Tucker stood in the front entryway, looking as handsome as he ever had. Even his bulky coat couldn’t conceal the hard lines of his body underneath—or maybe she was too good at picturing what they’d look like now, after all this time had passed. Oooh, it made her mad. It wasn’t fair that he could look this good and practically tear her in two. On the one hand, she didn’t want him in her house at all. On the other hand, she couldn’t very well send a man with a head injury out into the cold and snow.
But part of her—a very small part—thought he just might deserve it.
Avery shook off that ugly feeling and met Tucker’s eyes.
“The phones are down. Both the landline and my cell. There’s probably too much snow on the lines, and the cell towers out here have never been very good.” She took a deep breath, trying to release some of the old hurt bubbling just beneath the surface of her skin. “Let’s go into the kitchen, and I’ll start dinner. Seems like as good a plan as any.”
Shanna and Tucker followed her back down the hall, and Tucker took a seat at the kitchen table. He folded his hands on the surface, watching her like a hawk.
“We’re having spaghetti tonight,” Avery announced to the room at large. Shanna hopped over to the counter next to her, and the two of them started the old routine of getting things ready for dinner. Avery grabbed the plates and the jar of sauce, and Shanna got the pot for noodles and the strainer from the low cupboard.
“So…you guys know each other?” Shanna’s tone was so casual that it broke Avery’s heart. She looked between Avery and Tucker.
“We know each other,” Avery admitted. She filled the pot with water and set it on the stove, lighting it up with a turn of the knob.
“Who is he, then?”
Tension sucked the air from the room, making it hard to move, but what was her other choice? To run upstairs to the bedroom, throw herself on the bed, and nurse a broken heart from years ago?
“He’s a man I used to date.” Avery had never been more aware of a person’s presence, a person’s eyes on her, than she was right now. “Who apparently has amnesia and can’t remember the last ten years.”
What she really needed to do was keep her cool. Not let her face go red. Keep her breathing steady. Shanna didn’t need to know that anything was amiss—that Avery’s emotions roiled beneath the surface of her skin, expanding outward to take up every available inch of her body and soul. Avery peered down into the water on the stove. A few errant bubbles came up from the bottom of the pot.
“Let’s do the veggies,” Avery announced. She couldn’t stare into the pot of water forever, trying to ignore the way Tucker seemed to take up so much space in the room.
“A man you used to date?”
Avery looked up to find her daughter staring at her, eyes narrowed and curiosity burning in those baby blues. In spite of herself, her gaze lifted above Shanna’s head and she met Tucker’s eyes. A spark went through her like a comet streaking through the sky. Oh, no. Not those old feelings. Not here, not now. She swallowed them back.
Tucker looked away—down toward the woven placemats.
“Yes. Date. I’ll grab the veggies, then.”
When Avery turned around with a package of baby carrots in her hand, Shanna had darted across the room and folded herself into the chair across from Tucker. Her heart rate went through the roof at the sight of it. There were…similarities. People had told Avery that she and her daughter were carbon copies, but the way Shanna held herself across from that man…
Avery went to the cupboard and pulled out a serving bowl, then rinsed the carrots and tipped them in.
“So,” Shanna said. “You know my mom, then?”
“I do.”
Avery’s shoulders went tight, almost up to her ears, at the sound of them having a conversation. The moment felt loaded, weighted, and Tucker sounded so…confused. There was no way his amnesia had gone so deep, was there? That kind of thing seemed like it would happen in a fanciful romance novel, not her real life. It was simply too convenient for them to cross paths again after all these years, and with him injured enough that she couldn’t take him to task for the crappy way he’d treated her before.
Then again…why?
Why would he go to all that trouble?
Pretending to have amnesia seemed like quite the act to pull off. One that would show its cracks sooner, rather than later. But Tucker sat in his place at the table, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. He was the image of Shanna.
“What does it mean that you dated, then?”
“Well…” Tucker shot her a look. Avery returned the glance, her skin bristling with anticipation. He shrugged, his handsome face settling into determination. “Your mother and I—we dated all through high school.”
Shanna took this in. “High school is a long time.”
“Yeah,” said Tucker. “Four years.”
Avery’s pulse fluttered in her throat. She was done with high school. It had been years since then, and she’d worked hard to forget it. But now, at the sound of Tucker’s voice, all the memories came flooding back. Holding hands with him in the hallway. His face in the firelight at one of the pep rallies. The way he kissed her, fast and hard, when they were running out of time before she had to get home.
She cleared her throat, drawing their attention. “Why don’t you tell her about after high school, Tucker? Your career as a photographer, maybe?”
Tucker blinked at her. His hands came down from his chest, and he wiped his palms on his jeans. “Photography. Right. There’s a lot you can do with photography.”
The water for
