Chapter 22 #2
No. It wasn’t. But seeing Raleigh’s picture had shaken something inside me.
All the memories Tucker had shared of him now had a living, breathing human in them instead of the blurry mass my mind had conjured.
I could picture him at the front door watching the rain roll in just as easily as I could see the wide smile in that wedding photo.
Every memory and every story now had a clear as day visual of a rugged cowboy with reddish brown hair and a slightly crooked smile.
And I didn’t know if I measured up to that man Tucker loved so fiercely.
“What are we doing here, Tucker?” I asked, deflecting as I leaned back against my seat. “Why did you want me to come here tonight?”
His body began to vibrate in that familiar way when someone bounces their knee aggressively, and I waited till Tucker let out a slow sigh.
He lowered his eyes only briefly to pop his hat off his head and run his fingers through his hair, but when he looked back up after replacing his hat, a sense of resolve was there.
“You’ve fucked me up from the moment you’ve arrived on this farm, Jackson.
You stepped out of that truck, and my whole world flipped upside down.
At first I thought it was just because you were wearing the same cologne as Raleigh.
Thought I was just getting my wires crossed because you’re an attractive guy and you smelled like him.
But even after you stopped, I couldn’t keep myself from seeking you out.
There was a pull from the very beginning, and I hated it. ”
He paused to take a slow swig of his beer while the heavy thumps of my heart against my ribcage became increasingly painful. Those golden hues stayed locked on the swirling liquid in his bottle as he spoke again.
“It felt like if I acknowledged what was happening here—that I could feel something like this for another man—it was somehow erasing a piece of Raleigh inside me. Like there couldn’t be enough space in my heart to fit both of you.
So if I was going to take a chance on this, it would mean pushing him out, and I wasn’t ready for that. ”
I rubbed at the back of my neck as I winced.
“It couldn’t have helped with me putting pressure on you.
I’ve never felt like this for someone else before, and I got ahead of myself trying to explore that feeling more, but you paid the price when things started moving too fast. I’m really sorry, Tucker. ”
“Do you mean the other night?”
I nodded, swirling my own untouched beer. A revolt was happening in my stomach, and I knew adding the cool liquid wouldn’t mix well. “I’ve been pushing you from the beginning, and I feel like I finally pushed you past the point you were comfortable, but you were putting up with it for my sake.”
My eyes squeezed shut as that same cold rush of dread spread over me from the memory of Tucker’s flaccid cock in my hand. But before I could drown in those thoughts, a warm hand wrapped around my wrist, and I looked up into Tucker’s sweet, honeyed gaze.
“What happened that night wasn’t on you, Jackson.
I really need you to understand that. You have nothing to apologize for.
I was the one to initiate what happened, and I should have ended it way sooner, but…
” He swallowed hard, his eyes bouncing back and forth over my face as he struggled to get the words out.
“I wasn’t in a good head space from the beginning. ”
The sharp sting in my chest wasn’t surprising, but it was unwelcomed.
Those moments with Tucker just outside of Goldie’s stall had been incredible in the beginning and was the first time I’d felt like we were finally moving in the right direction.
He’d kissed me first. The want and need had been a nearly tangible thing between us, and he was saying that hadn’t been real?
Maybe he saw the question on my face because he continued without me uttering a word.
“We’d just shared something really wonderful by being there for the birth of Goldie, and I don’t know…
I was feeling so close to you, but at the same time not being able to picture a future where I got to have you by my side.
You’re so much younger than me, and you’re my employee, and I’m all sorts of fucked up.
I guess I was hoping I’d be able to forget all that like the first time we were together.
But I couldn’t get out of my head, and the more I fought it, the worse it got till… ”
“Yeah,” I whispered, not wanting to relive those moments again.
“It’s shitty, I know, and after everything else, I should be telling you that we need to end this. Go back to being just simple foreman and hand. But you’re under my skin, and the thought of trying to get rid of you is more painful than it has any right to be.”
Hope flared stupid bright in my chest at his words, and I could barely get the words out. “So, what now?”
Without realizing it, I’d shifted my hand, and Tucker was threading his fingers through mine. They were rough and calloused, so much like my own, but the simple act of them slotting between mine felt like a homecoming I’d never known before.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I’m asking you to be patient with me.
I haven’t figured out how to reconcile the pull I have to you and the love I still have for Raleigh.
I can’t promise I won’t have moments where I freak out because I feel like I’m having to choose, but I want to try. Whatever this is… I want to try.”
I swallowed hard, pushing back the well of emotion sitting in my throat at his words. “Yeah, okay… But I need you to know I’m never going to ask you to choose, Tucker. What you and Raleigh had was special. I need you to know I see that.”
Tucker fingered out the chain around his neck from under his shirt with his free hand and quickly wrapped it around his ring. “I know.”
His voice was thick, full of every unsaid thing between us. When one tear began to trail its way down his cheek, he quickly dashed it away. Then he grabbed his beer and sat back in his seat, letting go of my hand in the process.
“So, you used to be a cattleman?” he asked, taking a small sip.
And just like that, something that had been out of place shifted back to right. I let out a wry chuckle, grabbing my own bottle and taking my first drink of the evening. “I thought you might have missed that when I mentioned it earlier.”
“I don’t miss much when it comes to you,” he murmured around the lip of his bottle, and my stomach swooped low in my belly as my heart took off in my chest.
We ended up talking for an hour after that, just letting the conversation flow where it would as we slowly got to know each other a little better.
Just two men seeing where this thing between us would lead.
When Tucker walked me to his front door, the sun had already dipped low below the horizon, and the blanket of night was just setting in.
A chill on the breeze made me shiver as I stepped out onto the front porch.
“Jackson?”
I glanced behind me, Tucker’s full frame almost silhouetted by the warm glow inside his cabin. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his large arms over his chest.
“Will you wear my jacket again?”
My whole body flushed hot making the cool air a distant memory. “You want me to?”
He gave me a slow nod before grabbing at the chain around his neck again. “I want my claim on you, too.”