Tucker

by Lori Wilde

  That sweet kiss was almost his undoing.

  “Patsy!” the child’s mother screeched and dashed to Tucker’s side.

  He glanced up to see July standing behind him, a look of admiration in her eyes. Their gazes held, fused.

  People gathered around him, pounding him on the back, praising his rescue of the child. Tucker accepted the attention but wished he could get far away from this place.

  He handed Patsy to her mother then went over to July. “When can we get out of here?”

  “That was a courageous thing you did,” she said.

  “I just acted on instinct. Nothing brave about it.”

  “No one else intervened.”

  “Stop looking at me like I’m a hero,” he said, uncomfortable.

  “Don’t be so modest. You did a good thing.”

  “Yeah, so I did my good deed for the day. Can I leave now?”

  “All right.”

  After Tucker tolerated another round of thank-yous and handshakes, they bid everyone goodbye and slipped out of their aprons and into their coats. Tucker settled his Stetson onto his head. Wind shoved cold down the front of them as they walked outside. More ominous clouds crowded the sky, taunting him.

  Much as he might wish to get away, it looked like he was stuck in July’s apartment for another night.

  July couldn’t stop sneaking glances at him. What he’d done in the shelter contradicted his own gruff exterior but reassured her that deep down inside, Tucker was a good person. If only she could break through his barriers and really get to know the man.

  He walked beside her, smelling of potatoes and leather. Beard stubble darkened his jaw.

  She had no idea how to proceed with him. One thing she knew, he needed her help. It was up to her to show him the way.

  Besides, she had no proof he was involved with the Stravanos brothers. She refused to jump to conclusions. Instead, she’d give him the chance to confess if he needed to and unburden himself.

  “So, what did you think about the shelter?” she asked as they trailed back to her apartment, bodies hunched forward against the frequent wind gusts.

  “Sad place.”

  “Really? I don’t see it that way at all.”

  He gave her a quick glance. “What do you mean? All those people like the Muldoons down on their luck and in dire straits. How can you not find that depressing?”

  “To me, the shelter is a place of hope.”

  “Hope?”

  “Yes. Those people come looking for help, and lo and behold, there are folks ready to extend a hand, to overlook shortcomings and mistakes. Folks who have been in the same place and have overcome those same circumstances.”

  “Do you really believe people actually rise above their circumstances?”

  “Oh, I know they can!” July couldn’t hide the passion in her voice.

  She didn’t want to. Tucker needed to know that nothing was permanent, that even the most hardened cases could change. That love could indeed transform what might seem like an embittered, wasted life.

  “You’re kidding yourself.”

  She stopped in the snow and rested her fists on her hips. “I’ve seen miraculous transformations.”

  Tucker snorted and kept walking.

  Damn, but he made her mad! July rarely lost her temper, but this hardheaded man had a way of getting her goat. He was stubbornly determined to hang on to his gloomy outlook.

  “You don’t believe me?” she asked, hurrying to catch up with him.

  “Oh, I believe that you believe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve heard that savior rhetoric before.”

  “Savior rhetoric?” she raised her voice.

  Tucker halted outside her apartment. “Look, I know where you’re coming from, July. You find some sad case, and you run around doing your social worker magic. You get them a job, buy them some clothes, find them a place to live, and you pat yourself on the back for a job well done.”

  “Yes, I do.” She jutted out her chin. “I enjoy helping people. It’s what I do best.”

  He threw back his head and laughed an ugly laugh. A hollow sound that chilled her with its hostile undertone. “What you don’t know is that they’re laughing at you behind your back. They quit the job, sell the clothes, and buy drugs. In a month, they get thrown out of the house and then they’re right back where they started, and you’re blissfully going about your business, secure in the fact that you’re saving the world.” He spoke as if he’d been there.

  Tears pressed against her eyelids, but she refused to cry. Refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d cut her to the quick.

  “You’re really worried about your own life, aren’t you? You’re afraid you’ll never have another job, that you’ll die on the street, that no one will ever love you.”

  Tucker swung his brown-eyed gaze on her. She felt the heat into her soul, and she shivered.

  “You are so wrong,” he said.

  “Then why are you attacking me and the things I do?” Her cheeks burned, and her stomach roiled. She didn’t want to fight with Tucker because his pain ran deep. His anger and resentment were palpable. She reminded herself she was not the target of his anger, merely the vehicle.

  “I’m not attacking you.” He quieted instantly.

  “You must think I’m pretty stupid. I’m aware some folks are just out for what they can get. But I’m telling you, Tucker, most people want to be productive. They want a good job. They want to be loved.”

  “No, July, I don’t think you’re stupid, just very naive. You haven’t experienced the seamy side of life.”

  “You really shouldn’t make such assumptions about people you don’t know that well, Tucker.”

  She stalked past him, kicking snow as she went, and clamored up the stairs. His footsteps rang on the stairs behind her. She fumbled for her keys and burst into the apartment, her pulse strumming through her veins with a combination of anger, excitement, and trepidation.

  What she wanted was to share her experiences with him and have him reciprocate. She longed to ferret out his secrets, to have a true heart-to-heart talk with this man. She yearned to deepen the fragile connection between them.

  As a social worker, she knew no better way to accomplish that goal than to communicate on a personal level.

  Be careful, a voice in the back of her mind warned. You could get hurt very badly. But her need to relate to Tucker overrode any rational objections. If only she could reach him, she might be the difference between his salvation and a life of crime.

  Walking to the middle of her living room, July shucked off her coat and tossed it across the rocking chair then turned to watch Tucker come through the front door.

  The sight of him sucked the air from her lungs.

  Tall, dark, imposing Tucker looked recklessly dangerous. With wind-reddened cheeks and his leather jacket turned up at the collar, he could pass for a biker if it weren’t for the Stetson and cowboy boots.

  Tucker caught the edge of the door with his boot and slammed it shut. Brown eyes snapping, he advanced toward her.

  “I’m all ears,” he said. “Prove to me that I have made the wrong assumptions about you.”

  July curled her hands into fists to hedge the trembling. “You think I’m just a goody two-shoes with no concept of what it’s like to live in the real world, don’t you?”

  “If the description fits.” He lifted his shoulders.

  “I’ll tell you about myself under one condition.”

  “And that is?”

  “You be honest with me about why you’re on the street.”

  He frowned. “I can’t promise that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You might not be able to handle the truth.”

  “How bad could it be, Tucker?” She raised her chin and met his gaze. Those brown eyes shimmered. “Are you a drug addict? An alcoholic?”

  “No!” he exclaimed harshly.

&nbs
p; “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Some of the best people get caught in that trap. I know,” she said softly. “It happened to my mother.”

  12

  “What?” Tucker stared at her as a wave of emotions swept over him. Could July actually relate to the dark, shameful past he struggled daily to overcome? “What do you mean?”

  “My mother was an opioid addict.”

  Was it possible? July came from a dysfunctional environment? Did they indeed have something in common?

  “That’s right. It happens to people from all social classes. My father is a respected surgeon. My mother’s folks came from money.”

  Tucker noticed she was twisting her fingers into knots. This was difficult for her to talk about.

  “From the time I was little, I remember my mom having back pain after a car accident. She took pills when the pain got bad, and for the longest time, it wasn’t much of a problem.

  Or so we told ourselves…”

  July chewed her bottom lip and began to pace. Tucker knew about denial. He knew the excuses. Pa’s tired. Pa’s got a headache. Pa’s in a bad mood. Anything but the truth. Pa tied one on last night, and now he’s got a mean hangover, and he’s taking it out on the family.

  “Then my father finished his surgical residency in San Antonio, and he moved us to Rascal because he wanted to work where the population was underserved,” July continued. “My mother had never been away from her family, and she started taking the pills to ease emotional pain as well as the physical.”

  “How old were you?” Tucker asked, his chest tightening at the anxiety on July’s face.

  “Ten. Often, Mom would be so stoned on Vicodin and wine, she didn’t bother getting out of bed. Dad worked long hours at the hospital, and although he hired a housekeeper, it was mainly up to me to take care of my little sisters, April and June.”

  At least July had been there for her sisters. Tucker had had no one. His sister had been too busy crawling into the back seat of cars with any guy who offered her money while his older brother had been honing his burglary skills.

  The agony, the loneliness of those bad old days struck Tucker with a vengeance.

  “For three years, our lives were pure hell.” July stopped at the window, staring pensively down at the courtyard below. “Then Mom started stealing things from department stores. I know now it was a cry for help. Trouble was nobody helped her. She got arrested at least half a dozen times, but because of who my father was in the community, she always got off with a fine. No judge ever court-ordered drug rehab.”

  Tucker scraped his fingers along his jaw. How many times had he watched his father stumble in after two in the morning, stinking of whiskey and slurring his words? How many times had he wished and prayed for a normal family?

  When she turned her face to him at last, he saw tears gleaming in those beautiful green eyes, and his stomach churned.

  “I understand,” Tucker said.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  He took a deep breath and plowed a hand through his hair. “My father was an alcoholic, but unlike your family, we were dirt-poor.”

  Once he started talking, Tucker couldn’t seem to stop. He spilled everything. From the regular beatings at the hands of his inebriated father to the cruel taunts of his classmates. He told her about having to beg for food from neighbors and wearing ragged hand-me-downs. He revealed that he’d never had a bicycle that hadn’t been stolen or a birthday cake or a Christmas tree that wasn’t made out of beer cans.

  “Have you ever seen that show Shameless?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I tried watching it, but the social worker in me couldn’t stand to see those children neglected, even if it was just a TV show.”

  “The father in that show? My dad to a T. Except my father is crueler.” Tucker heaved a deep sigh and sank down on the sofa.

  “Oh, Tucker.”

  “So now you know,” he said.

  “You haven’t told me everything.” July looked like an angel with curls swirling around her ears and a tender expression on her face. “You’ve told me all about your father’s problems, but you haven’t told me about Tucker.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I understand how your childhood has shaped who you are today. What I don’t know is why you’re homeless, jobless, alone. You’re handsome and smart, and from what I’ve seen so far, you don’t drink or take drugs.”

  He hadn’t meant to open up to her this way, to uncloak his past, unsheathe his pain for her to see. He had promised himself he’d hold his emotions in check. He shouldn’t have started this.

  Keeping his identity hidden from her was essential to his assignment and her safety.

  “I’m not as strong as you are,” he said. “I can’t bounce back the way you did.”

  “You think it was easy for me?” July’s voice cracked.

  “I never said that.”

  “I just wanted to let you see that people can and do change. Eventually, my mother got help, and she’s been clean for twelve years. She’s active in Narcotics Anonymous and living through this experience brought our whole family closer together. In fact, dealing with my mother’s problem was the reason I become a social worker.”

  The tears were back in July’s eyes along with a catch in her voice.

  Tucker ached to take her in his arms and comfort her. Before he had time to think, to reconsider, he was off the sofa.

  Taking her hands, he pulled her to him and cradled her head against his chest. “Shhh,” he said, caressing her hair. “Shh.”

  She felt so warm, so soft. They breathed in a simultaneous rhythm. Tucker felt as if he were tumbling headlong into an endless black pit.

  “July,” he whispered and lowered his head.

  Tucker certainly had not intended to kiss her again. Especially after last night. But seeing that look on her face, those tears in her eyes, he’d wanted more than anything to offer her some small comfort. Resting his mouth on hers seemed the least he could do.

  What he hadn’t counted on was his own response.

  Swift. Hot. Hungry. Passion swelled in him like crashing ocean waves stirred turbulent by hurricane winds. Her honeyed lips, her fresh sweet scent, her soft intake of air demanded his attention and muddied his senses.

  He wanted to know everything about July. Her favorite foods, her favorite color, her life goals and ambitions. What had she been like as a child? Where had she spent her summer vacations? Who had been her first love?

  His desire for more knowledge startled him. For the first time in his adult life, Tucker wanted to meld, to bond, to forge a deep and lasting connection with a woman.

  And therein lay the problem. He had no idea how to go about achieving such an elusive goal while at the same time keeping his heart safe.

  “Tucker.” She moaned his name low in her throat, sounding for all the world like a purring kitten.

  Her greedy noises accelerated his fire. He tilted her chin back with his thumb, his fingers cupping her jaw. He pushed his tongue against her teeth, begging for entry.

  Without hesitation, July acquiesced.

  The inside of her mouth was so warm, Tucker shivered with delight. He gathered her closer. She was buoyant, delicate. It required little effort to lift her off her feet and into his arms.

  He carried her to the sofa, their tongues still entwined. He cradled her back in the bend of his elbow and supported her head with the palm of his other hand. Her delectable fanny fit snugly into his lap. July wriggled her hips, and Tucker almost lost every shred of self-control he’d ever possessed.

  Good gosh almighty, but she was sexy! Incredibly sexy. Sexier than any woman he’d ever encountered. Obviously, her lust for life extended into the bedroom as well. July’s penchant for racy undies should have tipped him off on that account.

  Closing his eyes, Tucker let himself drift in the ecstasy of her embrace, allowed himself to float in a euphoric Neverland.

  If only he could freeze th
is moment or photograph the kiss so later, when the assignment was over, when the Stravanos brothers and their boss were in prison and he went back to his lonely life, he’d have this beautiful memory to look at over and over again.

  “Tucker,” she whispered, and he opened his eyes to find her staring at him intently.

  He pulled back, breaking the connection of their lips to peer down at her. Something odd tweaked inside him. Something that felt perilously close to love.

  No. Impossible. He must be wrong about that feeling. He could not be falling in love with July.

  Hell, no one in the Haynes clan even knew the meaning of the word. No one had ever shown him unconditional love.

  That is, until July.

  “Yes?” he murmured, his voice husky.

  Her pupils widened. “You have the most gorgeous brown eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Why had she said such an inane thing? July fretted, appalled at herself. It was the sort of thing lovers cooed to each other. And Tucker certainly was not her lover. He was a project, a challenge, a lonely man who needed her help.

  For all she knew, he was a fugitive taking advantage of her hospitality. She could not forget that despite the prolonged sweetness of his kiss.

  Yet, she couldn’t deny the power of their shared confidences. At long last, Tucker had opened up to her. Not fully of course, but it had been a start. And they did have something in common. A collective sorrow that could be explored and utilized to strengthen their relationship.

  Their relationship.

  What did their relationship consist of? Savior and sinner? Rescuer and victim? July didn’t like that sound of that. Too many of her relationships had been based on that scenario. She knew her tendency toward codependency dated back to her experience with her mother, but knowledge of the problem and the ability to change were two different things.

  His eyes still glistened, and his mouth was still moist, but she could see him distancing himself emotionally, pulling back from the exciting vortex that had consumed them just minutes before.