Carrie Alexander – Slow Ride (страница 7)

Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

“Do I detect a note of skepticism?”

“Proceed with a healthy caution, my pal. Watch your step around her and you’ll be fine.”

“It’s his hands he’s got to watch,” Gabe put in.

Sam grinned. “Tuck was always good with his hands.”

“On the job. Strictly on the job,” Tucker protested, knowing it was no use even though he had calluses on his fingertips from wrapping wire, not squeezing female behinds.

“Yeah, sure.” Gabe looked at Sam. “Remember the time we caught him with his hands up Mary-Anne Shanahan’s shirt on the living room couch? He looked like he was calibrating the engine of a Maserati.”

“And when we threw on the lights—”

“He jumped up—”

“With a boner capable of parting the Red Sea.”

“And he said—”

“‘I was only measuring her for a T-shirt.’”

“And Mary-Anne said…”

Sam and Gabe synchronized for the big finish, “‘They’re 34C.’”

“Shut it,” Tuck commanded through their booming laughter, even though he had no real hope of quelling them. As the youngest of five, he’d been the subject of their merciless teasing all his life. He’d learned to roll with it by keeping a sense of humor and always being alert for revenge opportunities. Like the surprise male strip-o-gram he’d arranged for Gabe and Lula’s honeymoon.

Didi came into the backyard, banging the screen door behind her. “Quit torturing my baby brother,” she said, and began issuing orders like a drill sergeant. Sam’s trigger finger twitched on the hose nozzle, but one narrow look from Didi and he ambled off, compliantly reeling up the hose.

Gabe was dispatched to round up the hooligans. “Fried chicken,” he yelled across the yard. “First one at the dining table gets a drumstick.”

Tuck took cover from the rush, ducking to sit at the picnic table.

Didi plopped beside him. “How many brothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“More than three?” he guessed.

“Nope. No one knows how many, because they’re too busy screwing with each other’s heads.”

Tuck moaned. “Like you don’t want to do the same.”

“Of course I don’t.” Didi draped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m only interested in your future happiness.”

“I’m doing just fine in the present, thanks.” And he was. He’d dropped out of college with the idea that he’d try pro surfing, but had wound up making a living in the construction trade instead. After going through a period of feeling his oats and drifting from job to job, he’d been working steadily as a licensed electrician for seven years now. Recently he’d bought into the four-plex with Didi and Sam, even agreeing to serve as the on-site landlord and handyman. How much more settling did she want out of him?

As if he had to ask.

“You’re doing it again.” He made a motion to grab her by the head.

She jerked away and dusted mussed hair off her face. “What? I haven’t even begun.” The last time they’d had this conversation she’d conceded that her bossiness was annoying and had promised that all he had to do was to put her into one of the Schulz brothers’ dreaded headlocks to remind her to shut the hell up.

“I saw the look in your eye,” he said. “You were going to mention Charla again.”

“I’m looking at the Andersons’ yard. Their phlox is blooming.” Didi could never pull off the innocent act. She was too sharp to play dumb.

“And I think your nose is growing.” The boys had always teased her that, unlike Pinocchio, her nose didn’t grow with a lie, but only when she was about to stick it up in somebody’s business.

She touched it. Snub, with freckles, the only feature about her that wasn’t strong, square or firm. “All right. I won’t tell you what you should do. But in my version of your life—”

He coughed a “Bossy wench” under his breath.

She went on, always good at talking over resistance. “You should still be dating Charla, not a barfly from Clementine’s. You’ll never find anyone good at one of those clubs.”

“Ah, but you didn’t get to see the miniskirts and butt cleavage tattoos.”

“I didn’t say good-looking. I said good. You need a good woman, Tuck. Like Charla.” Charla was one of Didi’s girlfriends, a high-powered executive who’d finally broken the snooze alarm on her biological clock. She was on a five-year plan to gain a husband and child.

“Look, Deeds. When we went out, Charla made it clear that a mere electrician wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted me to become a contractor and builder, then a developer—the kind with an expensive office suite and a hard hat for show only. I don’t want to date a woman who has ambitions for me.”

“I know Charla can be pushy, but I thought you two might be a good match. She needs a little lightheartedness and you need the discipline.”

“Are we talking S and M here?”

“Quit kidding around, Tuck.” Didi frowned. “What’s wrong with a little ambition?”

Tucker couldn’t think up a flip response. “Nothing. When I’m ready for it, I’ll get my own.”

“Lazy boy,” she chided. “You always did get away with murder, skipping chores to go surfing and the like. Comes with being the youngest, I suppose.”

He raised his brows. “Or a bad reaction to always being told what to do my brothers and sisters.”

She smiled. “You have a point. If I tell Charla to knock off the pressure, would you consider—”

“Sorry. The chemistry wasn’t there.”

“How can you be sure? Chemistry doesn’t always combust at first sight.”

“No.” Tucker thought of meeting Rory. He’d looked right past her. Big mistake, though he’d corrected it before too long. “But I dated Charla twice and have run into her a dozen times over the past months because she’s always at your house when I come by—”

He broke off to shoot a glare at his sister, who didn’t have the grace to look guilty. Didi didn’t do guilt. Not on herself, anyway. “I won’t be asking her out again, Deeds. Not ever. So give it up or prepare to be head-locked.”

“All right. I know when I’m beat.” She sighed. “Tell me about this Miss Clementine who’s got her claws in you. French-manicured claws, I’ll bet. And she wears Manolos and carries a supply of handy condoms in her itty-bitty purse.”

He laughed. “You’re getting prudish in your old age.”

Didi looked horrified at the suggestion. “Then please tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong. She’s not what you think.”

“Yeah, she has depth.” Didi rolled her eyes.

“Do you remember the first time Max picked you up? He drove up on a motorcycle, tattoos on both arms, his hair in a ponytail and a sneer beneath his Fu Manchu. Not the optimal date for a seventeen-year-old, but Mom and Dad let you do your own thing.”

“They did not! They banned me from seeing him again. I had to sneak out the window until I turned eighteen.”

“Okay, but you get my point. Look at Max now.” A balding orthodontist whose kids colored in his tattoos with Magic Markers, he and Didi had been married for almost twenty years. Their eldest son would be entering college this coming fall.

Didi glowered. “I hate when you make a rational argument against me.”

“See how I’ve matured,” Tucker teased, though he hoped she’d recognize the truth in his words. While it was true that he’d coasted through life up to now, he wasn’t averse to a change in speed—or even direction. He’d always figured that one day he’d come across a woman worth stopping for, and then he’d know what all the hoopla over love was about.

Their mother cranked open the kitchen window and yelled for them to get their butts inside before dinner got cold. Just like old times, when they’d all lived at home and been the scourge of the neighborhood.

“You could have simply told me to leave you alone,” Didi said as they walked to the back door.

Tuck gave the top of her head an affectionate kiss. “Has that ever worked?”

“No better than a headlock,” she said sassily, sliding out from under his arm when he tried to tighten his grip. She hurtled herself inside, banging the screen door shut on Tucker’s nose.

THE SCENT of smoked jasmine lingered in the air at Emma Constable’s house hours after the brunch was over. Surrounded by a pile of pillows and cushions in the bay-window seat, Rory was so at ease she hadn’t moved for more than an hour. She’d even drifted off for a while after the talking had ended and Lauren and Mikki had gone home. Now Emma had come in from the garden and was gliding back and forth in the kitchen, rattling ice trays and running water, humming “Light My Fire” to herself.

Rory gave a long stretch and yawn. Herbal tea, fresh bread, incense—those were the smells of her mother’s house. And often her own.

Like mother, like daughter? The similarities were both comforting and aggravating. If only she’d been able to consciously choose which traits she’d inherit.