Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (28 page)

“Not so tough now are you, you son of a bitch,” Luther snarled.

Sutter looked up, his face a mask of blood.

Luther knew he had to act quickly; lights were already on in the houses around him. Someone had to have called the sheriff.

“Time to finish what we started.” Luther smiled, even though it made his face hurt. “And this time, there ain’t no runnin’ away.”

Tyler saw Luther limping toward him, but there was no chance he could defend himself. His whole body was in agony, especially his left arm and down his side, right where Luther’s car had hit him. Everything had happened so quickly, too fast for him to do anything. It had only been a glancing blow, but it still hurt like hell. But Tyler did his best to ignore the pain. All he could think about was Christina; even now, covered in his own blood, as he knew that Luther was going to try to kill him, his only thought was whether the woman he loved was safe.

“Ch-Christina…,” he coughed painfully. There was little doubt one of his ribs had been broken.

“You might as well be cryin’ out for your momma, all the help that bitch is gonna be to you now.” Luther smiled, his teeth black with blood. “She and that goddamn murderin’ uncle of yours are gone! Both of ’em are smashed between those wrecked cars! But don’t worry; I’m gonna help you join ’em!”

If Luther’s words were intended to frighten Tyler, to make him lose his resolve to keep fighting, they’d been wasted.

“You son of a bitch!” Tyler roared.

The pain that had paralyzed him only seconds before vanished in an instant, replaced by a furious anger that brought him up off the ground and launched him at the man who’d stolen Christina from him. For a moment, he managed to surprise Luther, punching him hard in the jaw, sweat and blood spraying onto the ground.

But it lasted for only an instant.

Luther punched Tyler hard in the ribs and all the pain came flooding back, overwhelming him. He screamed as he collapsed in a heap at Luther’s feet. With no hesitation, Luther dropped onto his chest, nearly causing Tyler to pass out, before he started punching him again and again, relentlessly. There was nothing Tyler could do, no defense he could offer. It was only a matter of time before Luther’s prediction came true and Tyler would be dead, right alongside Christina.

Christina heard Tyler scream and her blood ran cold.

Holden had just helped her from the ground, her hand still in his. She’d landed on the same shoulder she’d hurt when slipping through the window of the barn; it throbbed painfully with every beat of her heart. She could see the concern on his face, his eyes searching hers for answers to questions he’d yet to ask. Though she’d wanted to say something to express her gratitude for how Holden had saved her life, there hadn’t yet been time.

“Tyler!” she shouted.

Without hesitation, Holden raced around the destroyed cars, Christina right at his heels, her heart in her throat.

What she saw sickened her; Luther straddled Tyler just as he’d done in the barn, but this time Tyler wasn’t fighting back. With his back to them, Luther kept hammering away, one punch after another.

Holden sprinted toward the pair, slamming into Luther and sending the man sprawling. “Get the hell off my brother!” Holden hollered, angrier than a hornet.

Luther struggled to his knees, his eyes wide with shock. He kept blinking, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“How…how in the hell…?”

The only thing that mattered to Christina was Tyler. Running over to him, she fell to her knees at his side, taking his twitching hand in her own. His face was a bloody mess, far worse than it had been before the crash. She was afraid to touch him, fearful that she’d somehow make things worse. Instead, she cried heavy tears, worried that he was so badly injured she would lose him forever.

But then Tyler did something that shocked her; he looked up at her and smiled so brightly that it lit up his face, blood, bruises, and all.

“I…I thought…that you were…,” he struggled.

“Hush, now,” she told him.

Slowly, Tyler nodded, and then he lost consciousness. It was then that Christina’s anger flared. She hated Luther Rickert for everything he’d done to Dr. Barlow and to her, but now she wanted him to pay even more, this time with pain of his own.

“You bastard!” she shouted at him.

“That ain’t nothin’ compared to what I’m gonna do to you,” Luther snarled back. “I’m gonna make you wish you’d let me have my way back in the barn.”

“You’ll have to get through me first,” Holden warned.

“That won’t take but a second.” Luther chuckled. “Even in the shape I’m in, takin’ care of a coward should be easy.”

“Come on then.”

Confidently, Luther did as Holden asked, running toward him with a shout; immediately he discovered he’d made a mistake. His first punch missed wildly; Holden ducked in a blur of motion, turning his hips and snapping off a tremendously hard blow to Luther’s midsection. Christina couldn’t know for certain, but it sounded as if a rib snapped. Uncontrollable screams of agony roared from Luther’s mouth.

Holden didn’t allow his opponent even a second to regroup. He mercilessly pummeled Luther’s ribs, hitting him so hard that it lifted him from the ground. Within moments, Luther found himself as defenseless as he’d left Tyler, arms hanging limply at his sides.

Christina saw fear in his eyes and it warmed her heart.

“You’ll never threaten my family again,” Holden said angrily. “Remember this moment while you’re rotting in jail!”

Holden measured his last blow, squaring his shoulders and putting all his weight behind the punch; it struck Luther flat against his jaw, snapping his head hard to the side. He was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

“Is…is it over…?”

Surprised, Christina looked down to see that Tyler was again alert. His eyes were little more than slits, his breathing raspy, after his savage beating. Her love for him at that moment was so intense it nearly broke her heart.

“It is.” She nodded, patting his hand.

Holden knelt down opposite her, taking Tyler’s other hand in his own.

Tyler gave Holden a weak squeeze. All the anger toward his flesh and blood was gone.

“I’m…I’m so sorry for—”

Holden hushed him. “What’s in the past has to stay there,” he said. “All that matters is today.”

“And tomorrow,” Christina added.

Holden looked over at her. Unspoken words were shared between them; what had happened in front of the school, the kiss and the feelings that accompanied it, belonged to the past. Holden wouldn’t interfere with her relationship with Tyler. Instead, he’d support it, while at the same time doing everything he could to repair the damage between him and his brother.

She’d come to Longstock to start a life, and even though she’d gotten far more than she’d bargained for, she was oh, so happy she’d come.

C
HRISTINA STOOD AT THE WINDOW
and looked out into the street. The spring afternoon was perfect; brilliant sunlight warmed the newly budded leaves on the trees, the recently opened flowers, and the faces of the people walking the sidewalks, happy to be outdoors. The last resilient clumps of snow had melted only a week before; winter was finally gone for another year.

Ever since she’d come to Longstock, Christina had loved the coming of spring. To her, it signaled a new beginning, the passage from the old to the new, the opportunity for things to change.

From the moment Dr. Barlow had met her at the train station that fateful June afternoon a couple of years earlier, Christina’s life seemed to have done nothing
but
change. The doctor’s morphine use, Eunice Hester’s death, and Luther Rickert’s violent desire for revenge each would have been hard enough to deal with on its own, but those troubles were nothing when compared to meeting Tyler and Holden Sutter.

Even now, years later, Christina easily recalled how difficult each of them had been in his own way, how Holden had shouted at her to get out of his room, followed later that night by Tyler frightening her half to death in his car. Thankfully, neither of those first impressions had proven accurate.

To think
, she thought to herself,
one of those two became my husband…

A little less than a year after her arrival in Longstock, Christina and Tyler had married in a simple ceremony. The church bells rang beneath a cloudless sky as they promised their lives to each other. All of Christina’s family came to celebrate, making it one of the happiest days of her life. After everything that had happened to them, after how close they’d come to losing it all, in the end those struggles only made their love that much stronger.

“Staring out the window won’t make them get here any faster.”

Christina looked over her shoulder; Tyler leaned against the doorway to the kitchen. Even at that first dinner at his mother’s house, when he’d annoyed Christina no end, she’d always considered him very handsome; if anything, he became more so with the passage of years.

“I’m excited,” she said.

“You should be.” He smiled as he crossed the room to her. “I reckon you’ve imagined what this day would be like since you were a little girl.”

“In my daydreams, my husband was much better looking than you,” Christina teased. “Smarter, too.”

“Isn’t it a shame you ended up with me.”

Stepping behind her, Tyler slipped his arms around Christina’s waist, resting them on her stomach. Inside, their child grew. Though Christina’s pregnancy was only four months along, she’d started to feel the tiniest of flutters, the first, unmistakable signs that their son or daughter was beginning its long journey to join them. The morning Christina told Tyler about the baby, his eyes had immediately filled with tears of joy; in that moment, she’d never loved him more. Imagining him as a father, playing with their child, taking a walk to visit his beehives, telling stories that would make them all laugh, these were thoughts that made her smile.

Nestling her head against Tyler’s chest, Christina thought about all that had occurred since that first summer.

After Holden stopped Luther Rickert’s brutal attack, the sheriff had thrown Luther into a jail cell, promising he’d do his best to lose the key. Eventually, Luther found himself standing before a jury, which came to nearly the same conclusion; he was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Though Luther burst into laughter at the verdict, he’d be an old man before he was again a free man. Because of all the damage he’d caused to the Sutter family, Christina thought Luther should have been locked up much longer. Many long weeks had passed before Tyler grew healthy enough to get back on his feet, and his body had scars that would never fully heal. Still, with the passage of time, Christina found that she thought less and less about Luther, and she wasn’t the only one who did.

Once Luther was behind bars, Dr. Barlow succeeded in letting go of his feelings of guilt about the night Donnie Rickert died. He’d never explained his reasons, but Christina believed he’d decided to worry about the present, instead of a past he could never change. But that wasn’t the only demon he’d escaped; from the day Christina found him under the influence of morphine in his yard, the doctor never took it again. Just like Callie explained, it took some time for him to stop being such a grouch, but eventually those difficult times passed. Dr. Barlow cared about Longstock and the people who came to him for help and dispensed care and wit in equal doses. Christina was proud to continue serving as his nurse, though she lamented that his driving hadn’t improved a lick.

The other member of the clinic’s staff had also had plenty of changes in her life. Callie had spent many long years trying to get Abraham to sing. Together, she and Christina had brainstormed dozens of ideas, only to see them end in failure, one after the other. But then something miraculous happened. After years of unsuccessfully trying, Callie became pregnant, giving birth to a baby girl, Gwendolyn. One day, about a month after she was born, Callie stood in the hallway and listened to Abraham sing to his child, a surprise so wondrous that it sent tears streaming down his wife’s cheeks.

“He sounded just like an angel,” she’d told Christina.

But the biggest change belonged to Holden. After what he’d done that fateful night, pushing Christina and his uncle out of the way of Luther’s car and then protecting his brother from the beating that followed, Holden was hailed by all of Longstock as a hero. Though at first he was reluctant to accept such praise, Holden slowly began to spend more and more time out in public. Soon, all of the qualities Christina had believed were still buried deep inside him began to be reasserted; he was charming, funny, and a confident, handsome man. While he still suffered an occasional tremor, he refused to allow it to embarrass him; Christina was convinced that one day the tremors would disappear altogether.

Once Holden started taking steps to return to his old life, it only seemed natural he’d turn his attention back to teaching. Christina remembered how passionate he’d been about standing before a classroom and helping children learn, about shaping young minds. Therefore, she wasn’t the least bit surprised when he’d told her he was going to enroll in teaching college.

And so, last fall, Holden had packed up his things and headed off for Madison on the GI Bill, hoping he could finally make his lifelong dream a reality. Tyler found it hilariously ironic that Clara had cried as Holden drove off; for what seemed like forever she’d wanted nothing more than for her son to leave his room, but now that he was gone she wanted him back.

The relationship between Holden and Tyler continued to get better. During the long weeks Tyler spent recovering from Luther’s beating, Holden was there every day, often talking with his brother well into the night. They kept at whatever grievances they had until they were worked through. Now the two were back to their boyhood friendship, thick as thieves.

Still, every once in a while, Christina looked up to find Holden staring at her. He’d look away quickly and act as if nothing had happened, but she knew he thought about what might’ve been. But Christina had made her choice; nothing could ever change her mind.

“Do you think Holden will make it home in time?” she asked.

“The last I talked to him, he said wild horses couldn’t keep him away,” Tyler answered. “I think he knows what we’re announcing.”

“Did you tell him?!” Christina swatted her husband.

“I didn’t!” he protested.

“You better not have or you’re going to start sleeping at the garage!”

Just before Easter, Tyler’s boss had announced that he was retiring to Florida and asked if Tyler would be interested in buying the business. With Christina’s blessing, he’d agreed. Along with the house they’d purchased near the river, they’d begun putting down roots, building a life that would sustain them, their child, and their future. Still, when Christina drove down Main Street she couldn’t help but look up at her old apartment, remembering the good times as well as the bad.

Once Annette Wilson was released from jail, her father sent her far away, never to be seen in Longstock again. No one knew where she’d gone, although rumor said she was living with an aunt in Massachusetts. Occasionally, Christina dreamed about the night Annette had attacked her, and awakened covered in cold sweat. Whenever it happened, she moved closer to Tyler, remembering how he’d rescued her and knowing she had no reason to be afraid.

Christina looked up as Tyler started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You’re missing it,” he replied, nodding his head out the window.

Out in the driveway a car had stopped, and delightedly Christina recognized their visitors.

The first person who stepped out was her older sister, Charlotte, her hair still just as blond and curly as ever. Zipping past her and hurtling out into the yard, tired from being cooped up for too long, was her six-year old son, Clint. The boy hadn’t made it very far before a sharp whistle stopped whatever mischief he had in mind before it even started. Charlotte’s husband, Owen, slid out from behind the wheel and got out of the car; he laughed as he tipped his cowboy hat back.

Just then, the rear doors opened and Christina saw her parents. Rachel and Mason Tucker both looked older than the last time Christina had seen them; her father looked especially tired, though it was to be expected after the long drive all the way from Minnesota.

They’d all come to Longstock because she’d asked them to; Charlotte and Owen had traveled from Oklahoma, stopping first to pick up Christina’s parents. They were there to see the life she’d built, to eat and laugh and be a family. They were also there to hear about the baby she and Tyler had just discovered they were to have, a secret that had been agonizingly difficult to keep. Her excitement for their arrival had been endless. But now that she’d seen them all, she had butterflies in her stomach.

Just then, Charlotte and Christina’s mother looked up at the house and saw Christina and Tyler standing in the window. Both of the women began waving, smiling as brightly as the sun; all of Christina’s nervousness vanished in an instant.

“They look pretty happy to see you,” Tyler said. “Just imagine how they’re going to react when you tell them the big news.”

Christina smiled; she could hardly wait.