Marry Me Again (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 1) (3 page)

"It wasn't... Rebecca, I just didn't expect him to answer the phone."

"He's six years old now. He answers the phone. He takes out the garbage. He cleans up his own room. He plays soccer. He does all sorts of things you wouldn't begin to imagine."

She felt the rage then, the heated anger that she'd denied for so long. She hadn't escaped it. She'd merely pushed it down deep inside her. Now she was seething.

"Rebecca?" Brian was standing in the doorway, watching her carefully, and she knew what he saw—an angry, frightened, out-of-control woman. A few seconds on the phone with Tucker, and he'd reduced her to this. He was poison. Pure poison.

She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone to muffle the sound and looked at the man in front of her.

Brian stood there, tall, dark and handsome... open, honest and loving. Legions of women would have no trouble loving Brian Sandelle. He was dependable, successful and steady as a rock. She'd known him her whole life, and he'd never let her down.

So what was missing in their relationship? What else could she possibly want from him? How long would she keep comparing him with Tucker? And how long—for a reason that was totally incomprehensible to her even after all these years—would she keep judging Brian and finding him lacking in some way?

She wondered if he knew it, too, and, if he did, how much longer he was going to put up with it.

"I'm all right, Brian." He obviously didn't buy that, but when he took a step forward, she put up a hand to hold him off. "Please, just take care of Sammy for me, and I'll be there in a minute."

Silent and shaken, she stood there and watched him go before she turned her attention back to the phone.

"What do you want, Tucker?"

"Sammy." His voice was low and gruff, the words muffled—by the miles, she decided. It couldn't be his emotions getting the best of him, because she'd decided long ago that Tucker didn't feel anything—at least not for long. "I want to see Sammy."

"Oh?" Maybe she was more vindictive than she thought, because more than anything she wanted to hurt Tucker right now as much as she possibly could. "And then you can disappear for another six years and leave me to explain that to him, too? Damn you, Tucker. What makes you think he wants to see you, anyway?"

Tears.
Dammit, those were tears running down her face, choking her up inside so she could barely speak.

"Just once, Rebecca. Let me see him just once, and if he doesn't ever want to see me again, he won't have to. I'll disappear again. I swear."

"I'm sure disappearing wouldn't be any problem for you. But what if he wants you to stay, Tucker? What if he comes to depend upon you, to look forward to seeing you every now and then, and you can't handle that? What do I say to him when you break his little heart all over again?"

They were silent for a moment, both of them very aware of the other on the end of the line.

"Just once, Rebecca."

If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he was begging. But Tucker Malloy didn't beg for anything. He took what he wanted, and once he'd had his fill, he was gone.

"Rebecca? I don't want to hurt him. I just want to see him. I have to."

"Damn you!" She tried to rein in the hysteria that was threatening to overtake her. "You've already hurt him more than you'll ever know."

"Once. Just once. And I won't ask again." He waited. "Will you ask him? Or should I?"

So like him, she thought. Assume that the other person would accept his wishes and move forward from there. And never, ever give up until he was damned good and ready to do so.

Dear Lord, she wished she could tell him to go to the devil, wished she could tell him truthfully that her son was doing just fine without Tucker and didn't care that his own father had shown up now after six years of silence.

But she couldn't. As much as it frightened her to think of the damage Tucker could do, to think of how fragile Sammy was right now where his father was concerned, she couldn't deny that her baby boy needed his father very much.

"I'll think about it," she whispered fiercely. "But, Tucker, I'm warning you. I'm not the mousy girl you walked away from all those years ago. You hurt him any more than you already have, and I swear you'll pay."

Chapter 2

Rebecca slammed down the phone. She stood by the countertop, trembling and hurting while her stomach turned on itself and started that slow burn she knew so well.

So long ago, before she'd left Tucker, she'd lived with this constant ache in her midsection. She'd literally made herself sick over that man.

How dare he come back after all this time?

"I guess I don't have to ask if that really was Tucker on the phone."

Brian caught her standing there, leaning back against the counter with her arms wrapped around her middle.

Rebecca dropped her arms and considered begging for just a little time alone in some dark, quiet place before she had to go over this with Brian. But the look on his face told her she wouldn't have that luxury.

"What the hell did he want?" Brian barked. She jumped at the harsh tone—his Tucker voice. Her rational, levelheaded Brian saw red every time the name Tucker Malloy came up. And whether the name was ever actually spoken or not, Tucker seemed to be forever wedged between them.

"He wants to see Sammy," she said quietly.

"Oh? He actually remembered the boy's name? Or did you have to remind him?"

"Brian." Rebecca started to pray then.

She prayed for strength, for patience and mostly for understanding. And when understanding proved to be impossible to come by, she prayed that she'd simply be able to accept all that had happened and put it behind her. "Please. Just give me a minute."

"Hell, Rebecca, he doesn't deserve a minute of your time. He wrote off you and that little boy years ago. You're not actually going to let him see Sammy, are you?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I don't know how you can even consider it."

Amazing, Rebecca thought as she watched Brian seething and shouting, so near to completely losing control. It was amazing what Tucker could still do to them both.

"Brian, I just got off the phone, and I'm still trying to make myself believe that he even called me after all this time."

"But you are considering letting him see Sammy."

"Yes. I am."

"God, Rebecca." Brian shook his head back and forth. "How can you even think about it?"

Her arms went back around her midsection, and the old familiar ache flared up again. "How can I not think about it? You know what's going on with Sammy. He needs a father now."

Brian grabbed her urgently. "He needs me.
Me.
Not somebody who's just going to break his heart. The boy needs me."

He was hurting her then with his painful grip, but she suspected that of the two of them, he was hurting even more than she was. "I'm sorry, Brian."

And she was sorry, for all that they'd wanted from each other, for all the years they'd loved each other and still never gotten their relationship quite right.

Brian shook her a little. "Dammit, I'm more of a father to that little boy already than he ever was. I should have become his father long ago. And it's long past the time when I should have become your husband."

He should have.

She closed her eyes against the pain she saw in his face. She loved Brian. It seemed like she had forever. She still did, yet she couldn't bring herself to become his wife.

"I'm sorry, Brian," she said, apologizing for so much more than Tucker's phone call.

She was sorry that they'd never been able to let go of each other, despite all the frustration and pain it had caused them both. But the time was coming to admit that, she realized, and wondered if he realized it, too. The time was coming when they had to face up to the fact that it would never be right between them, that they couldn't keep trying to make it so.

"Rebecca? Are you—"

He was watching her so closely now, and he must have seen the gut-deep sadness in her eyes as she started the conversation they'd been avoiding for so long.

Her eyes filled with wretched tears. Her heart filled with dread. She loved him too much to let herself hurt him anymore.

Rebecca cupped her hand to his cheek, looked deep into his eyes and shook her head sadly. "I'm so sorry."

"So am I." He paused then, while the fury filled his stormy eyes. "I'm tired of waiting for you to get over him. And I'm damned sure sick of having your ex-husband's ghost in the bed between us."

Rebecca couldn't help but flinch at that. She didn't want Tucker there any more than Brian did, but she hadn't figured out how to get him out. Although she suspected the problem now was that none of them had been to bed together in months.

Rebecca had been avoiding Brian, making excuses to avoid that aspect of their relationship. It wasn't that she had a lot of hang-ups about sex or that Brian wasn't a kind, considerate, patient lover.

He just wasn't...
Tucker.

Rebecca winced at the very thought running through her own head. She didn't want to be with Tucker. She just wanted some of those feelings back. She wanted to find them with someone else.

Making love with Tucker had been a monumental thing, an overwhelming, scalding, all-engulfing thing. Such power ran between them, a passion, a need, so strong it both fascinated and frightened her; a power she feared she'd never find with anyone else. It was a feeling she hadn't found with Brian.

"Brian—" She'd forgotten for a minute that she was still keeping him waiting.

"Don't." He turned and quieted her with a finger against her lips and pain in his eyes. "I've done everything I know to do, Rebecca. I can't compete with the man's ghost. Maybe, just maybe, now that he's back, maybe once he rips your heart out again, you'll remember him for what he is and not for what you wanted him to be. Maybe then you'll see that he'll never be able to make you happy."

She knew that, knew Tucker was never going to make her happy, just as she knew she couldn't marry Brian. In some intangible way, their relationship just wasn't right, and she'd let this go on too long because she liked him so much and felt so safe with him.

"Uhh... thinking about Tucker reminds me," Brian said as he gathered his keys and sunglasses from the counter. "The old paper mill project? Some company bought the property, and it looks like they're going to try to resurrect the project."

Rebecca was almost as surprised as she'd been when she heard Tucker's voice coming through the telephone. She and Tucker had fought bitterly over that project six years ago.

"Can they do that? Can we stop them?"

"I don't know." Brian shrugged, frowned, then admitted, "It's a tough call. I'm sure the group would have a better chance if you're leading the effort."

"Oh, no." She had enough of her wits about her to be quick with that answer. "I can't handle it right now, Brian. I'm way behind on the Arts Center fund-raiser, and I have three big jobs lined up after it."

Rebecca made her living as a professional fund-raiser. She was so good at it now that she could pick her clients, including a number of causes she believed in. The Arts Center. The homeless shelter. The free health clinic. Any number of environmental organizations. She'd worked for them all. People who needed to raise money in Tallahassee called on Rebecca.

"I can't do it," she repeated, knowing she was really saying she didn't
want
to do it. It would bring up too many unhappy memories for her, and she had about as many as she could handle from just one phone call from Tucker.

"Just give it some thought, honey," Brian urged. "We're getting the coalition back together, and we need you. Nobody was more upset than you were at the thought of the mill ruining that gorgeous river."

Or at the thought of her husband being the one to get Paperworks Inc. the permits it needed. And to Tucker, it had meant nothing but a job to do and more money to make.

A few months after they'd separated, the company was sold, and the new owners dropped the plan. Now it was all starting again.