Slow Ride. Carrie Alexander

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.

      “Sangria, hon?” Emma asked, drifting in from the kitchen with a tall glass filled with ice cubes and a pale pink liquid. She’d changed from the sparkly caftan she’d worn earlier into a T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Her feet were bare, the nails painted bright red. “I can make sandwiches—bean sprouts and hummus.”

      “No thanks.” Rory straightened the pillows, using one to smother a second yawn. “I should probably be going. What time is it?”

      “Five-ish.”

      “Whew. I had a longer nap than I thought.”

      Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Are you feeling all right? Take some of my ginseng. It’ll put zip in your step.”

      “I’m fine. Been catching up on sleep from the other night at Clementine’s. I was up early the past two mornings—”

      “You work too hard.”

      “It wasn’t work.” Just restlessness. Rory found it tough to break the habit of waking before dawn to bake her daily bread, as she’d done for years while getting her first stores launched. Now that she had store managers and most of the baking was done in an industrial kitchen outside of the city, she left the early morning hours to others. Yet the early-to-bed habit remained.

      Yawning at 9:00 p.m. tended to cut into her appeal as a swinging single.

      “Then what, hon? You were reticent at brunch.” Emma set her drink on a side table.

      “What do you mean? We talked for hours.”

      “Hashing out Lauren’s flash-dating intrigues and Mikki’s Nolan Baylor complication.” With a soulful moan—Emma did everything with soul—she sank into an artisan-made rocking chair, flung one leg over the arm, wiggled her butt into the cushion, then pushed off with the ball of her foot. “You said nothing about yourself. If Lauren hadn’t mentioned that you’d won the grand prize…”

      Rory shrugged.

      Her mother’s brow furrowed as she took up a bundle of hand-carded wool. The click of knitting needles made a counterpoint to the rhythmic creak of the old rocking chair. Rory felt along the floor for the shoes she’d kicked off, but she was in no rush to leave. The familiar smells and sounds of her mother’s house were soothing to the battered soul. She, Mikki and Lauren certainly didn’t return for the bitter tea.

      “The house is so quiet,” Rory said.

      “Arun is working.” Emma’s remaining boarder, a foster child who’d come of age, was looking for an apartment of his own. “And Ernie spends most of his time in his room, meditating.” Ernesto Modesta, a compatriot from Emma’s commune days, had arrived at her door the past month, asking for a bed. He was supposed to move on anyday now. No one was holding their breath. “But you’re avoiding the subject, m’dear.”

      “Only because I have nothing to tell.”

      Emma smiled. “Do you think I’ve lost my touch?” She tapped one of the needles to her nearly unlined forehead. “I may need bifocals now, but my third eye sees as well as ever, Aurora. The less you say, the more I’m sure there’s something big going on in your head. Why don’t you talk it out? You always kept your worries too much to yourself.”

      “Some of us don’t feel the need to announce our every body twinge and passing thought to the general public.”

      Emma was unperturbed.