Mr. Write (Sweetwater) (41 page)

SARAH
scooped fudge frosting with the tip of her finger, popped it into her mouth.

“I didn’t expect to find you making brownies at ten o’clock at night.”

“I’m a big believer in therapeutic baking,” she told Tucker, who leaned against her little spit of counter watching her spread frosting over cake. 

“Rough day?”

“It had its highs and lows.  One of the lows being Carolann Frye – whose rhinoplasty has done nothing whatsoever to discourage her from sticking her nose in – expressing doubt and concern over the Ladies Garden Club hosting their regular meeting at the Dust Jacket due to a possible lack of suitable parking.”

“Can’t they park down the street and walk?  Or hell, carpool?”

“Sure they could, which is what June Darby and I, being intelligent, reasonable human beings, discussed when we had our meeting.  It’s not the optimal solution – a bigger parking lot – but it’s doable.  However, Carolann, being neither reasonable nor intelligent, likes to complain.  Also, she’s pissed at me because I snagged you before she had a chance to seduce you with one of her casseroles.”

“If her food’s as plastic as she is...” he lifted his beer.  “Thanks.

Amused, Sarah glanced at him over her shoulder.  He looked so big and male, dwarfing her tiny kitchen.  And she just couldn’t find it in herself to be annoyed.

“
You know, these were supposed to be Down With Men brownies.”  

“There’s a specific recipe for that?”

“Sure.  Plenty of chocolate, plus two cups of sugar to balance out the bitter taste of deceit.”

When he
sat his beer down, moved behind her to wrap his arms around her waist, she scraped more chocolate from the mixing bowl and offered it to him.

He
tasted it, nipped at her finger.  “Good.”

“I don’t quite have Josie’s skill, but I can get by.
”

Tucker
took her by the shoulders, eased her around.  His hands were gentle, but his eyes were the turbulent gray of stormy seas.  “Mason’s business is his own.  It wasn’t my place to tell.”

“I know that.”  Sighing, she reached for the checked dishtowel to wipe off her hands.  “I do.  I just hate to see Allie upset.
She’s had enough knocks this past year.”

“Which is why I told Mason to stay clear after I met her.”

“You did?”  Why did she find that impossibly sweet?

Looking slightly uncomfortable, Tucker shrugged.  “You have to be able to read people to write them.  She was bruised, and Mason isn’t exactly known for careful handling.”

Sweet, she thought again.  “You’re a nice guy, Tucker Pettigrew.”

“I thought I was honest, which is better.”

“That, too.  You’re also cranky and rude.”  She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her lips to the pulse that beat there.  Then she shivered with delight when that pulse leapt, and quickened.  “Mix it with a sharp wit, a creative mind, and pour it all into a truly excellent body, and I think you have something pretty delicious.”

“I’m not sure how
I feel about being likened to a bakery item.”

“No?  That’s too bad.  I was t
hinking about taking a couple licks to make sure I wasn’t wrong.”

Tucker went still.

Then when he simply scooped her up, wrapped her legs around his hips, Sarah buried her face in his hair and laughed.  He’d taken two steps toward her bedroom when he backtracked, grabbed the mixing bowl.

She lifted her head
, raised a brow.

“Everything’s better with frosting.”  
      

MASON
lay on the old iron bed in the dark, watching the blades of the fan spin around.

The air stirr
ed the yellowed lace curtains that neither he nor Tucker had bothered to take down.  Moonlight filtered in, silvering the shadows, while some kind of insect droned outside the window screen.

Restless, he kicked at the sheet clinging
stubbornly to his sweaty bare legs.

He should
get up.  Start packing.  He was leaving in a matter of days.  And while part of him was delighted at the prospect – no more manual labor and mucking about in the bloody heat – he couldn’t quite convince himself to move.

He hadn’t been able to convince himself to move for the better part of an hour.

It wasn’t that he was depressed.  He wasn’t a nancy, for sweet Christ’s sake.

And it was reasonable – expected even – to feel a little poorly about departing on a sour note.
  He didn’t like having Tucker cheesed off with him.

Although really, he considered as he ran a hand across his
damp chest, the entire thing had been blown well out of proportion.  So he hadn’t been upfront about his profession.  That wasn’t a crime, was it?  He hadn’t lied, specifically.  He simply hadn’t volunteered the information.

And if she’d misconstrued some things about his financial stability, it would have been awkward – even cheeky – to correct her.
 

Was it necessary for him to pull out his
driving license, his portfolio, his bloody GCSE scores just because he’d danced with a woman, snogged her? 

It was
just a kiss. Not a matter of life or death.

This wasn’t the flaming nineteenth century, after all.  He’d hardly despoiled her, then tossed her aside. 

And Allison was completely daft if she thought he’d kissed her as part of some method acting madness.  He might enjoy building a character from the inside out, but he wasn’t schizophrenic.

The insect fell silent, and
Mason squeezed his eyes shut. 

He was
an arsehole.  A jerk, just exactly as she’d said.  He shouldn’t have kissed her in the first place, or – God! – let it get so out of control.  He’d been doing brilliantly up until then, in his opinion.  He’d treated her, he thought, as a friend would.

But she’d looked
at him, nerves and desire waging a battle in those lovely eyes, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

He hadn’t wanted to stop himself.

In fact, he’d wanted – rather desperately – to continue moving, full steam ahead.

He should ring her up.  Better, he should borrow Tucker’s truck, drive out, demand that she speak with him
, allow him to state his case.

And likely get arrested by her brother.

Mason sighed, watched the fan make another pointless rotation.  He’d tried the direct approach, and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere except basically tossed out on his ear by her other brother. 

He sniffed. 
The woman had entirely too many siblings for Mason’s taste.

He should let it alone.  He’d leave town, she’d move on, and six months down the road they’d barely remember that the other existed.

The idea of it made him bare his teeth.

He could write her a letter.

She might not be willing to see him or take his calls, but – given her fondness for history – he doubted she could resist the nostalgic appeal of an old-fashioned missive.

Inspired,
Mason swung his legs off the bed, planted his feet on the worn wooden floor.  And naked, he started for the closed bedroom door.

Awkward, if Tucker decided to come home
, and found Mason rummaging through his desk for paper.  Even worse if he’d brought Sarah along.

He doubted it was likely, as it was already well past midnight, but better to be safe.

Sidestepping to the lovely old highboy he and Tucker had discovered abandoned in the attic, Mason pulled on a pair of shorts.

The hall was black as the grave, as he hadn’t bothered to leave any lights burning when he’d turned in. 
And the switch – naturally – was located at the opposite end.

Stretching out his arm
, Mason felt his way down the wall.  It was cool beneath his hand, remarkably smooth.  Tucker had done a – what was that term he favored – bang up job repairing the cracks and crumbles in the old plaster.

Truly, as much as Mason enjoyed taking the piss out of him about it, the old house was going to be a showplace when he was through with it.
Mason hoped to come back and see that.  Mason hoped to come back for any number of reasons.

Not the least of which had sent him stumbling down this cave-like hall, in search of paper.

When he saw the dim glow of light from beneath Tucker’s office door, Mason decided it was provident he’d pulled some clothes on.

Surprising that Tucker had come back – even more surprising that Mason hadn’t heard him.  But Mason knew Tucker was nearing completion on his manuscript, so perhaps he’d been inspired to write.

Reluctant to interrupt, Mason paused outside the door.  He should wait until morning.  Of course, the fifteen seconds it would take to say “may I borrow some paper” would hardly break Tucker’s concentration.  And Tucker wasn’t likely to inquire as to Mason’s purpose, especially if he was working.

And it would be better, at any rate, than dithering in the hall.

Raising his hand to knock – just in case – Mason noticed that the light seemed to shift away from the door.  Maybe it was simply the glow from Tucker’s computer, and he’d adjusted the screen, but now that he thought of it, Mason didn’t hear the
clack, clack, clack
of the keyboard.

Maybe Sarah had come back with him, and they were doing… something in the office.  With a torch.

At the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, followed by a ripe, muffled curse – of the masculine variety – Mason abandoned caution and turned the knob.

“What the hell are you doing, Pettigrew?  Herding elephants?”

He leaned against the door.  The light had gone out, but he noticed it a moment too late.

Then p
ain exploded behind his ear, and everything went dark.    

TUCKER
held onto Sarah’s hand as they sat in the hospital waiting room.

He could feel it, her hand.  He couldn’t feel his legs, his arms, couldn’t tell if his heart was beating.  But he could feel her hand.  It was warm
.

“He’s going to be alright,” she murmured.

Tucker nodded.  What else could he say?  His mom had thought she’d be fine, too, when she’d slipped and hit her head.

She’d slipped.  The kind of accident that happened every day.  She hadn’t been beaten over the head because she’d startled an intruder.  Hadn’t lain unconscious for God knew how long before wandering, bloody and in pain, out the door of the friend’s house where she was staying because she was too confused to remember the number to call for help.

And she’d died anyway.

“You should drink some of that.”

When Sarah gestured, Tucker looked down at the Styrofoam cup in his hand.  Coffee.  He had no idea how he’d gotten it.  It was hot – should be hot, if the steam rising from it was any indication.  But he didn’t feel it.

All he felt was Sarah’s hand.

“Sarah!”

At the sound of her name,
they both looked up.  Allie – pale as a sheet – hurried over.  She dropped into one of the ugly gray chairs.  Her shirt wasn’t buttoned right, but Tucker couldn’t feel his tongue to tell her. 

“I was watching an old movie in the
den.  Couldn’t sleep.  I don’t know why people think watching TV helps with insomnia, but anyway… Will came through on his way out.   Have you heard?”  She reached out, touched his arm.  “Do we know anything yet?”

We,
Tucker thought.  How easily she used it.  She’d been mad as hell at Mason, but he was hurt, so here she was.  Community, he guessed. Like a kind of family, almost.

“They’re running tests now,” Sarah answered.  “
A CT scan just to make sure there’s no swelling or bleeding.  But he was conscious, fairly alert.”

But he
hadn’t been able to tell them exactly what happened.  And he’d practically vomited up a lung just before the paramedics arrived. 

“
I’m guessing,” Sarah continued while Tucker continued to picture Mason lying, hurt and alone, on Tucker’s floor “based on how he was acting, that he has a concussion.  You remember Noah had one that time he got hit with a baseball?  His symptoms were pretty much the same.”

Her voice was quiet, and sure.

How the hell could she be so sure?

“I need to walk.”  Air.  He had t
o get outside.  He was frozen in this damn air conditioning.  Why else would he be so numb?

“I’ll just go see what I can find out.”  Allie patted his leg before
heading toward the desk.

“Do you want to be alone?” Sarah murmured, and he nearly said yes.  Alone was what he understood.  Alone was better.

“I want you.”  The fact that the words were choked made him cringe.