“I’ll confess if you do the same,” Ashton shot back instantly.
Oh, hell. His uncle was not talking about Tucker confessing to an admiration for Sonora.
Tucker attempted to play innocent. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His uncle glared. “Don’t waste my time pretending you haven’t been mooning over Ginny Stone since she grew up. Plus, I’m damn sure that sometime in the past years that mooning became more than just wishful thinking.”
Not the comment Tucker had expected. Not from his uncle, at least.
At some point he figured Kelli, or maybe Tamara, would ask some pointed questions, because too many times that day alone he’d caught himself gazing obsessively at Ginny whenever she was around.
But his uncle? Hell.
Tucker leaned back and stretched out his legs. “Surprised you’re not warning me off.”
“So you admit it?”
Tucker nodded. He held up a hand quickly. “But nothing happened between us until she was old enough. I wouldn’t do anything improper. I swear it.”
A very unexpected snort escaped Ashton. “Son, that’s the last thing you need to reassure me on. I’m pretty damn sure she seduced you.”
Well, fuck. “What?” Tucker shook his head. “No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
His uncle looked far too amused. “If you don’t have it on your calendar in triplicate, it doesn’t happen. And that girl is a pile of trouble— Correction. That woman is a pile of trouble, and she’s always known her own mind. I’m not about to read you the riot act when you’re both grown adults who can make your own decisions.”
Thank goodness for small mercies. May as well straight up admit to one part then—not the sex, though.
Tucker shrugged. “Yes, I like her. More than like her. If it were possible, I’d be doing what I could to make things between us a reality.”
A confession he had never expected to make to this man. Ashton had always been a good uncle, but this wasn’t the type of conversation they usually indulged in.
“That’s what I figured. So as a part of that dreaming Caleb just talked about, I have a proposal for you.”
Curious. Tucker leaned his elbows on the table. “Go on.”
“Since I know you like to have things plotted out well in advance, an annoying habit you got from your parents that has persisted in spite of all my attempts to break you of it, bust out your spreadsheets and get working on this.” Ashton folded his arms over his chest. “You’re right. I am interested in Sonora” —he stuck a finger in Tucker’s face— “and you are not to repeat that to anyone. But that means at some point I want to be ready to do the next thing.”
“Makes sense. What does that have to do with me? Or Ginny? Or spreadsheets?”
His uncle offered a sly grin. “I want you ready to take over as foreman when the time comes.”
5
I want you to take over.
The words echoed in Tucker’s head, damn near rattling his brain. “You want to retire?”
“Eventually. I don’t want to stop completely, but I’m getting up there,” Ashton admitted. “I like what I do, kid, but I like it less at five a.m. after being up until three a.m. dealing with one disaster or another. That’s a young man’s task, and I left young a bunch of years ago.”
Tucker sat and let this new information roll over him. He mixed the idea of what Ashton was saying up with the goals he’d had on his own books for a long time and came up with a brand-new reality.
Seems they were going for blunt. So be it.
“I had planned to ask to be brought on full-time as your apprentice the summer I turned twenty.” Tucker watched his uncle do the mental math and his expression grow sad. “Yeah, that’s the year we lost the Stones and the Hayeses. They’d mentored me a lot to that point, along with you, and Walter had pretty much told me that was the next step. But with the accident, Caleb ended up raising not only his family but Darilyn Hayes as well, and no way could they afford to take me on. So I bowed out of that idea.”
“That accident turned so many people’s lives upside down. Damn drunk drivers. Damn them to hell.” Ashton shook his head then met Tucker’s gaze. “Truth is, that would’ve been perfect timing.”
“We can’t change the past. But I haven’t sat idle since then,” Tucker assured him. His comment to Ginny earlier that day came to mind, about how all of his past job experiences had been a slice of Silver Stone. That had been deliberate on his part. “Since I couldn’t be here, I did what I could to learn elsewhere. I’m not ready to jump in and take over today, but I’ve got a good base.”
“Damn right, you do.” This time Ashton’s expression was full on approval. “I wondered why you weren’t staying on at one place for longer than a year or two. Had me worried for a while that you had restless feet like Ginny.”
Tucker had seen Ginny’s face as she stared up at the loft ceiling and all but melted, sinking into the comfort of the familiar old barn. He wasn’t sure that she’d really had wanderlust either, but that wasn’t the topic right now.
“Let me pull together an official resume,” Tucker offered. “If you think this is something Caleb would approve of, we need to set a start date so I can talk to my current boss and give my notice.”
“Caleb told me years ago to hire someone and start training them at my discretion. Since all that time I put in over the years ensured that you didn’t grow up to be an asshole, I think I can work with you.” Ashton raised a brow. “You’re more like me than my brother.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Tucker said dryly. His relationship with his parents was pretty much nonexistent.
His uncle looked him over, hard. “You have much to do with your folks recently?”
“No.” Tucker raised a brow. “When was the last time you touched base with your brother?”
“A month ago,” Ashton returned before making a face. “Like talking to a brick wall. An unhappy brick wall.”
“Because they are unhappy. Nothing can be done unless they both agree with every decision, which means they keep compromising their way into bullshit that makes both of them miserable.”
It had been a struggle for Tucker to figure out even part of what made his parents tick—their priorities weren’t even remotely logical to him. As if he’d been switched at birth with a far more down-to-earth couple’s offspring. Knowing the truth, though, had made it easier to deliberately step even farther from his parent’s sphere of influence on his life.
After a quick mental check to see if he found even the slightest bit of give a damn lingering—which he didn’t—Tucker shrugged. “They made their choices, which clearly don’t include me.”
“I know they’re bad, but—”
“They don’t care,” Tucker interrupted, stating the truth plainly. “I made a last-ditch effort last October and suggested I’d drop in over Thanksgiving. They told me they already had plans, and if I showed up, there would be an odd number at the table.”