“I’ll listen, Tucker,” Ginny whispered, covering his hand on the table with hers.
“Whatever you have to say, I’ll listen.”
Tucker threaded his fingers through hers, his eyes steady on her face. Something fluttered through his brown gaze, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He raked a hand through his dark hair, huffed in a great quantity of air, then exhaled in it one whoosh.
“I counted on that,” Tucker admitted quietly. “I came back because I need you to help me, Gin.” His words rebounded around the kitchen with a desperate plea, even though his voice had dropped to a deadly, whisper-soft calm.
Ginny stared. “Help you do what?”
“Help me figure out what’s wrong. I need a way to get God to listen to me, to hear me. I need you to explain how I can find God.”
Ginny gulped, shocked by the admittance, stunned by the truth she saw reflected in his eyes.
Books by Lois Richer
Love Inspired
A Will and a Wedding #8
†Faithfully Yours #15
†A Hopeful Heart #23
†Sweet Charity #32
A Home, a Heart, a Husband #50
This Child of Mine #59
*Baby on the Way #73
*Daddy on the Way #79
*Wedding on the Way #85
‡Mother’s Day Miracle #101
‡His Answered Prayer #115
‡Blessed Baby #152
Tucker’s Bride #182
LOIS RICHER
lives in a small Canadian prairie town with her husband, who, she says, is a “wanna-be farmer.” She began writing in self-defense, as a way to escape. She says, “Come spring, tomato plants take over my flower beds, no matter how many I ‘accidentally’ pull up or ‘prune.’ By summer I’m fielding phone calls from neighbors who don’t need tomatoes this fall. Come September, no one visits us and anyone who gallantly offers to take a box invariably ends up with six. I have more recipes with tomatoes than with chocolate. Thank goodness for writing! Imaginary people with imaginary gardens are much easier to deal with!”
Please feel free to contact Lois at: Box 639, Nipawin, Saskatchewan, S0E 1E0 Canada.
Tucker’s Bride
Lois Richer
But those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength. They will soar on wings
like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
—Isaiah 40:31
This book is dedicated to Aven Paetkau and Lyn Cote, true friends who so graciously support me through all the rough empty spots in my life. You always bring me joy and comfort. Bless you.
Hello!
Nice to see you again. I hope you’ve enjoyed Tucker and Ginny’s story. Much of what they learned in their faith walk has been gleaned from my own life and the needless fussing and fuming I’ve done when life throws me a curveball I hadn’t expected and don’t know how to handle.
But you know, valleys look so beautiful when you view them from a distance. Maybe we need to wait a bit before we decide this particular trial is too terrible to bear. Maybe it will lead to tremendous joy or a new lesson about God. Remember, the only way to get to the mountaintop is to go through that valley, whether it lasts seven years, like Ginny’s, or seven days.
I pray you’ll truly find the peace that God imparts as He strengthens you, and then works out all things together for your good.
Blessings,
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter One
Two things hit Tucker Townsend squarely between the eyes on his first evening back in Montana.
First, after seven years, Ginny Brown was more beautiful than he remembered. And second, even Jubilee Junction, the place he’d once thought stoicly immune to change, had probably been transformed from the homey little haven of his youth.
And why not? Nothing else in his life had stayed the same.
Still, hope burned inside, refusing to be dampened—hope that with the rest of his life in upheaval, Ginny and the Junction would be there, rock solid as always. He’d needed to believe that, for his own self-preservation. Over the past days and weeks, he’d clung to his memories of Ginny and the sleepy little town like a kid clings to Santa Claus.
Please God, let this be the place I find answers.
“Hey, Tuck! I wondered when you’d get here. Your phone calls are always too short.” Coach Bains whacked him on the back hard enough to topple an oak tree. The wrinkled face beamed with delight. “I knew you’d come here first.”
The little white church—his sanctuary. Back in the old days, hadn’t he always run here first when he was in trouble? Looking for a miracle, no doubt. Tucker winced at the foolishness of that. There were no miracles, not for him.
“You’re just in time to celebrate.”
Tucker could see that. At First Avenue Church, the fellowship hall hummed with vibrant displays of spring daffodils and rich blue hyacinths. There were baskets crammed full of the wild lilac crocus flowers he remembered from springtimes past. The verdant forest green of ferns and newly budded leaves arranged in the center of each table only added to the riot of color.
But all of this bounty took second place to the paper wedding bells dangling over Ginny Brown’s curly head.
“What’s up, Coach?” Tucker forced his eyes off Ginny and the masculine arm tossed so carelessly behind her shoulders.
“Bridal shower.”
Tucker swallowed. Hard. So Ginny was getting married, the bells weren’t an illusion his damaged eye had conjured up. He should be happy for her. So why did he suddenly feel as if he’d been abandoned?
Because he desperately needed her help.
Tucker quashed that thought immediately. He had no right to ask her. None. She owed him nothing, no explanations, no justification for her choices, nothing at all. He’d forfeited everything while he chased his dream.
Coach leaned closer. His voice dropped a decibel.
“Nice things, these showers. Everybody gets to celebrate before all the hoity-toity of the wedding. Don’t have to wear a suit here, either.” Coach’s merry blue eyes winked with fun.
“You own a suit?” Tucker tore his eyes away from Ginny long enough to blink at the old man.
“Yep. Wear it once, maybe twice every year. I suspect the wife’ll dig it out when this shindig happens, too.”
“And when might that be?” Tucker swallowed again, his eyes moving to Ginny and the man who sprawled on the chair next to hers.
Riley Cantrel. Tucker should have guessed. Riley had always planned his life down to the nth degree. He probably had lists of pros and cons when it came to Ginny, though there couldn’t be many cons. Ginny would make a great wife. But not for Tucker. Never for him.
“I guess it’s time she got married.” He pretended a nonchalance he absolutely did not feel.
“Way past time, if you ask me. All this thinking and making up problems where there aren’t any. In my time we just got married. Then we handled the problems. Made life a whole lot easier.” Coach snorted his indignation.
“She’s been going with him for that long?” Tucker mocked himself. He’d been a fool to run back here, tail between his legs. What had made him think Ginny would even speak to him after seven long years?
“What’s the matter, your other eye doesn’t work, eithe
r?” Coach jerked his thumb forward and to the left. “They must have taken a hunk of your brain out if you don’t remember how long those two have been a couple.”
“I guess I forgot.” Tucker frowned as he watched Ginny tilt her head to whisper something in Riley’s ear.
Coach poked him in the ribs, face perplexed.
“You forgot Drusilla Andrews and Rob Lassiter have been canoodling in corners since tenth grade? You better see a doctor, son. You’re sicker than I thought.”
Tucker’s breath whooshed out of his chest in a surge of something very like relief.
“Drusilla and Rob are finally getting married,” he murmured, more for his own edification than anything else. He might have known Coach would pick up on that.
“That’s what I been saying for the past five minutes. Those two are getting hitched. Why else d’ya think they’d have a wedding shower?”
“Wasn’t thinking, I guess.” Tucker grinned as his glance sought and found Rob, his high school buddy—the only guy in their graduating class who’d never wanted more than the cattle and the spread his daddy had raised him on. Except for Drusilla. Rob had always wanted Dru.
“Well, they took long enough.” Tucker chuckled at the lovesick pair. Some things never changed!
“You should talk!” Coach glared at him, and the warmth in his eyes frosted over. “What’s this I hear about you getting engaged to some bird called Amanda DuPres?” His lips made a mockery of the old Bostonian name.
Did the whole world know?
“I’m not sure what you heard, Coach.” Tucker’s hands fisted at his sides, but he hung on to his composure out of sheer willpower. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I suppose. Amanda is a wonderful woman and a good friend, but we’re not getting married. I made a mistake.”
“Of course it was a mistake, you idiot! You’re not the type for some fancy rich girl. Doesn’t matter how far you go. The Junction’s your home. That won’t change.” Coach whacked him on the back once more, for good measure, his mismatched teeth sparkling in a grin of pure happiness.
Tucker checked, but no one else had noticed them, not yet, anyway. He relaxed, gave in to the urge and let himself drown in the sight of her just once more.
Everything about Ginny was so—normal. Her big green eyes sparkled and shone as she teased Riley. Her lips still curved in that wholehearted grin, generous, nothing held back. Her hands still fluttered around when she spoke, accenting her words with a touch here, a motion there.
But it was Ginny’s hair—that glossy, bouncing mane of almost black curls that refused to be constrained—that held his scrutiny the longest. Tucker almost laughed out loud. How many times had his high school Ginny despaired of her naturally curly hair? She’d tried the shorn-sheep look, the straight look, the scraped back and tied tight look. None of them worked. Ginny’s curls simply would not obey. They rioted across her scalp however they wished, proclaiming her—what did that guy at the French station in Paris call it?
Joie de vivre—the joy of life.
That was Ginny, all right, bubbling joy. Tonight she looked very happy.
Tucker’s eyes strayed to her hair. Once he’d loved the touch of those curls. Once—a lifetime ago.
One hand lifted of its own accord to rub the healing tissue on his face as Tucker soaked in the rest of her, clad tonight in a brilliant turquoise velour pantsuit that begged you to brush your fingers against the glossy threads.
She was so alive. That realization took some of the sting out of seeing her with Riley.
Tucker bent slightly, searched and eventually found what he was looking for. Now he knew he was home. Ginny’s crazy shoes!
“Eye bothering you, son?”
Coach’s murmured question brought home his actions. Tucker dropped the hand from his face like a brick. He straightened, grim reality washing away the memories. Ginny wasn’t the same any more than he was.
“Tuck?”
“It doesn’t hurt as much anymore. Scar tissue gets itchy sometimes, that’s all.”
He hated the sympathy he saw in the older man’s face. Grief grabbed at him, made him wiggle with guilt. Tucker Townsend didn’t deserve sympathy. Not when he’d gotten the injury and not now. Tucker was alive.
Quint wasn’t.
“When did you get the eye patch off?” Coach led him to the buffet table, poured some punch, loaded a plate and then indicated two empty chairs in a corner of the room.
“Last week. I wear dark glasses during the day. The light still bothers me a little.” Tucker lifted his glass, peered at the concoction in the punch bowl and wrinkled his nose when the pungent aroma of cranberries wafted up. “Did Mrs. Wheeler make the punch?”
“You should know by now that Ethel Wheeler always makes the punch. Life hasn’t changed much in Jubilee Junction, son, no matter how you found the rest of the world. Leastways, the important stuff’s stayed the same.” Coach took a bite of his sandwich, chewed for a moment, then washed it down with the cranberry punch. He smirked.
“Well, maybe one thing’s changed. I almost like this stuff now.” One eyebrow flicked upward. “We’ve got the spare room ready, Tuck.”
“No, that’s not necessary. I’m already booked in at the motel.” Tucker frowned, dismay filling him. “I’ll be fine, Coach.”
“No way.” Coach shook his head decisively. “The wife’s been looking forward to feeding you ever since you called yesterday. Cleaned the whole house just on your account. Singing like a hen with a chick come home. She won’t hear tell of you bunking over there.”
“But—”
“Forget it! Arguing with that woman isn’t an option. Not when she’s baking those goodies.” Coach licked his lips, then winked, the love shining from his face like a beacon.
Love. What was it like to feel love like that?
“You staying in town long?”
It was the one question Tucker didn’t want to answer. He didn’t even know why he was here. His parents had long since moved to Minneapolis, divorced and found new lives. His siblings were spread across the country, involved in problems of their own. There was nothing in Jubilee Junction for him now.
And yet, he’d had to come, had to see if he could find any comfort here. Jubilee Junction was his last resort.
Ginny was his last hope.
“Tucker? Tucker, is that you?”
His heart picked up double time. His palms started to sweat. He gulped, then glanced up. Ginny.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He urged his legs to lift him up and hold his aching body erect, forced himself to meet her stare. “How are you, Gin?”
“I’m fine, of course.” Her green eyes swirled with worry as she inspected his battered face. Then her arms swept around his neck, and she hugged him tightly, burying her face in his chest. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re all right, Tucker. We were worried when we heard you’d been hurt. Africa seems so far away from here, global village or not.”
His arms came up of their own accord and curved around her waist, holding her close for as long as she wanted to be there. Her curls, soft as silk and just as shiny, tumbled over her shoulders, caressing his cheek as they danced across his shirt.
Tucker’s nose caught her familiar scent—Persian roses. Spicy, soft, heady. She smelled like joy, and peace and comfort. She smelled like home.
“That means a lot to me, Ginny,” he managed when she finally tugged away. “Thanks.” He let her go, shuttered off the pain when she stepped back and Riley’s proprietary arm flopped over her shoulders.
“Hi, Riley. How’s the ranch?” Tucker winced as lean, muscular fingers tightened around his.
“About the same.” Riley frowned, loosened his grip. “You okay, Tucker? You look like a north wind could flatten you.”
Honesty was always the best policy.
“I feel like it, too.” Tucker grinned, then sank back down into his chair before he fell down. “Seems like everything takes a little more effort than it used to, but I’ll be fine. Healing is ju
st a matter of time.”
Ha! He’d just told the biggest lie of his life. Tucker would never be fine again. A man had died, and it was his fault. How did you heal from an injury as fatal as that?
He stared at his hands, wondering why he’d talked himself into coming here.
“I’m sorry about your friend, Tucker.” Ginny’s long slim fingers reached out and brushed across his cheek, shifting Riley’s arm off her shoulders.
She’d homed in on his thoughts—again.
“It must be hard for you. If there’s anything I can do…”
He nodded, unwilling to talk about it yet. She could do a lot, but he’d have to ease into that when Riley wasn’t around.
“Thanks, Gin. But I’ll be fine.” His voice came out gruff, rejecting. Shame welled up inside when Ginny’s face altered. He saw a flash of hurt wing through her eyes.
“Congratulations are in order for you, too. We heard about your engagement.” Riley grinned, obviously thrilled. “When’s the big day?”
“There’s not going to be one.” Tucker refused to say any more, to explain something that couldn’t be explained.
He’d known as soon as he proposed that he couldn’t marry Amanda. It just took a while to make her understand that his skewed-up life couldn’t be fixed by marrying her.
More pain he’d caused. Someone else hurt because of him.
“Oh. Sorry.” Riley frowned, his eyes glancing from Tucker to the woman at his side.
Tucker was grateful for Coach’s hand on his arm, drawing his attention from a confused-looking Ginny. He wanted to explain, but what could he say? That he’d proposed to Amanda out of some last-ditch effort to make sense of his life? Not hardly.
Tucker nodded at the couple, rose to his feet and turned away, pretending to follow Coach’s conversation. The truth was it was easier not to see Ginny sharing and laughing with Riley. Maybe if he didn’t look, he wouldn’t feel so alone.
Tucker made himself face the truth. This mood, this emptiness—it wasn’t about Ginny, not really. It was about change. Seven years ago he’d made a promise, and he’d never kept it. Seven years ago he’d left her alone. She deserved whatever happiness she’d found.
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