Saving Simone (Florida Veterans Book 3) Read online

  As we’re about to leave, I remember that I didn’t introduce the guys.

  “Titus, this is Thomas; Thomas, this is Titus.”

  “I’m a fan. I don’t miss many of your games when I’m stateside. It’s good to meet you,” Thomas surprises me by saying as they shake hands.

  “No, the pleasure’s all mine. I was told that it was you and your partner that saved Luciana and Simone. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “No need, just doing my job.”

  “Well, thanks. Seriously, I wish I could say something more meaningful.”

  Thomas shrugs, clearly uncomfortable with the attention. “Take care, Luci. Please let me know if you need anything. I think the police will be around at some point to take your statement.”

  She blows us both a kiss as we slip through the door. We make a quick stop at the hotel to grab Thomas’s stuff and check out. Then I use his phone to call Gerald to let him know I’m on my way to get Gavin. And then we start the four-hour trek north.

  Once we’re on I-75 he sets the cruise control, turns down the radio and glances over at me with a grin. “We have four hours to kill. Tell me about yourself. I know you’re a full-time writer, you have a son, and your best friend’s name is Luci. I also know you used to be a waitress, which is how you met Summer, but other than that, I know nothing.”

  My forehead wrinkles as I contemplate what to say and where to start. It feels weird talking about myself like this. “I’m not sure where to start. I’m from Florida originally, Land O’ Lakes area. My parents are much older than other parents with children my age. They thought they couldn’t have kids so I was a late-in-life surprise baby. They’re both still alive but their health isn’t great. Gavin and I try to drive over and see them once a month and take them to lunch. No brothers or sisters, but I always wished I had them.

  “We don’t have any pets, although Gavin wants one really bad and I’m avoiding it because I travel and he’s not allowed to take a pet to his dad’s house. That would leave the poor thing at a kennel more often than is fair. I don’t like that idea so I’m avoiding it as long as I can. I went to college for a couple years but never got any kind of degree. Never could get through college algebra, even after several tries and a couple of tutors, so I quit. You know the rest.”

  Thomas chuckles. “You aren’t getting off that easy. This is a long ride.” His eyes crinkle at the corners and his lips twist like he’s thinking hard.

  “What’s the most girly thing about you?” he asks.

  I didn’t expect that question, but I actually have an answer. “I won’t leave the house without my fingernails painted. People see my hands a lot because of book signings so I don’t like them looking bad.”

  He flashes me a wide grin as if he likes the answer.

  “What’s the least girly thing about you?”

  “I never wear makeup unless I’m doing something book-related like a conference, a signing or an interview. At events like the gala, I will, but other than that, forget it. I hate the stuff.”

  “I like that. You don’t need it.” I can’t help but smile at him, happy because of the sweet compliment.

  He changes the direction of questions. “What food do you hate the most?”

  “Oranges. Blech.” I twist my face in disgust. “I think my parents overexposed me to them as a kid and now I can’t stand the smell or the taste.”

  “Oranges?” He laughs loud and long. “I thought you’d say brussels sprouts or liver and onions.”

  “Nope, I’ll eat both of those. What about you? I’m not going to be the only one under a microscope.”

  “There is nothing girly about me and I hate cabbage. Don’t like it raw or cooked. It’s just gross.” I crack up and it feels good to smile and laugh.

  “Not girly! Manly! What’s the manliest thing about you?” I giggle a little as I ask.

  “The only real honest answer I have is that I can belch the alphabet.” He looks really proud of this fact. Gross.

  “Ew! That’s disgusting. I don’t want you to prove that to me. Burping is gross.” I giggle and fake gag a little as I think about him doing that. It’s kind of funny because he’s such a put-together guy that I couldn’t imagine him turning into a teenage boy with his buddies and burping out the alphabet as they play cards or something.

  “What’s the least manly thing?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. I don’t want to tell you.”

  “That’s not how this works! You have to tell me. It’s part of the rules. I told you mine.” I do my best to give him an annoyed expression, although I’m more amused than anything. It must be something really good if he doesn’t want to tell me. “Come on, Thomas! Otherwise I will have to guess and I have a great imagination.”

  “Fine,” he grumbles. “I like to watch Hallmark movies with my mom at Christmas when I’m home.”

  I can’t help it; I squeal with laughter. In fact, I laugh so hard tears spring to my eyes. I never would have guessed that about him and his cheeks are pink with embarrassment.

  “See! That’s why I didn’t want to tell you!” He focuses on the road, his expression irritated, so I reach over and run my fingertips across his cheek as I explain, “I actually love that. I’m a sucker for those movies and I love that you watch them with your mom. Do you like sappy movies in general?”

  “Nope, just those cheesy, formulaic Christmas movies that always have a predictable happy ending.”

  “Okay, well that’s something I’ll file away in a mental folder marked interesting. I’ve got another one. If you had to describe yourself using an animal, what would it be?”

  He mulls it over as I press the button to find a new radio station. The old one was getting kind of fuzzy.

  After several minutes of deep thought, he responds. “A big brown bear.”

  “A what?” I ask, giggling again. I’d thought he would say a tiger or a lion or something tough, sleek and fast.

  “A big brown bear. They eat a lot, they lie around a lot, they’re curious enough to check things out in places they shouldn’t be, and sometimes, if you piss them off, they can cause a lot of damage. But they can also be cute and cuddly.”

  I laugh for a moment before I comment. “I get it, I get it. That makes sense. It’s just not at all what I thought you were going to say.” I giggle a little more.

  “Now it’s your turn to answer the question,” he tells me.

  “Oh, that’s easy.” I readjust in my seat so I’m angled toward him a little, with one leg tucked under the other. “A toucan.”

  His head jerks back. “The bird with the big rainbow beak? The Froot Loops bird?”

  “Yes! That’s it. First, I love fruit and that’s mostly what they eat. I tend to be a little colorful in personality and so is the toucan, which can be too much for some people. And I have a big nose.” I trace my nose from the top to my upper lip and nod.

  His head whips around and he stares at me for a moment before focusing on the road again. “Your nose is not big! What gave you that idea?”

  “Besides the fact that I have eyes? The kids in elementary school called me Simone the Snout for years. The boys teased me relentlessly. I hated it when I was young, but then as I got older, I got used to it and didn’t seem to notice it so much.” I shrug like I don’t care that the boys made me absolutely miserable with the name-calling when I was young.

  “I hate to tell you this, Pumpkin, but your nose isn’t even close to big. Maybe you grew into it or something. I promise, if you had a big nose I’d notice.” I don’t believe him, but I think it’s sweet he’d try to convince me of that.

  “If you could go anywhere on vacation and money isn’t an object, where would you go?” he queries.

  I don’t even have to think about it. “A cruise to Alaska. For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to do that.”

  “Good choice. I’ve been to Alaska. It’s beautiful. Cold, but worth the trip.”

  I ask him the same questi
on and his answer stuns me.

  “I’ve been all over the world, seen too many places to count and honestly, I’m happy at home. When I’m not working I like to be at the beach or on the river at my brother’s. I don’t need anything else.”

  The simplicity of his answer hits me somewhere deep and the warmth spreads in my soul.

  A familiar song comes through the speakers and I crank up the volume. The words to “Beast of Burden” by the Rolling Stones spill out of me like I wrote the lyrics. It’s my guilty-pleasure song and I always sing it at the top of my lungs. I was never meant to be a singer. My voice could probably kill a family of squirrels if they got too close while I harmonize, but I can’t help it.

  At one point I glance over to see how horrified he is at my lack of talent, but instead I see him tapping his fingers to the beat and nodding his head with a small grin as he drives.

  Once the song ends, I explain, “That’s my favorite old song.”

  “I gathered that by your performance.” The corner of his mouth lifts a little like he’s fighting a grin. Hmmm, I didn’t scare him away with that. Gerald always hated it when I sang, even when we were first dating. Especially that song.

  “What’s your favorite old song? Do you even have one or do you only listen to new music?”

  “I don’t ever listen to new music. Mostly I listen to classic rock. That’s what my dad played when we were growing up, so that’s what I listened to. I never stopped loving it. But my favorite old song is probably “The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. My grandmother has the record and played it a lot when we were growing up. Still does sometimes. Every time she would put it on, my grandpa would twirl her around in the living room like they were in some 1940’s dance hall. It was sweet and kind of funny to me at the time. They still do that, but the song just reminds me of summers at their house on the lake. We would swim, ski, chase lightning bugs, play hide-and-seek in the dark, and fish from the bank with my grandpa after we ate dinner.”

  “You’re kind of sappy, Thomas Wade.”

  I can see his eyes roll and he shoots me a slightly annoyed look.

  “You can deny it all you want, but any man who can wax poetic about an Otis Redding song and the summers he spent as a kid and watch Hallmark Christmas movies with his mom has a serious soft side.”

  Simon and Garfunkel come on next so I turn it up and watch the scenery slide by as the music plays. After a couple of songs play, Thomas breaks our comfortable quiet. “How did you meet Gerald?”

  “In college. I was at a frat party with one of my friends. I was on the couch waiting for her to come back from the bathroom and he plopped down next to me and started talking. He took me out later in the week on a date and the rest is history.”

  “What caused the divorce?”

  “A ton of little things, but the biggest one being that he wanted me to work a nine-to-five job somewhere. He didn’t like me writing. He didn’t like me going to signings and conferences. He really didn’t like me working with photographers and models for book covers. But most of all he didn’t believe in me.” I shrug, not really feeling anything about that anymore. It used to hurt, but I realized at some point along the way that Gerald was never the man I wanted in my life. I wanted someone who was strong of heart and body. Someone who believed in me and encouraged me to follow my dreams.

  “Were you already divorced when your book was made into a movie?”

  I smile huge. “Yup. I signed the contract for the movie about a month after the divorce was final, and the movie came out 18 months later. It was awesome doing the red-carpet premiere thing and seeing it advertised everywhere. Not to mention it spiked sales on my books. The best, though, was the look on Gerald’s face when he found out. Gavin blurted it out to him when we were doing a handoff. He never thought my writing would amount to anything. It was awesome!”

  “Sounds like it. So what is he going to think of me taking you to pick up Gavin?”

  “There’s not a lot he can think or say. He’s married to Jennifer and has been for a while now.”

  “What do you think of her?”

  “Not much. I mean, she’s a nice person. Kind of spineless, but that’s what Gerald wanted all along so that’s good. She’s also nice to my son, so that’s all that matters to me. I do my best to get along with both of them to make things easier on Gavin. It only gets tense on occasion, like when Gerald oversteps his bounds and makes plans on my nights without consulting me first.

  “So why aren’t you married with ten kids?” I ask, changing the subject from me.

  “Honestly, it’s because I was married to the Army, so to speak. That was my career, and I knew if I got married and had kids, I’d want to get out early. My parents were very involved in our lives growing up and I’d want to be the same. If I was deploying to unsafe areas and doing dangerous things, I wouldn’t be doing what’s right for them, so I just never went there.”

  “Makes sense. So where do you live now?”

  “I’ve been back and forth between my parents’ place and Mike and Summer’s place. I couldn’t decide where I wanted to live since I’ll be working for Mike. The company headquarters is in Crystal River so that would make sense. Although, I love Tampa and it fits my lifestyle a little better, so I’m leaning more toward there. Once we get back, I’m going to rent an apartment for a bit. I’m cramping my parents’ style by being there. They say they don’t care, but I do.”

  We keep talking, the conversation flowing easily, and the more I learn about Thomas Wade the more I like him.

  By the time we reach Gerald’s house I’m tired of riding. Before I’m even out of the car, the front door of Gerald’s house flies open and Gavin comes racing out. When I’m clear of the truck door, Gavin crashes into me and hugs me as tight as his eight-year-old arms can. His little body shakes hard so I pull back a little to see his face and just as I suspected, he’s crying. “Hey, hey, hey, Buddy. Look at me. I’m okay. I’m safe. The bad guys are all locked up and I’m here with you.”

  He sniffles loudly. “I know, Mom, but I was scared. People on the news are saying some people died. They showed a picture of you and you were covered in blood, and Aunt Luci was put in an ambulance. I was scared!” He sobs louder and I pull him against me and hold tight, allowing him to get it out. I rub his back and wait patiently. Gerald is standing at the front door now with Jennifer in front of him, and he’s looking over her shoulder at us. Neither of them seem concerned by Gavin’s outburst but they can’t seem to take their eyes off of Thomas, who is out of the vehicle and standing a few feet from us, waiting for Gavin to settle.

  Finally, I pat his back a little and say, “Buddy, I want you to meet my friend Thomas. He drove me back from Miami and he’s going to take us home.”

  Gavin wipes his snotty nose on his arm and turns to Thomas. He stares at him for a couple of seconds as if he’s trying to decide how this is going to go. “You’re my mom’s friend? I’ve never seen you before.”

  Startled by his rudeness, I snap, “Gavin! Don’t be rude. Shake my friend’s hand and say hello.” Instead of shaking his hand like I asked, he scoots behind me and grips his hands onto my shirt, burying his head against my back. I can’t believe my happy-go-lucky kid is acting like this. Maybe he’s still out of sorts from everything that happened in Miami. It’s probably not the best time to push things and I’m not sure what to do.

  About that time, Gerald finally steps all the way out of the house and yells across the yard, “Simone, can I speak with you a second?” He pauses. “In private.”

  I glance at Thomas and roll my eyes. “I’ll be right back. Gavin, go get your stuff and get in Thomas’s truck. He’s going to take us home.” He turns and stomps into the house as I make my way over to the front porch.

  Gerald, being the jerk that he is, doesn’t ask how I’m doing or if I’m okay. “Who is that guy?” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at Thomas.

  “Thomas Wade. He’s a friend.”

 
“Oh, just a friend. Right?” His laugh is humorless.

  I cross my arms on my chest and stare at him, but he’s too dumb to realize he’s treading on thin ice.

  “I don’t like my son around strange men. Maybe he needs to stay here longer.”

  “But strange women are okay?”

  His head jerks back like I’ve slapped him. “I’m never around strange women!”

  “That’s a lie. You may not be now, but you introduced our son to Jennifer after the first date. That’s pretty strange if you ask me. But let’s be honest, I didn’t get a say in who you brought around him when you were single and you don’t get a say in who I bring around him. And by the way, the nice thing to do when your ex-wife gets held hostage at gunpoint and watches her best friend almost bleed out is to ask her if she’s okay!” I hiss at him. “Until a judge says otherwise, don’t threaten me with keeping my son longer than you are supposed to.” My words are sharp but I try to keep them low so Gavin can’t hear me tear into Gerald. I spin on my heel, plaster a fake smile on my face and yell toward the house as cheerfully as possible, “Come on, Gav! Let’s go home. I’m ready for a bowl of chocolate ice cream with crushed walnuts. Bye, Jennifer.” I wave to her as I’m walking back to the truck.

  Gavin doesn’t respond like I expect him to. Usually he’s excited for ice cream, but now…not so much. He walks over to the truck and I open the door to the back seat. I take his bag while he climbs in and buckles up. Then I set his bag in the spot next to him and close the door. Once I’m ready to go, I give Thomas my address and he plugs it into his GPS, grabs my hand in his and we drive away.

  12

  Thomas

  The apartment complex that Simone and Gavin live in is a nice one in a decent part of town off of a busy road near a ton of stores and restaurants. We turn in and wind our way toward the back of the complex to their building. Before we even get there, we’re met with a group of reporters, news vans and photographers.