by Leslie North
He was almost done with his breakfast when Shanna came through, legs swishing in a pair of snow pants. She’d dressed for the weather in a blue set of snow gear and a pink hat. Her cheeks were already flushed with the warmth of the house.
“You going out?”
She nodded. “I want to build a fort,” she told him, then headed for the kitchen door. “Thanks for helping me with breakfast.”
“No problem.” He’d help her with the cleanup, too, since she was already piling up snow by the time he stood up.
Tucker got the dishes together and had taken care of the skillet and frying pan when another set of footsteps caught his attention.
“Hey.”
He looked over his shoulder at Avery, who studied him like she couldn’t quite believe he was there.
“Where’s Shanna?”
He tipped his head toward the wide backyard. “She went out to play.”
Avery laughed, the sound tugging at something deep within him. “She’s never liked cleaning up.”
“I’ve never liked it either.” Tucker fished for his plate at the bottom of the sink while Avery came to put the tray away, slipping her plate over his hands. “But it became a habit when I was living alone and out of suitcases.”
Avery frowned. The winter light from the kitchen window made her look like something out of a dream. She was dreamlike enough without it, but standing near the window—wow. “Is your memory returning?”
He looked down at his hands in the water. At the edges of his mind, he could remember…a trip. Vague details. A plane, and kneeling on the ground. Where had he been?
“I think I remember going to Cameroon.” Wet ground, soaking his pants. The heft of the camera in his hands. “I was photographing gorillas when—” A gun, going off too close. The gorilla falling, the other animals screaming, his heart in his throat. “When some poachers shot one of them. I wanted to intervene, but the guide made us stay hidden to avoid being killed, too.”
Tucker’s face had gone hot, and his muscles tensed with the rush of the memory. He’d felt so powerless. That was it—that had been the last time he’d gone on a trip like that. It had been just before Mina and Liam got married. They were married, weren’t they? They’d gotten married. He’d been at the wedding. His hands shook around the plate.
He took one deep breath, then another, feeling Avery’s eyes on him the whole time. Get yourself under control, he thought. You’re not in Cameroon anymore. There are no poachers here.
Avery whistled, the sound low and mournful. “A lot’s happened since we broke up.”
The final piece of the puzzle. There it was, like he’d known it all along. There was no hint of a joke in her blue eyes, no levity, only an old sadness.
“Aw, Avery, we didn’t.” His heart tumbled down, landing near the pit of his stomach. “I would’ve remembered that.”
“We did.” She straightened up, lifting her chin. “A long time ago.”
An ache spread across his chest. There wasn’t quite enough air in the room. Had he known this? Why couldn’t he remember? He should remember something like breaking up with Avery. It made a horrible kind of sense. How would she have gone and had a kid with someone else if they’d been together? A lot’s happened.
“Man.” He finally got his hands moving again to clean the plate. He pulled it out of the sink, rinsed it, and put it on the drying rack. “That’s—I don’t know.”
Avery still watched him. After a heavy silence, she reached a hand up to his head and moved his hair aside. It was still sore and sensitive, but the headache wasn’t as pronounced as the night before.
“How do you feel this morning?”
Devastated, he wanted to say, but he swallowed that back. “Good. Other than a headache and not being able to remember most of the last ten years, I’m fine.”
“That’s good.” Avery dropped her hand. Another pause rose between them, during which he wanted to ask her a thousand questions about how things had gone so wrong between them. “Do you think you’d be up to helping with the chores? We’re pretty well socked in here, or I’d give you a ride home. I don’t think you should ride your horse back until we’re sure you don’t have any symptoms of a concussion.”
“I’m more than up to it.” In fact, a certain desperation had taken him over. He needed to move. Breathe some fresh air. Get his head on straight. “What needs doing?”
“The storm’s going to hit again, and before then, there’s quite a few things—”
Tucker couldn’t take his eyes off Avery’s lips while she ran through the list. Ten minutes later, he’d finished up the dishes and got his coat on. The two of them went out to do the daily chores from the farm. They started with feeding the animals. Betty nuzzled his palm and went straight back to ignoring him. She liked the new digs. Avery went down the line of stalls, checking on the other horses in the barn. He hadn’t even noticed them in his hurry to put Betty there last night.
“How are you, my girl?” Avery looked into another horse’s eyes and stroked her nose. “You look like you’re feeling a little better.” It sent a shiver of pride down his back. Avery was so confident. So soothing. So gentle, just like she’d been with him the night before. It seemed like she’d turned into an excellent vet overnight, but of course she hadn’t. This moment had been years in the making.
When she was done checking on the animals, they went out and shoveled paths between the barn and the house. Best to keep the snow under control, even if they got socked in again, which was likely.
He watched Avery shoveling in her red coat and white hat, her dark hair spilling down her shoulders. This could have been his life for the last decade. He dug his shovel into the snow, that same ache pummeling his chest. Why had they ever broken up? Why, why, why? The question went around in his head like a skater in an endless loop around a rink. She was so good with the animals. So good with her daughter. In a lot of ways, she was just like he remembered her—kind, with a gentle touch.
She must’ve gone to college after all, and veterinary school after that. He could vaguely remember a scholarship she’d had. It had been to somewhere fancy, though the name of the school escaped him. It all must have gone very well. His throat went tight. It must have gone amazingly well, and he’d missed it.
The three of them trooped inside the house an hour later and kicked off their boots on the kitchen mat. Avery swept the white hat from her head, looking rosy cheeked and gorgeous. Tucker wanted to kiss her—feel how cold her nose was when it brushed his cheek, taste the warmth of her lips. He held back and rubbed at his forehead instead, trying to dispel the lingering headache.
“Shanna, grab my phone, would you? I want to see if we’ve got service yet.”
Shanna trotted across the kitchen and grabbed Avery’s phone from the counter. “One bar, Mom!” She turned to the landline phone, hooked in its customary spot on the wall. “No landline, though.”
Relief, all tied up in a strange disappointment, flashed across him.
“I’d better send a message to my brother.” Tucker went upstairs to the guest room, where his phone waited on the bedside table. One bar there, too. He dialed Cade’s number and got a busy signal. Tried again—same signal. All right, then. Tucker settled for a quick text. The phone seemed to take forever to send, but at last it indicated that the message had gone through.
At least, he hoped it had. He didn’t want his brothers to worry. He’d be just fine.
4
The thing Avery wanted most in the world was to send Tucker on his way. Back to the Wells Ranch over the hill. Back to his family. Back out of her life, where he couldn’t taunt her with how terribly handsome he was. Those green eyes, that blond hair…and the smile. God, the smile. If he could just keep it under wraps a bit more, she’d be able to survive this. She knew in her heart it wasn’t a good idea to send him back through the snow on horseback—not with his probable concussion and his memory loss. So they’d have to stick it out until the storm wa
s well and truly done.
“Mom, you’re not paying attention.” Shanna glared at her from over their game of Uno, then burst out laughing. She rocked back in her seat at the kitchen table. “It’s your turn, Mom. Are you going to go?”
“Are you gonna hassle me about it? Huh?” Avery scooted closer, coming around to sweep Shanna up in a big hug. “Don’t you hassle me about my turn. It’s gonna be Uno for you.”
“That’s the point.” Shanna laughed harder, her pink cheeks reminding Avery of when she was a baby, so soft and new. “You’re supposed to get to Uno.”
The kitchen door banged open, and Tucker came in on a gust of icy wind. Avery shivered, but honestly, it felt good. Her face had gone red from being caught out thinking about Tucker. The temperature in the kitchen had gone up a hundred degrees. The blast of cold from outside evened it out.
Then he came all the way inside, shrugging off his coat. “Shoveling’s done…for the moment.”
“Hey, Tucker, you want to play?” Shanna stuck out her tongue at Avery. “I bet you could pay better attention than my mom.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Tucker took a seat at the table.
“I think we should have hot chocolate.” Shanna threw down her cards on the table and hopped up to make it. “You look kinda cold, Tucker.”
“I’m all right—oh.” Shanna was already clattering around in the cupboards. Tucker turned to Avery. She tried not to look too deeply into his eyes. “Do you know when they’ll come by to plow the road? I checked it out while I was shoveling, and it doesn’t look like it’s been done yet.”
“I don’t know.” Avery stacked her cards, then collected the others so they could start a fresh game. “The snowplow driver was very pregnant last time I saw her. She might’ve had her baby. If she has…” If she has, then we’re stuck together until someone takes her spot, and I might actually burst into flames from having to sit so close to you. “There could be a little delay in getting the main roads plowed. I’m not sure who her replacement is.” Shanna slid a mug of hot chocolate into her hands, then stepped over and did the same for Tucker. “And I don’t have a contract to plow the private road, but I figure I could hire one of the local teens to take care of it for me.”
Tucker opened his mouth to answer, but Shanna took her seat, surveyed the table, and gasped. “Did you take all my cards?”
“I thought you wanted a new game,” Avery said. “Can’t do that with the same old cards, can you?”
Shanna gave her a fake pout, topping it off with a giggle. “New game, then.”
Avery dealt the cards, and the three of them settled in for a game of Uno.
“Hey, Shanna, did you know that they made a show out of those books?”
Avery was instantly on alert. “What books?”
“Animorphs, Mom.” Shanna gave her a big, enthusiastic grin from across the table. “Really? A show?”
“Yeah, and they got a lot of it right too. I bet we could find it on DVD somewhere.”
Shanna snorted. “DVDs are so old. But we have some. So I bet we could still watch it.”
“DVDs are not old.” Tucker took a long drink of his cocoa. “They’re still making DVDs. Tons of them. Plus, what are you supposed to do if you live in a farmhouse that doesn’t have high-speed internet? Makes it pretty hard to watch Netflix.”
“We’ve never had Netflix,” Shanna said wistfully. “Mom never thought it was—”
“Okay, okay.” Avery set down her cards. “I think it’s about time we got started on dinner.” She got up from the table and went over to the fridge. Avery opened it and surveyed the contents without really seeing any of them. It was too much, having Tucker at the table. It felt too much like family time. And he hadn’t wanted a family with her. He had been adamant. Hurt crawled up her throat and she put a hand to her collarbone, trying to soothe it.
Were they paying attention to each other? A sharp curl of guilt made its way to her belly. Avery had ended the game rather abruptly, and now—
“Do you think you know what you want to be when you grow up? I bet people ask you that all the time.”
Avery stole a look over her shoulder. Tucker and Shanna had continued playing as if nothing had happened.
“They do,” admitted Shanna. “But it’s because I’m an interesting person.”
Tucker laughed. “You’re pretty interesting.”
“I thought I might want to be a vet, like my mom.” Shanna scanned the cards in her hands. “Or maybe a photographer, like you were saying. That way I could travel.”
“Traveling is awesome.” Tucker sounded so pleased. “There’s no place like home, though. Travel will make you appreciate it like nothing else.”
Worry set in like a low-grade fever, and Avery’s heart raced ahead of her nerves. Talking about home and careers with Shanna seemed dangerously close to the truth at the center of all this. Not now, Avery thought. I don’t have a plan for this. The worry gripped her while she made up a batch of taco meat and heated tortillas in the microwave. It hung on tight while they ate around the table. Avery had never been very good at faking her emotions, but she gave it her all.
It didn’t matter.
As soon as Shanna’s footsteps had retreated up the stairs, Avery tried to make a break for it. She piled Shanna’s plates on hers and got ready to flee to the sink, only to be stopped by Tucker’s huge, gentle hand on her wrist.
She met his eyes. Green, made clearer by concern and an intense focus on her. It brought another bloom of heat to her cheeks. She needed to go outside and lie in the snow. Clearly, that was the only solution.
Tucker took his hand away, but his eyes never left hers.
“Avery, can we talk?”
Avery didn’t want to, but her knees felt weak. She sat heavily in the chair next to him. Oh, why not? Why not look at him, drink him in, and get it out of her system? She let her eyes roam over his flannel shirt, which emphasized his biceps and made her want to squeeze each one in turn to see if they were as hard and firm as they looked. Time had been kind to Tucker. His chin was still as sharp as ever, but it had filled out with the years. She liked the look of manhood on him.
It had gone on a moment too long. Avery cleared her throat and folded her hands on top of the table.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to talk about what happened.” Tucker leaned forward, his own arms folded, eyes on hers. “I can’t remember now, and I want to know. Will you help me out?”
Avery took a deep breath. Her instinct was to get up and walk away. She could go up to her bedroom right now and shut the door on this conversation. She could. That was an option.
But it wouldn’t change what had happened. It wouldn’t erase the memories. She’d have to live with those upstairs, too, only Tucker would be down the hall in the guest bedroom. Might as well get it out into the open between them. Again.
“You broke up with me.” The first words out opened the floodgates, and that sick, broken feeling swept back across her like an enormous wave. No matter how much time had passed, it still turned her stomach. “You got a job offer to intern with a professional photographer and you just…you left town, Tucker. That’s what happened. And when you left, I had to go on with my life. I went to college as planned.”
He blinked at her, slowly shaking his head. “I did that?”
“You broke my heart.” A righteous fury overtook the hurt from her old wounds. “You broke it, and you left, and you didn’t care at all.”
Tucker frowned, face darkening. “Well, it must not have been too bad, since you moved on so quickly.”
“I—”
He didn’t know. Tucker didn’t know he was the father. She’d never told him, and he still hadn’t figured it out—he didn’t know. That was how Avery had kept it all these years, and that was how she wanted to keep it now.
If only it weren’t for the guilt.
Tell him, said the voice in the back of her mind. Tell him right now.
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The whiplash of her emotions made it hard to think, hard to focus on his face. But then another memory came. Tucker, laughing in the sun. Tucker, turning to her to say: I don’t want a wife and kids tying me down. I have too much to do.
“I don’t know why it matters to you,” she said finally. “You were the one who didn’t want me. You said you didn’t have time for a family and didn’t want a wife, or kids. Well, you did it, Tucker. You never got the wife and kids. And now you’re right back here where you started.”
She left him sitting at the table with her words.
5
If there was one thing Tucker knew, it was that Avery wasn’t a liar.
So her words stunned him more than anything else. If she said he’d broken up with her, he had. And if she said he’d left her behind for an internship, he had. Only he just couldn’t picture it.
He sat down in the kitchen until he could wrap his mind around the concept, and then he got up. He did the dishes. And then, because the snow outside fell in thick, whiteout waves, he went up to the guest bedroom and went to bed.
The next morning, he still couldn’t understand why he’d ever left her, even for a dream job. The light outside was murky, the sun hidden in the clouds, but he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he showered and ran his clothes through the washer and dryer, wrapped in a sheet from his bed. Luckily, nobody in the house stirred. Too early for that.
He’d moved on to coffee by the time Avery came down.
She had bags under her eyes, and her face was flushed in a way that made him think something was off. Avery frowned at him and went past to the kitchen door.
“The sun hasn’t melted the snow yet,” she groused. “That means you can’t leave.”
He went to stand next to her. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, but fine turned into a cough.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
Avery turned her blue eyes up to his. “It doesn’t feel great, Tucker. It really doesn’t.”