by Emily March
He looked from Gillian to the pool then back to Gillian once again. “How?”
“Well, I lost my temper and threw it. Yes, yes, yes, I know it was stupid, and that isn’t like me, but believe me. I was provoked.”
She rattled off a story about Jeremy and his wife, which only stoked the coals of anger glowing in Tucker’s gut.
“Then the owl flew at me, and I jumped about a foot in the air and tripped over Peaches’ leash and hurt my ankle.”
“How bad is it?”
She gave him a rundown and demonstration that convinced him she would not be walking out of Enchanted Canyon today. He was mentally reviewing their options as she finished, “But you know what? It’s okay.” She flipped her hands in a voilà gesture and declared, “I am the Wilderness Queen!”
Tucker gaped at her. Wilderness Queen? She thought he’d be proud of her?
She was safe, relatively unhurt, and at the moment, borderline euphoric. Well, yes, he probably would be proud of her. Eventually. Right now, he wanted to wring her neck.
“You scared me to death,” he repeated as he pulled his phone from his pocket. He handed it to her and said, “You need to call your mother.”
“Oh. Yes. I’m sure she was worried.”
Tucker bit back a caustic remark, stood, and walked toward his cousin, who had joined them moments ago, having followed at a slower pace. “Is she okay?” Boone asked, his gaze on Gillian, who was now speaking with her mom.
“Sprained ankle. We could carry her out, but I think the process would be quicker with a MULE.” He wasn’t talking about the four-legged animal, but one of the four-wheeled utility task vehicles they kept at the Fallen Angel Inn resort.
“Want me to go get one?”
“Think you can find your way back?”
Boone gave him a chiding look, then looked at Gillian. “She is safe if I leave her with you, right?”
“Very funny.”
“I’ve known you all your life, cuz. During a crisis, you’re ice. You only get scared when the crisis is over, and then you get pissed. You are royally pissed.”
Tucker muttered a curse, and Boone clapped him on the back and grinned. “Let me say hello to your bride, and then I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t tell her I told you about Vegas. I’m a client, remember? I’ll get your ass disbarred.”
“Your secret is safe with me, cuz.” Smirking, Boone unhooked his water bottle from his belt and took a drink as he waited for Gillian to finish her phone call. Once she hung up and smiled at him, he said, “Hello, Gillian. Fancy running across you here.”
“Hey, Boone. Welcome home. How are the wedding plans going?”
“Eternity Springs and the North Forty are ready for Redemption to descend upon us.”
“I can’t wait. I loved Eternity Springs when I visited there in February.” She gave a little embarrassed smile as she added, “The wedding is the main reason I didn’t try to do too much on my ankle. I don’t want to be the bridesmaid that hobbles down the aisle at Caroline’s wedding.”
“As long as you’re there, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” Boone said gently.
Tucker cleared his throat loudly. “If y’all are done chitchattin’, Boone is going to go get a MULE to carry you out of here.”
“Oh. Okay, good.” Gillian frowned up at the trail above them and said, “That trail is awfully narrow.”
“He can come in through the creek bed,” Tucker explained. “It’s shallow and accessible.”
“I’ll be back in less than an hour.” Boone gave Tucker a pointed look as he added, “Everything okay here?”
“Fine,” Tucker snapped. “Go.”
That last exchange finally caught Gillian’s attention. She stared at Tucker, her eyes widened, and her exhilaration faded. “Tucker? What’s wrong?”
He waited until his cousin had disappeared up the trail before turning to her, his voice grim, and said, “You scared ten years off my life.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Let me talk,” he interrupted. “I have something I need to say.”
Gillian grimaced and held her head in the palms of her hands. “You really don’t need to lecture me. My mom covered everything from soup to nuts. I feel terrible for all of the trouble I caused. Truly, I do. It was stupid to throw—”
“I love you.”
Her hands fell to her lap. She stared at Tucker with wide, round eyes.
“I love you, Gillian,” he repeated. “I’m all in. No holding back. I want a life with you. What happened today reminded me of a lesson I learned up close and personal numerous times throughout my military career. Life is too short to waste any more time. Be my wife, Gillian. My family. Let’s make a home together. Let’s forget about this divorce nonsense and go public. Today.”
Chapter Eighteen
All the breath seemed to leave Gillian’s body. She wondered if she simply hadn’t noticed when the mule kicked her in the breadbasket. The kind of mule with four legs, not an engine.
He loved her. Tucker just told her he loved her!
Thrill washed over her like an ocean wave, sudden and fierce, but even as it crested, another more significant wave overtook it. Fear.
She thought she loved him too, but how could she be sure? She couldn’t trust herself. She’d been ready to marry and pledge her love and her life to that two-legged sand trap only four months ago!
“You promised to give me time,” she said quietly. “No pushback. You gave me your word.”
He braced his hands on his hips. “Let me tell you something about time, Gillian. The past three hours took three decades to pass. I was afraid you’d been abducted or murdered or mangled! I thought you might be dead!”
She momentarily closed her eyes with regret. Sincerity rang in her voice as she said, “I’m sorry, Tucker. To the marrow of my bones, I am so very sorry that I caused you and my parents and my friends even a minute of worry. But that’s no reason to change everything.”
His brown eyes glittered. “Did you miss the part where I told you I loved you? What about that? It doesn’t escape my notice that you haven’t responded to that declaration in any way.”
“You’re not being fair, Tucker. You want to change the rules of the game.”
“This is no game, Gillian. It’s life. Real life. And it can end in the blink of an eye.” He snapped his fingers in emphasis.
“That’s true. It can. Maybe if you’d pulled this on me yesterday, I would have gone along to get along, but today is today, and I had an epiphany of my own.” She pointed her thumb at her chest and announced, “This girl got grubby and learned I will survive. Just call me Gloria Gaynor.”
“What?”
“The song. 1980s, I think.”
He exhaled loudly, but she barreled on. “I grew strong. You helped me with that, Tucker, not just what you taught me on our wilderness weekend, but what you’ve taught me since, well, the very first day we met. I am not the woman I was last September or even in January, but I’m only now learning who that woman is.”
“I know exactly who she is,” Tucker said, throwing out his arms. “She’s the Magnificent Mrs. McBride. Strong. Smart. Sexy. Stunning. When I got here a few minutes ago, you said I’d be proud of you because of how you’d managed. I’m proud because you’re generous and gutsy and gorgeous. You’re glorious. You’re my Glory, and I need everyone to know that you’re mine!”
Tears spilled from Gillian’s eyes and trailed slowly down her cheeks. Her emotions were a riot. That was both the most beautiful thing any man had ever said to her and the most tone-deaf. “And I need you to keep your word to me, Tucker.”
Temper sparked in his eyes. He dragged a hand across his mouth as if attempting to hold back his words, and Gillian knew that she’d offended him. Well, tough. “You promised me no pressure in Las Vegas. I’m feeling very pressured. I think I love you too, but not so very long ago, I thought I loved Jeremy. I couldn’t bear to make another mistake.”
“I’m not comparing you to anyone, Tucker. From what I can tell, you are incomparable.” He snorted, and she prepared to elaborate, pushing to her feet because having him stare down at her gave him an advantage. She needed equality. She needed balance.
“You called me all those S words and G words … well, now it’s my turn. Tucker, you are incomparable. I’ve never known another man like you. You’re adventurous. You’re trustworthy and loyal and loving. You’re confident. You’re intelligent. You make me laugh.”
“I’m a paragon of virtue,” he grumbled, shoving his hands in the pockets of his pants as he scowled at her.
“You are a really great guy. I would say you’re the greatest guy I’ve ever dated, except we never dated, did we? We went from friends to spouses without ever being boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“So, is that the problem, here? You want to go out to dinner together? To a movie?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. That’s the point, Tucker. You’ve come at me out of the blue, wanting to change the terms of our deal, and you want an answer right now.”
“So, I’m jumping the gun by a week. One week. I have to pull the trigger on Nevada one way or the other when we get back from Colorado.”
It was a valid point, but dang it, he’d given her his word! “Well, a week is a week is a week and I want it. That’s our deal. And if you think for one minute that today, of all days, after my poor mother has scolded me like a six-year-old once already, that I could tell her I got married by Skinny Elvis in Las Vegas and not only didn’t invite her but didn’t tell her for two months afterward that it had occurred, then I have tickets to sell you to this year’s Texas A&M versus UT Thanksgiving Day game!”
As any sports-minded Texan knew, the Aggies versus Longhorns gridiron rivalry had ended with the 2011 game, when the Aggies bolted the Big 12 Conference for the greener pastures of the Southeastern Conference.
Tucker balled his fists. “Dammit, Gillian.”
She put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “No pressure. You promised. I’m holding you to your word. End of topic.” She paused to see if he would continue to argue, but the man had the sense to keep his mouth shut, so she continued, “Now, want to help me break down my camp? That’s another lesson you taught me. Leave it as you found it.”
With a tight-lipped smile, his caramel eyes snapping with frustration, Tucker nodded once, briskly. Gillian knew the subject was far from closed.
Somewhere deep inside herself, she thrilled at the knowledge.
* * *
Back in Redemption, the combatants retreated to their respective corners. For the next week, Tucker walked around with a hundred pounds of torque in his jaw. She had boxed him in, and he didn’t see a way out of it.
That’s what made him grouchy as a cornered coyote. She had him dead to rights. She was asking for nothing more than what he’d promised her.
That morning in the canyon after he’d told her to stay off her ankle and sit still and let him deal with the camp, they’d exchanged little more than a dozen words before Boone returned with the MULE. Then once he got her home, her mother was there for some fussing and some fuming, so he didn’t hang around. That pretty much set the scene for the next few days until what seemed like half of Redemption traveled to Eternity Springs for Jackson and Caroline’s big event.
They’d arrived separately, the day before yesterday, Gillian with the “bride tribe” and Tucker with Jackson, Haley, and a passel of relations from Texas. The Callahan family’s North Forty could best be described as a private ranch resort that included lakeside property. Each family from that part of the Callahan clan—and there were lots of them—had private homes in the compound. However, it also boasted a large dining hall and sound stage set up for concerts the music-loving family often hosted and opened to the public. Other amenities included floating docks on Hummingbird Lake for boats and water toys and swimming, and a stand of tree houses that were Brick Callahan’s pet project. Brick and his wife, Liliana, were full-time Callahan residents of Eternity Springs. Throughout the year, one family group or another could almost always be found at the North Forty.
Upon the McBride cousins’ arrival in Eternity Springs, Brick had put them right to work doing everything from logistical tasks for arriving wedding guests to mowing a lawn. As a result, Tucker had seen little of his secret spouse. The women had spent last night up at Brick’s glamping resort, Stardance River Camp, to be ready for the sunrise bridal portraits Jackson had explicitly requested. They’d returned to the Callahan compound twenty minutes ago, and he was determined to have a private conversation with her.
He tracked her down in the room she was sharing with Maisy, and for once, she was alone. “Come for a walk with me, Gillian.”
“I can’t. My ankle—”
“Is fine. I watched you all but skip up the porch steps five minutes ago.” The ball of frustration that sat in his gut these days took a little roll. “I checked the schedule, and you’re clear until the rehearsal. Look, you and I need to spend some time together. Otherwise, somebody is going to notice this awkwardness between us.”
“All right. Okay. Just give me a few minutes to change my clothes.”
“Good. I’ll wait for you below the tree house.”
She nodded. Tucker knew he should turn away and save his question for later, but he couldn’t do it. Her red-rimmed eyes were killing him. “You’ve been crying. Why?”
“Allergies. That’s all. Something in the mountain air.”
He didn’t believe her, but he sensed that now was not the time to push. He’d wait to wrest the real reason out of her once they were out of sight of any potentially prying eyes, although he was pretty sure he could guess the reason.
The wedding. Caroline was having a real wedding with a real dress and a real officiant, and Gillian had had Elvis.
“Women.” Tucker marched away from the cabin with a real bee in his boots. Women, weddings, and wishes that failed to come true. “Dammit.”
He stewed about it for the next ten minutes, working up a real head of steam. He knew what was going on here. He’d run out of damned time. She was going to insist on the divorce, and he would have to give it to her, and it royally pissed him off. Tucker didn’t like not getting his way, especially about something so important as staying married to the woman he loved.
When ten minutes stretched to fifteen, he added the sin of tardiness to his general pissed-off frame of mind. After he’d been cooling his heels beneath the Callahans’ damned tree house for twenty minutes, he was done. If it took him playing Cro-Magnon man and pulling her off by her hair, he would do it. They were overdue for a walk and a talk. He had a few things he wanted to say about weddings to the secret Mrs. McBride.
He almost marched right past Maisy without stopping when she waved him down, but her words finally made it past the blood roaring in his ears. “… bag I left. She asked me to find you, and tell you she’ll be back for your walk in an hour.”
Wait. “What? I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”
Maisy rolled her eyes. “You’re as cloud-headed as the rest of us today, Tucker. We accidentally left Gillian’s bag up at the river camp after the photography session. She went to get it and asked me to tell you she’ll look for you when she gets back.”
Why didn’t she come get me? “I’d have taken her up.”
“I offered to go with her, but honestly, I think she needed a little time alone. This week is hard on her. It’s the first wedding she’s been to since hers was canceled.”
If one doesn’t count Elvis.
“She’s being a real trooper, but it didn’t help that her mother went all weepy when she saw Caroline in her wedding gown this morning.”
Well, damn. “Okay, well, thanks for the heads-up.”
Maisy tilted her head and studied him. “You okay, Tucker?”
“Sure. Why
do you ask?”
“You seem a little tense. You’re not nervous about the wedding, are you? Being a co–best man with Boone and everything? Tell me y’all haven’t lost the rings.”
“We haven’t lost the rings, and I’m not tense,” he snapped.
“Well, okay, then. I think I’ll toddle off and see if any other happy person needs any help. Haley was talking about digging worms to go fishing.” She finger-waved and turned to leave.
Ashamed, Tucker said, “Maisy. I’m sorry. I am a little tense, I guess. Just a lot going on.”
“Everything will be okay, Tucker. Know how I know? Celeste told me so. Of course, Angelica said Celeste is full of herself and doesn’t know everything, but she agreed the wedding was going to be fabulous.”
He grinned crookedly. “You gotta love the Blessing cousins.”
“Don’t ya know it?”
Tucker ended up joining Maisy and Haley in the hunt for fishing worms. Throughout the task, he kept an eye out for Gillian’s return. The trip up to the river camp and back should have taken an hour a most, an hour and a half if she screwed around.
Two hours after she’d left the Callahan compound, he started calling her. She didn’t answer. He called and he called and he called. After the eighth call, Brick’s wife, Liliana, came looking for him. “Tucker, I heard the phone ringing in Gillian’s bedroom. It was plugged into the charger. Your name is on the display.”
“She doesn’t have her phone?” he demanded. “She went up to that remote camp without her freaking phone?”
This time, he really would kill her—if the bears didn’t get to her first.
* * *
Gillian indulged in a few tears on her way up to the river camp in the cute little Mercedes she’d rented to have some independence during the Colorado trip. She snagged her bag and took advantage of the moment to fix her makeup. Her eyes were red as an interstate highway on a road map. No wonder Tucker had guessed she’d been crying.
Bag in hand, makeup repaired, redness-reducing teardrops applied, she returned to her car and began to lecture herself about keeping the tears at bay. This had been an emotional morning, but she couldn’t lose her composure every time she turned around. She needed to wrestle her mood changes into submission and remain more even-keeled. Ever since the Enchanted Canyon argument with Tucker, she’d been a pinball bouncing randomly between one emotion bumper and another.