Taking Her Time (2 page)

Carly had a way of destroying any peace he could build around himself—like showing up while he was watching his favorite noon-time game show.

There Carly had stood on the front porch, looking stunned and cute when he'd swung open the door to see who was fiddling with the lock. There she stood, all five foot six of big honey-brown eyes—ones that a man could fall into and his mind would stop—and everything he'd planned and dreamed for since they shared Popsicles on Anna Belle's front porch.

She had done something strange to her hair, putting streaks in it. Her hair had that soft sleek look, just brushing her shoulders. The fitted denim vest reminded him how he used to like to open her buttons slowly, one by one, and the wide-legged black pants clung to her swaying hips as she strode away from the house. The knot in his gut tightened just one hitch, because he surely hadn't ever forgotten how long and curved and soft those legs were, or how they quivered when he came home to them. Add those to the funny little thong sandals with the rhinestones and the red polish on her toenails and the gold band snaking around her upper arm, and he might have been interested—if Carly had been any other woman but his ex-wife.

The sleek muscles in that upper arm said she could probably still throw a baseball pretty well, or hold him tight. Not that he wanted to be held by the woman who had shamed him in front of the whole town by saying, “I need more than marriage to you and a houseful of kids, Tucker. I need to be someone, not just your wife and the legend of Toad Hollow.” But she was the only woman he'd ever loved.

That was how he'd always thought of Carly—as his wife, the mother of his children, his soul mate.

But that wasn't enough for Carly; she had to divorce him. Not that he couldn't see it coming with all the arguments they'd had about who played what role in their marriage.

He had been wrong about the woman always washing the dishes and cleaning house. But by the time he figured that out and that a woman just might need more, the argument trail was just too deep and easily ignited.

In the field sprawling below his barn-roof perch, a bull mounted a cow. The sight did little to distract him from thoughts of Carly and the pain that had never healed.

Tucker watched Tommy and his wife step out into the sunshine, a sweet little baby girl in Emma's arms. A forgotten little pain squeezed Tucker's heart. That was how he always thought it would be with Carly, sweet and forever.

“Something bothering you, Tucker?” Jace asked lazily. “You're awfully quiet. I can almost hear you thinking.”

“Not a thing on my mind, Jace. Relax a bit before Arlo and Fred turn up.”

While Jace yawned and pulled his ballcap lower on his eyes, Tucker settled in to think about Carly. He'd be damned if he'd let the whole town know that the pain was still there, knifing him in his gut.
He hadn't been enough for her; she'd always wanted more. The squabbles in their young marriage had been enough to sour him on any woman. But damned if he'd let anyone know that either.

Carly had looked drained and thin and shadows spread beneath those honey-brown eyes. She looked like someone needed to cuddle her.

But not him—oh no, he'd had enough of Carly doing everything she could to make his life miserable, haunting his dreams, making him take cold showers at midnight.
She couldn't ever let go of the fact that Ramona Long had him first.

“Who's that coming down the road like a bat out of hell?” Jace asked, rousing enough to sit up.

Carly's navy-blue car with the rental plates left clouds of dust behind it as she came toward the barn. She didn't slow for the cattle crossing, and the car did a bump routine as the tires passed over the crossing's bars. The car skidded to a stop by the barn. Carly slammed the door and stood looking up at Tucker with her tinted amber sunglasses.

“I am going to kill you, Tucker Redford,” she yelled up at him.

“Is that Carly?” Jace asked, clearly stunned.

“That would be her.” All one hundred and fifteen pounds of sheer female trouble, and Tucker wasn't having a second go-'round with her.

“I think I'd be scared if she ever said that to me,” Jace muttered and his three-hundred pound bulk seemed to shudder beneath his bib overalls. “Everyone knows what she's capable of.”

“She's just blowing off steam. Besides, she hasn't done that fearsome stuff since she grew up. She's a big-cheese city executive now.” Tucker tried to ignore the warning lift of the hair on his nape—because he knew exactly what Carly could do when in a snit. This time, she looked like it was a whole lot more than a snit. He decided it was safer for everyone if he met her on the ground.

By the time he climbed down from the roof, Tommy and Emma and baby had retreated inside the house. Arlo and Fred had pulled to a stop in the barnyard, but remained sitting in the pickup truck.

On his way to the ground, Tucker picked up a pitcher of water from the bucket and poured it over his head for preventative cooling-down measures. He hadn't had an out-and-out argument with Carly since they'd divorced.

He didn't want her to know how much she'd hurt him.

“You bellowed?” he asked politely when he stood in front of her.

Her hands on her hips accentuated a bust that was a whole lot more womanly than when they were married. “I'm
trying
to be calm,” she stated unevenly.
“You own my grandmother's house and no one told me.”

“I guess you've been to the reading of the will then.” Tucker wondered how many men had touched her like he had and the thought nettled. He tried to push it away—after all, they were divorced and he had no claim.

He'd always had a claim, ever since they were children and sweethearts and—

But that was done now and Carly wasn't hurting him anymore—he'd almost died the first time. “Anna Belle wanted it that way.”

“And just how did you ever get your sneaky hands on my grandmother's house?”

Tucker was hoping for control, but Carly made it sound like he'd taken advantage of an aging, dear, sweet woman. “She sold it to me, about five years ago.”

“She lived in it until she went to the retirement home. Then she came back at the end, and she passed away last month. Mom and my stepfather, Paul, and I stayed in it the night of the funeral. It was like Grams was there with me, like she would always be there for me when I needed her. Now you've upped and taken her away from me.”

Tucker didn't like that slight nick of guilt; he'd always loved Anna Belle. “That was our arrangement. I moved in the day after you left. I had to clean out all the tear and nose-blowing tissues you jammed into the trash and didn't like it much either. How is your mom? Are Rebecca and Paul still living in Kansas City?”

Carly didn't answer his question about her mother and second husband, Paul Fowler. She was staring up at Tucker with those big, stricken, helpless honey-brown eyes as if his big, nasty work boot had tromped all over her dreams. Her next sentence quivered on the air between them. “Grams left the house and everything in it to you—even her parrot. I love Livingston, and I always thought she'd give him to me. Why would Grams give him to you?”

Livingston had been a real pain in the butt to care for, but since Anna Belle loved the old bird, Tucker had tried to find its best side—there wasn't one. Just the same, if Anna Belle wanted him to keep care of Livingston, he would. Cleaning the bird's droppings wasn't exactly his favorite job. “Rebecca and Paul already drove down and collected what Anna Belle wanted her to have. The things she left for you are in your old room. You can come by and pick them up—when I'm home, of course. You might even say a word or two to Livingston. He's stopped squawking since Anna Belle passed on.”

That news took Carly backward until she leaned against the car, bracing a hand on it. “Then my mother must have known all this time. She didn't tell me.”

“Maybe she was afraid to tell you. You scared her sometimes. You're not exactly predictable.”

Tucker braced himself against that soft, sinking feeling—the one that Carly could use against him. She had that helpless little girl look that she'd had when her father, Billy Walker, had died. But back then, Tucker and Carly were married and he had a right to pick her up and hold her on his lap for hours, just rocking on Anna Belle's porch. He'd listened to her sob and understood her feelings of guilt and told her that her escapades weren't the reason Billy's heart was too clogged and finally gave out.

As if remembering where she was, Carly glanced at the Jackson's house. “Why did Tommy and Emma go back in the house? Don't they want to see me?”

That soft little wounded kitten sound in her voice reached right into his heart and Tucker firmly tugged it right out again. He crossed his arms and dug his fingers into his flesh, just to remind him that Carly wasn't getting her way this time. “They think we're going to tangle—like we used to. Everyone used to get off the street when we went at it.”

“That was over eleven years ago, Tucker. I'm past all that. I can handle you any day,” she said, obviously rousing, her brown eyes glinting up at him.

“Honey, your handling days ended with that divorce decree,” he said very carefully to remind Carly to keep her distance.

From the furious look that she shielded quickly—the one she used when she was twelve and he was thirteen and eyeing the more developed girls, the one just before she kicked him a good one—he'd scored a hit. Just to remind her that her place wasn't in Toad Hollow and his was, Tucker added, “You make one wrong step with those funny little shoes and you're going to have cow poo squishing between your toes. Don't think you can come into my house anytime you want, either. It's been a while since you've been in the lockup.”

Carly's eyes narrowed up at him. She never liked the reminder of the penalties of her great “skunk in the police car” plan when she was sixteen and had just flunked her driver's test. Norma Perry, the police chief, had never forgotten that incident. Each time Carly visited her grandmother, the police car made rounds around the quiet neighborhood as if Norma expected Carly to demolish it.

Of course, Tucker had captured the skunk for Carly and coached her on how to not excite it before the proper time. To her credit, she'd never told that part.

“I'll just be leaving now, Tucker. But I am going to get to the bottom of how you have
my
house,” Carly stated frostily as she slid into her car. She slammed the door, backing all the way past Arlo's pickup, and over the cattle guard and out the curved road leading to the state highway.

Arlo and Fred slid from the pickup and stood staring at Carly's driving maneuvers. Tommy and Emma came out of the house and up on the roof, Jace yelled, “You're in for it now, boy. She's always loved that house and you're smack-dab in the middle of what she wants.”

She'd wanted a divorce, and she'd gotten one. Carly hadn't wanted to stay any longer with Tucker and work things out; she'd wanted wide-open spaces and she'd gotten them.
“This is one time she isn't having her way,” Tucker said quietly as he reached for a ballcap and placed it on his head.

He climbed back up the ladder and picked up the nailing gun. For every nail it pounded into the roofing sheeting, that was one less minute Tucker would think about how shattered Carly had looked. She'd gripped the car as if it were the last thing she had to hold onto in life—now that he'd taken her grandmother's house from her.

Tucker pitted himself against the new barn and vowed to burn Carly out of his system….

“N
ow that is just perfect.” Carly brushed the tears out of her eyes and when her vision cleared, she focused on the only motel in town—Last Inn Motel—and the big Closed sign on the marquee.

The Last Inn Motel was where The Incident had taken place. Carly had gotten in trouble so deep and wide that when Tucker came to her rescue, it had ended in marriage.

How was a country girl supposed to know that an aging, career-shot movie star wanted to seduce her—the winner of the Miss Cornbread Muffin Contest? How was she supposed to know that the “party” was intended to be a private one…for two?

The Incident changed her life and Carly was married to Tucker Redford quicker than Billy Walker, her now deceased father, could pull out his shotgun.

Everyone in Toad Hollow knew about The Incident. However, some of the more unsavory facts had been kept between Tucker and herself.

Carly tried to push back the ugly details, but they still screamed at her…. Carly was eighteen then and had just been crowned Miss Cornbread Muffin. That night her scream at the Last Inn had drawn not only Tucker, but Norma's red flashing lights and siren to the scene of a dead, naked, past-his-prime movie star beneath the sheets. His eerie-corpse smile was offset by a bottle of iced champagne and candles and a sexy negligee in a box with a great big red bow. Another discarded bow beneath the sheets had said that Simon Gifford had tied it on another kind of package.

But Tucker had somehow been nearby when she opened that motel door and screamed. He had run to Carly's side immediately. There wasn't the room full of other contestants fully dressed and celebrating. There was only the dead man on the bed.

It was Tucker's lie that Carly and he were planning a private party of their own in another motel room that pointed the finger of a movie-star's seduction night away from Carly. Tucker had said that he tried to stop Billy Bob Smith's beagle from running through the partially opened motel door—the dog was gone when Norma arrived, of course—but that was when they'd
both
discovered the dead man. And, Tucker had added, he'd just happened to overhear how Simon Gifford, star of one pitiful film ten years ago, loved wearing women's nighties.

It was Tucker's lie—that he was there with the intent to seduce Carly—that made her father decide that they would be married right away.

The Incident had gotten her wedded and bedded before her time. Before she was someone in her own right.

The motel—the only one in town—was also where Tucker and Carly had spent their wedding night. And for every moment thereafter in their two-year marriage, Carly had resented their “shotgun wedding”—but her father would hear of nothing less than marriage.

It was where on her wedding night that she'd learned that Tucker hadn't waited for her, and Ramona Long had nabbed him first.

Now Carly's father resided in a cemetery outside town and her mother had remarried and Anna Belle's house was Tucker Redford's—to say nothing of Livingston, whom Carly had always adored.

After working fourteen-hour days, she'd planned to unwind by tending those roses and the yard and baking cookies and polishing old beloved furniture…. The pretty picture she'd had of coming home to Anna Belle's house had crumbled, the pieces drifting away on the fragrant summer air.

Cars passed slowly by on the street, and she recognized the few people who waved at her. No one stopped because they knew exactly her history with the Last Inn Motel and how she was trying to deal with it. Of course, they only knew that she and Tucker had discovered Simon Gifford's body accidentally. They probably thought that now she would leave Toad Hollow for good, but she wasn't ready just yet.

Not with Tucker in possession of her grandmother's house.

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the car's headrest. She didn't have her grandmother's house. She didn't have her grandmother's parrot, and worst of all she had no place to stay in Toad Hollow. On her way to the reading of the will, she'd picked up her boxes from the post office and she was homeless—not counting her Denver apartment.

“Tucker.” He'd stood there in the July sun, tanned and fit and big, with water dripping down his too-long wavy hair and his blue eyes as cold as ice, just like his heart.

The water had dripped down onto his tanned chest and when he'd crossed his arms, muscles jumped beneath those smooth hard pecs, and so did his nipples. Back when they were comparing boy and girl nipples, Tucker could always move his more than she could—

Carly groaned and let another tear slide down her cheek. She just had to know why Anna Belle let Tucker buy her house when Carly had always wanted it.

And there was something in that house that Anna Belle had been keeping for her that Carly wanted more than the house—the diary that told everything she'd ever done or felt or experienced with Tucker. If it ever surfaced, her humiliation would be complete.

As it was, her humiliation was only half-complete.

She had to get in that house.

She had to know why Tucker had the house and Livingston.

If he had already found the diary she'd left in Anna Belle's keeping—

Carly felt an odd warmth creeping up her cheeks. She didn't want to think about Tucker reading her most intimate thoughts, about her lust for him, about how every argument in their marriage had crushed her—she wouldn't let him see how badly she'd hurt.

Carly opened her eyes and stared at the car's upholstered ceiling. She'd never backed off from Tucker and she wasn't going to start now. She could feel herself getting warmed up to get answers and she wasn't leaving until she had that diary in her possession.

She sat up abruptly and fished her cosmetic case out of her bag, repairing the tearstains on her cheeks. The only remedy that she could think to help her red swollen eyes was to pour bottled water onto the tea bags she always carried. With a tea bag over each eye, she settled back to think.

Everyone already knew how much she loved that house—and her grandmother. First she'd visit the cemetery and by the time Tucker finished work, Carly would have a plan in place.

Carly sat up and dropped the tea bags out of the window; in the rearview mirror, she used her best cosmetic concealer to hide the damage of crying. She started the car. She had exactly two weeks to get that diary back—and somehow, push Tucker out of her grandmother's house. Carly would be tending Anna Belle's home and yard, not Tucker.

She glanced at her side mirror, the one with the police car fast approaching. Norma Perry, the police chief, drove by Carly slowly. Then the car made a U-turn and pulled along the driver's side. Norma's silver glasses glinted in the afternoon sun. “Hi, Carly. Heard you were back in town. The boys at the post office said you'd mailed yourself a lot of boxes and that they had a time fitting them over your suitcases and into the back seat. They said you were expecting more. Are you moving back, or just reliving The Incident?”

Carly saw no reason to hide that she'd come back to the one place everyone knew she loved. “Hi, Norma. No, I'm not moving back entirely, but I worked out a deal with my company that I can work part-time in Denver and part-time here, in Gram's house. I plan to vacation here, too. I guess you've heard a few things today, huh?”

“Heard you couldn't talk after the reading of the will. That was a first. They were thinking about giving you a swig of whiskey to revive you, but then they remembered the time you decided to try alcohol. Samuel Lawson didn't want his new office carpet messed up. Then Arlo called and said you'd made a beeline for Tucker and that whatever passed between you two wasn't sweet. Arlo has never seen a woman put a car into reverse gear and back up like that. You could have hit one of the Jacksons' cows. Cow-icide isn't fun to investigate. I've been hoping for a real homicide for years—Well, never mind that. Forget you heard it…. But after you jumped Tucker, I heard that he had something on his mind for the rest of the day.”

That last bit of information gave Carly hope. Tucker always sulled up when she got to him, otherwise he was even-tempered—but where he was concerned, her emotions swung everywhere. Carly felt it was only fair warning to let Norma know her plans. “I'm going to get my grandmother's house back.”

“Tucker is a good, solid thinker. Slower than you, with less flash, but he usually can deliver a bottom line pretty good.”

Norma looked straight ahead, as if setting her mind to something. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel; beneath her uniform hat was a frizzed mass of gray hair. Norma spoke in the clipped style she'd learned on a popular police-crime television show, “When Tucker was teaching you to drive, you ran his truck over a fire hydrant. He's pulled you out of more scrapes than I want to remember. But I don't think he's on your side this time. If you go in that house and he makes a trespassing complaint, I'll have to go by the book—just so you know.”

“I like your new perm,” Carly said brightly, hoping that Norma wouldn't get that brisk, swaggering, tough police person attitude, as if she were the only crime-killer in the universe. Norma probably hadn't forgotten the skunk episode; she wouldn't hesitate to put Carly in jail for any misadventures that
Tucker
might cause.

Tucker had always been able to sweet-talk Norma. She believed anything he said, including how the beagle opened the door of Simon's motel room, and that Tucker was with Carly when she saw the dead man and screamed. People just believed Tucker, because he was “solid.”

“Thanks. Permed it myself. Don't know why everyone has to go to the beauty shop. You can buy a box of the stuff at the drugstore,” Norma said before putting the police car in gear and pulling onto the highway.

Carly took one last look at the motel and decided that she wasn't going to cry anymore. She needed to kill time before Tucker got home from work, and she needed to let everyone know how heartbroken she was that he owned her grandmother's house. There were ways to put pressure on Tucker, but first she had to unravel the mystery of why Anna Belle hadn't left it to her. She decided the local MidTown Cafe was just as good a place as any to start.

It was there, over pasta salad, that she discovered Ramona Long had married a minister; she was now the mother of five children and involved with every community event, a real town leader. In fact, Ramona was such a mover and shaker that she was expected to run for mayor in the next election.

Sally Jo, the waitress, took her break and slid into Carly's booth. She counted her tips and sat back to look at Carly. “Tucker has a girlfriend,” Sally Jo said carefully. “People like him. And they're not quite certain about you anymore. You've changed. Or that's what they say.”

“I grew up here. I have a right to be here—in my grandmother's house.”

“Anna Belle missed you. You should have come back more often. It broke her heart when you divorced Tucker. She was never that close to your mother, though she loved her. Your mother always was a bit uppity and your father…well, Billy Walker had a temper. It was just as well you married Tucker when you were caught at the Last Inn Motel.”

Carly leveled a stare at Sally Jo. She wanted everyone in Toad Hollow to know that she wasn't giving up her grandmother's house without a fight. “I love that house. It holds dear memories for me,” Carly said. “Tucker has no business in it. Whatever he did to get Anna Belle to sell to him, instead of saving it for me, probably wasn't—”

“Tucker wouldn't take advantage of Anna Belle, Carly, and you know it. He kept that place up—”

“Ah. For a reason. To get himself into her good graces.”

With a long sigh, Sally Jo collected her tips, slid them into her pocket, and stood. “What a crock of you-know-what. The guy deserves a break, a house and a wife. You're not getting my sympathy, or anyone else's.”

“He's not sweet, you know, Sally Jo.”

Sally Jo laughed knowingly. “Sometimes ‘sweet' isn't what a woman wants.”

“I am going to get my grandmother's house back.”

“Then you're going to have to go over Tucker to get it.”

“Then I will.”

 

Tucker groaned silently when he saw Carly's rental car parked in his driveway. He leaped off the back of Arlo's truck as it slowed, slid on his T-shirt and unbuckled his tool belt, holding it in his hand. At six o'clock in the evening, he was tired, sweaty and needing a break from everyone who cautiously watched him for some reaction to Carly's threat. He stood looking at the woman leaning against her car, the dying dappled sunlight burnishing her sun-streaked hair. Her arms crossed as she stared at him.

“Go on home now and tell your parents that nothing is going to happen,” he quietly ordered Betty and Ross Wilson's two little boys. The boys had laid their bicycles down on Mrs. Blackstone's lawn directly across the street from his house. They were watching intently, no doubt hoping to see Carly in action, making good on her earlier threat of murder. Tucker knew they were half hoping for real blood and crime-scene tape and being interrogated until they sweated beneath the hot lights and got nervous and spilled their guts. The boys knew Carly Walker Redford's reputation from their parents—that she was capable of stirring up a real mess. Now they were ready to watch Tucker bravely go to his gory death.