A broken arm and a broken leg. Various cuts and bruises…
But he would be okay. She’d known it when she talked to Tucker. Still, it had been necessary to see for herself, to get here as fast as she could and hold him in her aching arms.
He would be all right…
And he was squirming in her hold. “Okay, Mom. Don’t strangle me.”
Knowing she couldn’t hold on forever, she let him go. “Oh.” She whipped a tissue out of the box on the bed tray and blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes. “Just look at you…”
“Aw, Mom…”
She noticed Tucker then, as he swept to his feet from the chair in the corner.
Tucker. Just the sight of him broke her heart anew. He looked like a man who’d seen death coming at him with grasping, greedy arms. She glanced at their battered little boy and supposed it was no surprise that his father was a wreck.
“I’ll be in the waiting room.” He was at the door in two long strides—and gone before she could think of what to say to him.
And by then, Brody was chattering away between sips of the orange juice one of the nurses must have brought him. He showed her the straw. “Sweet, huh? With a bend in the middle? I like a flex straw. I really do.” She pulled the chair over beside him and dropped into it and listened to him tell her how he hadn’t really gone beyond the driveway. Not on purpose, anyway. “But I got to the end of it and I was going a little bit too fast and I couldn’t stop in time and this lady in this great, big SUV came down the road and—bam—she got me.” He groaned. “Oh, Mom. Did it hurt. And that poor lady, Mrs. Martino, I felt real sorry for her. She was scared that she’d killed me or something. But I told her, ‘I’m okay. But my arm doesn’t work and my leg really hurts and I think you better get me to the hospital now.’ So I made her get out her cell phone. She was, you know, really freaking. I made her dial nine-one-one. And then, after that, I gave her Dad’s number and told her to her call him.”
“Good thinking,” Lori said, beaming through a fresh flood of tears.
Brody played with his straw and took a sip and then set it down on the tray. “Mom. I’m sorry. I know I was going too fast. I know I wasn’t careful.”
She gave him her most serious expression and she nodded, slowly. “That’s right. You weren’t.”
“I’ll never do something like that again. I promise.”
“Good,” she said, though she was thinking that it was probably the kind of promise a ten-year-old boy would have a hard time keeping. There would be more cuts and scrapes and bruises. That was part of being a kid. She only prayed that there would never again be anything so scary she had to break every speed limit in Texas getting to his side.
Brody leaned back against the fat white pillow. His eyes were drooping. She realized that they would have given him something for the pain, something that seemed to be catching up with him now. “I’m not gonna play soccer this year, am I?”
“There’s always next year.”
He almost smiled. “I knew you’d say that—and I feel kinda tired, you know?”
She nodded, put her hand on his forehead, felt the warmth and the velvety smoothness of his skin. “Rest, then.”
“Mom…” He crooked a finger—on the hand that wasn’t half-covered by a cast. She leaned in closer. He whispered, “You’d better go deal with Dad, I think. He’s pretty crazed about this whole thing.”
Tucker jumped from the waiting room chair at the sight of her. And then he just stood there, hanging his golden head, the picture of misery and raging guilt.
He started accusing himself. “Lori. What can I tell you? It’s all my fault, I know that. I know you blame me. And you’re right—right to blame me. I hardly even looked up when he said he was going out to ride that bike. I just waved him away and—”
“Stop.”
He hung his head even lower, big shoulders slumping. “Yeah. Okay. I know. You don’t want to hear it. And I don’t see why you should.”
A sweet-looking white-haired lady sat nearby, knitting—or at least, she had been knitting, before she got interested in watching Tucker beat himself up.
Lori stepped a little closer to him. Gently, she took his hand. He stiffened—and then he grabbed on tight. “Let’s go outside,” she said.
He looked at her then. She saw the dawning of hope in his beautiful eyes. “Yeah. Okay. Outside…”
They found a bench in the shadows on the side of the building, around from the main entrance, next to a big planter full of bright pink and purple impatiens.
The second they were seated, Tucker started in on himself again. “I should have been paying more attention. He went out and I—”
“Tucker.”
He let out a hard breath. “What?”
“You did nothing wrong. And there’s no reason to blame yourself. He’s ten years old. You can’t watch him every moment. He knew to stay away from the road. He just admitted to me that he wasn’t careful. And he wasn’t.”
“But I—”
She dared to reach out, to press her fingers to his lips. She broke the tender contact almost instantly, but still, she felt the fire, the little surge of magical heat that passed between them whenever they touched. “Listen. Are you listening?” He gulped and nodded. “It’s not your fault. Accidents happen sometimes. And we can thank the good Lord that all Brody’s got from this one is a couple of broken bones. We can tell him to be more careful. And after this, I’ll bet he will be. But don’t even think that I blame you, because I don’t.”
Tucker stared at her—well, gaped, was more the word for it. “You mean that? You’re not blaming me?”
“Of course not.” She scooted closer, close enough to nudge his shoulder with her own. “He’s going to be okay.” She faked a gruff voice. “So lighten up.”
He shut his eyes, whispered, “Lori…”
Something in his tone made her heartbeat quicken. “Yeah?” She hardly dared to breathe.
He leaned back on the bench, tipped his head up, and looked at the darkening sky above. “I never knew my father. But still, I hated him. I swore I’d never be like him—making kids all over the damn place. And then just walking away. That’s why I’ve been so furious at you, I think. Not because you never managed to track me down and tell me that I had a son. But because the way it turned out, I’m just like my own dad. I got you pregnant. And then I was gone.”
“You didn’t walk away from Brody, Tucker. You had no choice. I gave you none.”
He took his gaze off the sky then, and looked at her squarely. “It all worked out, though, didn’t it?”
“Oh, I’d like to think that it did.”
“Yeah. It did work out. I got away from the Junction. And then I got to choose to come home. And you gave my son a good father while I was gone—a man who really loved you the way you deserve to be loved. A man who took care of you, of both of you, better than I could have at the time. And now, here you are, beside me, and all I can think of is that all that—what you did, what I didn’t do. None of that matters. All I can think is that we should be together, now. That you’re the only woman for me and you always have been. And that, as far as forgiveness goes, well, if you need to hear me say it, I do forgive you. But right now, I can’t see that there’s anything to forgive.” He took her hand once more. “Lori. I love you.”
She felt the tears welling again, and gently swiped them away. “Oh. I’m so glad.”
“Do you remember that first night you and Brody came out to the ranch?”
“Yes. Yes, of course I do.”
“That night, I tried to tell you something—something so important.”
“But I wouldn’t let you. I couldn’t. Not then.”
“Can you let me tell you now?”
She had to swipe more tears away. “Yes. Oh, yes. I can.”
“Lori. That first day you came back to town, when I saw you getting out of that fine silver car, I thought, There. Right there. At last. Now I know the reason I came
back to my hometown.” He hooked an arm around her and pulled her close. “You’re the reason, Lori. It’s you. Always. You.”
“Oh, Tucker. I do love you so.”
“Marry me. Move back here, to the Junction—or if you don’t want that, we can—”
She touched his mouth again. “Shh. I’d love to move back home and live at the ranch with you and Brody. That works for me. And my sister will plan our wedding. How else could it be? And I’m thinking that I want to go back to school, get a business degree. But these days, you can do that online, so that should be no problem at all.” She beamed up at him. “Kiss me. Do it now.”
He chuckled. “You haven’t said yes yet.”
“Oh, Tucker. I’ve been saying yes for weeks now. And finally. At last. You are hearing me.” She twined her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth.
And he kissed her. A kiss of passion and commitment. Of love and forgiveness. A kiss rich with the promise of all the days to come—their days, together. At last.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6225-0
LORI’S LITTLE SECRET
Copyright © 2005 by Christine Rimmer
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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