The Happiness Pact

by Liz Flaherty

  “I know.”

  Thirty minutes later, she clutched his arm inside the basket of the hot air balloon. “Oh, Tuck, it’s wonderful.” She leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I love you.”

  If she could have taken back the words in that instant, she would have, because they didn’t mean the same thing they had all the times she’d said them before. When it had been purely friendship, before hormones and her heart had made themselves known.

  He laughed, tucking his arm around her. “I know.”

  She relaxed in the casual embrace. Of course he knew, just as she knew he loved her. The deep affection had been there between them all their lives and she hoped it would be there forever. Soon, she would convince herself it was enough. Soon.

  But not yet.

  “I’ve never heard this kind of silence.” She held on to the side of the wicker basket with her free hand and leaned over its edge, no longer the least bit afraid. “Oh, look at the fields. There’s the back of the farm down by the creek, my favorite place ever. And there’s Sycamore Hill. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a whole field full of grape arbors? Dad would hate that part of the farm became a winery, but Mom would love it—you can see it right through the kitchen window at the house.” She beamed at the pilot. “Thank you for bringing me up here.” She pointed. “There’s Miniagua. You can see the whole lake from here. How big is it?”

  “Six hundred acres.”

  “Oh. I knew that.” Everyone did. It was in all the tourism pamphlets free for the taking in every business in town, including her own. With businesses named after songwriter Cole Porter, who grew up in nearby Peru, Lake Miniagua’s six hundred acres is a utopian oasis here in central Indiana.

  The silence was like a magnet, and she settled into it. Is this what death is like? Beautiful and silent and fearless.

  It was the closest she’d felt to her mother since the day she died. You’re okay, aren’t you? The peace of knowing the answer to that made Libby smile and close her eyes and rest her head against Tucker’s shoulder, feeling the crisp cloth of his suit jacket against her cheek. What about me, Mom? Do you think I’ll be okay?

  There was no answer forthcoming, and she didn’t expect one. Even when she talked to Venus, she didn’t get any answers. It was enough, right then, to feel close to Crystal in the soaring musical silence of the sky and to lean into the warmth and affection that was Tucker Llewellyn. It was a grand adventure.

  All too soon, the balloon wafted its way toward the ground, chased by the van from the fairgrounds.

  The sun was setting over the lake when they drove back to Seven Pillars. The radio played quietly, and Tucker sang along. Libby watched the red ball sink through the streaky sky into the lake.

  “I think that’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” she said when he pulled into an angled parking place in front of the tearoom.

  “The sunset? It was a beauty.”

  “No.” She touched his arm, feeling its strength. “I’m talking about the ride. Seeing the sky on an adventure with my best friend.” She leaned over, brushing his lips lightly with hers.

  He turned his head before she could draw away, capturing her mouth with his and keeping it, teasing and whispering wordlessly, coaxing the kiss to a deeper, warmer place. His breath was a mixture of mint and coffee, and his arms slipped around her. This wasn’t a best-friends hug or a comfort hug or a hold-each-other-up-when-they-were-laughing hug—no, it was a man holding a woman, and there weren’t any words there in that cramped Camaro to describe just how good it felt.

  Libby had no idea how long the kiss lasted. She only knew that when it ended she wanted more, and she leaned in so that their lips met and clung again. Her heartbeat thumped hard, keeping time with his. “Tuck.”

  She drew away, but she didn’t want to. Oh, dear God, she didn’t want to. But they couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this. Tucker wanted to be a husband and a dad. He wanted to have a wife who would be there with and for him forever and ever.

  There would be no forever and ever for Libby Worth. She knew that as surely as that glorious red sun had set over the lake. Because as splendid as tonight’s adventure had been and as much joy as she’d felt in having her mother close in her heart, the viper was still nipping at her heels. It was coming closer and closer, and rather than give in to it and suffer depression’s tenacious grip, she would find the peace of that silence in the sky.

  “We can’t.” She made her voice firm.

  “I know.” He let her go, but his hand slipped through her hair, catching on the band that held her braid. “Sometime, though, we need to think about how strange the reason is that we can’t.”

  “What do you mean?” She frowned and tried not to think about kissing him again.

  “We can’t because neither of us wants anything more in the world than for the other one to be happy.” He pushed her hair back, his thumb catching in her hoop earring. “We both know we’d make each other miserable. If we were in our twenties, maybe we could make it work, but we don’t have all that much time at this point to make our dreams work together. The thing with kids is just too big, and it’s not something that calls for compromise. You can’t have half a kid.”

  She nodded agreement. As reasons went, that was at the top of the list. At least the heart she was trying to convince to stick to friendship understood that particular issue. But it still ached.

  He stopped at the Hall to change into a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops before he took her home, picking up pizza and bread sticks on the way.

  “You don’t have to help clean,” she insisted as they stepped inside the tearoom.

  “Sure I do.” He set the pizza box on the table under the front window and went to get plates, forks and napkins from the buffet near the kitchen door. “You can bake while I mop floors.” He grinned at her, accepting the beer and glass she handed him. “It will keep us from getting too used to high adventure.”

  She sat across from him. “So how’s it going with Sandy?” The idea of him with a woman other than herself created a sinking sensation inside, but that wasn’t something she was prepared to think about. The kisses in his car had been...well, pretty wonderful. But they’d also been a mistake, one they shouldn’t make again.

  “It’s not.”

  She’d lost track of the conversation. What was he talking about?

  “She’ll go back to Wisconsin at the end of the week, and I doubt we’ll keep in touch.”

  Oh. Sandy. Libby didn’t like herself for the nudge of pleasure his words gave her, but she still felt it.

  He took a bite of pizza, gazing moodily at the cold fireplace. “I don’t know why I’m sizing up every woman I meet as a potential wife. It’s not that I hate being single. I don’t. Maybe I should just let it go at that. I could even adopt kids as a single dad. Jack has been a good one—he could give me lessons.”

  She watched him, wondering at the melancholy in his expression. He wasn’t usually sad. “You’d be a great dad.”

  He smiled at her, holding her gaze. “You’re biased, I think.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  He finished his beer. “You’d be a great mom, too, you know.”

  She thought fleetingly of Kendall Williams. “Actually, I’d be a better aunt, so go ahead and adopt those kids you were talking about. Speaking of which, what do you think’s going on with Holly and my brother? They’re both super touchy, and Jess is even more clammed up than usual.”

  Tuck looked around the deserted room as if to make sure no one could hear him. “All I know is that Jack mentioned Holly’s name on poker night and Jess jumped right down his throat, so I just looked innocent and won seven bucks from your brother on the next hand. That tells me something was definitely on his mind, because I never win when Jesse plays.”

  “Sounds intere
sting. I’ll have to talk to Arlie when Holly’s not around.” She finished her second piece of pizza and looked regretfully at a third one that was calling her name. Maybe after she got the rolls in the oven...

  “I tried doing that with Jack on the way home from playing cards. He told me to butt out.”

  “Arlie probably will, too, but since Jess is my brother, she’ll probably say it in sweeter words.” She got up to head for the kitchen. “If you don’t want to help me, it’s okay. I can mop while the dough rises.”

  He pushed back from the table. “Or you can mix up the second batch.”

  It was peaceful, being in Seven Pillars alone with Tucker. They were in separate rooms, but they could both hear the music playing softly over the sound system. When they knew the words, they sang along; when they didn’t, they faked it and sang along anyway, their laughter at each other’s attempts at lyrics floating between the rooms.

  The rolls were in the oven when the floors were done. Libby went into the dining room to help set the chairs back on the hardwood. “Thank you for doing this.” She smiled, turning to him. “Thanks for every...” Her voice faded away, because he wasn’t standing near the door with his keys in his hand. He was standing right there, so close she could feel the heat of him.

  “Maybe,” he said, “it’s time we went on another real date. What do you think?”

  What she thought was that if she went on even one “real date” with Tucker Llewellyn, she was asking to have her heart broken.

  And even worse was the chance that she might break his.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “SO, LLEWELLYN, THIS is your idea of a real date? It’s no wonder I can’t find you a wife. I’m surprised I even found anyone who’d go out with you twice.” Libby hefted a case of canned goods into the back of a pickup and hoisted herself onto the tailgate behind it. A tearing sound reminded her of the fact that she’d worn her very newest dress pants, the ones she’d never worn in the tearoom. She hadn’t thought, when she got dressed, that she’d be spending the day riding around in the back of a truck while gale-force winds did their level best to blow central Indiana off the map.

  “The spring food drive has been on the third Saturday in April for as long as there’s been a lake association. The post office has theirs in May. You’re as guilty of forgetting it as I am.” Tucker stacked a milk crate full of boxes of cereal on top of her canned goods and sat beside her, thumping the truck bed with his knuckles to let his brother know he could take off again. When Jack pulled away with a jerk, Tucker clamped his arm around Libby to keep her from sliding off the end of the tailgate. “Can we get arrested for riding back here?”

  “Probably, if the wind doesn’t blow us into the lake first. Is jail the next stop on our date?” She smiled sweetly at him. “I know you like to go all out.”

  “Might be. You never can tell.”

  At the next stop, they picked up two rusted cans of Vienna sausages and a box of cereal that had already been opened. They rolled their eyes at each other and poured the cereal out on the roadside, inviting the birds to dine. The rusty cans went into a trash bag. The next house, belonging to an elderly couple known to be generous during trick-or-treating, netted twelve packages of multicolor marshmallow treats, a case of tomato juice and two bottles of Sycamore Hill wine with a note stipulating it was for “you sweet young people who volunteer.”

  “Maybe this isn’t so bad as dates go.” Libby reached for one of the packages of marshmallows and got her hand slapped for the effort.

  By the time the annual food drive was done and the local food pantries had been filled, they were both dirty and exhausted. At the clubhouse at the lake, they ordered in pizza and ate dinner, complete with wine, with the rest of the volunteers. After that, they dropped the borrowed pickup off at the dealership in Sawyer.

  “We can make the late movie,” said Tucker, “and it’s one we’d both like. Want to go?”

  Was he out of his mind? Libby was filthy, her pants were torn and she’d dribbled pizza sauce down the front of her sweater. Her hair, which had looked pretty good when he picked her up, had been riding in the back of a pickup all day and looked like it. Her makeup was just gone.

  There could be no doubt about it. He’d completely lost it.

  “I’ll buy, and you can have popcorn and as big a drink as you want.” He grinned at her. “It’ll be almost as much fun as going off the road in the snow or pulling a calf.”

  “Have I told you recently that you’re out of your mind?”

  “On a daily basis, I think.”

  “Okay.”

  When they got to the theater, they were blessedly late, which meant they’d miss the blaring previews of coming attractions. No one would see them skulk into the theater except the cashiers.

  When Tucker handed over his debit card, the machine wouldn’t take it. It didn’t like it the second or third times around, either. Libby thought if the machine could have rolled its eyes and called him a loser, it would have. Gleefully, she told him so.

  He ignored her and scrounged through his wallet in search of cash or a credit card. He found three dollars and a rewards card from the gas station at the lake.

  “Man,” said the kid behind the counter, whose mother worked at the plant, “I am so sorry, Mr. Llewellyn. The machine has been weird all night, but your card is the first one it completely refused to take. I know you’re good for it, though.”

  Libby dug her wallet from the very bottom of her too-large purse, smiling conspiratorially at the teenager. “I’ve been out with this guy before—I’m not sure you should count on him being good for it.” She handed over cash that had been earmarked for the collection plate at church—she hoped they could find an ATM that was working. Once they had their tickets, she picked up their popcorn and he grabbed their drinks. “At least this time you didn’t try to convince the kid you’re too young to attend an R-rated movie.”

  “I didn’t tell him you were old enough for the senior discount, either. You should thank me.” Tuck bumped her shoulder gently with his. “That twenty-seven minutes counts, you know.”

  “You really are a loser, aren’t you?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’ve always liked that about you.”

  “Thought so.”

  The movie was probably good. Libby couldn’t have said, because as soon as the popcorn was eaten and the soda cup empty, she fell asleep, with the sweet warm feel of Tucker’s sweater against her cheek. She woke when the lights came on, the top of her head coming in sharp contact with his chin as she straightened.

  “Libby?” he murmured drowsily, putting his hand on her arm when she was halfway up so that she fell back into her seat.

  She pushed him away. “What?” She didn’t care at all that she sounded grumpy. She was grumpy. And sleepy. And probably a few more of the Seven Dwarfs while she was at it.

  As if on cue, she sneezed. One more dwarf added to the count.

  He handed her an unused napkin. “This means we’ve slept together. We either have to get married or I’ll need to kill Jess before he kills me.”

  She scowled at him. “Neither of those works for me. Let’s go before they call the police on us for loitering. We were only one step ahead of them this afternoon when we were riding around in the back of that truck, remember?”

  The wind nearly blew them off their feet when they stepped out the doors of the theater. Libby, searching in her bag for the house keys she knew were buried down there with her wallet, lost her balance and stumbled against the side of the building.

  “Whoa!” Tucker grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the car. “Are there any storm warnings tonight? This wind is fierce.”

  “We’ve been together all day,” she reminded him. “I haven’t heard anything you haven’t.”

  They drove
around the lake going home, talking about everything and nothing. They discussed stopping at the Grill but went back to Libby’s instead to sit on the porch off her living room with cups of hot chocolate and watch the clouds make fierce paths through the sky. Pretty Boy lay at their feet and Elijah curled up in Tucker’s lap, his nose tucked into his tail.

  “You’re feeling restless, aren’t you?” Libby searched out his gaze and held it. “Are you tired of being in one place?”

  “No.” The answer came without hesitation, but he didn’t look surprised by her question. “I know this won’t come as a surprise to you, but I’m sort of a spoiled guy. I haven’t had to wait very often for things that I wanted, although trying to rebuild a relationship with my brother required patience I didn’t know I had. When I decided I wanted the whole marriage, house and family thing, I thought it would be easy.”

  She’d thought it would be, too. He was a kind and handsome man, generous to a fault, who’d never had trouble attracting women. While he’d never been particularly good at long romantic relationships—Libby could count them on less than one hand even if she started the count in the seventh grade—the women he’d loved were still his friends. She’d thought when he decided on permanency, someone wonderful would appear like a genie from a bottle.

  He smiled, hooking little fingers with her. “Especially with the person who knows me better than anyone helping in the search. But I think maybe I underestimated my own dream. I’ve been looking at Jack and Arlie together. I watch this great new thing going on between Holly and Jesse. And Nate—have you ever seen him so pumped in all the years we’ve known him?”

  “Never.” She smiled back at him, but sadness settled like a weight on her chest. “It’ll happen, Tuck.”

  When it did, where would Libby be? Would she be his kids’ favorite aunt, the one who bought the best presents and knew the most about the stars even if she was afraid of bats? What if his wife was resentful that Tucker’s buddy was a woman and wanted to push the friendship far back into the couple’s locker, only to be brought out for occasions like baby showers and parties where Libby brought her own date.