All of Me

by Lori Wilde

  But even if it doesn’t work out between you two, I do know that you have found your way to Salvation.

  With all my endearing love,

  Blake

  DURING INTERMISSION, Tuck wandered out into the lobby, his mind still on Jillian. He’d barely even noticed the actors on the stage.

  A group of young tween girls were chatting avidly about the musical, but Tuck didn’t pay much attention to them—that is, until he heard a familiar voice urging the girls to hurry and down their refreshments before the curtain went up on the final act.

  His head jerked up, and he glanced over to see Aimee’s mother, Margery, ushering her charges toward their seats. Their eyes met.

  “Tuck,” she said, and broke into an instant smile. “I didn’t know you were back in Manhattan. Why didn’t you give me a call?”

  Without even knowing he was going to say it, Tuck said, “I … I don’t know what I’m doing here, Margery.”

  She looked around him. “You’re alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Girls, go on back to your seats. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Giggling, the girls took off.

  “Sorry,” Margery said, drawing closer to him. “Field trip.”

  “You’re still teaching at Andover?”

  “In a Manning building,” she said, referring to the classrooms he’d built in Albany. “I’m so happy you’re back. You’ve been grieving too long. It’s time to share your gift with the world again.”

  They stood in awkward silence, theater patrons pushing past them, headed back to the auditorium. She took his elbow and pulled him out of the flow of traffic.

  “I miss her, Margery.”

  “I know you do, Tuck. I miss her, too, but you’ve got to move on. Are you dating anyone?”

  He thought of Jillian, shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “There was someone,” he said. “But I blew it. I …”

  She squeezed his forearm. “Are you in love with this woman?”

  Miserably, he nodded. “I tried not to fall in love with her. I felt like I was cheating on Aimee. I came to the city. I wanted to start over, but …” He swept his hand at the theater. “I came here because she loves Les Miz like I do. I didn’t know they were having a revival.”

  “Aimee hated Les Miz,” Margery said. “She hated musicals. Loved plays, though.”

  “I know.”

  Another awkward pause.

  “Look, Tuck. You’re only thirty. You can spend the rest of your life grieving. If you’ve found someone, embrace it. Aimee would understand. If the roles were reversed, you’d want her to find love again, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, sure.”

  “Okay, then.” Margery smiled softly. “I’ve got to get back to my girls, and you need to get back to … what’s her name?”

  “Jillian Samuels.”

  “Oh.” She sounded surprised. “Blake’s surrogate daughter?”

  “You know about Jillian?”

  Margery nodded. “I suppose there’s a kind of poetic justice to it.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “Honey,” Margery said, “when you get to be my age, you realize how truly rare unconditional love is, and when you can find it, you grab it with both hands. You have my blessings, and I believe you have Aimee’s as well.”

  Tuck went back into the theater for the last act, but he couldn’t concentrate on the story. All he could do was think of Jillian and how damned much he missed her. Margery was right. He was wrong.

  How had he been so blind as to throw away love? It was such a rare and precious thing. He’d been damned lucky to have a second chance at it, and he’d just walked away.

  Proud, stubborn, scared.

  Yeah. he was scared. That’s why he’d run. Terrified that if he dared love Jillian, he’d lose her the way he lost Aimee.

  So what are you going to do about it? Stay here cowering or do something to show Jillian how much you love her?

  Once the thought popped into his head, Tuck knew exactly what he had to do before he could return to her. He jumped up and ran from the theater, his heart pounding with hope.

  Tuck ran down the street, dodging foot traffic, bent on finding a store that sold the highest grade mahogany in town.

  THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, as they were waiting in the lobby of the expensive, hot-shot Fifth Avenue fertility specialist’s office, Ridley opened the sack containing Evie’s Christmas present. He felt compelled to give it to her here, and Ridley was not a man who ignored his instincts.

  She was leafing through a baby magazine and paused to look over at him. “Are you finally going to tell me what you’ve got in the bag?”

  “It’s the reason Tuck’s in New York.”

  “What?” She put down the magazine.

  “I asked Tuck to make it for your Christmas present. Steve saw it when they came over for Thanksgiving and insisted on showing it to some art dealers in town. They went ape over it, and now Tuck’s been commissioned to make a boatload of them. That’s why he came back to Manhattan. The magic is back. What’s in the box is bedazzling people the way his classrooms did.”

  “And you’re just now telling me this?”

  “I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.” Ridley took the music box wrapped in green foil from the sack and passed it to her. “Open it.”

  Evie eyed her husband, wondering what in the world was going on. Things had been up and down with them, mainly because her emotions had been on a roller coaster. Ridley rolled with the punches, but sometimes he’d escape to the sweat lodge, and then she’d feel guilty for running him off with her fears.

  “Babe, I just want you to know that whatever happens in there”—he nodded toward the doctor’s office door—“I love you and I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

  “Thank you. That means the world to me.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Open the package.”

  A sweet, unexpected giddiness enveloped her, and she realized it had been a long time since she’d felt truly happy. She felt it now, in the squeeze of her husband’s hand.

  Evie undid the bow, lifted up the tape, slid the foil wrapping off. She opened the lid, and when she spied the cradle, her heart flip-flopped. “Oh my. This is so beautiful.”

  She lifted out the music box, watched the cradle rock. The carvings were intricate, delicate, sublime. “Tuck did this?”

  Ridley nodded. “Your brother is an artist. He shouldn’t be wasting his time making cabinets for tract homes. Steve feels the same way. It’s why he brought him back to New York.”

  She opened the music box, and it began to play “Faith.” Several people in the waiting room looked over at them.

  “You gotta have faith, babe,” Ridley whispered. “Faith in us. Faith in me. Faith in the baby who’s coming our way.”

  Her nose clogged with tears. “Oh, Ridley, you’re the best husband any woman could ask for.”

  “Mrs. Red Deer?” called the office nurse, dressed in cool, sage green scrubs, from the doorway. “We’re ready for you now.”

  She handed the music box back to Ridley, and he stowed it in the sack. It was still playing “Faith,” as the nurse led them to the examination room.

  The nurse asked Ridley to wait in the hallway while Evie got undressed and the nurse put her legs in the stirrups, covered her with a sheet, and let Ridley come into the room. He perched his big body on the thin-legged chair beside the examination table. Evie saw on his face that he was as worried as she.

  “It’s gonna be okay. We’ve got each other.”

  She nodded.

  The door opened. The specialist came in. He introduced himself. Shook Ridley’s hand. Then all business, he donned gloves, sat on the rolling stool, and went down at the end of the table to perform a pelvic exam on Evie while he questioned them about their fertility status.

  Evie told him everything they’d tried. “We’re desperate, Doctor,” she admitted. “You’re our
last hope.”

  The specialist finished the exam, put the sheet back in place, snapped off the rubber gloves, and stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Red Deer. I can’t help you.”

  Despair unlike anything she’d ever felt swallowed Evie up whole. It was over. The dream she’d dared to dream. The vision quest was right. She had no eggs left in her basket. From the sack on the floor, the music box dinged one lone note of “Faith” and then fell silent.

  Where the hell did faith get you? Sorrow stomped on her soul.

  Ridley got to his feet, hands clenched at his sides. “Why not? What’s wrong? Why can’t you help us have a baby?”

  “Because.” The doctor’s eyes met Evie’s and he smiled. “You’re already pregnant.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  On Christmas Eve, it took every ounce of courage Jillian possessed to drive herself up to Thunder Mountain for Bill and Lily’s wedding. But once she was there, she had to admit it was a beautiful location for the ceremony, and it was the perfect time of year to get married at a ski resort.

  The lights were beautiful, the decorations festive. Lily was breathtaking in her white floor-length wedding dress, carrying a bouquet of white calla lilies as her father escorted her down the aisle of the intimate chapel.

  Then Jillian looked up and saw him.

  Tuck.

  She rubbed her eyes, sure it was a mirage, but no. There was Tuck in what looked like the tux he wore on the cover of Architectural Digest. The Magic Man of Manhattan. He must have gotten her message that Sutter had found the lake house deed.

  This is just like When Harry Met Sally, she thought absurdly. Except in When Harry Met Sally, they got together in the end. She was holding out no such hope for herself and Tuck.

  Most of the town of Salvation was at the reception that followed. Evie and Ridley were there as well, Ridley strutting like the proud papa-to-be that he was. They’d celebrated Christmas early with Evie’s family, then flown home to break the good news of Evie’s pregnancy to Ridley’s folks and the rest of Salvation.

  Jillian ended up seated at a table with Sutter Godfrey and his wife. The meal was pleasant. She ate without tasting it. The tables were cleared, the band started playing, and the bride and groom had their first dance. She hadn’t spotted Tuck in the crowded dining room, and she was wondering if he’d already left when her cell phone rang. She took it out of her purse.

  Sutter frowned at her. “It’s bad manners to take a cell phone call at the table.”

  “You’re right,” she said, and got up to walk toward the alcove.

  That’s when she saw him and lost her breath. “Hello,” she whispered into the cell phone, her eyes on tuxedoed Tuck with his cell phone to his ear.

  “Hello, Sally,” he said.

  Her heart fluttered. “Why, hi there, Harry.”

  “You’re looking quite beautiful.”

  “Not so shabby yourself. You clean up quite nicely.” She walked toward him.

  His grin reeled her in.

  She shut her phone.

  He held out his hand. “Care to dance?”

  She was going to tell him no; she meant to tell him no, but then the band started playing “Do You Believe in Magic” and she just said, “I’d love to.”

  Tuck swept her onto the dance floor, his hand wrapped securely around her waist.

  “I had no idea you were such a good dancer, Magic Man.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself, Queenie.”

  “Did you slip the band a twenty to play this song?”

  “It was a hundred.”

  “Big spender.”

  He spun her around the floor, then pulled her up close against him. “Nothing’s too good for my girl.”

  “Your girl? Since when am I your girl?”

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  Oh, how she wanted to hope. But she was so scared, so afraid to take that leap of faith.

  “Please,” he said. “I have a special Christmas present just for you.”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “You did a number on me before.”

  He looked contrite. “Come on, Sally. Harry admits he behaved like a complete putz.”

  “Putz is putting it nicely,” she said.

  “Okay, I acted like a jerk.”

  “Just a jerk?”

  “An ass. I was an ass.”

  She nodded. “True enough. What happened to your big career in Manhattan?”

  “Mistake.”

  “How do you know this isn’t the mistake?”

  His eyes darkened. “Being with you was never a mistake.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” she said lightly, but her heart was strumming. “The way you ran out of the bedroom on me that night during the blizzard.”

  “Forget putz, forget jerk, forget ass. I was a total chicken-shit tool.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I was scared, Jillian.”

  “And I wasn’t?”

  “You’re gonna make me work for this, aren’t you?”

  “No one appreciates that which comes easily,” she teased.

  “Then you, Queenie, are supremely appreciated.”

  “That’s all I needed to hear.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he bent to kiss her. The minute their lips touched, she burst into flames of sexual delight. No way could she drag this out, even if she was having fun sassing him. All she wanted was to make love to him again.

  “You know,” he said, “they’re giving sleigh rides around the resort.”

  “Really?”

  “That sound like something you’d be interested in?”

  “I might be persuaded.”

  Tuck escorted her out of the reception hall and led her outside, where the horse-drawn sleighs were waiting along with wool blankets and complimentary wassail. A valet also handed Tuck a box wrapped with silver paper and a bright blue foil bow.

  Once they were away from the hubbub of the wedding celebration, he handed it to Jillian. “Your Christmas present.”

  “I … I didn’t get you anything.”

  “You danced with me. You’re on the sleigh with me. You’re hearing me out. Those are the only gifts I need.”

  Sleigh bells on the horse jingled. The air smelled of snow and pinecones. The heat from Jillian’s body warmed him from the outside in.

  “Tuck …”

  “Go ahead. Open it.”

  She unwrapped the package, took the lid off the box, and sucked in her breath.

  “I made it myself,” he said.

  “Oh, Tuck.” Tears shone in her eyes as she took the tackle box, made from mahogany wood but painted pink with yellow daisies stenciled on it. Just like the tackle box her daddy had given her.

  “Undo the clasps.”

  She opened the metal clasps, and when she lifted the lid, it started to play “Do You Believe in Magic?” “A music box tackle box?”

  “Do you like it?”

  She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand.

  “Jillian?” Sudden panic clutched him. She was trembling, and he was terrified she felt cornered. It was the last thing Tuck wanted to make her feel.

  “It’s the most wonderful present I’ve ever gotten,” she sobbed. “Oh dammit, Tuck, you’ve made me bawl.”

  He pulled a clean tissue from his pocket and passed it to her. She dabbed at her eyes. “What’s this all about? What happened? What changed?”

  “After we made love and I ran out on you—because I couldn’t deal with the depth of my feelings—I understood you were right that day when you accused me of being an underachiever. I had used Aimee’s illness as an excuse to escape my sudden celebrity. I realized that I had to face my past and deal with it before I could come to you free and ready to love again.”

  “And?”

  He took her hand in his, squeezed it tight. “I tried to forget you. I fought to deny we were fated. I told myself it wasn’t logical. I’d already had my one great romance, and lightning doesn’t strike
twice, but, Jillian, it did. It has.”

  “What are you saying, Tuck?”

  “I had a vision of you,” he admitted. “In a dream. In Ridley’s sweat lodge. Long before we ever met.”

  Jillian’s eyes widened. He was confessing it to her.

  “It sounds stupid now, hearing myself saying it, but it’s true. It was the night of the second anniversary of Aimee’s death, and I was torn up.”

  He told her then what happened. How he’d fallen into the lake. How Ridley had rescued him and shoved him freezing wet into the sweat lodge and made him get naked and breathe smoke and take a vision quest.

  “I saw you first in the dream and then we met,” he said.

  Tuck was afraid she was going to tell him he was nuts. Terrified she was going to tell the driver to stop the sleigh and walk off without him. Especially when he saw her trembling. He’d made a big mistake. He shouldn’t have told her any of this. It was crazy; he knew it sounded nuts, but it was the truth, and he needed her to know why he felt the way he did.

  “Jillian.” He reached out to touch her shoulder. “Am I freaking you out?”

  She shook her head and smiled at him through the mist of tears. Her lips parted. “I saw you too.”

  The breath fled from his lungs. “What?”

  She nodded and then told him a fantastic story about a magic wedding veil.

  “I didn’t think you believed in stuff like that … I thought …”

  “I always wanted to believe,” she whispered, “but I was so scared to believe in case it wasn’t real.”

  “I’m real,” he said, and pulled her into his arms. “And I’m here.”

  “Oh, Tuck.”

  “I never thought I’d feel the magic again. I thought one shot at love was all you got in life. I held on to Aimee too long. I know that. I also know she’d want me to be happy. To love again. To have a family.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m tired of being among the walking wounded. You made me come alive again, Queenie. You challenged me, you nurtured me, you stood up for me. Even though you never said it, you showed me exactly how much you loved me. You make me want to be the man you see in me. You saved me, Jillian. In more ways than you can ever know.”