Crazy on You

went to her office. She moved behind her desk and reached for the phone. “Thanks for the flowers,” she said when Tucker’s voicemail picked up. “They’re gorgeous, but you really have to stop spending money on me.”

She had an enormous pile of paperwork in front of her, invoices and business accounts to be paid. The sink in the aesthetician’s room needed attention, and she called a plumber and scheduled an appointment. She finished Sadie Hollowell by trimming her straight hair and blowing it dry, giving it some texture and Texas sass.

After Sadie, her next appointment wanted a long, layered cut, preferred by most Texas women and Lily herself. The long, layered cut could be pulled back into a ponytail, loosely curled, or teased and stacked to Jesus. It was three o’clock when she finished, and she decided to grab all her paperwork and head home. It wasn’t often that she could pick Pippen up after school, and she told her assistant manager she was leaving before she walked out the back door. It was almost sixty degrees and she shoved all her work into the backseat of her Jeep. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she called her mother.

“I’m off early enough to pick Pippen up from school,” she said as she headed toward the highway.

“Okay. He’ll like that.” There was a pause and then her mother said, “He’s been spending a lot of time playing basketball with that Deputy Matthews.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea,” Louella said.

“He’s a nice man.” With her eyes on the road, she fished around in her console for her sunglasses.

“We don’t know that. We don’t know him at all.”

If her mother only knew how well Lily did know the deputy. Knew he was good with his hands and liked to be ridden like Buster, the coin-operated horse outside Petterson’s Drug. “He plays ball with Pippen in full view of everyone in the neighborhood, Ma. Pippen likes him, and let’s face it, Pip spends way too much time with women. Spending time with a man is good for him.”

“Huh.” There was another pause on the line and Lily expected a rambling story about so and so’s son who’d been molested by the Tastee Freeze man and had grown up to be a serial killer of biblical proportions. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay?” No story? No rambling tale of disaster?

“Okay. If he’s good to my grandson, then that’s good enough for me.”

Lily shoved her glasses on her face. Well, the world must have just officially ended. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement from her mother, but at least she wasn’t accusing him of crimes against nature.

“Yesterday, my mom told me it’s okay if you play with Pippen.”

Tucker’s brows pulled together and he handed Lily a plate he’d just rinsed. “You told her about us?”

Lily took the plate and set it in the dishwasher. “Not exactly, but she knows that sometimes you play ball with Pip when he gets home from school.”

He reached for a kitchen towel and dried his hands. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

Lily shut the door to the dishwasher. “It means I’ll tell her. Just not now.”

“Why?”

“Because she’ll want to know everything about you,” which was just one reason, but not the biggest one. “And you keep things to yourself. It makes me wonder what you’re not telling me.” There were things she had to figure out, like her feelings for him, and if she could trust the feelings he said he had for her. And if it all went south, could she handle it? “What deep dark secrets are you keeping from me? Did something happen in the military?”

He shook his head. “Being in the military saved my life.”

“Tucker!” She pushed his shoulder but he didn’t budge. “You were shot five times.”

“I was shot at more than that.” He smiled like it was no big deal. “That was just the last time. If not for the Army, I’d be dead or doing time in prison.”

Prison? She took the towel from him and slowly dried her own hands. She looked closer at his smile, and a felt a somber blanketing of her heart. “Why do you say that?”

He turned away and reached into the refrigerator. “Before I enlisted, I was going nowhere and had nothing. I’d already done several years locked up in juvenile detention and was living in a youth home.” He pulled out a half gallon of milk and moved toward the back door. “They kick you out at eighteen, but I was ready to leave anyway.”

He knelt and poured milk into the empty cat dish. He wouldn’t look at her so she moved to him and knelt beside him. “Where was your mother?”

“Dead,” he said without emotion, but he wouldn’t look at her. “Died of a drug overdose when I was a baby.”

“Tucker.” She put her hand on his shoulder, but he stood and moved to the refrigerator.

“Your daddy?” She rose and followed him.

“Never knew who he was. She probably didn’t know either. I’m sure he was some crackhead like her.”

“Who took care of you?”

“My grandmother, but she died when I was five.” He put the milk inside and shut the door. “Then various aunts, but mostly the state of Michigan.”

She thought of Pippen and her heart caved in her chest. “Tucker.” She grabbed hold of his arm and made him look at her. “Every baby should be born into a living family. I’m sorry you weren’t. That’s horrible.”

“It was fucked up, to be sure.” He looked at the floor. “I lived in eleven different foster homes, but they were all the same: people just taking in kids to get money from the state. They were just a stopover to someplace else.”

Honest to God, she didn’t know what to say. She’d thought his secrets had something to do with . . . Well she hadn’t known, but not this. Though it did explain some of his rough edges and why he might be relentless. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“People look at you differently when they find out no one wanted you as a kid. They look at you like something must be wrong with you. Like it’s your fault.”

She wanted to cry for this big, strong man who’d once been a lost boy, but felt she should be strong like him. The backs of her eyes stung and she blinked back her tears.

“I especially didn’t want you to know.”

“Why?”

“When people find out you’ve spent time in the juvenile jail, they look at you like you might steal the family heirlooms. No matter what else you do in your life.”

She cupped his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. “I would never think that. I’m proud of you, Tucker. You should be proud of yourself. Look at you. You’ve overcome so much. It would have been easy and understandable if you’d gone bad, but you didn’t.”

“For a while I did. I stole everything I could get my hands on.”

“Well, I don’t have family heirlooms.” She ran her hands across his shoulders, comforting him. “But maybe I should search you the next time you leave my house.”

He flushed and cut his gaze to the side. “I would never steal from—”

“I’m going to like searching you too. Maybe I’ll search you when you enter, just for good measure. Maybe I should search you right now.”

He looked back at her, relief in his eyes. “But this is my house.”

She shrugged. “I just don’t think I should pass up a good opportunity to search you. Never know what I might find.”

“I know what you’ll find.” He pulled her against his chest. “Start with the right front pocket.”

She did and found him hard and ready for sex.

“Are you on birth control?” he asked, his voice going all smoky.

She thought it an odd question at this stage. “I’ve had an IUD for about seven years now.” Ever since a pregnancy scare when Pip had been three.

“Do you trust me?”

“With what?”