Kitabı oku: «Their Child?: Lori's Little Secret / Which Child Is Mine? / Having The Best Man's Baby»
Could a few fateful hours makethem a family?
THEIR CHILD?
Three breathtaking, dramatic storiesfrom three beloved authors
Their Child?
Christine Rimmer
Karen Rose Smith
Shawna Delacorte
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Extracts
Full Title Page
Lori’s Little Secret
About the Author
Dedication
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 Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Which Child is Mine
About the Author
Dedication
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Having the Best Man’s Baby
About the Author
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Epilogue
Preview
Copyright
Lori’s Little Secret
By
Christine Rimmer
Christine Rimmer came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a phone sales representative to a playwright. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma. Visit Christine at her new home on the web at www.christinerimmer.com.
Look out for The Stranger and Tessa Jones in March 2010 and The Bravo Bachelor in April 2010.
For my guys…again and always
Chapter One
What are the odds? Lori Lee Billingsworth Taylor couldn’t help wondering, feeling guilty and miserable and knowing herself to be a yellow-bellied coward.
What are the odds she would keep running into a certain man? Given that the town—Tate’s Junction, Texas—where this certain man constantly turned up had a population of almost two thousand. Given that Lori was not—oh, no, definitely not—trying to run into this particular guy. At least not yet.
The odds couldn’t be all that great, could they?
But still, it kept happening. Lori Lee kept running into Tucker Bravo.
And she did know. Oh, yes, she knew very well, thank you very much, that Tucker Bravo was exactly the man she needed to run into. Unfortunately, he was also the man she couldn’t bear to face.
But she would. She truly would.
Right after her twin sister’s wedding.
It happened first at the Gas ‘n Go.
Lori and her ten-year-old son, Brody, had just arrived in Tate’s Junction from San Antonio for a three-week stay. Not five minutes in the town she’d left behind—and there he was.
What, she asked herself later, had made her stop for gas? She might just as well have kept going straight to her parents’ big two-story brick house on Pecan Street. She had over a quarter of a tank and could have filled up later. But she turned off the highway and there was that bright red cube of a convenience store and the eight gas pumps and it just seemed so simple, so easy and efficient, to go ahead and gas up right then.
Brody, busy on his Game Boy in the back seat, spoke up as she stopped the Lexus at the pump. “I bet they have Icees in there.”
She turned and gave him a fond smile. “That would be no.”
“But, Mom—”
She grabbed her purse, bent to tug the latch that opened the gas tank door. “We’ll be at Gramma Enid’s in ten minutes tops.”
“Gramma Enid doesn’t have Icees.”
“Sit tight.” She unhooked her seat belt and reached for the door.
“Aw, Mom…” But another glance over the seat showed her he was already focused on the Game Boy again, thumbs flying over the miniature keyboard.
Lori paused, her fingers hooked in the door handle, staring back over the seat at her son’s bent head, thinking that they were doing okay, just the two of them, without Henry…
Henry…
A wave of sadness washed through her. Henry had died a little over a year before. Lori missed him and so did Brody. But time was doing its work. Lori had made it through the worst: the clutching desperation, the gaping, ragged hole of emptiness at the center of her world. Increasingly, thoughts of Henry brought only a fond sort of sorrow. They’d shared six wonderful years, she and Henry—seven, if you counted the year before their marriage. Lori would always have her warm and comforting memories of those years. She was a fortunate woman; she had a smart, healthy son and she’d known the quiet joy of a good man’s sure and steady love.
Lori tugged on the door handle and swung her feet to the pavement. She shut the car door behind her and was fiddling in her purse for her wallet when she heard the urgent whining sound.
She glanced up. The ugliest, most adorable dog she’d ever seen sat near the rear wheel, big brown eyes begging her, long wiry-haired body quivering.
The dog captured her gaze and held it, whimpering louder, lifting up to all four stumpy legs and wiggling all over in barely contained excitement, as if it had been waiting all its life to run into someone like her.
Lori couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Where did you come from?”
It was all the encouragement the funny-looking dog needed. Panting in sheer doggy bliss, it quivered on over to her and rolled to its back.
“Okay, okay.” Lori crouched to scratch the spotted, wiry-haired pink belly. Transported, the dog whimpered and wriggled, pink tongue lolling. “Yes, you are about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she declared as she went on scratching. “But no, I can’t take you home.”
“You wouldn’t believe it to look at him now, but he already has a home.” The voice, from behind her, was male: deep and sure, threaded with amusement.
She turned her head—and there he was, standing in the sun beyond the shadow of the roof that protected the pumps, big arms folded over his deep, hard chest, strong legs braced slightly apart, spiked brown hair catching golden lights from the bright Texas sun overhead.
Tucker.
Oh, God.
He was…bigger, somehow, than she remembered. That formerly whipcord-lean body spoke of muscular power now. The hungry, wild-eyed yearning look was gone from his dark eyes.
Lori felt her stomach heave. She swallowed, hard, and pasted on a wide smile. Ordering her suddenly numb legs to straighten, she stood to face him.
That killer smile of his widened. “Lori Lee,” he said, without having to hesitate to place her—and also without confusing her with her twin, Lena Lou. “I knew it was you the minute you got out of that gorgeous car.”
Lori supposed it wasn’t surprising, that he remembered her on sight. He’d once been in love with Lena Lou. Lena was the sparkly one, the popular one. All the boys went nuts for her. Lori had been quieter, a better student, and a little bit shy. Though they were identicals, no one in town had ever had any trouble telling them apart.
Except for on that one special, magical, life-changing night—which she was not going to think about, at least not right now.
Tucker said, “It’s been a long time.”
Lori nodded and gulped to clear her clutching throat. “How are you, Tucker?” It came out sounding pleasant. Cordial in a distant sort of way. Most important, her tone betrayed no hint of the turmoil within.
Before he could answer, the dog at her feet let out a long, impatient whine—a clear demand for more attention.
Tucker commanded, “Fargo, you shameless mutt, get over here.” One last whimper for good measure, and the dog waddled over to its master. It plunked itself down next to Tucker’s booted feet as he answered her question of a moment before. “I’m good. Real good.”
She kept her pleasant smile in place, though it took superhuman effort to do it. She felt giddy, disoriented—and terrified. Nothing seemed real, suddenly, as if when she’d turned to see him standing there, she’d spun into the midst of a strange dream, a dream that hovered on the verge of nightmare. She thought her smile would crack, her lunch rise up and come spewing out her grinning mouth.
Talk, she thought. Say something. Now. “I, um, heard you did just what you’d always dreamed of doing. Traveled all over the country. And even Europe—Spain and Italy and England…”
“You heard right.” He bent to give the dog a scratch behind a floppy ear and she thought of all those times, in the early years, that she’d tried to reach him.
Every time she’d drummed up the courage to make contact, she found he’d moved on. In Austin, a stranger answered his door. The tortured letters she’d written him explaining everything came back with no forwarding address.
Tucker straightened to his height again. “And look at me now. Right here in Tate’s Junction where I swore I’d never end up.” He grinned wider. “Believe it or not, I did manage to get myself a law degree during my wandering years.”
“Ah,” she said, as if that meant anything.
He went on. “Got me the whole South Wing out at my mean old granddaddy’s house and an office on Center Street with a sign out front that says, Hogan and Bravo, Attorneys at Law. And, last but no way least, I’ve got Fargo here.” He grinned down at his goofy-looking dog, then back up at her. “And you know what?”
She did know. She could tell just by looking at him. “You’re happy.”
“You bet I am.”
Behind Lori, the left rear door of the Lexus clicked open. Oh, no, she thought. God. Please. No. Her heart leapt into her throat and got stuck there.
“Mom?” Brody spotted the mutt. “Aw, sweet. A dog.” He was all the way across the seat and out of the car before she could find her voice to tell him to stay put. The dog, spotting another sucker, gave Brody one of those pleading, hopeful whines.
Lori cleared her throat. “Brody…”
But he was already sliding past her, making a beeline for Tucker’s ugly dog. “Hey boy, hey buddy…” The dog whined in joy and Brody dropped to his haunches, right there at Tucker’s feet. The dog licked his face and Brody hugged him and patted him and scratched him behind both ears.
Lori looked up and found Tucker watching her. A shiver went slicing through her, so cold it burned. “My son,” she said, and she could hardly believe that her voice didn’t so much as waver. “Brody Taylor.”
“Hey, Brody,” said Tucker.
“Hey,” Brody replied, hardly glancing up, his whole being focused on petting the dog. “What’s his name?”
“Fargo,” Tucker said.
Lori looked from her son to Tucker and back to her son again. Oh, sweet Lord, she could see it. See Tucker in Brody—in the way he tilted his head. In the shape of his jaw.
In that distinctive cleft in his chin…
She shut her eyes and dragged in a hard breath. When she opened them again, Tucker was looking right at her.
He frowned. “You okay, Lori?”
“Oh, uh, fine. I’m just fine.”
“Sure?”
“Oh, yeah. So. You like it here, in Tate’s Junction, after all.”
“Yes, I do—you’re in town for the wedding?”
And to tell you about Brody. Before I leave, I will tell you. “That’s right. For the wedding.”
Lena Lou had finally found the man she wanted to marry. His name was Dirk Davison. Like Heck Billingsworth, Lori and Lena’s father, Dirk sold cars. He owned two big dealerships on the outskirts of nearby Abilene. Dirk had proposed to Lena a year before.
“Going to be quite an event, that wedding,” Tucker said.
“Oh, yes.” Ever since she’d got Dirk’s four-carat ring on her finger, Lena had been planning the biggest, most elegant, high-dollar wedding that Tate’s Junction had ever seen. Lori reached into her purse again and came up with her wallet. “And we’d better get moving.” She flipped the wallet open and slid out a platinum card.
“Well,” said Tucker. “Great to see you again…”
“Yeah,” she answered, keeping her fake smile firmly in place. “Brody…”
Brody scratched the dog some more. “Aw, Mom…”
“Come on. Back in the car.” Lori stuck the credit card in the pump slot as Tucker clucked his tongue at the dog.
“See you later, Brody,” Tucker said, turning. The dog fell into step behind him.
“Bye, Fargo.” Brody rose and stared after the man and the dog as they headed around the convenience store, most likely on their way to the pumps on the other side. Once they disappeared, Brody looked at his mother. “Cool dog.”
Relief flooded through her. She’d made it through meeting up with Tucker again. He’d even seen Brody. And nothing terrible had happened. Her knees felt like strings of overcooked spaghetti. She braced a hand on the gleaming hood of the car.
“Mom. You okay?”
She drew herself up. “You bet.”
“We should get a dog, Mom. I could take care of him. You wouldn’t have to do anything ‘cept pay for his food.”
“Nice try,” she said wryly, though she was thinking that maybe he was right. Maybe he was ready for a puppy and all the responsibility that came with it. But she’d been a mother long enough to know that if she told him now, she’d never hear the end of it. “Want to help me pump this gas?”
“Sure.”
As Brody unscrewed the gas cap for her, Lori told herself she didn’t need to even think about Tucker again—not until after the wedding.
Not until she made herself call him and set up a time to tell him what she should have told him years ago.
It happened again the next day. Sunday.
In church, of all places, which just made Lori feel guiltier and more cowardly than ever. Her eleven-year deception seemed all the more reprehensible when she had to confront it while sitting in the Billingsworth family pew with those two big pictures of a dewy-eyed Jesus behind the altar looking down on her reproachfully.
In church. It was the last place she’d expected she might see him. The Tucker Bravo she remembered from all those years before never went to church.
Organ music filled the high-ceilinged sanctuary as folks settled into the rows of pews. To Lori’s right, beyond Brody, Lori’s mother, Enid, and her dad, Heck, nodded and murmured hellos to the friends and neighbors who filed past on the way to their own seats.
Lena sat to Lori’s left, with Dirk on her other side. Lena’s auburn hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders and her face seemed to glow with happiness. She and Dirk were holding hands, constantly turning to look at each other, sharing secret smiles and goo-goo-eyed glances of mutual adoration.
Lori probably wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it for herself. But now she had seen it. She knew it was true: for the first time in her mostly self-absorbed twenty-eight years, Lena Lou Billingsworth was in love. Not since high school, when Lena was so gone on Tucker, had she ever lavished so many bright smiles and enchanting glances on a man. And with Tucker, there had always been as many scowls and pouts as there had been smiles.
With Dirk, Lena was all shining eyes and happy grins. Dirk Davison, no doubt about it, was the man Lena had been waiting for all her life.
Lena’s fiancé was thirty-five, big and beefy and gruffly good-natured—a whole lot like Heck Billingsworth, as a matter of fact. Both men had broad, always-ready salesman smiles. They both laughed too hard and talked too loud and sometimes made you wonder if they actually heard a thing you said.
“He’s just like Daddy,” Lori had whispered to her twin the day before, after being introduced to the jovial Dirk.
“He is,” said Lena, looking pleased as a little red heifer in a field of tall alfalfa. “Exactly like Daddy.”
Lori just didn’t get it. How could her twin fall so hard for a man so much like their dad?
But then, Lena didn’t have the issues with their father that Lori had. Lena, after all, hadn’t gone and gotten herself pregnant at the age of seventeen by a mystery lover whom she staunchly refused to name.
Heck had blustered and ranted and delivered all kinds of scary threats and ultimatums when he learned that Lori was pregnant. But Lori never did tell him who her baby’s father was. She couldn’t bear to tell anyone—for a number of reasons.
And when he finally realized she would never tell him, Heck had packed her off to stay with his sister, Lori’s dear now-deceased Aunt Emma, in San Antonio—as if they were all living in the dark ages or something. As if it was the ultimate shame on a family, for a daughter to have a baby without getting herself a husband first.
Eventually, Lori had found happiness in San Antonio. She’d gone to work for Henry and married him and Henry had always treated Brody as his son. Though Lori didn’t make it home to Tate’s Junction much, she and her father had pretty much made peace with each other.
But that didn’t mean she’d ever marry someone like Heck. Uh-uh. No way. Never in a hundred million years.
But Lena was doing just that and apparently couldn’t have been happier about it.
Lori found Lena’s love for her car salesman fiancé truly weird—as well as yet another example of the many ways she and her identical twin were nothing alike. She slid a glance at the two love birds to her left just as Dirk raised the hand he had twined with Lena’s and pressed his fleshy lips to it. The two gazed deep into each other’s eyes.
Just as Lori was reminding herself not to stare, Tucker appeared in the aisle, directly in her line of sight. Her stomach did a nasty roll. She blinked. Tucker spotted her—and he winked.
Why? she wondered, feeling sick and suddenly desperate. Why would he wink at her?
Oh, please, she argued with herself, as she actively resisted the powerful urge to leap to her feet and stumble along the pew away from him, not caring whose feet she stepped on as she made her escape. Why shouldn’t he wink? What does it matter? He’s just being friendly, for heaven’s sake.
“Mom.” Brody’s skinny elbow poked into her ribs. “Look,” Brody whispered. “It’s the guy with the cool dog. Tucker.”
She almost—almost—turned and snapped at her son to be quiet. But she caught herself just in time. “Yes,” she said, with marvelous calm, considering the tangled, frantic state of her emotions at that moment. “It’s Tucker.” She raised her hand and gave Tucker a wave.
He waved back—and then he moved on by.
“Sure did like that dog of his,” said Brody wistfully. “Hope I see that dog again…”
Lori stared after Tucker, though she knew she shouldn’t, admiring in spite of herself the wide set of his shoulders, the proud way he carried his tawny brown head. He slid into a pew near the front, with his older brother, Tate, and Tate’s pretty blond wife of ten months, Molly. Molly’s family was also there: her mother, her mother’s husband, her grandmother and a tall, thin old fellow that Lori didn’t recognize.
After church, the Billingsworths went to Jim-Denny’s Diner for sandwiches. Tucker showed up there, too—with Tate and Molly. The Bravos and the Billingsworths ended up in adjoining booths.
Molly leaned over the seat and gave Lori a grin. “Hey. Good to see you, Lori Lee.”
“Hi, Molly.”
Molly had been three years ahead of Lori and Lena in school—and one year ahead of Tucker. Molly grinned at Brody. “This your boy?”
“Yes. Molly, this is Brody.”
Tate Bravo’s wife reached right over the seat, grabbed Brody’s hand and shook it. Molly owned a hair salon. She was the mayor of Tate’s Junction and the mother of twin babies, a boy and a girl. She was also the most unlikely person ever to have married someone like Tate Bravo.
On his mother’s side, Tate—and Tucker, too, of course—came from the most important family in the area, the Tates. For generations, the first born Tate son had been given the name Tucker. Since Tate and Tucker’s mother, Penelope Tate Bravo, was the only child of the last in a long line of Tucker Tates, she’d named her first son Tate and her second, Tucker, keeping the family name alive in her children. Everything had gone to her sons when she passed on. The Bravo boys now owned at least a part of just about every business in town, not to mention a sprawling ranch called the Double T on which stood a ranch house the size of a king’s palace.
Molly had been born in a double-wide trailer. She came from two generations of single-mother O’Dare’s. She was, truly, the last person anyone ever expected Tate Bravo to marry.
But Tate had married Molly, last summer. Their romance had been rocky, to say the least. According to the stories Lori’s mother and sister had told her, Tate and Molly had the whole town buzzing there for a while. But now they were blissfully happy together.
Lori was happy for them.
She only wished they hadn’t taken the booth next to the one her family sat in—at least not if they had to bring Tucker along.
And why did she have to end up sitting directly opposite him? She actually had to make a conscious effort to keep from looking straight at him.
Molly asked about the wedding. And Lena—with Enid chiming in now and then—launched into a long list of things that had yet to be done, from more floral consultations to final fittings of bridesmaids’ gowns to a few changes in the menu for the sit-down dinner for three hundred at the local country club. Molly would be doing the bride’s hair. Lena wouldn’t have it any other way.
As the women talked wedding preparations, the men discussed Cadillacs. Evidently, Tate, who owned a fleet of them, was buying a new one from Heck. Dirk was contributing his expert advice.
Tucker sat silent, as did Lori and Brody, the three of them outsiders in the two current topics of conversation—looking right at each other, but too far apart to start up a conversation of their own.
Which was just fine with Lori. What would she say to him? Talking to him, making meaningless chitchat, seemed so evil and wrong when there was Brody right beside her, the son he didn’t even know he had.
Tucker kept sending her glances—and she kept glancing back.
Well, how could she help it? Unless she stared at the table, he sat square in her line of sight.
Every time he caught her eye, she would picture herself standing straight up in that booth and announcing, Okay. All right. The truth is, it was me, on prom night eleven years ago. Me and not Lena. You made love to me. And it’s not some stranger, like everyone thinks, who’s Brody’s dad. It’s you, Tucker. Brody’s your son.
Of course, she did no such thing. But the urge to do it was there, and it was powerful. It burned beneath her skin. It was that scary, exhilarating feeling you get standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering, what would it be like?
To stretch out your arms and slowly fall forward, to let yourself soar right off the edge…
The waitress—not Molly’s mother, Dixie, who had worked at the diner since long before Lori left town, but was apparently off that day—brought the food. Though her stomach seemed tied in a series of permanent knots, Lori had never been so grateful to see a cheeseburger in her life. It gave her something to do, something to look at—other than Tucker’s velvety-brown eyes and handsome face.
Brody took a couple of bites of his grilled cheese sandwich and then set the sandwich down. “So where’s Fargo?” he asked Tucker, loudly, turning in his seat, causing the parallel conversations of Cadillacs and weddings to stop.
Heck laughed. “Fargo.” He frowned. “The boy mean that ugly mutt of yours, Tucker?”
Tucker nodded. “‘Fraid so—and Brody, Fargo’s not welcome at church, or here at the diner. I haven’t got a clue why not. He loves a good sermon as much as the next dog.”
“His table manners aren’t so hot,” suggested Tate.
“I sure liked that dog,” said Brody, sending Lori a calculating glance.
“Kid wants a dog,” Heck said to Lori, as if she hadn’t already figured that out for herself.
She looked at her father. “Got it.” It came out too sharp. Between the state of her nerves after ten minutes of sitting straight across from Tucker, and the way her father always made her feel as if she wasn’t quite the mother she ought to be…
Well, she was getting a little bit edgy.
Her dad spoke gently—and with clear reproach. “Now, Lori-girl, a boy should have a dog.”
“Yeah,” said Brody eagerly, and launched into the arguments all kids have ready when it comes to getting a pet. “I’m ten now. I’m old enough. Like I said, I could take care of everything, Mom. I’d feed him and walk him and clean up all his messes. You wouldn’t have to do anything.”
Lori set down her fork without eating the bite of potato salad at the end of it. She sent her father a narrow-eyed, not-another-word kind of glance and she told her son, “Brody. We’ll discuss it. Later.”
“But, Mom, I—”
“Later.”
Brody got the message. At last. He picked up his sandwich and dutifully bit into it.
There was a moment or two of awkward silence. Then the men went back to their talk of fancy cars and Lena returned to the subject closest to her heart—her upcoming wedding.
“I just cannot believe that it’s almost here. All our planning and hard work, and in two weeks from yesterday, I’ll be walking down the aisle at last…”
Heck stopped talking Cadillacs long enough to remark, “‘Bout damn time, too. My checkbook can’t take too much more of this.”
Lena laughed her bright, bubbly laugh. “Oh, Daddy. Just you wait. I’m gonna make you so proud.”
“You already do, baby. You always have.”
Lori looked down at her barely touched food and knew there was no way she could eat another bite. The conversation ebbed and flowed around her—and she didn’t want to look up.
But she couldn’t stare at her plate forever.
She lifted her gaze.
And found Tucker waiting, looking right at her.
The corner of his beautifully shaped mouth quirked up, a half smile that was also, somehow a question.
She felt the answering smile lift the edges of her own mouth.
This couldn’t be happening.
And yet, somehow, impossibly, it was.
Tucker Bravo was flirting with her.
Chapter Two
That night, Tucker made a clear and calculated effort to get his sister-in-law, Molly, alone.
He had dinner with the family in the original central part of the Double T ranch house, where Tate and Molly and their twins made their home. After dinner, Tucker and Tate relaxed over a couple of snifters of good brandy while Molly went up to nurse the babies. Then the brothers joined her for the important job of putting the twins to bed.
There were baths first, followed by the intricate process of getting little feet and arms into clean diapers and snap-on sleeping shirts. Then came the singing. Tate and Molly sang their children a number of lullabies, Molly in her clear alto, Tate in his slightly off-key baritone.
Tucker, who thoroughly enjoyed his role of new uncle, chimed in on the songs where he remembered the words. He liked this whole family-life thing. A lot. As far as he was concerned, it was the smartest move his big brother had ever made, to get himself hooked up with Molly O’Dare.
By eight, at last, the babies were tucked into their cribs in the darkened nursery, their nanny watching over them from the small bedroom across the hall.
Tate announced what he usually announced about that time in the evening. “Got a few things to tie up downstairs.” Tucker’s brother had a study on the first floor at the front of the house. Tate kept close tabs on the family holdings at the big computer in there.
Molly moved into the circle of her husband’s arms for a fond, quick kiss and then Tate headed for the main staircase.
Tucker saw his opportunity and seized it. “Got a moment?”
Molly shrugged. “Sure. How ‘bout some coffee?”
“Lead me to it.” He fell in step behind her as she turned for the narrow back stairs that led to the family room and kitchen below.
At the table in the breakfast room, Molly poured him a mug of coffee, brewed herself a quick cup of herb tea and settled into the chair across from him. He watched her fiddle with her tea bag and tried to figure out how to begin.
Molly knew a lot about what went on in the Junction. She was not only the town’s first female mayor, she also ran her beauty salon, Prime Cut, as a place where all the women in town could gather to talk about things that most males of the species would never dare to think of. At the Cut, the lives and loves of the citizens of Tate’s Junction were dissected and analyzed freely and openly, with no-holds-barred.
“So what’s up?” Molly set her tea bag on the edge of her saucer.
Tucker decided he might as well just come right out with it. “Tell me everything you know about Lori Lee Billingsworth.”
His brother’s wife watched him over the rim of her cup as she sipped her tea. With great care, she set the cup down. “Taylor. Her last name is Taylor. She was married.”
“But she’s a widow now.”
Molly gave him a measuring look. “Lucky for you, right?”
“Molly, damn it. I could use a little help here.”
Tate’s wife wrapped her fingers with their long, shiny red fingernails around her teacup. “What’s this about? You had one sister and now you want to make it an even pair?”
Tucker gaped—and then shook his head. “Molly. You got a mouth on you.”
“So I’ve been told. Answer my question.”
“No,” he said, emphatically. “It’s not like that. This has got nothing at all to do with Lena. Lena and I, well, that was a long, long time ago.”
Molly wore the look of a doubting woman. She asked, each word sharp with suspicion, “Water under the bridge, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
He nodded. “Lena’s happy now. She loves Dirk. And you know what? I’m nothing but happy for her.”
“But you did love her. Once.”
Had he? Tucker wasn’t so sure. “I was crazy over her, yeah. But love? Hell. We were kids. She wanted a life right here, in town. She wanted for us to have that big wedding she’s going to have now and settle down here at the ranch house, where she was going to pop out two or three babies and do her best to help me spend Granddaddy’s money.”
“You’re still carrying a grudge against her.”
“No,” he said again, even more strongly than before. “I’m carrying no grudges. I’m telling you how it was, that’s all. Lena wanted a nice life, here in town. And I wanted out. Bad. We broke up—which made it possible for both of us to get what we wanted. It would have been a disaster, Lena and me. She knows it. I know it. End of story.”
Well, except for that one night…
Tucker had come home from college—where he was flunking just about every course and soon to drop out—to take Lena to her prom. The night before the dance, she’d told him it was over between them, that they wanted different things and it just wasn’t working.
He’d agreed with her. He’d been thinking it was time to move on for a while by then, but he hadn’t known how to tell her. Even now, he could remember the feeling of sweet relief that had flowed through him when she said she didn’t want to be his girl anymore.
And then she’d told him she couldn’t see any way out of the two of them going to the prom together. Tucker, figuring it was the least he could do to pay her back for handing him the freedom he’d been yearning for, had promised to take her.
That night, which he’d dreaded, ended up being pure magic.
They were breaking up and still…she wove a spell around him. He found himself long-gone in love with her, more than ever before. She knocked him out. She bowled him right over.
But now?
No. All that was over. All that was long ago. When he saw Lena now, he felt a vague sort of fondness. He liked her now. She was always smiling, a cheerful woman, all wrapped up in herself—but in a charming way. They were friends, though not close friends. When he saw her now, he found it impossible to think of her as the girl he’d held in his arms on that beautiful, unforgettable night.
Tucker leaned across the table toward his sister-in-law. “So what’s the story about Brody? Lori’s husband couldn’t have been his father—right?”
Molly sighed—and finally started talking. “No. The boy isn’t her husband’s. She married the husband—a dentist, an older guy—six or seven years ago, when Brody was two or three. Word is that nobody but Lori knows who Brody’s real father is.”
“Except for the father himself, right?”
Molly frowned. “Maybe not.”
“The kid’s father doesn’t even know that he’s a dad?”
“Tucker, how would I know? All I know is what people say.”
“And that’s what I want from you. What people say…”
Molly looked down into her teacup, and then back up at him. “Rumor has it some stranger came through town at the end of Lori’s senior year. Lori disappeared one night in May, in one of Heck’s cars. It wasn’t like her, to take off like that. You know how she was. The shy, quiet, one. Hardly dated. Heck got worried she’d been kidnapped or something. He had the police out looking for her. They found her way up at the North Fork of Cook Creek, parked right on the bank, staring out over the water, crying her little heart out. She claimed that she’d done nothing wrong—and that nothing had happened to her. She’d just driven around, that was all.
“But then, a couple of months later, when she turned up in the family way, everyone in town naturally assumed it must have happened that night she disappeared. They all figured she must have met someone, that he got her pregnant and then headed out, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“And when Heck found out she was pregnant, he packed her off to San Antonio.”
“That’s right. And she’s made herself a good life there, from what I’ve heard. She hardly ever comes home.”
Tucker got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. As he sipped, he turned and leaned on the long jut of counter that divided the breakfast room from the kitchen.
Molly said, in that way she had that cut right through the crap, “So. You got you a yen for your old girlfriend’s twin sister, Tucker? You thinkin’ you might like to try convincing her to come home a little more often—even to stay home?”
Tucker didn’t answer. There was no need. He could see in Molly’s eyes that she knew he did.
And he was.
“Daddy makes you crazy, huh?” Lena lay sprawled face-up on the bed in the upstairs room that had been Lori’s when they were growing up.
It was after dinner. Everyone else was downstairs watching Sunday night TV. Lena had hung around before going home to her cute little apartment on Oak Street. She’d wanted some one-on-one time with Lori.
Lori dropped to the side of the bed. “Yeah. Daddy does get to me. Sometimes. Like when he tries to override me with Brody.”
Lena kicked off her shoes and scooted farther up onto the mattress, grabbing a pillow and tucking it under her head. “You just never did accept the fact that you have to use your feminine wiles on Daddy.”
“Feminine wiles?” Lori made a gagging sound.
Lena giggled and slapped her lightly on the knee. “Stop that. There’s nothin’ the least wrong with a woman using what the good Lord gave her to smooth the way with the men in her life.”
“I am going to wisely withhold comment on that one.”
Lena rolled to her side and studied her sister. “I still can’t believe you went red—red.”
Lori smoothed a hand over her own hair. “Yeah. I kind of like it.”
Lena nodded. “Me, too. It looks real good.”
Lori made a threatening face. “Don’t you dare even consider going red, too.”
“But if it looks that good on you, just think how incredible it’s going to look on me.”
They both laughed at that one. And then Lori said, “Hey. Go for it.”
“I might. I just might…” Lena let out a long sigh, rolled to her back again and gazed up at the light fixture overhead. “Tucker was givin’ you looks today at the diner.” She rolled her head to face Lori again. “Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t notice.”
Lori had no idea what to say—and her pulse was racing, her stomach drawing into knots, the way it had been doing since she first ran into Tucker yesterday at the Gas’n Go…
Lena said, “Amazing.”
“What is?”
“Oh, just the way life can go sometimes.” She lifted her right hand and studied her manicure. “Tucker’s interested. Really interested. In you. I could tell.”
Lori tried a little teasing, hoping that would lead the subject elsewhere. “I’m surprised you noticed. You’ve got eyes only for Dirk.”
“It’s true.” Lena raised both arms in a lazy stretch. “Dirk is the center of my world and I couldn’t be happier about that.” She let her arms flutter down and folded her hands on her stomach. “But at the same time, true love has made me more observant. And since Tucker moved back to town, I’ve made it a point, I truly have, to make amends for the tacky way I treated him—you know, back when. Last winter, when Dirk decided to change his will to leave everything to me, I took him to Hogan and Bravo and had Tucker do the work. Tucker is Dirk’s and my own personal family attorney now and I like to think that he and I have become friends.”
“Good for you,” Lori said, for lack of anything better, hoping they could now leave the subject of Tucker Bravo behind.
But no. “You haven’t said what you think. About you and Tucker.”
“I don’t think anything. I haven’t seen him for years and years. I hardly know the guy.”
“Lori. Come on. I mean, it seemed to me by the way you looked at him at the diner that you maybe kind of like him, too—and don’t give me that huffy look. Okay, he was my boyfriend. But that was centuries ago. And it was pure puppy love, anyway. I know that now. It was nothing like I have with Dirk—and it’s not like I slept with Tucker or anything. I mean, that might be kind of icky. To think of you getting together with some guy I’d seen naked, but—”
“Lena.”
“Um?”
“That is altogether more information than I need to have.”
Lena gave her another light slap on the thigh. “Oh, come on. I know what you’re doin’. Acting all snooty to push me away. You’re just too…private. You always have been. Even for me, it’s tough to get through. And, as your twin, I should be the one who understands how your mind works. Lori Lee, you need to…open up a little.”
“Thank you for the input.”
“Oh, now, don’t go getting snippy on me. Look in your heart. You’ll see that what I’m telling you is true. And I miss you, gosh darn it. We don’t see you often enough. It’s like, since all that mess eleven years ago, you never want to come home.” What could Lori say to that? Not much, since it was true. Lena went on. “I swear, sometimes I think if Mama and I didn’t call you all the time, if we didn’t keep you up-to-date on what’s going on in town and stay on you until you come home now and then, we’d never see you at all.”
Lori caught her sister’s hand and twined their fingers together. “I know. I don’t visit often enough.” She said the words gently—and silently promised herself she’d make more of an effort to keep up the bond with her family.
Lena heaved a huge sigh. “You know what?” Lori squeezed her hand to let her know she was listening. “I never did apologize to Tucker about prom night. Did you?”
Lori blinked and felt her stomach squeezing tight all over again. She pulled her hand free of her sister’s. “I…when would I have done that?”
“Relax. I was just asking. And think about it. The poor man still believes he went to that prom with me. I mean, it’s not that big a deal, but still, one of these days one of us ought to tell him. When I look back on that night, I sometimes wonder what could possibly have been going through my mind, to do that to him.”
Lori remembered what had been going through Lena’s mind. She remembered with crystal clarity. Lena had told her. “You were mad. You were really steamed. You came home after breaking up with Tucker and you marched right up here to my room and shut the door and burst into tears. You said how you knew, you could tell, that Tucker was relieved to be getting rid of you. You said sometimes you hated being so perfect, you hated how everyone expected you to be so darn happy all the time. You said you almost wished you could be the mousy, shifty, shy one instead of me, how maybe then, folks wouldn’t expect so much of you.”
Lena gasped. “How rude. I didn’t.”
Lori nodded. “You did. Then you said you didn’t know how you were going to get through prom with a smile on your face, when all you really wanted to do was to scream and stomp your feet and tell Tucker off good and proper for not loving you enough to make you his bride and settle down in the Junction with you to live happily ever after. You said you were just sick. That you were just aching to stay home and watch old movies and eat a barrel of popcorn and have yourself a good long cry.”
Lena made a low sound in her throat. “Well, now you say all that, I kind of do remember—and then you said how you’d like to go to prom…”
Lori’s date, a friend, a fellow biology student, had come down with mono and had to beg off. And then there was the fact that Lori had had a secret crush on Tucker since long before he and Lena had started going out.
Lena smiled a musing smile. “Yeah. Once you said how much you’d like to go to prom, things kind of took their natural course, now didn’t they?” She giggled. “I’m still amazed at how well we pulled it off.”
Lori had to agree on that point. “Me, too.” For twins who’d always claimed they weren’t joined at the hip like most identicals, it was surprising how easily they’d each slipped into the other’s skin.
Lena said, “Even Daddy and Mama were fooled. Remember Daddy, snapping away, taking all those pictures of you in my dress, telling you how beautiful you looked, thinking the whole time he was talking to me?”
Lori couldn’t help grinning at the memory. “And you spent the night dragging around in my pajamas…”
Lena giggled some more. “Mama kept checking on me. She’d say, ‘Lori, sweetie, it’s not the end of the world to miss your prom.’ And then I’d let a few tears dribble down my cheeks and hang my head the way you used to do, all pitiful-like, and whisper, ‘Mama. Please. I’d prefer to be alone.’ And then you, what do you know? You went and got yourself crowned prom queen.”
“No. I got you crowned prom queen.”
Lena pretended to scowl. “I have to admit, I was just a teensy bit jealous when I learned I won—and I wasn’t even there to get that rhinestone crown on my head.”
“You? Jealous? Never.”
“And then you came home so late. It was practically dawn. I was pretty darn put out with you about that—about you going out with my boyfriend and having such a fine old time, you didn’t want to come home.”
Lori felt a deep and awful stillness within herself then—the stillness that came with telling too many lies, with spending too many years waiting for those lies to catch up with her. She’d been vague that night—or rather, that morning. She’d told Lena that she and Tucker had gone out for breakfast. Since Lena would never in a thousand lifetimes have imagined that Lori would go to a motel with Tucker, the lie had worked. Lena never questioned it.
Lena said, “It was a crazy time, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. It sure was.” The night with Tucker had been like a world apart, the one special, enchanted evening when, at last, her every dream of being Tucker’s girl came true. And then she’d come home and looked at her twin and it hit her like a safe dropped on her from a tenth-story window: she’d betrayed her own sister. Even if Lena and Tucker were going their separate ways, it still felt to Lori like a line she’d had no right to cross.
But she had crossed it. And from that morning on, things only got worse. Tucker came to the door to beg Lena to take him back—because of the night before, Lori knew it.
Lena sent him away and told Lori, “It’s the best thing. And he knows it, too.”
By the next night, with all the turmoil inside her over the forbidden things she’d done and the lies she’d told everyone to cover those forbidden things up, she was a complete wreck.
“And then, the next night,” Lena said, eerily echoing the direction of Lori’s thoughts, “you took Daddy’s car and, pouf, you just disappeared.” Lena sent her a reproachful look. “You never did tell me what happened, with Brody’s dad that night. You never told me how you met him, how you—”
Lori put up a hand. “I can’t. Not right yet.”
That was another promise Lori had made herself. She was going to tell Lena the whole truth, too. But it only seemed right that she should tell Tucker first. Just as it only seemed right to wait until after the wedding to break the news to Tucker.
The wedding meant so much to Lena. If word got out beforehand that Tucker Bravo was Brody’s father, there was going to be talk. A lot of it. Lena’s big day would be thoroughly overshadowed.
Lori refused to let that happen. Tucker had gone all these years not knowing he was a dad. What difference could it make if he waited two weeks more?
“Did you hear yourself?” Lena let out a whoop. “You just said, not right yet. Lori darlin’, I do believe this is progress. Always before, you refused to tell me, period.”
“Well, I am working up to it.”
Lena gave her a full-out, blinding sunny smile. “Oh, Lori. It’s about time.”
Tuesday, purely by accident again, Lori met up with Tucker on Center Street, in front of his law office. They exchanged greetings and he asked her how she was enjoying her visit to town.
“I’m having a great time,” she told him. “Just great.” And before he could ask her another question, she glanced at her watch. “Oh. I really am running so late.” Late for exactly nothing—but he didn’t have to know that. “I have to get going.” She zapped him with a toobright, fake smile.
“See you later, then.”
“Yes. See you…” And she hurried on by.
She couldn’t believe it. She’d run into Tucker four times in her four days in town.
It was beginning to feel as if fate itself were taking a hand here. As if her own guilt and cowardice were conspiring to throw him in her path at every possible opportunity—maybe to give her the chance to say what needed saying.
Well, too bad for fate. She would tell him when she planned to tell him—in two weeks, after the wedding—and not a day earlier.
Wednesday, Lori and Lena and Brody spent a lazy afternoon out at nearby Longhorn Lake. Lori watched her son play in the sun at the edge of the water and knew the day of reckoning was swiftly approaching.
How much time was Tucker going to want with Brody? Would she and Tucker end up in an ugly custody battle? How would Brody deal with finally learning who his natural father was.
Those questions, and the thousand more that haunted her, wouldn’t be answered until she talked to Tucker. And that wasn’t going to happen until after the wedding.
Lori decided she’d put all thoughts of Tucker out of her mind.
For now.
There was no point in second-guessing. The moment of truth would be on her soon enough. And after that, she’d get plenty of answers—whether she wanted them or not.
Thursday morning, as Lori lingered alone in her mother’s kitchen enjoying a second cup of coffee, the phone rang. She snatched the cordless handset off the wall without giving it a second thought. “Hello?”
“Just the woman I wanted to talk to.”
Her mind went totally blank. “I…uh, Tucker?”
“That’s right. And this is Lori, isn’t it?”
“Uh. Right. It’s me.”
He chuckled. The sound terrified her. What was he after? Why was he calling? She clutched the mouthpiece in a white-knuckled grip and resisted the urge to shout into the mouthpiece: Not now! Go away! I will talk to you—soon. Very soon…
The frantic, fearful thoughts tumbled over each other inside her head—and then spun to a stop.
She had a moment of terrible, absolute clarity.
How many ways were there to say coward? At that moment, Lori Lee Taylor knew them all—she was them all.
Gutless. Yellow. Gun-shy with cold feet. Lacking a backbone. Weak-kneed. Lily-livered. Scaredy-cat. Big baby. Chicken…
The list went on and on. And every word in it had her name on it.
If she wasn’t going to tell him until after the wedding, so be it. That didn’t mean she had to jump like a spooked rabbit every time she saw his face or heard his voice.
The man was her child’s father. In the end—which was coming up very soon now—she was going to have to learn to deal with him.
When she did tell him the truth, she didn’t want him thinking back on how she’d run away shaking every time he came near. He wasn’t going to be happy with her, when he found out. But until then, the least she could do was to treat him with courtesy and carry herself with a little damn dignity.
“I was wondering,” he said. She thought, Omigod, he’s going to ask me out. And then he did. More or less. “How about you and Brody coming on out to the ranch tonight? For barbecue. Brody can play with Fargo. And out at the stables, we’ve got a real sweet, mild-mannered pony he might like to try riding. I’ll make it my business to see he has a good time.”
Lori felt that awful stillness again, the one with the weight of all her lies carried in it. How had he known to make Brody the focus of his invitation? Was it possible he’d somehow guessed the truth? Her heart lurched in a sick, rough way.
But no. Nobody knew. Except Henry. She had told him, and only him, before they were married.
Only Henry knew. And Henry was gone.
So why did Tucker make it seem like it was all about Brody?
She knew why.
She was a single mom. And if a man wanted to get close to her, he had to make it clear he understood that Brody was a big part of her life—and would be a big part of the life of any man she took seriously.
Lori shut her eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.
“Lori. You still with me?”
“Uh. Yes. Yes, I’m right here.”
“So, what do you say?”
She swallowed and dared to ask, “It’s all about Brody, huh?”
He laughed then. “Well, not quite all. There’s also you…and me.” Something within her warmed and softened at those words. And she remembered…
His lean arms around her as they danced the last dance that fateful night, his voice a velvet whisper in her ear…
“I don’t want tonight to end…”
She had sighed and snuggled closer, her—Lena’s—pink satin gown rustling softly against the dark fabric of his tuxedo. And then she’d lifted her head from the cradle of his shoulder, tipping her face up to show him the yearning in her eyes. “I don’t either, Tucker. I want tonight to last forever…”
He looked down at her, his dark eyes shining with desire—for her, for Lori, though he didn’t even know it. “We could…go somewhere. Be alone. Just you and me…”
She lowered her lashes, rested her head once more against his shoulder, felt the hungry beating of his heart beneath her ear and the answering clamor of her own.
“Lena…” he whispered, breaking her pounding heart into a thousand tiny pieces.
And still, she dared to lift her head again and smile up at him. “Yes. Let’s do that. Let’s go somewhere…”
“Lori?” Tucker’s deep voice came to her—on the phone, now, today. “Will you come to the ranch, around five, you and Brody?”
She should tell him the truth, now.
Or tell him no.
She knew that.
Still, she opened her mouth and said, “Yes. We’ll come.”
Chapter Three
“Come on Fargo, come on, boy!”
Brody hauled himself out of the pool and took off, wet feet slapping the tiles, until he reached the expanse of green, green lawn. The lawn rolled out to the thick circle of oaks and pecan trees rimming the backyard grounds of the sprawling Double T ranch house. Brody ran on, across the jewel-green grass, dripping pool water, laughing. Fargo, yipping in excitement, chased at his heels.
Beyond the crown of trees, the sun had already set. Lori and Tucker sat by the pool in the gathering twilight as the boy and the dog played on the grass.
“I think he’s had a real good time,” said Tucker.
She slanted him a grin and took a sip from her margarita. “Understatement of the decade. He loved riding that pony. And I swear he ate a whole slab of those incredible ribs you served up.”
“I can’t take credit for the ribs. They’re Miranda’s specialty.” Miranda Coutera was the Double T’s housekeeper. Tucker lifted his margarita glass. “Likewise the margaritas.”
Lori tapped his glass with hers. “Here’s to Miranda.”
“Miranda,” he echoed softly.
The pool lights came on and cast a soft glow up toward the wide, slowly darkening Texas sky. A pesky mosquito buzzed near Lori’s ear.
She gave her neck a good, sharp slap. Then she laughed. “A summer night in Texas. Nothing like it.”
“Hey. At least it’s not a hundred and ten and so humid you work up a sweat just sitting still.” His eyes gleamed at her through the shadows. “Yet.”
They shared a long glance—a little too long. She cleared her throat. “I do like that about San Antonio. It’s not quite so humid as it can get around here.”
“You never mentioned the kind of work you do there—or do you have your hands full just being a mom?”
“I’m a dental assistant. Or I was. It’s a two-year degree. My dad paid my tuition and I went to school, starting right after Brody was born.”
“I think somebody told me your husband was a dentist…”
She nodded. “I met Henry when he hired me for my first job. The last five years, I haven’t practiced. I ran my husband’s office. And it turned out I had a knack for the business end of things. I’m a good manager and I’ve got a talent for investing.” The truth was that she’d tripled their assets in the years she and Henry were married. “I sold my husband’s practice when he became too ill to work. So except for managing my investments, I guess you could say I’m between jobs.”
“You’re free, then,” he said quietly. “To go wherever you want to go…”
He was right, she supposed. She was free. Not that she had any plans to move. She liked San Antonio and she’d been happy there.
And it was getting dark. Time to say goodbye. She set down her glass. “You know, it is getting kind of late and—”
He cut her off by picking up the spray bottle on the table in front of them. “Try this. All natural. Citronella or something. You become invisible—to mosquitoes, anyway.”
“But I really think we should—”
“Come on. Give it a try.”
She glanced out over the grass where Brody lay on his back, laughing in delight, as Fargo wiggled all over him, trying to lick his face. And when she looked at the man beside her again, she found herself reaching out, taking the spray bottle—and using extra, special care not to let her fingers touch his in passing. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure—spray your ankles, too. Mosquitoes just love a nice, tasty ankle.” She dutifully scooted her chair out enough to give her ankles and her bare thighs a couple of good squirts. That handled, she scooted in again and sprayed her arms, then lifted her hair to spray her neck. When she set the bottle on the table again, he asked, his voice low and a little bit husky, “Better?”
“So far, so good.” She glanced over, saw the look of admiration in his eyes and felt underdressed in her modest tank-style swimsuit and simple button-front coverup. She also couldn’t deny the thrill of pleasure that went shooting through her—that he was looking. That he liked what he saw.
Oh, she really should go…
Tucker sat back in his chair and rested his elbows on the wrought-iron arms. “Hungry mosquitoes or not, it’s damn beautiful out here.” He stared off, past Brody and Fargo, toward the shadowed rim of trees.
Get up and get out, she thought. But she didn’t. She studied his strong profile for a moment, thinking how handsome he was, then followed his gaze to the trees and beyond, out into the wide, clear Texas sky. A glow of orange and purple still lingered, the last of a glorious swiftly fading sunset. “Beautiful. Yes…”
“You know, I’ve seen the coral gardens off Bora Bora. I’ve climbed the Eiffel Tower, stood at the foot of the Sphinx. But I never could see the beauty of my own damn backyard—not when I was a kid, anyway.”
She knew why; most folks in town did. She turned her gaze to him again. “Because of Ol’ Tuck, right?” Ol’ Tuck was Tucker’s grandfather, Tucker Tate IV.
Tucker grunted. “Granddaddy and I were born not to get along.” Tucker’s grandfather had been famous for his hardheadedness, both in business and with his family. He’d ruled the Double T ranch house with an iron hand.
“Your grandfather was a tough one,” Lori said.
Tucker shrugged. “He was always pretty good to Tate, in his own overbearing, ornery way. But he never did much care for me.”
She had to actively resist the urge to reach out and press a reassuring hand on his hard, tanned arm. The battles between Tucker and his grandfather were the next thing to legend in Tate’s Junction. Tucker was constantly making the mistake of standing up to Ol’ Tuck. Nobody did that and got away with it.
Tucker said, “He always believed I was the result of my mother’s affair with some stranger. That got to him, that he had to raise his flighty daughter’s illegitimate son and pretend I wasn’t what he knew damn well I was. Hah. Fooled him—or I would have, if he wasn’t already gone when we learned the truth.” Tucker’s grandfather had died three or four years ago. The truth about Tucker’s father had only been discovered last summer. Tucker added, grinning, “I’m no more a bastard than my brother is—meaning, if I am, then Tate is, too.”
Bastard, Lori thought. It was an ugly word. One that had little meaning, really, not anymore. Except to hidebound traditionalists, like Ol’ Tuck. And Heck Billingsworth…
Tucker continued, “As far as we can figure out, our father married more than once. Who he married first is a question yet to be answered.”
Lori wasn’t listening. She looked out at her son rolling around on the lawn and reminded herself that he was a great kid, that she’d done the best she could and that judging by the way Brody was turning out, the best she could do was pretty damn good.
Tucker must have picked up the direction of her thoughts, because he said, “Sorry. No offense meant, I promise you…”
It was one of those moments—and there had been several during the evening—when she could have led right up to telling him that Brody was his son. She opened her mouth. And lied some more, by omission. “No offense taken. Honestly.”
He looked at her—a deep look. “Sure?” She nodded. He said, “And here I am, yammering on, just assuming that your mother or Lena filled you in on all this when we found out about Blake Bravo last year.”
Lori had heard all about it. Her mother and her sister had taken turns on the phone with her, both of them thrilled to have such a great story to tell her. “Lena did tell me. Mama mentioned it, too. And yes, I heard that the news had everyone talking.”
The story went that the Blake Bravo, notorious kidnapper of his own brother’s son, was also Tate’s and Tucker’s father. Blake was supposed to have died right after Tate was conceived, but he didn’t die then. He lived for over thirty more years, making his home in Oklahoma all that time. As it turned out, Blake was the man that Penelope Tate Bravo had run off with when she got pregnant with Tucker.
“Imagine,” said Tucker, dark eyes shining now, “I’ve got family I didn’t know I had and I’ve got them all over the place. A bunch of Bravo cousins in Wyoming, and one down in the Hill Country—she’s married to a veterinarian. I’ve got half brothers in Nevada and another one, Marsh, up in Norman, Oklahoma. There are two cousins—sisters—and their families, in Northern California. And then there’s the most famous branch of the family, the Los Angeles Bravos. They’re richer than we are, which is pretty damn rich, you can take my word for it. And let’s not forget Dekker, the notorious Bravo Baby, the one my dear, doubly departed daddy kidnapped all those years ago. Dekker’s in his thirties now, a private investigator up in Oklahoma City.”
“That’s a lot of family,” she agreed.
“And it’s not all, believe me, not by a long shot. I have a great-uncle, James, who had seven sons. And Blake had more children. Tate and I and our half brother, Marsh, are almost certain of that.” He looked so pleased with himself.
She found his enthusiasm contagious. “You love it,” she said, grinning along with him, the nagging truth she hadn’t told him almost—though never completely—forgotten. “You love having all that family.”
“I do,” he told her. “Tate had some problems with it at first, with the whole idea that the dad we never knew was a two-timing con man, and worse. But not me. It meant the damn world to me, to finally know who I really am, to know I’ve got people all over the good old U.S. of A. Makes me feel…I don’t know. Connected, I guess. Tuned in to the real reason we’re all here in the first place.”
She couldn’t help chuckling. “Which is?”
He tipped his head to the side—and she saw her son in him, saw Brody, saw what he would look like, when he was a man. The sight stole her breath.
And stopped her heart.
Tucker’s brown-gold brows drew together. “Lori?”
He said her name and the frozen moment broke wide-open. Her heart found its rhythm. Sweet night air filled her lungs.
“Tell me,” she said. It came out low, kind of breathless. And she didn’t care—not right then. She didn’t care that she was enjoying herself far too much, didn’t care that she shouldn’t do this, that the secret she kept stood firmly between them, that until she revealed the truth to him, she had no right to do this, no right to be sitting there, taking pleasure in his company under what could only be called false pretenses.
Right then she cared only that she was sitting there, beside Tucker, in the new darkness, with their son laughing out on the lawn and the pool lights making everything glow in a misty, star-dusted kind of way.
She prompted, softly, “What’s the real reason we’re all here?”
He canted toward her. And she found herself leaning toward him, too. He looked at her mouth and then up into her eyes. “I came back to town last year to find something—something I’ve been looking for my whole damn life.”
“And that something was…?”
“Don’t rush me,” he whispered. “I’m getting there.”
She made a face. “Oh, well. Excuse me.”
He leaned closer still. “You’re forgiven.”
Warmth curled through her. “Thank you. Go on.”
And he did. “It’s only been in the last couple of years that I began to see that wandering the world wasn’t getting me anywhere, that what I was looking for had to be right here, where I started out.”
She couldn’t keep herself from prompting a second time, “But what was it?”
One side of his mouth lifted. “You really want to know, huh?”
Did she? She wasn’t sure. Still, she nodded.
And he said, “I didn’t have the slightest idea.”
“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You came back home to look for something—but you didn’t know what it was.”
“You got it. I only knew that if I came home, I would find it at last.”
“And you knew this, how?”
“Lori. It’s that I knew, not how.”
“Ah. One of life’s deep mysteries, then?”
“Exactly.”
“You just knew.”
“That’s right.”
“And did you find it? Whatever it is?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
“Well, duh.”
He laughed, then grew more serious. “It’s meant so much to me, settling in at my granddaddy’s big old house, finding out who I really am, learning of all the family I’ve got…” The words trailed off. He slowly shook his head and he looked at her in that soft, admiring way, his gaze moving from her eyes to her nose to her mouth to her chin, then back up to meet her eyes again.
Another sweet thrill shivered through her. She laughed low, partly from nerves. And partly from pure feminine excitement. “You still haven’t answered the main question. Did you ever find it?”
“Do you realize, all those years ago, when we were kids, I never really saw you? Right now, I find that just about impossible to believe. How could I have been such a damn blind fool?”
Through the magic of the moment, Lori finally heard warning bells.
Too far, she thought. I’ve let this go way too far.
She made herself sit back from him and reminded him carefully, “Well, um, don’t forget, all those years ago there was Lena…”
He shook his head. “Crazy. I’m not kidding. Crazy and impossible.”
She didn’t dare ask what, not that time. He just might tell her. And then what would she do?
He went on, “But then, after all these years, there you were. Getting out of that silver Lexus at the Gas ‘n Go. And when I saw you, I thought—”
“No.” She got the word out just in time.
He blinked. But he did fall silent. His dark eyes were suddenly filled with questions—questions she knew she wasn’t going to answer. Not that night, anyway.
Oh, it was too much—much too much—and she knew it. She’d let things get totally out of control. She never should have leaned so close, never should have teased him, never should have begged to know about that mysterious something he’d been looking for.
She had absolutely no right to hear what he’d almost said.
Not tonight. Maybe never.
Tell him the truth. Tell him Brody’s his son. Do it now, a stern voice inside her head commanded.
But she refused to hear that voice. Instead, she put out a hand and warned him softly, “Don’t say any more. Please.”
He captured her wrist, the movement so swift, she had no chance to jerk away. For a frozen moment, they only looked at each other, a look so deep, she felt as if she was falling.
Falling…
She tensed, drawing her hand into a fist.
And then, with slow care, he brought that fist to his mouth and brushed his warm, soft lips across the top of her clenched knuckles.
Heat went rolling through her, spinning up her arm, outward and downward, melting her midsection, bringing out the goose bumps on every inch of her skin.
And then, before she could collect her scattered wits and pull away, he let her go. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m moving a little too fast, here.”
She started to protest, to say, It isn’t that, but stopped herself. He’d only ask, What is it, then? And there they’d be, back with the one thing she couldn’t quite tell him. “We really do have to go. Brody!”
Out on the lawn, her son sat up. “Yeah?”
“Come on. We have to go.”
“Aw, Mom…”
“I mean it. Now.”
Brody rose and came toward them, dragging his feet the whole way, Fargo trotting after him. When he got to her, he let his thin shoulders slump and stuck out his cute cleft chin. “Mom.” The dog plunked himself down beside the boy and looked up, ears perking hopefully. Brody glanced down at the dog and then back up at Lori. “We’re kind of busy, you know?”
“Honey, we have to get going.”
Brody groaned. “Aw, Mom…”
“No whining. Go on into the pool house and change into your shorts and T-shirt.”
“But, Mom, Fargo and I were just—”
She put on her sternest, most no-nonsense expression. “Get moving.” The round two-sided cabana was about fifteen feet behind where she and Tucker sat, nestled among a row of brightly blooming crape myrtles. “Now.” She jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder.
Brody rolled his eyes at her and groaned some more, but he did trudge on past, with Fargo trailing after him, lazily wagging his long, frizzy tail.
“Wow,” said Tucker. “You’re tough.”
She pretended to scowl. “Yeah. So you’d better not mess with me.” Lori’s flowered capris and knit top were folded neatly on a bench in the women’s side of the pool house, waiting for her to get in there and put them on. She braced her hands on the arms of her chair and started to rise.
Before she pushed all the way to her feet, Tucker brushed her arm with a light hand. The touch set every nerve humming. She dropped back into her chair.
He said, “I hope we can do this again.”
“Yes. Well. Um, that would be nice…”
“Hey. Look at me.”
She forced herself to meet those deep, dark eyes of his and told him honestly, “I had a great time—and so did Brody, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed…”
Beyond his broad shoulder, a lightning bug blinked on and winked out, a too-brief golden glow in the night. The crickets sang from the grass.
Lori found herself thinking what she knew she shouldn’t: of all that might have been—if Tucker had answered his door that day she went looking for him in Austin, if he’d stayed in one place long enough to receive one of her letters, if she’d told him the night of the prom that it wasn’t Lena he was making love to, if she’d stepped forward the next morning and told him then, when he came to the door…
If, if, if.
There was no point in going there. What might have been simply wasn’t.
She’d kept her secret. And he’d moved away. Far, far away.
She had tried to reach him and he hadn’t been reachable.
And then there was Henry.
Henry, who had loved her in a deep and steady way. Henry, who had been just the father her son needed. She had loved Henry. She still did. Henry was the rock she’d built her till-then floundering life upon. She couldn’t imagine what her world would be like now, if she’d never known him. With Henry, she’d come into her own as a true adult.
Tucker still watched her. His gaze tempted her…to reach for him. To lose herself.
And it came to her: a part of her resented her own powerful response to this man who was her son’s natural father. Her hard-won adult self didn’t trust that he still managed to stir her in exactly the way he’d stirred her as a confused and yearning seventeen-year-old girl. When she looked into Tucker’s velvet-brown eyes, she felt like a kid again. As if she hadn’t matured or changed one bit in the eleven years since the unforgettable night that set her life spinning onto a new and unexpected course.
The emotions—the passions—he roused in her scared her. A lot. They made her feel less, somehow, than she wanted and needed to be. They called into question her whole life, all her choices, between that fateful night when Brody was conceived and this moment—this moment, when she should be in the cabana putting on her clothes, but wasn’t. This moment, when she couldn’t seem to make herself turn away and rise from her chair.
She gave another wimpy stab at doing what she should. “I ought to get dressed.”
“I know.” He gave her a smile that she couldn’t quite read. It seemed part male appreciation. And part something else…
Something very, very dangerous. Something intimate and tender.
That did it.
Lori jumped to her feet and headed for the cabana, achingly aware of his gaze on her back the whole way.
Tucker watched her go, and marveled…
How had this happened? How could he be so absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt sure? He didn’t know. And as he’d told her a few minutes before, how didn’t matter anyway.
Still, it was amazing. He’d only known her a few short days—and no, to him, the past didn’t count. All those years ago, when they were kids and he was going with Lena, he hadn’t known Lori then. Not in any way that mattered. Not the way he knew her now.
The past, to him, was nothing. As he’d told Lori, he’d been a fool, then.
He couldn’t even see her then. When he tried to remember her back then, he saw a shadow of a person, a quiet girl who looked like Lena.
It was all different now. He no longer saw Lena when he looked at Lori. Now, he saw her, Lori Lee, completely independent of her twin. And he could see them, already, the three of them—Tucker and Lori and Brody. He could see how it would be, see it clear as a bright Texas morning.
He saw them as a family. Saw the nights like this one that would be theirs all the time; saw their lives, his and Lori’s, together, raising Brody.
And afterward, when Brody was grown up and gone, he could see just the two of them, on their own—well, unless there were more kids to raise. That would be okay with him, too.
It would all be okay with him, as long as he could have Lori at his side for the rest of their lives.
It was pretty strange and new for him, yes. But he was dealing with it. He was just fine with it—in spite of the fact that he’d never been the kind to see himself with another person. He’d known quite a few women, been involved in a number of blazing-hot affairs. The heat and the longing never lasted. He’d never expected it to.
Looking back, he wouldn’t say he’d loved them and left them, exactly. He’d simply never been the kind who considered settling down. No matter how white-hot things got, he always knew the day would come when he’d be moving on.
He’d been changing, though, in the last few years. He’d put down roots in his hometown. Now, he had no problem seeing himself as a family man; he saw himself as Lori’s husband and Brody’s father.
And Tucker liked what he saw.
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