by Hill, Teresa
Of course, when Sammy had gotten older, he'd realized that other kids had fathers, and he didn't, but it hadn't been a big deal. While it wasn't the way Rebecca would have preferred to have her son grow up, it was all right.
It wasn't as if Sammy were the only little boy who never saw his father. Their neighborhood bore out what the statistics said about fewer and fewer children living in traditional households. There were more single parents and step-families than families where a child lived with both his biological parents.
Sammy did just fine without his father for five and a half years. Then, six months ago, Sammy's friend's parents had gotten back together. Jimmy Horton was right up there with God as far as Sammy was concerned, and if Jimmy Horton's dad came back, Sammy's could, too.
Rebecca dug back into the cabinet for a skillet she rarely used. This was a good day for crepes. Sammy liked them, and he needed something to take his mind off everything, as well.
They'd had a rough six months. She'd listened to Sammy's nonstop questions about his father. She'd relived with him every moment he'd ever spent with his father. She'd pulled out the few pictures she had of them together and explained exactly what had happened when each one had been taken.
And then Sammy started planning his sixth birthday party. He wouldn't tell her what he wanted for a present.
"Ahhhhh, Mom," he'd said. "Everybody knows that you make your wish when you blow out your candles, and you can't tell anybody about it. 'Cause if you do, it won't come true."
Her suspicions had grown stronger as the day grew closer about exactly what his wish would be, but it was only after the smoke cleared that she knew.
Sammy blew out his candles with the saddest look she'd ever seen on his face. He'd watched the clock that night, refused to go to sleep, refused to tell her what was wrong, until the last seconds of his birthday had passed.
"He didn't come."
Sammy had sobbed and sobbed.
Rebecca had held him tight and hurt like she'd never hurt before. And she never wanted to hurt like that again, never wanted her child to hurt like that.
But here she was letting his father back into his life.
* * *
It was even harder than Tucker expected it would be to walk up to that door and ring the bell.
He couldn't call it hot, not yet, but he was sweating.
He was also fifteen minutes late.
Tucker had driven for miles throughout the night, first aimlessly wandering through Tallahassee, then heading south toward the Gulf Coast.
He drove until nearly dawn, wondering about all the things he'd missed, the precious times he'd thrown away, hoping it wasn't too late for him and his son. When he finally got back to his hotel, he was sure he wouldn't sleep. Damned if he hadn't done just that, just enough to make him have to rush to get here on time.
And then he had to circle the block three times before he felt like his legs were strong enough to hold him once he got out of the damned car and walked up to the door.
It was the thought of those eyes that turned his legs to mush. What would he find in his son's sad brown eyes?
He started to straighten the tie he normally wore around his neck, but he wasn't wearing one today. He punched the doorbell.
The sound of the two-toned chime was still echoing in the foyer when the door swung open with a fury. Rebecca gave him a glance lethal enough to cut him in two, then stepped aside to let him come in.
She wasn't in a generous mood this morning. She lit into him right away in a voice that was low and threatening.
"Don't you ever show up late again when he's expecting you."
Stunned, he remained silent.
Rebecca turned and walked into the kitchen, calling to the little boy as she went.
Tucker heard a flurry of whispers and footsteps across the carpeted floor, then found himself with the length of the living room separating him from his son.
It was a good thing he'd come the night before, a damned good thing, he decided. His emotions had gotten the better of him the night before. The sight of the boy had torn something loose inside him, some old wound that must have been festering for years, one he hadn't even known about.
That spot he'd thought was so empty, that black hole, wasn't empty at all. It was chock-full of a kind of hurt and anger and bewilderment that he couldn't begin to understand, even though he had only himself to blame for it.
How could a sane man do this to himself?
How could he fail to understand the magnitude of the gift that had been bestowed upon him? A son. His son. A bond that couldn't be broken, even through years of neglect.
The boy standing before him would always be his son.
Now, if only Sammy would give Tucker a chance to be his father.
Sammy stood there glued to his mother's side. If she'd been wearing a dress, the boy would have been hiding behind her skirts. As it was, Sammy had to make do with a pair of cream-colored slacks.
The boy wasn't that tall, yet he still seemed to be an awkward arrangement of mostly arms and legs. He had a slight build, a little slouch in his back, tons of sandy-blond hair and downcast eyes.
Tucker wasn't sure what he should do. Hell, he wasn't sure if he could make it across the fifteen feet that separated them.
They both stood there like actors forced out on a stage with no lines to say, Sammy huddled beside his mom and Tucker by the door.
Rebecca finally broke the stalemate when she walked into the room and urged Sammy to come along with her. The boy looked up, a long way up, for a quick glance at Tucker, one that didn't tell Tucker anything, then Sammy dropped his eyes to the floor again.
"Sammy—" Rebecca knelt in front of him and forced a brief smile "—this is your dad. Tucker, this is Sammy."
"Hi." Tucker was happy he managed to get the word out without having to clear his throat first.
Sammy, still huddled close to his mom, ventured another glance at Tucker. "Hi," Sammy muttered.
Tucker had just a moment to see those brown eyes, and he could see that they were glistening with tears.
"Is uhh..." He hesitated, not sure how six-year-old boys felt about crying and having anyone notice. "Is anything wrong?"
Sammy looked at his mom, back down to the floor, then at Tucker once again. He muttered something Tucker couldn't hear, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear once he saw the way Rebecca tensed up in an instant. She must have heard because Sammy was practically in her lap.
"What, Sammy?"
"Go ahead," Rebecca said. "Tell him."
Sammy sniffed once, then again. Clearly worried, he stared at his mom, and she nodded. Finally he looked up at Tucker. The boy looked so solemn, so hesitant, Tucker almost wished he hadn't asked.
"I thought... maybe you decided not to come," Sammy said finally.
Tucker took it like a fist to the gut.
He simply never expected that.
He wanted to protest, to tell Sammy that if his father said he'd be here, he'd be here, that the boy could trust his word. But why should Sammy trust him? The boy didn't even know him.
Tucker sank down to his knees in front of the boy. Finally he could look right into those eyes, big brown ones with long, thick eyelashes, now spiked together in the aftermath of his tears. Sammy would have beautiful eyes, if only they didn't look so sad.
He took the boy's hand in his and tried to smile, but just couldn't manage it. He wouldn't hurt this child. No matter what. He never wanted to hurt his son again.
"I'm sorry, buddy." Tucker watched the eyes flutter back down again. "I, uh... I was out in the car driving around the block because... I was worried about coming in—I didn't know what to say to you, or what you would want me to say."
Rebecca still looked murderous, and Sammy seemed puzzled.
"I didn't sleep much last night, and my brain's a little fuzzy this morning." Silence reigned, and Tucker started to sweat.
Sammy stayed close to his mom and kept quiet.
"I was worried that you might not want to see me," Tucker continued.
The seconds ticked away, and they stared at each other. Tucker racked his brain for something else to say, something that could get through to the boy. He was desperate to do that, but didn't know how.
"You know," Rebecca said, finally jumping in, "we had a little trouble getting to sleep ourselves. We were thinking about you. Right, sweetie?"
Tucker could have kissed her right then, but knew she wouldn't like that, even as a sincere expression of deep gratitude for her generosity.
Rebecca fiddled with Sammy's hair, trying to smooth an errant strand into place. Tucker detected a little nod from Sammy, and that was all the encouragement he needed.
"I wasn't sure what you'd like to do today. I thought maybe the zoo?"
Sammy nodded, barely, then stared up at Tucker through those tear-spiked lashes.
Tucker held his breath and waited, surely more nervous in that instant than he'd ever been in his life.
"You thought..." Sammy looked once more to his mother for reassurance. "You thought I might not like you?"
"Yes."
It was obviously a new idea to Sammy, and he pondered it for a minute.
Tucker inched closer, suddenly aching to take the boy into his arms and hold him forever. But he didn't. He couldn't. If nothing else, he had learned a measure of patience over the years. It was time to use some of it.
"I guess maybe you were a little worried, too?"
Sammy shrugged and looked down at his shoes, scuffing one sneaker against the other. "I guess... yeah."
And then he gave Tucker a shy little smile, one that let Tucker know that just maybe things were going to be okay. It made him damned glad he had come and made him offer up another solemn promise that he was going to do nothing to hurt this child.
Tucker looked down at the boy through watery eyes and wished he'd never left him all those years ago. And he prayed that once Sammy got to know him a little better, got to trust him and maybe even to think of Tucker as his father, the boy would look at him in exactly the same way as he had an instant ago.
"Sammy?" Rebecca said. "It's a little cloudy outside. Why don't you go get your jacket, just in case."
He nodded, took a quick, shy glance at Tucker again and then ran up the stairs.
Rebecca watched him go, and Tucker watched her, watched the slight trembling in her hands, which she'd wrapped around her stomach.
He would have gone to her then, would have tried to reassure her, maybe even taken one of her hands in his, but she saw him coming.
Rebecca tensed before his eyes and pulled away from him without taking a single step back.
He must remember he had no right to touch her.
Tucker shoved his hands into his pockets, kept them there and waited. Finally she looked at him, and again he saw the fury.
"Don't you dare." She said it quietly, but the threat was there all the same. "Don't you dare hurt him again."
Tucker didn't hear the rest of it in words, but sensed the message from her all the same.
Don't you dare hurt me again, either.
Chapter 5
This wasn't going well.
Rebecca put down the phone and wished she'd stuck to cooking out her frustrations.
Some women ate when they were upset. Rebecca cooked, preferably something complicated and time-consuming, something she could beat and stir and worry over.
She'd started on a recipe right after she'd watched Tucker and Sammy walk down the driveway to the car parked at the curb. Such a simple scene, father and son headed off to spend the afternoon together, and yet it was one that she'd never before witnessed, one that she'd believed she'd never see.
And it was a difficult one to watch.
Rebecca felt a new sense of loss for her son, for the things she hadn't given him. She wanted Sammy to have everything a child could have, and yet she'd failed to give him the most basic of childhood needs—a father.
So it was with a heavy heart that she had watched a hesitant little boy take his first steps toward his father.
Where would those steps lead?
Dear Lord, she closed her eyes and prayed. Don't let him hurt Sammy. Don't let us hurt Sammy any more than we already have.
She felt tears threaten, and she dared them to fall. She hadn't cried in years, hardly at all since the first year after Tucker left. Now that he was back, it was all she could do.
Disgusted by her own weakness, she'd headed for the kitchen.
She'd been thinking about the water-bottling plant, about the old group getting together to try to stop it. It might not be such a bad thing to be in the middle of it again. It would keep her busy, and a busy mind was less likely to wander to troubling topics like her ex-husband.
So when Brian called, she told him she'd think about helping out with the group. Then she found herself telling him much more than that, things she'd been thinking about for a long time, like the reasons she didn't think she could marry him, not now, not ever.
And before she could tell him to stop, he'd announced that he was coming over. There was nothing left but the noise in her right ear, the annoying sound that the phone made when no one was on the other end of the line.
No, the day was not going well.
Most of all, she couldn't think of anything but Tucker. She'd thought of little but him since he'd shown up on her doorstep the night before.
She saw his face when he'd asked, painfully, if his son hated him. And she remembered the way he'd touched her face. She could still feel his fingertips on her cheek.
God help her.
She headed back to the stove. The soufflé was almost done. She'd have to start something else.
Rebecca was kneading the bread when the doorbell rang. Only thirty minutes had passed, she noted, surprised.
She'd thought when she and Brian had talked that he was in Naples. He'd moved there four months ago to take a new job. She and Sammy were supposed to follow him, but they hadn't yet. They weren't going to.
Rebecca glanced at the clock again. If he'd gotten here this fast, he must have been in Tallahassee when they talked. His old house hadn't been sold yet, and he spent a lot of weekends here taking care of it and hounding the realtor.
Rebecca took off her apron and gathered her strength. She was going to need it, she thought as she opened the door.
Brian took one look at her and shook his head. "What did he say to you?"
"Who?"
"Who else? Tucker." Brian headed across the foyer and into the house without an invitation.
Rebecca found herself wishing he'd waited until she'd asked. "He didn't say anything."
"Then what's this all about?" He put his keys down none too gently on the coffee table, and she gave a start at the clattering noise.
"Us," she said quietly. "It's about us."
Rebecca was scared to go any further. She'd always had Brian by her side, always, except for that brief period of time when Tucker had stormed into her life and turned it upside down.
Brian had grown up next door. Her mother told Rebecca that she'd been trailing after him since she'd been old enough to walk. She'd had her first crush on him, saved her first kiss for him. When she was twenty, she'd been patiently waiting for him to come back from Belize and a stint in the Peace Corps when Tucker showed up at her parent's house for dinner.
She hadn't thought of Brian for a long time after that, not until things had started to go bad between her and Tucker.
"Brian—" She hesitated, finding it harder than she expected and more frightening than she'd dreamed to send him out of her life.
He'd always been there for her, and she couldn't imagine life without him somewhere close by.
"Don't say it, Rebecca." Brian started across the room to her.
She backed away. She couldn't do this if he was holding her. "I have to. I'm sorry, but—"
"Don't."
And before she could object, he had her in
his arms, his mouth covering hers in a slow, soothing kiss. Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to lose herself in his touch, but she just couldn't. Brian must have felt it, too, because he pulled away and stared at her, accusing her with nothing but the look in his eyes.
She wished she hadn't been the one to put that look in his eyes. And she wondered whether her life would have been different if she'd married Brian years ago, if she'd never met Tucker.
Would she and Brian have been happy together? She thought they could have, crazy as it sounded. Because she never would have known something was missing in her relationship with Brian if she'd hadn't already been with Tucker.
But she had.
"It's just not going to work, Brian, not ever."
He swore as he turned away, and she flinched at his anger.
"I never had a chance, did I? Once that man laid a hand on you, I never stood a chance with you."
She froze, knowing it was true, feeling guilty that it had taken her so long to admit it to herself and even longer to admit it to him.
"You know, " he said quietly, "I was twenty years old when I decided that you were the only woman in the world for me. The only problem was I also thought you weren't ready for that kind of commitment then, and I wanted you to be sure. So I went away—a couple of lousy years—and I came back to find you married. Married and miserable and carrying that man's child."
Rebecca approached him cautiously, rested her hand gently against his back.
His muscles tensed beneath her hand.
"And even that wasn't enough to make me give up on the two of us. I was there for you when he left, there for you and Sammy all these years. I waited longer than any sane man would wait for a woman and... "
His voice broke, and Rebecca wrapped her arms around him from behind and laid her head against his shoulder.
"Brian, it's not that I don't want you or need you or love you. I do." She felt him take a ragged breath, then another.
"Then what's the problem?"
