Cathryn. Shannon Waverly

D’Autell grumbled, “Don’t touch anything.”

      Tucker closed the door, went to the phone and punched in a Missouri number. Jenny answered on the third ring.

      Hearing her voice, Tucker tried to summon up an image of the woman who was carrying his child and was disturbed when he couldn’t. He could see short auburn curls and grass-green eyes and a pointy chin. And freckles. Yes, there were definitely some freckles. But he wasn’t able to put all the parts together and see a cohesive whole.

      “Hey, Jen,” he began, sitting down in the chair D’Autell had vacated. “It’s me, Tuck.”

      “Oh.” Her voice sank, leaving no question how she felt about hearing from him.

      “How’s it going, darlin’?”

      “How’s it going? I just spent the morning puking my brains out. That’s how it’s going.”

      “Oh, I’m sorry.”

      “Yeah, well, you should be.”

      “Sorry,” he mumbled again, wincing.

      “So what do you want, Tuck?” Somehow she managed to sound both bored and impatient.

      “Just to talk.”

      She sighed heavily. He tried not to take offense.

      “Are you coming over?” she asked. “Are you back in town?”

      “No. No to both questions. I’m in Massachusetts. I had to fly home because of a death in the family.”

      “Home?” Her surprise underscored how little they knew about each other. “You’re from Massachusetts?”

      “Sort of. I was born in New York, but…” He felt himself closing the gates of communication. But if he and Jenny were meant to live the rest of their lives together, it was time to start sharing. “When I was thirteen, I came here to live with my grandfather’s brother Walter and his wife Winnie. Walter just passed away.”

      “Oh.” Jenny’s uncertain exclamation betrayed an encouraging softening. “That’s too bad, Tuck.”

      “Yeah, it is. He was a great old guy. Played a mean hand of whist.”

      “What happened to your parents?”

      He swallowed, faced with the question he’d had to answer all his life. “My father died in Vietnam when I was three, and when I was twelve my mother…was the victim of a drunk driving accident.”

      “She died, too?”

      Jenny was astounded and incredulous. As well she should be, he thought. It was an astounding, incredible story. A lie, actually. Not the part about his father dying in Nam; Tuck had worn the Silver Star posthumously bestowed on his father right until the day the clasp broke off. The part about his mother was a lie. He’d chickened out again. He couldn’t admit his mother had been sent to prison when he was twelve and had overdosed five years later.

      “Anyway, I’m at the wake now, taking a break, and I had to call. You’ve been on my mind since last weekend.”

      “Where in Massachusetts?” she asked, steering so sharply away from the subject, he could practically hear her tires screech.

      He sighed. “Harmony. It’s a small island ten, twelve miles off the southeast coast. Not far from Martha’s Vineyard.”

      “Harmony? Never heard of it.”

      “Understandable. It’s small. Not many people here during the winter. Last I heard, the count was around seven hundred.”

      “You lived on an island with only seven hundred people?” She infused every word with sarcasm.

      “Yep. Peel away the outer layers and I’m really just a small-town boy at heart.”

      “Yeah, right.” Not the sharpest comeback, but she made her point.

      Tucker massaged a place on his forehead where a headache was gathering force. “About the discussion we had last week…” he tried again. “It’s been bothering the hell out of me, Jen.”

      “Which part? You asking me to marry you, or me turning you down?”

      “The last part. I don’t regret asking you to marry me. I’ll never regret that. I meant it when I said I want to do right by you and the baby.”

      She laughed a tinkling, cascading laugh, hitting every note and nuance of condescension along the way. “Tucker Lang, you wouldn’t know right if it smacked you square in the face.”

      Tucker drummed his fingers on the desk in mounting frustration. “I know enough to feel responsible for my kid and to want it to have a good home life.”

      “And what’s that, Tuck? You being gone three-quarters of the time? You saying good-night over the phone from some motel room half a world away?”

      “No!” Inadvertently he thought of the kind of home Cathryn must have, how loved and secure her children must feel. That was what he meant.

      “No? You’re planning on quitting racing then?”

      Tuck swallowed with difficulty. “That isn’t fair. You know racing is how I make my living.”

      “Tell that to our kid when he’s ten and doesn’t know you.”

      Tucker regretted calling without having prepared. He wasn’t doing very well. When it came to playing for keeps, he didn’t know the lines. “I can cut back. I can do other things….”

      “It wouldn’t matter.” Jenny sighed dismally. “You’re just not father material, Tuck. And you certainly aren’t cut out to be anyone’s husband.”

      “What do you mean?” As if he didn’t know. Hadn’t they met at a party swarming with racing groupies and hadn’t he flirted with her and arranged to call her, even while his date for the evening stood less than ten feet away?

      “Don’t get me wrong, Tuck. You’re a great guy and a lot of fun, but frankly, I don’t trust you from here to the front door.”

      Her accusations stung. “I’d be different if we were married.”

      She burst out laughing.

      “I would,” he insisted, realizing how serious he was, how deep was his desire to claim his unborn child and raise it well, protect it, be a good father. “Jenny, please, you’ve got to give us a chance. I swear on my father’s grave I’ll be…”

      “No, Tuck. I’m sure your intentions are good, but you know what they say about the road to Hell.”

      Tucker pressed a tightly clenched fist against his forehead. After a long cleansing moment of silent swearing, he took a different tack. “But what’ll you do? How will you get along? And don’t tell me you intend to go on welfare because I won’t allow it.”

      She huffed impatiently. “Listen, Tucker, I have to go. I have to be at the restaurant in half an hour.” She paused. “A heck of a place to work when you’re having morning sickness, huh?”

      “You could quit if we—”

      “No,” she interrupted. “Really, Tuck. Thanks anyway, but you’re simply not the type of guy I hoped to marry. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you, you. And as for the baby, to be blunt, I’d prefer raising it without you. You’d only confuse our child, here today, gone tomorrow. And as it got older—” she swallowed as if this was difficult for her, too “—I can’t imagine you being anything but a bad influence. In fact, I’d prefer you don’t even visit.”

      “You can’t mean that. I’m the baby’s father.”

      “No. You’re the guy I had unprotected sex with one night last November after one too many margaritas.”

      “Don’t reduce it to that.