We’d had weeks to process everything, warm up to the way people might view us, the wrinkles we needed to get past, and essentially, we just dumped her into a boiling pot without warning.
The problem was, we’d been increasing the heat without thinking, without realizing it, with everything that went unsaid. My brother’s words echoed through my head, as Tucker searched for what to say to his mother.
All you’re doing is sitting in secrets.
His.
Mine.
Mrs. Haywood held up her hands. “I’m gonna leave you two to talk, but Tucker, I can tell something’s wrong, and I wish you’d talk to me. Or your father.”
“I,” he started, then exhaled heavily. “I will.”
She came up to him, and he let go of my hand to wrap her in a hug. “Nothing, and no one, is more important to us than you, Tucker Ames. No client, no business, no job. You are our son, and we love you.”
He kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes. “Love you too.”
What I would have given for my camera in that moment. The way he held her, the look on her face, it did funny things to my heart to be able to see this side of him. It was so strange, even though the entire situation was unfolding with more and more ickiness, I still wanted to find those beautiful things. Wanted to seek out the parts that were good.
Which was probably why I ignored the warning flags that got us here in the first place.
His mom glanced at me, and I saw her embarrassment. I averted my eyes, so I didn’t look like I was staring.
It wasn’t a moment I was allowed into, and objectively, I understood why. But that didn’t mean it was easy to feel like I was an interloper. An intruder giving the moment an edge of discomfort.
Her voice was watery when she spoke. “J.T. can go screw himself if he thinks he can ruin us this easily.”
My forehead creased in confusion, and when Tucker’s eyes flicked guiltily to me, I knew this conversation was far from over.
Something … something pulled dangerously at the back of my head. A loose thread that I’d been ignoring, because I loved him so much.
Loved him to distraction, maybe.
When she pulled back, she gave me a polite smile. “It was nice to meet you, Grace.”
I did my very best to clear my face of anything that didn’t involve this moment, and her. I must have succeeded because her eyes were warmed. Just a touch. “You too, Mrs. Haywood.”
“I better see you at the house soon, young man. You have some explaining to do.”
He ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
She left the garage calmly, even though the color on her cheeks was high when she got into her car. With one more smile, and a curious look in my direction, she left.
Neither one of us spoke until her car turned out of sight and onto the main road.
I kept my eyes trained on the end of the driveway, because if I looked at him, I was afraid of what I’d say, or do, stemming from a place of hurt, afraid of what I’d overlook because my heart called to him so strongly.
“What did she mean about J.T.?” I asked. “What did he do?”
Tucker sighed, and that thread unraveled further, like a ball of yarn that got yanked too fast out of a basket.
“Grace, I didn’t know how to tell you.” He came to stand in front of me, and I kept my gaze eye level, right at his chest. “I didn’t want you to feel guilty, because it’s not your fault.”
Finally, I looked at him. “What happened?”
His jaw clenched. Even now, he didn’t want to say it, whatever it was. I could sympathize, because I’d rolled words around in my head for days.
“He found different legal representation. A few people in his family did the same.” He wrapped his hands around my upper arms, sliding his grip up and down, like he was soothing me. “It … it’s a big chunk of our monthly revenue is all.”
I nodded slowly, little dominoes clicking into place in my head. “That’s what Maxine was asking you about at the library?”
“Yes.”
My stomach felt cold. “And that’s why you lied to me when I asked you what happened?”
“I didn’t,” he started, only to receive a warning look from me. He held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
I exhaled a hard-edged laugh when I thought about my conversation with my brother. My brother, who made comments about how dangerous J.T. was. How there were people who needed to be careful. About small-town politics and the law firm.
My brother knew. And I didn’t. Because my boyfriend didn’t tell me.
“Because you thought I’d feel guilty,” I added. I couldn’t believe how I sounded. Detached, robotic.
Unemotional.
I’d never been accused of anything near that in my entire life. Normally, I felt like I was driving an out of control carriage, clinging to the reins with a death grip.
“Grace.” He took a small step toward me, and I held up my hand.
“No, hang on.” I searched his eyes. “I’m trying to understand. Your dad told you this morning that he was retiring, because you can’t afford two full-time lawyers, because your ex-girlfriend’s father, and a few of his relatives, pulled their business. Do I have that right?”
Tucker nodded. His jaw was still tight, his gaze unwavering.
“And you wanted me to meet you here so that you could have an outlet for that frustration that didn’t involve you just … talking to me about it.”
“Grace, please.” He reached for me again, and I stepped back.
“Think about the last thirty minutes,” I said as evenly as I could. It was so hard to speak calmly, because once I opened the door on that thought, on everything that just happened, I felt a maelstrom whip up dangerously inside of me.
The last thirty minutes. The last three weeks. The perfect storm to poke at every bruise inside of me that I’d been overlooking because of how good it was between us.
“Think about them, Tucker.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “You could’ve talked to me. I don’t want to be some convenient outlet, I want to be with you.”
“You don’t think you are?” His mouth hung open, and I saw the first flash of disbelief.
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, Tucker. I know that you’re attracted to me, I know you care about me, but I also know that you aren’t really letting me in. We’re hiding, because of what people might think. Or one person, I guess. One person, and we’re screwing in the dark and locking doors so no one sees. Look at what just happened!”
His cheek ticked as he clenched his teeth together, and he set his hands on his hips. “Don’t cheapen this. That’s not fair.”
“I’m not cheapening anything,” I said fiercely. “I’m finally calling it like I see it.”
“All I’ve wanted is to be part of your life.”
“You are,” he said vehemently. He gripped my free hand. “You are, Grace. You’re such an important part of it. The most important part.”
“Grace is Glenn’s daughter?” I repeated. “That’s how you introduced me to your mother. As Glenn’s daughter. I told you that I love you, and you couldn’t even call me your girlfriend to your mother.”
Tucker blew out a hard breath. “I didn’t know what I was saying, I’m sorry. I just … she basically drove up while we were having sex, Grace. I was a little thrown off. it’s not like I expected her to show up, and it’s not fair to hold it against me that she did. You cannot assume that I wouldn’t have talked to you about what happened after we were done.”
I set my jaw, because I couldn’t argue with that. “You’re right.”
He wiped a hand over his mouth. “I don’t even know how we got here. This morning everything was fine. It was perfect.”
The harsh laugh burst out of my lungs like a bullet from a loaded gun. “It was easy to think so, wasn’t it? I know I certainly did.”
Tucker’s hand dropped to his side slowly as he stared at me, the compre
hension dawning on his face that something was very, very wrong. That something was bubbling under the surface, growing hotter and hotter amidst all the other distractions.
He shook his head. “Grace …”
“You lied to me. I tried to ask you what happened at work, and you brushed it off like it was nothing. In the library,” I continued, “you went out of your way to keep that from me, in front of people who already look at me like I’m a … curiosity.”
“No one looks at you like that,” he countered hotly.
“Thank you for not denying you lied to me.” His instant dismissal of one, while ignoring the other made my heart twist.
His face fell.
I crossed my arms over my chest, and it was the first time he glanced away from my face. He saw the protective gesture for what it was, because he looked miserable. “Did you think about what would happen if I heard about this from someone else? If I walked through the Piggly Wiggly and overheard some stranger talking about what an asshole J.T. is for what he did?”
“Of course. Of course, I thought about it.” I heard heat in his voice. Heard frustration. But I could tell from the tortured look in his eyes that he was frustrated with himself too. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Bullshit,” I whispered.
His eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You weren’t protecting me. You were protecting yourself.” I managed a harsh swallow, utterly proud of myself for the fact that I wasn’t crying, because inside … inside, I was a tangled, knotted mess.
Every instance that we’d remained hidden, even the ones I readily agreed with, suddenly felt like we were secreting away something sordid and wrong.
I loved him so much that I overlooked it. That I refused to dwell on the fact that he was more worried about what other people might think of us, than how all of these separate things might affect our relationship.
Did this stupid, stupid curse somehow blind you to the other person’s faults? Or was I the one to blame for that?
No, I thought, I couldn’t blame some outside force. Not a curse, not Magnolia, not the gossips in town, and not J.T.
It was me. And Tucker.
We were to blame for this.
But knowing it didn’t make it hurt less. Didn’t erase the way that I felt sad and heavy, weighed down with the knowledge that this man chose to hide things from me, things that everyone around me knew.
“Grace,” he said again, from deep in his chest, the single word rife with frustration and longing. This time, I didn’t step back when his hands slid up my arms and framed my face. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” His mouth descended to the top of my head. I gripped the front of his shirt with fisted hands when he breathed in the scent of my hair.
I wanted to kiss him.
Slap him for lying about something so important.
Shove him away and run.
I wanted him to hold me even more tightly.
I wanted to get lost in all the amazing things that we were together.
I wanted to ignore everything I’d just learned, because he was the one I was meant to be with.
I pressed my forehead into his chest and breathed him in.
The curse—whatever it really was, even if it was something that could never be explained—didn’t suddenly make everything easy.
It didn’t make the path free of hurdles. And it certainly didn’t fix the problems that were already there.
I smoothed my hands out and slid them up his chest, stopping over his heart. My eyes closed, and for the first time, I felt the burn of tears.
“I feel like you felt safe not telling me this because you knew I’d stay hidden with you.” I sniffed when he ran his fingers through my hair. “I know I agreed in the beginning, but that was hard, you know?”
“I know,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head again.
I pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Do you? Do you know what it’s like to be on the fringes and not really feel like you belong?”
Tucker gave me the respect to really think about what I asked, he didn’t brush me off, didn’t give me a placating answer, didn’t try to kiss me to brush the subject under the rug.
“Not in the way you do here, I reckon.” His thumb brushed along my cheek.
“I wish you’d told me the truth,” I said in a fierce whisper. “I wish you’d trusted me to work through all of that with you.”
I wished a lot of things as I looked up at him.
That we weren’t having this conversation, even though we needed to.
That his mom hadn’t shown up.
That he’d said something different when she did.
I wished that when I told him I loved him, he’d said it right back, without a breath in between my admission and his.
I wished that my brother hadn’t been right, because almost everything he’d said had just exploded in a messy heap in front of us.
And most of all, I wished that I didn’t have the horrible sensation that this wasn’t even close to over. That we just unearthed a mountain of issues that had been hiding under the surface.
“Talk to me,” he begged. In the set of his face, I knew he saw something in my face. Something he didn’t like.
“This all feels so big,” I admitted. “Like if it came one at a time, spaced apart, each thing wouldn’t seem so bad. But I don’t know how to look at all of it together and see a way past it.”
“Grace, no.”
“It’s not about the sex, it’s not even about your mom.” My voice shook, and I pinched my eyes shut. “I feel a little alone in this right now. Because the truth is that you didn’t keep it from me to protect me. You were protecting you. You were worried about what everyone else thought, Tucker. Your worry about the people outside of this relationship was bigger than the reality about how it might hurt me. And I can’t see a way to be okay with that. To trust that you won’t sacrifice this,” I gestured between us, “for them.”
Because he didn’t love me. How could he possibly feel anything close to what I felt?
Panic crawled up my spine, maybe it was irrational, but I wondered if Levi ever felt like this when he was waiting for Joss. Waiting to see if she’d ever come close to catching up to what he felt.
Because that was the crux of it.
Tucker may not ever feel for me what I felt for him. Just because I slipped quickly into loving him didn’t mean he would do the same.
He didn’t open this part of his life to me because it felt safer to keep the door closed.
This place, everything that happened today just stoked the fire underneath the belief that I’d never belong. That I made a rash decision to follow my brother, who was already finding his foothold, while I scrambled in place.
“It’s not about trust, Grace. I messed up, and I’ll probably mess up again, because I’m not perfect.”
“Whether you want to define it differently or not, it’s still about trust.” I pulled back, out of his arms, until they fell limply by his sides. “I get it, I’m not part of this town to the point where it’s a given that I’ll hear the gossip, know everything that happens. But it should have mattered more to you that I might get hurt hearing it from someone else. Instead of trusting that I’d be on the fringes, just … snapping pictures of everyone else living life here, I want you to trust that I’ll work through anything with you.”
My eyes blurred and I willed those freaking tears to stay back. I would not lose my grasp on my emotions now. Every brick inside my heart might be crumbling into dust, but if there was one moment where I’d keep things in check, where I’d try my damndest to protect my own heart, cursed though it might be, it would be this moment.
I brushed past him and picked up my keys where they’d fallen on the floor of the garage.
“Hang on a second, Grace,” he said, grabbing my hand gently and pulling me to face him. “I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry I didn’t tell you, that I didn’t explain what he did and why
.”
I wanted to rub at my heart to see if I could stop it from aching. His was probably doing the same.
And that man, he saw it on my face, because he cupped my cheeks again in his big warm hands. “Don’t leave like this, please. Stay. Stay and talk to me.”
I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his palm. “I can’t. I know you’re sorry.” I shook my head. “But I need some time.”
“For what?” he begged. He slid his hands back into my hair and tilted my face up. “You just told me you loved me, and Grace, you have to know that I’m falling—”
“Don’t,” I said. I pinched my eyes shut. “Don’t you dare say it like this if you don’t mean it, Tucker. Not right now.”
My heart couldn’t handle it if he didn’t.
The highs and lows of that one day were enough without him saying something he might not mean. Or was rushing because he thought I wanted to hear it.
He was quiet, and I opened my eyes carefully. His whole face, painfully handsome and bent in frustration, was so close to mine. When his chin dipped, I allowed myself that moment, and I met him in the middle. His lips covered mine with such surety, such skill.
His arms wrapped slowly around my back and I let out a shaky exhale as he tilted his head and took the kiss deeper. It would be so easy, to let the one moment become two. Then three.
Pull his clothes off and do the same to mine.
It would be easy to let him swing me up into his strong arms and take me to bed, where we’d bury what happened, with his body covering mine.
Tucker pulled away when he sensed me slowing the movements of the kiss and rested his forehead against my own.
“Why do I feel like you’re going to walk out of here and not come back?” he whispered. “I screwed up, Grace, it’s not an excuse, and I can’t change it, but I don’t know what else to do but apologize and promise that I won’t do it again.”
I pressed another kiss to his lips and pulled out of his arms.
His hair was a mess, his lips pink from our kiss. His clothes were wrinkled and there was a mark on the side of his neck, probably from my fingernails. I’d never seen him look so miserably disheveled, and I loved him all the more for it.
Batter of Wits: An Enemies to Lovers Small Town Romance (Donner Bakery Book 5) Page 23
