by Keelan Storm
Deflated that he’d been wrong again, he turned around. Maybe it was time to call Annie and Jet to compare notes. It had been hours now that he hadn’t found her, time that Izzy was upset and alone and under the impression that what they had was dead. He shook with repulsion at the thought. He had to fix things.
He had just pulled out on the main road when something silver glinted in his headlights up ahead. Speeding up, he recognized the bumper of a familiar old Ford. Tucker’s stomach tightened.
He was out of his truck nearly the moment it had stopped, his worry outweighing his relief when he realized her truck wasn’t even on. He ran to the driver’s side and peered through the dark window. He couldn’t see her. Maybe she was lying down. He yanked the door open, and air caught in his throat, a new state of panic starting to take over. She wasn’t there.
This was not good. Correction. This was horrible.
He pushed his panic aside to think, to try to understand what could have happened, to find something to explain why Izzy wasn’t here, why she would have left the protective interior of the cab when the coldest front of the season, of the past several years, had blown in.
His eyes quickly searched the empty area, the seats, the floorboards, the dash, every surface he could see until he caught sight of the keys dangling from the ignition. He reached in and turned the keys, but nothing happened.
“Shit,” he cursed. She really needed a car that worked.
A blast of wind came at him then that caused goosebumps to appear on every last inch of his body. He shivered at the freezing cold that no native south Texan would be accustomed to and slammed the door shut. Whatever reason Izzy had for leaving the confines of her truck, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had left, and she was somewhere out in this inhumane cold.
“But where?” Tucker looked up to the sky as he begged.
“You know,” his gut insisted.
“Shit,” he muttered. He’d been right. He knew it.
Suddenly, the idea of standing still while Izzy was out there, upset and alone and most likely freezing in this cold, made immobility impossible. Tucker paused only to grab the blanket and flashlight his father had passed to him back at home, thankful his dad had thought ahead, then turned and shot off down the long expanse of beach.
Digging the toes of his shoes into the loose sand, he ran as fast as he could back to the significant section of shore. The wind from the water blew wildly around him. Shells crunched beneath his feet as he ran. The ribs of his back ached in protest with the quick, heavy expanse of his lungs. But he barely felt it.
He paused when he got there to send up a small prayer that Izzy would be waiting there, somewhere. He took a deep breath, using the flashlight to add to the light of the moon. Yet, still, he saw nothing. He felt his heart drop in his chest. If he couldn’t find her here, where would she be? It didn’t make sense.
He started to turn around when a streak of lightning lit up the sky, and the sound of thunder boomed out around him. A small shriek cried out from nearby, and he momentarily froze.
“Izzy?” he whispered to himself.
Tucker rushed forward to where the shriek had come from, and all remaining air in his lungs gushed out in a sigh of relief when he found Izzy curled up beneath the pier, the large beam placing her just out of sight from where he had looked from the shore. Her head was tucked into her arms, her knees clutched to her chest, as the water soaked her feet and clothes.
His heart broke to see her that way, alone and afraid, shaking with cold. He didn’t stop to think about what he would say to her. He just walked up, unfolded the heavy blanket, and laid it over her shoulders, pulling her into his lap away from the wet sand.
“Tucker?” she murmured, curling into him for warmth.
“Yeah, it’s me, love,” he replied, running a hand through her damp, curling hair.
“What are you doing here?” she said shakily through chattering teeth.
He fought back a grimace at her tone. There was no relief in it. All he could hear was the accusation behind it. “I came to find you. You nearly scared everyone out of their minds, the way you left.”
Isabel tried to frown, but the chattering of her teeth was too strong. “You should leave.” She didn’t want him here out of pity.
He couldn’t help it. He winced. “I’m not leaving without you.”
“Why not?”
He thought he could detect frustration behind her shaking words. “Several reasons. For one, you’re freezing out here, and there’s lightning.” He paused at her wince. “Two, I found your truck. I know it won’t start, so how else are you going to get home? Three, your mother and sister will kill me if I leave you here like this. My parents probably would, too.”
She attempted a glare since her mouth wouldn’t form the correct expressions. “Don’t worry. You can tell them all I resisted. Tell them all I kicked you where it hurts with my boot for all I care. I wouldn’t want you to get torn up over me.”
Tucker breathed out heavily through his nose and gave her a pointed look. “I wasn’t finished.”
“What then?” She didn’t want to hear any more reasons for why he felt obligated to bring her home. It was bad enough just seeing him without listening to any of that.
“Four,” he continued, “I’ve screwed up enough as it is these past weeks, so I’m not going anywhere until I’ve made things right.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as a body jerking shiver ran up her spine. She couldn’t have heard that right.
At seeing her tremor, he yanked off his jack and pulled back the blanket to help her put it on. It swallowed her, falling well down her thighs, but he knew it wouldn’t help with her pajama bottoms soaked beneath it.
“Take these off,” he instructed, though she stubbornly shook her head. “Izzy, you’re freezing. I need to get you warm,” he insisted. After a long suited glare, she complied, standing to slip the wet silk off, and he pulled her back into his lap before she could protest, sliding his arms in the jacket to place them under the silk top, doing everything he could think of to warm her frozen skin.
She shuddered at the warmth of his hands on her back. “Tucker, please…” her voice nearly broke. She couldn’t take this if he was just going to detach himself from her again.
He felt her resistance, but he continued anyway. If what Annie said was true, then she’d want to hear it. “I should never have pulled away from you. I’m sorry. You needed me, and I wasn’t there.”
“Really?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I want to.”
“So do.”
“I’m not sure if I can.”
“Why?”
“Because everything else made perfect sense,” she explained. “I understood why you didn’t want to be around me, why you didn’t want me anymore.”
“You thought I didn’t want you anymore?”
She heard the surprise in his voice and felt her resolve starting to weaken. She nodded against his shoulder.
He groaned as he shivered. “No, Izzy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I want you, I want us, more than anything. I always will. I thought you knew that.”
She didn’t respond. His words seemed too good to be true, but surprisingly, hesitantly, she took the blanket and wrapped it around them both, clutching the ends together between them with the fingers of her casted arm.
“Isabel.”
She looked up and had to catch her breath at the love and sincerity she found waiting for her in those wonderful, brown eyes.
“I love you. So much. I always will. No matter what.”
At those words, she nestled in closer to him. Her broken arm tucked between them, she pressed her cast-free hand beneath the thick material of his shirt where his skin stayed toasty warm and buried her icy cheek into the warmth of his neck. He tensed at the initial contact of cold on his body, but relaxed as his body heat began to flow t
o her.
She breathed in and had to sigh at the intoxicating, unnamable smell that entered her lungs, her heart and brain going a little fuzzy at his scent. She never thought she’d get the chance to smell him like this again. It was wonderful, even in her despair.
“You really mean it,” she whispered in relief.
“Of course I do.” “Why wouldn’t I?” he wondered, mystified.
Lightning flashed again, and Isabel stiffened in Tucker’s arms as the thunder crashed around them.
“Isabel?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you explain something for me?”
“What?”
“Why did it make perfect sense for me not to want you anymore? I thought it was the other way around.”
“What?” This time, she was confused.
“That’s why I stayed away. Because I didn’t think you would want me, not after what I did to you, to our baby.” His voice broke on the last word. “I couldn’t even bring myself to look into those gorgeous eyes of yours because I knew what I wouldn’t see, and I was afraid of what I would.”
“What are you talking about, Tucker?”
“I couldn’t stand to see them that way, lifeless, dull. Especially when I knew it was all my fault. I thought for sure you’d look at me in disgust. You wouldn’t even have to say it. The accusation would be there. So instead, I just stayed away. I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”
Isabel pursed her lips at the new information. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Tucker thought it was his fault?
“I did feel lifeless. Everything was numb. Most of the time. But I would never want you to stay away. I’ll always want you. I thought you knew that,” she replied using his words against him. “It wasn’t your fault,” she finished.
Tucker shut his eyes. “Don’t try to make me feel better. I deserve to feel this way after what I did. I shouldn’t have fought with Wesley. I should have pulled him off of you and then gotten you out of there, but I lost my temper instead. Our fight made you fall. It’s my fault Destiny’s gone.”
Isabel pulled her face back from his neck to look up at him and freed her arm from the warmth of his skin to wipe a tear that sat, ready to fall, at the corner of his eye. “Tuck.”
He opened his eyes and looked down at her. He was confused by the combination of love, sincerity, and pain he found in her.
“I don’t blame you at all. I thought you blamed me. I didn’t fall because of you.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you did.”
“No, I didn’t,” she insisted. “It was my fault that I fell.”
“No.”
“Yes. You didn’t do anything. It was me. I stepped back. My heel missed the step. It was all me.”
“But if I hadn’t lost control, that never would have happened.”
“You were just trying to protect me. I should have never argued with Wesley. I know how he can be, what he did the last time I yelled at him, but I got mad anyway.”
“You didn’t look mad when I got there. You looked upset, and he wouldn’t take his hands off of you.”
“But I was mad before he tried to kiss me. That’s why he did it.”
“He kissed you because you were mad?”
“Apparently, it turns him on. Everything he was saying, I just got so mad and disgusted.”
Tucker took in a deep breath to steady the anger that was starting to swell in his stomach. “You should have been.”
“No. That’s what led to the fall. I lost our baby because I couldn’t control my anger.”
“No.” His tone was furious, firm, and it rang with finality. “It was not your fault. Someone who has hurt you before was hurting you again. You got upset. You stepped wrong on the stairs. End of story.”
Isabel stared back with just as much ferocity as Tucker had just uncharacteristically used with her. “Then, it goes both ways.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
She increased the forcefulness in her voice. “Yes. It does. If it’s not my fault, then it’s not yours either. You had no control over what I did with my feet. You were protecting me from someone you knew could hurt me. You got upset. End of story.”
Their stare was intense, but eventually, Tucker relaxed his gaze and gave her an agreeing nod. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
She tucked her hand beneath his shirt once again just as lightning flashed, lighting up the entire sky around them so bright that it could have been day. The brilliant streaks of light were both breathtaking and terrifying at the same time.
She buried her face further into Tucker’s neck and bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream in his ear. He held her tighter to him and ran his hands along her back.
“Do you think that’s our cue to head back?” he asked with a smile.
Isabel frowned. She wasn’t ready to go home yet. Everything there seemed so painful and real. It didn’t hurt so bad here…with Tucker.
He judged her expression. “You’re not ready to go back, are you?”
“No,” she admitted.
He frowned. “You’re so cold.”
“I don’t mind. I just need you,” she sighed, returning her head to his chest.
Sighing his consent, he pulled his phone from his Letterman pocket and sent out a text to everyone involved in the search, calling Bridgette next since he knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with just a text. Isabel listened to the conversation Tucker held with her mother and waited for him to hang up the phone before she spoke.
“I really freaked everyone out tonight, didn’t I?”
“More like terrified us. Annie especially. She went off on me.”
“Oh, no.”
“No, I needed it. She really put me in my place.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “She showed me how I was breaking your heart.”
“How did she do that?”
Tucker reached down into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the ring, holding it up where she could see. “She showed me this.”
Isabel looked down, ashamed. “I’m sorry. It felt wrong to wear it when I thought you didn’t want me anymore. It was like this stupid symbol that could never replace the real thing.”
“Is that why you attacked your bedroom with your dresser?”
“Daddy’s dresser,” Isabel groaned at the memory. “Yes,” she admitted with great reluctance.
Tucker lifted her chin with a finger so she’d meet his gaze. “Your dad didn’t mean to hurt you. There’s no way he could have known.”
“I know,” she replied sadly. A single tear leaked from the corner of her eye. Tucker brushed it away with a thumb. “But it still hurts. He’ll never be here for me again.”
“But he tried. He did it in the best way that he knew how.”
“You’re right, and it was nice. It was just too much, you know? I felt like I went into overload.”
“I’m sorry. I should have been there for you.”
“We should have been there for each other, and we can now.”
“Does that mean that you’ll put this back on?” he asked as he held up the ring for her to see again.
She hesitated. “Does it seem right to you? We said that our baby was proof that it was our destiny to be together, but now Destiny is gone.”
“Isabel, how many times do I have to tell you before you believe me? Our group? Us? We’re something special. We weren’t just meant to be friends, we’re meant for each other. It’s fate. Destiny was further proof, not the only proof.”
“Tucker…”
“What? Why can’t you believe me?”
She felt bad. He’d poured his heart out so many times, but, “Would you have proposed had it not been for the baby?”
“Maybe not now, but someday. Making her changed things, and just because she’s gone, doesn’t mean it changes how I feel.” Her face crumpled at his words. “You know what I th
ink?” he tried again. “I think she’s in heaven. We may not be able to have her and raise her, but she’s got a grandpa up there that I’m sure is more than happy to watch over her for us. I had her buried by him,” he finished, his voice quiet.
She closed her eyes, tears streaming, and placed her forehead against his. He really was that wonderful. “Thank you, Tucker.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Now, can I have my ring?”
Tucker’s smile lit up his face. Isabel answered it with her wide, crooked grin and held up her hand so that Tucker could slide the diamond-covered band back onto her finger. A light sigh escaped her when it was in place. It felt perfect and right there on her hand.
“Perfect,” she whispered.
“You’re perfect,” he replied, taking her lips in a kiss. Breathing heavily when they parted, Tucker took her hand. “Come on.”
He shifted her from his lap as they both stood, and scrolled through his phone for a good playlist, turning up the volume before sliding it back in his pocket. Isabel stared at him curiously, and he grinned. “I believe your dad reminded you to dance.”
Beaming, Isabel opened the blanket so Tucker could put his arms around her, and she wrapped hers around him, placing her head against his warm chest. As the music filled the air, they danced.
“We made so many changes, Tuck. I was ready…for her, ready to be a mom,” she said softly into his chest.
“I know, love.”
“It wasn’t fair for her to go, not like she did. I wish she was still here.”
“I know, love,” he repeated, “but she can’t be.”
“I’ll always love her.”
“We’ll always love her,” he amended.
“I’ll always love you, too,” she added.
He looked down at her, and their gazes met. “My heart is yours,” he said with earnest.
He leaned down to kiss her then, and electricity sparked inside him, filling him with warmth. He hoped he would always feel that with her and then had to smile through the kiss because he knew he always would.
They danced in each other’s arms for the rest of the night, watching as the lightning storm ebbed, and the sky shifted to the yellow and orange shades of dawn.
