“Hey,” Garnet echoed him.
All the noise disappeared the instant the Gator was out of sight, leaving the two of them standing in the driveway. Every instinct warned Tucker to behave cautiously. “I’ll take you home if you want,” he said, “but since you’re here…I’d like you to come in, see the old family homestead while I rustle up some dinner. We both have to eat.”
She hesitated—as he’d guessed she would. “Tucker, I’m pretty beat, and I really need to shower off—”
“Yeah, so do I. But there’s three full bathrooms—I can loan you an old T-shirt and short-sleeved sweatshirt, and you already have shorts.”
“Well…”
“You probably don’t like lasagna. My sister made a pan when she was here, which is no guarantee it’s edible. She puts junk in there like herbs and all kinds of cheeses—”
“I’ll stay until just after dinner,” she said firmly.
“Sounds good. I’ll pop dinner in the oven. We’ll both have time to clean up.”
He gave her the downstairs bathroom—because it was usually the cleanest—and scrounged up some fresh gray towels. “I think we started out with some other color towels down here, but ever since Will developed an addiction to dirt, gray just seemed the easiest. Beats me where he inherited that from. And yeah, I know this T-shirt will be swimming-big on you, but it’s old and soft. Okay, here’s a brush, some shampoo stuff…I don’t know what else you might want, but just open some cupboards and drawers if you need something, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks,” she said, as she gently, but firmly, shut the door in his face.
Possibly he’d been hanging too close. Thinking what it’d be like to shower with her. Thinking what they could do in a shower. Or a bath. Or both.
Possibly she’d suspected what he was thinking, and that was why she’d closed the door in his face. But she was still here, wasn’t she? Wary and worried, but still here.
And there wasn’t a kid in sight.
Whistling, he popped the lasagna into the oven, did a cursory glance around to make sure nothing looked too disgraceful, set up some silverware and plates by the coffee table, switched on a light…then chugged upstairs for a shower himself.
She made it downstairs before he did. As he’d guessed, his T-shirt could have fit two of her, and maybe she was wearing her nylon shorts, maybe not…who could tell, with his shirt flopping midthigh on her? She was all legs and hair, and he liked the whole picture, her smelling of his soaps and shampoo, her using his brush, her bare feet in his place.
By the time he’d served lasagna on the coffee table, she’d taken his advice to wander around the place.
“Beer, wine, water, sweet tea?”
“Whatever you’re drinking would be great.”
He opted for two huge glasses of sweet tea, and by the time they were hunched over the coffee table, the conversation was naturally easy. “The picture over there…” she began, motioning to the rough-hewn bookcases, every shelf filled, hodgepodge, with books and games and films and pictures and what all. Naturally she’d homed in on the one photo.
“Yeah. My ex-wife.” He pulled a wedge of hot bread, handed it to her. “Will wanted a picture of his mom around. He picked that one. Awful, isn’t it?”
She looked startled. “Tucker! She’s beautiful!”
“I guess. I just think that picture looks a little too much like her. Angie’s got her perfect face on. Like her face would crack if she smiled any harder. Like her hair wouldn’t move even if she was in a tornado.”
She started to unwillingly laugh. “You’re crazy. Her hair’s gorgeous.”
“It always was. She wore it long. Short. In between. Never mattered. You couldn’t touch it. I don’t know what she put on it, but it always felt a little like…well, like shellac. Ask me, it’s downright scary.”
“She has good hair! Some of us would give our life savings for good hair!”
“You think that’s a good trait?” He looked horrified, which earned a wonderful chuckle from her.
“You’re a guy. You don’t understand.” She finished the lasagna, sank back against the old leather couch cushions. “Tucker, this place is fantastic.”
“I think so, too. Built around seventy-five years ago, by my great-grandfather. It was never meant to be a full-time house for anyone. Just meant to be the family lodge, where all the relatives could descend for Thanksgiving and Christmas or during the summer. Or whenever. By the time my parents’ generation were grown, though, no one had a love for the place but me—and to a point, my brother and sister.”
“Well, everything is just so beautifully thought out.” She went through a long list. The giant stone fireplace, midroom, with grates both in the dining area and living room. Verandas wrapping both the main floor and the second story. All six rooms upstairs with doors that opened onto the veranda. Endless spectacular views of the mountains and valley.
The cradle-soft leather couches. The oil paintings in the living area, not fancy, but all misty, magical views of Whisper Mountain. A collection of arrowheads under glass. The terra-cotta tile floors, so easy to care for, so cool in the heat, yet area carpets in earthy colors, thick enough to sleep on.
“And I like the bookshelves.”
“They get mighty dusty.”
“I didn’t notice. I just noticed all the photos, the books. Oh. And I love the double staircase—the three-tiered one from in here, then the circular one from the end of the kitchen. If I were a kid, I could have played hide-and-seek here all day.”
“When I was a kid, I did just that. There’s a room upstairs with all mirrors—”
“I happened to notice it when I was walking out of the shower—it was just so interesting, a room made for closets, with mirrors on all the closet doors.”
“My grandmother loved to sew. That was her fancy sewing room. Now…well, I put shelves in half the closets. Most of the bedrooms, Will and I just close off. I don’t need to clean ’em or see them. But there are a ton of sheets and towels, set up for a zillion guests. Garnet…?”
“Hmm?”
“You were a little freaked about getting in the kayak this morning, weren’t you?”
She tucked up her bare legs, turned her head. “I was,” she admitted. “It was weird. I can swim well. I’ve been on boats.”
“Not that I’d know,” he said quietly, “but I’m guessing it was about control. A need to be in control. Which you wouldn’t be, once you climbed in the kayak.”
“Tucker, I’m no control addict—”
“I never meant to imply that. I’m saying…for me, and maybe you feel the same, it’s a lot easier for me to take charge. Like if I’m driving. Or building something. Or setting up a plan. Things may not work out. But I still feel safer if I’m the one behind the wheel.”
She cocked her head, regarding him quietly. “Yeah. I am the same. Like with my vanilla plants—I can’t help the weather, can’t control whether we have rain or sunshine. But I have to be the one to make the decision about how they’re fed, how they’re treated, how they’re nurtured. If something’s screwed up, it’s all on me. But I just want to have responsibility over the stuff I can control.”
He nodded agreement. “I felt the same way even when I was a kid. I could take a hit or a hurt a whole lot easier if it was my fault, my mistake.” He shrugged. “No one can let you down if you’re holding all the cards.”
She cocked her head. “I think that’s partly true. But everyone gets let down sometime, Tucker. Nobody gets an escape card for that every time.”
“Yeah. Everyone gets some bumps, some life hurts. But when you’re a kid, and the people who are supposed to protect you let you down, I think that kind of hurt festers a lot longer. So you grow up, trying harder to put yourself in a position where others can’t hurt you that way.”
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“Are we still talking about kayaking?” she murmured.
He didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. She wanted him. She’d been hungry, and now she was clean and full, and the hours of sun and fun were all helping to lower her defenses. Most of the time, she tried not to look at him directly. But now, when she’d forgotten why she did that, her gaze met his naturally.
Just as naturally as a struck match causing flame.
He loved to look at her. Loved the look of her. And she looked at him the same way, with the same greedy eyes, the same interest in every plane and hollow, every angle of her face, every expression in her eyes, the way her mouth moved. The way the temperature rose in his air-conditioned living room to somewhere past ninety, but who was measuring it?
“Garnet?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ll answer that question. In two shakes. Let me just grab these few dishes and get ’em out of our way.”
“You want my help?”
“Sheesh. No. If it takes three minutes, I’d be gobsmacked.” He smiled at her.
She smiled back, one of those real smiles of hers, warm, infectious, earthy. “It’s been a great day, Tucker. You were brilliant to think of the whole plan.”
“I had a great time, too. And you know the boys did.” By then he’d stood up, grabbed the two plates and silverware, but somehow he couldn’t move toward the kitchen, because she was still smiling at him. Still glowing. Still…
Inviting him.
And he knew exactly what she was inviting.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised, and meant it. He raced to the kitchen, yanked open the dishwasher, threw the dishes in, threw in the silverware, grabbed the leftover pan, stashed it in the fridge, washed his hands, wiped his hands, then galloped back to Garnet.
She wanted him, all right.
She was curled up on the couch, in a pose he could only think of as seductive. Her T-shirt had ridden up, still covered her behind, but only by inches. The neck opening had draped open to reveal part of one shoulder, and that one side of her creamy, soft neck. Her hair was splayed on the pillow like the Lorelei in the old story. Her lips were even parted, as if waiting for his kiss.
Only her eyes were closed.
She’d dropped off like a chunk of lead.
With a sigh, he hunted up a light blanket, came back, draped it around her, clicked off all the lights except a lamp on the hearth. When she woke up, he didn’t want her groping in the dark, not knowing where she was.
He had a bad feeling, a bad, bad feeling, that she was so far gone she wouldn’t likely wake until morning.
This just wasn’t working out the way he’d hoped. At all.
Chapter Eight
The dream wakened her. She was lost somewhere, alone, in the dark, stumbling over unfamiliar, rough terrain. Yet there was a low voice, whispering in her ear, promising, promising, promising that she’d find her way. All she had to do was lift her hand and reach out….
She’d had similar dreams before. Not identical, but the songs always had the same refrain. Invariably she woke up before she could do the reaching-out thing. She’d done plenty of that “reaching out” when she was younger. It landed her in quicksand so deep she’d almost never recovered.
As an adult, she’d finally turned a healthy corner. Surviving—and thriving—took accepting that she was plain vanilla, not a princess. That common sense and grit were the only tools that would take her anywhere, and hoping for a Prince Charming didn’t get the job done.
The dream was still with her when she opened her eyes…and for a long moment, she was disoriented. The texture of the leather couch was unfamiliar; the light blanket snuggled to her neck was just as unknown. Her gaze was drawn to a small, glass shaded lamp—the only light in the room, but enough for her eyes to adjust from the darkness of sleep.
The lamp perched on a stone hearth—limestone-white, huge stones, and the grate had a fragrant ash, the distant scent of cherry wood. The books, the hearth, the wide windows…she saw it all in a gulp, yet she really only focused on one thing.
Tucker.
He was sound asleep in an easy chair, bare feet cocked up on a footrest, his face taking on the burnished light from the small lamp. He’d put a cover on her, but not one on himself. He was still wearing the old khaki shorts and the T-shirt he’d put on before dinner, so he had to be chilled.
He didn’t look cold. He looked like the ideal hot male, all testosterone and sexy eyes, all those shoulders, no hips, that slow, dangerous smile.
Behind his head, she could see the photograph of his ex-wife, which struck her again as a major good-grief. The woman was a card-carrying beauty, the ideal of a Southern woman—confident, poised, attractive right down to her eyeteeth. Garnet knew even before she’d seen the photo that men were invariably attracted to a type.
Tucker’s ex-wife was a vision of a Southern belle, the kind of woman Garnet’s mom and sisters were…the kind she’d never be.
Garnet rarely fretted about her external appearance. But women like Tucker’s ex-wife—like her own mom and sisters—somehow communicated class and pride in how they moved, how they talked, how they looked.
Garnet was as ordinary as peanut butter and jelly. She just never got that invisible classy gene. Couldn’t try to be any different than she was.
Abruptly Tucker opened his eyes. Unlike her, he went from sound asleep to sharply awake in a millisecond. That fast, he was staring straight at her, his gaze inhaling her like a silky sip of water.
He wanted her.
She knew that.
It had taken a while before she really believed he felt that sexual zing for her. Because she didn’t trust zings—that they meant anything—and she’d been trying her damnedest to avoid any chance touches, any circumstances where she could slip up and make a major mistake. Until now.
“Hope you weren’t startled when you woke up on the couch.” His voice was whiskey-rough with sleep, but that look in his eyes was as sharply focused as a falcon’s.
“No.”
He glanced at his watch, then back at her. “It’s two in the morning.”
She didn’t answer. She felt it. His gaze. He didn’t touch her—there was a glass coffee table between the leather couch and his chair. But she could feel the stroke, down her arms, where his eyes studied, down her hip, where the sheet draped the shape of her. Her bare feet. Her tousled hair. Her bare lips. He looked…everywhere.
She felt touched everywhere. By him. Only by him. But unlike Tucker, she knew that giving in could only end badly.
The desire in his eyes didn’t change, but he forced himself to lean forward, kick back the ottoman. “I know. You want to go home.”
“I should.”
“I know my brother said he’d call before bringing the boys back. But I’m guessing you’d feel uncomfortable if the boys came in and found us, spending the night here. No matter how innocent it might have been.”
“For me, that’d be a problem,” she agreed again. She pushed back the light blanket, swung her legs to the floor.
“And you’re not sure what happened at your shop yesterday. I’m sure your two employees locked up, and everything is fine. But I know exactly how it is, when you’re the one responsible for everything. I’d want to go home, too. I understand.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. She crossed around the coffee table. He’d stood up, had a hand rubbing the back of his neck. The hot, dangerous desire in his eyes had changed to a defeated expression. A door had shut down inside Tucker. His Good Man door. He’d locked that inner place up good and tight.
At least until she ambled straight to him, locked her arms around his neck and leveled a kiss on a mouth that was already opening with surprise.
The arm—the one he’d been using to rub the bac
k of his neck—shot up. Dangled in midair. Then, faster than the speed of sound, found its way around her waist. Ditto for his other arm.
Tucker, she’d always guessed, could move faster than a Kentucky Derby winner when he was motivated. Or maybe he’d held back and held back and held back, until the lid just naturally had to blow.
He took over the kiss, went for aching pressure and total possession, eyes closed in concentration, her whole body electrified by the passion pouring from him. He lifted his head once, surfaced for air, said fast and gruffly, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” It’s what she did, who she was. She never made a little mistake. Only the big colossal kind. And if she was determined to ask for heartache, she might as well do it whole-hog.
He started walking her across the room, her going backward, him steering. He steered off her T-shirt first—but she was just as quick to yank off his.
She didn’t know his house well, much less in the dark, and when they reached the stairs…well, they nearly killed themselves, kissing when she was a step above him, then when he was a step above her, then almost falling. His low laugh inspired her, got her heart pumping even harder, made her whisper “yes” over and over, until they finally, finally reached the top of the stairs.
The hall was as black as a cave, but suddenly there was carpet beneath their bare feet—thick, scruffy, but silencing all sounds except for his heavy breathing…and hers. He stopped to lean her against the wall, just to pause for a long, lazy kiss. A kiss with tongues and tastes. Yearning expressed in the dark, loneliness, the hunger to connect with someone else. Someone who mattered.
And once that devastating kiss of truth came out…he slipped his palms in the waistband of her nylon shorts. They caught, midthigh, then shimmied to the ground. It was all she had to wear—his T-shirt, and her shorts—but it wasn’t a lack of clothes that made her feel naked. It was him. How he touched her. How he looked at her, even in the dark.
She slipped her hands to the front of his shorts, homed in on the short zipper. Broke free from a lazy, tasty kiss to murmur, “Wow.”
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