“I want to.” He stepped closer to the cracked door, his voice and expression both desperate. “I want to know everything about you. I want to know your favorite food, not so I can cook it for you, because believe me I suck at cookin’, but so I can surprise you and see your face light up when I bring it home without askin’.
“I want to know what your favorite flower is for the exact same reason. I want to know it all. But more importantly, I want to know if you want that. I’m supposed to have one more night with you and I refuse to let you go until our time is up. And beyond that.”
Evin’s heart sputtered in her chest and her eyes went glassy, as if she were looking through the clearest water to see him there, trying to pull her out before she drowned.
“And I’m sorry for what happened, darlin’.” That fucking accent was going to get her in trouble. “I shouldn’t have left your side. That was my fault. You had to feel like that because of me. Let me make it up to you.”
There’s a moment in life, where all the bad things and all the good things melt together. You’re unable to see the bad through the good and vice versa. But in that moment, you get to choose what you see. The bad or the good.
In that moment, Evin chose the good.
She swung the door open and lunged for his arms. He didn’t hesitate a single moment, wrapping her up tight and holding her close. The drowning ceased and all she could see was the light.
He kissed her wildly, without regret and without pause. His lips crashing into hers, his tongue desperate to taste her. He didn’t know her troubles, and she didn’t care at the moment, too caught up feeling her cares swept away under the tide.
Tucker Matthews was the undertow, but that time, it wasn’t either of them getting pulled under, it was the stress, the anxiety. It didn’t have a place between them.
She was wrong for walking out. She was wrong for leaving without a word. The choice to take all the bad with her when she left was on her shoulders, but he was begging her to allow him to take some of the load.
When she pulled back from the kiss, she searched his eyes. Let him in or not, it was the moment to expose her real self and her real life.
“Can I show you something?”
He nodded, sipping her lips once, twice, a third time before deepening it again until she was breathless.
“Show me everything.”
He released her and stepped back into the house, dragging him in behind her. Tucker deserved to see the man that saved his life. Because it would be the last time.
Chapter Fifteen
There, in the middle of the quaint living room, sat the very man who saved his life. His unsung hero. The man whose words turned his life around. Tucker wouldn’t be anywhere in life without that man.
Tucker wouldn’t be alive without that man.
The bed ridden man may be a stark contrast to the memories in his mind, but there was no doubt it was him. Frail as he was.
Evin eyed him, her eyes glassy as he approached her father’s bedside.
“May I sit?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes, of course.” Gesturing for the chair beside him, she sat on the couch where a pillow and blanket also sat.
Of course, she slept at his side. It was another thing he could check off his list that he knew about her. She was dutiful, the love of her father shone through with her caring nature. How that woman could shine so bright in the midst of so much sadness was something he’d never understand.
Fathers were an enigma, or his was. But, if any man could have changed his heart, it was Daniel Coates.
“What happened to him?”
She wiped a tear. He wanted to hold her, but stayed put, grabbing the warm hand of the man instead. He watched the rattling rise and fall of Mr. Coates’s chest as she spoke.
“He had a stroke last year. At this point it's just a waiting game.” She stood from the couch and stepped around the bed, perching on the side next to him. “You may be able to hear it for yourself, but he has pneumonia again. Won’t be long now I imagine.”
It was then she finally broke down. Tucker stood and wrapped her up as she shook. It was too much weight on fragile shoulders. He looked around the sparse home, there was a couch, a television, and the hospital bed.
Beyond that though, there were frames and frames of family pictures hung along dark paneling. It was so dark and depressing, it was a wonder she could smile at all. After the pictures, which showed a beautiful and full life, were the machines, the equipment. Everything a man needed to survive at home.
“Evin?”
She raised her head, her eyes already swollen and tired. He was looking at a shell of the woman he knew all weekend, life finally dragging her back down.
“How much does all this cost?”
It sounded a little stressed, a little depressing, and a little sinister, but the laugh that escaped her hit him in the chest. It was like at any moment, she herself would slip into the undertow and never come back up.
Leaving her side at the party was the worst mistake he ever made.
“You don’t want to know.”
Oh, but he did. “Is that why you do what you do?” He swept the room again, astonished by it all. It really was an act of devotion to put so much in her father’s care. The evidence of that fact everywhere.
She nodded, her eyes on her father. “It’s better for him here. It’s better for me, too.”
Tucker realized then the comfort she needed last night. Even if she never said what it was, he saw now the load was heavy. If there was one thing in his life he could do, it was help the man who saved his life until after he passed out of that world and into the next, and beyond that until all of it was gone and Evin never had to do what she did anymore.
He could see now his true purpose in life, the reason he was there in Aspen, there on the earth at all. It was Daniel Coates and Evin. They were never supposed to be anyone else’s responsibility but now, he saw clearly.
“I don’t want you to worry, Evin.” He looked her in the eye and wiped the last tear that fell before bringing her in close. “I don’t want you to worry about anything ever again.”
* * *
The rest of the night, as the snow fell on Aspen, Tucker held on to her as they watched old home movies and ate popcorn. They had one more night together, but it wouldn’t be fine cabins and perfectly cooked steak. It wouldn’t be a thousand count sheets and expansive open windows looking out to the mountains.
It would be quiet, intimate. It would be stolen kisses and making memories. He’d learn about her life and what she liked.
Lilies were her favorite flower. Chinese food, crab rangoon specifically, was her favorite food. She liked hiking and sometimes, when the mood struck her, she liked ice skating and random snowball fights.
Also, she ate popcorn with her tongue, and it made him laugh every time she took one in her mouth even if she didn’t know why he was laughing. Young Evin, the one from the home videos, was smiling and laughing through her years, a testament to her father’s love.
Then, at midnight on Christmas morning, Daniel Coates took his last breath, and Tucker was there to witness the final goodbye of the man that saved his life.
There was no other place he wanted to be than right there, holding Evin while she said her final goodbyes.
While she sobbed, he made that man a final vow. That Evin wouldn’t have to worry about a single thing for the rest of her life. That he would pick up the pieces and follow through, loving her the way she was meant to be loved.
The snow outside the window fell like tears upon her face. But he’d be there with her, through it all. And she could be Evin.
Just Evin.
Epilogue
“You ‘bout ready?”
Evin sat in the middle of the bare living room, right where her father laid. He’d been gone three months, and it was time to let it all go, to release it and start fresh. That was exactly what her father would have wanted for her.
&nb
sp; The walls were bare, the home spotless.
It was as if she never lived there at all. As if all the memories she had with her father were long gone. They weren’t of course, they just moved places. They weren’t on the walls anymore, instead ingrained in her mind and in her heart forever.
Aspen wasn’t going to be home anymore. She was going to be able to walk down a street without anyone knowing a damn thing about her. Free as a God damn bird.
She took one more look around the room and stood. Tucker waited in the doorway with a smile. Where would she be right now without him? Alone in the dark, no one but Jenny to talk to. She didn’t know what kind of fucked up Christmas miracle went into play, but the New Year was already brighter than the last. She was going to be happier.
“I think I am.”
Tucker nodded and trotted down the porch steps. Evin grabbed the door handle and swept a final gaze around her childhood home.
She could feel her father in there, could see him chase her around the living room and into the kitchen. The laugher and happiness made in that home would never leave, and she could take it wherever she went. Tucker was home now, and Corpus Christi would open the door to many new things.
Maybe she’d use that education her father paid for now that she could afford it. Maybe she’d become a beach bum and plant her ass in the sand until the tide came in.
Maybe she’d have a little girl, and Tucker could show her how she was supposed to be loved, too.
The possibilities were limitless.
With a smile, Evin closed the door, and left that little house on Cleveland Street behind her forever.
Stocking Stuffers: A Five Story Christmas Anthology Page 37