
Jace’s
concerned face. Slowly, he sat down on the bench
beside her.

“What’s happened?” he asked as he
tucked her hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead. “You’re ice cold. Come
here,” he said, pulling her into his arms and rubbing warmth into her body.

She leaned her face into the curve
of his neck and inhaled deeply. “How did you find me?” she asked softly.

“I heard the fountain in the
background when I called. How come you didn’t answer my calls? What’s going
on?”

She couldn’t do this anymore. She
didn’t want to hurt this man, but in the end, it would be better. Their lives were
just too… different. He wanted things she would never be able to the give him.
Better to just tell him now. She inhaled deeply just once more, soaking in his
smell, fortifying herself.

She pulled back and straightened to
look forward at the fountain. “
Jace
, do you remember
the first time we came here?”

“Yes,” he answered quietly.

“You said you wanted to be like the
swans and find a mate for life.”

“I remember,” he murmured as he
slowly rubbed his hand lightly against her neck.

“I’m not… that person… I can’t be
that person.” Bowing her head, she said so low he had to strain to hear, “I
won’t ever be that person.”

His hand stilled on her neck. “Tate,
tell me what happened.”

She sat quietly for a moment before
sadly shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re a really good man,
Jace
, a really good man, and you deserve better.” With her
chest burning, she swallowed hard and continued, “I want you to go and find
your swan.”

She closed her eyes briefly when she
heard him inhale sharply. “I have found her,” he said huskily.

She shook her head and pressed her
fingertips against her eyes. “No, you haven’t. We both knew it would end
eventually. My life is very… complicated. And your life is too busy and
chaotic.”