Slow Ride

She continued blindly. “He persuaded you to take me—my locket, I mean.”

“Didn’t take much persuading.” Tucker’s eyes gleamed. “I was perfectly willing to exchange.”

“Oh.” She blinked, realizing the full implications. Tucker had switched keys knowing that he was likely to be her match.

Out of the goodness of his heart, she reminded herself, should her libido decide to reengage over the gentlemanly gesture. Because they were friends.

He ducked his chin to peer into her eyes. “Okay?” His voice was soft, warm. Kind. Not his fault that her heartbeat ratcheted up several notches every time he looked at her.

“Okay,” she said, giving him a quick nod.

He grinned. “You’re my lucky number. We’ll have a great time in Mendocino.”

Rory held her tongue. She could deal with being his friend if she had to, but doing so while undergoing three days of body-baring sun and fun?

That was asking too much of her.

Or not enough—if he was serious about the hands-off policy.

3

A BLAST OF COLD water hit Tucker’s shins, streaming all over his flip-flops. “Hey!” He stepped out of the spray, removed his wet sandals and shook them off on the plot of grass that was the lawn. “What was that for?”

“I’m waking you up,” said Sam, the hose-wielder and Tuck’s eldest brother. “No one turns down a free weekend in Mendocino.”

It was late Sunday afternoon in the narrow backyard of his parents’ venerable Victorian row house, where the day’s allotment of sunshine was slowly being diffused by an incoming fog. They’d taken the kids beachcombing after church.

Upon the clan’s return home in their fleet of vehicles, the women had immediately gone inside to work on dinner while banishing the men outdoors with orders to hose off the munchkins. Tuck’s nieces and nephews had brought half of the beach with them in their sandy skin, clothes and hair. The other half was on the floor mats of his pickup.

“Free carries a high price when there are too many strings attached,” he said, sorry that he’d brought up the events at the key party. But his siblings had already known that he’d gone and there had been no way Didi would let him get away without offering up a full report.

“What strings?” Sam said. “You’re so stringless you don’t even wear sneakers.”

Tuck lobbed one of the flip-flops at his brother, who caught the sandal with a squidging noise and immediately tossed it to the family dog, Chuckie Doll. The Golden Retriever sank his teeth into the rubber sole and ran off to have himself a good chew, feathered tail wagging.

“Thanks a lot, you bastard.”

Sam was unconcerned. “Punishment for lying.”

“Who’s lying?”

“You know you want to go.”

Tuck raked a hand through his hair, trying to line up his pinball reactions to Rory. He should have called game over, but he kept bouncing around instead, rebounding between reasons for and against seeing her again. “Let’s put it this way. Have you ever known a woman to go away for the weekend and not throw out a few strings?”

“Been known to happen.” Sam got a fond look on his face. For all that he looked like a suburban forty-something dad in khakis with graying hair, in his early twenties Sam had been a bachelor about town. Women had got hot at the sight of him in his fire-fighting gear. A few of the conquests from his past had even accused him of being a player, a point Sam’s wife brought up with glee whenever she was in a snarky mood.

“Not with this woman.” Tuck shook his head. Rory was the marriage-minded type. Although the memory of their dance made his sunburned toes curl into the cool grass, so did the look in her eye when the subject of babies had been brought up. There might come a day when he was ready for that, but not yet.

Sam remained skeptical. “You met her at a key party, for chrissake. I never thought I’d see the day you turned into a hipster.”

“I had to go.” Tuck thanked his lucky stars Sam hadn’t seen him in the silk shirt. “Blame Nolan. He’s sniffing after Mikki again.”

Sam nodded. Nolan had grown up with the Schulzes, almost one of the family. He’d seemed to be at their house more often than his own. They’d all kicked back and enjoyed a few beers this past weekend.

“The boy has it bad,” Sam said. “Which can feel pretty good with the right woman. You’ll find out what I mean when you meet her, same way I did.”

Tuck grinned. “I like it just as well with the wrong woman.”

“Ah, so the mystery lady is that kind.”

“Nope.” Tuck circled a finger in the air. “Do a one-eighty. Think of her more like one of Didi’s best friends than a fast-and-loose club girl.”

Their oldest sister had a network of female friends who were smart, outspoken and determined to have it all. Individually, they were manageable. As a group, they scared the stuffing out of Tucker and his brothers. Especially the single ones. Whenever they came near, he felt the marriage manacles locking around his wrists.

“Yeesh. Rotten luck for you since you’re stuck with her.” Sam squirted the hose at the kids. They ran in circles chasing after his oldest boy, who held a soccer ball out of the younger kid’s reach.

“Rotten luck?” Tucker brushed down his T-shirt and ragged denim shorts. “I wouldn’t say that, either.”

Sam’s knowing laugh rumbled beneath the shrieks of the children. After all, he’d married one of Didi’s friends. “Tell me about this chick. Whatever she’s got, you obviously want.”

“Nah. All she’s got is our room reservation for Painter’s Cove.”

“What’s her name?” Gabe chimed in, walking over from where he’d been playing with his toddler in a bouncy swing. He was the second brother, an ex-minor leaguer turned college baseball coach, father of two, married to a Southern redhead named Lula.

Tuck opened then closed his mouth. “Not telling. You’ll spill the beans to your wife and next thing I know, the whole crew of them will be slow-cooking me into a relationship.”

“True.” Gabe laughed from the perch he’d taken on top of their parents’ ancient cedar picnic table. “Lula has her ways of getting me to talk.”

“So does Karen,” Sam said. “But her ways involve a meat fork planted in my skull.”

Tuck chuckled. The banter was a familiar refrain. In reality, he saw how devoted his brothers were to their families, day in, day out. And he admired that—from a distance. “You’re encouraging me to settle down because…?”

“My wife makes me,” Sam said.

They laughed.

“What’s the big deal, anyway?” Gabe asked. “Take the vacation. You don’t have to marry the girl because you’ve shared a room.”

“Right,” Tucker said, unconvinced.

Logically he should have had no hesitation since Rory wasn’t his type. Okay, so she was a little less not his type than he’d first thought, but still…

“I’ll be sure she understands we’re going as friends,” he told his brothers.

Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

“Do I detect a note of skepticism?”

“Proceed with a healthy caution, my pal. Watch your step around her and you’ll be fine.”

“It’s his hands he’s got to watch,” Gabe put in.

Sam grinned. “Tuck was always good with his hands.”

“On the job. Strictly on the job,” Tucker protested, knowing it was no use even though he had calluses on his fingertips from wrapping wire, not squeezing female behinds.

“Yeah, sure.” Gabe looked at Sam. “Remember the time we caught him with his hands up Mary-Anne Shanahan’s shirt on the living room couch? He looked like he was calibrating the engine of a Maserati.”

“And when we threw on the lights—”

“He jumped up—”

“With a boner capable of parting the Red Sea.”

“And he said—”

“‘I was only measuring her for a T-shirt.’”

“And Mary-Anne said…”

Sam and Gabe synchronized for the big finish, “‘They’re 34C.’”

“Shut it,” Tuck commanded through their booming laughter, even though he had no real hope of quelling them. As the youngest of five, he’d been the subject of their merciless teasing all his life. He’d learned to roll with it by keeping a sense of humor and always being alert for revenge opportunities. Like the surprise male strip-o-gram he’d arranged for Gabe and Lula’s honeymoon.

Didi came into the backyard, banging the screen door behind her. “Quit torturing my baby brother,” she said, and began issuing orders like a drill sergeant. Sam’s trigger finger twitched on the hose nozzle, but one narrow look from Didi and he ambled off, compliantly reeling up the hose.

Gabe was dispatched to round up the hooligans. “Fried chicken,” he yelled across the yard. “First one at the dining table gets a drumstick.”

Tuck took cover from the rush, ducking to sit at the picnic table.

Didi plopped beside him. “How many brothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“More than three?” he guessed.

“Nope. No one knows how many, because they’re too busy screwing with each other’s heads.”

Tuck moaned. “Like you don’t want to do the same.”

“Of course I don’t.” Didi draped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m only interested in your future happiness.”

“I’m doing just fine in the present, thanks.” And he was. He’d dropped out of college with the idea that he’d try pro surfing, but had wound up making a living in the construction trade instead. After going through a period of feeling his oats and drifting from job to job, he’d been working steadily as a licensed electrician for seven years now. Recently he’d bought into the four-plex with Didi and Sam, even agreeing to serve as the on-site landlord and handyman. How much more settling did she want out of him?

As if he had to ask.

“You’re doing it again.” He made a motion to grab her by the head.

She jerked away and dusted mussed hair off her face. “What? I haven’t even begun.” The last time they’d had this conversation she’d conceded that her bossiness was annoying and had promised that all he had to do was to put her into one of the Schulz brothers’ dreaded headlocks to remind her to shut the hell up.

“I saw the look in your eye,” he said. “You were going to mention Charla again.”

“I’m looking at the Andersons’ yard. Their phlox is blooming.” Didi could never pull off the innocent act. She was too sharp to play dumb.

“And I think your nose is growing.” The boys had always teased her that, unlike Pinocchio, her nose didn’t grow with a lie, but only when she was about to stick it up in somebody’s business.

She touched it. Snub, with freckles, the only feature about her that wasn’t strong, square or firm. “All right. I won’t tell you what you should do. But in my version of your life—”

He coughed a “Bossy wench” under his breath.

She went on, always good at talking over resistance. “You should still be dating Charla, not a barfly from Clementine’s. You’ll never find anyone good at one of those clubs.”

“Ah, but you didn’t get to see the miniskirts and butt cleavage tattoos.”

“I didn’t say good-looking. I said good. You need a good woman, Tuck. Like Charla.” Charla was one of Didi’s girlfriends, a high-powered executive who’d finally broken the snooze alarm on her biological clock. She was on a five-year plan to gain a husband and child.

“Look, Deeds. When we went out, Charla made it clear that a mere electrician wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted me to become a contractor and builder, then a developer—the kind with an expensive office suite and a hard hat for show only. I don’t want to date a woman who has ambitions for me.”

“I know Charla can be pushy, but I thought you two might be a good match. She needs a little lightheartedness and you need the discipline.”

“Are we talking S and M here?”

“Quit kidding around, Tuck.” Didi frowned. “What’s wrong with a little ambition?”

Tucker couldn’t think up a flip response. “Nothing. When I’m ready for it, I’ll get my own.”

“Lazy boy,” she chided. “You always did get away with murder, skipping chores to go surfing and the like. Comes with being the youngest, I suppose.”

He raised his brows. “Or a bad reaction to always being told what to do my brothers and sisters.”

She smiled. “You have a point. If I tell Charla to knock off the pressure, would you consider—”

“Sorry. The chemistry wasn’t there.”

“How can you be sure? Chemistry doesn’t always combust at first sight.”

“No.” Tucker thought of meeting Rory. He’d looked right past her. Big mistake, though he’d corrected it before too long. “But I dated Charla twice and have run into her a dozen times over the past months because she’s always at your house when I come by—”

He broke off to shoot a glare at his sister, who didn’t have the grace to look guilty. Didi didn’t do guilt. Not on herself, anyway. “I won’t be asking her out again, Deeds. Not ever. So give it up or prepare to be head-locked.”

“All right. I know when I’m beat.” She sighed. “Tell me about this Miss Clementine who’s got her claws in you. French-manicured claws, I’ll bet. And she wears Manolos and carries a supply of handy condoms in her itty-bitty purse.”

He laughed. “You’re getting prudish in your old age.”

Didi looked horrified at the suggestion. “Then please tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong. She’s not what you think.”

“Yeah, she has depth.” Didi rolled her eyes.

“Do you remember the first time Max picked you up? He drove up on a motorcycle, tattoos on both arms, his hair in a ponytail and a sneer beneath his Fu Manchu. Not the optimal date for a seventeen-year-old, but Mom and Dad let you do your own thing.”

“They did not! They banned me from seeing him again. I had to sneak out the window until I turned eighteen.”

“Okay, but you get my point. Look at Max now.” A balding orthodontist whose kids colored in his tattoos with Magic Markers, he and Didi had been married for almost twenty years. Their eldest son would be entering college this coming fall.

Didi glowered. “I hate when you make a rational argument against me.”

“See how I’ve matured,” Tucker teased, though he hoped she’d recognize the truth in his words. While it was true that he’d coasted through life up to now, he wasn’t averse to a change in speed—or even direction. He’d always figured that one day he’d come across a woman worth stopping for, and then he’d know what all the hoopla over love was about.

Their mother cranked open the kitchen window and yelled for them to get their butts inside before dinner got cold. Just like old times, when they’d all lived at home and been the scourge of the neighborhood.

“You could have simply told me to leave you alone,” Didi said as they walked to the back door.

Tuck gave the top of her head an affectionate kiss. “Has that ever worked?”

“No better than a headlock,” she said sassily, sliding out from under his arm when he tried to tighten his grip. She hurtled herself inside, banging the screen door shut on Tucker’s nose.

THE SCENT of smoked jasmine lingered in the air at Emma Constable’s house hours after the brunch was over. Surrounded by a pile of pillows and cushions in the bay-window seat, Rory was so at ease she hadn’t moved for more than an hour. She’d even drifted off for a while after the talking had ended and Lauren and Mikki had gone home. Now Emma had come in from the garden and was gliding back and forth in the kitchen, rattling ice trays and running water, humming “Light My Fire” to herself.

Rory gave a long stretch and yawn. Herbal tea, fresh bread, incense—those were the smells of her mother’s house. And often her own.

Like mother, like daughter? The similarities were both comforting and aggravating. If only she’d been able to consciously choose which traits she’d inherit.

“Sangria, hon?” Emma asked, drifting in from the kitchen with a tall glass filled with ice cubes and a pale pink liquid. She’d changed from the sparkly caftan she’d worn earlier into a T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Her feet were bare, the nails painted bright red. “I can make sandwiches—bean sprouts and hummus.”

“No thanks.” Rory straightened the pillows, using one to smother a second yawn. “I should probably be going. What time is it?”

“Five-ish.”

“Whew. I had a longer nap than I thought.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Are you feeling all right? Take some of my ginseng. It’ll put zip in your step.”

“I’m fine. Been catching up on sleep from the other night at Clementine’s. I was up early the past two mornings—”

“You work too hard.”

“It wasn’t work.” Just restlessness. Rory found it tough to break the habit of waking before dawn to bake her daily bread, as she’d done for years while getting her first stores launched. Now that she had store managers and most of the baking was done in an industrial kitchen outside of the city, she left the early morning hours to others. Yet the early-to-bed habit remained.

Yawning at 9:00 p.m. tended to cut into her appeal as a swinging single.

“Then what, hon? You were reticent at brunch.” Emma set her drink on a side table.

“What do you mean? We talked for hours.”

“Hashing out Lauren’s flash-dating intrigues and Mikki’s Nolan Baylor complication.” With a soulful moan—Emma did everything with soul—she sank into an artisan-made rocking chair, flung one leg over the arm, wiggled her butt into the cushion, then pushed off with the ball of her foot. “You said nothing about yourself. If Lauren hadn’t mentioned that you’d won the grand prize…”

Rory shrugged.

Her mother’s brow furrowed as she took up a bundle of hand-carded wool. The click of knitting needles made a counterpoint to the rhythmic creak of the old rocking chair. Rory felt along the floor for the shoes she’d kicked off, but she was in no rush to leave. The familiar smells and sounds of her mother’s house were soothing to the battered soul. She, Mikki and Lauren certainly didn’t return for the bitter tea.

“The house is so quiet,” Rory said.

“Arun is working.” Emma’s remaining boarder, a foster child who’d come of age, was looking for an apartment of his own. “And Ernie spends most of his time in his room, meditating.” Ernesto Modesta, a compatriot from Emma’s commune days, had arrived at her door the past month, asking for a bed. He was supposed to move on anyday now. No one was holding their breath. “But you’re avoiding the subject, m’dear.”

“Only because I have nothing to tell.”

Emma smiled. “Do you think I’ve lost my touch?” She tapped one of the needles to her nearly unlined forehead. “I may need bifocals now, but my third eye sees as well as ever, Aurora. The less you say, the more I’m sure there’s something big going on in your head. Why don’t you talk it out? You always kept your worries too much to yourself.”

“Some of us don’t feel the need to announce our every body twinge and passing thought to the general public.”

Emma was unperturbed. “Bottling up your emotions isn’t healthy. When was the last time you had a colonic?”

Gawd! Rory flung herself back against the pillows. She gazed up at the sitting room’s antique tin ceiling, original to the house, and counted to ten. “I am fine, Mom. Both physically and emotionally. Quit looking for trouble.”

Her mother shrugged. Creak, creak. Click, clack.

Blessed peace. Rory was almost lulled.

Emma speared a loop of yarn. “No decision yet on the baby question?”

Oh, damn. That. Baby-making had not been on Rory’s mind the past few days, except in a recreational capacity. “I only said I was considering having a baby. You know, mulling it over. I’m not anywhere close to a decision.”

“My friends Deena and Azure went to a sperm bank.”

Rory made a face. “Jerry Garcia being no longer available.”

“Jerry was always a generous man,” Emma said fondly before returning to Rory’s dilemma. “All I’m saying is, keep your options open.”

“I’m not so hard up that I can’t find a donor on my own.” Though Rory had her doubts. Her baby daydreams had gone as far as wondering who would be the father, but hadn’t gotten much beyond that even though there were several good male friends she could ask. Too large a part of her still wanted to go the traditional marriage route.

Which was odd, given her upbringing. Her father, one of Emma’s many lovers, had drifted into Rory’s life at infrequent intervals, acting more like a friendly, but distant, uncle than a dad. Larger-than-life Emma had filled in for the lack with supreme confidence. She’d been everything—father, mother, disciplinarian, instigator, best friend.

Rory worried a ragged cuticle. On second thought, perhaps her inclination to experience the one type of family life Emma couldn’t provide was not so odd. She had immense respect for her mother, but not everyone could live up to her example.

“A grandchild would be nice.” Emma rocked, placid and obdurate. Every child who arrived at Garrison Street soon learned that for all of Emma’s go-with-the-flow philosophies, she was also the original immovable object. “You don’t need to approach this like a business decision, sweetie. A baby is Mother Nature at her finest. Plant a seed, it will sprout. The practical details will work out.”

Rory squirmed. She’d change the subject, but the only other one that sprang to mind was sex. Her sisters were comfortable discussing the details of their sex lives with Emma. Rory less so. “I can’t believe you’re trying to talk me into having a baby on my own. Whatever happened to family values?”

“Don’t try to distract me with political posturing. I wouldn’t be going along with the idea if I wasn’t sure it’s something you truly want.” Emma rearranged her tangled skein of yarn. “Lauren and Mikki and I will always be here to help. It takes a village…”

“I know, but that’s not the point.”

“Don’t tell me you want a husband first.”

Rory pressed her knuckles against her smile. “I know it’s a radical idea, but you raised me to be an independent thinker.”

Her mother sniffed. “I have nothing against the concept of life mates.”

“And marriage vows…?”

Brows raised, Emma peered at Rory over the rim of her reading glasses. “If you must.”

“Don’t worry. I have no prospects at the moment, for either a husband or a father.”

“What about the young man you’re going to Mendocino with?”

“I haven’t decided about that.”

“Hmm. I’ve forgotten his name.”

“I didn’t tell you.”

“One of the girls must have mentioned him during brunch.”

There was no hiding. “Tucker Schulz.” Rory’s stomach flipped over. “Don’t get any ideas. His only potential is as a friend.”

Emma’s all-knowing gaze was on Rory’s face; she felt it heating up. “Mikki knows him?”

“He’s Nolan’s best friend.”

“Interesting.”

“No, it’s not. Not for my part.” But her mother had always been able to read her like a book and it was clear she could see past Rory’s avowals even when she continued to deny her interest.

After a moment the knitting needles resumed clicking. “There’s nothing wrong with going as friends.”

Nothing right about it, either, Rory thought. She’d be asking for trouble. So far, Mikki was still talking about researching divorce laws and filing new papers to end her marriage, but they’d been close for too long. Rory knew how much feeling her sister had buried under the hard-hearted act.

Which meant Tucker was right. If they had a weekend fling, and then Nolan and Mikki ended up together after all, they’d be forced to see each other over and over, in the most awkward of social circumstances. Some women were able to keep ex-lovers as friends—namely her mother. Rory doubted she could be as equable. For years after Brad had dumped her, she’d avoided his neighborhood and their mutual friends. When he’d moved away, her relief had been enormous.

But this was Tucker, not Brad. Was she so afraid of the possible consequences that she’d give up the grand prize trip? There was caution, and then there was stupidity.