A Father, Again

Checking the plain-banded watch at her wrist, she frowned.

“Running late?”

“No. Yes.” Exasperated fingers checked the green bandanna around her ponytail. “I had a number of things I wanted to get done this morning, that’s all.” She looked around her small yard. “This could wait, I suppose.” Her brown eyes found his. “Thank you. Again.”

He shifted, awkward with how the softness in her voice, her look, affected him. “Mower isn’t running yet.”

“It will be.”

Once more their eyes held. He looked away, zeroing in on the apple tree covered in white flowers. “If you need a hand, I’m working on my front steps.”

“Jon,” she said when he turned to go. “About the other night—”

“Past.”

Undaunted by his tough tone, she went on. “Nevertheless, I want to explain. When I said I wasn’t used to having company, I meant male company. Since my husband died, I haven’t been much into developing…friendships.”

“Understood.”

“Especially with men.”

Considering his own choice about women and involvements, he accepted her avowal. “I know the feeling. I’m divorced.”.

“Oh.”

For several long seconds, the morning held its quiet. A yellow butterfly flitted over the mower, bent on reaching the apple tree.

Then, because the thought had bugged him for two days he said, “You recognized me that first day on the porch with the cats.”

She smiled. “Yes. Ninth-grade English, how could I forget?”

“Ahh.” He’d wondered if she recalled sitting on her mother’s back step, him explaining Wordsworth and Whitman.

She went on, “And you used to hang with these guys. Once after school, one of them stopped me. He said things…and started handling my hair. It was very long at the time.” She looked to the hedge between their properties. Sunshine fueled flames into that hair now. “He scared me.” Her eyes were steady. “You told him to leave me alone.”

“Gene Hyde.”

“Yes, Gene Hyde.”

Misty River High’s class-A idiot. The guy had wrapped a strand of her hair around his hand—with lewd innuendoes.

“I remember. It was beside the gym and you were…” Wide-eyed and skittish as an alley cat. “Very young.”

“Barely fourteen.”

She’d been Seth’s age. A kid.

And Jon had wondered after all those trips he’d driven her and his little brother home from school—he wondered what she’d be like one day as a woman.

Now, he knew.

Except, now he no longer cared. Or so he told himself. Of course, his conscience wouldn’t allow him to veto his four-day fantasies. She was female—an alluring female—after all.

He bent, checked the primer. Free of gas. Taking hold of the starter cord, he yanked. The engine roared to life.

Rianne grabbed the handle. Her shoulder brushed his arm; her woman’s smell beguiled his nose. “Thank you,” she mouthed over the buzzing motor. A quick smile and she pushed forward, hips swaying with each determined step of her dusty sneakers, following the cutter’s path toward the edge of the yard.

He still had her image, her scent swirling in his head when he rounded the corner of the house and almost bumped into a tall, gangly kid chasing a runaway basketball. The same kid he’d seen the night he’d carried in her groceries.

In one swoop Jon anchored the ball against his body with an elbow. “You Rianne’s boy?”

The kid gave him a cautious look. “Yeah.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping your mother instead of playing?”

The teenager had the decency to scan the backyard. “You mean like mow the lawn?”

“That’d be a start.”

“Yeah, well, Mom doesn’t want me operating machines.”

“Why not?”

“She’s scared I might hurt myself.”

“Do you think you’ll hurt yourself?”

The boy looked as if Jon had broken a raw egg on his head. “No way. I can handle a stupid mower.”

Jon released a mild snort. Kid had guts, he’d give him that. “Lesson one. No machine is stupid. If you don’t respect it, it won’t respect you. Got it?”

The boy nodded.

“Good. Lesson two. Mothers tend to think their kids stay babies forever.” Jon lifted his eyebrows. “Up to you to choose.”

“Geez. Like that’s hard.”

“Thought so.” Jon handed him the ball. “Sam, right?”

The boy nodded.

“Think you can handle those two lessons, Sam?”

Something shifted in his dark eyes. “I can handle ’em, sir.”

Jon shook his head. “Not sir. Just Jon. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, go help your mother.”

The last thing she wanted, marching out of her house, was to confront Jon Tucker. Brutally masculine, with those polar eyes icing a person in a heartbeat, she suspected he wasn’t a man who would give one hoot about what she had to say.

But say it, she would.

Just as she had, in the end, to Duane.

No one—not now or ever again—would castigate her children or berate her mothering skills. Duane had discovered it the court-induced way. Jon Tucker would learn it in plain jargon.

He worked on a plank supported by a pair of sawhorses several feet from his front steps, marking out a distance with a thick carpenter’s pencil and tape measure. Clad in the same frayed jeans, blue plaid shirt and cumbersome work boots of an hour ago, he had her heart taking another boisterous tumble.

In the last sixty minutes he had rolled his sleeves to his biceps. Bread-brown muscles strained in the sun.

The wolf tattoo glistened within dark hair.

She chanced a furtive study of the man who had kept her spinning silly girlish dreams as a teenager. The harsh-crafted angles of his face, profiled against the bright day, showed an assertive nose, a bold ridge of brow. He’d switched the cap so its visor hid the five-inch bracket of ponytail. Pale skin peeked above the plastic band across his forehead. A silver ear stud flaunted wickedness.

She pressed down a corner of excitement. And guilt because of her mission.

After all, he’d taken time from his work to fix her beat-up, old mower.

At her approach, his long, powerful body unfolded with calm ease. Slowly she was acclimating to the way he didn’t smile, didn’t speak, simply looked at her with that impenetrable, intelligent expression. Acknowledging the latter, she took heart and stepped close enough to speak in a normal tone. “Can we talk?”

He shot a look toward her house. “The mower again?”

“No. My son.”

Those eyes conveyed nothing. Not curiosity, not amusement, not compassion. Two decades ago, a dozen expressions would have skimmed his rebel teenage features in mere seconds.

Why are you so empty, Jon?

She towed in a nourishing breath. She was here for Sam. “Please don’t persuade my son to do things against my will.”

His black brows sprang. “How’d I do that?”

“By telling him to mow the grass.”

Silence. In the woods a bird trilled a minimusical.

She pressed on. “You probably think he’s old enough, that he should be a man. Well, I’ll decide when the time is right and until then I don’t want my son handling machinery.”

He gave her another long look, picked up a compact saw, flicked a switch and notched one end of the plank. When it was done, he carried the wood to the steps.

It wasn’t so much a dismissal as disinterest.

Jon Tucker simply did not care one way or another.

In all her years with Duane, she couldn’t recollect feeling as detached as Jon looked. Alone, yes. Despondent, yes. But never detached to the point where life constituted meaningless mechanical movement from one day to the next.

She drew closer, watching as he fit the board in place. “Sam’s not like other boys.”

Would he quit working and look at her? Discuss this rationally? Or—the thought nipped her mind—was he like Duane after all, harboring an inner explosive rage while on the outside he appeared calm?

Ludicrous. Jon was nothing like her dead husband. She didn’t know how or why, but she sensed a deep, agonizing pain in the man working on his house.

She started back to her yard, weighing her suspicions.

“Rianne.”

She hesitated. “Yes?”

“What’s the real reason?”

“He has a deformed hand.” Lobster claw. An informal medical label for the fusing of all fingers into one, separate from the thumb. A hideous label. But a label, nonetheless.

Something stirred in his eyes. Interest? “I hadn’t noticed.”

“He usually hides his right hand in his pocket.” When he’s around strangers.

“Do you want him to be like other boys?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I want him to be like other boys.”

“Then let him mow the lawn.”

“That has nothing to do with—”

“It has everything to do with it. Let him be normal. He doesn’t have a disease. He has an individual hand, is all.”

An individual hand. Such an unfeigned term. Her annoyance evaporated.

He came toward her, the hammer in his tool belt softly bumping one strong thigh. Stopping within her space, he reached out and stroked her cheek with a heavy knuckle. The touch shot heat clean to her toes.

She wanted to lean toward it.

Toward him.

His hand dropped and she stood, heart thrumming, unable to move. His lips were masculine, the bottom one more supple. A corner of his mouth hitched—a smile?—then vanished.

“Boy has your eyes.”

“He looks like his father.” Abashed by her outburst, she glanced away. She didn’t want Jon Tucker assuming Duane Kirby meant anything. Anything at all.

“Still has your eyes. Same color.”

“I thought you…” What? Had no interest? Didn’t care?

“Don’t give a damn?”

Her cheeks burned.

He moved closer.

The warm morning and the heat of his body drifted over her. She wanted to scurry under the shrubbery, hide from those intense blue eyes.

“What are you really afraid of, Rianne?”

She stared at him. “Who said I was afraid?”

His eyes darkened. Without a word, he returned, lax-limbed and indifferent, to his tools and wood.

Chapter Three

“Nope.”

“Just like that—no?” Luke Tucker set down his early-morning coffee, fresh from the pot of Kat’s Kitchen. “This town needs a new police chief, Jon. Pat Willard’s let the department corrode for years. You going to sit there and take the chance one of his prodigies,” the word edged on acidic, “will slide into his shoes in September?”

Jon paused, knife and fork hovering over his open Denver sandwich, Kat’s dawn-riser special, and looked across the booth at his eldest brother. “Police work and I don’t mix.”

“Aren’t you taking this a little out of context?”

“Not as I see it.”

Luke’s mouth relaxed. “You’ve got to let go, man.”

Jon stared at his plate. The hunger grumbling in his gut dissipated. Damn. He looked forward to eating breakfast with Luke and Seth. Since he’d moved back, this was one ritual he relished, meeting with his brothers every Wednesday—hump day—for an early bite. It had started because Jon’s kitchen was a shambles. The second week they’d come because he’d needed their company. All those years away…he’d missed his brothers.

And today… Today, Seth couldn’t make the six-fifteen meet because of a job. Or, had it been a setup? Luke charming Jon into taking up the feeble torch Pat Willard would pass on?

No, Seth had too soft a heart. Especially when it involved his brothers or their alcoholic mother who still lived in the same 1920s house on the outskirts of town where they had grown up. Seth wouldn’t know an ulterior motive if it knocked him in the nose.

Nor would his little brother interfere in how Jon handled his pain.

Not like Luke. Who never wasted words or time. Good lawyer.

Jon swallowed the bite he’d been chewing before taking a sip of coffee. “I don’t need you giving me a quickie psych review on how to deal with my kid.”

“If you’re talking about your daughter, I wouldn’t dream of it. If you mean Nicky… That’s another story.”

“And none of your business.”

Hurt flickered in Luke’s eyes before he concentrated on scraping up the last of his scrambled eggs.

Jon set down his utensils with a clatter. “Look, I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it. But I’ve got to find my own way with this.”

“You need to talk to somebody.” Luke held up a hand. “I know. I haven’t forgotten Seth and those school counselors. But this thing… You’re not responsible for what happened to your son, J.T.”

“Yes, I am, dammit.” At the rise of Jon’s voice, several nearby customers glanced their way. He gave them a hard look. Facing his brother, he said quietly, “Bottom line? I wasn’t there for my family. Colleen had to handle Nick’s rebelliousness alone. When I realized there were problems, I should’ve gotten off Drug Squad. But I didn’t. I liked busting down doors and grabbing bad guys too much. I wanted the rush too damn much.” He shook his head, miserable. Should’ve been there for you, Nicky.

“More coffee, boys?” a grandmotherly waitress asked. Kat, owner of the café, held a steaming carafe.

Jon shook his head, caught up in his brother’s inquisition. Caught up in memories of Nicky.

“Thanks, Kat,” Luke said and held out his cup.

Jon studied his brother. Eleven months older, he had the same rangy build as his siblings—a feature they’d inherited from their father. While Jon stood tallest at six-five, Luke didn’t seem any shorter at six-two. The man had shoulders wider than a toolshed and arms that could put a wood-framer to test. While all three brothers had received a variation of their father’s dark coloring, Luke was the only one who’d been blessed with their mother’s aesthetic, straight nose and gray eyes.

Those same eyes settled on Jon. “What?”

“How come you never married again?”

Luke looked away. “Never found the right woman.”

Ginny Keegan had been the right woman. Once. She and Luke had married in college. And divorced eight years later. Three Tuckers, three divorces. Not good odds.

“Okay,” Jon said. “Here’s the deal. I don’t ask you questions, and you butt out of my problems.”

“Circumstances are entirely different. I didn’t lose a son and blame it on my job.”

“Your job wouldn’t lose you a son,” Jon said testily.

“You think defense lawyers don’t work long hours? However, if I’d had a son—” Luke stared into his cup “—he might’ve rebelled just as well to make a point against what I stand for.”

Touché. Teenagers of men in Luke’s position were known to buckle under peer pressure. Hell, teenagers in general were considered a rebellious lot. Hadn’t he, Luke and Seth done the same once? Done whatever it took to be accepted by their pals, despite their deplorable home life?

“Look. You were a good cop, J.T.,” Luke went on. “The best. I’ve checked. You can be again.”

Jon set down his half-finished coffee, dug out some bills and tossed them on the table. “Not gonna happen. I’m setting up to make furniture for the next thirty years.”

Luke’s mouth tightened and Jon quelled a chuckle. No mistaking they were brothers. Both were face pullers when the chips toppled.

He shoved out of the booth. His house waited. “Same time next week?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He gave his brother’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “Take care, bud.”

Outside, he took a long breath of warm, sunny air. Living in Misty River felt damn good. It had to. Where else could he go?

Rianne turned the ignition of her Toyota again. Click.

Of course. The old thing would have the nerve to die when she was running late for the first day of work this week. Well, bemoaning the fact wouldn’t start the car either. Thank goodness Sam had gone ahead on his bike.

“What’s the matter with the car, Mom?”

Emily wasn’t so lucky. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the three days Rianne taught in Chinook Elementary’s library, they rode to school together. A comforting ritual after they’d moved to Misty River a year ago, when her children hadn’t established friendships yet. Then Sam met Joey Fraser who lived up the street and, for her son, going with Mom became “uncool.” But Emily still rode with Rianne.

“The battery’s probably dead, Em.” Rianne sighed. Darned old car. There goes another chunk of budget. Laughing yet, Duane?

“I thought gas made the car go,” Emily said.

Rianne patted the child’s hand, hoping to ease the disquiet she knew churned inside her daughter when things went slightly off kilter. “They both do, pooch.”

“Can you get a new one?”

“Yes, but I need to go to the Garage Center for that.”

Emily followed Rianne out of the vehicle, dark eyes big behind her glasses. “Are we gonna be late? Can I take my bike? Please? I don’t want to be late, Mom.”

“Hang on, honey.” Rianne popped the hood. “Maybe it’s something else.” Something simpler. She could hope.

Other than caked-on grime and grease, the engine appeared the same as the last time she’d seen it. Were the battery terminals more corroded? She couldn’t remember. The car was thirteen years old and, during their marriage, Duane had looked after its mechanics. How long did a battery last? Five years? Ten? The life of the car?

Why hadn’t she asked the mechanic when she’d bought new rear tires last fall?

Because you didn’t want to admit a lack of car sense to a man. Now, look where it’s got you. Late for work and Emily late for school.

She checked her watch. Eight-forty. Fifteen minutes before first bell. If they walked fast they’d make it just in time. “Get our lunches out of the car, Em. We’re walking.”

“But Mo-om, we’ll be way late.”

Rianne surveyed the engine again. “I’ll call Mrs. Sheers and tell her our problem.” Cleo Sheers was the secretary. She’d pass the message on to the principal and Beth Baker, Em’s teacher.

Emily tugged Rianne’s sleeve. “Mom,” she whispered.

“Hmm?” Looking at this mess, she knew she needed a whole new car.

“Troubles?” a low, rusty voice said.

Rianne jackknifed up, almost batting her head on the hood.

He stood by the driver’s door, hands jammed in hip pockets. She should have guessed by Em’s behavior that her big, moody neighbor hovered nearby. What did he do, keep her under surveillance?

“Good morning.” Ungrateful thoughts weren’t her style, although hot stuff appeared to be his in those worn black jeans and that snowy T-shirt. She couldn’t take her eyes off his damp hair caught in a loose tail. Like a settler, traveling the Oregon Trail in a prairie schooner.

Clipping a nod, he stepped forward and closed the hood with a flick of the wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“Driving you and your daughter to school. The battery’s done for.” He pointed his chin at the front seat. “Why don’t you get your things and I’ll start the truck.”

Not a question, a subtle command. Cops, she knew, issued directives to maintain order and stability. She, however, was not a felon nor an obnoxious bystander nor, for that matter, a wife whose independence and self-worth had been boxed into the dirt.

She was a woman standing securely on her own two feet.

About to say as much, she opened her mouth—except he was already striding for the black truck in his driveway.

“Are we going with him, Mommy?” Emily asked, pinky disappearing into the corner of her mouth.

Rianne squelched the urge to raise a fist to her dead husband. “It’s okay, sweets.” Carefully, she adjusted the girl’s glasses on her freckled nose. “We won’t be late now. Come on.” Hand in hand they stepped between the barren rose bushes and headed for the grumbling diesel truck.

Jon leaned across the seat and shoved open the door. “Give me your bag, Bo Peep.”

A timid smile crept along Emily’s mouth. In that instant, Rianne forgot her woman’s right to independence. A warmth spread from her heart outward. Jon Tucker, man of few words, had baited a smile from her little girl.

A precious, rare smile.

Emily climbed onto the high seat. While Jon strapped her in, Rianne climbed beside her. Why hadn’t she chosen slacks today or one of her loose, ankle-length skirts? No, silly woman that she was, she’d selected her favorite: black, slim and short.

The truck smelled of tools. And Jon. Over Emily’s head, Rianne caught his regard—flame-blue and intense. Her heart pinged. She faced the windshield and worked on her seat belt.

Calm down.

Five minutes of speed and silence got them to Chinook Elementary. He parked near the entrance. Children hung in clusters up and down the sidewalk. Across the playground smaller ones dashed between older students, chasing balls, playing tag. A group of boys, a few years younger than Sam, rough-housed near the gym exit.

Rianne climbed from the cab. Emily slid to the ground with a “’Bye, Mom” and drifted toward some girls skipping rope.

Jon rounded the nose of the idling truck. “Got a minute?” His gaze lingered on the skin below her hemline.

She looked toward the school doors. “If it’s quick.”

“What time are you finished?”

“I’ll get one of my colleagues to drive us home.”

“What time?”

Another take-charge man.

He’s different.

How so?

She relented. “Three, but I usually don’t get out of here until four.”

“Your daughter stays with you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be here at four.” He started for the driver’s side.

She went after him. “It’s not necessary. We can get home on our own.”

He stepped from the curb. Even with the added height of the sidewalk, she still had to tilt her head.

“It’s not a contest, Rianne. I’d like to pick you up after school, okay?”

His quiet “like” did it, had her tongue powerless. “Fine.”

A softness she hadn’t seen before touched his eyes. “See you then,” he said.

Without another word she walked into the school. She would not watch him drive away. Not with this warmth in her cheeks.

The day crawled. Although four different classes came into the library throughout the morning, the clock was glued to one spot for endless, interminable minutes at a time.

Midmorning she made a call to the Garage Center and requested an attendant put a new battery in her car. The house call would be an added expense but she’d manage it.

Shortly after one she received a call that her battery had been looked after—not by the attendant. By a neighbor.

She didn’t need to ask which neighbor.

The rest of the afternoon Rianne fumed.

At quarter to four, she looked through the library’s tall, wide windows. Luckily, the room took up the better portion of one corner facing the street, where she could watch who entered the grounds and who parked along the curb.

Jon arrived at five to the hour, stopping the pickup exactly where he’d dropped her off. Rianne held her breath. Would he come into the building?

He elected to wait outside his truck, leaning against it the way he had for Seth over at the high school twenty-two years ago. Long, strong legs braced, hiney affixed to the front fender, arms folded over that chest. Dark glasses masking those blue, blue eyes.

Tingles clustered deep in her belly.

Pull yourself together. The last thing you need is another man in your life—especially one who’s used to taking charge.

But he’s a good man, one you’ve never forgotten.

He’s also changed.

She didn’t know if she liked the change. Unfortunately, no matter what she told herself while she typed up a staff memo about new book arrivals, her breathing quickened and her palms dampened. Finished, she stuck the memo in tomorrow’s agenda and rose from her chair.

“Ready?” she called to Emily who was seated at a work center.

Pushing at her glasses, her daughter tossed several pencil crayons into a shoe box. “Are we riding with that guy again?”