Marry Me Again (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 1) (27 page)

Rebecca looked up at the sky through the terrace window. "I just don't know."

* * *

Once she was done talking to her mother, Rebecca set out to find her father.

She left the family room and crossed through the kitchen, formal living room and dining room, and then walked down the hallway to her father's study.

She was almost to the door, getting ready to knock, when she heard her father's voice.

"You have reasons to be hopeful?"

"A few," Tucker answered.

Damn, she thought. She was too late. Tucker had already told him.

"Maybe this will get you back into the family in each and every way. Why don't you come back to the firm, as well?"

Rebecca went still as old, familiar insecurities came flooding back. The firm. The money. The power. All her father's with no one to leave it to, except a daughter who simply wasn't interested.

But lots of other people were interested.

Lots of men.

And some of them had one particular shortcut in mind when they thought of becoming her father's heir apparent to Tallahassee's most influential law firm. They planned to cut a path right through her heart.

She'd always wondered if Tucker had been one of those men.

Her father said something about her and Tucker getting back together again—pressed for more details and offered to help in any way that he could. Tucker laughed.

She went cold all over.

"I don't know," Tucker said finally. "Same deal as before?"

"If that's what it takes," her father said.

Tucker laughed again.

Deal?

They'd had a deal before? And were working on a new one?

She turned to go, trying not to run because she didn't want anyone to hear her, because she couldn't face anyone right now. But her foot caught the corner of a dainty table in the hallway, banging her toe and knocking a vase to the floor.

It crashed as it hit the hardwood flooring, and she heard voices calling out from the study.

* * *

"Rebecca?" Tucker got to the doorway saw her hurrying out the patio door.

Remembering what he'd been saying to her father only moments ago—what she'd obviously overheard—he cursed and ran after her.

He finally caught up with her in the garden and knew by the look on her face that it wasn't going to be easy to make her understand. He held her by the arm, and she glared at him from behind a mask of hurt and anger.

"Rebecca? I don't know what you heard, but—"

"I heard everything! I just wish I'd heard it years ago, before you asked me to marry you the first time."

She tried to pull away from him, but he held her easily. He wasn't about to let go.

"I didn't know how badly you wanted the law firm, but you must want it dearly to marry me for it again."

Tucker was furious, more so than he'd been in years. "I have a job—a brand new one that I happen to like very much. I don't want the damned firm, but if I did, I wouldn't have to marry you to get it."

"I heard you in there just now, making a deal," she roared. "Same one as before, you said. So don't you dare deny it."

"You don't even know what you heard," he said, not trying to disguise his anger.

He'd been so hopeful this morning when he'd left her. Left his ring on her finger. Left her body still warm from his touch. Left with the taste of her lips on his.

"Think about it, Rebecca. If I'd wanted the firm, I could have had it by now. I was still there after we divorced. When Sammy was born, your father told me he hoped I'd run the place until I could turn it over to Sammy one day."

"I heard you just a minute ago," she insisted. "Talking about marrying me again, coming back to work there and a deal—the same one as before. I heard you say it."

"Fine," he said, turning toward the house and pulling her along with him. "You want to know about our deal, you can hear it from your father. Maybe you'll believe him, because it's obvious you're not going to believe a damned thing I say about this."

Rebecca didn't say a word as they made their way inside, down the hall, past the broken vase and into her father's study.

"Rebecca?" her father said. "Are you all right?"

"Tell her our deal." Tucker yelled.

Samuel Harwell looked from one of them to the other, then back again.

"Tell her," Tucker insisted.

"There's not much to it," he said to Rebecca. "I wanted Tucker at the firm. He wanted to marry you. And I guess, sometimes, I tend to get a little too involved in other people's business. Especially my daughter's business."

Tucker knew Rebecca couldn't argue with that.

"So," her father continued, "We made a deal. Tucker said he'd come to work for me if I kept my nose out of his relationship with you."

Rebecca's eyes flew from her father's to Tucker's, and he watched as the color flooded her pale cheeks.

"That's it?" she said in disbelief.

"That's it," Tucker told her, then turned to Sam. "Would you mind if we used your study for a few minutes?"

"Of course not."

Tucker walked very slowly to the door and closed it behind Rebecca's father. Then he stood there, facing the door, afraid of the damage this whole thing had done to the already fragile bond between them. And he was digging down deep, trying to find a bit of patience, something he'd promised her, and he intended to keep his promises to her this time.

"Why did you marry me, Tucker?" she asked finally.

He gathered his courage and turned at the soft-spoken question. "I thought it was obvious, but I— Did you really think all I wanted was your father's law practice?"

"Sometimes," she admitted without looking at him. She was gazing out the window. "I know that when we met, marriage wasn't something you were particularly interested in."

"No, I wasn't," he said, forcing himself to be honest with her, hating himself when he saw her draw her arms around her middle and hold on tight. "But I hardly knew you then. I didn't know... I didn't know how powerful this thing between us would be. I didn't know that I just wouldn't be able to walk away from you. That I wouldn't be able to forget you."

Tucker searched his mind for memories of that crazy time after they'd first met, but it was difficult. His single-minded need for her had been so powerful, so overwhelming, that it was hard to remember anything else.

It had blinded him to his memories of his own parents' terrible marriage, to his own vows never to risk such a thing in his own life.

It had blinded him to all the complications involved in wanting her, to everything but her.

"I didn't want to get ahead on anything but my own skills and hard work," he said. "I wanted people to respect me, including your father and everyone else at the firm. Looking like a man who was trying to take shortcuts by chasing after the boss's daughter... That wasn't a plus in my book, Rebecca. Don't you know that about me?"

She shook her head. "I guess so. I just... kept trying to make sense of it. You wanting me."

"Rebecca, I needed you more than I needed my next breath."

"You wanted to go to bed with me," she said, finally turning to face him.

"I wanted to go everywhere with you. I thought you knew that."

But he could see the doubts in her eyes, the self-doubts that he probably should have seen a long time ago.

He walked to where she stood by the window and let himself touch her hair.

He gathered one curl between his fingers and remembered how it had smelled last night when his nose had been buried against her neck. He remembered how it felt to have her above him, kissing him, with her hair trailing after her, brushing across his chest and his stomach.

He wanted that again. He wanted that forever. He would make it last, this time, forever. If she gave him the chance.

"We're not the same people we were before, Rebecca. But I see you, and I still want you just the same way I did all those years ago. No, more than I ever did, because I have spent years living with the knowledge of what I lost when I left you. I touch you, and I go a little crazy, needing you so much it scares me. You feel that, too. You felt it last night."

"That's sex, Tucker."

"It's you and me. It's great sex, but it's a lot more than that." He closed his eyes, shook his head. "Do you think you can ever forgive me for what I did? For how much I hurt you?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

"Do you want to forgive me?"

"What kind of a question is that? Like I can just decide I want to forget and forgive, and it's done, just like that?"

"No, I'm not saying that. I know it's not easy, what I'm asking. I know. But if it's what we both want, there has to be a way. There just has to."

He reached for her again, but she stepped back. "I have to go," she said with a tremor in her voice.

"Rebecca, there are still things we have to talk about—"

"Sammy's going to be home from school soon."

"All right." He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep himself from touching her again, from grabbing onto her when he might not be able to let go, not ever.

Chapter 16

Rebecca hurried down the hall toward the Environmental Regulatory Commission's meeting room and hoped she wasn't too late to get a seat.

Today was the final showdown for the bottling plant, and she still wasn't sure which way the vote would go.

She was nervous—as much about the outcome of the hearing as she was about how Tucker would handle it. He was right in the middle of the fight, either because of his familiarity with the site from the work he'd done on the original project or maybe just because he wanted to be in the middle of it. He was a man who got what he wanted.

Her friends at various environmental groups were raving about him. He was a tiger, a real fighter, they said.

She wanted to believe them.

She wanted to believe a lot of things these days.

A part of her—maybe a foolish part—wanted to turn her back on everything that had happened in the past—to simply put it behind her. Maybe that's where it all belonged.

A part of her wanted to put his ring on her finger and believe that he'd changed as much as he said he had.

And the other part of her was just scared.

She turned the corner, caught sight of Tucker's sandy-blond head in the corner of the room and wondered if she should make her way over to talk with him.

She was worried about Sammy and wanted to talk to him about it. Jimmy Horton practically lived at their house these days since his mother was so upset and his father was still retrieving possessions to take to his new house.

And the strain on Jimmy was taking its toll on Sammy.

He was moody and withdrawn, frightened for sure, underneath it all, and Rebecca hadn't been able to get past his mood.

Tucker looked up then, and he motioned her toward his office down the hall. It would be better to talk there, she decided.

She was at Tucker's office door when she nearly bumped into Brian.

"Hi," she said, surprised and a little uneasy. She still felt guilty over everything that had happened between them. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to town to sign the closing papers on the house and watch over the movers, but then my mother came to see me. She told me— She's been trying to tell me a lot of things, little of which I believed, but now I'm not so sure."

Rebecca could just imagine what his mother had heard from her mother. They were still good friends.

"Brian—"

He grabbed her left hand and stared at her bare ring finger.

"Tell me it's not true, Rebecca. Tell me," he demanded.

"What did your mother say?"

"That you were going to marry Tucker again. I told her she was crazy, but now I'm starting to wonder if I'm not the one who's crazy."