by Cait London
That fact lodged deep and unremovable within her.
Along with a vibrating and steadily increasing sexual need.
Tucker scowled at her and stepped out into the night, slamming the door behind him. In the moonlight, he looked big and somehow foreign, his hands tucked into his back pockets. His deep voice was quiet and raw in the night. “When you were scared and starting out, you could have called me, Carly. You’re right. We were best friends. I would have understood. I was pretty scared when I took over Dad’s business.”
“I had to do it by myself, Tucker.”
“I checked on you, once or twice. Came out to Denver and saw that you didn’t need me. You were doing fine. I saw that sleek office building, and your office and your name on that big plaque beside it. I saw you streaking by on the street, dressed in a suit, carrying a briefcase and talking on your cell phone. You looked happy and I knew you were wrangling something by your expression. You looked like someone I didn’t know, a sharp businesswoman in action. You didn’t need me, Carly.”
“You came to Denver to see me?”
He was silent, gazing out at the cattle. “I almost called you, too.”
She was terrified of one wrong word, of the past’s black arguments. They could tear apart this special fragile moment where the world seemed to stop around them. The stressful day closed in on Carly, crushing her and tears burned her lids.
Maybe it was the physical cleansing that closure brought. Maybe it was the clash between old lifetimes and new. She felt weak and peeled and alone.
She heard a rough sound and looked to see Tucker stand near her, frowning down at her. “Carly?”
His hand reached for her head and she couldn’t let him touch her, lifting her hand to stop him. Her fingers locked on that thick masculine wrist. It was warm and hard and safe, just like Tucker. After a quivering moment in which their eyes locked and her mind went blank, Tucker tugged her against him, her face against his throat. Her arms circled him instantly. She needed his safety, tears burning a trail down her cheek. She rested against Tucker’s body, drawing on his strength, the comfort of his arms, his open hand caressing up and down her back.
The hand in her hair had stopped smoothing and his fingers slowly slid into a sensual massage.
She didn’t intend to release that sigh, long and low, but it slid into the night air. Beneath her cheek, Tucker’s heartbeat had kicked up.
Carly slid her arm around his shoulder and dug her fingers into the muscle tensed there. It quivered beneath her touch, and she held very still, Tucker’s skin sending little electric charges to hers. That big span of his hand slid lower on her hip, locking onto the softness there. His breath was uneven and harsh, heat burning around them, in them, though the summer night was cool and fragrant. “You’ve got that revved woman smell. I’d know yours anywhere, sweet and hot. It hasn’t changed.”
Carly turned her face slightly and her lips brushed his hard jaw. She didn’t move, her lips open on his skin. Tucker was familiar and safe—but he was new, too. And he was dangerous, because most of all, she needed closure from her ex-husband.
“I’d like to burn you out of my life, Tucker Redford.”
“Think you could, do you?” he challenged rawly.
Her hand lay over his chest and beneath the cloth, a muscle jumped, a hard nub etching her palm. A hunt-resslike sense slid over her, almost feline in its awareness, her challenge right under her hand, hot and hard and big and tense. She always loved the game, the hunt, the challenge and the victory.
But she’d never played the game with a man.
In their married, sexual life, Tucker had always done the running, initiating lovemaking—because she wasn’t certain if that was a good girl role. While she had debated, Tucker had moved on, gently or wildly taking her to mind-blowing sex. She’d released her riveting need to him, but she’d never actually come after him. Tucker’s need was always right there and revved but never released until she was well on her way to shattering. Now, sexual equality with Tucker was necessary. “I’m thinking I’d like to try.”
He spoke impatiently, “Well, think some more. Because I’m not going through that again. Half my heart was torn right out of my chest and when it was still bleeding on the ground, you tromped all over it.”
Tucker moved away from her, his eyes silvery slits in the night. “And I’m not changing my mind about selling Anna Belle’s—my house—to you, no matter what you try to do to persuade me.”
Torn between a simmering desire and Tucker’s insinuation that she would use her body to get the house, Carly’s mind stopped once more.
She’d always been a fast, agile thinker and her mind had gone blank more times in the two days since she’d been home than it had in her lifetime.
At that rate, Tucker could cost her a future in advertising, where a good mind was a must.
While she felt staked out in the moonlight, vulnerable and unable to move, Tucker got into the pickup cab and slammed the door. A cow mooed as he revved the motor, indicating that he was ready to leave, that he was finished with their brief intimacy. That he was finished with her—forever.
He’d found his closure, while she was still working on hers. In lovemaking, he’d always made certain that they both reached the ultimate finish line at the same time. She’d trusted him to do that. She’d trusted him to understand her need to compete and if not win, call it a draw.
This new Tucker did not care about her feelings.
That fact shook her pride. She’d made a tentative offer and he’d walked away from any negotiation.
Carly did the only thing she could do—she straightened her back and walked to the Jacksons’ all-terrain vehicle. Tucker revved his truck, indicating that he was ready to go. So was she. She straddled the four-wheeler and in her hands it lurched to life—unlike Tucker.
She shot off into the night to escape this new Tucker and her shattered emotions.
Tucker heard his curse burn the night. Carly was riding like the proverbial bat out of hell. She’d always acted irrationally when she’d been hurt.
Racing across the pasture toward the road, Carly could be thrown or—He backed the pickup and shot down the road. If she hit that barbed wire fence…he couldn’t bear the thought of her bleeding and hurt…or worse.
He almost hit a cow as he raced across the field after her, honking loud enough to send the cattle into a tiny stampede. Carly’s vehicle slowed, the headlights swerved and before Tucker knew it, his pickup was into the Jacksons’ barbed wire fence. The impact had broken two fence posts. He reversed and found Carly’s headlights shooting through the gate.
On the paved road leading back to Toad Hollow, Tucker pulled alongside her and honked. Carly’s nose was high in the air, her back stiff.
“You’ll get hurt riding that thing. Park it and get into the truck,” he ordered uncertainly. Carly was always one to go the opposite direction of an order, but this time, she could—He did not want to think about the danger.
They continued to drive side by side down the two-lane paved road, approaching Toad Hollow. Carly’s hair flew out behind her, and if Tucker hadn’t been so worried, he might have thought she was glorious.
Carly always had a really good handle on “glorious.”
She turned to him, revved the motor, and then slowed to yell, “I learned to ride one of these at a trade show. We advertised the product. I’ve raced them. You can see that I am not helpless.”
“You’ve never been helpless, Carly,” he said unevenly. When oncoming headlights appeared, he slowed to let her pull in front of him.
The car soared by and Tucker pulled into the lane next to her. She had that stubborn look. “Pull over,” he yelled and forced down the temper that never found him—unless he was in the vicinity of his wife.
He blinked, shocked at the new thought. Not ex-wife, but “wife.” He’d always considered Carly to be his wife, locked in his heart for good—a maddening, delectable wife, who could tear emotions
from him that he hadn’t known existed. She always had him on knife-edge, learning about her, about himself, and now about intimacy between them.
She’d wanted him, either for comfort or for sex, or maybe the combination of both. She’d made her statement, and he feared her more than any living creature…rather he feared his feelings for her.
“Pull over,” he yelled again and decided that if he got his hands on her…if he got his hands on her, he wasn’t certain about himself or what he would do.
Maybe Carly was right. Maybe it was time they burned each other out of their systems.
His hands gripped the steering wheel until they hurt. His sexual need was way ahead of his endangered, vulnerable emotions. This intimacy thing could turn on a man. Carly had always been a fast game, and playing with her could cause real damage—of the broken-heart kind. Payment came in sleepless nights and lonely, aching hours.
“Worry about yourself,” she returned over the rev of the all-terrain rig. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”
Another car approached them from the front and Tucker was forced to slow and follow Carly. The car passed and Norma’s frizzed hair showed in the interior. She made a U-turn and drove to follow him, her red lights flashing.
Carly shot off the road and into a field. Tucker followed, and winced as he heard Norma’s car scrape bottom behind them. They passed Ramona and Frank’s family car, parked on a little moonlit knoll. The car appeared empty, until Tucker noticed Frank’s white legs and sock-covered feet sticking out of the opened back door. Tucker looked away from the rocking movement of the car. It intensified his own need for Carly.
She re-entered the road and took the route straight down Main Street. Two cars loaded with teenagers pulled in behind Norma, who was by now dragging her exhaust pipe. It rattled loudly as they passed the OK Corral. People finishing the night stood outside staring at the parade. Tucker sank a little lower in the seat, promising he wouldn’t—he didn’t know what—to Carly.
“Ex” was a big prefix to put in front of “wife.” Without reminding himself of the “Ex,” he was in definite trouble.
By the time they reached his house, the procession was long and loud. Horns blared, coming from the friendly, whooping crowd behind them. Carly drove the all-terrain rig up into his front yard, parked it by the steps, and ran into the house. Tucker skidded to a stop, one tire up on the sidewalk, and ran after her. While he was testing the locked front door, he heard Norma’s car rattle to a stop.
“Carly, open this door,” he yelled.
At his side now, Norma huffed, “Problems, Tucker? Need some help? I can shoot off that locked knob. Just stand back and I’ll—”
“Nope, not a problem. I can manage,” he said, reaching to drag the key out from beneath the doormat. “I’ll pay for the tailpipe and damages.”
“I’ll be glad when you two get it figured out,” she said. She sighed and walked toward the people standing and parked on the street, doing her crowd-control waving-off routine.
Tucker entered the darkened house, and walked to Carly’s old bedroom. He rapped on the closed door.
“You sure made a spectacle of us out there,” he said, because he was obliged to launch a statement of some kind, blaming Carly. He knew it was wrong, because a man was responsible for his actions.
He did not like the sound of muffled sobs. He could handle her crying, Tucker thought darkly, until she was in better shape and he evicted her for good—from his home and his heart.
Carly was his ex-wife…ex-wife…ex-wife. He repeated the litany. Otherwise, he’d be in there comforting her. And where would that get him? he brooded. Back into the heartbreak bucket, he decided.
She’d softened to him at the farm, resting against him all sweet and soft, and when she was in her hotshot businesswoman mode this morning, she’d leaned against him in the same trusting way. The old warmth had flowed between them, not of a sexual nature, but the deeper kind that terrified him now.
Tucker took a long, cold shower and practiced putting a big “ex” in front of “wife.” There were monumental reasons for that “ex.” He shaved, trying to occupy himself and take his mind off Carly in the next bedroom. He pulled on jeans, ate a sandwich he didn’t taste and turned on the television to black-and-white static. The sound did not erase Carly’s crying, and finally Tucker went to lay on Anna Belle’s big four-poster bed. He raked over all the bad things that had happened to him that day—because of his ex-wife.
An hour passed and the muffled sobs had turned to hiccups. They tore into his determination to let her come to the conclusion—of whatever.
An unsteady sob quickly took him out of bed and had him walking slowly into Carly’s bedroom. She was lying with a sheet over her head.
“Carly?” He needed to know that she would be all right. He needed to hold her.
“Move over,” he said quietly and nudged her hip a little with his hand. The soft feel of her body clung after he removed his hand.
Either she’d allow him to comfort her—or she wouldn’t. She slid a few inches to one side.
“More,” he said, nudging her again. “And take that sheet off your face. You’ll smother and then Norma will put yellow crime-scene tape all over the place.”
He eased into the single four-poster bed with her, settling gently beside her. He was more afraid of his feelings for her than the collapse of the old bed. Women were more volatile than he realized, and a whole lot stronger and more capable. Carly had ridden that big all-terrain rig like a pro.
He put one arm behind his head and pulled the sheet down from her face. She looked up at the red light that flashed through the window and danced across the ceiling. Her voice was raspy, uneven and low. “Norma. She’s patrolling to keep Toad Hollow safe from me. I suppose I’m up for charges on stealing the Jacksons’ four-wheeler.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not much comfort, Tucker Redford.”
“I’m lying here, aren’t I? I’ll call the Jacksons and tell them you’d like to baby-sit to make up for the inconvenience. You should probably put some credit-money in their account at the gas station—they’re having a hard time getting started financially.”
“I’ll do that. Thanks.” The red light appeared on the ceiling again. “Make her go away, Tucker. Please. I can’t take any more today. Maybe forever.”
With a long sigh, Tucker rose off the bed. When he did, wood cracked and the box springs, mattress and Carly fell to the floor. She pulled up the sheet again, the four-posters rising above her. Beneath the sheet, her voice was muffled. “Great. I just broke my grandmother’s visiting bed.”
Tucker shook his head and walked to jerk open the front door. “Norma,” he called. “Go home.”
The police car’s red light stopped and the siren whooped just once in disgust as Norma sailed off into the night.
Tucker closed the door, and hopefully the day, away from him. He slid out of his jeans and wearily glanced at Carly’s room. Then he turned and headed for the safety of his room.
One step and he was against Carly’s soft, T-shirt clad body. His arms circled her and her arms went around his waist. They stood in the shadows, just looking at each other and feeling whatever ran between them—and it was a big, big feeling. It wrapped around them, tightening the ache in his chest, and lower.
“You’ve put on some weight in the right places,” he noted huskily as his hands opened wide on soft, curved territory.
“You’re a lot bigger and harder…getting harder.” Her hands smoothed his bare back and up over his shoulders.
She gave him something, he decided, and it wasn’t only body heat. It was a calming deep inside him, where the uncertainties of life lurked. She gave color to his life, a joy in the unexpected. She’d given him comfort, even when they were fighting. Because he knew they had truth between them, the kind that had grown from childhood until their marriage—and then something had gone very wrong.
He ease
d the silky hair back from Carly’s cheek and studied her. “You’re looking at me like you used to look at some big project you’d tackled, all fierce and determined to succeed.”
Carly’s arms were around his shoulders, her fingers in his hair, massaging his scalp. “Do you like that?”
He couldn’t move. Then he did. To see her intent expression better, Tucker ran his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her to his eye level. Her breasts were just inches beneath his chin and he decided that Carly was a whole lot of good-feeling, sweet smelling, warm-blooded woman. “What are you doing?”
Her legs circled his waist. The movement of her fingers in his scalp was slow and erotic. “Watching you. You’ve got that dark, bristling look, like you do when you’re uncertain. You’re feeling fragile, aren’t you?”
“A part of me is,” he admitted, because the other parts that were pressed against Carly’s soft heat felt strong enough to do any job.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Her face was close, her lips just a fraction of an inch away.
“Only to say that I offended you earlier, and I shouldn’t have done that. I know you wouldn’t make love with me just to get your grandmother’s house. You’ll scrap with me, and try to bargain, but you wouldn’t do that. If you wanted me, it was because you wanted me. You’re an out-there-honest kind of woman.”
“You were uncertain then, too.” Her fists gripped his hair and tugged lightly. “Have you ever had a woman in my grandma’s bed, Tucker Redford? Because if you have, that would just be purely evil of you.”
“No, I never have.” He’d never had a woman since Carly, because it hadn’t seemed right.
Carly was quiet, her fingers tracing his face slowly, her gaze intently following them. “I’m thinking that if we’re going to burn each other out of our systems, then maybe we’d better get started.”
“Maybe,” Tucker agreed after weighing his will and won’ts. Still holding her, he began striding for his bedroom.
In the kitchen, Carly’s hand locked onto the doorframe, stopping him. “Wait.”