by Hill, Teresa
"Excuse me?" said a young man as he hesitantly stepped into the fray. "Mr. Malloy, the chairman's ready to begin now, and we need you."
Tucker glared at Brian and clenched his fist.
Rebecca laid her hand on his arm, the muscle tight with tension.
"We'll be right there, Andy," Tucker said, putting his hand on top of Rebecca's as he turned to face her. "I told you three days ago that we had some other things to talk about it. Well, it's going to have to wait a little while longer. I've got to get into this meeting."
"Okay," she said, still feeling the chill.
Tucker turned and left.
Rebecca watched him go, then turned back to Brian. She was torn—didn't know which way to turn. She wanted to know what they were talking about, yet she didn't. She wanted to talk to Brian, to try to make some peace with him, yet she didn't see how they could.
"I... I need to get in there. It's the bottling plant... "
"I'll go with you," he said.
Rebecca steeled herself for more trouble, but walked into the meeting room beside him. They managed to find two seats together near the back of the room just as the chairman rapped twice with the gavel to start the meeting.
Brian rested his arm on the back of Rebecca's seat, and his touch made her almost as uncomfortable as the look in Tucker's eyes as he stared at Brian from across the room.
"Tell me you're not going back to him, Rebecca," Brian whispered, too close to her left ear.
She looked up, caught Tucker's eye. How could a woman want something so badly and be so frightened of it at the same time?
"I don't know what I'm going to do," she told Brian.
"Are you insane, Rebecca? You can't trust the man—"
"Wait a minute," she said. "What's going on up front?"
A few of the commission members looked quite annoyed. Tucker stood before the chairman, answering his questions.
"We all came here to take a final vote on this project today," Jim Gardner told Tucker.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. We're just not prepared to proceed right now. We've just been given some new information that has a direct bearing on the case, and we need time before we can give the commission our legal opinion on this project."
Rebecca had Brian on one side and David Wilkins from the Sierra Club on the other. "What the hell is he doing?" they both asked her.
"I don't know," she said.
The commissioners called upon Tucker to explain himself more, but they didn't get a lot out of him.
And the more Rebecca heard, the worse she felt. What in the world was he doing? She'd talked to him last night about the hearing, and he'd told her he felt good about their chances of winning.
Of course, the bottling company would likely appeal in court, but that would take months, probably years, and anything could happen to stop the project in that time.
So what was he doing now?
"I told you that you can't trust him," Brian said.
She didn't say anything to that. She couldn't, because she worried about that very thing herself.
"He's going to roll over on this permit, isn't he?" Brian continued.
"No, he's not," she insisted, wishing she had no doubts herself.
The chairman's gavel fell, adjourning the meeting for thirty minutes or so while they waited for the parties in the next appeal to arrive.
Half a dozen more people came up to Rebecca to ask her what Tucker was doing, but she couldn't help them.
Tucker brushed his way past a couple of reporters—as close-mouthed with them as he had been in front of the commission—then made his way over to Rebecca.
"Let's talk in my office," he said, taking her by the elbow and propelling her through the crowd. "You coming?" he said over his shoulder to Brian.
"No," Brian quickly replied.
Tucker marched down the hall with Rebecca to his office, closed the door behind them and pointed her toward the love seat. He pulled a chair up to sit directly in front of her.
She had trouble meeting his eyes. She looked everywhere except at him, until she had nowhere else to look.
He looked troubled, guilty even, and she dreaded what was coming.
"God, just tell me," she said finally.
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his head bent down looking at his hands. He took her hands in his and held them there between them.
"We have to talk about Cheryl Atkinson."
"No, we don't," Rebecca said, desperate to avoid that subject.
"Rebecca." He held on to her hands and wouldn't let go. "She's going to walk into that meeting room any minute now. She just signed on to represent a company with an item that's next up on our agenda."
Tucker winced at the look in her eyes. He remembered that look. She'd looked just like this the day she walked into his office and found him in Cheryl's arms.
And in that instant, as he'd watched her eyes, he'd had an awful, sinking feeling that he'd made a terrible mistake, one he couldn't take back and couldn't make up for, no matter what he did.
It had all seemed so simple at the time, and it seemed so stupid now, so cowardly.
How could he make her understand?
"Rebecca—"
She jerked her hands out of his. "I don't want to see her."
"I wish you didn't ever have to," he said sincerely.
"So I could forget? Is that what you mean? Do you have any idea how many times I saw the two of you together in my own mind?"
"I'm pretty sure I do. I spent a helluva lot of time torturing myself by imagining you in bed with Brian." And wasn't that a special kind of hell on earth? Even though it was one of his own making.
"I was never in his bed until after you left me. And this isn't about me. It's about you. Have you been seeing her, too?"
"No." He exploded with it, then regretted it instantly.
"But you came here knowing she was still here, that you'd be working with her."
"I didn't even know she was still in town. It didn't occur to me to ask, because she was the furthest thing from my mind when I came back here. All I was thinking about was you. You and Sammy."
"But you didn't always feel that way, did you?"
Rebecca had slid over to the corner of the love seat, as far away from him as she could get, and she was shaking.
Tucker wanted to go to her, wanted to take her in his arms, but he didn't think she'd let him touch her. He stood up and walked to the window, shoved his hands into his pockets and looked out at the dreary, rain-soaked day.
It was November. Christmas would be here soon, and he'd hoped they would all spend this Christmas together, their first ever.
But right now, he felt it all slipping through his fingers.
"That's what we need to talk about, Rebecca. It was a setup. I knew you were coming to the office that day, and I set you up to find us together."
He turned away from the window so that he could see her face. She didn't believe him. Hell, at times he'd had trouble believing it himself .
"How can you expect me to believe that?" she said. "Why would you want me to find you with another woman?"
"Because of how badly our marriage was going. I didn't think it was going to last—"
"So you found another woman? Rather than just tell me you were done? You expect me to believe that—"
"And because of Brian. He said he still loved you. He wanted to marry you. He was willing to be a father to Sammy, and I thought he'd be a better one than I could ever be." Tucker struggled with the admission, even now, after all this time. "I believed he was going to be everything I couldn't be. I believed he would give you and Sammy all the things I couldn't give you."
"What?" she said.
"I heard the two of you in the garden at your parents' house, that day he came back to town. You couldn't tell him that you didn't love him anymore, and you sure as hell weren't happy with me."
She shook her head. "What are you getting at, Tucker?"
"I heard Brian
was thinking of leaving town, and I didn't see any way that you and I were going to make our marriage work."
"Go on," she said hesitantly.
"We had a child to think about, and I kept seeing myself, my parents and the bitterness and anger and uncertainty." He paused, trying to make some sense out of his jumbled thoughts, knowing that he wasn't explaining himself well, if there was a way to explain it well.
"Rebecca, I'm not proud of what I did, and I'm not trying to say it was the right thing to do or that I did it all for you and Sammy. If I could take it back—if any of us could ever change anything we've done, but I can't."
"Can't take back what?"
"I made a deal with Brian."
There, he'd finally said it. And he wasn't sure if it would help or if it would hurt, but it was the truth. He'd promised himself that he would be honest with her, no matter how much it hurt.
"You did what?" Rebecca turned white.
Tucker swallowed hard and made himself continue. "I knew there was no way our marriage would survive. I knew Brian loved you. So I made a deal with him."
"I told him that I would get out of your life, yours and Sammy's, totally, if he still wanted to marry you and if he promised to love Sammy like he would his own son."
Rebecca laughed, an out-of-control sound that held no merriment. "I... I can't believe this."
"Ask Brian. He'll tell you. Or your mother. If she hasn't known all along, she's at least suspected."
"No," she said. "I didn't mean that I think you're lying about it now. I mean—I just can't believe this. Are you telling me that you weren't having an affair with Cheryl Atkinson?"
"I never touched her until that day at the office. I swear it. She was just there, Rebecca. She was available and more than willing."
Rebecca stared down at her hands, clenched in her lap. "And Brian went along with this?"
"He didn't know what I was going to do. Hell, I didn't know myself until Cheryl showed up at my office that day, and I knew you'd be coming by to see your father and that you'd probably stop by my office to say hello. I knew if you saw us together, if I let you think... I knew that would be the end of it for you and Brian would be there to pick up the pieces."
"And Brian went along with it?"
"I think he would have done anything to get you back."
Just as Tucker would do anything right now to get her to come back to him.
And now he wondered if he'd waited too late to tell her this. But it was only lately that he thought he had a chance to get her back. He'd been trying to figure out how to tell her, and he'd been hoping he could put it off just a little while longer to give her some time to learn to trust him again.
But now it had all blown up in his face.
"Rebecca, I'm not trying to make this out to be some noble thing I did. I swear, I honestly wanted you and Sammy to be happy, and I thought you would be with Brian. But at the same time, I was a coward, and this looked like the easy way out, a way to ease my conscience just a little for making such a damned mess of our lives."
"Do you think that you—"
Someone knocked on the closed door, and Tucker wanted to scream in frustration. He needed more time. He had a lot of other things he wanted to say to her, and if he quit now, he was afraid he might never get that chance.
"Mr. Malloy?" The knock sounded again.
Reluctantly, Tucker went to the door and opened it. "Yes, Andy?"
"The chairman's calling the meeting back to order."
"I'll be right there." Tucker turned back to Rebecca, watched her as she sat there white-faced and refused to meet his eyes. "Rebecca, this won't take long. Please don't leave."
She peeked at him, then looked away without saying a word. No promises there.
Tucker took a deep breath and walked down the hall. He met Brian halfway and wondered if he would lose his job if he decked the man in the hallway.
Probably.
And Rebecca would probably be mad as hell about it.
Plus half the town would be talking about it come morning.
"Damn you," Tucker said as he shouldered his way past the man.
And he damned himself while he was at it.
* * *
Rebecca sat in Tucker's office, wondering how long it would be before she stopped shaking just thinking about that horrible day when she'd known, absolutely, her marriage was over.
She had never wanted to think about it, had done her best to avoid the whole subject since Tucker had come back.
How many surprises did he have left for her? "Rebecca?"
She looked up to find Brian in the doorway.
"He told you, didn't he?"
"Yes."
Brian came in and closed the door. "Let me—"
Rebecca slapped him on the cheek, surprising him at least as much as she surprised herself. She was horrified, actually, at herself.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry, too."
"I mean about everything."
"Me, too."
Rebecca looked at him, looked hard and wondered why she couldn't have just loved him, why she couldn't have married him years ago and been happy with him.
"I wish—"
"There's nothing left to say, Brian."
He nodded slowly, and he didn't try to stop her when she walked out the door.
Chapter 17
Rebecca brooded all evening, then decided she wanted to talk to Tucker. So she bundled up a sleepy Sammy and took him to her parents' to spend the night.
She paused after closing the front door to her parents' house and looked over at the garage and the apartment where Tucker was staying.
Now that she was here, she could see his car was missing and no lights were on at the apartment.
She walked around the house to the patio, then out among the roses in the garden. The last ones of the season were in full bloom.
Rebecca bent over one peach-colored bloom and inhaled deeply, remembering the scent, remembering the day when Brian had returned home to find her married, pregnant and miserable with her husband.
She looked back toward the house, with its darkened windows and doors, and wondered where Tucker had been standing when he'd heard Brian say that he loved her and wanted her back.
And she wondered what she would have done if Tucker had simply asked her what she wanted to do. If he had offered her a choice—him or Brian—instead of making that choice for her.
She wasn't sure about then, but now, knowing what she did after years spent trying to be happy with Brian, she knew what she should have done.
She should have stayed with her husband. Maybe they would have made it, and maybe they wouldn't have. If they hadn't, it wouldn't have been all Tucker's fault. Rebecca had been so young, insecure, overwhelmed by her powerful, self-assured husband.
Most of all, she'd never felt quite secure in his love, never understood why he'd chosen her, and always wondered when he'd see for himself that he'd made a mistake.
So she hadn't been very surprised to find him with Cheryl Atkinson that day. It had confirmed every insecurity she'd ever had.
Rebecca shook her head as if to clear it of the memories. She looked up at the moon, at the starlit sky, and told herself that it was time, once and for all, to look ahead and not behind her.
She wasn't that young, insecure girl anymore.
And Tucker wasn't the same man, either. She believed that.
She'd gone back into the commission's chambers and watched him arguing his case. He was so calm, so self-assured, so passionate about it all.
And she'd been proud of him and of the work he was doing. She'd never felt that before about his work.
And she loved watching him with Sammy. They were still a little unsure of each other, still a little wary, but there was a bond. There was love between them, and it grew stronger every day.
Rebecca wondered now if...
She turned at the sound of a car driving up and got a funny, fluttery feelin
g in her chest.
The door slammed, then footsteps sounded on the driveway and the steps leading up to Tucker's apartment.
Time to face him.
Time to face up to her feelings and decide what she was going to do.
* * *
Tucker was taking off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt when he heard a knock at the door.
"Rebecca?" He went still for a minute when he saw her. He would swear that his heart lurched to a halt, then started pounding twice as fast as it should.
He turned away, left her there in the open door, because he was aching to touch her, aching to pull her close and tell her one more time that he loved her.
What if he never got to do that again?
This afternoon—that whole scene had shaken him badly, and he knew it had shaken her. He had a feeling he was about to find out how much.
"Come on in," he said over his shoulder. "I thought that was your car in the driveway. Everything all right with your parents?"
"Yes," she said softly. "I left Sammy over there because I wanted to talk to you."
His heart stopped again. He couldn't bring himself to look at her because he could always see so much of what was in her heart in the expression on her face.
And he was scared of what was in her heart now.
Tucker closed his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets. God, he wanted this woman back.
"Rebecca, I'm so sorry about that scene at the office today."
"I know."
"I wish I'd told you the whole thing sooner, but... I just wanted some time. I wanted us to have some time together." He waited, knowing that whatever came out of their conversation tonight would rock his world.
"I wish you'd told me six years ago," she said.
He turned to face her at that, seeing less of her feelings than he expected in her big green eyes. Or maybe she was getting better at hiding them from him.
"I wish I'd never done any of that in the first place," he said. "If I could take it back. If I could have been a better man, a better husband, from day one... God, I wish I could."
She walked a little further inside the room, which was crowded now, even with the little bit of furniture he'd brought.
He didn't care. He hadn't expected to spend that much time here.
