Taking Her Time (8 page)

“You go, girl.”

At the OK Corral nightclub, the music blared and the dance floor was filled with two-steppers. When Frank left his partner and made for Ramona and Carly, Ramona gently pushed Carly at him. Within five minutes of meeting Frank, Carly could understand why his wife loved him.

Tommy and Emma Jackson invited her to their home, and Arlo and Fred and Jace danced with her.

The band was good, and taking Ramona's advice, Carly smiled at the teasing about being arrested for wrestling Tucker to the ground. She was woman, she was strong and could meet any challenge Tucker threw at her. Then the past would be closed and she could nab Gary. Tucker could marry his blond girlfriend.

She was just fitting all the ugly pieces of the day together—and twirling under Frank's arm—when Tucker and Tyrell appeared at the door. She missed Frank, stumbled, upset a table filled with drinks, and skidded across the spilled beer. Her hand caught on the singer's standing microphone and she gripped it for balance. Once steady on her feet, she met Tucker's cold stare. It cut through the shadows and the crowd to lock with hers. He wasn't backing down and neither was she. Since the microphone was handy and working, Carly used it, because she was never a woman to lose an opportunity to even a score.

She'd lost her dignity today, and probably a potential husband. She'd been tossed in jail, cleaned fish and got her sexual needs all stirred up with nowhere to take them. After all that, Tucker had dropped an intimacy bombshell on her and then just walked off. She would finish the day—and the feelings her ex-husband could tangle in her—her way.

“I've got something to say to you, Tucker Redford. You got away before I could finish today, but I am one hundred percent ready now,” blasted across the suddenly silent crowd.

Her words echoed in her brain. She'd been ready on the lawn, hot for Tucker, and they definitely hadn't finished. What she had meant was that he hadn't given her opportunity for closure. Carly felt the heat move up her throat and on her cheeks. “When I was in jail,” she added carefully. “And you said those things about how you feel. I want equal opportunity.”

Tyrell's grin flashed, but Tucker had folded his arms and was looking up at the ceiling's balloons. From across the room she could see his grim expression.

“Don't just stand there, sing something,” she ordered the singer and shoved the microphone at him.

“Same old Carly,” someone said quietly after a chuckle.

“The town legend hasn't changed,” someone else agreed as Carly made her way around the tables and people to him. The music began and no one moved, staring expectantly at her and then to Tucker, and then back to her.

No one was watching Ramona and Frank's sizzling kiss on the dance floor.

When Carly came to stand in front of Tucker, his eyes narrowed down at her. That vein in his throat began to pulse, a muscle working in his jaw. He looked down her body, and then back up again to her face. “You yelled?” he asked too politely.

“Where's your blond girlfriend?”

“I left her in bed,” he said after a moment and gave her that cold wolfish smile. “Exhausted and sleeping. How does it feel to be out of jail?”

That he'd admitted his heart to her and then had gone to another woman for fulfillment shouldn't have taken Carly aback—but it did. “You have a lot of energy, Mr. Redford,” she managed.

“What did you want to say to me?” he asked. When she couldn't find the words to even the score, Tucker took a deep breath and slowly placed his hand on her head.

She didn't mean to go soft and wilty, as his fingers gently massaged her scalp, and that sensually hungry look came into his eyes, but she did. Her body quivered just that once and she heard the uneven rush of her words, as if they had been bottled in her for all those years. “I've just got to burn you out of my life, Tucker. I can't go back and I can't go forward. Not until you and I are done. I'm sorry that I hurt you. I didn't know what else to do back then. I knew I wasn't the wife you wanted, and I knew I wasn't settled enough to have your babies. Every day, I fought against what I wanted—to do more, to learn more, to be someone other than Billy Walker's daughter and your wife. But it was always there. I couldn't push it away. Every day it crushed me—what I wanted to be, and what I needed to do. I thought you would be better off without me. You should marry someone and get what you deserve.”

She had to stop talking. No one in the universe had probably embarrassed themselves more in one day—or in one whole year. But because she had to, Carly added,
“Do you know how hard it was not to call my best friend when I was starting out all alone in a new place and so scared? Do you know how many times I almost picked up the telephone to call you?”

It was then that Tucker cursed. With the quick movement of a strong athlete, he bent and hefted Carly over his shoulder. He toted her out of the nightclub as if she were a sack of grain.

O
nce seated on the passenger side of Tucker's pickup truck, Carly bristled and tried to find the right words to shake him as she had been shaken. She crossed her arms and settled into the bench seat. It was just like Tucker to be old-fashioned and not have individual seats.

She wasn't leaving the intimacy battlefield to him—not until she'd emptied every last resentment, wrung it out and dropped it on Tucker.

The truck bore his scent—masculine, certain and dark, with subtle layers of frustration that seemed to bristle around her. Papers were stuffed behind the sun visors, a clipboard lay on the floorboard and the seat was set far back to allow for Tucker's long legs. A calculator and papers lay on the seat beside her, a contrast to her ultraspiffy laptop and PDA. Safety glasses hung from his rearview mirror.

Tucker eased those lean legs into the driver's side. He slammed the door, and locked his big hands on the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead, his face grim and hard in the neon light blinking above the OK Corral nightclub.

“Have you had anything to eat?” he asked finally, and not that pleasantly, either.

“One of Ramona's kids left half a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich in his lunchbox, on the back seat. It was squished flat.” The little “I Luv U, Cody” note in the lunchbox had almost made her cry, because it was just like the notes she had sent Tucker in the second grade. As a mature third grader and a boy, he hadn't appreciated the favor.

Tucker switched the truck into life, revved it and shot onto the street. He drove to a fast-food drive-in and parked in a slot near a speaker. At the Red Stompers Drive-In, teenagers were seated in cars, the girls cuddled up to the boys. This was the same place where Tucker and Carly had come as teenagers and as young marrieds. During their marriage, most of Tucker's paycheck had gone to fast food and the cafe. Their grocery bill was high, too, because Carly wasn't able to budget—or to cook.

Now running a million-dollar advertising budget was nothing—but she still had trouble balancing her checkbook.

“I'm embarrassed, you know, Tucker. And you're the cause of my misfortune.”

“Sure.” The word was flat, giving her nothing, and then he ordered their food.

They sat in silence—until Betty and Ross Wilson brought their boys to Carly's side of the truck. Tanner's and Gavin's eyes were wide, their mouths gaping as they stared at her.

“They've never seen a fugitive from justice before. Or an ex-con,” Betty explained with a grin.

“How's it going?” Ross asked, after smothering a chuckle.

“Just peachy.” Carly forced a smile. The small town gossip did not observe the protection of secrets and pride. She'd graduated from high school with Betty and Ross and they'd married right away. Between them, they probably rehashed every legend she'd ever made—and Tucker's steadfast ability to rescue her.

“You two getting back together again? Heard you were going at it on the front lawn—”

“No,” Carly and Tucker stated in unison.

“Then what are you doing together? The boys said that Tucker came to see you while you were in jail, cleaning fish,” Ross, always a reasonable man, asked. When Carly and Tucker were silent, looking straight ahead, Betty discreetly urged her family away into their van.

The food came. Carly and Tucker ate, stuffed the wrappers back into the sacks, and finished their milk-shakes—chocolate for him and strawberry for her, same as always. In eleven years, nothing had changed—at least at the drive-in.

Norma pulled in beside them and made her presence known by a loud order into the speaker.

“I thought you were eating fish tonight, Norma,” Carly sing-songed across the summer air.

“I'm on patrol. I heard what happened at the OK Corral. Just don't start trouble, Carly Redford. Back when you were roller-skating and delivering orders here, they almost had to shut the place down. You caused more than a few fender benders.”

“I rollerblade now,” Carly stated darkly. “I'm fast. I bet I could outrace that ‘squad' car.”

“We'll be going now, Norma,” Tucker said. When he had started the motor, he turned to Carly and said quietly, “I do not have a blond girlfriend.”

“You have barrettes and blond hair on that brush by your bed,” Carly countered.

Tucker squinted thoughtfully out into the night. “Those are from little Samantha Royal. She's six. I fix her hair from time to time. Her father ran out on them a few months ago. I just try to take up the slack now and then, so she'll know that men aren't all the same. I tucked her in tonight. That's where I was. Her dad had called and said he would come see her. He didn't.”

Tucker hadn't been with a woman after all. Carly tried not to be jubilant, but she was and couldn't explain that happy, light, giggling feeling. “Fred Royal? The one that you pulled off me when he caught me in that shed?”

He nodded and started the motor. He reversed, gliding the truck out into the night. Norma's headlights followed them to the city limits, then turned back to Toad Hollow.

He drove into the Jacksons' ranch and parked near the new little barn. “Tommy and Emma are honeymooning at the Taj Mahal tonight, celebrating back to marital sex after the baby. Cute little thing, but she's got a good strong grip. I think she'll be pretty good when she starts playing ball. You were. She's at her grandparents.”

“A lot happened all in one day. How are your parents?” After a hard day of discoveries and closures, Carly gave herself an A+ for managing small talk with Tucker.

“Fine. They're in Hawaii, doing the hula. Dad thinks it's good for his arthritis.”

Carly forced a swallow down her dry throat. She eased back against the passenger door. This was the first time in years that they'd been alone and had a civil conversation. She was terrified that the unexplainable truce would shatter. And she had missed Tucker.

That fact lodged deep and unremovable within her.

Along with a vibrating and steadily increasing sexual need.

Tucker scowled at her and stepped out into the night, slamming the door behind him. In the moonlight, he looked big and somehow foreign, his hands tucked into his back pockets. His deep voice was quiet and raw in the night. “When you were scared and starting out, you could have called me, Carly. You're right. We were best friends. I would have understood. I was pretty scared when I took over Dad's business.”

“I had to do it by myself, Tucker.”

“I checked on you, once or twice. Came out to Denver and saw that you didn't need me. You were doing fine. I saw that sleek office building, and your office and your name on that big plaque beside it. I saw you streaking by on the street, dressed in a suit, carrying a briefcase and talking on your cell phone. You looked happy and I knew you were wrangling something by your expression. You looked like someone I didn't know, a sharp businesswoman in action. You didn't need me, Carly.”

“You came to Denver to see me?”

He was silent, gazing out at the cattle. “I almost called you, too.”

She was terrified of one wrong word, of the past's black arguments. They could tear apart this special fragile moment where the world seemed to stop around them. The stressful day closed in on Carly, crushing her and tears burned her lids.

Maybe it was the physical cleansing that closure brought. Maybe it was the clash between old lifetimes and new. She felt weak and peeled and alone.

She heard a rough sound and looked to see Tucker stand near her, frowning down at her. “Carly?”

His hand reached for her head and she couldn't let him touch her, lifting her hand to stop him. Her fingers locked on that thick masculine wrist. It was warm and hard and safe, just like Tucker. After a quivering moment in which their eyes locked and her mind went blank, Tucker tugged her against him, her face against his throat. Her arms circled him instantly. She needed his safety, tears burning a trail down her cheek. She rested against Tucker's body, drawing on his strength, the comfort of his arms, his open hand caressing up and down her back.

The hand in her hair had stopped smoothing and his fingers slowly slid into a sensual massage.

She didn't intend to release that sigh, long and low, but it slid into the night air. Beneath her cheek, Tucker's heartbeat had kicked up.

Carly slid her arm around his shoulder and dug her fingers into the muscle tensed there. It quivered beneath her touch, and she held very still, Tucker's skin sending little electric charges to hers. That big span of his hand slid lower on her hip, locking onto the softness there. His breath was uneven and harsh, heat burning around them, in them, though the summer night was cool and fragrant. “You've got that revved woman smell. I'd know yours anywhere, sweet and hot. It hasn't changed.”

Carly turned her face slightly and her lips brushed his hard jaw. She didn't move, her lips open on his skin. Tucker was familiar and safe—but he was new, too. And he was dangerous, because most of all, she needed closure from her ex-husband.

“I'd like to burn you out of my life, Tucker Redford.”

“Think you could, do you?” he challenged rawly.

Her hand lay over his chest and beneath the cloth, a muscle jumped, a hard nub etching her palm. A hunt-resslike sense slid over her, almost feline in its awareness, her challenge right under her hand, hot and hard and big and tense. She always loved the game, the hunt, the challenge and the victory.

But she'd never played the game with a man.

In their married, sexual life, Tucker had always done the running, initiating lovemaking—because she wasn't certain if that was a good girl role. While she had debated, Tucker had moved on, gently or wildly taking her to mind-blowing sex. She'd released her riveting need to him, but
she'd
never actually come after
him.
Tucker's need was always right there and revved but never released until she was well on her way to shattering. Now, sexual equality with Tucker was necessary. “I'm thinking I'd like to try.”

He spoke impatiently, “Well, think some more. Because I'm not going through that again. Half my heart was torn right out of my chest and when it was still bleeding on the ground, you tromped all over it.”

Tucker moved away from her, his eyes silvery slits in the night. “And I'm not changing my mind about selling Anna Belle's—my house—to you, no matter what you try to do to persuade me.”

Torn between a simmering desire and Tucker's insinuation that she would use her body to get the house, Carly's mind stopped once more.

She'd always been a fast, agile thinker and her mind had gone blank more times in the two days since she'd been home than it had in her lifetime.

At that rate, Tucker could cost her a future in advertising, where a good mind was a must.

While she felt staked out in the moonlight, vulnerable and unable to move, Tucker got into the pickup cab and slammed the door. A cow mooed as he revved the motor, indicating that he was ready to leave, that he was finished with their brief intimacy. That he was finished with her—forever.

He'd found his closure, while she was still working on hers. In lovemaking, he'd always made certain that they both reached the ultimate finish line at the same time. She'd trusted him to do that. She'd trusted him to understand her need to compete and if not win, call it a draw.

This new Tucker did not care about her feelings.

That fact shook her pride. She'd made a tentative offer and he'd walked away from any negotiation.

Carly did the only thing she could do—she straightened her back and walked to the Jacksons' all-terrain vehicle. Tucker revved his truck, indicating that he was ready to go. So was she. She straddled the four-wheeler and in her hands it lurched to life—unlike Tucker.

She shot off into the night to escape this new Tucker and her shattered emotions.

 

Tucker heard his curse burn the night. Carly was riding like the proverbial bat out of hell. She'd always acted irrationally when she'd been hurt.

Racing across the pasture toward the road, Carly could be thrown or—He backed the pickup and shot down the road. If she hit that barbed wire fence…he couldn't bear the thought of her bleeding and hurt…or worse.

He almost hit a cow as he raced across the field after her, honking loud enough to send the cattle into a tiny stampede. Carly's vehicle slowed, the headlights swerved and before Tucker knew it, his pickup was into the Jacksons' barbed wire fence. The impact had broken two fence posts. He reversed and found Carly's headlights shooting through the gate.

On the paved road leading back to Toad Hollow, Tucker pulled alongside her and honked. Carly's nose was high in the air, her back stiff.

“You'll get hurt riding that thing. Park it and get into the truck,” he ordered uncertainly. Carly was always one to go the opposite direction of an order, but this time, she could—He did not want to think about the danger.

They continued to drive side by side down the two-lane paved road, approaching Toad Hollow. Carly's hair flew out behind her, and if Tucker hadn't been so worried, he might have thought she was glorious.