Make a Right (23 page)

He hadn’t stood this close to Thomas without fists flying. Ever.

Then again, he’d never wanted—no, needed—to hear what the man had to say before now.

He had to wait for it. Thomas took more time than Cade ever had.

Tuck frowned at Thomas. Looked at him, seeing him clearly for once, with his long, plain face, the eyes of a priest, and a ton’s worth of lead weights draped over his shoulders.

Did it ever occur to you that he was as lonely as we were? That he had a place in the world but no one to care about? That he’s a man too, not just a faceless enemy?

Fine time for Cade’s parting shot to ring in his ears. On the other hand, Tuck couldn’t have thought of a time when he needed to hear it more.

Fuck it; he’d never in his life expected to feel
sorry
for Thomas and he didn’t want to start now, but there you had it.

He waited.

“Yes,” Thomas said, voice blending in with the grasshopper song and the rustle of wind through the leaves of the old trees. “I love him. I always have.” He turned to face Tuck head-on. “But I know where his heart lies, and always will. I’m not a fool, and I’m not a saint.”

Tuck tried to understand. He did. “And yet you’re still here.”

Lame. Thomas still got what he meant, and Tuck could have hated him a little more for that. Only, he actually couldn’t, even if he wasn’t sure exactly why. “Love bears all things,” he began to recite.

“Thomas, stop.” Tuck wanted to put his hands over his ears. He couldn’t listen to that ring of trust and not want to break a window, or steal a car and roar off into the night.

Thomas didn’t stop. “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never ends. Love bears all things, hopes all things, and believes all things. Love never dies.” He shrugged. “You did ask.”

Sure. And he’d thought he knew the answer. Or had he? Tuck’s head swam and ached with trying to keep up and sort things where they needed to go. They were worse than old city streets, the way these new thoughts twisted and turned and opened up onto thoroughfares or smacked into dead ends that might just be blocked paths.

Thomas waited for him. “Go ahead and ask.”

One question crystallized, and it tasted like bitter-apple sour candy when it cut its way past his lips. “If it hurts you that much, why do you stay?”

“Because he needs someone he’s safe with.”

“That’s me,” Tuck protested.

“Sometimes. Sometimes not.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” Tuck guarded himself. “You do know. What he’s not telling me. Why he is the way he is. You knew all along, didn’t you?”

“It’s his story to tell.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all the answer I’m giving you.”

Tuck growled and threw his weight against one of the veranda pillars. “Make up your mind. Either you want this to self-destruct or you don’t.”

“Mmm.” Thomas met Tuck’s gaze and held it with an equal amount of challenge in his stare. “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.”

A beat of silence.

“Do something about him, Tuck. If you don’t, I will.”

Fuck. Anytime the God he’d prayed to at St. Pius wanted to chime in, Tuck’s ears were open and ready.

C’mon. Help a guy out. Please?

In the end, without divine intervention, Tuck turned his back on Thomas. “I’ll be back in a few. Go do what you do.”

Any other man would have asked
what’s that supposed to mean
? Not Thomas. Thomas stood still, watched Tuck go, and didn’t say a word. His quietness wasn’t like Cade’s.

But they were alike in that way. Knowing when not speaking said more than anything, and be damned if Tuck couldn’t get that thought out of his head no matter how he tried.

* * *

Things had calmed down a little further still by the time Tuck made his way to the kitchen where everyone else seemed to have instinctively congregated. Even Thomas. Tuck grumbled at that, glad his lips were concealed behind the boxes piled so high in his arms he could barely see. What he could get a peek at seemed worlds away better. The air clearer, even if eyes were tired and yawns hidden behind hands. Suzie-Q had even fallen asleep under Megan’s chair.

Hannah and Megan looked equally curious about the boxes. “I thought you went out to kick some merchant ass,” she said, offering the first olive branch.

Tuck took it, and gladly. “I did. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Though why anyone would want to, I don’t know.” He eased the boxes onto the table and dusted off his hands, reached for his wallet, and hauled out the stack of bills. Those he gave to Hannah.

Hannah’s lips parted, and her eyes widened in surprise. So did Megan’s. “You actually got our money back?”

“He can be very persuasive when he wants to be,” Cade remarked. Tuck watched one of Thomas’s eyebrows lift.

Tuck eased the biggest box out from beneath the rest. “Sometimes. This is yours, Hannah. Peace offering, or as close as a guy like me can come. Open it up.”

Hannah and Megan asked silent questions of one another once again. Tuck liked these better. A little gleam of excitement in there, like kids on Christmas morning. “Go on,” Tuck said. He tensed up. What if she didn’t like it? “Before the suspense kills us all, Christ.”

Hannah laughed.
Laughed
. “You didn’t have to.”

“I really did.” Tuck stood back and found himself at Cade’s side. Cade, warm against him. That helped.

Curiosity overtook Hannah completely. She opened the box the way a lady would, discreet logo on the top noted with a blink of surprise, top laid aside, and tissue paper crinkling delicately as she unfolded it, sensing somehow this needed to be treated with care.

When the last folds were out of the way, she put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God.”

“What? Did I get it wrong? Hannah, come on, don’t get weepy on me again,” Tuck said, alarmed. “I can take it back.”

“Let me see.” Megan lifted a corner of silk. She stared at it, then at Tuck. “She’s been lusting after this dress for months. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. It looked like her, that’s all, so I took a guess. It’s okay, then?”

“Oh God,” Hannah said again. She clasped the box, tissue paper and all, to her chest and—not quite fled, but sure as hell exited the room at high speed.

That left everyone else watching Tuck. He raised his hands in confused surrender. “Someone tell me what that was all about, would you?”

“Dummy.” Megan propped her chin in her hand. “Wait. You really have to ask?”

“Are you kidding me? She’s a girl. I have no idea if that was good or bad.”

Everyone except Thomas laughed at him. “What?” Tuck protested, though he too laughed on the inside. He’d take his respite where it came tonight. “All I know about girly stuff I learned from you two, and trust me, neither of you is that damn dainty.”

Megan turned in her chair to glance back in the direction of rustling sounds just around the corner. “Says you.”

Hannah emerged. Her hair was tangled in a giant yellow cloud, and she wore a pair of bunny slippers instead of heels, but that dress—she’d put it on—swear to God, that tea gown fit Hannah like it’d been made for her.

No one said a word. Just looked and couldn’t stop looking. Even Thomas stared in apparent awe.

Hannah didn’t say anything either. She crossed the kitchen in giant steps, careless of anything but throwing her arms around Tuck’s neck and squeezing the breath out of him. Exactly as she’d done when she was thrilled to see him the first time around.

Tuck chanced stroking her crazy hair. “If you cry on me, I
will
take that damn thing back to the store.”

She pounded one fist against his chest, light as a heartbeat. “There’s more than one kind of tears. Oh God.” She stood up straight, somehow prettier still with her eyes red from tears. “I wanted this dress like you wouldn’t believe.” She stopped, going pale. “Tuck, this cost—”

“I had some savings,” Tuck said, trying to shrug it off. “I wanted to.”

Megan tapped the edge of the kitchen table. “You couldn’t have paid the tux rental for me, then?”

Hannah didn’t have to reach far to give Megan a playful shove or to bend to press her cheek to Megan’s. Megan stroked her hair, and both looked better at the job and did it better. “Fucking gorgeous,” she told Hannah. “Look at you.”

Hannah blushed. “You really think so?”

“For what it’s worth? I’ve never seen anything prettier.”

“Or me,” Cade said quietly. He was looking at Tuck when he did, though Hannah didn’t notice—and Thomas did.

Tuck regarded Thomas with a sort of flat calm. The trouble wasn’t all sorted out there, no. He simply couldn’t be bothered caring about that now; he had better things to think about.

All the oomph that had dimmed from her rushed back to Hannah. She sat up straight, her head coming up and her chin high.

She also sniffed the air, nose twitching.

“The fuck is that?” Tuck asked, though honest to God he thought it was adorable. “You look like Thumper, only with your schnoz.”

“That,” she said, adopting the grand dignity of the good professor’s house tempered just satisfyingly enough with Jersey Girl sass, “is what a second wind smells like.”

Tuck wasn’t the only one who groaned. Megan knocked her head against Hannah’s. Funny how the way they all showed affection was by beating on one another, but whatever worked, right? He rested his head against Cade’s chest. “Yeah? Is that a good thing?”

“You better believe it.”

“And cheesy as hell,” Megan said, eye to eye with Hannah, grin totally giving her away. “They were right. Beautiful.”

“Cheese,” Hannah agreed, her smile broad and bright again. “You love it, and you know it.”

Tuck would have averted his eyes from their soft kiss if he could have. For one, he was trying to be a gentleman for once, the gift bringing that out in him; for two, girly parts in any combination made him squirm; three, if Megan were a guy instead of a girl and Tuck hadn’t ever met her before this trip, he’d have had a shotgun on standby just where Megan could see it.

But c’mon, they were like three inches away from him, and he couldn’t help but get a close-up view of Megan’s slim, steel-tough hand gentle on Hannah’s cheek and the heart in that kiss. The stars in their eyes.

He wondered if anyone had ever looked at him and Cade and seen the same things pass between them when they kissed?

“We’re making the gay men nervous,” Hannah teased. She pushed Megan away; Megan went, but only to take Hannah in hand and pull her to her feet. Hannah clapped her hands together. “Cheesy or not, I do have a second wind. That means the rest of you are back on the hook. Megan: dissertation thesis waits for the morning. Everyone else get to bed, and I don’t mean maybe.”

God, but she could blaze on when she had her ginger up, couldn’t she? Tuck admired the hell out of her. They’d raised this one right, and he didn’t figure it was a bad thing to look at her and be pleased.

Chapter Eighteen

Hannah, Cade, and probably Thomas too had finished with breakfast the next morning before Tuck made his way down. He’d waited until then on purpose. Hannah had assigned him a task before they fell asleep, after all, and he needed that kitchen all to himself, save for Megan and her books, to manage the job.

He didn’t so much mind. Cade had teased him about it. And to be fair, he had brought the job on himself, forgetting that effectively blackballing them with caterers and bakers instead of negotiating still left them screwed, blued, and tattooed.

Eh, so be it. Tuck wasn’t the
best
chef in the world, but he wasn’t one of the worst. With Megan buried peacefully in her work once more, the kitchen was quiet.

Tuck had to marvel again at her concentration. It took Megan the better part of an hour, all the way from Tuck’s gathering ingredients, bowls, pots and pans and baking dishes, to stir out of her fugue and blink at him.

“What are you doing, feeding the five thousand?” She closed her book and stood, stretching her arms over her head.

“Five thousand, no. Five hundred? Fifty? How many people did you invite?”

“Around forty, but probably only twenty-five will show.” She sniffed the air as eagerly as Suzie-Q on a mission. Where was Suzie-Q, anyway, that she hadn’t been tempted once to gallop in and check out the smorgasbord? He heard her barking. Probably out with Cade. It pleased Tuck more than a little to think,
as usual.

Megan distracted him from those thoughts. “As good as that smells, they’re going to have to fight me for it. What are you making?”

“Pretty much a mix of this and that. Finger food crap I found recipes for when I stole a few hours of your Internet.”

“It’s password protected.”

“Right. Using ‘Hannah’ as your password? Rookie move.”

Megan blushed but didn’t make excuses. She reached for a pinch of diced celery all ready to mix into a salad. “Hey now!” Tuck rapped her over the knuckles. “Give it a chance to finish cooking before you start pirating, would you? Jeez.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and Tuck couldn’t help but laugh at that. A near-PhD giving him the child-sized version of the finger. “I lied. It doesn’t smell that good anyway.” Her stomach grumbled.

“Sure it doesn’t.” Tuck relented. “I made you sandwiches. On the counter, over there. Enough for you, Hannah, Cade, and—” He gritted his teeth. “Thomas.” Who was building the pavilion that’d been
his
idea, damn it. But look at him trying to play nice. See?

Megan sneaked a finger-full of batter from a bowl. Give credit where credit was due, she had cojones. The “red velvet” batter looked like an industrial accident. She smacked her lips anyway. “Mmm, my favorite. Why cupcakes?”

“No way I could do a four-layer cake with fondant, whatever that is,” Tuck admitted. “So you get cupcakes. Good enough?”

Megan laughed.

Tuck didn’t get the joke. “What?”

“That’s the big thing lately,” she said, hooking her chin over his shoulder. “A shot in the dark, and you did it right.”

So help him if that didn’t lift Tuck’s spirits. “Spare the compliments until we see if these turn out lopsided,” Tuck said. “And get back to work, or Hannah’s going to kick my ass.” He eyed her stack of books and hurricane explosion of papers. “You’re not going to be done by the wedding day, are you?”