by Hill, Teresa
"It wasn't... Rebecca, I just didn't expect him to answer the phone."
"He's six years old now. He answers the phone. He takes out the garbage. He cleans up his own room. He plays soccer. He does all sorts of things you wouldn't begin to imagine."
She felt the rage then, the heated anger that she'd denied for so long. She hadn't escaped it. She'd merely pushed it down deep inside her. Now she was seething.
"Rebecca?" Brian was standing in the doorway, watching her carefully, and she knew what he saw—an angry, frightened, out-of-control woman. A few seconds on the phone with Tucker, and he'd reduced her to this. He was poison. Pure poison.
She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone to muffle the sound and looked at the man in front of her.
Brian stood there, tall, dark and handsome... open, honest and loving. Legions of women would have no trouble loving Brian Sandelle. He was dependable, successful and steady as a rock. She'd known him her whole life, and he'd never let her down.
So what was missing in their relationship? What else could she possibly want from him? How long would she keep comparing him with Tucker? And how long—for a reason that was totally incomprehensible to her even after all these years—would she keep judging Brian and finding him lacking in some way?
She wondered if he knew it, too, and, if he did, how much longer he was going to put up with it.
"I'm all right, Brian." He obviously didn't buy that, but when he took a step forward, she put up a hand to hold him off. "Please, just take care of Sammy for me, and I'll be there in a minute."
Silent and shaken, she stood there and watched him go before she turned her attention back to the phone.
"What do you want, Tucker?"
"Sammy." His voice was low and gruff, the words muffled—by the miles, she decided. It couldn't be his emotions getting the best of him, because she'd decided long ago that Tucker didn't feel anything—at least not for long. "I want to see Sammy."
"Oh?" Maybe she was more vindictive than she thought, because more than anything she wanted to hurt Tucker right now as much as she possibly could. "And then you can disappear for another six years and leave me to explain that to him, too? Damn you, Tucker. What makes you think he wants to see you, anyway?"
Tears. Dammit, those were tears running down her face, choking her up inside so she could barely speak.
"Just once, Rebecca. Let me see him just once, and if he doesn't ever want to see me again, he won't have to. I'll disappear again. I swear."
"I'm sure disappearing wouldn't be any problem for you. But what if he wants you to stay, Tucker? What if he comes to depend upon you, to look forward to seeing you every now and then, and you can't handle that? What do I say to him when you break his little heart all over again?"
They were silent for a moment, both of them very aware of the other on the end of the line.
"Just once, Rebecca."
If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he was begging. But Tucker Malloy didn't beg for anything. He took what he wanted, and once he'd had his fill, he was gone.
"Rebecca? I don't want to hurt him. I just want to see him. I have to."
"Damn you!" She tried to rein in the hysteria that was threatening to overtake her. "You've already hurt him more than you'll ever know."
"Once. Just once. And I won't ask again." He waited. "Will you ask him? Or should I?"
So like him, she thought. Assume that the other person would accept his wishes and move forward from there. And never, ever give up until he was damned good and ready to do so.
Dear Lord, she wished she could tell him to go to the devil, wished she could tell him truthfully that her son was doing just fine without Tucker and didn't care that his own father had shown up now after six years of silence.
But she couldn't. As much as it frightened her to think of the damage Tucker could do, to think of how fragile Sammy was right now where his father was concerned, she couldn't deny that her baby boy needed his father very much.
"I'll think about it," she whispered fiercely. "But, Tucker, I'm warning you. I'm not the mousy girl you walked away from all those years ago. You hurt him any more than you already have, and I swear you'll pay."
Chapter 2
Rebecca slammed down the phone. She stood by the countertop, trembling and hurting while her stomach turned on itself and started that slow burn she knew so well.
So long ago, before she'd left Tucker, she'd lived with this constant ache in her midsection. She'd literally made herself sick over that man.
How dare he come back after all this time?
"I guess I don't have to ask if that really was Tucker on the phone."
Brian caught her standing there, leaning back against the counter with her arms wrapped around her middle.
Rebecca dropped her arms and considered begging for just a little time alone in some dark, quiet place before she had to go over this with Brian. But the look on his face told her she wouldn't have that luxury.
"What the hell did he want?" Brian barked. She jumped at the harsh tone—his Tucker voice. Her rational, levelheaded Brian saw red every time the name Tucker Malloy came up. And whether the name was ever actually spoken or not, Tucker seemed to be forever wedged between them.
"He wants to see Sammy," she said quietly.
"Oh? He actually remembered the boy's name? Or did you have to remind him?"
"Brian." Rebecca started to pray then.
She prayed for strength, for patience and mostly for understanding. And when understanding proved to be impossible to come by, she prayed that she'd simply be able to accept all that had happened and put it behind her. "Please. Just give me a minute."
"Hell, Rebecca, he doesn't deserve a minute of your time. He wrote off you and that little boy years ago. You're not actually going to let him see Sammy, are you?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I don't know how you can even consider it."
Amazing, Rebecca thought as she watched Brian seething and shouting, so near to completely losing control. It was amazing what Tucker could still do to them both.
"Brian, I just got off the phone, and I'm still trying to make myself believe that he even called me after all this time."
"But you are considering letting him see Sammy."
"Yes. I am."
"God, Rebecca." Brian shook his head back and forth. "How can you even think about it?"
Her arms went back around her midsection, and the old familiar ache flared up again. "How can I not think about it? You know what's going on with Sammy. He needs a father now."
Brian grabbed her urgently. "He needs me. Me. Not somebody who's just going to break his heart. The boy needs me."
He was hurting her then with his painful grip, but she suspected that of the two of them, he was hurting even more than she was. "I'm sorry, Brian."
And she was sorry, for all that they'd wanted from each other, for all the years they'd loved each other and still never gotten their relationship quite right.
Brian shook her a little. "Dammit, I'm more of a father to that little boy already than he ever was. I should have become his father long ago. And it's long past the time when I should have become your husband."
He should have.
She closed her eyes against the pain she saw in his face. She loved Brian. It seemed like she had forever. She still did, yet she couldn't bring herself to become his wife.
"I'm sorry, Brian," she said, apologizing for so much more than Tucker's phone call.
She was sorry that they'd never been able to let go of each other, despite all the frustration and pain it had caused them both. But the time was coming to admit that, she realized, and wondered if he realized it, too. The time was coming when they had to face up to the fact that it would never be right between them, that they couldn't keep trying to make it so.
"Rebecca? Are you—"
He was watching her so closely now, and he must have seen the gut-deep sadness in her eyes as sh
e started the conversation they'd been avoiding for so long.
Her eyes filled with wretched tears. Her heart filled with dread. She loved him too much to let herself hurt him anymore.
Rebecca cupped her hand to his cheek, looked deep into his eyes and shook her head sadly. "I'm so sorry."
"So am I." He paused then, while the fury filled his stormy eyes. "I'm tired of waiting for you to get over him. And I'm damned sure sick of having your ex-husband's ghost in the bed between us."
Rebecca couldn't help but flinch at that. She didn't want Tucker there any more than Brian did, but she hadn't figured out how to get him out. Although she suspected the problem now was that none of them had been to bed together in months.
Rebecca had been avoiding Brian, making excuses to avoid that aspect of their relationship. It wasn't that she had a lot of hang-ups about sex or that Brian wasn't a kind, considerate, patient lover.
He just wasn't... Tucker.
Rebecca winced at the very thought running through her own head. She didn't want to be with Tucker. She just wanted some of those feelings back. She wanted to find them with someone else.
Making love with Tucker had been a monumental thing, an overwhelming, scalding, all-engulfing thing. Such power ran between them, a passion, a need, so strong it both fascinated and frightened her; a power she feared she'd never find with anyone else. It was a feeling she hadn't found with Brian.
"Brian—" She'd forgotten for a minute that she was still keeping him waiting.
"Don't." He turned and quieted her with a finger against her lips and pain in his eyes. "I've done everything I know to do, Rebecca. I can't compete with the man's ghost. Maybe, just maybe, now that he's back, maybe once he rips your heart out again, you'll remember him for what he is and not for what you wanted him to be. Maybe then you'll see that he'll never be able to make you happy."
She knew that, knew Tucker was never going to make her happy, just as she knew she couldn't marry Brian. In some intangible way, their relationship just wasn't right, and she'd let this go on too long because she liked him so much and felt so safe with him.
"Uhh... thinking about Tucker reminds me," Brian said as he gathered his keys and sunglasses from the counter. "The old paper mill project? Some company bought the property, and it looks like they're going to try to resurrect the project."
Rebecca was almost as surprised as she'd been when she heard Tucker's voice coming through the telephone. She and Tucker had fought bitterly over that project six years ago.
"Can they do that? Can we stop them?"
"I don't know." Brian shrugged, frowned, then admitted, "It's a tough call. I'm sure the group would have a better chance if you're leading the effort."
"Oh, no." She had enough of her wits about her to be quick with that answer. "I can't handle it right now, Brian. I'm way behind on the Arts Center fund-raiser, and I have three big jobs lined up after it."
Rebecca made her living as a professional fund-raiser. She was so good at it now that she could pick her clients, including a number of causes she believed in. The Arts Center. The homeless shelter. The free health clinic. Any number of environmental organizations. She'd worked for them all. People who needed to raise money in Tallahassee called on Rebecca.
"I can't do it," she repeated, knowing she was really saying she didn't want to do it. It would bring up too many unhappy memories for her, and she had about as many as she could handle from just one phone call from Tucker.
"Just give it some thought, honey," Brian urged. "We're getting the coalition back together, and we need you. Nobody was more upset than you were at the thought of the mill ruining that gorgeous river."
Or at the thought of her husband being the one to get Paperworks Inc. the permits it needed. And to Tucker, it had meant nothing but a job to do and more money to make.
A few months after they'd separated, the company was sold, and the new owners dropped the plan. Now it was all starting again.
"I can't do it, Brian. Tell them if they need money, and I'm sure they will, I'll get it for them. But I can't head up the whole project."
"I'll tell them you're thinking about it, okay?"
"Okay." Rebecca couldn't argue with him any more now. She didn't have the strength for it. "About everything else, I'm—"
He held up his hands to silence her, then leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Get over him, Rebecca. Call me when you do, and I'll be there. God help me, I'll probably always be there for you."
Then he turned and left.
* * *
Rebecca looked at the clock on the wall and shook her head. The paper mill project and Tucker, all in the same day. No more than an hour had passed since her ex-husband had called, yet it felt as if she'd lived through years, years she didn't care to recall.
And now came the truly hard part. She had to face her son and try to explain this to him.
Sammy wasn't in the house. He wasn't on the back deck. She didn't see him in the backyard.
Then she heard an ominous ping, the noise a rock makes when it's thrown into a pool of water.
She raced for the hedge that separated her yard from Mr. Bennett's. The hedge near the back corner of the yard had a little gap. As she reached it, she could see Sammy solemnly pitching pebbles into Mr. Bennett's goldfish pond.
Surprise held her motionless for a long moment. Sammy had never, ever gone through the hedge or near that damned pond before.
A lot of neighborhood children found the thought of throwing a rock into a pool of water too much temptation to deny. It was even more irresistible because Mr. Bennett had a hissy fit whenever he caught any child in his yard, much less near that silly pond.
The old man had decorated the bottom of the little artificial pond with special lights and pretty colored stones. The plain old pebbles the children threw in there destroyed the ambience of the pool, he said. It was certainly his right to have his pretty pool the way he wanted it, with pretty colored stones in a pretty pattern.
Sammy knew how obsessed the old man was with the pond. He knew never to go near the place. And although he may have been tempted before, he had simply been too timid about getting into trouble to take the risk.
Her little boy was like that—a little too shy, too easily hurt. He was a lot like Rebecca had been as a child.
But the little boy standing in plain sight of the Bennett house and calmly throwing pebbles into the pond wasn't timid. He was mad.
Her little boy was so full of anger these days. And seeing her child in pain like this hurt Rebecca more than anything that had happened tonight.
She could stand anything, except seeing her son hurt.
"Sammy!" she said urgently but softly from her place in the hole in the hedge.
He didn't acknowledge the call.
"Sammy, please?"
Again, no response.
Rebecca glanced up at the lighted windows of the Bennett house and was relieved to see no one through the glass. She sprinted across the yard to Sammy's side, grabbed his hand and turned to run back the other way. But Sammy didn't budge.
"Sammy, come on." She got down on her knees in front of him and turned him to face her so they were eye to eye. Eye to tear-filled brown eye.
"No!" He tried to pull out of her hold, but she wouldn't let him.
Rebecca wondered how anyone so small could be filled with so much sadness, covered up by so much anger. "What is it, baby?"
"I'm not a baby!" he said fiercely.
Rebecca closed her eyes and breathed. She had to remember not to call him that, especially when he was upset. "I know, Sammy. Can we go home now?"
He just stood there, small and miserable in the fading light. Rebecca took his hand and loosened his fierce hold on the pebbles. They both stared down at the smooth stones.
Sammy sniffled once, then again, before hesitantly lifting his eyes to hers. "Why didn't he wanna talk to me?"
"You mean, your dad?"
With a trembling lower l
ip and a runny nose, he nodded.
"Oh, Sammy? Is that what this is all about?"
He swiped the back of his hand past his nose, then nodded.
"It was him. I know it was," Sammy rushed on breathlessly. "He said his name was Tucker, but I know it was my dad 'cause you told me that was his name. So I asked him if he was my dad, and he said he was. And then he didn't even wanna talk to me. He just wanted you."
Rebecca closed her eyes and made her decision in that moment, praying she was doing the right thing. The hardest part of being a parent, she'd found, wasn't doing the right thing. It was not knowing the right thing to do and having to make a decision anyway, despite all her doubts.
She really didn't know if this was right. The risks seemed so high, but at the same time, Sammy was so sad and nothing she'd done so far had made that better.
"Sammy, your dad doesn't just want to talk to you on the phone. He wants to come see you."
Her son's shimmering brown eyes widened with wonder and surprise. Rebecca saw the tears caught in his long, thick eyelashes.
She remembered those eyes. Sometimes he was so like Tucker that the sight of Sammy stole the breath from her lungs. It was so hard to get over her ex-husband when the most precious thing in her world was a miniature version of him.
She brushed Sammy's tears away for him.
"He's coming here?" Sammy looked stunned.
"Yes." She smiled, despite her misgivings.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Wow!" He gave her a trembling smile. "And I can show him my room and my train set, and take him to soccer practice and to meet Jimmy Horton and his dad?"
"Yes." If she had to drag the man by the hair on his head, Tucker would go. And he'd be suitably impressed with it all.
"Wow!" Sammy yelled as he jumped for joy, then headed for the hole in the hedge. "Come on, Mom. We gotta get outta here before Mr. Bennett catches us."
