Page 26 of Roark
“Yeah, sure. I was staying in the room down this way.” Tamika walked out of the room, knowing Roark was close behind her.
She couldn’t help but still look down at the burned floors and walls, but then she stopped when she saw blood. There was a narrow table against the wall; a brass mirror used to hang above it but was now broken and on the floor. “This must be where Tuppence fell with my mother. Wait, Pierce said the firefighters mentioned Tuppence must’ve been dragging my mom. I know my mom was very resistant about getting out of bed, but if the bedroom was on fire, she wouldn’t have been stubborn enough to stay there. Unless—”
“She was drugged.” Roark finished the sentence.
Or rather, he said what he thought she was going to say. Only, he had no idea that she was thinking her mother would’ve gotten up out of that bed when the fire started…unless she’d wanted to stay there and die. If Sandra died, she could be with her husband and they’d both be dead.
The breath whooshed out of Tamika in that moment, and she leaned back against the wall to keep from falling. Roark’s arms were immediately around her, pulling her close to his chest. She didn’t know what else to do, and what she was thinking was pretty heavy. It was also scary as hell to think her mother had loved her father so much that now she wanted to die to be with him. Tamika wrapped her arms around Roark and held on—for how long, she had no idea, but she had no intention of letting go until all the hurt and fear swirling around inside her like a hurricane was still.
“My mother loved maple-glazed pork loin. She cooked it every Christmas. And my Aunt Birdie demanded ham instead.” Roark laughed at the memory, while at the same time wondering how they were going to make it through this Christmas coming.
“I’m ridin’ with Aunt Birdie. Give me the Christmas ham all day and night.” She forked another chunk of the haddock she was having for lunch into her mouth, and Roark tried not to stare.
“What else does your family do together?”
They’d been to the hospital to see her mother, but the doctor hadn’t been available for them to speak to. Tuppence was still in critical condition, and to keep her calm, they weren’t letting any visitors in her room.
They’d come back to the area, close to the cottage, because when Roark had sent him a text, Geoff had recommended this pub. Tamika hadn’t seemed to mind being close to the cottage without actually returning there, but she hadn’t wanted to talk about her family since this morning.
“Not as much as my mother would’ve liked. It was just us here in the UK—my parents when they were alive and my siblings. My father passed away when I was younger, and Aunt Birdie’s in and out. If there’s a cruise, she’d rather be on a boat, but when there’s a big family gathering, she’ll appear for that. Most of the Donovans are still in the US.”
“You ever thought about moving there?”
Roark shook his head. This was his home. “Why didn’t you move here with your mother?”
She chewed another bite of food and then lifted her glass of water to take a long drink. He enjoyed watching her eat. There was no real reason behind it; in fact, it seemed like such a normal event. The two of them sharing a meal because they’d both skipped breakfast and were now hungry. He shouldn’t have thought anything odd about sitting across the table from her, yet watching her chew and smile as she enjoyed her food seemed sort of special. “For one, I didn’t know she was moving here.” She looked like that fact might still be a sore spot for her. “Then again, if she’d told me, I probably wouldn’t have come. I have a life in Virginia. Or at least I did.”
He wondered what that life had been like. “You don’t anymore?”
“To tell the truth, I don’t know. I lost my job,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“Oh.” He hadn’t expected that. “What happened?”
“My boss said I was obsessed with my father’s death. How can somebody be obsessed with their parent’s death? I mean, that’s huge, right? It takes a toll on you until you can’t think of anything else.”
Roark knew exactly what she was saying and could understand every word. As a son, he’d been rustling with the same things. As a CEO, he knew business had to come first. “Maybe you needed to take a break from your work anyway. It could be that the line of work you’re in coupled with the circumstances of your father’s death are just too much to deal with right now.”
Her eyes widened at that suggestion. “I can multi-task.”
“Didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“You implied it,” she shot back.
He forked his last piece of pork, stuck it in his mouth and chewed. When he was done, he picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth. “We don’t have to be enemies or go back and forth each time we’re alone.”
She wiped her hands with her napkin. “I know. It’s funny how we slip into that back and forth so easily, though. Almost like we’ve known each other a very long time and it’s what our relationship thrives on.”
“We have a relationship?” He hadn’t meant to sound alarmed. Her words had seemed so deep, so meaningful. Up to this point he’d just been thinking of her as Tamika, the woman whose father knew his mother.
“Not in the traditional sense, but yeah, I think we do. I mean, I did crash at your place last night, and I’m probably gonna be staying there again tonight. So that makes us something.” She wasn’t wrong.
“Roommates,” he said for lack of a better term.
“You just have to put a name on it, don’t you? You’re so strait-laced and organized. Everything has a meaning, a spot in your world, a purpose.” She propped her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on a fist. The look on her face was so naturally pretty he almost forgot what they were talking about.
“Things should have a purpose. That’s how life works.”
“Life also works on spontaneity. Fate is unpredictable and yet can change the world as we know it.”
