Taking Her Time (5 page)

“Anna Belle did not want to trouble either one of you, and she knew I wasn't leaving town. You did.”

“I had to,”
she stated unevenly. “I just had to leave, Tucker.”

He couldn't deny that fact. He'd always known that Carly was very bright and needed challenges and adventures, one after another. She needed to succeed. Marriage to him wasn't enough for her. She couldn't help her natural instinct to fly away to discover and investigate life.

“I know,” he said quietly and walked into his bedroom and slid into a pair of jeans, dressing quickly in his hurry to get away from Carly and the resulting emotions in him.

He went back to the kitchen, took one look at the tears sliding down her cheeks as she looked out at her grandmother's backyard and knew he was about a heartbeat away from giving the house to her. The best thing for him to do was to get out fast, just like he did when they were married. “Do what you have to do, Carly. I'm going fishing with my brother.”

“How is Tyrell?” she asked. Her tone said that her mind was really on her grandmother.

“Same as always. Single. He's been engaged a couple of times. Runs a little financial planning office on Main Street.”

She shook her head and a tear dropping from her cheek caught the morning light. It gleamed silvery as it fell to the V of skin exposed by her vest.

Carly—soft and grieving and rumpled in the morning—was dangerous, because Tucker's natural instincts were to comfort her.

But when that tear trailed downward into the soft valley of places he'd better forget, Tucker hurried for his truck and bass boat in the backyard. His hand still felt that soft backside as she struggled on top of him. He'd gone hard at the morning scent of her, the feel of his woman rubbing against him. A tangle of sweet and desperate emotions churned around him. There was an instant when he wanted to tug her beneath him, hold her wrists in the old playful way as she squirmed and laughed before the sweetness came gently upon them.

But she had a boyfriend named Gary, and Tucker always had been too easy where Carly was concerned.

Not this time.

At the lake, with Tyrell sitting at the other end of the boat, Tucker brooded about Carly and the feel of her against him earlier. All the old sweet feelings tangled with bitterness, and frustration that he couldn't take the whole mess and dump it in the lake and forget about everything.

Tyrell was six years younger and not as romantically bruised.

“Sally Jo thinks you need protection from the way Carly was acting at the MidTown Cafe. To help protect you, Sally Jo told Carly that you had a girlfriend,” Tyrell said softly as he reeled in another bass.

The fish had long ago taken the worms off Tucker's hook, but he hadn't cared about catching them.

“If Carly stays around long, you'd better come up with a girlfriend,” Tyrell continued. “Carly has gotten to you pretty good in one day. I do not want to have you mooning over at my house and ruining all my good ball games with those long, deep sighs. You're in sad shape, bro. And she wants that house back. You're a solid thinker, but she's all over you when it comes to speed and deal-making.”

“She is not getting to me,” Tucker said as he felt another fish tug on his hook and dismissed it.

“So how about me dating her?” Tyrell asked with a grin.

Tucker glared at his younger brother. “She's got a boyfriend named Gary.”

“Probably wants to marry her and live in that house. She's probably in the baby-making mode and needing a donor.”

Tucker brooded on that topic. He'd donated plenty, but Carly hadn't let her eggs play. “She'll be gone by the time I get back. So lay off.”

Tyrell's line sailed out in another cast. “I wouldn't bet on it. She's older and wiser now, and you've still got an ache for her the size of Texas. And you've got that horny look. It hasn't been there in eleven years, since she divorced you and left town. Of course, now and then, when you heard about her visiting Anna Belle, or saw Carly, you got it back.”

“I was over her a long time ago, and I don't want to hear any more about Carly. She's just passing through.”

“Uh-huh,” Tyrell said as if he didn't believe Carly would leave easily. “Remember when we made her clean those fish before we'd let her in our tree house? She got to be real good. I wish she'd clean this big mess of fish for me now.”

Tucker ignored another nibble on his hook. “Her stuff will be out of the house when I get back.”

“Uh-huh.” Tyrell's tone was disbelieving.

Tucker dropped his brother at his home two hours later, and dreaded going back to Anna Belle's house—where he'd told Carly the facts of the sale and told her to get out.

He filled the truck with gas, picked up a few groceries, browsed through some home renovation magazines at the drugstore and stopped at the MidTown Cafe for supper. Peter Amos, the local postmaster, came to Tucker's table. “Carly is having her mail sent to your house. I hope that's okay. She said that you and her had an understanding. Folks are glad about that. Catch any fish today?”

Tucker forced himself to swallow his last bite. The understanding
he
had was that Carly would be gone when he returned. “They weren't biting.”

On his way out of the cafe, Tucker tuned out the gossip about Carly's car parked overnight in his driveway. He nodded briskly to Jeff Thomas's nosy probing, “I hear Carly's back in town…that she'll be staying a while…she bought an extra-long phone cord from Mac. Heard she figures that house is really hers.”

“We'll settle that hash,” Tucker said firmly as he got into his pickup and almost pulled out in front of Norma's police car.

Her siren drew him back to the side of the street. She was out in a heartbeat, ticket book in hand. “Got to write you a ticket for reckless—”

Tucker shook his head and tried to work up a sweet-talking line and a smile. It was difficult to do when he was on his way to evict his ex-wife squatter. “Your hair looks real nice, Norma.”

She patted the big gray fluff around her head. “Thanks. New perm. Okay, forget about the ticket. Saw Carly's car parked in your driveway all last night. I figure you're due a mistake or two. Dealing with her can take a lot of brain-time.”

“It sure can,” Tucker agreed as he pulled in behind the car that was blocking his drive to the backyard. He parked, grabbed his small sack of groceries in one hand, and strode up to the door with Carly-eviction on his mind.

Inside, Carly was busy at work on Anna Belle's dining room table, punching her laptop's keys. Tucker's business papers were heaped at the other end of the table. A telephone cord ran from her laptop down onto the floor, up over the stacked boxes of her things, and across the living room and into his bedroom.

“Oh, hello, Tucker,” Livingston squawked. “I love you, big boy.”

Tucker ignored the parrot's make-up talk and surveyed his home. Carly had moved her boxes in from the car and some of them were open.
That meant that her stuff was somewhere in his house!

Tucker primed himself to tell Carly what he thought of unwelcome women squatters and how much Norma would like to evict her. Then he looked at Carly more closely.

Bundled up on top of her head, her hair had ends sticking out like a war chieftain's feathers. Some of the silky strands hadn't been captured and quivered softly around her face and nape. A pen was propped over one cute little ear.

He knew that ear very well. He used to blow in it….

Tucker held very still, his heart leaping. Carly was wearing one of his faded cotton summer shirts, and her legs and feet were bare. He hoped she was wearing shorts, because if she wasn't, he'd never be able to sit on that dining room chair again.

Carly shifted and exposed the requisite cutoff shorts, and Tucker released the breath he'd been holding.

This woman was a brand-new Carly—a tigress at work. Bent over her work, her fingers flying over the keyboard, pausing only to make notes on a yellow pad, Carly didn't notice Tucker. She unplugged the cord from her laptop, slid it into the telephone on the table and punched in a number.

Carly stood, and holding the telephone began to walk the length of the room. “Look, Tim, the brochure for Stiles Advertising just has to be updated. It's blah, blue and black. Not a drop of zest in it. Get a graphic artist on that, will you? Not a staff person, but send it out to that last freelancer we had—Iris whats-her-name. And put her on retainer, if you have to…. Yes, I know that…. I am not babying some copywriter who doesn't deliver on time. Give Megan notice that if that copy isn't sent e-mail to me pronto, she may be looking for another job…. And Tim, send the photos from the last shoot to me—e-mail—the ones with the jeans. If I can see the model's panty lines, so can everyone else and that is just tacky, tacky, tacky….”

On her way back, she glanced at Tucker who was leaning against the wall, watching her. Carly's expression had a fighter's flashing keep-out-of-my-way look.

He shrugged and swept his free hand in a go-ahead motion. In full stride, and chewing on problems, Carly was fascinating, a tip-top female shark, in the pool and scrapping to get business done her way.

“No, Jessica just had a baby. Don't you dare push her to come back into the office,” she continued as she passed in front of him. Her free hand rubbed her temple as if a headache had lodged there.

She glanced at Tucker and momentarily a soft smile crossed her expression. For just a heartbeat, she leaned against him with a little tired sigh.

Stunned, Tucker couldn't think. Then she was off and striding across the floor, intent on business.

While Tucker was dealing with the flow of her long smooth legs and the soft way she'd rested against him for just that instant, Carly continued, “Don't you dare call her in to work on the graphics for the dog show. Get that woman a computer set up at home pronto and everything she needs. Keep her happy. I don't want her going freelance for some other company, and she's already said she plans to work at home. She might as well work for us…. And I want some progress reports from the sales department. I'll handle the digital camera account myself. Express that brochure on the Cayman Islands to me and what you've got on the trade show, and I guess that's all until Monday morning.”

She placed the telephone on the table, closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Picking it up again she said, “Listen, Tim. I'm sorry. You're doing a good job. I didn't mean to jump on you. It's just that this stuff has been going on all day—problems that shouldn't arise, especially when I worked overtime to carve out this time for a break. Thanks for being so good about helping me. I'll sign for time and a half on your next check…. Yes, everything is going fine. Same to you…. Bye.”

Carly eased into her chair and shoved her laptop aside to make room for her arms, which she rested on the table. She placed her forehead on them. “It's been hell today,” she said quietly. “They've got to make do without me once in a while. I've got the best assistant in the world, but not even Tim can manage what came apart—all in the one day I've been out of the office.”

Did Carly realize that she'd rested against Tucker for that fraction of time?

Looking at her all bent over her work, Tucker wished he would have brushed her hair as she'd read in the romantic novels.

If Carly's work was that demanding, no wonder she needed a getaway. “Do you keep this up all the time?”

“I love it. I'm really good at multitasking and I'm creative as heck. But I'm just handling a lot right now and shouldn't have jumped on my assistant. I feel bad about that.”

Tucker understood how young Carly's energy and competitive instincts fit well into her adult vocation. “You like the angling and the challenges, the push and the shove, the game. And you're good. That's why they depend on you so.”

“I suppose.” She reached a hand to her shoulders and rubbed the muscles there, as if they were stiff and aching.

She'd built herself a whole life away from him. Carly was a different person than the girl he had married….

And still, her need to lean upon him when she was tired and frustrated was still there….

Tucker pushed away from the wall. He preferred dealing with his customers' payments due, than dealing with his emotions right now. He could run, like he did this morning and in their marriage. Or he could stay.

It was his house. He'd stay, of course. He couldn't run from Carly at every turn.

Carly's hand slid limply down from her shoulders and the long deep sigh said she was close to dozing.

Tucker shook his head and walked slowly to her. He considered her as she slept, her head on her arms. He forced himself away from her, and into the kitchen, putting away his groceries. One glance back at Carly told him that she hadn't moved.

Drawn to watch his ex-wife without all the flash and barbs, Tucker stood beside her.
She'd smiled that soft old way at him and had rested against him, as if he were home and safety to her….