LITMIR.BIZ

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lower the lid, she cried, “Wait. There’s more.” And they slopped across the parking lot once again.

      As she handed him a large chafing dish, he growled, “Jeez, what do you do, Shortcake, run a restaurant?”

      “No, I just—” she shrugged “—have things like this. Families often do, you know.”

      Tucker grunted, and they headed back toward his car. “So, tell me about your kids.”

      As usual, a request to talk about her children set off an internal geyser of love and pride. “Well, my oldest is named Justin. He’s eleven and into sports, big time. Cory is eight. He’s my scholar, quiet, always reading. And Bethany, who’s six, is my little shadow. She loves to bake and sew and do all the things I enjoy. Incidentally, she’s the reason I couldn’t attend Winnie’s funeral. I was in the hospital giving birth to her.”

      “That right?” They’d reached his car. He tossed his cigarette, deposited the chafing dish, and after closing the trunk, turned his full attention on Cathryn. “Who do they take after?” he asked, bracing his foot on the bumper and leaning on his thigh.

      “Justin clearly looks like Dylan, but the two younger kids are a blend. Each has features from both of us. Beth, for instance, has my hazel eyes and Dylan’s blond hair. Cory has Dylan’s smile, but my build.” She added “unfortunately” to herself.

      “I bet they’re great kids.”

      “They are, if I do say so myself.” Cathryn began to grow uneasy under Tucker’s close regard. While she spoke, he gazed straight at her, his eyes unwavering. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone, especially a man, had listened to her so interestedly or watched her so intently, and for a moment she thought she understood something of Tucker Lang’s fabled appeal. “So, what about you, Tuck?” she asked, hoping to deflect his attention.

      “Me?”

      “Yes. What’ve you been up to?”

      He dropped his foot, straightened to his full six-foot height and shifted his attention to the fog swirling over the meadow across the road. “Oh, just the same old same old.”

      She had no idea what that meant. “I heard you’ve taken up car racing…?”

      “Uh-huh.” He nodded rhythmically for several seconds as if that might take the place of further conversation.

      “So, where are you living?”

      He shuffled his feet and added a few more inches to the distance between them. “Alabama.”

      “Really? I’ve never been to Alabama. I haven’t been anywhere, really. Except Florida. We went to Disney World with the kids two years ago. Best vacation we ever took.” Only vacation we ever took. “Ever been to Disney?”

      Tucker pulled out his cigarettes again, stared at them a moment and then repocketed them. “Uh…no.”

      She swallowed. “Anyone special in your life these days?”

      He didn’t actually answer, just made a face as if to say, “Are you kidding?”

      Cathryn knew a stone wall when she was hitting one, especially when that stone wall was so familiar. Tucker hadn’t liked personal questions when he was a boy either, particularly when they involved his life in New York. A couple of times she’d heard him lie about it, but mostly he’d just clammed up, holding the truth, and all the pain that went with it, tight inside him. Until one day when she was ten and couldn’t take it anymore and admitted to him that she knew his background, knew his mother was a hooker and a drug addict. She’d overheard her parents talking. And if he wanted to discuss it or cry or go for a fast walk like she did when she was angry, that was okay with her. She only wanted to help, and she wouldn’t tell anyone about it, honest. Tucker, being Tucker, hadn’t cried. But he had talked. A little. And he had walked. A lot. Damn fast, too.

      What did he have bottled up inside him now? she wondered. Anything? Nothing? And whose business was it, anyway?

      Even as Cathryn was still musing, Tucker glanced over his shoulder toward the funeral home and said, “Well, I’d better get back inside before someone sends out a search party.”

      “Oh. Of course.” She clutched her purse in two hands and caught her lower lip in her teeth. “It was good seeing you again, Tuck.”

      His grin returned, all confidence and male sass. “I know.”

      Cathryn laughed. Some things never changed, and she was just as glad they didn’t.

      TUCKER STOOD under the portico of the funeral home, puffing on a cigarette and feeling a sense of loss after Cathryn drove away. Not that he wanted to continue their conversation, especially considering the direction it had taken. Rather, his sense of loss rose solely from himself. Cathryn’s role had simply been to remind him of it, of the life he’d made a religion of avoiding until now. Married life. The life of a husband and parent, home-owner and mower of lawns, coach to Little Leaguers and reader of bedtime stories—the life of a responsible adult. “And look where that’s landed you,” he muttered in self-disgust.

      Clamping his cigarette between his teeth, he brushed aside his jacket, unsnapped the leather pouch at his waist and lifted his cellular phone. He’d pressed in half of Jenny’s number before remembering she was out of range. Way out of range. Cursing around his cigarette, he returned the phone to its case and paced the portico like a caged bear.

      He wished there was someone he could call. Normally, he disliked sharing his problems. After fending for himself most of his life, he was accustomed to handling crises on his own. But right about now, it might be nice to bounce ideas off another person.

      He considered the guys he hung around with and dismissed them as quickly as they came to mind. How could he admit to the yahoos he called friends that at the ripe old age of thirty-five he’d gotten a woman pregnant? They’d never let him live it down and they’d certainly be no help. Jenny didn’t want to marry him. What was the problem, man? To them, the problem would be if she did want to get married.

      A car swashed into the parking lot and a moment later an elderly couple got out. Strangers to Tuck, they nodded, lips pressed in sorrowful regret, as they walked by him, taking careful little steps, and entered the building. He sighed. Ah, yes—Walter. Automatically his lips pressed in matching regret. This wasn’t the time to be thinking of Jenny or impending fatherhood. It was time to mourn the generous man who, together with his patient wife, had rescued his sorry-ass life and changed him from a punk into…less of a punk. And for that, Tucker was truly sad. He wished he could’ve turned out better more quickly for them. He wished he hadn’t caused them so much trouble—all those calls from the principal and Charlie Slocum, Harmony’s now-retired chief of police. He wished he had finished high school here, not in some far-off GED program, so they could’ve watched him receive his diploma. He wished Walter had seen him race at least once, even if he was just on the stock-car circuit. He wished he’d bought Winnie a clothes dryer before she caught pneumonia from hanging out laundry. He wished…he wished Jenny would change her mind and marry him.

      And with that his thoughts went over to the other side again. A barrel-deep moan rose from his chest. He’d been embroiled in this emotional tug-of-war for days, caught between his sadness over his uncle’s death and his angst over his love life. Pulled in two directions, he was doing neither justice.

      Well, he was tired of it. It was clearly time to focus. Or at least do something about one or the other.

      Tucker dropped his third cigarette into the trash receptacle and headed inside. Old man D’Autell was sitting in his office at the end of the center hall, changing a tape for the P.A. system. More harp diddling. Leaning in the doorway, Tucker asked, “Is there a phone somewhere in this building where I can make a private call?”

      The long-faced mortician gazed at him with a wariness that slightly offended Tucker. As far as he could remember, D’Autell had never been the target of any of his boyhood pranks.

      “Will it be long distance?”

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