I've Got You, Babe

by Lynnette Austin

  Tucker actually laughed at his brother’s disappointed expression.

  “I like her. I really like her,” Gaven admitted. “So it’s probably better this way. We won’t have to break up and quit talking to each other. We can stay friends.”

  “Most of your exes stay friendly.”

  “True. It’s my magnetic personality.”

  Tuck snorted. “Magnetic personality, my eye! It’s the line of BS you feed them.”

  “That, too.” Gaven grinned.

  * * *

  Tucker pulled up a stool in the bay where Brant worked on the front end of a ’68 Charger, the Dukes of Hazzard lookalike they were restoring.

  “You doing okay?” Brant asked.

  Tucker nodded. “Question for you.”

  “Okay.”

  “How’d you know, Brant? How’d you know Molly was the one?”

  “I couldn’t imagine my life without her.”

  “That simple?”

  “That simple.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Tucker awoke thinking about Elisa and Daisy. Grabbing his cell phone, he hit Brant’s number.

  “Can you get along without me today?”

  “Sure. We assumed you’d be heading to Savannah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look, none of my business, I suppose, but we didn’t expect to see you yesterday.”

  Tucker grunted in response.

  There were a few seconds of silence, then Brant said, “I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s conversation. When you get back, why don’t we grab a beer and talk?”

  “Think I’ll take you up on that.”

  On the drive to Savannah, he prepared himself for the fact that Elisa might not want to see him. They’d deal with it, because one way or another, he had to see his girls today. He couldn’t imagine life without them. Brant was right. It really was as simple as that.

  When he walked into Daisy’s room, Elisa was sitting beside the bed. The smudges that rimmed the undersides of her eyes were darker.

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “I caught a few minutes here and there. They’re keeping her longer because she’s so young. An adult would already have been sent home.”

  “That makes sense. It’s hard to keep a kid down. Have you eaten anything?”

  She nodded. “Yes, they brought me a tray when they brought Daisy’s so I wouldn’t have to leave her.”

  “That’s good. When Daisy gets home, she’ll need you to be healthy. Did you have some protein?”

  “I did.”

  He pulled a chair up to the child’s bed so he could see for himself that Daisy was really and truly okay.

  “Pssst.” He grinned when her eyes opened. “How are you doin’, short stuff?”

  “Tut, you came.” She sounded sleepy.

  “Of course I did.” Very carefully, he leaned in for a kiss.

  “I had ice cream. For lunch.”

  “Whoa. Lucky you.” He tapped a finger to the end of her pert nose, trying to ignore the IV that still invaded her tiny body.

  After a few minutes, Daisy’s eyes drooped and she fell back asleep.

  “Think the Sandman’s shown up.”

  “It’s the drugs. They need to keep her as still as possible till the catheter incision closes.” Elisa turned from the window. “Tuck, we need to talk. About yesterday. About—before.”

  “Okay.” The rigid way she held herself warned him he wouldn’t like this conversation. “Is it something I’ve done?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Taking another long look at her daughter, she asked, “You think she’ll be all right for a few minutes?”

  He nodded.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk? Somewhere we can be alone?”

  “Sure.” That sealed the deal. He definitely wasn’t going to like whatever it was she needed to get off her chest. “You’re not leaving Misty Bottoms, are you?”

  She stared up at the ceiling, her eyes misty. “That will depend on what you want.”

  His heart beat a little faster. Maybe this was gonna be okay. “You change your mind? You’ll marry me?”

  Sadness veiled her face.

  “Bzzz. Guess not,” he said. “Grab your sweater. There are some tables outside the cafeteria. It’ll be chilly, but we’ll be able to nab some privacy.”

  Stopping at the nurse’s desk, Elisa told them where she’d be if they needed her.

  As they walked down the hall, a nurse rumbled by with a cart full of meds. A cartoon with a dancing pig played on the TV in one of the rooms they passed, while Sesame Street filled the next one.

  “Is this gonna be as bad as the expression on your face suggests?”

  She nodded, but refused to look at him.

  Oh boy. A trickle of sweat rolled down his spine.

  When they reached the cafeteria, he asked, “You want some coffee? Tea?”

  She shook her head. “No, but if you want something, I’ll wait.”

  “Darlin’, you’ve got me so nervous, I don’t think I could swallow a single drop.”

  “I’m sorry, Tucker. It’s—”

  “Lissie, it’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together.” He rubbed damp palms on his jeans. Taking her ice-cold hand in his, he led them outside and around the corner. The chair scratched over the concrete when he pulled it out for her. Once she was seated, he leaned down and buttoned her sweater.

  Tears swam in her blue eyes. “Tuck, you’re making this so much harder.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

  He dropped into the chair across from her. “Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?”

  She took a deep breath. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “Wait.” Real fear reared its ugly head, and he held up a hand. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Daisy’s still doing okay?”

  “She’s doing wonderfully.”

  “Okay. Good. We can deal with anything else.”

  “We,” she repeated. “Oh God. I have to do this fast, or I’ll lose my nerve.” Opening her purse, she withdrew a photo and handed it to him with trembling fingers.

  His heart stuttered as he stared at the gawky teenager in front of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and the man beside her. “I don’t understand. Where’d you get this?”

  “A friend took it the one and only Christmas my father spent with me.”

  “Your father?”

  She nodded.

  “Hard-Ass Harry is your dad?” The words came out in a ragged whisper.

  “Yes.”

  And there was that sucker-punch he’d been waiting for. Expecting.

  Yet it caught him completely off guard. The chain around his neck seemed to tighten, and he tugged at the key as if it was strangling him.

  “How long have you known?” he asked.

  “I suspected it that night in the park.”

  Everything inside him turned cold.

  She wetted her lips nervously. “I tried to tell you more than once. But Desdemona and Daisy interrupted us one time.”

  “At the book store.”

  “Yes. Other times, I started but couldn’t make myself finish. You were right. I didn’t trust you.” She blinked back tears, then pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her nose. “Every time you look at me, you’ll think of your friends.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “You lied to me.” He didn’t say it with malice, simply a statement of fact.

  “Not at first.”

  “But you did lie.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  He felt empty. Slumped back in his chair, he studied her.

  Minutes ticked by.

/>   Finally, he said, “I’m not sure what to say, but thanks for trusting me with this, Elisa. I know it was hard.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think it’s probably best I leave now. I need some time to digest this, to come to terms with it. You’ve really thrown me for a loop.”

  “I’m sorry, Tuck. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Me, too, Lissie. Me, too.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Give Daisy my love, will you? Tell her—tell her I had to leave.”

  He’d fallen in love with Hard-Ass Harry’s daughter and granddaughter. Fate must be laughing her ass off right now.

  Rather than go to Duffy’s Pub where they’d have eavesdroppers, Tucker made plans to have Brant pick him up at his house.

  “I tossed a cooler in the back. One beer for me and two for you since I’m driving,” Brant said.

  He drove to the river and pulled off beneath a grove of live-oak trees. Brant opened the trunk and handed Tucker the camp chairs. “Take these. I’ll get the beer.”

  For the first five or ten minutes, they watched in silence as birds landed, fed, and took off again. Once Tucker started to talk, it all spilled out. He told Brant about his lieutenant colonel and the role he’d played in his friends’ deaths. He explained why he’d been restricted to camp and the guilt he felt.

  “You should have shared that with us sooner, Tuck, so we could have helped you.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I shared a little with Dad last time they were here. Other than him, I’ve only told one other person.”

  “Elisa?”

  Tucker gave a wry chuckle. “Yeah. I asked her to marry me yesterday after Daisy was out of surgery and we knew she’d be okay.”

  “So why the long face?” Brant’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  “She said no.”

  His beer halfway to his mouth, Brant stared at Tuck. “No way.”

  “I might not have handled the proposal quite as well as I could have.”

  “You told her you loved her, right?”

  Tucker shook his head.

  “What am I going to do with you, Tuck? You didn’t make it about the kid, did you?” One look at his brother’s face and Brant rolled his eyes. “You did.”

  “Guilty. But as clumsy as I was, something else has been going on. Elisa’s had something bothering her for quite a while now, something she wouldn’t share. Today she showed me a picture of her and her father during their one and only shared Christmas. Hard-Ass Harry is her dad.” Tucker took a long drink of his beer. “What am I gonna do?”

  “So, basically, Elisa grew up with a stranger for a father?”

  “Guess so.”

  “He barely acknowledged her as his kid,” Brant said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Has he ever met Daisy?”

  Tucker went quiet for a minute. “I honestly don’t know, but I doubt it.”

  “Remember the time Dad took us all out on the lake and told us how proud he was that we were his sons?”

  Tucker grimaced. “I do. As I recall, that was just before he dumped us out and told us that as his sons, we were strong enough to swim to shore.”

  “Yep. He didn’t boat away and leave us, though.”

  “Nope,” Tuck said. “He followed close behind. We all knew he expected us to make it on our own, but he was there to help if we needed it.”

  “Exactly. My take on Elisa’s situation is that old Harry never did anything like that for her. Instead, he hopped in that boat and shot off like a rocket, leaving her to sink or swim.”

  “Damn you, Brant.”

  “Makes it a little harder to hate her for her father’s misdeeds, doesn’t it? Sometimes, brother of mine, you’ve got to take that swing and hope for the best.”

  “I don’t hate her.” Tucker picked up a second beer and popped the top. “You’re driving me home, right?”

  “I am, because I’ve got your back, too.”

  Chapter 27

  Tucker spent the next few hours nursing his hurt. Midnight came and went and found him wide awake. Wandering into the kitchen, he put a pod in his Keurig and hit start. As the scent of coffee filled the room, his gaze caught on the scrap of blue he’d tossed on the counter. Reaching for it, he ran Daisy’s hair ribbon through his fingers. He collapsed onto a stool and rested his head in his hands. Life could be so damned unfair. What had that baby done to deserve such pain?

  Her mother hung on by a thread, and his reaction to the picture she’d shown him? He’d left her sitting there, broken-hearted. It shamed him.

  He’d like to believe that given another chance, he’d do better. He was honest enough to admit, though, that if he had a dozen do-overs, he wouldn’t handle it any differently. Hard-Ass Harry was Elisa’s father. How in the hell was he supposed to react to that news?

  Right now, he couldn’t do a thing about it. He carried his coffee to the window and stared into the darkness. Time for a come-to-Jesus meeting—with himself.

  Vulnerable and hurting, he’d go to ground like any wounded animal. The key around his neck jangled. Nate’s fish camp would provide a safe harbor.

  Grabbing his duffel from the closet, he tossed a few essentials inside. He’d call Brant or Gaven after he figured they were awake, but right now he had to get out of Dodge. It was time to wrestle the monsters in his head to the ground, then send them out to pasture.

  Tucker made the drive on autopilot and black coffee.

  The night sky was still pitch-black when he reached the turnoff to the cabin. Nobody’d been here in a good long while, and the rutted road jarred his teeth.

  When he rounded the final bend, his headlights swept over the rustic building. It looked neglected and more than a little down on its luck. Perfect. He parked the car so its lights aimed at the door, then removing the key from around his neck, he trudged through the tall grass and weeds to climb onto the small porch. After unlocking the door, he nudged it open with the toe of his boot. Stale, musty air rushed at him, but when he flicked the switch, the overhead light came on. Nate’s dad was still paying the electric bill.

  Tuck dropped his duffel.

  Walking to a battered dresser, he picked up a photo of Nate and his fiancée taken right here in this room. He cursed and threw on his jacket, grabbed the six-pack he’d picked up at an all-night convenience store, and made his way to the lake.

  Frogs croaked, and a fish jumped close to the bank. Other than that, the night was silent and dark. When the moon slid from behind a cloud and lit up the inky night sky, he barely resisted throwing back his head and howling.

  Elisa’s photo had unlocked the dark within him. It spilled out, overwhelming him. Sprawled in the tall grass, the moon shining down on him, he gave in to the anguish and despair. Sobs wracked his body. Until now, he’d screamed, he’d raged, and he’d tried to ignore. But he hadn’t shed a single tear for his friends—not when he’d been informed of their deaths and not when he’d stood with their parents at the funerals.

  He had a lot stored up.

  When his tears finally dried up, he popped the tab on a beer and stared into the sky. There in the middle of nowhere, he asked Nate, Angie, Jorge, and LeBron the big question. “Why did I live and you all die? Was it fate? A fluke? Some Big Guy up there pulling the strings?”

  He waited for an answer, but none came.

  When the sun broke, it found him still at the lake’s edge.

  Time to go to bed.

  He picked up the empty beer cans and decided no more alcohol. He didn’t want to mask his feelings. It was past time to acknowledge them. He owed his friends that much.

  Back at the cabin, he dropped fully clothed onto one of the bunks and fell asleep almost instantly. For the first time in ages, he slept dreamlessly. When he woke, he took a walk, stopping by the lake to fish and allowing his mind to remember his friends—the good times
as well as the bad.

  Then he called Elisa to check on Daisy and explain where he was and why.

  “I’ll be home in a couple of days.”

  “Take whatever time you need, Tucker. You should have done this a long time ago.” She hesitated. “We messed up your earlier plans to go, didn’t we?”

  “Truth? You and Daisy are the bright spot in all this. Showing up like you did has made me face life and deal with things.” His head ached, and he was dead tired. “I know the timing sucks with Daisy and all.”

  “It’s okay. I have plenty of help—more than I’ve ever had.”

  They chatted a few more minutes, then Tucker said, “I have to go, Lissie. Talk to you tomorrow.” He hung up and placed a call to the hospital’s gift shop.

  The volunteer who answered promised to deliver the bouquet of daisies as soon as possible—with lots of balloons. From Tut.

  The day moved along, his mind in turn accepting, rejecting, then accepting again his loss. He fought to come to terms with this new twist, the arrival of Hard-Ass Harry’s daughter and granddaughter in his life.

  He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the why, though. Why he’d bid farewell to the Middle East in one piece, his heart still beating, while his friends left in flag-draped coffins.

  Maybe there was no answer.

  Exhausted, he fell into bed again and was sound asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  The sound of a pickup making its way along the pretense of a drive woke him. From the height of the sun, he figured it must be nearly noon, an unheard-of time for him to wake. Despite all the emotions and unanswered questions, he’d had his best sleep since he’d slapped his buddies on the back and saw them off on their ill-fated mission.

  He grabbed a pair of jeans from the chair where he’d tossed them and stepped into them. Pulling a sweatshirt over his head, he stepped onto the porch in time to see his brothers climb out of Gaven’s truck. He should probably be pissed. Instead, he choked up. As always, they did indeed have his back.

  “What brought your sorry butts up here?”

  “Thought you might want some company about now,” Brant said.

  “Hmph.”