Black Heart (29 page)

of how truly fucked up his life was.

"Lad, I-"

"Just drop it, Shayne," Tristan said on a tired sigh as he rubbed his hands down his face,

wishing this day would end.

The sound of the front doorbell echoed throughout the house, letting him know that his

day was far from over. He glanced at Shayne to find the man shrugging.

"Who is it?" Tristan asked even as he stood up to go send whoever it was away. On a

good day he hated having anyone over, forcing him to keep putting on a show, and today

definitely was not a good day. He just wanted to get through the rest of the files, grab a

beer, relax and forget everything that happened once he’d made the mistake of leaving his

bed this morning. Why hadn't he just called in sick and spent the day in bed with Marty?

"Tristan?" Denny called out as Tristan walked into the foyer, just in time to see his

brother let himself in. When Denny spotted Tristan coming down the hall, he sighed with

irritation as he gestured lazily behind him. "Where the hell have you been? Dinner's almost

done."

"I'm not hungry," Tristan said, gesturing for his brother to leave.

"And if I cared that might mean something to me, but sadly it doesn't," Denny said with a

shrug as he gestured for Tristan to move his ass. When Tristan opened his mouth to politely

tell his brother to fuck off, he was cut off.

"You haven't come to dinner in more than a month and a half, which means that I've

been left to deal with Mom's henpecking," he explained before stressing, "
alone
."

Tristan couldn't help but inwardly cringe on his brother's behalf. Their mother could try

the patience of a saint with the way that she babied them, but at least when they were both

there it divided her attention and made it somewhat tolerable. He'd have to make it up to his

brother, but not tonight.

"Tonight's not good, Denny. I'm working on a case," he said, once again gesturing for his

brother to leave when the bastard had to go and say the one thing that would get him to

move his ass and willingly put up with his mother's nagging.

"Marty's there and mom started to interrogate her when I left."

-
-
-

"Your children are going to be so cute," Beth said on a happy sigh that almost made

Marty choke on the sip of water she’d mistakenly taken to buy herself some time during

Beth's rapid-fire interrogation that had started the second she’d walked into the kitchen.

"Don't you think their babies are going to be cute, sweetheart?" Beth asked Tom, smiling

dreamily as she kept her eyes on Marty. The pleased expression on Beth’s face actually

terrified her.

She shot a beseeching look to her father only to find the man shrugging off her silent cry

for help as he took a sip of his beer. It didn't exactly surprise her that her father wasn't

coming to her defense since he knew better. Marty could only imagine what Beth would do

if he made the mistake of setting her straight. She'd spend the rest of the night focused on

him, arguing and questioning the man to death. Still, it would have been a sweet gesture if

he’d sacrificed himself for her. Not that she’d actually expected him to, but it would have

been nice all the same.

"Adorable," Tom said, earning a glare from her. He mouthed "Sorry", gave her a shrug,

and took a sip of his beer as his attention went right back to the Yankees game playing on

the small television sitting on the long counter and easily ignoring the inquisition that refused

to end.

"Tristan's house is perfect for a large family," Beth noted as she worried her bottom lip,

no doubt trying to decide which room would be appropriate for a nursery.

"We're just dating," Marty felt obligated to point out even though she wasn't really sure

that was even true any longer.

She wasn't a hundred percent positive, but she was pretty sure that she'd been given the

kiss-off earlier. It was actually a really depressing thought and if her father hadn't wrestled

that pint of Ben and Jerry's away from her and practically dragged her here, she would still

be in her room preparing for the heartache that she was afraid was coming. The only reason

that she hadn't made her escape yet was because she knew that Tristan wouldn't be here.

When Denny announced that he was going to get Tristan, she felt a momentary spark of

panic, but it was quickly extinguished when she reminded herself that Tristan was stubborn

and would probably get out of this. From what she’d heard, he hadn't come over for dinner

for close to two months, but that was understandable since he worked long hours and didn't

usually have time to indulge his mother.

Lucky bastard.

As much as she loved Beth, and she did, she really did, she just knew that she wouldn't

be able to deal with Beth like this for the rest of the night. When she did this type of thing

to Denny it amused her, but the way the woman was sizing her up, almost as if she were

trying to figure out how many grandbabies Marty would be able to give her, she was

actually terrifying her just a tad. It also made everything worse.

The only man she’d ever loved was pushing her away and she had absolutely no idea

what she should do or say to stop him. It had never bothered her before if a relationship

ended, mostly because she never really cared. None of the men she'd dated before ever

made her feel the way that Tristan did, but most importantly, she hadn't fallen for them the

way she had when she first laid eyes on Tristan. She was in love with him and wanted to

fall asleep every night in his arms and wake up with him every morning and that would

probably never happen now.

Tristan didn't let anyone get close to him, not even his own family and why she thought

that she was special was beyond her. She’d learned over the last couple of months that she

was anything but special to Tristan. For all she knew he'd slept with her just to scratch an

itch and now history was repeating itself. All those years ago he’d hurt her by suddenly

dropping out of her life and now he was probably doing it again, she realized as panic

finally set in.

"Marty?" Beth said, drawing her attention. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

"Fine," she lied, pasting a smile that she didn't feel at the moment on her face and

praying that Beth took pity on her and let the subject of her and Tristan drop.

"You look a little pale, sweetheart," Beth noted, frowning as she looked Marty over.

Marty started to tell her that she was fine again, but she just couldn't do it. She wasn't

fine. Nothing about this was fine. Her stomach was twisted up into knots as she waited for

Tristan to break her heart and she couldn't help but wonder why.

Why was she waiting around and leaving it all up to him? She wasn't a kid anymore, too

afraid to say something and find out that it was because of something that she’d said or did

that chased him off. If he wanted to end things, then he'd damn well better tell her to her

face this time, she decided as she turned around to hunt the bastard down. She'd rather have

her heart shattered quickly than to deal with this gut wrenching uncertainty for a minute

longer.

"Marty?" her father called after her.

"I'm fine, Dad. There's just something that I need to do," she said, not bothering to look

back as she stormed out of the kitchen and headed for the living room, more than ready to

kick Tristan's ass if that's what she needed to do in order to get answers. If it turned out that

he was walking away from her again, she'd accept it. She'd end things this time, making sure

that he didn't know just how badly he'd hurt her and this time she would be the one walking

away.

Only she wouldn't be coming back.

Chapter
23

"Oh.......shit," Denny and Shayne groaned as the three of them watched Marty storm out

of his parents' house, looking furious. When she spotted Tristan, her eyes narrowed

dangerously and her movements became clipped as she headed straight for him.

"You," Marty said, pointing a finger at him for emphasis, "and I are going to have a

talk."

"We'll talk later," Tristan said with a resigned sigh as he moved to make his way to his

parents' house, in no way ready to talk about the bullshit that went down today when Marty

stepped into his path, blocking him.

"No, I think now's a good time, don't you?" she asked, arms folded over her chest as she

looked up at him, cocking a well-trimmed brow in clear challenge.

"And I think that we'll talk about this later," he said, moving to step around her when her

next words made everything in him go still.

"If you walk away again, Tristan, that's it. I'm done," she warned and he knew by the

determined look on her face that she meant it. There would be no second chances with her.

If he didn't talk to her about something that he'd rather never think about again, she would

walk away and destroy him.

"I don't know what's going on," Denny said, confirming Tristan’s suspicions that neither

Hank nor Marty had talked about what happened earlier, "but can't this wait until after

dinner?"

"No, it can't," Marty said firmly. Her eyes pleaded with him not to fuck this up.

"I don't want to lose you, Marty," he said softly, praying that she backed off.

"Then don't," she said, her voice breaking as tears filled her eyes and he knew that the

choice was no longer his to make. It didn't matter that this wasn't something that he wanted

to do. He'd fucked up and hurt Marty again and that wasn't something that he could live

with any longer.

He reached out and took her beautiful face into his hands, tenderly wiping the tears away

with the pads of his thumbs as he leaned in and brushed his lips against her trembling ones.

"Okay," he said softly. "Let's go talk."

"Wait a minute!" Denny said, sounding desperate and for good reason. "Just come and

eat dinner with us and then you can go talk afterwards."

"You're on your own," Tristan said with a shrug as he dropped his hands away from

Marty's face and took her hand into his.

"You betraying son of a bitch!" Denny snapped, shooting an anxious glance towards his

truck.

"You'll never make it," Tristan pointed out as he headed across the street with Marty.

"There's only one way to find out," he heard Denny say as he headed towards his house

with Marty.

"Denny Black! Where do you think you're going?" he heard his mother demand and he

probably would have laughed his ass off at his brother if he wasn't dreading this

conversation.

"Do you mind if we go for a walk instead?" Marty asked and as much as he would love

to say yes and buy himself a little more time, he couldn't. If she needed to talk then he'd

rather just get it over with.

"Not right now," he said, heading for his house.

Once they were inside she got right to the point. "Do you want to end this?"

"No," he said with absolutely no hesitation.

He didn't want to end this. He didn't want to lose her and be forced to live without her

ever again. Right now he wanted to make up for lost time and make every minute count. He

sure as hell didn't want to waste any of those precious minutes talking about bullshit that

was best left in the past.

She studied him for a moment before she nodded firmly, obviously accepting his answer.

"Okay," she said, sounding relieved as she abruptly turned and headed up the stairs to the

second floor.

"Where are you going?" he asked, admittedly confused. "I thought that you wanted to

talk."

"I do," she said, shrugging as she shot him a look over her shoulder, slowing her pace.

"But only when you're ready to talk, Tristan. I'm not going to force you to do something

that you don’t want to do, but I needed to know where we stood."

When he could only stand there staring at her, probably like an idiot, she turned right

back around and headed upstairs, disappearing around the corner and leaving him more

confused than he'd ever felt before.

"Shayne?" he said quietly, knowing that he was probably close by.

"Aye, lad?" Shayne asked, materializing right next to him.

"Is this a trap?" he had to ask.

"I'm not sure," Shayne admitted, sounding unsure, which wasn't exactly comforting at the

moment. "Maybe ye should make a run for it, lad."

Tristan turned a glare on the man. "How exactly is that helpful?" he demanded in a harsh

whisper as his eyes darted back to the top of the staircase to make sure that they were still

alone.

"That's all I have right now, lad," Shayne admitted sheepishly.

"It's not very helpful," Tristan said, slowly exhaling as he considered his options.

"It is what it is, lad," Shayne said with a shrug.