by Hill, Teresa
But that hadn't hurt nearly as much as what Rebecca had told Brian—or rather what she hadn't told Brian.
It hadn't been so bad, at first. Brian had been furious, and Rebecca had been trying to pull away from him.
"Tell me that you love him," he'd demanded.
"I do," Rebecca told him. But she'd said it so quietly, sadly, with so many regrets.
"Tell me that he's made you happy."
And she hadn't been able to say it. Tucker had waited, his jaw clenched, the muscles in his hand starting to ache because of how tightly he'd been gripping his briefcase.
She couldn't say it.
She wouldn't, because it would have been a betrayal to admit it, and she wouldn't betray her husband. But she wouldn't lie to Brian, either.
So she'd said nothing.
And Brian had known. Tucker had been able to see that. Brian had known she wasn't happy, and the man had become hopeful then.
"Now," Brian had said to Rebecca, "tell me you don't love me anymore."
And again, Tucker's wife hadn't said a word. She didn't have to. Her silence spoke volumes.
* * *
Tears were running down Rebecca's cheeks when Tucker was done. She'd remembered only the pain, but now she heard her own words come back to haunt her. And for the first time, she saw them for what they really were—a terrible betrayal of her husband and their marriage vows.
She'd stood there in the garden, pregnant with her husband's child, but in the arms of another man, a man who still wanted her, who even wanted to marry her and be a father to her child.
It had been one of the saddest days of her life. She'd looked at Brian and questioned every decision she'd made since he left, regretted most of them.
But it was too late, she'd told him. She'd chosen her path, her husband. They were having a child together. And most of all, despite all their problems, she loved Tucker. She just didn't think she'd ever be the woman who could make him happy.
Rebecca wiped her tears away and took a long, steadying breath.
"I loved you when I married you, Tucker. I didn't love anyone but you."
That mollified him, and as she saw it, the admission was a small price to pay to calm him down a little.
"And I didn't love anyone but you," he said.
Not at first, anyway. She closed her eyes against the pain. It was always there, waiting for her whenever she thought of him and that woman.
"Can we just drop this, please?"
"As soon as you explain to me why you're still a single woman."
"Tucker—"
"All these years, I thought you were married. I thought Sammy had a father."
"And would anything have been different if you'd known that I wasn't married to Brian? You didn't want to be a father. You told me so the day you found out I was pregnant."
God, what a day that had been! She still didn't know how she'd survived that day, how she got through the whole pregnancy knowing her husband didn't want their child.
"I wanted you to be happy, Rebecca. I wanted Sammy to be happy. I didn't think I could give either one of you what you needed back then."
Maybe he believed that. Maybe, but it didn't change what he'd done. A man couldn't just pass his responsibilities on to another man.
"You can't blame Brian for not doing your job. You're Sammy's father. You're the one who was supposed to be there for him."
"I know."
She was surprised that he admitted it so easily. He just kept surprising her, and she didn't like it. She didn't want to change the way she thought of him and of the past.
She didn't want to think of him at all. And she wanted her life back, hers and Sammy's, the way it used to be, the way it was just three days ago, before Tucker waltzed back into town.
"Rebecca?"
"Yes." She was willing to answer, but not to turn around. She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to see the sadness in his eyes. It seemed they'd both been so sad for so long. It should have been over by now. She wanted it done.
"Remember the night before our wedding, the rehearsal dinner? My mother was going to have it at her house at first. Then my father heard about it and insisted on renting that fancy Italian place downtown. And then my mother said she'd just hire the chef and bring the whole party to the house, because her house was so much nicer than the restaurant he'd picked."
"Yes." She did remember. She hadn't given it a lot of thought at the time. She'd simply been too excited, too happy at the thought of marrying Tucker. Little had penetrated the wild joy and excitement she felt at the thought of becoming his wife.
"It was always like that between them. Used to drive me crazy the way they were always trying to outdo each other."
Rebecca remembered that he did keep his distance from them, and she'd questioned him about it more than once. He simply hadn't responded, not with any answer that told her anything. Tucker wasn't the kind of man who opened up very often about his life, his feelings. She was surprised he was telling her so much now. She hadn't known much more than that he'd grown up in Connecticut, and when he was a teenager, his mother had bought a house not far from Tallahassee and he'd been in Florida since then.
"I remember," he continued, "when my mother signed me up for swimming lessons one year. When my father found out, he said he'd send me to summer camp and I could take lessons there.
"Then my mother said she'd send me to my Aunt Karen's, because her brother-in-law was a swimming coach in college and he could start me out just right. But my father said I could come to California for the summer to live with him and he'd put in a pool.
"A damned pool? Just to outdo my mother and get me away from her for a summer. All I wanted was to be able to go swimming every now and then without drowning.
"You know," he said, laying his hand against her back, the warmth soaking through the robe to heat her skin, "if you threw me in the deep end of a pool today, I'd probably drown. I never took those lessons anywhere, because I didn't want to have to choose between what my mother was offering and what my father had planned. I was just so sick of having to choose between the two of them."
He was rubbing her back, making little circles there, skimming his hand across the green silk as he talked.
"And I always knew that whatever they offered me, it wasn't about me. It was about them and this battle they were still fighting long after they divorced."
"Tucker, we weren't like that. We were never like that."
"I know."
"We wouldn't have been like that, not ever."
"Maybe not." He'd gotten to her shoulders by then. He was kneading them, working out the tension and creating a whole new kind of tension at the same time. He was much too close.
"You know, all I ever wanted when I was a boy was for them to stop fighting and to stop pulling me apart while they fought. I didn't want to live in two places and have two sets of clothes and two sets of toys and two sets of friends. I didn't want to be shuffled back and forth and hear my mother gripe about my father and my father yell about my mother.
"My father pretty much gave up on being a father to me when I was thirteen, and I was actually glad. I was so tired of both of them and the bitterness and the hassles that I was glad he finally left me alone."
She wasn't even trying to hold back her tears then. She just let them fall. "It wouldn't have been like that with us and Sammy. We wouldn't have done that to him."
"I hope not, but there was so much bitterness between us, so much hurt and anger. And I wasn't ready to be a father. The whole thing scared me to death, and then there was Brian, who was still in love with you, ready to take you back, even pregnant with my child."
He had his arms around her, holding her while she cried. She felt his warmth, felt the strength in him, the power. He was such a powerful man.
"It's no excuse, Rebecca, but I honestly thought the two of you would be better off with him."
He pressed his face against her hair, and nuzzled her ear with hi
s nose. She started to tremble in earnest.
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. I'd give anything to be able to go back to that time and to be the kind of man you needed me to be, the kind of husband you deserved and the father Sammy should have had."
He kissed her hair, kissed her temple, then her cheek. Butterfly kisses, landing so softly, lingering only for a moment, then gone, but definitely not forgotten.
She'd always been amazed that such a strong, fiercely passionate man could be so tender with her.
"Stop, Tucker. Please stop."
He backed away, and she thought she was free, thought she was safe. She turned around, only to find him right there, waiting for her, to find his beautiful brown eyes shimmering with sadness and longing.
"I loved you, Rebecca. You're the only woman I've ever loved."
She watched in a daze as his lips came down to hers, and she didn't move, didn't even try. She knew exactly what he was going to do, and she made no effort to stop him. She couldn't have, even if she'd wanted to.
Just like the first time he'd touched her, she felt absolutely powerless.
His lips closed over hers, and she gasped at the pleasure. It had been so long since he'd touched her this way. No one but him had ever touched her quite this way.
She was trembling. He touched her very soul with nothing but a kiss.
She felt the warmth, the longing, the desire. There was no other word for it. This was desire—staggering, paralyzing, overwhelming desire—just the kind he'd taught her, the kind no other man had ever brought out in her.
This was what scared her to death about him—that he could make her feel this way, still, with nothing but a kiss.
Dear God, what was she going to do?
He backed away, and she touched her fingers to her lips in an unconscious gesture of wonder. Her hand was trembling, and her lips were tingling, still, even now that he'd pulled away.
It was as if he'd cast a spell over her with his touch, a spell that lingered long after he was gone.
He caught the hand in front of her lips, kissed it lightly.
"I still feel it, too," he whispered, his lips not an inch from hers.
She stared at him and stood there. She wouldn't have been able to put two coherent thoughts together if her life depended on it.
What had he done to her? What kind of power did he have over her?
She shook her head. She'd never understand.
"Try not to worry too much, Rebecca. It's going to be all right."
"No." It wasn't going to be all right.
"I'm going to be here for Sammy from now on."
She roused herself finally from that sensual paralysis he'd put her in. "Be sure that's what you want, Tucker. Be very sure. Because I won't have you hurting him all over again."
"I'm sure," he said, and she saw a flash of that old charm, that self-assurance, that cockiness. "I'm going to be here for you, too, Rebecca."
Then he left, while her mouth was hanging open and her lips were still tingling with his kiss.
Chapter 9
Rebecca rolled over in bed so she could see the red glow of the digital clock on the nightstand. It was almost ten. She was supposed to be working on the Arts Center fund-raising proposal she had to present tomorrow, but she'd thrown it down in disgust forty minutes ago.
Then she'd taken up the permit applications for the paper-mill project. She'd been working with the Citizens' Coalition for months now, and they'd managed to make the paper-mill project stumble a few times, but not to stop it completely.
Her friends teased her for getting so worked up over the project, and Rebecca was getting used to her honorary title of "tree hugger." She'd never hugged a tree in her life, but she'd like to think a few would still be around in fifty years if her grandchildren wanted to play under them.
She'd been born and raised in Florida, and the changes she'd seen frightened her. High-rises, shopping centers, office complexes and miles and miles of asphalt. The crowds, the noise, the pollution were turning her own state into a place she hardly recognized.
And if development in Tallahassee kept up at this pace, there wouldn't be any space left for green grass and trees.
Rebecca wasn't one of those who wanted everything to stop in its tracks. She just wanted a few quiet, peaceful spots in the middle of the development chaos.
Her group had been campaigning for years to get the town and the county to establish a series of parks throughout the area, just a little space to remind people of what Florida used to be like.
She'd taken up the project about seven years ago, near the end of her marriage to Tucker, right after he'd started representing the first company that wanted to build the paper mill just south of Tallahassee.
It had given them one more thing to fight about, and that had been the last thing they'd needed at the time. And it had opened Rebecca's eyes to some painful truths about her husband.
Rebecca shook her head, determined to keep her mind on the uphill battle at hand. And it wasn't over yet. They'd gotten many of the parks they'd wanted. The problem was keeping them viable as development closed in on them. The biggest park was centered on a lake just downstream from the planned paper mill, which would ruin the peaceful place with noise and smell and chemicals.
Rebecca wanted Sammy to be able to fish in that lake. She wanted birds, squirrels, rabbits and butterflies, at least in a few protected spots.
But now the city was about to lose all that.
Rebecca read through the papers again and again in a futile search for something her group could use to block the project. She finally gave up and put the papers aside in favor of her next problem: tomorrow.
Tucker was coming tomorrow, maybe. He'd asked her not to tell Sammy yet, because he wasn't sure if he was going to make it, and he didn't want to disappoint the boy.
Amazing, so far he hadn't disappointed Sammy. But he had turned Rebecca's life upside down.
"Mom?" Sammy called from his room down the hall.
Reluctantly, she rose from the bed and grabbed her robe.
"Coming, Sammy."
She hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in weeks—nine weeks to be exact, ever since Tucker had returned.
Tucker called all the time to talk to Sammy, and came to visit every other weekend. He went to soccer games, helped Sammy improve his own soccer game, played video games, impressed all of Sammy's friends and left the other mothers in the neighborhood drooling over him.
The soccer field would never be the same. Women were dressing like they were going to a party, in case they caught a minute with Tucker on the sidelines.
He was driving Rebecca crazy, but he hadn't touched her again.
Not really. Except for the way she found his hand at the small of her back, guiding her down the walkway and helping her into the car. The way he sat a little too close at times. The way he brushed past her in the kitchen.
And he just kept coming back. She found herself hoping he would and praying he wouldn't.
Because he was driving her crazy.
She couldn't sleep, couldn't stop the pangs of her jittery stomach or the ache in her head that came from lack of sleep. She'd driven him out of her heart long ago. She just couldn't get him out of her life now. Years ago, she'd literally made herself sick over the man, and she was close to doing so again.
At the door to Sammy's room, she paused to collect herself. Sammy had been wound up all week because tomorrow was the first day of school. Her baby was going to be in first grade. She could hardly believe it.
She peered around the door without opening it. Sammy lay perfectly still on his back in the shadows. His thick, sandy-blond hair was mussed, and his brown eyes were so big as he stared at the calendar on the wall.
The first day of school was circled in red on the calendar they'd made together.
"Sammy?" She finally opened the door.
He looked up and smiled for just a moment, then gave in to the worried look again. "Can I have s'm
ore milk?"
"All right." It wasn't what he really wanted, but she'd get it for him.
She collected the glass from the nightstand and for the second time that night walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.
She could probably use some milk herself. It helped settle her stomach. Rebecca got her own glass, filled both, then downed two more aspirin that she hoped would help her headache. She returned to Sammy's room.
"Thanks, Mom."
"You're welcome, sweetie."
"Mom?" he called as she headed out the door. Maybe they would get to the heart of the matter now. "Do you think those other kids at school will make fun of me?"
Rebecca settled herself on the bed beside him and tried to smile with more confidence than she felt. "Why would they do that?"
"Because this is Jimmy Horton's school, and a couple'a kids from the soccer team go here, too. What if they tell all the other kids that I'm no good at it?"
She chose her words carefully. She wouldn't lie to him, because Jimmy Horton might well tell everyone about Sammy's problems on the soccer field.
Sometimes Rebecca felt capable of strangling that kid.
"Sammy, you'll be in first grade and Jimmy Horton's in second, so you probably won't even see him. And even if you did, he's going to be busy with friends who are in his class. I don't think he's going to make trouble for you."
"Really?"
"Really." She gave him a kiss and tucked the covers around him.
"Mom?"
She paused again at the door. "Yes, Sammy?"
"Do you hate my dad?"
Oh, no! He'd really blind-sided her with that one.
Did it ever get any easier to help a six-year-old make sense of his mixed-up life?
"Why would you even ask that, Sammy?"
"Jimmy Horton said since you and Dad and me don't live together, you must hate each other, so I—"
"Stop right there. I think it's time for Jimmy Horton to worry about Jimmy Horton, and time for Sammy to worry about Sammy. Okay?"
"Okay."
She'd spoken more harshly than she intended, and Sammy looked chagrined. She smiled and kissed his cheek.
