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“Can we?” Seeing red, Tucker crossed his arms to keep from doing anything he’d regret, like punching Sean in the face. “Tell me this then. What kind of friend moves in on his best buddy’s girlfriend?”
Flushing, Sean took a step back. “I’ve always loved her,” he said. “Only as long as you were around, she never noticed me. I saw my chance and took it. You can’t blame me for that. It’s been a year,” he said, shrugging. “You were dead.”
“A year is not long enough.” Tucker spoke through clenched teeth, trying to keep his rage under control. “Not nearly long enough. What happened to loyalty? To love?”
“Maybe you’re asking the wrong question,” Sean answered quietly. “Maybe you should wonder what was wrong in the relationship between you and Lucy that made it so easy for her to find solace in my arms barely one year after your so-called death?”
Talk about a knife slipped under the ribs…
Stunned, Tucker could only stare. Sean was right. Lucy should still be in mourning, if she’d truly loved him. She’d gone from “I’ll love you forever” to “I loved you for a year and now I’ve got to move forward with my life.”
How easy had that been for her? Had she even mourned him at all? Obviously there must have been some cracks, some flaws that he hadn’t seen a year ago. He thought back to their last conversation before he’d left for Mexico and the allure of exotic coffee.
They’d fought about his wanderlust. And, while he’d known she wanted more from him, he hadn’t been certain he was able to give it to her. She’d made no secret of her desire to start a family. He hadn’t hidden the fact that he didn’t feel he was ready.
Now, he couldn’t believe how much it hurt that she’d done so without him. She’d moved on. While he was still stuck in the past, running like hell to catch up.
Damn it. Events had once again spiraled out of his control. Lucy and Sean—picturing them together made him feel like the two of them had jointly ripped his heart from his chest and danced on it.
He’d do better to focus on something he could be in charge of. Finding out if he’d been set up, or if his capture and subsequent imprisonment had been simply a huge, cosmic accident.
He was betting on the former.
And there was the missing money. Who had taken it and had they arranged for Tucker to take the fall for them?
Sean still watched him, rocked on the heels of his feet in an adversarial way, as though he thought Tucker might take a swing at him at any moment and he wanted to be ready.
He was right, Tucker thought with grim amusement. Because it took everything he had not to. Taking a deep breath, he ruthlessly pushed his emotions away and got himself under control.
He could do little to change the past. Right now, he needed to focus on the future.
Before being released from their custody, the DEA had given him a decision to make. He’d told them he’d have to think about it. Ironically, finding Lucy and Sean together had helped him make up his mind.
He needed to make a phone call and let them know.
Since he’d been told not to use the landline and didn’t yet have a cell phone, he’d have to get out of the house. Pearl Street Mall was just a few blocks away and he knew neither Lucy nor Sean would find it unusual if he said he needed to take a walk to clear his head and help him think.
“I need some fresh air,” he told Sean. “Tell Lucy I’m going for a walk.”
Sean nodded, making no move to stop him.
Once outside, he took a deep breath. What a train wreck that had been. During his imprisonment, he’d pictured his and Lucy’s reunion a hundred, no a thousand times. Never, even in his wildest dreams, had he imagined this.
Out of shape and cursing his body’s weakness, he started off slowly toward Pearl Street. He’d barely gone a hundred yards and he found himself out of breath. Once he’d been used to the high altitude, but no longer. The lack of oxygen combined with his still-weak physical state made him take much longer to walk even a single block.
Finally, he reached the crosswalk that heralded the entrance to the outdoor mall. As it was a holiday, Pearl Street Mall was packed with tourists. Most locals avoided the area like the plague on a day like today.
Finding an actual payphone in the cellular age was more difficult than he expected, but finally he located one on the east end.
Punching in a number from memory, he spoke quietly to the man who answered. “I’ve thought about your proposition and I’ve decided to do it. Let’s set up a meeting and you can give me the particulars. I'd like to get started immediately.”
Chapter 3
Still holding their son close to her chest, Lucy watched out the front window as Tucker strode up the sidewalk. She watched as he faltered and nearly stumbled, and ached to go to him, to help him. Her chest felt tight, the back of her throat clogged with emotion. She couldn’t cry, wouldn’t cry, at least not now, not in front of Sean.
“Are you all right?” Sean asked softly from behind her. Ah, she couldn’t hide anything from him, he understood her so well. Not surprisingly, since he’d known her as long as Tucker.
She drew a shaky breath, centering herself before answering. “I think so. This has all been such a shock, you know?”
“I know.” Putting his arms around her, he turned her, baby and all, and held her. He smelled faintly of expensive cologne and his button-down shirt felt stiff with starch. He always looked perfectly put together, his sandy-blond hair styled and his khakis pressed. He was Tucker’s polar opposite.
Horrified at herself, she pushed the thought away. Sean was, she reminded herself, her rock. Not once through her ordeal had his devotion faltered. He’d been there for her, asking nothing, while she’d mourned Tucker during her pregnancy. He’d held her hand through the Lamaze classes, and attended Eli’s birth as her coach. He’d asked nothing from her until after the baby had been born, and then he’d only asked if they could become a permanent family.
When she’d turned him down, she couldn’t help but realize the irony. Once, she’d asked the same thing of Tucker, who had turned her away as well.
Sean was cookouts and cocktail parties, while Tucker was camping and football games. Of course they were different. If Tucker had been the sun blazing in the summer sky, Sean was the moon—peaceful, gentle and always there, no matter the season.
Though seeing Tucker again had stirred up old emotions, she couldn’t hurt Sean, wouldn’t hurt him, not to go chasing after a fly-by-night wisp of a dream.
Still, she couldn’t help herself from glancing out the window over Sean’s shoulder. Outside, though the occasional car drove past, she saw no one on foot. Once again, Tucker had breezed into her life like a hurricane, and barely an hour after his arrival, he was off and running.
Worse, she could sense he hadn’t told them everything. She knew him just that well.
“Tucker seems…different,” Sean said, almost as if he’d read her mind. “He’s hiding something,” he continued, reminding her that he knew Tucker as well as she did. They’d all grown up together, the three best friends their mothers had jokingly called the Stooges. Back in the day, they’d been inseparable.
“He didn’t steal the money.” She felt the need to defend him, even though Sean probably knew this as well. “Tucker’s not the kind of man to steal.”
Sean smoothed back her hair. “Who knows what he is these days. A year as a captive would change anyone. And ten million dollars is a lot of temptation.”
She shuddered, glad Sean held her so close that he couldn’t see her face. “Please. Don’t say that. You know him as well as I do. After all he’s been through…”
Sean didn’t answer, just tightened his arms around her and Eli, holding them close. Like a family.
Then to her horror, her eyes filled. She felt the first tear stream down her cheek and swiped her hand at it. Pushing out of Sean’s embrace, she placed Eli, now quiet, in his playpen; she sniffled, trying to regain control of her emotions.
“Lucy? Look at me, please?” Sean’s voice, oddly gentle, compelled her to raise her head. But then, as if she couldn’t help herself, her gaze slid past him and to the window once again, searching for a lean, broad-shouldered man who should be returning home and wasn’t.
That did it. She gasped, powerless to stop it as her eyes filled and the floodgates opened.
Sean pulled her close again and held her while she wept, bless him. Then, when she tried to step away to tidy up, he went and got the box of tissues and instead of handing it to her, carefully and gently wiped her eyes and face as if she was a small child.
“Better now?” he asked.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Again, she used Eli as an excuse, crossing to the playpen. His bright blue eyes were open, so she turned on the musical duck mobile and placed several brightly colored toys in the baby’s line of vision.
“There,” she said, once she’d finished. “That should keep him occupied for a little while.” Somehow she took a step, and then another, amazed that her shaky legs still supported her. Once she’d reached the couch, she let herself drop into the soft cushions.
“This just doesn’t seem real,” she said. “I can’t believe Tucker’s alive.”
A shadow crossed Sean’s handsome face. “Do you still love him?” he asked bluntly. “Because I’m not willing to be second best now that he’s back. I have a right to know.”
Of course he did, but the fact that he asked her this right now felt as though he was blindsiding her.
“I…still have feelings for him,” she admitted. “But not romantic ones,” she hastened to add, as Sean’s face fell. “You know I still love him, Sean. Just as you do.”
“As a friend,” he said, his tone hard. “And somehow I don’t think that’s the same kind of love that you’re talking about. You and he have been together since middle school.”
Her gut clenched. “And now we’re not.”
“You have a child together.” Plainly, Sean wasn’t about to let this go. “That’s bound to bring you closer.”
His earnest brown eyes were guarded and full of hope and fear in equal measures. She felt a moment of pity, which she squashed, aware he wouldn’t welcome that.
She couldn’t blame Sean for feeling threatened. Their engagement was too new, too fragile. He knew how much she’d loved Tucker. The question of whether she loved him still, she couldn’t really answer. She’d barely gotten used to the idea of finding him alive.
“I can only tell you what I know. You have to understand that Tucker and I will always share Eli,” she answered softly. “But before he left for Mexico, Tucker made it plain he wasn’t ready to settle down.”
A muscle worked in Sean’s square jaw. “What if he is now?”
Smiling sadly at the question, she shook her head. “Think about what you just said. He reappears after a year, learns we believed him dead, and by way of explanation, he gives us this fantastic and almost unbelievable story. Still, I’m willing to accept that, because it’s Tucker.
“Then, just as we’re all starting to relax and make an attempt to get used to the idea, he tells us he has to go for a walk to clear his head and boom—he disappears. He wasn’t even here an hour. And he’s gone. Just like always. He hasn’t changed.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the bitter pain in her voice.
For a moment, that baby mobile was the only sound, as they stared at each other across the living room.
“I don’t know what else to tell you.” She spread her hands. “Right now, just like before, I’m back to taking it one day at a time. I suggest you save yourself a lot of worry and try to do the same.”
Sean didn’t appear too convinced. Still, he didn’t disagree with her statement, which was a sort of forward progress.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Sean. Tucker’s reappearance has hit me like a punch in the stomach. I’m not sure what to think or how to act….”
Suddenly, she jumped up, aware she had to keep moving or lose it again. “How about I make us a couple of sandwiches?” she asked brightly. “Just enough to tide us over until later?”
He nodded, apparently willing to let the topic go for now. “Do you still want to go to the fireworks display at Folsom Field?” he asked carefully.
Momentarily taken aback, she didn’t answer. On the one hand, any attempt at normalcy would be good. But on the other… Tucker was home. They should celebrate. Reacquaint themselves and get to know one another. Or something. But he wasn’t here, so she couldn’t exactly ask him what he wanted to do.
Frustrated, she tried to think. She should be happy, ecstatic even. She didn’t understand why she felt so much like crying. Worse, she hated that she felt she had to hide this riot of emotion from Sean.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I guess we’d better wait and see if he even comes back.”
And as Sean nodded his head in agreement, she realized that they both had just acknowledged that there was a very real possibility Tucker would not.
Tucker found Connor O’Neill’s Irish Restaurant and Pub on 13th Street easily. The wooden floorboards creaked as he walked across them. Taking a seat at the corner of the curved mahogany bar so that he could keep his back to the wall and face the door, he ordered a wheat beer and drank it slowly, savoring the taste and enjoying the icy coolness of the frosted mug.
The restaurant was crowded with an early lunch crowd. Normally, he enjoyed people-watching, but his thoughts kept returning to Lucy. And Sean. Engaged. WTH?
Picturing them together made him feel sick. Still stunned from the revelation that he’d come home to learn he had nothing, he took another long drink of his beer, signaling the bartender for another. Lucy, the woman who’d always claimed he was The One, who’d claimed she’d love him forever, had moved on. Pretty damn quickly, as far as he was concerned.
Part of him couldn’t blame her. After all, she’d truly believed him to be dead. She had a baby to look after and, as she’d said, Sean clearly adored both her and Eli.
The other part of him couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. She and Sean? They’d been pals for years, for chrissake. Even if Sean had carried a torch for her, as far as Tucker’d been able to tell, they had zero chemistry between them.
So what gives?
The bartender brought his second beer just as he’d drained the first. Accepting it gratefully, he was about to take a drink when movement at the doorway caught his attention.
A man stepped into the bar, so tall he had to duck under the low doorway. Long-haired with an unkempt beard, he would have looked perfectly at home panhandling at the corner. When his clear gaze met Tucker’s, the sharp intelligence in his brown eyes contrasted with his appearance. This had to be his contact, the DEA agent he’d come to meet.
Sliding onto the bar stool next to Tucker, the man he knew on the phone only as Finn gave him a curt nod before ordering.
“How’d the homecoming go? It hasn’t even been an hour since my agents dropped you off and already you call wanting to meet. What happened?”
Tucker grimaced, not wanting to go into detail. “Things changed while I was gone. Enough said.”
Finn nodded. Waiting until the bartender brought the beer, collected Finn’s money, and moved off, Finn took a long drink before he replied. “Sorry to hear that. But I’m guessing that’s why you wanted to have a meeting.”
“Yep,” Tucker agreed. “I have a few questions first.”
Finn gave a barely perceptible nod. “Go ahead.”
“What’s your full name?”
“Finn Warshaw.” IF the DEA agent was surprised at the question, he didn’t show it. “What else?”
“Who has the missing ten million dollars?”
Narrowing his eyes, the other man studied him. “We don’t know,” he admitted. “But we are aware that the cartel thinks you might have a clue where it’s stashed.”
“Still?”
Finn nodded.
“I was afraid of that. Are they still searching for me?”
“Yes. At first, they thought you were killed in the shootout. Right now they have no idea where you are. But they will soon.”
Tucker clenched his jaw. “I can’t be captured again. I barely survived the last time. I’m telling you up front. I’ll shoot to kill before I let them take me. Understood?”
A barely imperceptible nod. “Understood.”
Taking a deep breath, Tucker leaned closer. “Then I’m in. Tell me what you want me to do.”
Finn took a long drink of his beer, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “First thing we need to do is move you out of Boulder. We’ve got a place set up for you in Niwot.”
Stunned, Tucker shook his head. “I just got back. I’d prefer not to leave town.”
At his words, Finn’s pleasant expression vanished. “Do you have family here, friends, a girlfriend? Need I remind you how ruthless the cartel is? If they find out you have someone you care about, they won’t hesitate to use her against you. You don’t want to endanger anyone else now, do you?”
