“And she’s gotten worse now that she’s pregnant.”
Addie smiled and nodded. “Pregnant women do tend to be a little more neurotic.”
“In this case, I don’t mind,” he said. “Not only do I finally get a great brother-in-law, who I think is the best husband for her, but I also get a niece or a nephew. And that’ll be fun.”
“Are you staying around then?”
“Rodney and I were talking about that earlier,” he said. “He wants to move her out of the city, and she wants to go to a smaller town, where they can raise a family now. He’ll spend some time looking into real estate to find a nice family home.”
“And what about you?”
“Well, that’s one of the things. You know when you reconnect with family, how it’s hard to let go?” he said. “I’m not sure I want to let go of that connection now.”
“I wouldn’t want to, not with the loving family you have,” she said. “Family can be tough, but they’re also one of the best things for us.”
“I hope so,” he said. “It’s the start of my new life.”
At the pool, Tucker found the pet-friendly accommodations and got Bernie situated, already splashing water everywhere. He chuckled at her innocent joy. Addie looked on with a big smile and dropped her towel over one of the chairs and stepped into the cool water. “Something’s so magical about being outside in a pool under the open sky. Too bad your sister isn’t here to enjoy this. Do you think they’ve gone to sleep?”
“Probably. My sister was exhausted. She didn’t have any alcohol, being pregnant, but she was still tired, with the baby already taking a lot out of her right now,” he said. “Plus they are newlyweds, so I would imagine they are in bed.”
“Good,” she said. “She’ll feel that much better tomorrow.”
Tucker slipped into the water beside her and stroked out strong in the darkness. Between the water and the lack of light, she couldn’t see any of the injuries that he had already told her about, but she knew that they were there. Following his lead, she dove into the water, coming up on the other side, and struck out strongly for the far wall.
After she did ten lengths, she curled back up on the step in the shallow end and just stared, her face up to the sky, enjoying the stars.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmured.
“It so is,” she said. “In the morning we should go down to the beach. Bernie will love that.”
“We will, unless you want to go tonight,” he asked.
“No,” she said, “Bernie seems fine in her pool, and I can see the ocean from here. The waves are magical, and the beach reaches as far as the eye can see. Plus I don’t want to leave here right now. It is just so lovely in this pool. It’s really quiet,” she said. “I expected it to be much busier here at the hotel.”
“Maybe not this late in the evening. Tomorrow in Tampa will be a lot busier,” he said. “All of Molly’s friends and others will arrive at the reception there because Molly lived in Tampa for a long time. Molly and Rodney will probably end up there.”
“It won’t matter where, as long as she has her privacy and some land,” she said. “They’ll work it out. They have lots of decisions to make, and that’s okay too.”
“Very true,” he said, “as do I.”
“True.” She nodded.
Tucker checked out Bernie, finding her resting peacefully now in the water of the little kiddie pool, her head laying on the soft edge. “What about you?” he asked, leaning back beside her, not touching, just quiet beside her.
“What about me?” She twisted slightly so she could face him.
“Are you staying in Miami?”
“No,” she said, “not anymore. Not after this latest mess with my family. I don’t want to be geographically close to them. I want to get out of town. Go to a place that’s a whole lot less city.”
“Sounds like you want what Molly wants.”
“To a certain extent. I’m not sure I’m ready to start a family though.” She smiled. “What about you?”
“She and I always talked about having an acre apiece on the same block where we could walk back and forth to visit each other. When it’s just the two of us, you plan things like that, in the hopes that, maybe, one day, it will come true.”
“I think you have to make things like that come true,” she said, “and this is an opportunity for you to do that.”
“Maybe,” he said, “it’s a matter of finding the right place.”
“Well, with Rodney being in property development,” she said, “that shouldn’t be all that hard. You’ll have to look for two properties close to each other.”
“Maybe.” He smiled at her. “It’s been a strange couple days, hasn’t it?”
“So strange,” she murmured, “but a lot of good came out of it.”
“Like?”
“Well, your sister for one,” she said. “I hardly know her, and yet I feel like I know the whole family.”
He burst out laughing. “It’s like that sometimes.”
“In this case definitely,” she said with a bright smile. “I don’t think I’ve clicked with as many people as quickly ever in my life before. And it shows me a different type of sister.”
“Rodney’s a good person, and so is my sister,” he said, “although she looked a little ditzy and lost it today.”
“And she’s allowed,” she said, chuckling. “It was her wedding day, and she was pregnant and hadn’t told her fiancé.”
“That still blows me away.”
“She was big enough already that she didn’t fit in her wedding dress,” she said. “I wonder if she’s checked to see if she’s carrying twins or not.”
“Now that would be a handful,” he said, and he started to laugh. “But it couldn’t happen to nicer people.”
Addie loved that about him. He was open, honest, and definitely one of those keeper kinds of guys. She smiled at him. “So does that mean you’ll stay local?”
“Thinking about it,” he said, “a whole lot more reasons now to stay local.” He reached out a hand and gently stroked her wet cheek. “It’d be nice if we could stay in touch, could stay close,” he said.
Her smile was gentle. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “Whatever has been happening here between us has happened so fast that I wasn’t exactly sure where we stood.”
“I’m not sure where we stand either,” he admitted. “But, having the serious injuries I’ve dealt with makes you realize waiting for tomorrow is no good—because sometimes the tomorrows don’t come.”
“It’s a hard lesson, isn’t it?” she said. “Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m being greedy because I want everything now.”
“I don’t think it’s that so much. I appreciate the fact that some days just don’t go the way that you expect them to go, and you want them to be a whole lot easier, yet life has other plans,” he said. “Losing our parents when we were young wasn’t easy either. We’ve had to adjust to so much that I think, unlike my sister, I wanted all of it now too.”