“I had to have a complete medical exam before I joined the Potter County Sherriff’s office. Top to bottom. I’m clean. Do you trust me?”
He was asking to have sex without a condom. To take their relationship to the next step, and she wanted it so much it scared her. If they took things slow, maybe everything would work out. “Yes. Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” He took her hand and led her to his bedroom. He kissed and touched and undressed her. He made love to her whole body, and when he entered her, hot and throbbing skin to skin, she moaned and arched her back. He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes as he plunged in and out of her body. “Lily,” he whispered. “I love you.”
Complete euphoria rushed through her blood and heated her whole body. He said he loved her and she felt it in every part of her body. The euphoric feeling stayed with her long after she left his house that morning. Long after she went to work and returned home that night. She woke with it, but when she returned home after dropping Pippen off at school, her happy euphoric bubble got shot all to hell.
She pulled her Jeep into the garage just as Tucker was getting home from work. It was garbage day and she walked out to the curb to pull her empty can inside.
Tucker being Tucker, he met her in the driveway and pulled it inside for her. She quickly shut the garage door and he followed her into the kitchen.
A smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Want coffee?”
“What are you doing tomorrow night? I have it off. I thought we could go to Ruby’s. Some of the guys said Ruby’s serves a good steak but to avoid the seafood.”
Ruby’s? Her smile fell. A restaurant in the middle of downtown Lovett—where the news that she was dating young Deputy Matthews would reach everyone by dessert. That wasn’t taking things slow. What she felt was so new, she wasn’t ready for that. “I have Pip.”
“Can’t he stay with your mom or sister for a few hours.”
“That’s awfully short notice, Tucker.”
He folded his arms over his beige work shirt. “What about Sunday?”
“I don’t know.” He was pushing her. She understood him, but there was so much to think about. Everything was happening too fast. He said he loved her, but could she let herself love him as much as he deserved? That crazy kind of love that consumed and burned? She was too old and had too much to lose to love like that again. “I have a lot of work.”
“Monday.”
“How about someplace in Amarillo.” That was a nice compromise. “The restaurants are better in Amarillo.”
“No. How about Ruby’s?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of hiding. I want a whole life with you. You and Pip.”
“You’re young. How do you even know what you want? When I was thirty, I thought I wanted something different than I want now.”
“Quit treating me like a kid. I might be eight years younger than you, but I’ve lived a lot of different lives— enough of them to know what I want and what I don’t want. I love you, Lily. I told you that and I meant it. I want to be with you. I’m into you one hundred percent, but if you aren’t, you need to tell me. I’m no one’s secret. Either you’re in one hundred percent with me, or I’m out.”
“It’s been almost two months since I fell in love with you that first morning I saw you with curlers in your hair and bunny slippers on your feet. Knowing you love someone doesn’t take time. It doesn’t take ten years or ten months to figure it out. It takes looking across a driveway and feeling like you’ve been hit in the chest—like you can’t breathe.”
He shook his head. “I’m not waiting around for the crumbs from your table. I spent my whole childhood doing that. The outsider looking in. Waiting. Wanting what would never be mine. I can’t do it anymore, Lily.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Are you in or out? It’s that simple.”
There was so much to think about. Her. Pip. What if he left her after a few months or years? Would she survive this time? Would she lose her mind again? “Why are you so stubborn about this?”
“I’m not stubborn, Lily. I just know what I want. If you don’t want the same thing, if you don’t want to be with me, you need to tell me now. Before I get in any deeper and start thinking I can have things that I can’t.”
“It’s not that easy, Tucker. You can’t expect me to make a decision right this very second.”
“You just did.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Are you still playing basketball with Deputy Matthews?” It had been three days since she’d seen Tucker. He hadn’t even tried to contact her. She’d dialed him up twice, but he hadn’t picked up or returned her call.
Pippen nodded as he snapped Legos together. “I almost beat him at H-O-R-S-E today.”
She felt empty and envious—envious of her own son because he got to see Tucker. It was Saturday night. She should be relaxed and happy. Her salon was doing great, her son was fine, and she had the next two days off. Instead of relaxed, she felt edgy and ready to jumpy out of her own skin. “Do you like him?”
“Yeah, and Pinky too.”
He wanted a life with her. He wanted her to jump in with both feet or not at all. “Did you go into his house?”
Pippen shook his head. “Pinky got out and ran into our backyard like Griffin used to. I took her back ’cause she’s little and has no survival skills.”
She thought of Tucker pouring milk into a little cat bowl. Most of the men she knew said they hated cats. Only a supremely confident man would own one named Pinky. “What would you think if we had Tucker come over for dinner sometimes?” His confidence was one of the things she liked about him.
“Can we have pizza?”
“Sure.”
“And maybe he could come with us when go bowling,” her son suggested and snapped some sort of wings on the Legos. “He’ll probably win, though.”
Probably. Both she and Pip sucked. In the past, Pippen had always nagged her to call Ronnie to go bowling with them. “What about your dad?”
Pippen shrugged. “He has a new girlfriend. So, I probably won’t see him for a while.”
A sad smile twisted her lips as her heart hurt for her son. Ten years old and he had Ronnie Darlington all figured out. “What if I went out on a date with Tucker? If he took me out to dinner or something. Just him and me. Would that bother you?” she asked, even though she wasn’t positive that Tucker would ever speak to her again. She remembered the look in his eyes the last time she’d seen him. Sad. Final.
He snapped a few more Legos together. “No. Are you going to kiss him?”
She’d like to kiss him. “Probably.”
He made a face. “Grown-ups do gross stuff. I don’t want to go to high school.”
“That’s when people have to start kissin’. T.J. Briscoe told me his older brother rolls around kissin’ his girlfriend until his parents come home from work.”
