Page 21 of Dark ’N’ Deadly

“Your mother never remarried?” Not that he was a fan of marriage, but widows often remarried, if for no other reason than so their children would have a father.

“She did.” Tess nodded, but her tone had taken on a distinctly unhappy note. “Six months later. But he wasn’t a good role model for Jesse. He was…” Her lips twisted.

“An asshole?” Eric supplied. No one knew more about asshole fathers than he did.

“Exactly.” She laughed, and he was glad for the reversal in her mood. He didn’t like it when she was upset. It made him feel like he wanted to wipe away whatever caused her pain. “You’re good with Jesse, and he needs that. Your father must have been a good man.”

He nearly choked on the sip of beer he’d just taken. “Hardly. He was a total asshole, too.” And that was being polite.

“Really?” Her brows shot up. “I’m surprised by that.”

“Why?” He set down his beer, recalling all the times his father yelled at him and all the times he belittled Eric’s chosen profession. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have good parents.”

“I know that.” A shadow clouded her eyes, leaving him wondering just how much of an asshole her stepfather really was. “The way you are with my brother, I would have guessed that your father treated you with the same kind of respect and courtesy you’ve been showing Jesse, especially under the circumstances. It takes a good man to do that.”

“Coming from you, that’s high praise.” Normally, he didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought about him.

“Just calling things as I see them.” She stabbed her fork into a hunk of carrot. “How did you become an ATF agent?”

“I have to give my asshole father credit for that.” He was still proud of having stood up to his father and everything the sonofabitch represented. “When I was twelve, he was forced to take me to work with him on take-your-kid-to-work day. He’s a big shot defense attorney. The last thing he wanted was me hanging on his shirttails all day, but my mother made him do it anyway. In fact, they had one of their classic, and all too frequent, shouting matches over it that ended with pieces of half a dozen broken—and very expensive—crystal vases littering the parquet dining room floor. Most of the time, Maggie—my sister—and I hid in our rooms to get away from all the shouting.”

She hissed in a breath. “I see where your need for peace and quiet comes from.”

“Exactly.”

“Are your parents still together?”

“They are.” He nodded. “I don’t understand why my mother stays with him. Maybe money, insecurity, fear of being alone. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, and neither could my sister. We both swore never to get married, so we don’t wind up like them.”

“You don’t want marriage or kids ever?” she asked, and something about her expression made him feel he was defective. He was thirty-five years old and still didn’t want what most men his age did.

“Nope.” He took a long slug of beer. “Tiger and I are confirmed bachelors.”

She smiled, although it seemed more out of sympathy, which didn’t sit well with him. “So, how did take-your-kid-to-work day go?”

“I was reading a book in the waiting room where he’d dumped me,” he continued, “when a guy came in to drop off some documents. Dad was on the phone, so the guy sat next to me and struck up a conversation. Turned out he was an ATF agent, and he was there to serve my father with a federal grand jury subpoena for one of his clients. After the agent served the subpoena, my dad cursed the guy out, screaming at the top of his lungs that the ATF was the bane of his very existence.”

“Was that true?” Tess asked.

“Yeah, it was.” He chuckled. “My dad specialized in ATF defendants, and he was sick and tired of getting served all the time and having to deal with the Big G—the federal government.”

“So,” she said, “you decided to become exactly what your father hated most.”

“Yup.” He downed the last of his beer. Since then, he’d also strived even harder not to be the asshole his father was. “And I’m good at it.”

Her expression sobered. “I’m sure you are.”

Tiger’s snores floated in from the living room where he’d flopped down after filling his belly.

“That dog takes his sleep seriously.” She sipped at her beer.

“He’s as intense as a K-9 gets, but when he nods off, it’s the sleep of the living dead.”

Tess glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s getting late.” She rose and began clearing away dishes.

He rounded the table, gently clasping her arm when she reached for their beer bottles. “I’ve got this. You cooked. I clean. Tomorrow, I’ll take you and Jesse into Flemington to shop for whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” Briefly, she rested her hand on his where he still held her. “For everything.”