by Liz Flaherty
“Two reasons. One, we’re by ourselves, so I knew I wasn’t going to be letting any cats out of any secret bags—Carson won’t say a word. Two, because something is different. I don’t know what it is, but I imagine—and hope—it has to do with Tucker.”
“It does,” Libby admitted. “He knows now, and he says it’s okay. But I don’t want him to spend his life pulling me off that ledge you mentioned.” She chuckled drily. “Remember that pact I told you about? I was the one who wanted adventure, not him. I’m just not ready to subject anyone else to the viper, especially someone I—” she hesitated “—love. Someone I love.”
Carson got demanding then, and Libby handed him over to be fed.
“So, will you stay tonight?” asked Alice. “We could talk about what you just said.”
“No. I’m going to the beach for a few days. I want to see Nate and Mandy’s house, and I have some thinking to do. Including about what I just said.” She needed to talk to Venus for a bit, too.
Libby smiled, feeling lighter somehow after what she’d just shared.
* * *
“YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY useless this week.” Jack stood in his office, hands on his hips, and glared at Tucker. “You’re better at meetings than I’ll be if we live to be a hundred, and yet you completely blew that one for the simple reason that you weren’t listening. Do you have anything even close to a viable explanation?”
Tucker would have responded in kind except that his brother was absolutely right, and, no, he didn’t have an explanation, viable or otherwise.
“I’ll tell you what—” Jack smiled his thanks when the office manager brought in a carafe of fresh coffee and two cups. “Patty, you probably just saved his life.”
“That’s what I was hoping for,” she said, grinning at them both. “Even if he is useless, which the whole office staff heard you say, we like him.”
“I like him, too,” said Jack, “but don’t let that get around.”
When the door closed behind her, Tucker reached for the cup of coffee Jack poured and said, “What were you about to tell me?”
“That if you’re real nice to Patty, she’ll probably get you a ticket to Wilmington and you’ll get there in time to ride home with Libby.”
When Tucker started to answer, Jack talked over him. “I’m not being completely unselfish when I say that. The truth is that Arlie’s worried sick about Libby, although I’m not sure why, and since our wedding is coming in a little over a week, the last thing I want is for Arlie to be worried about anything. The other truth is that I’m a little worried about you, too. You haven’t exactly poured your heart out to me, for which I’m grateful, but you’ve been both grumpy and stupid ever since Libby left the other day. What that means is, if you make sure she’s all right, we won’t have to worry about either of you.”
“She’s all right.” He hoped. His phone hadn’t rung in the middle of the night, and their texts had been brief but reassuring. They’d shared jokes and early morning temperatures and messages from the Parsonses and Nate. Still, he kept hoping for a Wish you were here, which hadn’t happened yet. “But I’ll go.”
He reached for the phone on Jack’s desk and dialed the office manager. “Hey, Patty?” He listened for a few minutes and hung up laughing. “Not that my life is an open book or anything, but the plane leaves Indy at 4:35 and I should hurry. She’s already printed out my boarding pass.”
By nine o’clock that night, he was in a motel on Topsail Island—Patty had taken care of that, too. Since he hadn’t let Nate know he was coming, he hadn’t wanted to show up at his house, although he’d fed the address into the GPS and driven past it. No lights had been burning. He started to text Libby to let her know he was there but changed his mind. Saying he’d give her time to think and then reneging on it probably wasn’t the best way to make a sweeping right turn in a relationship.
He fell asleep easily, which was unusual for him in a motel room, but the sound of the waves was a powerful lullaby.
He didn’t know what time it was when the phone rang, but when he said, “Hello,” she didn’t answer.
* * *
SHE COULDN’T SLEEP even though she’d been in bed for at least a half hour. She was sweaty in her short cotton nightgown under the expensive pearl-gray sheets, even in the cool guest room of Nate and Mandy’s house.
The last week had been...whoa, something. Libby had agreed to sell her business. She’d spent time on the farm where she grew up that had left her with a vague longing she couldn’t quite identify. She’d taken a road trip by herself and spent hours sitting and staring at an ocean—something she’d never done before but had loved every minute of.
She’d thought about her future. And feared it. Although she’d always liked being single, it wasn’t how she wanted to spend the rest of her life. She was done dating nice men like Jim Wilson who didn’t want a committed relationship. Or men without jobs or cars or ambition to have either.
She was more tired than usual. That must have been what was disturbing her on this peaceful night in this beautiful place. It explained why she couldn’t settle into the comfortable bed in the guest room. It certainly didn’t have to do with the last evening she’d spent with Tucker. With the kisses and caresses that even now sent shivers of longing racing through her. It wasn’t the memory of the words he’d spoken that were both a balm to her broken spirit and a whole bucket of hope that perhaps she could love a man without ruining his life. She wasn’t used to buckets of hope. Too much of the time, she wasn’t used to hope at all.
But she’d never fallen in love with her best friend before. She’d never heard him say he loved her, too—at least not the way he’d said it while he was holding her and kissing her until they were both light-headed.
With the bucketful of hope that was keeping her awake, she dared to consider something else: maybe she could even have children. Alice had done it. Ellen Curtis had done it. Most mothers weren’t perfect, were they? Although Crystal and Gianna had come close.
She would marry Tucker if that was what he wanted. They’d have four bedrooms and two baths and a little boy with blue eyes and blond hair they would name Curtis to keep Tuck’s mother’s maiden name in the family. If they had a little girl, they could call her Crystal, or maybe Darby—Libby had always loved Tucker’s middle name. Maybe they could adopt children, too. That had been what she’d wanted back in her slumber-party days—a houseful. Having one nice but very quiet brother had made her long for more siblings. She’d relished the noise of the Gallagher house. She’d love to have it in a home of her own.
The waves crashed below, soothing and ultimately cooling. She held tight to the hope as she fell asleep.
It had been weeks since she’d had the dream. The bad one when she knew she was dreaming but couldn’t escape it. She’d been in England with Tucker the last time, and what a comfort it had been to be brought to wakefulness by her own real-life hero wearing flannel pajama pants.
She’d been vigilant about her medications since then, other than the blip when the tornado came through and left her life flat and shattered in its wake. Although she’d often felt close to that edge she’d talked about, her sleep had been largely undisturbed. The viper had indeed been more like a storm in a teacup for a while.
So why was it happening now, when she could hear and even smell the sea? She could, and yet...and yet there was her mother, so silent and still there in the dining room of the farmhouse, where she’d slept in a rented hospital bed. She was smiling a little, but her hands were cold where they rested on the covers. Libby had tried to wake her then. She tried to wake her now. Don’t go, Mom. Please don’t go. When Jesse came into the house in the dream, he knew Libby had failed to take care of their mother. Her father stayed in the barn because he knew it, too.
Then it was the accident. The bright lights and the screaming and Libby tr
ying to shout, Dave, watch out, watch out. But she was too late, always too late.
The barn appeared in the vision she knew was a dream but couldn’t escape. Tall and painted white instead of the red it was now, it didn’t look threatening at all that morning. The grass was green and the scent of spring was in the air, even stronger than that of the sea as she walked toward the big building to start the morning milking. She didn’t like April, but it was a beautiful morning. She stopped to pick a few of the golden daffodils that lined the driveway, taking time to scratch the barn kittens under their fuzzy chins. They followed her to the big doors, tumbling about her feet.
Libby tried to stop the girl in the dream, screaming Don’t go in at the top of her voice. Experience had taught her that her dream voice wasn’t loud at all, but still she tried. Her throat hurt with the effort.
The dream always ended then, with her a trembling mess of quiet hysteria reaching for her phone, but this time was different. This night at the beach, the freight-train sound of a tornado drowned out the omnipresent music of the sea. She reached, trying to find Pretty Boy and Elijah, then remembered they weren’t there because she was only dreaming. She would wake up soon, whether she wanted to or not.
And the bucket of hope would be empty.
She didn’t mean to dial his number, but since she had, she’d wait for his voice mail to pick up so she could hear his voice. Even that helped; it was always a calm in her personal storm. She wondered, lying there with her head and her heart both thumping so loud they were physically painful, if this was how Alice had felt when she called the suicide hotline the night Dan answered.
Tucker’s line didn’t go to voice mail. Instead, he answered, his voice low and sleepy. “Hello?”
She didn’t say anything, just waited breathlessly for him to hang up.
“Hey,” he said after a moment, sounding more wide-awake. “I’ll be right there.”
And he was, meeting her on the house’s front porch and hugging her hard before they went down to the shore, their hands together.
An hour later, he’d seen her at her absolute worst, because now besides the agony of heart attack symptoms, panic and wishing death upon herself, she cried, too. Which was all his fault—he’d made her break her no-tears rule.
She had done it all in the presence of someone whose respect and affection she never wanted to lose. Not only was her secret out, but it was all the way out. It was dark and messy and scary, a trip through hell she’d never wanted anyone to travel with her.
When the attack was over, which didn’t take as long as it felt, they sat silent and wrung out on the dark beach. The waves still crashed and sang merry tunes into the night.
She got up from the sand, moving to his other side and sitting back down. He wouldn’t be able to hear her over the roar of the ocean if she sat on the side of his deaf ear.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper because her throat still hurt. She leaned close so that her mouth was near his ear. “I never wanted you to see me like that. It doesn’t happen often, but I can’t always foresee it. Sometimes the viper just sneaks in without warning and I become this crazy person.” She hated admitting it, just as she’d hated telling him the secret in the first place. Her thought found voice. “I hate this. It’s as if now that you know the worst about me, that’s what I am. I’m not good old Lib anymore—I’m just a friend you have who’s defined and controlled by clinical depression and its ugly stepbrother, anxiety.”
He turned his head just enough to look at her from the corner of his eye. And wink.
She grinned back at him, although it shocked her. What could possibly be funny on this night?
He put his arm around her, tucking her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “Do you think less of me because I can’t hear out of my left ear?” he asked. “You’ve been making allowances for it ever since it happened. My guess is you never even think about it. You just do it. Right?”
She nodded.
“Even though I’m somewhat controlled by this partial deafness? I’m not really your best friend after all, you know, just a guy with limited hearing and beautiful eyes.” He hugged her closer and kissed the top of her head. “Not to mention probably the sexiest body on the lake.”
She drew back to meet his eyes, rejoicing in the laughter she saw there. “Did you really just say that out loud?”
“I did.” He grinned. “But we can keep it to ourselves.” He brought her up close, his lips capturing hers. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, Llewellyn.” She threaded her hands through his hair. Thick and smooth and shaggy, it needed cutting. She loved it that way. “How did you know?” He would understand her question. She didn’t need to spell it out any more than that.
He hesitated. “I’d love to say I had some kind of sixth sense about you or that I knew in my heart when you needed me, but it wouldn’t be true. Arlie was worried and I was driving Jack crazy, so he sent me after you.”
She gaped at him, widening her eyes in pseudo-shock. “You mean I was giving you credit for all kinds of intuitive powers you don’t have? Why, I am so disappointed.”
He laughed and pushed himself to his feet, pulling her up after him. “What a whopper. You’ve always known you were the intuitive half of the Worth-Llewellyn combination. You’ve even referred to me as a brick wall a few times, if I remember right.”
“Oh, at least a few.”
He took her into his arms, fitting her in close so that no empty spaces remained between them. “I’m an unintuitive class clown who can’t cook unless you count stopping at the bakery or calling out for pizza. You skate better than I do, swim better—you even walk on ice better. Probably if we had a flat tire, you’d change it better than I would. You’re the best friend anyone ever had.” He let go with one hand long enough to point at the sky. “I can never find Venus, so I need you to show her to me every day for the rest of my life. In return—”
He stopped to kiss her, and she thought that she mustn’t ever again think about dying, because heaven was wherever he was.
“In return?” she whispered when the kiss ended. She opened her eyes and looked into his.
“In return, I’ll always answer the phone. I’ll always show up. Just like Jack and I are equal partners at work, I’ll be equal partners with you in life. None of this fifty-fifty stuff. I want a hundred-hundred and I want it with you. I will love you every day, every minute of the rest of our lives, and I will always, always be your best friend.”
“What about the days one of us doesn’t have a hundred to give?” she asked. “Times like tonight when I had nothing. Times like when you slide right under the car on the ice.”
“Then we’ll help each other up, won’t we? Every time. And we’ll be back to a hundred-hundred in no time.”
She had to force herself to breathe. Was this really happening? “There’s one more thing.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Kids. At least two or three. Possibly four. What do you say about that?”
“Maybe one more bedroom and one more bathroom when we build that house back there by the creek on your farm.” His palms shaped her cheeks, his fingers finding her hairline and stroking gently. “What do you say, good old Lib? Want to extend the adventure pact into a lifetime plan?”
She slid her arms around his neck and rose to her bare toes in the sand. “I do.”
And overhead, Venus beamed.
* * * * *
If you fell in love with Libby and Tucker, don’t miss these stories from USA TODAY bestselling author Liz Flaherty.
BACK TO MCGUFFEY’S
EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE
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A Gift for Santa
by Beth Carpenter
CHAPTER ONE
Twenty-four days till Christmas
NO SNOW. No Uncle Oliver. Even the reindeer weren’t cooperating. Instead of following the others out, Peppermint pawed at the floor of the trailer and shook her head, jingling the bells on her harness.
Marissa scratched the hairy diva’s forehead and spoke in a low voice. “Come on, girl. You’ll have fun. Think of all those kids so excited to ride behind a real live reindeer.” She patted Peppermint’s neck until she seemed calm. “Let’s go. Your public awaits.” She gave a little tug on the lead, and with a toss of her antlers, the reindeer trip-trapped down the ramp. Her snort formed a cloud of white vapor in the icy air.
