Becky hung her head at the dark look in Johnny’s eyes. She’d known him almost as long as she had known Tucker, since Johnny was Tucker’s best friend.
“It hasn’t been easy for her, you know, Beck. She’s wanted to tell Tuck the truth all this time, but she didn’t want to betray you.”
A tear ran unexpectedly down Becky’s cheek. “She never said anything…”
“She shouldn’t have had to,” Johnny insisted, his voice slightly raised. “You never should have put her in that position to begin with.”
“I just needed someone to confide in…” Becky offered feebly. She raised her gaze to look at Johnny and winced at the accusation in his gaze.
“Well, for the future, keep in mind that she doesn’t like lying to her family. She doesn’t have a whole lot of it left.”
Becky wiped away her tears and made herself meet Amy’s husband’s eyes. “You gonna spank me, Johnny?” she asked with a wobbly smile.
“You push me much further, Rebecca Atlee, and I just might,” he threatened, but the hard edge was gone from his voice, and a light sparkled in his eyes. Instead of following through with his threat, he reached out and pulled Becky into a tight hug. “Don’t leave him again,” he whispered fiercely into her ear, squeezing her tight to reinforce his words. “He wouldn’t survive it again.”
Becky screwed her eyes shut at his words. “I can’t promise that! I have a job to return to – at least, for the rest of this school year… I…”
“So let him come with you,” Johnny answered, leaning back from her to look into her face.
“It’s not that simple… my… my apartment’s small… and the city… the city’s… he’d be miserable in the city, and you know it!”
“Stop making excuses,” Johnny said, and some of the steel returned to his voice. “You love the guy, Beck?”
Without hesitation, she nodded her head. “Yeah, I love him.”
“Good. Then you find a way to make it work.”
She stared at him then, this handsome man in front of her, who was like Tucker in so many ways. His best friend, the husband of his sister. They’d grown up side by side, never separable. If he thought it was just that easy, then maybe it really could be…
Chapter Five
“Why?” Tucker asked the minute he and Amy were alone in the barn. His jaw was tight and his gaze hard-edged. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t!” Amy whined, making a face even as she spoke. “I know that’s a lame excuse, but I’m her only friend, and she didn’t have anyone else to confide in! Plus, I was sure she was right – that it didn’t matter anyway, with her being there and you being here. If you’d known, you would’ve run after her, right?”
“Damn right.” He nodded.
“Well, then who would’ve been here to look out for Joyce? Johnny and I don’t know her the way you do; if there had been trouble when Mark was still alive, she wouldn’t have come to us for help, and you know it.”
Tucker sighed heavily.
“You know I’m right,” his sister wheedled annoyingly.
He sent her a thunderous glare. “That doesn’t make it right,” he insisted. “I deserved to know what she was really feeling, and you should have told me when she didn’t.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Fine, maybe you’re right about that. But it’s too late now, anyway. So what do you want me to do?”
“Promise me, right here and now, no more secrets. You know something’s going on with Becky that I don’t, you come, and you tell me.”
She pursed her lips in consideration.
“Amy…” Tucker started warningly.
“Okay, fine. I promise.” She made a face. “Are you still going to spank me?”
He groaned. “No, I think I’ll let that pass. I’m a little worn out from tanning Miss Rebecca’s backside the past two days, if you must know. I’m a bit out of practice.”
Amy giggled. “Lucky me, then!” She bumped his shoulder playfully. “You getting old on us, Tuck?”
He made another groaning sound, though this one was fiercer sounding. “Don’t test your luck, little sister.”
As they started walking back to the house, Amy reached over and took his hand. “Don’t let her get away again, Tucker. She’s been really unhappy for a long time, and I don’t think it’s just from everything that happened with her mom. You know?”
Tucker nodded solemnly and gave Amy’s hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry. If I have any say in the matter, Becky won’t be going anywhere without me again.”
* * * *
“I can’t believe you did that!” Becky complained for the fourth time, as she and Tucker backed out of Johnny and Amy’s driveway. She waved at the couple, as Tucker shifted gears and pulled onto the highway. “That was really cruel, letting me think you’d actually spanked Amy when you came in from the barn.”
He chuckled. “You should have seen your face.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and laughed louder at the glare she had fixed him with. “Come on, you have to admit you deserved at least that much. And besides, it’s only out of my good graces that my little sister isn’t nursing a very battered fanny right now. So lighten up already.”
Becky crossed her arms over her chest and glared out the passenger window.
“What you’re really uptight about, Red, is going back to see your mom again. Am I right?” Tucker gently guessed.
She frowned across the seat at him. “Why do you always have to be right about every damn thing? And even worse, why do you have to flaunt the fact, on top of it all?” she demanded.
He laughed again, which only further infuriated her. “Call it a gift, darlin’.” He winked at her. “And don’t worry so much about your old mom. I’ll be right there beside you the whole time.”
They arrived back at her mother’s place all too soon for Becky’s taste. Before she knew it, Tucker had parked the truck, hopped out, and was standing in the open passenger door with his hand outstretched towards her, waiting for her to get out of the cab, too.
“Come on, Red. Don’t make me get out my spanking hand.”
Just the thought of another spanking – and this one right out in front of her mother’s house where she would see and hear every slap and cry – had Becky scrambling right out of the truck. Tucker gave her a wry smile, as he clasped his hand with hers and tugged her towards the house. “It’d be a right treat, you know, if I didn’t have to threaten you with a spanking every time I wanted you to do something,” he told her companionably as they walked.
Still not happy with him, or with being back at her mother’s house after her icy reception that morning, Becky glowered his way. “Too bad. Some things need motivation.”
“Yeah? Well you just remember while we’re here today that I’ve got all the motivation you could ever need, Red. If I were you, I wouldn’t go testing that while we’re here.” He squeezed her hand to get her attention. “In other words, missy, behave yourself. You hear me?”
God help her, if she didn’t just stand there and take in his veiled threat and still come back at him with a sneer and a roll of her pretty hazel eyes. And God help him, because even that little bit of silent backtalk made him hard as a rock.
Before there was a chance for either of them to speak again, Joyce was at the front door and ushering them inside. The look on her face was much different from the hard, uninviting mask that she had greeted her youngest child with that morning. Though still not beaming with a long-awaited, welcome-home expression, her familiar face was relaxed and smiling, as she held the door open to admit her visitors.
“Wow, it smells delicious in here!” Tucker said, as they followed Joyce back to the eat-in kitchen.
“I made Dijon Chicken Salad on croissants, Italian pasta salad, sweet gherkin pickles on the side, and Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal cookies for dessert,” Joyce announced proudly, as she opened the fridge and began to pull items out to add to the already groaning kitchen table.
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Tucker and Becky shared a long glance.
“Those are my favorites,” Becky said, aware of how strange her voice sounded to her own ears, how overly aware she was of each word she choose to speak, for these were the first words she had really spoken to her mother in over a year.
“Yes, I know,” Joyce said. She met Becky’s gaze briefly, then looked away. “I always keep the ingredients for everything on hand. Just… in case.”
Becky felt her throat clog instantly with tears, and for a few very long, hot moments she could not look at either her mother or Tucker, or she would have surely burst out into uncontrollable sobs.
Luckily, her mother was already puttering away from them, gathering plates and utensils. Just like he’d lived there all his life, Tucker went to the cabinets to get glasses and filled three of them with ice from the freezer and then with the sweet tea that sat in the middle of the table.
A moment later, they were sitting down together as if the past fourteen months had never happened. A few busy, quiet minutes passed as everyone fixed their plates with a sandwich, pasta salad, and pickles, and then took their first appreciative bites. Then they all dared to look at one another, and that was when the silence first felt awkward.
“This is really nice, Mom,” Becky said then, finally finding her voice and venturing to trust it to come out without a sob attached to it. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for us.”
“Well, it’s not every day your daughter comes back home to you,” Joyce said, and though the words spoke of tenderness, there was an undertone of hurt beneath them as well.
“Well, I’m not here indefinitely,” Becky slowly cautioned her mother, thinking that she hoped Tucker was paying attention, too. “I have my class to return to once things are… taken care of here.”
Joyce was silent for a moment, just staring at her daughter. “Why can’t you come back here and teach?” she finally asked, sounding a lot like a vulnerable child asking its parent why she couldn’t stay home from work and play for the day.
“Well, I have my job in New York,” Becky said warily. “My students expect me to come back…”
“Well, maybe this year, I guess,” her mother pressed. “But surely next year you’ll come home.”
Becky’s brow furrowed, and she dared to meet Tucker’s gaze, which she noticed was carefully trained on his plate, though he wasn’t currently eating. “Mama, I’m planning on being in New York again next year, too.”
“Oh.” The one syllable word reminded Becky of the hollow, wet sound a heavy rock makes, as it breaks the surface of a pond, just before it sinks to the bottom.
A quick glance across the table proved that Tucker was still riveted by the contents of the lunch plate set before him.
“I guess I just figured now that… um… now that… things are less complicated here…” her mother cleared her throat, and Becky’s heart ached at the way she had danced around saying the actual words… now that your brother’s dead….
A sigh fell from Becky’s lips. “I don’t know. Maybe next year, I might come back. I’d have to think about it, though. I like the school I’m teaching at.”
“You can’t be making very much money,” Joyce fretted.
“Well, it’s true I’d make more if I had a job around here. But it means a lot to me to know I’m helping kids who seem to really appreciate it. The kids around here, well, many of them don’t care as much about school because they’re all born with silver spoons in their mouths.”
“You would make a difference anywhere you taught,” Tucker voiced his own two cents, and though it was offered quietly, Becky still felt the sting of the words; it was clear that her mother wasn’t the only one who expected her to return to Willow Dale, PA, now that her brother was out of the picture. And now that Tucker knew her true feelings about him, she knew he was really going to be a bear about letting her return to New York without a fight.
“Well, that’s all down the line for now,” she said with a note of dismissal. “For now, I just want to be here to help out for the funeral, and then I’ll have to go back to at least finish out this school year. After that, I’ll have to decide what I want to do.”
Another awkward silence fell over the table as the threesome picked at the beautiful lunch that Joyce had prepared.
“What things can I help you with, Mama?” Becky finally found the courage to ask.
Her mother blinked several times as if she was trying hard to focus and force out the words she needed to say. “You could come with me tomorrow, I guess. To the funeral home. I have to pick out some things.”
Becky nodded when the wooden words stopped falling from her mother’s lips. “Okay. What about phone calls – do you need me to make any for you?”
“No, Tucker took care of notifying everybody.”
When Becky looked across the table at him this time, she found that he was finally looking up from his plate again. He met her gaze briefly and smiled at her for a moment, though she noticed that the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Okay. Well, if you think of anything else, I’ll be here, so you just let me know what you need and I’ll do it.” She gave her mother what she hoped looked like a competent, encouraging smile, but what really felt like a determined grimace of false hope.
“All right, I’ll give you a call over at Tucker’s, if there’s anything else I can think of,” her mother promised.
Those words got both Becky and Tucker sitting straight up in their seats and forced them out of their individual distracted thoughts.
“What do you mean – you’ll call me at Tucker’s?” Becky asked. “I figured I’d stay here with you while I’m here.”
Her mother shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said, though to Becky’s ears she didn’t sound sorry at all. “I’m not up for having a house guest right now. I’d rather you stay with Tucker.”
“But, mama, I’m not exactly a house guest that you have to worry about taking care of. I’m your daughter. I came home to help you out with all this, not the other way around.”
“Well, then, just know it will help me out to have you stay with Tucker, okay? I really need my alone time right now. You aren’t mourning your brother the way that I am, and I’m trying hard to not be upset with you for how you’ve always felt about him. But I need my privacy so that I can cry when I want to and laugh when I want to and remember him my own way without having to feel like I’m wrong because you could never see him the way I did. I hope you can understand that.”
“Mama, I would never try to make you feel bad about mourning Mark. He was your son. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for you right now.”
“No, you can’t. But he was your brother, too, Becky. You should feel something for him.”
There was no way for Becky to explain to her mother that any happy memories she had had for her brother had long ago been crushed to dust by the unpleasant ones that his abuse of drinking and drugs had created. Was she sorry he was gone? No, she really wasn’t. The man he had become had been nothing but a chain of pain and misery around her parents’ necks for years. If he could somehow be brought back as the brother she’d known before he’d gotten messed up, then yes, she would have welcomed him with open arms; but she couldn’t help but think that her mother was better off without the stress he had contributed to her life. She didn’t need that, especially now that she was getting older and had had to deal with his antics on her own since her husband had passed away.
“I’m sorry, mama. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. But I can be here for you, even if I’m not mourning him. Will that be enough?”
Her mother sniffed and slowly nodded. “I do appreciate that, yes. I’m glad you came home for that. And I’m sorry for the reception I greeted you with this morning. I didn’t know that Tucker had called you, and I wasn’t expecting you to suddenly be here. But I am glad that you came home. All the same, I still would appreciate you staying out at Tucker’s.”
Her mind was obviously made up on this topic, and there would be no changing it – there never was any way to change Joyce Atlee’s mind once she’d decided on the way she wanted things to be. Though Becky couldn’t help but think there was more to it than her mother was letting on, she really didn’t have a leg to stand on when facing the case Joyce had just made. At least, her mother had admitted she was glad to have her here; she’d even apologized for the way she’d acted that morning, and that was something that happened very rarely in this house. She reminded herself not to expect miracles so fast and forced a smile back onto her face.
“Okay, then,” she agreed reluctantly, feeling the heat of Tucker’s eyes on her. “I’ll stay over at Tucker’s while I’m here.”
“Good.” Now that the topic was settled to her liking, Joyce stood up from the table and picked up the pitcher of ice tea. “Who wants a refill?” she asked, and damned if there didn’t seem to be lilt in her voice and a tilt to her mouth that hadn’t been there before!
Just what was her mother up to, anyhow? Becky wondered.
Tucker had to fight with his mouth to hide the grin that wanted to spread across his face at Joyce’s thinly-veiled tricks. But even more than wanting to grin at her, he wanted to jump up and plant a kiss on her slightly wrinkled cheek.
He knew what the old romantic was up to, even if Becky didn’t seem to get it yet. Now that her youngest child was home, she was obviously fixing to get her back together with her old beau. And, right now, Tucker was more than ready to take all the help he could get.
He wasn’t stupid, after all. Though he’d made Becky promise him this morning that she wouldn’t run off without him again, he didn’t really expect her to keep that promise. His instincts warned him that the first time he wasn’t looking, Becky was going to turn tail and run back to New York. He’d known her his entire life, and the last time he didn’t trust his instincts when it came to her, he’d wound up helping to waste fourteen months of their lives together. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
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