by Nora Roberts
She’d forgotten he’d stayed, but it came flooding back to her now. How kind he’d been, how tenderly he’d held her while she’d cried out her shock. And the quiet strength he’d offered just by holding her hand while Burke questioned her.
Tucker had been the one to take her up to bed, sliding over her protests as patiently as a father guiding an overtired child. He’d sat with her while the sleeping pill had trickled through her bloodstream. And to chase away those last shadows of fear, he’d remained on the side of the bed, her hand in his, and had told her some silly story about his cousin Ham who ran a used-car dealership in Oxford.
The last thing she remembered was something about a ’72 Pinto that had dropped its transmission five feet out of the lot, and a dissatisfied customer with a five-gauge.
She felt the lock on her heart snick open, and sighed.
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Tucker?”
Useless perked up at the name, then leapt up to bathe Tucker’s face. Tucker grunted, shifted. “Okay, honey. In a minute.”
Amused, Caroline stepped closer. “I hope it’s worth the wait.”
Tucker’s lips curved as he reached out to cuddle the dog. “It’s always worth …” His hand slid down the dog’s back to the gleefully swinging tail. Slowly, his lashes fluttered up and he studied the furry face grinning into his. “You’re not quite what I had in mind.”
Undiscouraged, Useless scrambled his hind legs until he’d gained Tucker’s chest. Tucker gave the dog’s head an absent scratch, then closed his eyes again. “Didn’t I put you out once?”
“He wanted back in.”
Tucker’s eyes opened again, and pushing Useless’s face out of his, he focused on Caroline. The sleepy look was gone quickly, she noted, and understood she was being carefully measured.
“Hey.”
“Good morning.” When he shifted his hip, she accepted the invitation and sat. “I’m sorry we woke you.”
“I figured on getting up sometime today anyway.” He reached up to stroke a fingertip down her cheek. “How you doing?”
“I’m all right. Really. I want to thank you for sticking around.”
He winced a little as he straightened his neck. “I can sleep anywhere.”
“So I see.” Touched, she brushed the hair off his brow. “It was sweet of you, Tucker. I’m grateful.”
“I’m supposed to say I was just being neighborly.” He caught her hand when she started to draw it back. “But the fact is you had me worried sick. You didn’t have a lick of color when you finally went off to sleep.”
“I’m steadier now.” She wished she’d checked the mirror to see if she looked steadier. “You could have used the spare bed upstairs.”
“I thought about it.” But when he’d checked on her—for the fourth or fifth time during the night—he’d also thought about slipping into bed with her. Just to hold her, just to keep her close and satisfy himself that she was safe. That had shaken him enough that he’d needed to have the full story laid out between them. Now he needed the simplicity of closeness.
“Come here.”
She hesitated, then gave in to the urge to curl up beside him. With her head pillowed against his shoulder and the dog stretched across their legs, she sighed.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker.”
“No, Tucker.”
He brushed his lips over her head. “I gotta get this out, Caroline. It gave me some hard hours through the night. He wouldn’t have come after you if it weren’t for me. It was me he wanted, and me who put you in the middle.”
She laid a hand over his heart, wondering if she’d ever felt more comforted, more safe. “I used to think that way about things. That I was at the center, and whenever anything went wrong, I was to blame for it. It’s an indulgent kind of arrogance, I think. The kind that carves holes in you that you have to fill up with pills and therapy. Don’t change on me, Tucker. I’m starting to find your day-to-day way of looking at things appealing.”
“It scared me.” When his arms tightened around her, she curved into him to give comfort as well as take it. “Nothing’s ever scared me more than hearing those shots and knowing I was too far away.”
“I’ve been scared before, so many times. As horrible as this is, it’s really the first time I’ve done anything about my fear.” Her hand fisted, and she slowly, deliberately, relaxed it again. “I’m not glad it happened, Tucker, and I guess I’ll always remember what it was like to pull that trigger. But I can deal with it.”
He stared at dust motes dancing in a sunbeam. There were things he’d never forget either. Like the numb terror of racing over a fallow field with shots echoing in his head. Like the glassy-eyed shock on her face when she’d walked by him to carry the limp dog into the house.
“I’m no hero, Caroline. Christ knows, I don’t want to be one, but I’m going to see to it that nothing bad happens to you again.”
She smiled. “That’s a broad and daring ambition,” she began, and tilted her head back to look at him. There was no answering smile in his eyes, and when he took her chin, his fingers were tense.
“You’re important to me.” He said the words slowly, as if explaining them to himself. “Nobody’s ever been as important, and that’s hard.”
The air was clogging in her lungs, the way it often did when she stood on a darkened stage, the moment before the spotlight found her. “I know. I guess it’s hard for both of us.”
He saw the shadow of fear in her eyes, though she kept them steady and level on his. And because she was important, because everything about her had suddenly become vitally important, he struggled to lighten his tone.
“It sure is a new one for me.” His tensed fingers relaxed to stroke her jaw. “Here I am all wrapped up in a woman and I haven’t even managed to get her clothes off yet. This gets around, my reputation’s going to suffer.”
“Why don’t you try it now?”
His finger froze on her cheek. “What’s that?”
“I said, why don’t you try it now.” With her eyes still full of fears and needs and doubts, she lifted her lips to his.
He felt himself sink into her, and that, too, was a change. That slow, lovely drift into sweetness. There was no hot punch of lust that he had always accepted so easily. Instead, there was a gentle shift of sensation, as subtle as a sky lightening toward dawn.
As her body yielded against his, as her breathy sigh slipped intimately from her mouth to his, he understood that she was offering him more than passion. She was giving him her trust. It humbled him. It disturbed him. She was not the kind of woman to offer anything to a man casually. And he—he had always taken whatever a woman chose to give with an easy grin and no backward looks.
“Caroline.” He brushed his fingers over her cheeks, combed them through her hair. “I want you.”
His heart drummed fast and hard against hers. The quiet seriousness of his statement made her smile even as his lips cruised over her face. “I know.”
“No, I mean I really want you.” The robe had slipped off her shoulder, and he let his lips wander to that warm, sweet curve. “I guess I’ve been waiting for you to give me the go-ahead since about thirty seconds after I met you.”
Her body trembled and arched under his. Why were they talking? Why were there words when she wanted only to feel? “I know that, too.”
“It’s just that …” Her throat was so white, so smooth. It wasn’t in him to resist it. “I haven’t been exactly discreet when it comes to women.”
She skimmed her hands over his bare back, exploring that intriguing ripple of muscle. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you to regret this.” He rubbed his cheek against hers before he drew away. His eyes were dark with emotions she was afraid to consider. “I don’t think I could stand it if you did.”
“You’re the last person I expected to complicate this.”
“
It surprises the hell out of me, too.” His fingers curled tight in her hair. “It’s not simple with you, Caroline. I figured I ought to try to explain that.”
He didn’t have to explain what she could see so clearly in his eyes. And seeing it had the little licks of fear leaping higher. “I don’t want any explanations.” Desperate, she dragged his mouth back to hers. “I’m alive. I just need to feel alive.”
Her needs swallowed him, pulled him under, sucked him in. She wanted from him what he had always looked for in other women—simple, mutual pleasure. If there was a twinge of regret, he ignored it. Responding to her urgency, he tugged open her robe and feasted on flesh. She was slim and pale and soft as velvet. And if she was not just any woman, not just another woman, he blocked off those troubling thoughts and let himself take.
She streaked mindlessly into heat, gobbling up his desire like a starving woman might devour a crust of bread. Hers was only a body seeking pleasure from another body. No thoughts, she swore. No emotions. She needed the sensations, the liberation of good, cleansing sex. Her cry of release when he drove her to a hard, knife-edged orgasm left her trembling.
She could hear his harsh, strained breathing even as his hands began to slow, to gentle. He murmured something to her, and though she didn’t understand the words, the sweetness of the tone had her battling back an urge to wrap herself around him and weep.
The emotions sneaking through terrified her. She wanted none of them and moved quickly, even ruthlessly, to block them off. Even as his lips whispered over hers, she was dragging his jeans-down over his hips. His body went rigid as she touched him, fisted him in a hot, greedy hand. The room tilted, and while he struggled to right it again, she locked herself around him.
“Caroline. Wait.”
But she was already surrounding him, already drawing him deep into that glorious velvet sheath, already urging him to match her frantic rhythm.
He was trapped in her, in his own body’s demands. So he raced with her toward a release he already realized would be empty.
She lay very still, her robe rucked up under her hips. She did feel alive. Sore and swollen and trembly and alive. If only she didn’t feel so hollow with it.
If only he would say something. If only he would lift his head and grin and make some silly joke to put this awkwardness behind them.
But the silence dragged on. His heartbeat slowed to normal against hers, and the silence dragged on.
He knew he was heavy, but he put off shifting his body from hers, put off the moment when he would have to face her. And himself.
Good sex, he thought. Yes, it had been good, basic sex, minus all those insidious and baffling emotions. Smart sex, he thought with some disgust. There was no reason for him to feel … used was the word, he realized, and wished he could laugh it off.
Was this why Edda Lou had been so bitter at the end? he wondered. With a sigh he opened his eyes and stared out at the empty room. No, Edda Lou hadn’t cared about him. About his money, his name, his position, but not about him. Sex had been a means to an end for her.
That was something they’d had in common.
But surely there had been a woman, someone, between his first adolescent tussle and this final, soulless bout with Caroline, who had cared. Who had wanted more and settled for less. Someone who had lain in hurt silence after the storm.
His just deserts, he supposed. The first time he had wanted more, he had run up against a woman who refused to give it, or take it.
Well, he still had pride. However cold that comfort was, it was better than crawling.
He did shift then, hitching up his pants as he sat back.
“You caught me off guard, sugar.” The smile curved his lips, but left his eyes flat. “Didn’t give me a chance to, well, dress for the party.”
It took her a moment to understand that he was talking about the lack of a condom. She made herself shrug. “I suppose this was more of a surprise party.” Avoiding his eyes, she sat up and drew her robe around her. “I take the pill.”
“Well then.” He wanted to reach out, to smooth her touseled hair, but rose instead. “Looks like we bored that pup of yours right to sleep.” He gestured to where Useless was curled under a chair, snoring. Tucker thrust his hands in his pockets. “Caroline.”
“I think I’ll go make some coffee.” She popped off the couch as though Tucker’s voice had flicked a lever. “And breakfast. I owe you breakfast.”
He studied her, the way she gnawed on her bottom lip, the way her eyes, shadowed with strain, kept slipping over his shoulder. “If that’s the way you want it. Mind if I grab a shower?”
“No, go ahead.” She wasn’t sure if her sigh was one of relief or disappointment, and covered it over with a flow of words. “Upstairs, second door on the right. There are fresh towels on the shelf. The water takes a while to heat up.”
“I’m not in a hurry,” he told her, and strolled out of the room.
Washing with her soap put him in a better frame of mind. Using her toothbrush—he couldn’t find a spare—left a lingering taste of her in his mouth.
Physical things. It was much more comfortable to concentrate on physical things. He’d had no business brooding over the deeper meaning of a nice, no-strings session of morning sex.
He’d shrugged his shirt over his shoulders by the time he reached the bottom landing. He caught the scents of coffee and bacon. Everyday aromas that shouldn’t have had him quivering for her. He was scowling down the hallway toward the kitchen when he heard the sound of a car in the lane.
Shirt open, thumbs tucked in his pockets, he walked to the screen and watched Special Agent Matthew Burns park. They studied each other, one black-suited and silk-tied, the other unshaven and barely dressed. Animosity leapt up like a large rabid dog.
Tucker shoved open the screen door and leaned on it. “Early for visiting, isn’t it?”
Burns locked his car door, pocketed the keys. “Official business.” He scanned Tucker’s bare chest and damp hair. The homey breakfast scents drifting outside had him thinning his lips. “The interruption is quite necessary.”
“You’re too later to interrupt,” Tucker said placidly. “What can we do for you?”
“You take a lot of pride in this, don’t you, Long-street?”
Tucker lifted a brow. “In what?”
“In your southern-fried womanizing.”
“Is that why you’re here? Looking for pointers?” His smile wasn’t charming this time, but wolfish. “If that’s the case, it’s going to take a while. You need a lot of work, Burns.”
Burns’s jaw clenched. The simple fact that a woman like Caroline preferred Tucker over him burned in his gut like an ulcer. “I find your … style. I suppose we’ll call it, pathetic.”
“If that was an insult, you’re off target. I’m not looking to impress you.”
“No, helpless females are more your style.”
“You know”—Tucker rubbed a hand over the stubble of his chin—“I’ve never once in my life met a female I’d consider helpless. Caroline’s not, that’s for damn sure. Right now she might be a little shaky. She might need somebody to lean on until she gets her feet back under her again. She’s got me as long as she wants. You’d better understand that.”
“What I understand is that you have no compunction about using a woman’s vulnerabilities to your own end. You’re a user, Longstreet, and you’ve got the emotional maturity of a mushroom. Edda Lou Hatinger was just the last in a long line of your discards. As for Caroline—”
“Caroline can speak for herself.” She stepped forward, laying a hand on Tucker’s arm. Whether it was in support or restraint, none of them could tell. “Do you need to talk to me, Matthew?”
He struggled against a wave of black, unreasonable anger. She was wearing nothing but a robe, and the way she ranged herself beside Tucker spoke not only of preference, but of intimacy. It galled, destroying his elegant image of her. However brilliant her talent, however delicate h
er beauty, she had lowered herself to trollop by her choice.
“I thought it would be more comfortable for you to give me your statement here, rather than coming into town.”
“Yes, it would. I appreciate it.” She would have offered him coffee in the parlor, but she had no intention of leaving him and Tucker alone again. “If we could go back in the kitchen … I’ve just finished fixing breakfast.”
“I’d intended to get Mr. Longstreet’s statement later,” Burns said stiffly.
“Now you can save some time.” Caroline kept a wary watch on both of them as they walked down the hall. “Would you like some eggs, Matthew?”
“Thank you, I’ve already eaten.” He took a seat at the table, as out of place in the country kitchen as a tuxedo at a hoedown. “Coffee would be nice, if you don’t mind.”
Caroline brought the pot to the table, setting it on an iron trivet in the shape of a rooster. Odd, she thought as she dished up bacon and eggs, until that moment she hadn’t imagined herself racing through that room, snatching a gun from the counter, screaming as fists beat against the door.
She looked over now. Only the screen remained. Either Burke or Tucker had taken the broken door away, but there were still a few splinters of wood on the floor.
“You want a statement about what happened yesterday.” Caroline busied herself adding cream to her coffee. “I’ve already given one to Burke.”
“Yes, I read it.”
Tucker noticed her hands were steady, but her gaze shifted back to the door several times. He lifted a hand to her shoulder for a gentle rub. “I don’t know much about the law,” he began, “but isn’t what happened here yesterday a local problem?”
“Ordinarily. If you’d indulge me, Caroline, I’d very much appreciate your going over everything that happened.” He switched on his recorder. “For my records.”