by Hill, Teresa
Chapter 12
Three days later, Rebecca hung up the phone and stared at the man who'd so completely thrown her off balance, again. This was becoming her normal state of mind when Tucker was around, and even more disturbing, in her dreams, which became more vivid each night and always ended the same way. With him walking away from her, not even looking back as she called his name and begged him to stay.
"I guess you just found out where I'm living," Tucker said.
"No, I just heard about where you worked in Louisiana."
He gave her a wicked grin, one that the devil himself would have been proud of. Tucker enjoyed throwing her off balance, always had.
"Surprised you, didn't I?"
"Yes," she said, growing more and more uneasy.
He'd been working for a coalition of Gulf Coast residents seeking reparations for the damages from an oil spill—a monster of a task, taking on one of the largest companies in the world. According to a friend with the Sierra Club in Baton Rouge, Tucker had done an incredible job.
Rebecca couldn't believe it.
She did believe Tucker had taken the job here in Tallahassee because he wanted to be near her and Sammy, but working for an environmental task force for the past year and a half? That couldn't be.
Unless he really had changed, in more ways than she thought possible.
She stared at him, wishing she could see into his soul the way he seemed to be able to see into hers. But she couldn't begin to understand him.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.
He shook his head, as if he didn't know himself. Finally, he asked, "Would you have believed me?"
"Probably not."
"And even if you had believed me, I didn't think it would have mattered, not at first." His arms slipped around her waist, and he moved a step closer. "I hope it matters now."
After the other night.
He didn't say it, but he was thinking it.
She hadn't seen him in three days, and she'd been bracing herself for the meeting. She'd been uneasy.
Their relationship had changed. She'd agreed to give him another chance, a decision that haunted her nightly. And she wasn't even sure what she'd agreed to or what he would expect from her now.
How did a woman go about getting to know a man all over again after she'd been married to him, had a child with him and divorced him?
She stared up at him and felt an awful push and pull inside herself, felt herself swaying toward him, wanting him, coming alive in his presence, yet at the same time wanting to run from him, for fear he'd hurt her again.
She kept trying to hold on to her memories of him and that woman she'd caught him with in his office, despite thinking of him, missing him, wanting him. She'd have thought that woman was more than enough to cure her of any desire she might have for her ex-husband. Because it still hurt.
But it was so hard to hang onto those images, those feelings, when she saw him as he was now. As he seemed to be. Especially when he was with Sammy. Especially when he kept surprising her, like he had today.
She couldn't quite make herself not want him, not want to know everything about him now.
"I still can't see you leaving private practice to go to work for the state."
He smiled, sly as a fox, and she had a feeling she'd just walked right into his trap.
"You mean you can't see the man you used to know leaving private practice to go to work for the state."
She was silent. That was the essence of it. That's where the confusion came in. The man standing before her was the same man who'd hurt her so badly, and yet he wasn't.
"Hey," he said, tilting her face up to his, "it's all right, Rebecca. We've got time. We've got all the time in the world."
She welcomed his patience, but wondered how long it would hold out. Finally, she asked, "Why did you do it? Take that job in Louisiana and the one here?"
"The oil spill in the Gulf really pissed me off," he said.
She nodded. "Me, too."
"You can't fix a mess like that. That oil will be out there in the water, in the whole ecosystem, washing up on beaches and in the marshes for decades, if not longer."
"Yes, it will."
"I want my son to be able to play on a beautiful, clean beach and swim in nice, clean water."
Wow. If that was some kind of line, it was a perfect one, from her perspective.
Who was this man standing in front of her? The one she'd promised another chance to be in her life?
"So," she said finally, "where are you living?"
"At your parents'. In the guest house."
"Guest house? You mean the apartment above the garage?"
He nodded, clearly amused.
"It's a dump."
"No it's not. Nobody's been in it for years, so it was a little dusty. It needed a good cleaning and a paint job, but it's fine."
He'd surprised her, again. Guest house was a kind description at best from what she remembered about the place. When she'd been growing up, the housekeeper and her husband, who tended the grounds, had lived in the apartment above the three-car garage.
He was going to live in the old servants' quarters?
"Why would you want to live there?"
"It's available. It's not far from the office. It's not far from you and Sammy, and I didn't want to go house hunting at the moment."
"Still... It's not—" Not what she would have expected from him? It seemed nothing was as she'd expected it to be. "That's really all?"
He shrugged again. "I need to get to work. The job's been empty for months now, and the work's piled up. When things calm down, I'll find a place."
"Now—" he kissed her on the nose, then consulted the clock on the mantel "—how much time do we have before the torture session begins?"
That was how they'd come to refer to the soccer games—torture sessions. She couldn't understand why Sammy put himself through it, or why she couldn't talk him into giving it up. But he was determined, and when he set his mind to it, he could be as stubborn as Tucker.
Sammy didn't freeze up on the field anymore, but he didn't play well, either. He was scared of the ball, and in a sport where the object was to get the ball and kick it into the other team's goal, Sammy played with one objective in mind—to stay as far away from the ball as possible.
She looked at the clock and groaned. "Game starts in twenty minutes. We need to go."
"I guess we couldn't be late deliberately? Maybe we could miss the game all together? Do Sammy a favor."
She was tempted, very tempted.
"Why don't you think about it for a minute or two," Tucker said as his lips came down to meet hers.
He was holding her lightly. He moved slowly, and she had more than enough time to pull away, if she wanted to.
She considered it, but found herself standing there, watching his lips come closer and closer, feeling a shiver of anticipation work its way up her spine. She wanted him to kiss her. She didn't even try to deny it, not anymore. Just a kiss, she told herself as her lips opened beneath his. She could handle that.
Would it be as sweet as it was in her dreams? In her nightmares?
Another kiss?
Another chance?
Did he really think it would be that easy to forget?
She saw him once again walking away, as he had in her dreams, as he had six years ago.
She made herself pull away from him.
He took a breath, and she could feel him reaching for patience. "What is it?"
"I've been dreaming about you," she confessed.
"When I'm very, very lucky, I dream about you."
"In my dreams, we're together again, the way we used to be, and it feels just the way it used to feel—"
"Yes, it does," he whispered.
"And then you're done with me, you put your clothes on and turn around and walk away. Every time." She said it like an accusation, like he'd done it here and now for real and not in a dream. The part of her he'd hurt so ba
dly was happy to be able to say it, to put some of that anger into words and maybe to try to hurt him just a fraction as much as he'd hurt her.
He listened. She had to give him that. And it looked like her words had made their mark. His mouth stretched into a grim line.
The accusation sat there between them for a long time.
Finally, he said, "And in my dreams, I never walk away. I never did. We're still together. We always have been, and we're happy, Rebecca. We're so happy."
"That's not how it ends," she said.
"We don't know how it ends this time. We're just getting started. I want to kiss you, Rebecca. Just for a minute. Give me that."
She did, because she wanted to. Because she'd been in his arms in her dreams for three long nights, and she was so mad, so sad, yet she still wanted him so much. The man she had married, the one who hurt her, somehow morphed in her mind into the man standing before her. She wanted this man, too.
Rebecca gave herself up to his long, leisurely exploration of her mouth and pushed her memories of the past one step farther behind her.
* * *
Sammy came in from the backyard and caught them kissing in the hallway.
They broke apart at the sound of the French door closing and found the boy staring up at them with a serious look on his face.
No one said a word, but Rebecca's face went white as she backed away from Tucker.
"Try not to look so guilty," Tucker said in a voice too soft for Sammy to hear. "It was just a kiss." Then he turned to his son, ruffled his hair and said, "Hey, sport. Ready for the game?"
"Uh-huh."
Sammy stared at them some more.
"I'm going to change before we leave," Rebecca said and fled down the hall and up the stairs.
"So—" Tucker looked down at his puzzled child "—we need to get going, Sammy. Are you ready?"
"Uh-huh." He nodded, then paused. "Jimmy Horton says kissing is gross."
Tucker smiled. You could always count on Jimmy Horton to have an opinion about everything. "Oh, he does, does he?"
"Uh-huh. But he says grown-ups do it, anyway."
"Well, Sammy, you remember when we talked about this? Jimmy Horton's only seven years old. He doesn't know everything. Remember?"
"Uh-huh. But—" Sammy hesitated and started scuffing his shoes, one against the other, something he did a good bit from the looks of the sneakers.
His tentativeness still worried Tucker, and it tugged on his heartstrings at the same time. He wanted to wrap Sammy up in his arms and protect him from the whole world so no one would ever frighten him or hurt his feelings again. If only Dads could do that.
"It's okay, sport. Go ahead. You can ask me anything."
"Well..." Sammy still stared at the floor. "If Mom's kissing you and all that stuff, maybe she's not mad at you anymore."
Tucker got down on Sammy's level and wondered how a more experienced father would handle this. He was still running blind with so much of this parenting stuff, and he wondered if he'd ever be at ease in the situation. He figured it had to get easier over time, although everyone he asked about it said that wasn't so. Most parents said it never got easier. How could that possibly be?
Of course, most parents hadn't disappeared from their children's lives for the better part of six years.
Tucker guessed he'd have to do what he'd been doing all along—follow the best advice another attorney in his old office had given him about dealing with children's questions—keep it simple and be honest.
But nothing about this situation was simple. Hell, Tucker didn't even understand it himself. How could he hope to explain it to a six-year-old?
Sammy looked up at Tucker with so much trust in his eyes that it still amazed him. He couldn't disappoint him, and he couldn't allow his little boy to be hurt again, no matter what the cost.
Tucker gathered his thoughts and took his best shot.
"Sammy, it's just not as simple as your mom not being mad anymore. It was hard for you to trust me when I first came back, to believe me when I said I was always going to be here for you now. It's the same with your mom. I can't just say I'm sorry and expect your mom to forgive me. Sometimes the things you've done to somebody are just too big and too important, and saying you're sorry just isn't enough."
Sammy nodded. "But Jimmy Horton's dad left, and then he came back, so—"
So when are you coming back home, Dad? He could hear the question Sammy wanted to ask.
Soon, he wanted to tell Sammy. He prayed to God that it would be soon.
He wanted to come home. Wanted didn't even begin to explain the intensity of his longing.
Strange that for years, when he'd had no idea of what he really needed, he'd been able to get anything he wanted. But now, when he'd finally figured out exactly what he needed—Rebecca and Sammy—he didn't have a clue as to how to get them back.
He was running blind again, running on nothing but his yearning for them and his determination not to give up, not ever.
"Sammy," he said finally, but then he halted. Rebecca was standing in the hallway behind them with a stricken look on her face.
Damn, he cursed inwardly, knowing that one of the biggest obstacles standing in their way was the risk to Sammy. If they tried to patch things up—if they let Sammy get his hopes up that the three of them might become a family again—and it didn't work out, Sammy would be hurt all over again.
He knew that. He worried about it, too, but nothing in this world was going to make him back away from Rebecca now without doing his damnedest to get her back.
He just had to make sure Sammy didn't get hurt in the process.
"Sammy," he said, turning his attention back to the boy, "I'm not Jimmy Horton's dad. And you can't think that just because your mother lets me kiss her that we're going to get back together. This is all new. We're all getting to know each other again. It's going to take some time. Okay?"
"'Kay."
"But the important thing for you to remember is that whether or not your mother and I ever get back together again, we'll always be here for you. Do you understand that?"
A very serious Sammy nodded. "Yes."
"We'll always love you, and we'll always be around to take care of you. Okay?"
"'Kay."
In the background Rebecca smiled at him through watery eyes. It was an agreement they'd already come to themselves. They would never argue in front of Sammy, never be anything but cordial to each other when he was near. They wouldn't make him any more a victim of their failed marriage than he already was.
Tucker thought about pulling Sammy to him and holding him close, for a long time. He wished he could just hold them both, but figured he'd better not push his luck.
Patience, he reminded himself. They were together, for now, and they had time.
He settled for ruffling Sammy's hair, and won a smile from his son for that. Tucker wasn't sure he'd gotten through to the boy, but he didn't know what else to say. So he let it drop for the moment.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get on the road. We wouldn't want to miss this game."
He winked at Rebecca as he said it, and she rolled her eyes, but she smiled, too.
It would be torture, for sure. All the other boys would run after the ball, and Sammy, as slyly as possible, would run away from it.
Tucker would sit on the sidelines and hold Rebecca's hand. As long as none of the other kids made fun of Sammy, they would consider themselves lucky. And they would pray for the end of soccer season.
* * *
It was moving day for Tucker. Sammy wanted to help, so Rebecca agreed to let him take the bus to her parents' house after school.
She still couldn't understand why Tucker would want to live there, and her curiosity got the better of her. She went over as well—a decision she quickly came to regret.
Tucker's mother had driven into town from her home about two hours away, and she couldn't understand her son's choice of living quarters, either. Nothing he said cou
ld satisfy her.
That might not have been so bad, but Tucker's father chose to make a rare appearance in Florida, as well.
Clearly his mother and father hated each other.
Rebecca fled to the kitchen, but she couldn't help overhearing the arguments. At least she didn't have to watch them, as well.
She started unpacking boxes and washing things before she put them away. The noise coming from the living room quieted a little when Tucker sent his father and Sammy out to pick up some take-out food for dinner.
"Divide and conquer," he explained to Rebecca as he hauled in another box of kitchen things for her to unload. "It's the only way to handle my parents. Together, they're impossible."
From what she'd seen today, she tended to agree. The air was thick with the constant backbiting, but they were oblivious to it.
She was sure this wasn't one of the worst arguments they'd ever had.
Tucker's mother started it by saying her second husband's aunt planned to spend the winter in Spain, so Tucker was welcome to stay at her house, forty-five minutes away, for as long as he needed it.
Nonsense, said his father. He needn't settle into anyone else's house when a friend of his father's owned rental property all over town. He was sure he could find Tucker something infinitely more suitable than what he had now or what he would find through his mother.
It went on and on, back and forth, angry strikes at each other masked as an offer to help their son. They didn't look at each other, and directed barely a word at each other. They talked through Tucker, and struck out at each other through him.
Rebecca hated for Sammy to hear even as much of the argument as he had. Her child, hers and Tucker's, had never been exposed to the kind of bitterness that must have been an integral part of Tucker's childhood.
Tucker sidestepped his parents' questions at first. He ignored them and kept hauling in boxes. When he looked ready to murder someone, he sent his father and Sammy out to find some food.
With Tucker's father gone, his mother continued to press her case.
It seemed his parents were determined to make Tucker choose between the two of them, and he refused to do it.