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He stood by the driver’s door, hands jammed in hip pockets. She should have guessed by Em’s behavior that her big, moody neighbor hovered nearby. What did he do, keep her under surveillance?
“Good morning.” Ungrateful thoughts weren’t her style, although hot stuff appeared to be his in those worn black jeans and that snowy T-shirt. She couldn’t take her eyes off his damp hair caught in a loose tail. Like a settler, traveling the Oregon Trail in a prairie schooner.
Clipping a nod, he stepped forward and closed the hood with a flick of the wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Driving you and your daughter to school. The battery’s done for.” He pointed his chin at the front seat. “Why don’t you get your things and I’ll start the truck.”
Not a question, a subtle command. Cops, she knew, issued directives to maintain order and stability. She, however, was not a felon nor an obnoxious bystander nor, for that matter, a wife whose independence and self-worth had been boxed into the dirt.
She was a woman standing securely on her own two feet.
About to say as much, she opened her mouth—except he was already striding for the black truck in his driveway.
“Are we going with him, Mommy?” Emily asked, pinky disappearing into the corner of her mouth.
Rianne squelched the urge to raise a fist to her dead husband. “It’s okay, sweets.” Carefully, she adjusted the girl’s glasses on her freckled nose. “We won’t be late now. Come on.” Hand in hand they stepped between the barren rose bushes and headed for the grumbling diesel truck.
Jon leaned across the seat and shoved open the door. “Give me your bag, Bo Peep.”
A timid smile crept along Emily’s mouth. In that instant, Rianne forgot her woman’s right to independence. A warmth spread from her heart outward. Jon Tucker, man of few words, had baited a smile from her little girl.
A precious, rare smile.
Emily climbed onto the high seat. While Jon strapped her in, Rianne climbed beside her. Why hadn’t she chosen slacks today or one of her loose, ankle-length skirts? No, silly woman that she was, she’d selected her favorite: black, slim and short.
The truck smelled of tools. And Jon. Over Emily’s head, Rianne caught his regard—flame-blue and intense. Her heart pinged. She faced the windshield and worked on her seat belt.
Calm down.
Five minutes of speed and silence got them to Chinook Elementary. He parked near the entrance. Children hung in clusters up and down the sidewalk. Across the playground smaller ones dashed between older students, chasing balls, playing tag. A group of boys, a few years younger than Sam, rough-housed near the gym exit.
Rianne climbed from the cab. Emily slid to the ground with a “’Bye, Mom” and drifted toward some girls skipping rope.
Jon rounded the nose of the idling truck. “Got a minute?” His gaze lingered on the skin below her hemline.
She looked toward the school doors. “If it’s quick.”
“What time are you finished?”
“I’ll get one of my colleagues to drive us home.”
“What time?”
Another take-charge man.
He’s different.
How so?
She relented. “Three, but I usually don’t get out of here until four.”
“Your daughter stays with you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be here at four.” He started for the driver’s side.
She went after him. “It’s not necessary. We can get home on our own.”
He stepped from the curb. Even with the added height of the sidewalk, she still had to tilt her head.
“It’s not a contest, Rianne. I’d like to pick you up after school, okay?”
His quiet “like” did it, had her tongue powerless. “Fine.”
A softness she hadn’t seen before touched his eyes. “See you then,” he said.
Without another word she walked into the school. She would not watch him drive away. Not with this warmth in her cheeks.
The day crawled. Although four different classes came into the library throughout the morning, the clock was glued to one spot for endless, interminable minutes at a time.
Midmorning she made a call to the Garage Center and requested an attendant put a new battery in her car. The house call would be an added expense but she’d manage it.
Shortly after one she received a call that her battery had been looked after—not by the attendant. By a neighbor.
She didn’t need to ask which neighbor.
The rest of the afternoon Rianne fumed.
At quarter to four, she looked through the library’s tall, wide windows. Luckily, the room took up the better portion of one corner facing the street, where she could watch who entered the grounds and who parked along the curb.
Jon arrived at five to the hour, stopping the pickup exactly where he’d dropped her off. Rianne held her breath. Would he come into the building?
He elected to wait outside his truck, leaning against it the way he had for Seth over at the high school twenty-two years ago. Long, strong legs braced, hiney affixed to the front fender, arms folded over that chest. Dark glasses masking those blue, blue eyes.
Tingles clustered deep in her belly.
Pull yourself together. The last thing you need is another man in your life—especially one who’s used to taking charge.
But he’s a good man, one you’ve never forgotten.
He’s also changed.
She didn’t know if she liked the change. Unfortunately, no matter what she told herself while she typed up a staff memo about new book arrivals, her breathing quickened and her palms dampened. Finished, she stuck the memo in tomorrow’s agenda and rose from her chair.
“Ready?” she called to Emily who was seated at a work center.
Pushing at her glasses, her daughter tossed several pencil crayons into a shoe box. “Are we riding with that guy again?”
“Mr. Tucker, Em. He does have a name.”
No comment. Emily set the shoe box on a shelf Rianne had designated specifically for student accessories. “Do you like my science title page?” her daughter asked.
Beth Baker, Em’s third-grade teacher, was doing a unit on the water cycle. Studying Emily’s work—a wreathed shape of earth, water and sky in various co-existing forms—Rianne smiled. “Great stuff, Em. Did you think this—” she traced the circle “—up yourself?”
“Uh-huh. I still have to color the rivers and lakes. See?”
“Yes, I see, and the sky, too. And the border. Don’t want any white space left.”
“No, and Mrs. Baker said we can hand it in soon’s we’re all done with the unit.” The picture went carefully into a Duotang.
Rianne shut off the library’s lights. “Let’s go home, love.”
The moment they stepped through the entrance doors, Jon came away from the truck in an expeditious move.
“Hi,” he said, voice low, quiet. The sunglasses went into a shirt pocket.
Catching his look, Rianne had the odd feeling that, conditions permitting, he might have set an intimate hand at the back of her waist. But then, he was opening the door, taking Emily’s bag. “Hey, Bo Peep. How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“No nasty ole boys snitchin’ a kiss or two?”
A tiny giggle erupted. “No-ooo! That’s yucky.”
“Good,” he said. He took Rianne’s bag as well and set both on the floorboard of the crew cab. “Wouldn’t want you running off and getting married.”
“Mr. Tucker!” Emily covered her mouth in shock, but her eyes danced behind the round-rimmed glasses.
Oh, Jon, Rianne thought. She was blindsided by his kindness, his goodness. Do you know what you’ve done?
In less than eight hours big, beard-shadowed Jon Tucker had Emily smiling. Giggling. Laughing. Emily who never tittered with a grown man. Duane had seen to that. “Can’t you read yet, Emily Rose? Can’t you add? Come on, get with the program.”
Rianne shuddered. Why hadn’t she left years ago? Because you were afraid. Afraid you’d lose custody of the kids.
No matter. She should have found the fortitude, the courage. For Em and Sam she should have—
Jon cupped her elbow with a work-roughened palm. “Rianne?”
“I can manage the step, thank you.”
“Hurry, Mom. I’m starving.”
“Hang on, short stuff. Your mom doesn’t want to rip her stockings getting in.”
“I can manage,” Rianne repeated and held his gaze until he stepped back.
Another quick, silent trip home. Jon pulled in behind her Toyota. Rianne and Emily climbed from the truck.
“’Bye, Mr. Tucker.” Her daughter ambled toward the backyard, book pack swinging from her skinny little arm.
“See you, Bo Peep.” Shoving the sunglasses onto his head, he slammed the truck’s door, then came around to Rianne, scowling.
Now what? His moods changed quick as the weather.
She said, “Bill Martins at the Garage Center said you were responsible for fixing my battery. Thank you. And for the rides.”
“That why you were ticked at the school? Because I fixed your car?”
“No.” She wasn’t about to explain Duane. “It’s been a long day, that’s all.” She dug into her purse, began writing out a check on the hood of the truck.
“What’re you doing?”
“Paying you what I would’ve paid Bill.”
Her heart fluttered when he snatched the pen out of her hand. “Forget the damned money. I didn’t do it for a reward. The battery was one I had lying around.”
Slowly, carefully, Rianne turned. “If you won’t take payment for the battery I still owe you the cost of installing it.”
“I don’t want your money, Rianne.”
For a long moment his eyes pinned her. Her heart thumped like a drum. She took back the pen. “How much?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
She choked. “Two hundred—”
Not a muscle moved in his hard face. “Take it or leave it.”
She studied her car. A used base model, bought the year she married Duane, the year she’d had Sam. Dented, decrepit, dying.
Jon remained motionless, thumbs hooked in his front pockets, feet planted. Let your eyes warm a little. Just a tad, like they did with Emily. They continued their cool scrutiny.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Two hundred.”
Where she’d get the money, she didn’t know. But she would. As sure as God made apples and pears, she would prove to Jon Tucker and every man like him that she could navigate life’s bites with the best of them.
Finished, she held out the check.
Without a glance, he stashed it in a pocket. Tilting up her chin with a knuckle, he said, “There’s nothing wrong with being a woman, Rianne. Remember that next time a man wants to help you into a vehicle.”
They’d never been this close, inches close. Black rings surrounded his irises, pools of wishes and dreams and fantasies into which she could dip her heart.
Her mouth moved, as if to speak, as if to—
He strode to the driver’s door and leapt into the cab. Full-throttle, the truck backed out of the lane. He didn’t go home. Instead, he gunned it all the way down the street.
