Not My 1st Rodeo (16 page)

Chapter Ten

“Dad?”

Mack started from his brooding at the shout. “What?”

“Dad!” Tommy burst into the house, tracking in snow. “Where the hell have you been? We've been worried sick about you.”

Mack gaped at his youngest. “What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in school.”

“Yeah, well, you didn't text me back.” Tommy stomped his feet, getting more snow everywhere. “You haven't returned my calls, or Nick's or Mark's. You're not online, you're not answering your phone. What the hell were we supposed to think?” He shed his coat and draped it over the couch. “We decided that one of us had to make sure you weren't frozen to death somewhere out on the ranch, and I was closest. What the hell have you been doing?” He turned and saw all the photos piled on the table. “I mean, seriously, Dad, what have you been doing?”

“Nothing. Just…remembering.”

“Jesus, Dad. We thought you might have been kidnapped by your date or something, and you were here
organizing photos
the whole time?”

“Hey, you watch your tone.”

Back in the day, that rebuke would have gotten him a, “Sorry, Dad,” or something.

But not now. Mack was starting to realize Tommy was
pissed
. “For God's sake, you could have at least sent us a text to let us know you weren't dead or anything. Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

Mack stared up at his son, his youngest. He always thought of Tommy as the baby. But he wasn't looking at the littlest of the three right now. He was looking at a full-grown man. “I'm…I'm sorry, son.”

Tommy glared at him for a moment and then it passed. He sank onto the couch across from Mack's recliner. “So what happened?”

“I…I can't talk to you about it.” The thought of explaining anything that had happened with Karen to his own kid…no.

“Come on, Dad. You've been a hermit for weeks now, organizing old photos and—” He stood and walked over to the table and picked up the top photo. The very last one. “Oh. You found this one.”

“You know it? I didn't remember it.” Which was the problem, wasn't it? That he was forgetting the love of his life?

“I took it, Dad. You two were asleep and you looked… Well, I didn't know if you guys would get another chance like that. So I took a picture and showed it to Mom.” His voice softened. “She told me—”

“What?” He stood and went to his boy. “She told you what?”

“She told me to put it in with the other stuff and you'd find it when you were ready.”

Was this what that was? Was he ready? Ready for
what
?

“You didn't tell me about it.” It came out as an accusation, but Mack couldn't help it.

“She told me not to,” Tommy replied easily. “And if you think I'm the kind of man who'd go back on a promise I made to my dying mother, well—”

“No, no,” Mack quickly replied. “I just…”

They stood in silence for a few moments, staring at the last picture of Sue Jenkins Tucker.

“So tell me what happened that sent you into hiding to dig all this up,” Tommy said quietly. “Was it that bad?”

“No.”
“Be happy, Mack. Be happy
.
”
“She was actually wonderful. Beautiful and smart and nice.” Then, because he felt he owed Tommy a compliment, he added, “You picked well. But don't ever sign me up for another dating website again, okay?”

“Okay,” Tommy said with a chuckle. “If she was all that, what happened?”

How could he stand here and tell his son about sex with a woman who wasn't his mother?

Tommy sighed. “I don't really want to know the details, Dad.
Ew
. But I also don't want you to lock yourself away like this. It's not healthy. Suck it up and tell me what set you off.”

Mack spun and walked back into the living room. “I—I spent the night, all right?”

“Good,” Tommy said. “Good for you.”

“It's not though. Don't you see? It's not good. It's not good at all.”

“Why the hell not?” Tommy demanded. “Look, it's been six years, okay? It's not a bad thing if you move on. It's not a bad thing to go out with a pretty woman—she was pretty, wasn't she?”

“Yeah, but that's not what made her special,” he snapped.

“Then what the hell was it? You've spent the last six years acting like you died with Mom. Six years of barely living at all, and for what? That's not what Mom wanted. I heard her—do you remember what she told you the day before she died?”

“She told me to go on with my life,” he said bitterly. “That, I remember. But I—I'm forgetting other things. Me and Karen—we—things happened. Things happened and they were good things and she asked if I'd ever done anything like that with my wife and I couldn't remember, okay? I couldn't remember.”

Tommy stared at him for a long, quiet moment. “And that's why you ran away?”

“Yes!” He was shouting, but he couldn't stop. “I
know
it's been six years. You don't have to tell me how long it's been because I know it every single damned day that I wake up and she's not beside me. Six of the longest, darkest years of my life because, even though she died and left me, I still love your mother and I don't
ever
want to forget her. And when I was with Karen, I…forgot.”

He dropped back into his chair and covered his face with his hands. For so long, he'd kept it together because he had to. The boys had needed him to be strong after they'd lost their mother. The cattle had to be fed and worked. He had to go on. He couldn't stop.

But the boys were men now, grown men. They didn't need him anymore, not like they had.

And Mack was all alone. With nothing but his memories.

“So what you're saying is you were
not
thinking about your dead wife while you were having sex with another woman.”

“Jesus, Tommy.”

“No, I'm serious, Dad. That's it, isn't it? You were able to let go of Mom for just a little while and be in the moment with someone else and you…what? Think that makes you a bad person?”

Mack managed to level his meanest glare at his son. “I am
married
.”

“You
were
,” Tommy corrected. “Damn, man. Have you at least called her? Karen, I mean.”

“No.” Admitting that was harder than he thought it'd be.

“Why not?” He was irritated again. “You're kind of coming off as a jerk here. I know you're not all up-to-date on your dating protocol, but sleeping with a woman and then not calling her or sending flowers or something—that's a jerk move.”

“I couldn't.” There was an expectedness to the silence that followed. “I didn't know what to say.”

Tommy sighed. “You thank her for the nice time. You compliment her. You ask her out again. No one is asking you to get down on one knee and pop the question, for God's sake. That was one of the reasons I picked her. She expressly did not want to get married again. But you don't have to spend every waking moment remembering every single thing you and Mom ever did, you know. Letting go of Mom for a while doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you human.”

Mack didn't have an answer for that. Tommy sat back down on the couch. “None of us—not Mark, not Nick and not me—would think less of you for that. You're not erasing Mom's memory. You're just not living in the past anymore. And if you can't see that…” He abruptly stood and thrust the new photo into Mack's hands. “If you won't listen to me, listen to
her
. And turn your damn phone back on.”

And he left. Tommy walked right back out as suddenly as he'd walked in, nothing but small puddles of melted snow on the floor to tell Mack the boy had been there at all.

Mack stared at the photo, at Sue's smile. And then he turned it over in his hands and read the very last thing his wife ever wanted to say to him over and over until it burned into his memory.

“See how happy you make me? Be happy, Mack. Be happy.”

Be happy.

He couldn't let her down.

Chapter Eleven

The chime over the door jingled as Karen was double-checking the day's deliveries against her inventory list. She glanced at the clock—four-fifty. Almost closing time. “Welcome to Bergman's, we'll be right with you,” she called out, trying to sound perky about the late arrival. The shop had been incredibly busy. Flo was pulling ten-hour days and Julie, who normally worked part-time on the weekends, was pulling down 40-hour weeks right now.

Which was great. Valentine's Day sales accounted for almost a third of her yearly sales. Yay for love.

Not for the first time, Karen's thoughts turned around and ran smack-dab into Mack Tucker. She hoped he was doing okay—if anything, the fact that their date had been so close to Valentine's Day had probably only made things worse. This could be a lonely time of year.

But she had let it go. Or tried to anyway. She hadn't called. She'd sent one email, but he hadn't replied. She hadn't even contacted his son, the one who'd set him up on that dating site.

She had deleted her profile though. She wasn't ready. That much was clear.

She just had to get through the next week. Then she could process it all with a little more distance.

She finished the inventory check and set the clipboard down. “How can I help you?” she asked, heading out into the front of the shop.

And she ran smack-dab into Mack Tucker.

“Mack!” She gasped as she tripped backwards.

Two strong hands went around her waist and steadied her. “Karen,” he said. He looked…a little older, maybe a little sadder. But then his mouth curved into a smile. “It's good to see you again.”

“It is? I mean, yes. It is.” She cleared her throat, trying to get her brain to work. It wasn't easy with his hands around her waist like that. “I…didn't expect to see you. In the store. Today.”
Or ever
, her brain helpfully—but silently—added.

“Yeah.” He let go of her and took a step back, his gaze drifting over her floral apron and her sensible sneakers. She wished she looked better—that she'd been able to plan ahead for this. Oh, to have on a cuter shirt and the chance to make sure she didn't have any errant leaves in her hair. “Well, about that. I need to order some flowers.”

“You do?” She gave him a confused look. “Don't you have a florist in Butte?”

“Oh, yeah, there's a couple. But they didn't have what I needed.” Again, there was that grin, sly and nervous all at the same time.

“What is it you need?” She didn't mean it to come out quite like that—like a double-entendre—but she honestly didn't know how else to say it at this point.

Why was he here? Had he come to apologize or ask her out again or was he just in town and had an hour and was looking for a quick screw?

That last thought made her a little mad, which was enough to at least get her mouth closed. She stood up straighter. This man—this kind, loving man—had cut and run after a really good night of sex. She was no one's fuck buddy. And that was final.

“I need something that tells a woman that I'm sorry,” he began, his gaze never leaving hers. “I need something that tells a woman I found her to be the most beautiful, exciting woman I've talked to in years, and that I really do like her. I like her a lot. I need something that tells that woman that I do believe in hope even when I might feel hopeless.”

She gasped, which made him smile. She'd told him that when she'd told him about buying this florist shop. Flowers gave her hope.

He hadn't forgotten.

“And, if possible,” he went on, taking a step closer to her, “I need it to say something about how, even when the days are quiet and the nights are dark, that I know there's still beauty and grace in the world, even if I'm too danged dense to realize it at the time.”

“Oh,” she whispered, her heart beating wildly. “I don't—carnations, maybe? Or lilies?”

He chuckled as he took another step toward her. “I'm sorry. I've been a fool about it, about you.” He reached out with one hand, still cold from the outside, and caressed her cheek. “I don't have a good excuse, except to own up to the facts. And the fact is, I panicked. When I was with you, I wasn't thinking about my wife, and that scared me.”

“I never wanted to replace her,” she told him, her voice shaking.

“I know. I mean, I know that
now
. But at the time…I guess I got it into my head that making new memories with you would somehow erase the old memories with Sue. I didn't talk to my boys. I didn't talk to you. I holed up in my house and forced myself to only think of her.” He gave her a weak smile. “That's where I've been for the last several weeks. Until my boys got so worried about me that Tommy left college and came home just to make sure I hadn't died.”

“Oh, Mack. I didn't want to change your past. I don't even want to change mine, as crappy as it was in parts. Who we were then, that's what makes us who we are now.”

“It's something I'm figuring out,” he admitted. “I behaved like a jerk. A first-class jerk. I had an amazing time with you that night.” A hint of blush hit his cheeks. “And that morning.”

She felt her own cheeks flush. “I was worried it was something I'd done.”

“You did. You made me feel alive again. And I wasn't ready for it then.” He leaned down, his mouth just inches away from hers. “But I think I'm ready for it now. I think I'm ready to be happy again.” He swallowed. “I didn't know how to say that on the phone. So I drove up to say it in person. I screwed up. I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “Of course I do.”

He kissed her then, long and hard, and it just felt right. It felt right to have him back in her arms, to know that even though he'd screwed up, he'd step up and take responsibility for it, instead of casting blame everywhere but at himself.

He leaned back and looked her in the eye. “I want to try again. Dating. I'll drive up to see you and you can drive down to see me, and we'll get to know each other. No rush, no pressure. Just two adults who enjoy being together. If you want. I can't offer you perfection, Karen. I can just offer you me as I am.”

She tried to look stern. “On one condition.”

“Yes?” His eyes widened in what might have been panic.

“The next time you get scared like that, tell me. Or tell someone. Call your sons. Promise me that you won't ever disappear like that again. I've been worried about you.”

He pulled her into a tight hug. “I promise. I won't disappear. It wasn't fair to you and it wasn't fair to my family.” Then he leaned back, a glint in his eye. “And I always keep my promises.”

She kissed him again, tasting his mouth, his tongue, taking in everything she'd missed about him for the last month. It wasn't a declaration of love—but it was something better.

A declaration of honesty.

The kiss deepened and her body began to tighten in response to his—right until the sound of someone clearing her throat behind them made them both jump. Karen spun to see Flo standing in the doorway, her arms full of lilies. “Don't mind me,” she said with a grin.

“Beg your pardon, ma'am,” Mack said, which made Karen laugh. It was, hands down, the most old-fashioned thing she'd ever heard him say.

Flo gave him a motherly look. “You the widower?”

All the color drained out of Mack's face. “I am.”

“About time,” Flo huffed. “Took you long enough.”

“Ma'am?” Mack said again, giving Karen a terrified look.

“Mack Tucker, this is Flo Allen. Flo, this is Mack.”

“Pleased to meet you. Now go on, you two,” Flo said. “It's almost closing time anyway. I've got this.”

Karen opened her mouth to protest, but Mack took her hand in his and squeezed it—not too much pressure but enough.
Just right
, she thought.
He was just right
.

“Thanks, Flo,” she said, pulling off her apron and dashing back to the office to grab her keys.

“Where to?” Mack asked the moment the door had closed behind them.

“Would you come home with me?” Then she held her breath, waiting for his answer. “Would that make you happy?

He smiled down at her. “You have no idea how happy that would make me. And I promise you this, Karen, I'll do everything in my power to make you happy too.”

Then he leaned down, kissed her and nipped at her lower lip with his teeth. Just a little pressure that set her body on fire.

“It's still too cold for the pickup truck,” he whispered against her mouth. “But if there was something else you wanted to try…”

She yanked him toward the car. “Come home, cowboy.”

So he did.

And he kept his word.

She was
very
happy.