Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TUCKER
She never came home this morning, which means my girl has been out on a call for almost twenty-four hours.
And I fucking hate it.
She’s texted to let me know that it’s a bad birth situation and she can’t leave, but Jesus, that’s a long fucking time.
I had a greenhouse delivered today and placed in the grassy area where Darby mentioned she’d put one, if this were her house. It’s ready for her to fill with whatever the hell she wants. Flowers, herbs, vegetables—I have no idea what she’s thinking, but it’s all hers.
And is it ridiculous to offer her something so permanent when this is a one-year gig? Probably.
But I don’t seem to give a shit.
Scott’s standing next to me, his arms folded over his chest, and we’re staring at the area around the greenhouse, which as of now, is just nothing.
“How many boxes are we building?”
“Six. Two on each side, and two in the back,” I reply. I can see it perfectly in my head. I can also picture my Duchess out here, tending to whatever she wants to plant, and the mental picture almost makes me hard. “Each of the raised garden boxes will be four feet wide by ten feet long.”
“Let me get this straight,” he replies, holding up a hand. “Rather than being out fixing fence tomorrow, we’re building flower beds.”
I cross my arms over my chest and tilt my head to the side, staring at him. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Because Darby wants them, and it seems that I’m going to do my best to give her anything her little heart desires.
Instead, I simply raise an eyebrow. “Because I fucking said so. It won’t even take a full day.”
My manager shrugs and then nods. “Yeah, okay. You’ve just never really cared about flowers. Does this have anything to do with a certain pretty vet intern?”
“Maybe I just suddenly want a vegetable garden.”
He scoffs and rubs the back of his neck. “Right. And I suddenly love snuggling with grizzly bears.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“But you can’t live without me,” he replies and checks the time. “I need to get home so I can help with the baby, who is the most beautiful creature ever born, by the way.”
“Yes, I know, you show us all at least twenty new photos a day. She’s barely a day old. She doesn’t change that much day to day, you know.”
“You’ll look at the photos, and you’ll like it,” he replies and punches me in the shoulder. I swear, having Scott around is like having another brother. “The guys and I’ll be out here bright and early to get started on this.”
Should I be using the man power this way? Probably not, but damn it, all I can think about is Darby. She said she wants gardens, so she’ll get them. I’m even going to fill the planter boxes beneath all the windows.
I’m fucking whipped.
But more than anything, I’m worried about her. Is she eating? Did she sleep at all?
To try to distract myself, I decided to go ahead and build her the garden. I’d arranged for the greenhouse last week, after she first mentioned it.
“See you in the morning,” Scott says as he walks off to his truck, and I pull my phone out when it pings with a text.
It’s not Darby.
It’s the family group chat.
Dad: I know it’s last minute, but I made a shit ton of food for dinner. Come and get it.
Xander: Why do you have to taunt me with homemade food? I’m in fucking Tampa Bay.
Ava: Oops, Dad didn’t remove Xander from this thread.
Xander: DON’T REMOVE ME FROM ANY THREADS.
I snort at that. He doesn’t want to know that we’re eating together, but he also doesn’t want to miss out. That’s pretty on brand for my brother.
Harper: I’m on my way. Blake’s working tonight, and I’m starving, but also don’t want to cook. Juliet might permanently kick me out of Sage & Citrus if I keep eating all of her salads.
Sage & Citrus is a restaurant in our neighboring town of Bitterroot Valley, owned by my friend Brooks’s wife, Juliet. Jules has become friends with my sisters and with Darby. They’re a tight friend group, and I know that Harps would never be thrown out permanently.
However, she does eat a lot of those salads.
Ava: I’m bringing Chad with me. We’ll skip the restaurant and come there instead. Is that cool?
I frown. Chad’s a douche. I would never pick him for my sister, and I hope she sees the light soon and dumps his ass.
Dad: That’s fine. Tuck, Easton, get your asses over here and eat.
Me: On my way.
Maybe spending time with the family will take my mind off the fact that Darby still isn’t home.
I shoot her a text before I climb into my truck to head into town to my father’s place.
Me: Hey, beautiful. I’m headed to my dad’s for dinner. Do you need anything? I need to make sure you’re eating.
Her phone is on Do Not Disturb, so I pop the cell in the cup holder and drive into Silver Springs, worrying about her the whole way.
What kind of emergency could she be dealing with that takes this long? I don’t think I’ve ever had something happen on my ranch that took days to deal with. Sure, we’ve had some pretty crazy things happen during calving season, but never anything that took this long.
Or maybe I’ve blocked all that out, and the only thing I can focus on is the fact that my girl is taking care of a medical emergency for someone, and I don’t know for sure if she’s really okay.
Calm down, man.
I shake my head and park in front of my dad’s house just as Easton pulls up behind me.
“I didn’t bother replying to the family chat,” he says as we walk up the path to the door. “Figured I’d just show up. Also, I have some shit news for you.”
I scowl over at him. “What?”
“Peter’s been released. Couldn’t make the charges stick. It’s a matter of he said, she said, and there was no proof, unless you’ve installed cameras in the barn that I don’t know about.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow,” I reply tersely and feel my jaw tighten. “Fuck.”
“I know. He’s a piece of shit. But, Darby can file a restraining order, and so can you for the ranch.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow too,” I reply, that anger running through my blood again. “He won’t be back out on my property.”
We walk through the door, and it’s already chaos inside, even though it’s only four people. Six, including Easton and me.
“It’s about time,” Harper says, already shoving bread in her mouth.
“Dude, I left as soon as the texts came in,” I reply and ruffle her hair. “Are you supposed to eat that much bread?”
Her eyes narrow menacingly. “Did you just call me fat?”
Easton laughs.
Dad shakes his head.
Ava and Chad share a look.
I simply cross my arms over my chest and smile at the woman who’s my sister in every way that counts.
“No. I asked if you should be eating a shit ton of bread. You usually avoid gluten, remember? It’s literally part of your personality.”
Her eyes are still narrowed, but she simply watches me as she takes another bite and chews.
“The baby wants bread, Tucker. Are you going to tell your niece no?”
I hold my hands up in surrender and bend down to kiss her cheek.
“Eat all the bread in the land, I don’t care. You look great.”
“I look like I ate a basketball.”
“Did you eat a basketball?” Easton asks, and now her glare is turned his way, letting me off the hook.
He smirks at me, and I walk into the kitchen, eyeing the spread of Italian food, and then my father, who shouldn’t be eating pasta.
“I’m not eating much of it,” he assures me. “And my numbers are good, my medication is handled, and Dr. Son-in-Law assures me that I’m fine to eat this in moderation.”
“Great.”
I clap him on the back, and we all settle in around the dining room table with plates heaping with steaming pasta and sauce. This is the table we used my whole life. Dad took it with him when he moved out, and I bought something new for the farmhouse.
“So, Chad, how’s the legal system these days?”
Chad shrugs a shoulder at Harper’s question. “It keeps going.”
The man dating my baby sister is always polite, but he’s quiet. And he always gives nonanswers, which is suspicious to me.
“I’d planned to do this at the restaurant,” Chad says, clearing his throat as he turns in the chair so he’s facing Ava. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a motherfucking ring.
My eyes go to Dad, who’s stopped chewing. He looks confused, which tells me that Chad the Douche didn’t ask our father for his blessing.
What an ass. He can’t even be bothered to get down on one knee?
“Ava, I enjoy you so much. Getting to know you over the past year has been some of the best moments in my life. I would love it if you’d take the next step with me and agree to marry me.”
Ava blinks.
I scowl. Where’s the I love you and I can’t live without you and if you say no, you’ll tear my heart out of my chest and set it on fire?
Even Harper’s nose wrinkles as if she just tasted something disgusting.
“Yes, of course.”
Wait, what?
Chad, with a pleased grin on his stupid face, slips the ring on Ava’s finger and then leans in to press his lips to hers in a chaste kiss that has me wanting to punch him in the nuts.
This idiot did not discuss this with our father, he didn’t say one thing about love in his ridiculous little speech, and then when she said yes, he gave her a peck on the mouth.
Not that I want to ever witness my sister having her face chewed off by some dude, but come on.
She just agreed to marry him, not pick up his fucking dry cleaning.
“Um, congratulations,” Harper says, still frowning. “I didn’t realize you’d talked about marriage.”
“Well, we really haven’t,” Ava says, looking as surprised as the rest of us. Her eyes are pinned to Chad, who’s gone back to eating his dinner, as if he just told Ava they needed to get gas on the way home.
She glances down at the rock on her finger. It’s . . . big. That’s all I really know about diamonds. But I can see by the way her brows pinch together that the way this entire fucked-up thing went down is not how she envisioned it when she was a little girl.
And my sister deserves the fucking world.
I glance over at Easton, and he’s already looking at me. He gives a little nod.
We need to have a conversation with Chad.
But I won’t do anything to upset Ava, so we’ll choose another moment for our little heart-to-heart.
“You got a whole big-ass truck of dirt delivered,” Scott says the next day, as we watch a vehicle that’s not quite the size of a dump truck pull down the driveway, the bed full of soil for the planters.
It’s good timing because we just finished setting the last one in place.
“You’re observant,” I reply, sounding short even to my own ears.
I can’t help it.
Darby still hasn’t come home, and it’s been almost two days that she’s been gone. She texted me this morning to tell me that they should be able to wrap it up today, but she has no idea when.
It’s not that I need her here for anything ranch related. All the animals are healthy.
It’s that I haven’t had my eyes, not to mention my hands, on her in the better part of forty-eight hours, and I’m losing my fucking mind because I don’t know for sure that she’s okay. She has to be exhausted. I’m sure they’ve brought food in, but I would have had food delivered without hesitation.
I’ve had her here on my property for such a short time, and yet, she belongs here. With me. It’s not the same without her here, and I don’t know what that means for the future, if she decides to move on.
She’d better not fucking move on.
I flag the truck driver over to the greenhouse area, and we all grab shovels and get to work. It’s not easy to carry tons of dirt, but it’s an excellent workout. And by the time the beds are all overflowing—the dirt will settle—each of us is a sweaty mess.
“Let’s call it a day,” I say to my guys. They all came to help me today, rather than working around the ranch, and I’m grateful. What started as a project that I would have sworn would take half a day, turned into most of the day because I added a seventh box.
The only thing left to do tomorrow is add the wildlife fence around the whole thing so the deer don’t eat the produce.
We all go our separate ways. The guys head home, and I go inside, take my boots off on the back porch, then walk through the kitchen and straight up to the bathroom.
After stripping down and tossing my filthy clothes into the hamper, I turn on the shower, and while the water heats, I check my phone for the fortieth time today and feel my stomach jump when I see that I have message from my Duchess that came in about an hour ago, likely when the truck was running loudly in my ear.
Duchess: We’re wrapping up here in the next few hours. I hope. Definitely this evening. I don’t know if you wanted to know that, I just thought I’d give you a heads-up.
She doesn’t know if I want to know?
I’ll make sure she understands the next time I see her that I want to know everything she’ll tell me.
I get through the shower and dress in a clean long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, then head downstairs to start dinner.
I’ll make tacos so I can easily heat them up for her whenever she gets home.
There’s no way she’s going to her cabin tonight.
I’ll bring her here, get something in her stomach, and curl up around her all night.
Do I sound a little unhinged? Yeah. I do.
It’s dark outside when I get the kitchen cleaned, the outdoor cats fed, and then do some work on the computer, waiting to hear from my girl.
It’s almost midnight, when I think to check the time, and scowl. But just when I’m about to call her, my phone rings and it’s her name on the screen.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I say when I answer.