Chapter Thirty-Six
I t was all catching up with him. Tucker had had worse weekends, a lot of them, but not in a long time.
He had tried to focus on his work all week.
Today he’d thought starting one of the bigger tasks Jackson wanted done would do it, putting together all those picnic tables he wanted to put out under the big trees, so the visiting kids could gather and share the pain of their losses over some tasty treats.
Then Jackson had unexpectedly shown up and pitched in to help, saying Nic had an appointment and he had time before a client arrived.
“What’s up, bro?” Jackson asked. “You’ve been hanging around here a lot more.”
He shrugged. “Making up for the time off.”
Jackson picked up a wrench to help tackle putting the bench sections together. “You don’t need to do that.”
He shrugged again, hoping his friend would drop it. He should have known better.
“It sort of seems like you’re…avoiding something. Or someone.”
Tucker’s grip on the slat in his hand tightened. “Nic put you up to this?”
“She might have mentioned she was worried about you,” was all Jackson replied.
“Tell her to worry about Emily. She’s the one who needs it.” It hurt even to say her name.
“She does worry. She knows there’s always a chance Emily could get hurt.”
“She’s a cop. There’s more than just a chance.”
“It’s a dangerous profession. But then, so is yours. On your next job you could have a stunt go wrong.”
Assuming there is one. Tucker grimaced, not wanting to pursue that point just now. “As careful as I am?”
“You saying she’s not?”
He hadn’t looked at it quite that way, and it shut him up for a while. They worked in silence until they heard the sound of a vehicle pulling in from the road. Jackson looked, straightened, and set down the last bench they’d just finished.
“There’s no guarantee in life,” he said, as if they’d never stopped the conversation. He nodded toward the sedan nearing the office. “They could have had an accident on the way here. Splatter could have nailed me with that wild kick of his.”
“But she puts on a uniform and a gun and goes out asking for it.” Jackson hesitated, but two young kids were getting out of the car now, and Tucker waved him off. “Go. I’ve got stuff to do in the barn.”
“Just one more thing. Where do you think Emily would have been, if the two of you had been together when you were hurt?”
Jackson left him staring after him, not waiting for an answer. He probably didn’t need the answer because he already knew it, just as Tucker himself did. Emily would be right there, at his side, through it all. Because that’s who she was.
Braver than me. Tougher than me. Deserves better than me.
Once in the barn he tried to ignore Pie, who was giving him the equine equivalent of a side-eye.
He heard footsteps and thought it was Jackson coming back for something.
But when he looked he saw, to his surprise, Lily Highwater approaching.
He’d barely seen her at the survival party and had actually been glad of it.
He felt a little awkward with her after pouring his guts out like he had.
Sorry stuck his head out as she neared, and she paused to pat the now-happy sorrel. She noticed Pie then and laughed at his positioning.
Then, with a smile, she headed toward him.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she said when she stopped, reaching out to pet the pony too, “that we’ve gotten so much reaction and response to your profile.
I think I must have heard from everybody who was in the stands that day in Fort Worth.
They have never forgotten you. Plus reaction from at least half the entire population of Last Stand, all welcoming you back home to Texas. ”
He let out a compressed, embarrassed breath. “Wow. Don’t know what to say to that. Except thanks.”
Her smile widened. “Thank you. Don’t think I don’t know what it took for you to pour all that out. I hope you don’t regret it.”
He shook his head, short and sharp. “I think I needed to do it once, so I’d never have to do it again.”
“I can understand that.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “I hope you don’t regret something else I did.”
Tucker went still, looking at her. “What?” he asked, beyond wary now.
“I talked to my husband about you.”
Tucker blinked. That, he hadn’t expected. “The chief?” And Emily’s boss. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you about the similarities in how you and he grew up.”
That startled him. “How do you mean?”
“His mother was a drunk,” she said bluntly.
“He told me the only time she stayed sober was when she was pregnant, which is why all five of the Highwater siblings were born within eight years. He said that was his father, trying to keep her from doing what she eventually did, which was commit suicide by alcohol.”
He stared at her, speechless, stunned not only by what she’d said but that she’d said it at all.
What was it with this town? First Kane spilling his guts, now the chief’s wife?
After a moment she went on. “He was ten years old. The oldest. He stepped up to help his father take care of the family. And then when his father was killed—on duty, although it was an accident—twelve years later, he gave up everything, college, his rodeoing, to come home and see to the ranch, and the family. Especially his little sister Sage, who was only fourteen.”
He’d known none of this, not that he would have expected to, given he’d only been here barely over a month. He was still stunned she was telling him this at all. But he remembered what she’d first said, and listening to this horrible tale, he could only think of one thing to say.
“Sounds like he had it much worse. I didn’t have siblings to worry about, or a ranch.”
“But if you had, you would have stepped up. Just as Shane did, just as Jackson did for Jeremy.”
“I…hope so.”
“My husband is a cop for the best possible reasons, and he holds his department to the same standard. He’s honest to the bone.
He’s in it to help people, his own in uniform and the citizens of his town.
He’d go to the mat for any of them, and they all—we all—know it.
And if there’s one rule Shane hires by, it’s that one. That all his people feel the same way.”
His brow furrowed. Why was she telling him all this? But she didn’t give him a chance to process, just kept going, making him feel a bit overwhelmed.
“My point is not that Shane had it rough too, or to compare who had the worse life growing up, or whose losses were worse. My point is that all those things, and how he dealt with them, how he deals with everything life throws at him, is why I love him. It’s why sometimes I look at him and marvel that he loves me.
” She held his gaze steadily, her hazel eyes seeming to hold more gold than green today.
“That does not mean I’m not afraid for him.
But I handle it because there is no other way.
I love him, more than I ever thought possible.
And I knew who and what he was, probably better than most, when I married him.
And what he is, is a hero. There’s a potential high price for that, but it’s a maybe.
What we have is real, solid, and the bedrock of my existence.
And every day I have with him outweighs what could happen. ”
It suddenly hit him what this was about.
All his people.
Emily.
He wondered if Emily had put her up to this. He dismissed the thought almost instantly. She wouldn’t. But he knew someone who would.
“Nic,” he said flatly. “She put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“She might have suggested you needed to know a bit about loving a cop,” she admitted.
…loving a cop.
Just the phrase sent a little tremor through him. Not a chill, it was too…hot for that. He was glad when she went on before he said something stupid.
“Shane’s father died on duty. But he still became a cop himself. Are there times when I wish he was something boring, like an accountant? Sure. But much more often there are times when I’m so proud of who he is and what he does that I want to yell it to the skies.”
“Even knowing you could get that late-night visit someday?”
“Even knowing,” she said solemnly. “Having him in my life, loving me, is worth any price.” She paused, as if to let that sink in, before saying, “One last thing and I’ll leave you in peace.
There is no one on Last Stand PD who represents the chief’s standards better than Emily Stratton.
Her heart and her compassion, the things that make her so good at the job, are welcomed and treasured. ”
Tucker felt his gut clench. He had Nic to thank for this. Or maybe it was just this place. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the Last Stand grapevine, and how everybody seemed to know everything about everybody else.
When he didn’t speak, she turned to go, then looked back. “Oh,” she said, “and welcome to Last Stand. I hope you decide to stay.”
He stared after her as she went, feeling a bit like he’d just been swamped by a tidal wave.
He should be thinking of tracking down Nic, cornering her and asking her what the hell she thought she was doing, setting him up like this. Or of finding Jackson and asking if he’d known about this.
But all he could think about was a certain golden-eyed woman with long hair the color of Hill Country sand, and how she made him feel. How she made him wish for things he’d never had, and never expected to have. But could he really stand it, knowing she was out there risking herself, every day?
“Lily found you?”
He spun around to stare at Jackson as he came toward him. “So you were in on it?”
Jackson threw up his hands in denial. “I only knew Nic had called her after the fact, bro. But I also thought maybe it might help. Because I know where your head’s at right now.”
“You do, huh?” He said it sourly.
“Yeah.” Jackson hesitated, then said, “I’ve never seen you as happy as you’ve been this past three weeks. Or as…alive as you’ve been since you met Emily.”
He winced inwardly, just at the mention of her name. “Nice while it lasted,” he muttered.
Jackson frowned. “You saying it’s over?”
“I’m saying what I said before—we’ve got nothing in common.”
“Neither did Nic and I, and it doesn’t matter.”
He looked at his best friend then. “You did have something in common. You went through hell with losing your wife. Nic went through hell nearly losing her mom and having to adjust to the changes afterward. And I…”
“And you went through hell twice,” Jackson finished for him. “What does that have to do with Emily? She’s fine, Nic said.”
“She is. Back to work, even,” he said, managing to let only a bit of how that made him feel creep through. “But that’s it, man. She’s had such a…normal life. She grew up loved, still has her parents, has never had to deal directly with that kind of hell.”
“So are you saying she doesn’t understand it?”
“No, she does,” he said with a shake of his head. “She has to handle it all the time, as a cop.”
“But she hasn’t had to live it. Not like you have.”
That made him sound kind of petty, and he didn’t like the feeling. “Yeah, sort of.”
“So you’ve been through all kinds of personal hell, but she hasn’t. Then maybe,” Jackson said, in that tone that worked so well when he was playing that powerful character on screen, “she’s your reward.”
His head snapped up, and he found Jackson’s eyes fastened on him in a way that told him not only that he was deadly serious but that this mattered.
“Reward? What the hell did I ever do to deserve a reward like…like her?”
Suddenly that thing Emily had said, when she’d been so angry, that three C’s thing, rammed into his mind. For so long he’d carried that guilt, that he could have, should have done something to save his mother…but Emily had gutted that as thoroughly as a trout.
“You got through what you did in life—twice—and stayed a good, decent human being. You didn’t turn bitter or sour or cruel, like many would have. You just kept going.”
Tucker stared at him. “When did you become such a philosopher?”
Jackson grinned suddenly. “Trying to keep up with Nic.” Then, seriously, “She’s made me a better person. Just like Emily does for you. So you’d better think about it long and hard, bro. That’s not something to just walk away from.”
The sound of lighter, rapid footsteps made Tucker look. Jeremy, Maverick at his heels, was running toward them. The sight of the golden dog made him think of the black one he had bonded with so quickly and completely, and his gut clenched all over again.
“Hey,” Jackson said, ruffling his son’s hair.
“Whatcha talking about?” the boy asked.
“Whether your uncle T should be with Officer Emily.” Tucker winced at the blunt assessment.
“’Course he should,” Jeremy said with what Tucker had taken to calling his “grown-ups are crazy” eye-roll.
“How can you be so sure of that?” Tucker asked the child who was like blood to him.
“Because she makes you happy. Besides, Lobo thinks you should, ’n’ dogs are never wrong about people.”
Jeremy abandoned them for Pie then, going over to stroke the pony’s nose.
“The brilliance of the uncluttered mind,” Jackson murmured, staring after his son. Then he looked back at Tucker. “I’d take his advice, if I were you.”
Tucker’s jaw tightened. “I just…I don’t know if I could pay that price again.”
“I guess you have to weigh the very slight chance of paying that price against the guaranteed benefits. The bottom line has changed, bro. Happiness isn’t very often free.”
Dogs are never wrong…
Maybe she’s your reward.
She makes you happy.
Happiness isn’t very often free.
He rubbed his hands over his eyes, then moved to his temples. This was giving him a headache.
“Take a ride,” Jackson suggested. “Clear your head. Look at the country out there and ask it what the hell you’re supposed to do.” Tucker gave him a narrow-eyed look, and he shrugged. “Worked for me more than once.”
And so Tucker did what he’d been doing for years, and it oddly did feel like a step in the right direction.
He saddled up.