Safe at Last

Zack lifted his hand to gain the attention of the bartender and held up two fingers.

“The girl wasn’t my patient, but the entire ER was talking about it,” Tonya said, a grimace twisting her pretty features. “If you can’t talk about it, fine, but is it true that her friend did that to her because Alyssa was the better dancer?”

Zack made an indistinct garbled choking sound. “Some friend, huh.”

“Jesus. So it’s true. What the fuck kind of maniac teenagers are parents raising these days?”

“I think the problem is they aren’t being raised at all,” Zack said in disgust. “Rather, the parents are being managed and manipulated by their spoiled brats who have gross senses of entitlement. Whatever happened to pouting or throwing tantrums over not getting their favorite toys, for fuck’s sake? Apparently taking out a hit on your competition is the new norm.”

Tonya snagged one of the beers the bartender set in front of them and then clinked her bottle against Zack’s before taking a long swallow.

“Sure makes you think twice about procreating.”

Zack nodded, even if a large family had been exactly what he’d always wanted. If things had gone as he’d planned . . . He closed his eyes, but not before the unfinished mental statement drifted through his mind as a fully formed thought. If things had gone as planned, he would be retired from the pros and have his second, possibly even third child by now instead of taking a bad hit as a quarterback in his second year and opting not to go back.

“Hey, you okay?” Tonya asked.

He glanced her way to see concern in her eyes. He didn’t attempt to lie, because she saw this kind of shit on a daily basis, and she wasn’t any more immune to the effects than he was.

“Yeah. Just another bad day at the office.”

She laughed and held her bottle to his again. “I’ll drink to that. But then isn’t every day a bad one when you have jobs like ours? Makes you wonder if we have rocks in our heads.”

Zack knew why he hadn’t gone back to the pros. Why he’d pursued a career in law enforcement. Some would say he was just following in his old man’s footsteps, even if that was the very last thing he’d ever do. And he also knew why he’d ended up taking a job with DSS at an important crossroads in his life when he was being recruited by a government agency.

But he liked DSS and the people he worked with. And he liked the fact that certain gifts that most people viewed with skepticism or outright derision were not only accepted but witnessed through the extraordinary powers that both Caleb’s and Beau’s wives possessed.

Because Zack had firsthand experience with the extraordinary. Gracie had possessed one such gift. The ability to read minds. There was no explanation for it. It certainly wasn’t genetic, because her parents were complete wastes of human DNA and yet somehow they’d managed to produce an extraordinary daughter, so divergent from her upbringing and surroundings that it was astonishing. It brought to mind the possibility of being switched at birth or that the entire scientific argument of nature versus nurture was a bunch of bullshit thought of by brilliant minds with nothing better to do than hypothesize about why people become the people they do.

Because Gracie defied both nature and nurture. If one looked at her gene pool, she was fucked and doomed to life as a complete loser. If one looked at the nurture aspect, she was equally fucked, because in no way had she been brought up in an environment conducive to forming a responsible, empathetic, intelligent and sweet individual. And yet Gracie was all of those things. Her reward? He had not a fucking clue, but his imagination had come up with all manner of gruesome possibilities over the years and every single one of them tortured him endlessly.

“Hey,” Tonya said, once more diverting his thoughts from the blackness into which they’d descended.

And once more he glanced her way, meeting her sweet smile, warm, sparkling eyes and inviting features.

“Want to go blow off some steam together? Your place, my place. Doesn’t really matter. And no, before you ask, I’m not proposing marriage and no, I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m happy with my life the way it is at present, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind, nor would I turn down a night of mindless sex with a gorgeous hunk of alpha male.”

Her question rattled him, even though he considered himself as steady as they come and a master at masking any sort of reaction he might be feeling. He stared blankly at her a moment, pondering why he was even hesitating.

Tonya was a beautiful, intelligent woman. More than that, she had a sense of humor, didn’t have an ego and didn’t take herself too seriously. And she was a good woman. A woman any man would be damn lucky to have, and not just on the temporary basis she was proposing.

So why the hell was he sitting here staring like he had no idea how to respond instead of already herding her toward the door?

What the hell was wrong with him?

Shame twisted in his gut, filled his chest until it was tight with it. She was offering what most guys would give their left nut for, but damn it, she deserved more than some mindless fuck from a guy not completely and utterly focused on her. And tonight he couldn’t give her that kind of guarantee. He couldn’t give her anything at all except an orgasm, and well, that was questionable too. Because neither of his “heads” were focused, and while he didn’t need his dick to get a woman off and rock her world, he just wasn’t feeling it tonight.

Tonya slid her hand down his arm and then wrapped her fingers around his wrist, squeezing gently, her smile never faltering.

“I don’t have a fragile ego, Zack. The look on your face says it all, so stop beating yourself up trying to figure out what to say to break it to me gently that you aren’t looking for a one-night stand. I get it, okay? Well, and if you ever want a rain check, it’s not like I’ll harbor a grudge over being rejected and punish you for eternity.”

Zack slid his fingers up her jawline, his features intent and serious as he cupped her cheek.

“That right there is a prime example of why you deserve better than me, even for one night.”

Her hand fluttered upward to lie across his before she gently pulled it away, squeezing his fingers when she returned his hand to the bar top.

“Whoever she was did a real number on you.”

His eyes widened in surprise at her perceptiveness when it came to the fact that his reluctance involved a prior relationship, but he also recognized that the conclusions she’d drawn were wrong. But he didn’t correct her.