Chapter Thirty-Seven
L obo trotted alongside her borrowed horse as if he’d done it a million times.
So Chance had seen to this as well, that the dog was comfortable around just about everything he might encounter in his new home.
The animal stuck close to her, as if he sensed she wasn’t that secure aboard a horse yet, although Tucker had brought her out here to the ranch a few times for just this kind of ride, and she’d loved it each time.
Because you love him.
And she wasn’t one to give up easily, so Mr. Tucker Culhane had better be braced for a fight.
She rode slowly on. She had the image of her destination in her mind, the wide shelf of Hill Country stone and the stream of water that cascaded over it into a cool, calm pool, then eventually continued the journey, spilling over a low spot in the other end.
Tucker had told her that Jackson said it was the place where they’d gotten their deciding taste of life in Last Stand, and the sense of strong community the place had when half the town had turned out to search for his missing son.
It had been, Jackson had said, what had made him sure that staying was the right thing to do.
She continued up the hill, wondering if Tucker felt the same way, that this and not the megalopolis that was L.A. was home. He’d hinted at it a few times, enough so that she’d dared to hope he would stay for good.
But now she needed to focus on just one thing. There was nothing more important than refusing to let him throw away what they had because one time in her eight years of being a cop, she’d come away from an encounter with a little scratch.
Even as she thought it, she felt a twinge as Nic’s horse Sassafras, whom she had entrusted her with, shifted to traverse an uneven stretch of ground. Okay, more than a scratch. A gouge maybe. Although it was healed enough that only when she moved wrong or stretched too far, did she feel it at all.
Like when you jumped Tucker and practically dragged him to bed?
She pulled her thoughts away from that. It was already hot enough on this August day.
She didn’t need those memories adding to the fire that was a constant even when they were apart.
And she refused to believe it was different for him.
Surely the power of what they had found together was enough to overcome his fears?
She understood, and after these last nights in her lonely bed she’d honestly faced how she would have felt if her own father had been an officer and had died in a shooting.
But the even worse thought had been how she would feel if Tucker hadn’t given up the rodeo and continued to ride those huge, bucking bulls even after his near-fatal encounter in Fort Worth.
It was bad enough that he did what he did, stunts that could easily get him badly hurt all over again.
Of course he wasn’t doing that now, thanks to his best friend’s decision to walk away.
So she supposed that meant she was the lucky one, not having to worry about that.
Because she would worry. No matter what happened now, she would worry. Because she loved him. And if he couldn’t accept her own work and walked away from what they had, she would still love him.
And that was the part that gave her a chill despite the heat of the day.
An odd, low sound from up ahead snapped her out of the painful thoughts. Lobo, letting out a barely audible whine, as if he were puzzled about something. Or had found something he didn’t like but didn’t know what to do about without her to tell him.
She hadn’t been paying enough attention, so didn’t realize that they’d actually arrived at the pool. But she barely looked at the inviting water, because she’d also spotted that flashy, cranky pinto, ground-tied near the edge.
He was here. Nic had been right when she’d suggested she check here first. She let out a sigh of relief and slowed the borrowed horse to a halt. She wondered where Tucker was. He couldn’t be far if Splatter was here.
Lobo made that sound again, only now he was on his feet instead of sitting at the edge of the water. He looked ready to launch himself into the pool, his gaze fixed on something…
She let out a gasp when she spotted, over near the small cataract of water, something floating. A man.
Face down.
The gasp became a scream of his name, and she raced into the water. It was too shallow to really drown in for someone his size, but he could have hit his head, he could have—
He moved.
She stopped dead a yard away as he rolled over and scrambled to his feet. The water now came barely above the knees on his six-foot frame.
His naked six-foot frame.
He stood staring at her. She stared back, unable not to when confronted with the body she had stroked inch by gorgeous inch, now wet and glistening in the Texas sun. And suddenly the sun wasn’t the only thing overheating.
It was a long moment before she managed to speak. Or try to.
“I saw… You were face down, floating, and I thought… I was afraid you were…”
Understanding dawned on his face. “Now you know how I felt,” he said quietly.
And then she was in his arms, headless of the fact that her clothes were getting wetter by the moment.
“I’m sorry, Tucker. I’ve done nothing but think about it since…
you left, and I realize I never looked at it from your side closely enough.
I just knew how I felt, that nothing really bad would happen.
Because it’s Last Stand, and we see to our own.
What I should have learned the other night is that it could, and going in with the assumption it wouldn’t, could actually make it more possible. ”
She felt him let out a compressed breath that was almost a chuckle as she pressed her cheek against his naked chest. “I think I almost understood that.”
He was holding her, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he wanted to or because she’d practically thrown herself at him.
A short, yipping bark came from right beside them. She looked down to see Lobo looking up at them, standing in a spot deep enough that he had to hold his head up high to keep it out of the water.
“Well, you sound happier than you did a minute ago,” she said to the dog.
“I thought I heard something, but my head was under and I—”
Emily’s gaze snapped back to his face. “Yes, it was. What were you doing? You scared me to death.”
“So now we’re even?” he suggested.
She liked that he was even joking about it, but the memory of that heart-stopping moment when she’d thought the worst overpowered it.
“Maybe. If you tell me what that was about.”
He shrugged, drawing her gaze to those powerful shoulders, already dry from the sun. “It’s just something I used to do…after I got hurt. Holding my breath, trying to go longer each time, to be sure my lungs were still working right.”
Of all the things she would have thought of, that wasn’t one of them, but it made sense.
“I thought you might have slipped on those wet rocks and hit your head.”
“Didn’t think I drowned my sorrows, huh?”
She went still, very still, because it had flitted through her mind. And been dismissed just as quickly. “You’re too strong a man for that, Tucker Culhane. You’d never take the easy way out.”
“That night…the night I left…I didn’t feel that way.”
“I know.” She gave him a wry smile. “The downside of the generally wonderful life I’ve had is that sometimes it takes me a little time to understand people who haven’t been so lucky.”
Lobo yipped again, looking up at them expectantly. Tucker leaned down and stroked the dog’s head.
“He’s been really upset since you left,” she said. “Pacing all the time except when he’s in your spot on the couch, then up and pacing again, looking all over the house for you.”
“I’ve missed him, too,” Tucker said, his voice a little rough. “Almost as much as I’ve missed you.” He took in a deep breath. “Jeremy said Lobo knows…we should be together. And that dogs are never wrong about humans.”
“I wouldn’t argue that,” she said. Then, pointedly, added, “Especially the we should be together part.”
His jaw tightened for a moment, and she wondered if he was about to say no, that he couldn’t do it.
“Do I have to quit for that to happen?” she asked.
She’d spent a lot of those sleepless hours pondering that question, wondering if she could really give up the work she’d dedicated her life to, the work she so loved…
for the man she loved. She hated the idea, but she hated the idea of being without Tucker even more.
“Lily Highwater came to see me,” he said unexpectedly. But she saw immediately how it related to what she’d said.
She sighed. “Nic’s idea.”
“Yeah. You knew?”
“She sort of warned me. Meaning she mentioned it in that tone of hers that says her mind’s made up.”
“She made a lot of sense. Lily, I mean.”
“She generally does.” She wanted to ask if the chief’s wife had convinced him, but was afraid of the answer.
“She thinks a lot of you, just like your boss.”
“I like her a lot, too. Hard not to, seeing the change in the chief since they’ve been together.”
“Funny. Jackson said something like that about me, too. That I’ve been more alive. Since I met you, I mean.”
Hope bubbled up inside her. She tamped it down so she could ask evenly, “Is he right?”
Those eyes locked on hers, and she knew that whatever he said, it would be the truth. “Yes. I’ve never felt like this in my life. I just didn’t know if I could risk it, if I could stand to pay that kind of price…again.”
“And if I swore to you I would never again take it for granted that nothing would go wrong…would that make a difference?”
“Are you? Swearing that?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath, then said, “But if that’s not enough, if you truly can’t stand it—”
He cut her words off with a gentle finger to her lips. “I won’t ask you to quit the work you love, Emily. I was forced into that once, and it’s an awful feeling. But I’ll hold you to that vow. Never taking your own safety for granted.”
Only then did she realize what he’d said a moment ago.
I just didn’t know if I could risk it…
Not don’t know. Didn’t. As in he did know now.
He was looking her straight in the eye now. “I finally realized that I didn’t have my choices right, in my head. I could either be deliriously happy with the chance of a little misery, or be without you and be guaranteed miserable all the time.”
Her eyes began to sting as she held her breath, waiting.
“I love you, Emily,” he said softly but definitely. “In the end, that’s all that really matters.”
She hugged him fiercely and said the only thing she could think of. “Thank you. For being brave enough. Tough enough. Loving me enough.”
“Guess that only leaves one question, then,” he said, and she heard the slight touch of the drawl in his voice that made her pulse kick up a notch.
“What?”
Tucker pulled back and looked down at her. He shifted his gaze pointedly to Lobo, who was wagging his tail now despite the water, sending it out in arcing sprays of droplets. Then he looked back at her.
“How come you’re the only one dressed here?”
She laughed, suddenly feeling light enough to fly. “I don’t know. Why don’t we fix that?”
They did, and when they made love at the edge of that crystalline pool, with two bored horses and a happy dog as witnesses, it was the most perfect moment of her life.