Chapter 5
Chapter Five
TUCKER
“Hi!”
I startle awake at the high-pitched, shockingly loud greeting. My eyes flutter open to the sight of a blonde-headed, pigtailed little girl in a Grinch T-shirt and jeans.
“Granny said I wasn’t supposed to come up here.”
“Yeah,” I choke out, clearing my throat from sleep as I sit up. “I… Uh… I could see why she’d say that.” I glance around, seeing my bedroom door wide open.
“You slept a long time.” She folds her arms across her chest and narrows her eyes. “Daddy says good cowboys don’t sleep past six-thirty.”
I almost roll my eyes. “I’ll bet he said that this morning, didn’t he?”
She nods, her brows furrowed. “How’d you know that?”
Raking my fingers through my hair, I shrug. “I’m a really good guesser. Like, I bet your name is Carly? And I’ll bet , you were named after your daddy.”
Her blue eyes grow wide. “Whoa. You are a good guesser.”
I chuckle, letting out a groan as I rub my eyes. I didn’t intend to sleep in, but I’ve been running on empty when it comes to sleep lately, trying to secure the lease. And speaking of, I still haven’t told Cash about the arrangement I’ve made.
Mostly because I’m too embarrassed to admit it.
“Are you gonna get up or not?” Carly demands, her little freckled face growing irritated. “I want to show you my cookies.”
“Is Julie up yet?”
She makes a face. “Aunt Julie’s been up forever. Granny says that she’s an even earlier riser than me.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Huh.”
Carly stares at me for a few seconds longer, and then spins on her heels, racing out of the room. “Uncle Tucker is up!” She calls out, loud enough that I’m sure the entire county hears it.
I cringe, flipping back the covers. Uncle Tucker. Yeah, right. In some other world, maybe I’d be an uncle. But right now, my only family member is a long-lost cousin who I finally met a year ago.
That’s it.
I brush away the familiar pang of grief, a loss for a family I’ve never even had, and go through the motions of getting ready. As I adjust my black cowboy hat to my head, I take another look at the creepy snowman on the quilt and chuckle. Despite being sure the thing would haunt me in my dreams, I slept like a baby.
But I guess that’s what fatigue does to a man.
My boots thud softly on the stairs as I make my way to the first floor, hoping my black hoodie and jeans aren’t too casual for the Coopers. I eye the empty foyer, and then make my way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Cooper and Carly are decorating Christmas cookies.
“Morning,” Julie’s mom greets me with a warm smile, her blondish-gray hair pulled up in a low bun. “Julie is outside. The first thing she always does when she comes home is take Rudy for a ride.”
I nod, assuming Rudy is a horse. “Ah, yeah. She just out in the arena? Or did she go out further?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, standing up straight from where she’d been leaned over, helping Carly smear green icing across some odd-shaped sugar cookie. “You’re more than welcome to join us, if you want.”
I hesitate, my discomfort probably apparent on my face. “I, uh… I…”
“Come on, Uncle Tucker,” Carly looks up at me suddenly, pooching out her lower lip. “I really want you to help.”
And I really need the lease on this ranch.
“Okay,” I breathe out. “Yeah, I can, uh, I can help.” I sling my jacket over the back of one of the chairs at the breakfast table, and then take a seat beside Carly, eyeing the cookies spread out across parchment paper. “These look good.”
“Yeah, I did them by myself,” she says proudly, puffing out her chest and handing me a tube of blue icing. “You can do the snowman.” Carly grabs an awkward elongated cookie and slaps it in front of me. “Aunt Julie loves snowmen.”
“Good to know,” I mumble, thinking of the creepy one on my quilt. “We got any black icing?”
Carly furrows her brow. “Why do you need black?”
“For his eyes,” I say. “Doesn’t he have coal for eyes?”
“No,” Carly argues, shaking her head at me. “He has icicles for eyes. Obviously. He’s a snow man.”
I exchange a glance with Julie’s mom, who starts to giggle, shrugging her shoulders at me. “Okay then,” I chuckle, using the blue to make two massive blobs for his eyes and then draw an awkward smile. It looks about as creepy as the one on my quilt, and I find myself surprisingly proud of my creation.
“That’s pretty, ” Carly hums, peering over at it. “Did your momma teach you how to do that?”
Inwardly, I cringe, but outwardly I just shake my head. “No, my mom didn’t teach me much of anything. She dropped me off at a fire station when I was a baby.” Both appear shocked, and I instantly backpedal, realizing it’s probably too heavy of a topic for a four-year-old. “But anyway, these cookies are nice.”
“Why did she leave you? My momma won’t even let me go to the park by myself,” Carly chimes, curiosity and concern written all over her face. “Does your momma not love you?”
Mrs. Cooper eyes grow stark wide. “ Carly, ” she gasps. “We don’t ask things like that. Tucker is… He’s…”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, smiling at Carly. “It’s not a big deal. I think my momma just…” My voice trails off, trying to conjure up a simple way to tell the tale that I don’t really even know myself. “I think she just wasn’t ready to be a mom, but I’ll bet she still loved me.”
Loved me enough to dump me off, but not enough to answer my emails or calls when I turned eighteen.
“That’s sad,” Carly says, her voice dropping in volume. “I’ll bet she never even took you to see Santa Claus or nothing.”
I divert my gaze back to the cookie on the table, drawing buttons down the center. “Nah, I never got to see Santa, but that’s okay. I’ll bet you get to though.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” she says, suddenly perking up.
The sound of a door opening interrupts the conversation, and I look up to see Julie entering, her hair back in a messy braid and her cheeks flushed from the cold morning. She raises her brows at the sight of me, a tube of frosting in my hand.
“That’s a nice snowman,” she smirks, shrugging out of her sherpa jacket and hanging it on the rack. “I like it.”
“Good,” I tell her, picking it up and holding it out. “I made it just for you. Complete with icicles for eyes.”
Julie’s expression shifts with confusion as she takes it from my hand. “I don’t have icicles for eyes?”
“No, but snowmans do!” Carly erupts with cheer, clapping her hands together. “Uncle Tucker did it just like I told him. He’s a real good friend.”
My face grows warm at the four-year-old’s compliment, and I shrug at Julie, trying to play it off. “I just followed her instructions.”
“I see,” Julie exchanges a look I don’t understand with her mom. “And I also see that you’re now Uncle Tucker. ”
“Uh, I didn’t come up with that,” I jump to my own defense.
“I did, duh,” Carly snickers, pushing back from the table. “Momma already told me that you’re gonna marry him, ‘cause you never bring anyone home, so it must be serious.”
I glare at Julie, but she says nothing at all in regard to it. Instead, she meets me with a subject change. “I was wondering if you’d take me into town today. Dad says there’s a bunch of lights that don’t work, so I thought I’d get more—and we can grab lunch.”
“Well, okay.” I feel her mom’s eyes on me, as if I’m being tested at the moment. “You wanna leave now? Or?”
“Yeah, now. ” Julie forces a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and I push back from the table, confused.
I mean, did I do something wrong? I was basically coerced into decorating cookies… Or was it that I slept in? I stand up from the table, and push in the chair, just as Julie grabs her jacket and drags me out the back door.
“Why are you mad at me?” I demand, just as she takes a bite of the cookie. “I didn’t?—”
“I’m not mad, ” Julie says in a hushed voice. “I’m nervous. ”
Okay, yeah. Now I’m really confused. “Why are you nervous?” I demand as she grabs my arm, dragging me around the house to my truck. “It’s just a cookie? I don’t think Carly meant anything with the ‘ Uncle’ thing…”
Julie looks at me, stopping just outside of my truck. “That’s not it.” She shakes her head as I’m left digging for my keys in my jacket pocket—that I still haven’t had a chance to put on. “It’s the fact that Maddie and Nate own the hardware store in town, and that is where I have to go to buy more lights.”
I still don’t understand. “ That is what you’re nervous about?”
Her shoulders fall dramatically, her burgundy sweater bunching up around her small waist. “Do you not get it? They think I’m a loser.”
“Yeah, so what? Join the club?” I unlock the truck, opening up the passenger door for her. “Besides, you do understand, they don’t like me, right? Like you picked the wrong guy for this whole charade if you’re out to make friends?—”
“I’m not out to make friends,” she says flatly, ignoring my offered hand as she climbs up into the truck. “I just… I’m not…”
“You’re not, what?” Why are women so difficult?
She lets out the most painful sigh as she covers her face. “I’ve gained like twenty-five pounds since high school, and I’m perpetually single, and I’m always terrified I’m going to run into Maddie and… And they’re going to laugh at me.” Julie peers through her fingers, and I have to struggle not to laugh.
Because none of what she said makes any sense.
“You look great, you’re perpetually in a fake relationship, and quite frankly, if we run into them, I highly doubt they’ll be able to see past anything other than my face showing up for the first time in a decade.” I pat her knee as her hands slowly drop, and then shut the passenger door.
There’s one very different quality between Julie and myself.
I don’t care what most people think about me, especially Nate and Maddie, who happen to be each of our ex-best friends. And besides, honestly…
Julie is gorgeous. She was then, and she’s even more so now. If I was the kind of man who could actually make a relationship work, I’d be proud to have her on my arm.
“So, you’re not nervous to run into them?” Julie asks me as soon as I climb into the driver’s seat and shut the door. “Not even a little bit?”
“Nope,” I say, popping the ‘p’ sound in the word.
“Oh,” she sounds surprised—and almost relieved— as she shifts in the seat of my truck. “Do you think you’ll be embarrassed?”
I throw the truck in reverse, giving her a funny look as my heart drops. Did she do research on me? Figure out my predicament? I proceed with caution. “What do I have to be embarrassed of?”
She frowns, fiddling with the locket I just noticed around her neck. “I don’t know… Me?”
I study her for a moment, taking in the freckles on her face and the way she’s shrunk away from me—as if she’s actually something to be embarrassed of. My heart hammers in my chest as I sigh, knowing this is the kind of thing I’m not good at. I never can conjure up the right words.
“It’s okay,” she says before I can say anything.
I furrow my brow, fighting this strange urge to grab her hand and squeeze it. Instead, I run one over the leather steering wheel, and finally, I find my voice, meeting her gaze. “You’re a catch, Jules. Always have been. Always will be. So, no, I’m not embarrassed of you.”
She smiles at that, and I find myself feeling a little lighter as I pull out of the driveway. After all, if anyone has something to be embarrassed of, it’s her… of me.