by Hill, Teresa
And it had all come so clear to her then. Little else mattered to him as much as the money. Life was a game to him, and he kept score with the dollars in his investment portfolio.
The self-doubting side of her had reared up instantly, sure that he'd made one of his biggest investments of all in her. After all, her father had money. Even better, he had built a prestigious Tallahassee law firm, but he had no heir, only Rebecca, who had no interest in the law.
Rebecca watched Tucker lean against the makeshift bar and take a sip of his drink.
He was such a gorgeous man, so smooth, so polished, so at ease with himself and his surroundings, yet with a hint of mischief in his smile and a glint of cynicism in his eyes, which simply made him all the more attractive.
She'd never understood what he'd seen in her, couldn't understand it even today. But she suspected it was the money, the power, the prestige that he'd found at her father's law firm.
It all made sense, after all. He'd started working for her father's firm soon after they'd met, and had been told soon after they'd married that he was on track to make partner one day.
Yes, it all made sense.
Except it didn't explain what he was doing here now, trying to get close to Sammy. Trying to get close to her.
Rebecca glanced back up at him, saw him watching her with those big, sexy brown eyes.
What did he want from her?
He tilted the drink back and let the last swallow trickle down his throat, then set the glass down on the counter.
She waited, coming closer, while he ordered another and started in on that one.
"Drinking again?" She couldn't help the bitterness that crept into her voice. They'd fought about his drinking, as well.
She'd thought he drank too much, even though she never saw any marked change in his behavior from it.
He set the glass down too hard, and the pale liquid sloshed dangerously near the top of the glass.
"Just like before?" He taunted her with it. "Just like I always did? "
"Yes."
"It's been six years, Rebecca."
So it had. But lately, it had felt like yesterday. Those times, those memories seemed so close, so vivid, both the good times and the bad.
She didn't want to relive those days, and yet here she was, so close to him, her life so tangled up in his. She didn't know how she could bear it or how she could escape from it.
He did that to her, just by being here. He didn't have to lay a hand on her. He just had to be here.
"You know," he began, drawing her back to her treacherous present, "I could hardly believe it when someone told me you raised eight million dollars for a new genetic research center at the hospital. It just doesn't sound like something the woman I used to know would be able to do. After all, you used to be nervous at the thought of giving a dinner party for six."
Yes, she had. She had always been sure that she'd never measure up. It seemed as if she'd always been trying to measure up to someone's idea of what she should be, always putting up some sort of front for someone and worried that they'd see behind it.
Well, she wasn't anymore. She'd managed, finally, to grow up.
She could organize a legion of volunteers to raise millions of dollars. She could give a dinner party for six hundred people and not break into a sweat.
She was raising a wonderful son, alone, and she made enough money to support both of them. She hadn't spent a penny of her husband's guilt-tainted child-support checks in the past four years, and she wasn't hiding from anyone anymore.
"How did you do it, Rebecca?"
She knew he wasn't talking just about the money. It was much more than that.
"You don't know me anymore, Tucker. It's been a long time. I'm not the woman I used to be."
He smiled then, really smiled, and she knew she'd given him the answer he sought.
"Exactly," he whispered, as he tilted her chin up with his fingertips and got much too close to her.
He knew exactly what that did to her, and she wished she had the strength to hide it from him.
"Then why?" he asked, so close her breath caught in her throat. "Why would you think I'm still the same man?"
She stood there, caught in his spell, with his fingertips holding her chin.
He looked down into her eyes, as sincere and as serious as she'd ever seen him, and she didn't know what to say.
She didn't know what to do. Why was he here, back in her life? And why, sometimes, did it still feel the same way it used to with him?
How could it still feel the same way after all these years?
"Tucker?" Jim Gardner, the commission chairman, slapped Tucker on the back. "Glad you finally made it."
"Me, too, Jim." Tucker shook his hand warmly. "Nice party."
"Yes, it is," Gardner told Tucker, then turned his attention to Rebecca. "And I don't have to tell you to watch out for this little lady, do I?"
"No, sir," Tucker said.
"You don't want to cross her."
"No, I don't."
Gardner smiled at Rebecca and stuck out his hand. She shook it automatically, while feeling a strange sense of foreboding. Something was about to happen, something she didn't think she was going to like.
Of course, that feeling wasn't new. She'd had it ever since Tucker called four months ago.
"So, Ms. Harwell," Gardner said, drawing out the words, "what do you think about my new attorney?"
She stared at Jim Gardner.
His attorney. That couldn't be right.
"I'm going to have to steal him away from you for a while. He's got some people to meet. All right?"
She nodded. At least, she thought she did.
Gardner turned to go, and Tucker—God, what was Tucker doing now?—brushed past her on his way to follow Gardner, and she gave a start.
"Close your mouth, Rebecca Jane." Tucker whispered it much too close to her ear.
Her face flamed, and the heat in the room was suddenly overwhelming, but she did manage to close her mouth and walk the two steps she had to take to get to the bar and lean against it. She needed all the support she could get.
She stared down at the counter. A drink was sitting there, Tucker's drink. She braced herself and took a swallow, expecting to have to choke the whiskey down.
It was cool and wet on her throat, bubbly and sweet, light with no fire.
At first she thought she'd been thrown off balance so much that she couldn't recognize the taste. She took another swallow, just to be sure.
It wasn't whiskey—not even close.
It was ginger ale.
Tucker had been drinking a glass of ginger ale.
* * *
"Rebecca?"
She slowed down, but she didn't turn around. She didn't need to. She knew the voice. It was Tucker's.
He caught up with her as she got to the top of the staircase, and put his hand at the small of her back. She felt the touch all the way down to her toes, felt that awareness that had always been there between them.
"I thought I'd come by the house tonight and get Sammy, maybe take him out for pizza."
"Fine," she said, twisting away from his touch. She didn't look at him. She wouldn't think of him. She just kept right on walking down the steps.
"You could come, too, if you like."
The hand was back. She sucked in a breath and walked faster. "No, thanks."
"I haven't told Sammy anything about this job yet. I was afraid it wouldn't work out, and I didn't want him to be disappointed."
Tucker eased a little closer. His side brushed against hers from shoulder to thigh, and she tensed even more.
Rebecca didn't want to make a scene. She couldn't handle another one with him. She just wanted to get away, so she kept on walking.
"I shouldn't have sprung this on you this way, but the whole thing came together pretty fast."
"It's all right," she said.
"I haven't even found a place to live yet."
Reb
ecca missed the next step, and would have missed the second one if Tucker hadn't caught her. As it was, he barely managed to save her from a nasty fall. He finally got a good grip on her, hauled her up against his powerful body and braced her between himself and the railing, holding her there while her head was spinning.
He hadn't found a place to live. God, where had her mind gone? He hadn't just found a new job. He'd found a reason to move back to Tallahassee.
"Are you okay?" He held her tight against him, and she couldn't move. She was incapable of it. "Rebecca?"
She stared up at him, spellbound. He was closing in on her with each passing day. She couldn't understand why, but then, she didn't expect to. She'd never understood him, and she wasn't likely to start now.
But she knew as she stared up into those beautiful, so familiar brown eyes that he was after her. He wanted her, still, and she'd never be able to run fast enough to get away from him.
"Just let me go, Tucker." She was begging, but she didn't care. Her sense of self-preservation totally outweighed her pride.
He let go finally, slowly, steadying her again as he withdrew. But she waited there, still caught up in his spell, caught up in something she'd never understand. His power wasn't in the arms that held her close. He didn't even have to touch her. All he had to do was just be in the same room, and chaos reigned all around her and inside her.
"Can't you just let me go?" she pleaded.
"No," he said forcefully, almost angrily.
He knew, as clearly as she did, that she wasn't talking about letting her make her way down the steps. She wanted him to let go of the past, to let her forget again and put it behind them for good.
"I can't," he said through a clenched jaw.
Neither could she. She couldn't deal with this, this thing she refused to even name, the thing between them that he wouldn't let go of.
"Rebecca?"
She shook her head back and forth as he came closer still, as the old familiar heat flooded her body and the memories overwhelmed her.
He didn't have to take her in his arms, didn't have to kiss her or pull her against that sleek, powerful body of his. He didn't have to do any of those things now, because he'd done them so often in the past, because the memory of his touch was something she hadn't been able to escape. It had lingered in her mind long after she believed she'd left all those feelings behind.
Sometimes it felt as if it had been yesterday—the memories were so strong. And sometimes when she lay in her lonely bed at night, when she'd been so alone for so very long, it seemed as if it had been forever since he'd touched her that way.
She wanted that touch, and yet she didn't. She longed for it, and yet she feared it.
What if all those feelings were still there, still the same, still as strong, still as all-consuming as they'd ever been? What if those feelings were still that powerful, that destructive? What if—
He kissed her then, and she didn't have to wonder anymore. Caught off guard, lost in memories that now blurred with the present, she stood there and let him touch his soft lips to hers.
Gently, yet urgently, lightly, yet demandingly, he kissed her again and again.
She never even thought to protest. She'd have time for that later, once she'd sunk even further beneath the spell he'd cast over her.
The memories and the magic swirled around her. Her lips parted willingly, and his tongue slipped inside just as her knees gave way.
He caught her against him again, between the railing and his powerful body, and she couldn't help herself.
She clung to him, kissed him back as urgently and as passionately as he kissed her. There on the stairs—she was vaguely conscious of the fact that they were on the stairs. And she remembered another time, another place, their old house, when he'd started kissing her like this on the stairs, intending to take her to bed. Except they never made it, not upstairs, not down.
Somehow—she'd never understood the logistics of it—he'd made love to her right there on the staircase. She remembered the edge of one step, hard against her back, and another against her head, remembered his body, hard and heavy, on top of her. She remembered the urgency, the naked need that had blotted out everything but their desire for each other.
She remembered it so well, and she'd felt nothing even remotely like that since.
Rebecca gasped as his lips left hers. She clung to him as the room swirled around her.
"Oh," she groaned, closing her eyes, not wanting to see the satisfaction that had to be stamped on his face.
He knew now. Her reaction to him could have left no room for doubts.
She'd told him with her body what she hadn't admitted to herself, what she'd been too afraid to admit to herself. On some very basic level, she still wanted him.
Rebecca's face burned as she looked down at the wrought-iron banister of the ornate curving staircase. They were in the middle of the city's best hotel.
She groaned again and had to force herself to look up at him.
"Let me go, Tucker," she begged.
This time, he did. She backed away from him, grateful, for now. But she knew—she could see it in his eyes—that he wouldn't let her go for long.
Rebecca turned and fled while she still had the chance.
Chapter 11
Tucker took Sammy out that evening to tell him the news—that Tucker was moving back to Tallahassee, that he'd be here all the time.
When he brought Sammy back and took the boy to his room, Rebecca hid shamelessly in the kitchen, listening for his footsteps to come down the stairs.
She knew he'd want to talk to her, and expecting it should have made it easier, but it didn't. Nothing was easy between her and Tucker.
He walked through the living room, through the dining room, and then paused to the right of the kitchen.
Rebecca swallowed hard, and her whole body tensed. Her stomach was in knots. It had been that way for months now. She felt the knots pulling tighter as she felt his eyes on her.
"You can't hide from it forever, Rebecca."
She wasn't even going to try to answer that. There was nothing she could say. And even worse, as she saw it, there was nothing she could do.
He was here for good, in her town, in her life, day in and day out, for as long as it took to get whatever he wanted this time. But what did he want? Dear God, what did he want from her?
"I think we need to talk," he said.
She didn't turn around. She didn't want to face him. She didn't want to see that look in his eyes, that glint of self-assurance. He would get what he wanted. He always did. Inside, she was screaming. What could he want from her that she hadn't already given him?
Years ago, she'd denied him nothing, given until there'd been nothing left of her to give, until he hadn't wanted anything from her anymore. Now, nothing was left.
"Rebecca?"
"Yes," she said finally.
"Putting it off won't change things."
No, it wouldn't. Not with Tucker. When he wanted something, it blinded him to everything else. And she was afraid, desperately afraid, that he wanted her.
He and Sammy had gone out for pizza. That had given Rebecca time to reflect on exactly what his move to Tallahassee would mean.
Tucker, everywhere, underfoot, all the time.
He and Sammy had grown closer and closer, and lately, she'd even stopped being afraid about that. They didn't have a typical father-son relationship yet, and she doubted they ever would. But they had something of their very own that seemed to be working for them, and it had definitely been good for Sammy.
Tucker was here to stay. She believed that. She wouldn't be able to avoid him, and she couldn't tell herself that all she had to do was hold out for a few hours or a few days until he left, because he wasn't going to leave.
So they had come to terms.
His terms, she feared. She didn't think she was strong enough to face the terms he would set, but she didn't think she could resist him, either. She was t
rapped by her own maddening, unexplainable desire for him.
She took a deep breath and started in on the conversation she'd been dreading all day.
"Why did you come back, Tucker?"
"Because I don't want to be an every-other-weekend-and-holidays kind of father."
She nodded. She believed that was part of it. Just a part.
"Because it wasn't enough to see Sammy for a day or two whenever I could get away."
He came closer. She could feel him, feel the warmth radiating from his body just behind her. Rebecca inched as close as she could get to the cabinets and stared at the fine wood grain of the oak.
"I want to be here with him, every day." His hand cupped her elbow, and she sucked in a breath. "I can't make up for all the years we were apart, but I intend to make damned sure that I don't miss anything else."
"All right," she whispered as she braced herself for the rest of it.
"And that's not all, Rebecca Jane."
She closed her eyes as the other hand came up to cup her elbow and he moved to stand right behind her. His hands barely held her there, and yet she couldn't have moved, not an inch. He'd never needed the strength of those powerful arms to hold her. His power was in his mere presence. He had a power over her that would not be denied, one that time hadn't diminished, one that even his betrayal hadn't destroyed.
He came closer still. His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at the back of her neck that had escaped from her chignon, and he set her whole body to trembling.
"We need to talk about you and me," he said, his breath warming the back of her neck.
"No," she insisted, wishing she could believe it herself.
"Yes." His arms slid around her, slowly and gently, powerfully, and he eased her back against him. He enveloped her with his warmth and his scent, with his power.
"Remember Sammy's first day of school, the emptiness we talked about, the loneliness? I've been empty inside, Rebecca. I've been searching and searching forever, and there was just nothing that came close to filling that awful emptiness inside me."
She was afraid he was going to kiss her then. She felt his breath warming her neck. But he didn't kiss her. He just nuzzled her with his nose, teasing her, tantalizing her so gently.
