Tucker

by Emily March

  Tucker needed a moment to absorb his personal revelation, so he took advantage of his cousin’s mention of family. “How are the twins? And your folks? They’re coming to Eternity Springs for the wedding, aren’t they?”

  “Yep. The whole family will be there. Mom and Dad are doing fine as far as I know. They’ve been traveling a lot. The girls are doing well. Mom keeps trying to talk them into moving back to Texas, but I honestly think she’s okay with them living on the West Coast. Until one of them marries and has babies, that is. She’ll want to have her grandchildren nearby.”

  The worry returned to Boone’s expression, and he said nothing more.

  Tucker gave it a minute before saying, “I’m looking forward to seeing everybody in Colorado. I had dinner with Jackson and Caroline last night. The bride is calm as can be, but he’s as anxious as a mouse hiding from a hawk.”

  “Hmm…” Boone responded. His thoughts obviously were somewhere else.

  Neither man spoke during the remainder of the trip. When they reached the turnoff onto the private road that led down into the canyon, Boone released a soft, heavy sigh. Tucker’s curiosity was about to burst, but he knew his cousin, knew he had to bide his time. Boone would talk when he was ready.

  As they approached the Fallen Angel Inn and Last Chance Hall, Tucker asked, “Should I stop at the hall? Is Jackson camping with us?”

  “No. His wedding is next weekend. I didn’t want to drag him into this.”

  This what? Tucker wanted to ask. Instead, he said, “Where do you want to camp?”

  “Do you have folks out here from the school?”

  “No. I didn’t schedule anything for this week or next. Didn’t know when we’d be taking off for Colorado.”

  “In that case, how about we use the site on the river near Ruin. It’s fitting that I poke around a ghost town while I’m here. I have some old ghosts riding my shoulders right now, Tucker.”

  “Ready to tell me about it?”

  “Not yet. Let me be in the canyon this afternoon. Tonight around the campfire, I’ll tell you my ghost stories.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Boot. Sounds like a plan.”

  * * *

  “I need a new plan for today,” Gillian said to Peaches as she tossed the pup a dog treat. Ordinarily, on her regular afternoon off, she paid a visit to the nail salon, did her weekly grocery shopping, and sometimes dropped by Maisy’s flower shop for girlfriend time. But after today’s scene with Erica, she needed something else. Her emotions were in turmoil. She didn’t need to sit and soak her feet for a pedicure. She needed to get out and move them.

  All because the new Mrs. Jones believed Mr. Jones would rather have been with Gillian on their honeymoon instead of with her.

  “She is one unhappy woman,” Gillian said, tossing Peaches another biscuit. Really, where did she get off thinking she could wander into Bliss to verbally abuse Gillian any time she felt like it? “Everyone says the last weeks of pregnancy are a trial, but that doesn’t give her leave to be a witch to me.”

  Gillian wasn’t about to put up with it again. The confrontation had made her feel lousy, primarily because Erica’s jealousy made her feel good, which in turn made her feel petty.

  Why? Because she was over Jeremy? Because Tucker was now in her life? Because she was a red-power woman who’d be damned before she’d let any man or former sorority sister push her around again?

  “All of the above” was probably the answer, but it needed to be qualified with “It’s complicated.”

  Complicated answers brought her no peace. She’d been coasting along since Las Vegas. The Carruthers/McBride wedding deadline was right around the corner. The time had come for some deep thinking, for some honest self-examination. “Or maybe we should just go for a hike,” she said to Peaches. Maybe she should take her troubled soul and happy dog to Enchanted Canyon in search of peace.

  The idea held much appeal. Gillian had wanted to return to the cave Tucker had shown her. He’d offered to let her use the wedding gown tucked away in that trunk in a display window for Bliss. Wonder if she could find the cave on her own? It’d be worth a try. It had been a relatively easy hike. There was no reason she couldn’t try to find it, was there?

  Not as long as she followed the rules. She knew the rules. Tucker had taught her.

  With the decision made, she changed her clothes, grabbed the hiking pack he’d given her from her closet shelf, and inventoried its contents against the checklist he’d stuck inside the backpack. She had a knife, paracord, a small first aid kit, a whistle, a tarp, fire starter, a hunk of fatwood for fuel, water bottle—oh, shoot. She’d never picked up those water purification tablets he’d told her to get from his shop. The two black trash bags and three gallon-sized zipper bags she needed could be snagged from her pantry supplies.

  Not that she would need any of this stuff for a short, afternoon hike, but she knew Tucker. He’d darn sure quiz her on the contents of her pack when she told him she’d gone for a solo hike.

  She scanned the rest of the list. The tablets were all she was missing. As she transferred her own go bag from her purse to her backpack and bagged up some kibble for Peaches and some snacks for herself, she decided to kill two proverbial birds with one stop by his shop. He had closed for the day due to Boone’s visit, but she had a key. He’d left it here at her place, along with some of his things. On her way to Enchanted Canyon, she would stop by his shop, pick up the tablets, and leave him a note telling him where she was going and when she intended to be back. “I’ll get a gold star in preparedness,” she said to Peaches.

  An hour later, she parked her car in the spot where Tucker had parked the day he took her to the cave, and she and Peaches started out. It was a gorgeous, early summer afternoon with spotty clouds and temperatures in the upper eighties. She took her time, letting Peaches dawdle, sniff, and explore. Yellow, orange, and purple wildflowers grew among tufts of grasses, adding pops of color to the canyon floor. She even caught sight of a snake slithering off the trail and took a picture of it, proof to show Tucker that she hadn’t freaked out. Much.

  She figured she must be about halfway to her destination when she paused to gaze down at a lovely pool of water fed by one of the numerous springs in Enchanted Canyon, some twenty-five feet or so below her.

  It was a pretty spot, one she had not noticed on her previous hike along this trail. “Hmm…” she murmured. “What do you think, Peaches? I hope that doesn’t mean we took a wrong turn.”

  No, she didn’t think that was the case. This was a narrow part of the trail. She’d probably been watching her feet, not the surroundings, when she came this way with Tucker. It wouldn’t do to take a spill and go tumbling down that hill.

  It was Peaches who discovered the way down, a dry arroyo that snaked its way down the hillside. Gillian debated a short moment. The climb back up would be steep, but doable. Maybe she’d use the knife from her pack and cut a walking stick to help. It looked to be such a pretty, peaceful spot, and she’d always found the sound water made as it tumbled over rocks incredibly soothing.

  That’s what she’d come seeking in Enchanted Canyon this afternoon, was it not? Peace and soothing for her troubled soul?

  She carefully made her way down the arroyo, catching her breath a time or two when her boots slid on loose gravel, but she never lost her balance. Like her mom said: Yoga classes pay off.

  Her phone began to ring as she traversed the steepest part of the slope. Her mother’s ringtone. She didn’t attempt to answer and allowed the call to go to voicemail. “Call you back, Mom,” she murmured as she tested the sturdiness of a large rock before placing her entire weight upon it.

  Moments later, she reached level ground and took a good look around. It was even prettier than the view from above suggested. The pool of water extended around a peninsula of rock and was larger than she’d realized. Water lilies floated on the surface of a placid green pond. Snowy white blooms pillowed on leafy pads caught the snowfall of seed
s from a trio of huge cottonwood trees hugging the bank. Gillian smiled with delight at the sound of a bullfrog’s croak.

  Her phone interrupted nature’s peace. This time, she pulled it from her back pocket and answered, “Hi, Mom.”

  The person who spoke was not Barbara Thacker.

  “Damn you, Gillian,” Jeremy said. “Are you trying to ruin my life?”

  “Jeremy?” She took the phone away from her ear and looked at the display. It was her mother’s number. Worry washed over her and sharped her voice. “What are you doing with my mom’s phone? Is she all right?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t answer a call from me. You always answer your mother’s call. Always!”

  “Where is she? Is she okay? Why do you have her phone?”

  “She’s fine. I’m at Bliss. Barbara is in with a bride.”

  Gillian exhaled a whoosh of relief.

  Jeremy continued, “I forgot it was your afternoon off, but your mother always leaves her phone right out in the open, so I’m taking advantage of it. I came up to your office so we can have some privacy.”

  “You have no right—”

  “Gillian, you have to leave Erica alone!”

  Her spine snapped straight. Anger blew through her as hot as Austin in August. “Excuse me? I need to leave her alone?”

  “Yes! You shouldn’t have asked her if she enjoyed your honeymoon. It wasn’t your honeymoon.”

  “Well, yes, it was. It was on the same island and the same hotel. I made the reservations and paid all the deposits.”

  “I reimbursed you,” he defended himself. “And Erica and I went a full month earlier than you and I had planned. She’s crazy jealous of you, Gillian.”

  “That hasn’t changed since freshman year of college! Look, she came into my store. She verbally attacked me. I’m not putting up with that.”

  “She’s miserable and hormonal because of the pregnancy, and she’s insecure because she knows … she knows…”

  “What?”

  “That I don’t love her! That I don’t want to be married to her! I love you, and I wish I were married to you! Sleeping with her that night was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life.”

  There. That was the declaration Gillian had wanted to hear from Jeremy ever since Erica went wedding gown shopping at Bliss.

  However, hearing it now didn’t give her a sense of satisfaction like she’d expected. Gillian slipped off her backpack and dropped it at her feet. She crossed to the thick trunk of one of the cottonwood trees and let herself slide down it until she sat at its base. Perhaps sensing that Gillian could use some comfort, Peaches came over and crawled into her lap.

  Hollowness seeped through her. “So, why did you do it? Why did you cheat on me?”

  “I was scared, okay? You were all wrapped up in wedding arrangements and busy at the shop and planning yet another business to launch. I was feeling lonely and afraid that I was making a mistake.”

  “So, you went out and made a mistake.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. It was at the symposium in Houston. You were supposed to come with me, but you were too busy. I’d been drinking, I had a weak moment, and you weren’t there.”

  “I wasn’t there.” Gillian grabbed a nearby stone and tossed it into the pool. “So it was my fault that you went out and cheated? With my sorority sister!”

  “She was a speaker. She’s a very successful attorney, you know. We started talking and figured out we had quite a few mutual acquaintances. She came on to me.”

  “I’ll just bet she did.”

  “If you’d been there, I wouldn’t have slipped.”

  Gillian took her phone away from her ear and glared at it a moment before saying, “You are such a smarmy, self-righteous, self-delusional bastard, Jeremy. I can’t believe I ever loved you.”

  “You didn’t love me. I loved you, but I had a weak moment because deep in my heart, I knew you didn’t love me.”

  “How long have you been practicing that line? Your whole life is a weak moment,” she snapped, pushing back onto her feet. “You’re a cheat and a liar, and I will not allow you to jack with my head or my heart anymore. Leave me alone. And for heaven’s sake, make your wife leave me alone. We might have to live in the same small town, but neither of you are welcome in Bliss. Get out of my office immediately. Give my mother back her phone immediately. Leave my shop and never come back. We are done, Jeremy. This time I mean it. I am so over you.”

  She disconnected the call, and in a fit of frustration and temper, she threw her phone at her backpack.

  She missed.

  Her aim was off to the left. The phone’s protective rubber case hit a nearby rock just perfectly enough that it bounced.

  Gillian watched with dismay as her phone disappeared beneath the water lilies.

  “Well, now. That was really stupid, Gillian.”

  The case was water-resistant, so it might be okay if she got to it quickly enough. Though she was tempted to rush into the water as she was, better sense asserted itself. She sat, loosened her laces, and pulled off her boots, then after a second of consideration, shimmied out of her jeans. She waded toward the spot where her phone had disappeared. The water depth reached her upper thighs. Following a relatively short search, she located the case, pulled it from the water, and groaned. The screen had a spider web of cracks.

  The device was dead as West Texas roadkill.

  “Great,” she muttered. “Just flippin’ great.”

  She waded from the pool and stood dripping and glaring down at the ruined phone, mentally running through her lexicon of curse words, the invectives aimed both at herself and at the scumbag who’d set her temper on fire.

  Distracted, Gillian didn’t practice good wilderness skills. She didn’t size up her situation or use all of her senses or remember where she was. She didn’t notice that Peaches had gone exploring, dragging her retractable leash with its orange plastic grip behind her. Gillian didn’t hear the rustling in the branches of a nearby tree.

  The chaos seemed to happen all at once.

  Peaches let out an excited yip and darted from beneath a bush toward Gillian. A colossal something exploded from the concealment of dense foliage. Startled, Gillian took an awkward step back as the winged shape with scary yellow eyes shot directly at her. Even as the great horned owl swooped up and away, her feet became tangled in the leash. She stumbled, tripped on one of her boots, and went down hard on her left ankle.

  “Ow!” Pain radiated up her leg. Her ankle began to swell. “Oh, man. This is not good. This is so not good.”

  Had she broken anything? She didn’t think so. She hadn’t heard a pop. Hadn’t felt a pop. Tentatively, she attempted to move it. She could do it, but the resulting pain made her eyes cross.

  Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. I can’t walk on this. My phone is dead. What am I going to do?

  She heard the echo of Tucker’s voice in her mind: Your brain is the most important tool in your toolbox. Keep your cool. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Don’t make impulsive decisions.

  “Okay. Okay. Nothing impulsive. You can do this, Gillian. Tucker taught you how. S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L. Understand and prioritize your problems.”

  Priority number one was first aid for her ankle. She remembered that from Girl Scouts. RICE. Rest, ice, compression, and … what was E?

  E made her think of Elvis. Wonder how many couples Elvis had married since the night he performed hers and Tucker’s wedding? Wonder what Jeremy would say if he knew she’d gotten married before he did? She giggled at the thought until her inner voice scolded. What the heck, Gillian? Why are you thinking about that golf gopher? Are you going into shock or something?

  No. Her ankle hurt. She was angry. And stressed. Trying to remember what Tucker taught her and not make her situation any worse.

  Peaches whimpered and nuzzled at Gillian’s hip. She glanced down at her pup and remembered. “Elevate. That’s what E is. It’s all about the
acronym, you know.”

  She had no ice, but the stream was very cool. Wonder which is more important—the E or the I?

  She decided to soak her ankle in the cold spring while she formulated a plan. She wasn’t going to be able to walk out of Enchanted Canyon on her own. This was an isolated area. Maybe she’d be lucky, and someone would wander along. Who knew, maybe Tucker and Boone’s campsite would be nearby.

  However, she needed to face the possibility that she’d be here for a while. Possibly overnight.

  Overnight, alone but for her puppy. And bullfrogs. And the owl. Whoa, Nellie, the wingspan on that bird must have been four or five feet. What other animals lived in this canyon? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my?

  “Oh, my.” She was going to cry. Her ankle hurt so badly!

  “But it’s okay. We’ll be okay,” she said to Peaches. “I’m a graduate of Enchanted Canyon Wilderness School’s Survival 101 class. What can possibly go wrong?”

  * * *

  “That was a mighty fine ribeye,” Boone said. “Thanks for the nice meal.”

  Tucker poured two fingers of whiskey into a cup, then passed the bottle to his cousin. “Camping doesn’t mean roughing it. I ordered a quarter cow from your dad not long ago.”

  “Hard to beat McBride beef fresh from the ranch.” Boone poured himself a drink, set the bottle atop the cooler, and returned to his seat in front of the fire. “It’s a pretty night. I haven’t done this in way too long.”

  Tucker watched the firelight flicker across his cousin’s expression. Boone looked better than he had when he’d walked off the plane, but he was far from himself. Tucker wanted to know why. “Done what? Camped out? Sat in front of a campfire? Dodged questions from your cousin about what the hell is wrong for the better part of a day?”

  Boone made a snorting sound, then responded with another dodge. “Too long since I soaked up the peace Enchanted Canyon has to offer.”

  “What has your soul troubled, Boot? It’s about time for those ghost stories you promised, isn’t it?”