07 It Had to Be You Read online

  Tucker wore only his boxers, hair wild, but God bless him, he held two steaming mugs, and was sipping from one. Jake sat up and braced for the usual shaft of pain to go through his aching body, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t come. “Macy’s a goddess.”

  “Yeah.” Tucker nodded toward his shoulder. “Getting better?”

  “Is that longing I hear in your voice?” Jake stood up and took the mug of coffee.

  “Well, you did say you’d go back to firefighting as soon as you were fit.”

  A pang of nerves went through him. When the hell would he be fit? “Which would get me out of here, of course. And out of your hair.”

  Tucker just sipped his coffee.

  “The love and caring in the room is overwhelming,” Jake said dryly, and turned away. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Yeah—Holy shit.”

  Jake glanced over his shoulder. Tucker’s gaze was locked on Jake’s back.

  “A burn?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tucker let out a low whistle. “That fire really screwed you up.”

  “Not too bad. Don’t worry, Tuck, I’ll be gone soon enough.” One way or another. He moved toward the bathroom, thinking maybe a shower would help improve his sudden bad mood. He took great pleasure in getting to the bathroom first for a change, where he planned on using all the hot water. On principal, he slammed the door behind him.

  He took a good hard look at himself in the mirror. He was tanner than he’d been, and some of the exhaustion had left his face. Despite the two-day-old beard he looked healthier than when he’d first arrived.

  And yet he’d been here, what, nearly three weeks? Amy still jumped when he so much as looked at her. Stone and Eddie went out every night and had never invited him, not once. His own brother couldn’t wait for him to heal and go far, far away, and Callie…

  Callie actually thought he could kiss her the way he’d kissed her, and then turn around and sleep with Cici. Flattering.

  And worse than all that, he didn’t have a frigging clue as to what to do with the rest of his life if he couldn’t go back to firefighting, which was beginning to look like the case.

  “Jake.” Tucker knocked at the bathroom door.

  “I’m not done.” He grabbed his toothbrush, turned on the sink.

  “About last night, when Callie got stuck in the shed with those fumes…”

  Jake turned off the water. “What about it?”

  “You realized before anyone else that she’d been gone too long.”

  “Jesus. I didn’t shut her in there—”

  “I didn’t think you did. I’m trying to thank you, damn it.”

  Jake craned his neck and stared at the closed door. “Thank me?”

  “Yeah. For the help.”

  “For the help,” he repeated slowly, and set down his toothbrush. Polite, he’d give his brother that. “I don’t want to be thanked, Tucker, like…like I’m some guest.”

  “You are a guest.”

  At that, he hauled open the door. “I have as much a right to be here as you do. Or maybe you’ve forgotten who brought you here, who owns the land and signs your paychecks.”

  Tucker’s eyes flashed. “Don’t worry, I’ve never forgotten who dumped me here.”

  “Dumped?” Jake gaped at him. “I didn’t—”

  “I was used to it by then though.”

  “Are you talking about when I went to San Diego? When you were five and—”

  “I remember how old I was when you walked out.”

  “Tucker—”

  “I missed you.” On that furiously uttered admission, Tucker turned away, moving around the couch as he started hunting up clothes. He jammed a bare foot into a discarded pair of jeans that turned out to be Jake’s. “Shit.” He threw them at Jake, who caught them just before they hit him in the face. “We’re fucking slobs,” he muttered, and hunted up a pair of his own.

  Jake stood there still holding his jeans, shocked. “I tried to see you. But—”

  “Mom wouldn’t let you. Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  “You don’t believe it.”

  Tucker buttoned up his jeans and looked at Jake. “Why would she keep us apart?”

  Because she was a selfish bitch, was Jake’s first thought. But Mary Ann had treated Tucker differently. He’d been her baby in a way Jake had never been, because when Jake had been born, Mary Ann had still been a baby herself.

  “She said you took off, that you never looked back.” Tucker stood there shirtless and barefooted. For once his expression was clear of derision or anger, just a need to know.

  He wanted a real answer. Jake didn’t know if the one he had was good enough. “If I’d never looked back, how would I have known you were in trouble?”

  Tucker stared at him for a long moment. “You called us?”

  Jake nodded. “It was hard to keep track of you with her moving you guys around, but I did the best I could.”

  Tucker looked confused. “She said…”

  “That I’d left without a word? Yeah, she always was fond of playing the victim.”

  Tucker frowned, and after a long moment, turned away. “Save me some hot water.”

  “Yeah.” Well, Jake wondered, had he expected Tucker to smile and hug him and say all was well? That was never going to happen. He shut the bathroom door and cranked on the hot water. When he came out, Tucker was gone and Jake had a message on his cell from Joe.

  “No news on the lawsuit,” Joe said on the message. “But there was a reporter at the fire station today wanting a press picture of you. So was a group of women who claimed to run your fan club. They wanted pictures, too.” Joe’s voice held amusement. “Maybe I should hunt up some from over the years and put them on eBay, raise some funds for the station…”

  Jake tossed his cell phone to his bed. He left the cabin thinking it was all well and good for Joe to make fun, he could still do his job. He hadn’t been forced out of a career he loved with all his heart.

  And Jake hadn’t been forced out, either, he assured himself. At least not yet. But his shoulder twitched and so did something deep inside. Knowing damn well it was the denial and fear, the same feelings that haunted his dreams at night, he walked faster, but there was no running from such dark emotions. They followed him everywhere.

  The sun hadn’t yet risen. He put one foot on the grass and, predictably, Goose came running. Jake lifted his foot off and she skidded to a stop in front of him, guarding, waiting for him to make a move.

  “What do you do, have hate meetings with Moe?” he asked. He could almost see his father in the damn goose’s dark gaze. Look at what I built without you. Look at what you wanted no part of. Look at what I left you to screw up.…

  He turned his back on the damn goose. Tucker was in the pasture doing something with the horses there. He could see his blue silhouette as the first sunbeams flashed over the rocky, bushy mountains like flames. He hadn’t asked anyone if that was how the ranch had gotten its name, and that bothered him. Suddenly he wanted to know, not that Tucker would tell him. Shivering in the chilly air, he kept walking. Voices came out of the barn, Stone’s and Eddie’s. The sun rose quickly now. Way out beyond the pasture, coming in from the hills like the opening credits of a western, was a horse and rider.

  Even knowing it was Callie riding, Jake still wished he could switch the channel and find a good basketball game instead.

  Goose let out a honk, probably to a bird who dared land on her precious grass, but Jake figured the sound for his father’s spirit, laughing at him.

  His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten dinner last night. Between Callie getting stuck in the shed and him hurting his shoulder and his subsequent massage, he’d missed the barbeque, and his mouth watered at the thought. The food had been surprisingly good out here but, damn, he missed drive-thrus. He missed Starbucks. He missed jelly-filled donuts on the way to his shift at the firehouse.

  And that wasn’t all. He missed