Taking Her Time (9 page)

Carly always had a really good handle on “glorious.”

She turned to him, revved the motor, and then slowed to yell, “I learned to ride one of these at a trade show. We advertised the product. I've raced them. You can see that I am not helpless.”

“You've never been helpless, Carly,” he said unevenly. When oncoming headlights appeared, he slowed to let her pull in front of him.

The car soared by and Tucker pulled into the lane next to her. She had that stubborn look. “Pull over,” he yelled and forced down the temper that never found him—unless he was in the vicinity of his wife.

He blinked, shocked at the new thought. Not ex-wife, but “wife.” He'd always considered Carly to be his wife, locked in his heart for good—a maddening, delectable wife, who could tear emotions from him that he hadn't known existed. She always had him on knife-edge, learning about her, about himself, and now about intimacy between them.

She'd wanted him, either for comfort or for sex, or maybe the combination of both. She'd made her statement, and he feared her more than any living creature…rather he feared his feelings for her.

“Pull over,” he yelled again and decided that if he got his hands on her…if he got his hands on her, he wasn't certain about himself or what he would do.

Maybe Carly was right. Maybe it was time they burned each other out of their systems.

His hands gripped the steering wheel until they hurt. His sexual need was way ahead of his endangered, vulnerable emotions. This intimacy thing could turn on a man. Carly had always been a fast game, and playing with her could cause real damage—of the broken-heart kind. Payment came in sleepless nights and lonely, aching hours.

“Worry about yourself,” she returned over the rev of the all-terrain rig. “Don't worry about me. I've been on my own for a long time.”

Another car approached them from the front and Tucker was forced to slow and follow Carly. The car passed and Norma's frizzed hair showed in the interior. She made a U-turn and drove to follow him, her red lights flashing.

Carly shot off the road and into a field. Tucker followed, and winced as he heard Norma's car scrape bottom behind them. They passed Ramona and Frank's family car, parked on a little moonlit knoll. The car appeared empty, until Tucker noticed Frank's white legs and sock-covered feet sticking out of the opened back door. Tucker looked away from the rocking movement of the car. It intensified his own need for Carly.

She re-entered the road and took the route straight down Main Street. Two cars loaded with teenagers pulled in behind Norma, who was by now dragging her exhaust pipe. It rattled loudly as they passed the OK Corral. People finishing the night stood outside staring at the parade. Tucker sank a little lower in the seat, promising he wouldn't—he didn't know what—to Carly.

“Ex” was a big prefix to put in front of “wife.” Without reminding himself of the “Ex,” he was in definite trouble.

By the time they reached his house, the procession was long and loud. Horns blared, coming from the friendly, whooping crowd behind them. Carly drove the all-terrain rig up into his front yard, parked it by the steps, and ran into the house. Tucker skidded to a stop, one tire up on the sidewalk, and ran after her. While he was testing the locked front door, he heard Norma's car rattle to a stop.

“Carly, open this door,” he yelled.

At his side now, Norma huffed, “Problems, Tucker? Need some help? I can shoot off that locked knob. Just stand back and I'll—”

“Nope, not a problem. I can manage,” he said, reaching to drag the key out from beneath the doormat. “I'll pay for the tailpipe and damages.”

“I'll be glad when you two get it figured out,” she said. She sighed and walked toward the people standing and parked on the street, doing her crowd-control waving-off routine.

Tucker entered the darkened house, and walked to Carly's old bedroom. He rapped on the closed door.

“You sure made a spectacle of us out there,” he said, because he was obliged to launch a statement of some kind, blaming Carly. He knew it was wrong, because a man was responsible for his actions.

He did not like the sound of muffled sobs. He could handle her crying, Tucker thought darkly, until she was in better shape and he evicted her for good—from his home and his heart.

Carly was his
ex-wife…ex-wife…ex-wife.
He repeated the litany. Otherwise, he'd be in there comforting her. And where would that get him? he brooded. Back into the heartbreak bucket, he decided.

She'd softened to him at the farm, resting against him all sweet and soft, and when she was in her hotshot businesswoman mode this morning, she'd leaned against him in the same trusting way. The old warmth had flowed between them, not of a sexual nature, but the deeper kind that terrified him now.

Tucker took a long, cold shower and practiced putting a big “ex” in front of “wife.” There were monumental reasons for that “ex.” He shaved, trying to occupy himself and take his mind off Carly in the next bedroom. He pulled on jeans, ate a sandwich he didn't taste and turned on the television to black-and-white static. The sound did not erase Carly's crying, and finally Tucker went to lay on Anna Belle's big four-poster bed. He raked over all the bad things that had happened to him that day—because of his
ex-wife.

An hour passed and the muffled sobs had turned to hiccups. They tore into his determination to let her come to the conclusion—of whatever.

An unsteady sob quickly took him out of bed and had him walking slowly into Carly's bedroom. She was lying with a sheet over her head.

“Carly?” He needed to know that she would be all right.
He needed to hold her.

“Move over,” he said quietly and nudged her hip a little with his hand. The soft feel of her body clung after he removed his hand.

Either she'd allow him to comfort her—or she wouldn't. She slid a few inches to one side.

“More,” he said, nudging her again. “And take that sheet off your face. You'll smother and then Norma will put yellow crime-scene tape all over the place.”

He eased into the single four-poster bed with her, settling gently beside her. He was more afraid of his feelings for her than the collapse of the old bed. Women were more volatile than he realized, and a whole lot stronger and more capable. Carly had ridden that big all-terrain rig like a pro.

He put one arm behind his head and pulled the sheet down from her face. She looked up at the red light that flashed through the window and danced across the ceiling. Her voice was raspy, uneven and low. “Norma. She's patrolling to keep Toad Hollow safe from me. I suppose I'm up for charges on stealing the Jacksons' four-wheeler.”

“Probably.”

“You're not much comfort, Tucker Redford.”

“I'm lying here, aren't I? I'll call the Jacksons and tell them you'd like to baby-sit to make up for the inconvenience. You should probably put some credit-money in their account at the gas station—they're having a hard time getting started financially.”

“I'll do that. Thanks.” The red light appeared on the ceiling again. “Make her go away, Tucker. Please. I can't take any more today. Maybe forever.”

With a long sigh, Tucker rose off the bed. When he did, wood cracked and the box springs, mattress and Carly fell to the floor. She pulled up the sheet again, the four-posters rising above her. Beneath the sheet, her voice was muffled. “Great. I just broke my grandmother's visiting bed.”

Tucker shook his head and walked to jerk open the front door. “Norma,” he called. “Go home.”

The police car's red light stopped and the siren whooped just once in disgust as Norma sailed off into the night.

Tucker closed the door, and hopefully the day, away from him. He slid out of his jeans and wearily glanced at Carly's room. Then he turned and headed for the safety of his room.

One step and he was against Carly's soft, T-shirt clad body. His arms circled her and her arms went around his waist. They stood in the shadows, just looking at each other and feeling whatever ran between them—and it was a big, big feeling. It wrapped around them, tightening the ache in his chest, and lower.

“You've put on some weight in the right places,” he noted huskily as his hands opened wide on soft, curved territory.

“You're a lot bigger and harder…getting harder.” Her hands smoothed his bare back and up over his shoulders.

She gave him something, he decided, and it wasn't only body heat. It was a calming deep inside him, where the uncertainties of life lurked. She gave color to his life, a joy in the unexpected. She'd given him comfort, even when they were fighting. Because he knew they had truth between them, the kind that had grown from childhood until their marriage—and then something had gone very wrong.

He eased the silky hair back from Carly's cheek and studied her. “You're looking at me like you used to look at some big project you'd tackled, all fierce and determined to succeed.”

Carly's arms were around his shoulders, her fingers in his hair, massaging his scalp. “Do you like that?”

He couldn't move. Then he did. To see her intent expression better, Tucker ran his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her to his eye level. Her breasts were just inches beneath his chin and he decided that Carly was a whole lot of good-feeling, sweet smelling, warm-blooded woman. “What are you doing?”

Her legs circled his waist. The movement of her fingers in his scalp was slow and erotic. “Watching you. You've got that dark, bristling look, like you do when you're uncertain. You're feeling fragile, aren't you?”

“A part of me is,” he admitted, because the other parts that were pressed against Carly's soft heat felt strong enough to do any job.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Her face was close, her lips just a fraction of an inch away.

“Only to say that I offended you earlier, and I shouldn't have done that. I know you wouldn't make love with me just to get your grandmother's house. You'll scrap with me, and try to bargain, but you wouldn't do that. If you wanted me, it was because you wanted me. You're an out-there-honest kind of woman.”

“You were uncertain then, too.” Her fists gripped his hair and tugged lightly. “Have you ever had a woman in my grandma's bed, Tucker Redford? Because if you have, that would just be purely evil of you.”

“No, I never have.” He'd never had a woman since Carly, because it hadn't seemed right.

Carly was quiet, her fingers tracing his face slowly, her gaze intently following them. “I'm thinking that if we're going to burn each other out of our systems, then maybe we'd better get started.”

“Maybe,” Tucker agreed after weighing his will and won'ts. Still holding her, he began striding for his bedroom.

In the kitchen, Carly's hand locked onto the doorframe, stopping him. “Wait.”

Tucker held still, his prize in his arms, his want-to revved up and at the ready. “What?”

“Let me down. This isn't what I want.”

He closed his eyes, braced himself against taking her anyway, and lowered Carly to the floor. “It's not what I want either,” he said to keep his pride. “I was just doing it for you.”

She grinned up at him. “Liar.”

Her hands reached to smooth his bare chest, to linger in the hair triangle there, and to spread over his nipples. Slowly, she eased closer, and took one nipple in her hot mouth, suckling it gently, and finishing by flicking it with her tongue. When she finished with the other nipple, Tucker's hands had circled her waist and he was shaking. “I hope you don't try to back out at this point with your other men. Because that could get rough.”

“But not with you,” she said firmly. “You would never force a woman. Tucker, when we were married, you were always the leader. That left me behind—but enjoying it just the same. It left me feeling like I didn't do my share. And that's an awful burden for a woman to bear for almost thirteen years…. And Tucker, I've never wanted to share my body with another man. I've tried, but I just couldn't…. I wanted to tell you that before you found out later. And because I'm a little scared right now.”

“So am I.” He'd have to be very careful with her, holding back his primitive desire to claim her fully, quickly. “I appreciate that information.”

Every molecule in Tucker locked onto the fact that Carly hadn't taken another man to her body. While he was still dealing with that, Carly stepped back and lifted her borrowed T-shirt away, leaving her body curved in the shadows. “You're shaking, Tucker, and I'm going to take that as an indication that I'm not the only one who is quite uncertain now. This time, I'd like to have equal opportunity, if you don't mind…please.”

“I don't mind,” he managed rawly as Carly came closer to slide her hands inside the elastic of his boxer shorts. She eased them away. From the trembling of her hands and her hesitation when the fabric caught on his body, Tucker knew that she wasn't certain of herself or what was happening between them. He closed his eyes and gripped the doorframe with his hands, because if he didn't, he'd be placing them over those full, sweet, darkly tipped breasts. The wooden doorframe creaked beneath his hands and he wished his deep, aching groan hadn't escaped his keeping.