by Amy Andrews
“I was going to buy it from Amazon, but then I thought I’d rather be able to hold it, you know? Check out what was on the market. So I went to Frieda’s Palace one day, and if that wasn’t the most entertaining hour of my life, I don’t know what was. Some of those dildos were really quite grotesque.”
As she stared at the object again, Della’s mind boggled.
“The way I figure it,” Rosemary continued, “if there’s no one around to take care of my needs, why not take care of it myself? You think your sex drive dies when your husband does or because you get old? It doesn’t. Gotta admit, it was MIA for a good while, but it came back.”
Considering Della’s sex drive had only just made itself known, she was fascinated by this insight. And…hopeful. If Rosemary Forbes was still a sexual being in her eighties, maybe Della had plenty of years left to make up for lost time.
“Well…good for you,” she said, nodding at the older woman.
A faint “Dellllaaaa?” drifted in from outside.
She gave Rosemary a quick smile. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go.” Remembering she still hadn’t retrieved the flashlight, Della reached into the drawer again and pulled it out, freeing it from the ledge at the back where it had been caught. She tossed it on the bed next to the rabbit.
“They look weirdly related, don’t they?” Rosemary mused.
Della laughed. In fact, Rosemary’s observation put a smile on her face all damn day.
Her smile dimmed gradually as she waited for Arlo to arrive home from work that night. He’d texted to let her know he was going to be late and to go ahead and eat without him, which she’d done, but it was after eight and she worried about the icy roads. Arlo was a cop. That wasn’t without its dangers. There wasn’t a lot of criminal action in Credence, Colorado, but she knew Arlo would protect this town and its citizens with his life if that’s what was required.
Not a lot of jobs asked for that kind of sacrifice. And she hadn’t had her brother for that long.
She was relieved when he finally walked through the door fifteen minutes later and mollified further by the two slices of Annie’s cobbler he’d brought home with him. Annie’s diner was an institution in Credence, and her cobbler had been known to make grown men weep.
Arlo sat in his recliner, which was positioned next to Della’s. They were black leather, separated by a small low table where the remotes usually lived, and faced a massive television screen currently on CNN. She wasn’t sure if she was Joey or Chandler in this scenario, but Arlo’s house was very single-male-apartment-circa-1990.
Handing Della her cobbler and a spoon, he said, “Something’s come up with work, and I won’t be able to take you to Denver on Friday.”
Normally, Arlo took her for her therapy sessions and they made a whole day of it. He’d take her to see Dr. Sanchez, and then they’d visit a gallery or a museum or take in a movie. A couple of times, they’d caught a football game or taken a drive into the mountains. Then they usually stayed the night at Wade Carter’s swanky apartment and came home the next morning.
On the occasions that Arlo couldn’t get away from work, Della caught the bus to Denver in the morning and home again in the afternoon. But this Friday, she was going on a date, and she’d decided to sit on that news until Friday morning. Arlo was being very circumspect about the whole Tinder thing, but she knew he was anxious about her taking her first baby steps toward independence, so she hadn’t seen the point in worrying him until absolutely necessary.
She’d abdicated her safety, protection, and well-being to Arlo three years ago, a responsibility that, thanks to his sense of duty, he’d taken seriously.
But now she was taking them back.
“That’s fine. I can get the bus.” She’d just catch it home Saturday morning.
“Actually, Tucker’s heading to Denver Friday morning. He said he can take you if you want?”
“Oh.” The spoon loaded with cobbler paused halfway to her mouth.
That was unexpected. She’d never ridden in a car with Tucker. Hell, she’d never ridden in a car with any man other than her father, her husband, or her brother. Della suppressed an eye roll—it sounded like she’d been raised in a cult.
She’d ridden with Molly and Marley, and occasionally she caught a ride with Ruth, one of her work friends, to the old folks’ home, but ugh. Depressed, she spooned in the cobbler.
Cobbler made everything better.
“That’s okay, isn’t it?” Arlo asked. “You don’t have to. You can still take the bus. I just thought, since he was going…”
Of course. It made perfect sense. That’s what folks in small towns did—they helped each other out. But… “I think I will. Tucker doesn’t need a tagalong, and I was going to stay overnight. I’ve already checked with CC about using their apartment.”
It was Arlo’s turn to oh. “Oh. Is there a movie you wanted to see?”
“No.” Della drew in a steadying breath as her heart crawled up her chest and lodged in her throat. “I’m going on a date Friday night.”
Della gave her brother full marks for the effort it must have taken for him to gently ease the spoon into the bowl. It was only because she’d come to know him so well that she saw the telltale whitening at the angle of his jaw.
“You found a match?”
“His name’s Cody. He’s twenty-six, from Denver, and he works for the city, fixing potholes.” And because Arlo looked as if he was about to ask for Cody’s criminal history, she rushed to reassure him. “It’s fine, Arlo. We’ve been chatting, and he seems really nice.”
“And does this Cody have a last name?”
Della rolled her eyes and gave him a rueful smile. “So you can run him through a database or two?”
He shrugged. “Just a precaution.”
“Arlo.”
“Okay.” Her brother stood, placing the cobbler on the low table between their chairs. He ran a hand over his buzz cut—he did that a lot when he was thinking. “Let me make some calls, shuffle some things around. I’m sure I’ll be able to rearrange Friday so I can take you.”
“No, Arlo.” Della also stood and placed her cobbler down. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a date.”
“I know.” He nodded. “But…I can be moral support. Everyone needs some of that for a first date.”
Della somehow doubted big-tough-guy cops needed moral support, and the last thing she needed was Arlo lurking outside the windows in a full metal jacket, scaring the crap out of Cody.
“No.” She shook her head. “You have a job to do. You can’t keep rearranging your life because of me.”
“You know that’s not a problem. I told you when you first came to live with me that I’d make up for not being there for you.”
“Arlo…you didn’t even know I existed.”
“But I should have.”
The guilt in his voice slayed her every time. Did he really think she held him responsible for what had happened to her? A long-lost brother who hadn’t even heard of her until three years ago? How could she blame him for a life that was not of his—or her, for that matter—making? Arlo hadn’t known he had a sister until his father’s death, and he’d set out to find her right away. He’d had no way of knowing what he’d stumble across.
He had to stop with the guilt.
“Okay, I’ll go with Tucker.” It was a snap decision, not particularly well thought through, but she didn’t want things to fall on Arlo again. His shoulders were big, but even he must need a break from carrying all that responsibility. “He can be my moral support.”
Della had no idea if Tucker was staying overnight or doing a day trip, and she doubted he’d be thrilled by her volunteering him for this job, but if Arlo felt better about her going on a Tinder date with some kind of support person in place, then she’d happily comply.
He had an important job with big respon
sibilities—the least she could do was not add to his burden of stress. And Tucker was definitely the lesser of the two evils. Arlo going all RoboCop was a distinct possibility. Tucker would be far cooler. And if that meant she had to spend three hours in a confined space with a guy she had a secret crush on, then so be it.
The suggestion was met with instant obvious approval. “Yeah? Tucker’s a good choice, and I’d be less…”
Della knew he was going to say worried even though he didn’t finish his sentence, so she smiled at him reassuringly. He’d been patient with her for three long years. She could be patient with him. She was going on a date—a freaking date—with a guy. In a restaurant. In Denver. That’s all that mattered right now.
Not the inconvenience of having a…chaperone. A chaperone who looked at her like she was a particularly uninteresting piece of furniture.
“I’ll see what his plans are tomorrow and work something out for Friday,” Della said. “Now can we eat this cobbler already?”
Arlo grinned. “It’d be a sin against cobbler not to.”
…
Friday morning, with the scent of cupcakes—for fuck’s sake, why did she smell like cupcakes?—infusing the cab of his truck, Tucker wondered what he’d ever done to deserve this kind of sweet torture. Not only was he taking Della to Denver, but he was staying the night with her in Wade’s apartment.
He hadn’t been an angel, but he always remembered his momma’s birthday and called her every other week. He worked hard, had never been in trouble with the law, and was a good friend. He paid his taxes, and he voted. Granted, he had gone through a period of mild pyromania the summer he turned twelve, but it’d only been an apple box or two, and what guy hadn’t?
“I really am sorry about this,” Della apologized for the third time. “I don’t need a babysitter, but I don’t want Arlo to worry about me, either.”
Tucker forced a casual, careless shrug as his stomach growled. For cupcakes. “It’s fine. Your brother’s going to take a little time to adjust to Della two point oh.”
She turned her head and smiled at him. Her face lighting up kicked him straight in the center of his chest. “Two point oh,” she said, rolling it around her mouth as if savoring it. “I like that. Sounds like a woman who can do anything.”
He nodded. “I have zero doubts that you can do whatever you set your mind to.” A woman who’d come out the other side of what she’d been through could accomplish anything. “What do you want to do?”
She turned slightly in her seat to face him, and Tucker really wished she hadn’t. She’d been distracting enough in his peripheral vision, when she hadn’t been staring right at him, but with her eyes firmly trained on his profile, warmth flooded his body.
The good kind. Or not, in this particular case. Because this was Della.
“I want to become a nurse. And I want to travel. I want to go to Disneyland, and I want to see Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon and Washington. I want to go to Australia and London and Transylvania. I want to…invent something. I don’t know what or if that’s even possible, but I want to be known for something, you know? And I want a dog.”
Tucker’s fingers flexed around the steering wheel. Her hair was stuffed in a knitted cap, and she was wearing no makeup, jeans two sizes too big, and the most bulky, unfashionable sweater in the history of crappy sweaters that should be consigned to the trash. But to hear her talk so passionately was like a shot of testosterone direct to his testicles.
“And I want to go there.”
She pointed out his window, and Tucker glanced in the direction of her finger. It was Frieda’s Palace. Of course. Because the universe was deciding now to punish him for those apple boxes. As if the heady distraction of cupcakes wasn’t dire enough.
The shop in question was hard to miss, what with the giant revolving condom gyrating on the roof. At night, it was lit in neon. Many a complaint had been filed about the offending item over the years, but, thus far, none had been successful in getting it removed.
“Frieda’s?”
“Yeah. You ever been there?”
Tucker shook his head. “Nope.”
She laughed sweet and low. “Oh, come on, I heard it was some kind of rite of passage for every teen boy in Credence to go to Frieda’s and buy condoms.”
It was. Or it had been, anyway. But there was no way he was getting into a conversation with Della about condoms or sex shops. “I wouldn’t know. I was too busy reading my Bible like a good Christian boy.”
Her laughter this time was more like a hoot—big and full—and Tucker couldn’t help but smile in response. “Good Christian boy, huh?”
“Yes ma’am.”
She quirked an eyebrow at him, a smile still playing on the corners of her mouth. “So…you’ve never been in a sex shop?”
Tucker sighed, resigning himself to the topic. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah…that’s what I figured, Bible boy.” She grinned. “So, you’re familiar with the layout of this kind of shop, then?”
Familiar with the layout? “Jesus, Della. I don’t exactly go all the time.”
“But you know the kind of things they sell.”
To say Tucker was uncomfortable with this conversation was putting it mildly. He’d rather be zipped in a tent with a skunk. “Well, yeah…” He wouldn’t say he was a goddamn connoisseur, though.
“Good. You can give me a tour.”
Tucker turned, gaping at her. “What?” He stared at her for a second or two longer than he should have and had to swerve abruptly back into his lane when he finally returned his attention to the road.
“Take the exit. Let’s go in. My shrink appointment’s not till one.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. Hell no.
“Relax, I just want to look. I’m not going to buy anything.”
Oh well, sure thing, then… He could just imagine that conversation with Arlo. So I took your sister into Frieda’s and helped her pick out a vibrator for those needs of hers.
Never going to happen.
“Please, Tuck.”
Tucker’s hands tightened around the wheel. As a kid, he’d often been called Tuck, but he’d outgrown it in adulthood. Della was about the only person now who occasionally shortened his name, and there was something about the ease with which it slid off her tongue that got to him every time. There was an intimacy about it that slugged him right in the belly.
“How about we take one step at a time?” he suggested. “Tinder dating first. Sex shops a little further down the track. And oh…look,” he said as he blew past the exit, “too late.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Chicken.”
The accusation, no matter how playful, didn’t sit well. Ordinarily, he’d have been totally up for a woman wanting a private tour of a sex shop and more than willing to help her test out her purchases afterward. But this was Della.
And he did not think about Della like that.
Chapter Three
“Do you think it’s too early? For me to start dating?”
Della was standing at the large window in Dr. Sanchez’s office, which overlooked the Capitol building in central Denver. The sun blazed outside despite the mercury barely making it above the freezing point, and she basked in the warmth radiating from the glass. Once upon a time, Della had dreaded her sessions with her psychiatrist, but not anymore. She’d long ago recognized the good they were doing, and, even a few years down the track, her sessions still felt like a necessary part of her life.
“I think only you can know that.”
Della turned to face her therapist, resting her butt against the glass, the sun warming her back now. Selena Sanchez was calm and lovely as always, her smile encouraging. The red of her blouse complemented her bronzed skin and the sleekness of her dark hair which, two years shy of forty, was showing no signs of any gray.
“Come on, Selena. Don’t psychobabble me. I’m asking you what you think.”
“Okay…are you going on Tinder to date or to find a husband?”
“God no.” Della shook her head vehemently. “Not to find a husband.” Who knew how many years of therapy she’d need to get that far. “Just to…have some fun.”
“Do you mean sex?”
“Well…yeah. I mean, not necessarily a minute after meeting someone, but yeah, I’d like to start exploring that part of my life. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
Selena smiled. “Of course. You’ve done a lot of hard work, and this past year I’ve watched you really come out of your shell. I think you’re a young woman with wants and needs and desires the same as any other young woman, and it’s encouraging that you’re wanting to experience them again.”
“You told me I would.” Selena had assured her in the beginning that she would feel sexual again, even though she hadn’t cared at the time—had shrunk from it, even. But somewhere deep inside, Della had also clung to that promise of normality. “You’re annoyingly right about things.”
Selena’s smile was self-deprecating. “It doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges. There could be flashbacks, palpitations, anxiety attacks. The important thing is you take this slowly.”
“You think Tinder is rushing it?”
“I think Tinder, or any other online platform, is a place where people often misrepresent themselves, and you should be cautious.”
“Arlo’s worried.”
Selena laughed. “Color me surprised.”
Arlo had sat in on many a therapy session in the beginning. At Della’s insistence. Therapy had terrified her, and he’d been the oil lubricating the process for a long time. “You think he’s too protective of me?”
“I think Arlo has been exactly what you needed him to be and he will continue to adapt to what you need from him. It might just”—she smiled—“take him a little while to adjust.”
Nodding, Della pushed away from the window and wandered back to the low tub chair placed opposite Selena. “There’s an eighty-year-old woman at the old folks’ home who has a vibrator.” She sat down. “She’s a widow.”
