“Sweet and savory.” Tucker nodded. “Same thing, just a different delivery method.”
“I think maybe it’s time to change the subject.” She closed her eyes and visibly gathered herself before looking up and offering him a friendly smile. “So, you lectured me about my go bag. Educate me, Mr. McBride. What do you keep in yours?”
“Water filter. Flashlight. Matches. A stick of fatwood.” Tucker hesitated. His lips twitched. He shouldn’t … he really shouldn’t … but she did ask. “Condoms.”
Following a beat of silence, she asked, “Fatwood?”
“Tinder. It burns … hot.”
“Ah. I see.” She licked those bee-stung lips again and cleared her throat. “Jeremy keeps a supply bag in his car.”
I’ll just bet he does.
“I’ll have to ask him what he keeps in it.”
“You do that.” The fun had gone out of this particular game, and Tucker took another step back. “You have everything? We should probably get going. Don’t want to keep your maybe-still-a-fiancé waiting.”
Gillian winced. “Yes. Yes, I’m ready.” This time when she climbed behind him on the bike, she held herself away from him as much as possible.
Nevertheless, Tucker sensed her presence like warm sunshine on a cold winter’s day. The drive into Temple passed in a flash, while at the same, the minutes dragged by. When he made the turn into the parking lot at Buc-ee’s, he admitted to himself that he’d be sorry for this little adventure to come to an end.
He also knew he wasn’t really in the mood to meet ol’ Jeremy. So, he pulled up at one of the sixty-plus gas pumps, switched off his motor, and prepared to say goodbye to his passenger.
“There’s Jeremy’s car,” she said, pointing toward a line of parked vehicles, a mix of pickups, SUVs, and a few sedans. “He beat us here.”
“Good. My Good Samaritan work is done.”
“A Good Samaritan indeed. I can’t thank you enough, Tucker. Here.” Gillian started to reach into her purse. “Let me buy you a tank of gas.”
Tucker laid his hand over hers. “No. Absolutely not.”
“But you went out of your way—”
“No, I didn’t. Like I told you, I want a bag of roasted nuts.” Roasted nuts seemed an appropriate choice at the moment.
“Okay, then. Come inside and let me buy you those.”
“You’ve already thanked me, Gillian.”
“Don’t remind me!” She cast an anguished gaze toward the man who’d just emerged from inside the building, a blond, pretty-boy prepster, who wore a pink golf shirt tucked into black slacks and designer sunglasses propped atop his head.
Jeremy. Tucker suddenly wanted to put his fist through the fellow’s pearly whites. At the same time, he wanted to soothe Gillian’s troubled soul. Quietly, he said, “Don’t fret yourself. Don’t make it out to be a bigger deal than it was. I’m a soldier home from the wars and feeling a little lost. It did me good to rescue a damsel in distress. You have been a nice welcome home to me.”
She tore her gaze away from Jeremy and looked at Tucker, a faint smile flirting with her lips. “Has anyone said that to you yet? Welcome home?”
“No. Not yet.”
“In that case, let me be the first.” Then, in front of the drivers and passengers of the dozens of cars lined up at the gas pumps to buy fuel, her maybe-ex-fiancé, and the big beaver Buc-ee himself, Gillian Thacker went up on her toes and planted a kiss on Tucker’s mouth. “Welcome home, soldier. Welcome back to Texas.”
She turned around and dashed toward the Buc-ee’s front door and the man who apparently owned her heart.
Tucker pumped gas into his motorcycle and watched Gillian and Jeremy exchange an embrace before climbing into a late-model BMW sports car. Moments later, it swung out of its parking spot and turned his way. The gas pump clanked and the hose nozzle shut off as the car stopped in front of him.
The driver’s side window slid down. Jeremy called out, “Hey, man. Thank you for your service.”
Tucker smiled and gave a little salute. The extension of his middle finger was so slight, he doubted the other man noticed it. Asshole.
The window rose. The car pulled away and turned onto the service road. As the Beemer merged onto the interstate highway headed north and disappeared, Tucker felt like it took the sunshine away with it.
Gillian Thacker had been a nice diversion, but that was over now. She’d ridden off into the sunset that was traffic on I-35, and now the gloom that had been riding his shoulders for months returned. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and silently compiled a sitrep.
Currently, he stood at a gas pump at a Buc-ee’s in Texas. Without a woman. Without a job. Without a purpose.
Crap. What the hell had he done? Who the hell was he now?
The army was his life. His identity. He’d devoted himself to the job, and what he’d done had been valuable. How many people were alive today because he’d been there to put boots on the ground, because he’d had the knowledge and the training and the desire and the balls to do what needed doing? He’d stopped counting years ago. He’d made a difference!
And dammit, he’d let the politicians win. He’d let the bureaucracy win. Quitter.
Shame rolled over him like a West Texas dust storm, but it was too late for second thoughts. You didn’t get a do-over when you separated from the service. Not that he really wanted one. He just wanted to be able to live peacefully in his own skin again.
Tucker muttered a curse. No sense crying over a spilt bag of Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets. The deed was done. He’d picked up his marbles and gone home to Texas, and now he’d have to learn to live with the decision.
Tucker gave one last glance toward the interstate where the lovely wedding-gown princess had ridden off with her tee-box prince before he turned and strode toward the convenience store entrance. At least there was one craving he could satisfy. He looked up at the bucked-tooth beaver above the door and muttered, “Nuts.”
Chapter Three
THREE MONTHS LATER
On her hands and knees and drowning in a sea of ivory satin and lace, Gillian reached blindly for the tab numbered twelve. Her fingers brushed a cotton rectangle, and she grabbed it tight. She dipped her head below a fan of scratchy tulle and searched for a number. Fourteen. “Grrr.”
She shook her head, wiggling deeper, feeling like a dog nuzzling through a bowl of boring kibble to find the prized peanut butter treat. Her engagement ring snagged on a thread. She shook it free and grabbed again. There. A glance revealed a one and a two. Victory! She threaded the button marked twelve through the twelve tab, and then traced her way to thirteen and beyond. Finally, with all eighteen buttons fastened, she scooted out, rolled back on her heels, and asked the bride-to-be, “Well? What do you think?”
Caroline Carruthers couldn’t take her gaze off the reflection in the mirror. “I think, maybe, oh, Gillian. This might be the one.”
Gillian shared a knowing smile with the other person in the room, her mother, Barbara, before observing, “That’s what you said about the first three you tried on, Caroline.”