Chapter Seven
Tanner shifted beside Crystal on the grass, his arms propped on his bent knees. After a moment’s silence, laden with the tension he could feel emanating from her, he said, “I don’t think you totally wasted your money. Honestly, I don’t. Tuck would never listen to me about getting a collar suited for a larger dog.”
“That seems cruel. Rip isn’t that big, and no matter how much the manufacturers talk around it, a dog still gets shocked.”
Tanner stared at the blue heeler, who was finally out of the pond. “Rip sees himself as being as big as Godzilla. He’s got an overabundance of feisty attitude. You fight fire with fire.”
Rip raced up to them just then and shook his body, drenching both of them with dog-scented pond water. Crystal shrieked. Tanner swore.
All Rip did was grin. Until he ran. Straight for the fence.
“Rip, no!” Crystal yelled.
The dog launched himself at the wire, hooked his paws through the links, and climbed over the barrier. Once on the other side, he whipped around to give Crystal a tongue-lolling look that said more loudly than words that he’d just bested her again. Then he dipped his head, bounced around in a jubilant dance, and took off running.
“Not this time!” she cried as she ran toward her car.
She was inside the vehicle with the engine started before she registered that Tanner was in the passenger seat. “What are you doing? This may take hours. What about your kids?”
“It’s Friday. They’re staying overnight with friends. Step on it! He went that way.” He flung out his arm to gesture, smacked it against the window, and yelped in surprise.
Crystal floored the accelerator in REVERSE, braked to shift into DRIVE, and then wrenched the wheel in the direction of Tanner’s pointing finger. Foot slammed down on the pedal, she sent the Equinox into several tail whips along the curvy road.
“Do you see him?” she shouted. Tanner had the window down and his head stuck out.
“Nope!” he shouted. “Damned dog. He couldn’t have outrun us. He’s got to be hiding in the grass.”
Crystal backed off the gas. Outside of town, hobby farms sprawled at each side of the byway, and there were countless fields where a dog could hide. She saw a pull-off that sported a giant oak. She parked under its outstretched limbs, brilliant green with spring leaves.
“He’s gone. Again. I’m so sick of this. I can’t count the hours I’ve spent driving these stupid roads.”
“I’m sorry.” Tanner looked over at her, his blue eyes gleaming in the fading light like aquamarine gemstones. “I should have told you about the collar thing.”
She folded her arms over the steering wheel. “Actually, Tuck should have told me. I can’t understand why he didn’t.”
Tanner sighed, and she felt the release of his warm breath on her arm where it rested on the steering wheel. That made her acutely aware of how close he was. The breadth of his shoulders inched over on each side of the seat, which he hadn’t adjusted for comfort. His long legs, folded sharply at the knees, pressed against the glove compartment. She studied his sharply carved features and felt a zing of arousal deep in her belly. She’d been attracted to other men in the past. But with Tanner it felt different, desire spreading from her core to tingle through her extremities and over her skin. She swore she could feel heat emanating from his rangy body, and she lowered her window because he suddenly seemed to be using more than his share of the oxygen.
“Tuck loves that dog,” he told her. “He makes excuses and puts up with his behavior. I’m not sure why he didn’t tell you Rip is death on electronic collars, but I’m guessing it’s kind of like when I overlook or don’t want to tell people about the things my kids do wrong. We’re proud of them. Who wants to focus on their faults?”
Tanner’s words gave Crystal a glimpse into his heart and told her more about him than he could possibly realize. How deeply he loved his children. How guarded he might be in order to protect them. She also understood her grandfather’s adoration of Rip a little better—how he turned a blind eye to the dog’s faults, laughed at his antics, and rarely admitted anything the blue heeler did was wrong.
“Thank you for that, Tanner.”
He looked bemused. “For what?”
“For your insight. Half the time I want to wring Rip’s neck and I wonder why Tuck puts up with him. You just put it all into perspective for me. Tuck loves that dog as if he’s a child.”
He chuckled. “You just got that?”
“I always got it, in a way, but I could never completely understand it. Rip doesn’t try to be lovable. In fact, I think he’s on a mission to make me despise him. But Tuck adores him. Tuck accepts him unconditionally, just like he accepts me.”
He flashed one of those irresistible grins at her. “Right now, we need to accept that he’s a pain in the ass, and that we have to find him. And with me along, at least you’ll have an engaging companion while you drive the roads tonight.”
* * *
Tuck stepped carefully as he walked from his apartment to Essie’s for dinner. The two glasses of iced tea he carried were well laced with something more potent. With one arm in a cast and still limping from the soreness in his hip, he had a devil of a time not sloshing liquid over the edge of either glass. If Patricia showed up and got a whiff of the contents, he would damn well baptize her with whiskey.
He bumped Essie’s door with the toe of his boot. When she answered the summons, his breath caught in his throat. Over a silky-looking undershirt, she wore a sheer nylon top with a solid gold, black, and red pattern that tantalized him with glimpses of her figure. The V-neck plunged to the cleavage of her breasts. Gathered at the waist, it flared out over her hips. Flowing sleeves revealed the outline of her arms. She looked beautiful and sexy.
“I didn’t dress up” was all he could think to say.
Her mouth curved in a smile. “Blue chambray shirts with a Western cut always look nice with jeans.” She glanced at the glasses he carried. “And you brought drinks!”
He stepped inside, and she closed the door. “Spiked iced tea. My granddaughter brought me some bourbon and Copenhagen this afternoon.”
“You chew?”
“Yep. If that’s a problem, I won’t do it around you, but I ain’t quittin’ ever again.”
She laughed. “Just rinse your mouth before you kiss me.” She accepted the glass he offered and took a taste. “Mmm. I’ve never tried tea as a mixer. It’s refreshing.”
Delicious smells wafted to his nostrils, but the scent intoxicating him most was that of her flowery perfume. She led him to her living area, sat on the sofa, and patted a cushion beside her. He glimpsed a twinkle of mischief in her dark eyes as he sat down. “Do I make you nervous, Tuck?”
“I almost swallowed my tongue when you opened the door.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. I’m hoping for a deep kiss before the evening ends.”
Tuck had never been one to hide his thoughts. “Last night you wanted no part of my company, and now, in less than twenty-four hours, you’re hopin’ I’ll kiss you. It’s like you shifted out of PARK into OVERDRIVE.”
“Last night I didn’t know you and didn’t think I’d like you. Now I know a little about you, and I like what I see.” She took another taste of her drink. “I don’t play games, Tuck. Never have, never will. And I’ve always enjoyed sex. I’m seventy-eight, and my time left for physical pleasure may be short. Why go slow when OVERDRIVE will get us there faster?”
He chuckled. The mixed drink warmed him and relaxed his muscles. Or maybe it was the woman beside him that made him feel so good. “You speak your mind. I admire that. Tell me more about yourself, Essie Maxwell Childers.”
“It’s not an easy story to tell. I’m not sure where to start.”
“At the beginnin’.”
She settled back against the cushions
. Her dark hair glistened in the light cast by a floor lamp sitting between the sofa and recliner. “I grew up poor. Most people don’t know what real poverty is.”
“I do. My folks was poorer than church mice.”
“Mine, too. My father was a drunk who bothered to work only when he ran out of booze. Mama kept chickens and sold eggs. We could eat a hen only after it stopped laying, so mostly we ate eggs, when we had them. I took my first lover at fourteen and used a vinegar-soaked sponge for birth control.”
“Uh-oh.”
She nodded. “I was foolish, but it worked. He was a town boy whose folks ran a bait shop. He slipped me money every time we had sex, and I took it without hesitation, not learning until years later that some people would have said I was prostituting myself. At the time I didn’t even know what a prostitute was. I did know there was never enough food on the table for my eight younger siblings, six boys and two girls. If a guy I liked gave me money, I took it and said thank you.” She glanced up and met his gaze. “Do you still admire me, Tuck?”
“More an’ more by the second. Not many girls would worry about feedin’ the younger kids in their family.”
“Folks said I’d never amount to much. I set out to prove them wrong. I got a special driver’s license that same year, which enabled me to chauffeur my younger siblings to school in a rattletrap car wired together with coat hangers. Our attendance went up along with our grades. I bought gas with my boyfriend money. That’s how I thought of it, boyfriend money, as if it were an allowance.”
“Are you ashamed of takin’ money for sex?”
“No, but I’m well aware some people would look down on me if they knew.”
“That’s their problem. The first time you did what came natural, an’ the boy gave you money afterward. It must have seemed like a windfall to a girl who went hungry a lot.”
She smiled. “It was only five bucks. I spent it on two loaves of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Some baloney, too. That kept our bellies full for one day and part of the next.” A distant expression came over her face. “It’s amazing how much food nine kids can eat. I don’t know what my parents were thinking to have so many babies. Daddy was well educated but never did anything with it. Mama used to say he was lazier than an overweight basset hound. As close as I can figure, he bothered himself to do only three things: drink, have sex, and beat on his family. By age sixteen I felt nothing but disgust for him and my mother. She accepted the physical abuse as if it were her due. Maybe she was raised that way and never knew any different, but I was too young back then to wonder about that. She let him take the egg money for booze, and that was all we had for groceries, so hunger was a frequent visitor. She never once defended us when he used us as punching bags.”
Tuck toyed with a curl at her temple. “I’m real sorry to hear that. At least my father was kind. In that way, I was lucky, I reckon.”
“Very lucky. One afternoon I bought my little sister a pair of shoes, and Daddy realized I was somehow making money. He tried to take away from me what I had left. I clocked him alongside the head with a cast-iron skillet. Knocked him out cold. Mama thought I’d killed him. After that I made him nervous, so he left me alone and stopped pounding on the younger kids.”
“Good for you. He had that comin’, and a hell of a lot more.”
She shrugged. “The boyfriend money kept coming, Tuck. I won’t pretty it up for you. And at some point, I realized it was wrong.” She met his gaze. “I kept on doing it, anyway. Maybe I was pretty. Maybe I wasn’t. I only know the high school boys didn’t lose interest. Could be they heard that I could be had for a price, and they didn’t blink when I raised it from five to twenty. Later I asked for thirty. What began innocently became a business.
“I saved every dime I could. Shortly after turning eighteen, I had enough money to buy a decent car. Decent by my standards, anyway. With dependable transportation, I landed a job at the bait shop owned by my first boyfriend’s parents. Except for what I spent on my siblings, I saved all my wages along with the money I got from admiring fishermen. By then I knew people called me a whore. I didn’t care. No matter what I had to do, I wanted to move up in the world. And I did.”
“Do you think I’ll judge you for that, Essie? Sounds to me like you used your assets to survive.”
“At that point, it became more than mere survival. I used my assets to get rich. Eventually, I bought the bait shop. With the proceeds from my first year in business, I built a small marina. The following year, I enlarged it and leased out boat slips. The year after that I bought a seaworthy vessel, hired a fisherman to captain it, and started a charter service, using the money I made from that to cover the boat payments. The next year, I got another vessel. Well-heeled men paid top dollar to go out to catch a big one. When the charter boats returned, I was nice to the gentlemen, and they were nice to me. So nice that I bought my first house at twenty-four and made a home for my brothers and sisters. My parents acted almost glad to see them leave. The six boys were old enough by then to get after-school jobs, and they helped with expenses. That enabled me to continue saving money for future business ventures. When the boys graduated from high school, I paid for their college tuition, and I did the same for my sisters when it was their turn. In the meanwhile I invested in gold-mining operations and became a wealthy woman in my own right. I no longer needed to be nice to any man.”
“Wow. Hats off to you, Essie. You proved everyone wrong and made something of yourself.”
She took a swallow of tea. “Yes, but telling you the truth about how I did it wasn’t easy. I guess I am ashamed in a way. But if I could go back and change it, I wouldn’t.”
“You weren’t the only one who benefited.”
“True. Two of my brothers and one of my sisters didn’t amount to much, but the others made the most of the opportunities I gave them and are successful individuals now.”
“Where would they be if you hadn’t done what you did?”
“In Ketchikan. Not that there’s anything wrong with the place. But they probably wouldn’t have a pot to piss in, and neither would I.” She dimpled a cheek at him. “I’d rather be rich. They say money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes life easier.” She gulped more tea, which told Tuck it truly had been hard for her to tell him about her past. “I was thirty-five before I finally met Jake Childers. He knew I had taken money for sex in my younger years. I told him flat-out before we were intimate. He didn’t hold it against me. Jake had never married, either. He’d made wise financial investments and had an impressive portfolio. We had two children together, Garth and Rebecca. We gave them everything they wanted, which proved to be a mistake. They grew to be self-centered, spoiled, and ungrateful.”
“Even with good parentin’, kids can turn out that way,” Tuck mused.
“Voice of experience talking?”
“Oh, yeah. But that’s a story for later. I want to hear the rest of yours.”
She sighed. “It’s a difficult one to tell. That’s why I plowed through the first part so fast. To let you know who I really am.” She took a deep breath. “Jake was ten years older than me. He keeled over dead with a heart attack twenty years ago, leaving me a widow at fifty-eight. Seven years later, Garth and Rebecca tried to put me in a care facility and get me deemed legally incompetent. Until then, I intended to leave them all the businesses when I retired. Now I may leave every dime of their inheritance to charity or my siblings.”
Tuck laughed and laid his arm over her shoulders.
“Though they failed in their first attempt, I knew it was only a matter of time before they would figure out a way to institutionalize me and get their hands on my money. So I hired professionals to make sure that never happened. Once I felt protected, I lived on the Oregon coast. I soon realized I was too close to Portland, which made it easy for them to visit. It may sound awful, but when they’re around I feel as if I’m swimming w
ith sharks. I decided to find someplace more remote, and I began searching for a retirement community where I thought I’d be content. When I finally found this place, I was delighted. Mystic Creek is so isolated that Garth and Rebecca seldom come to visit, and I like it that way. They don’t really love me. It’s all about the money. Their displays of fake affection make me sick to my stomach.”
She released a taut breath. “That’s pretty much it as far as my personal history goes. Health-wise, I’ve been lucky. My knees bother me a little, and I’m not as active as I used to be. But mentally I’m still as sharp as a filleting knife.” She gestured toward her office. “I spend most of each morning at my desk, running my businesses. I truly am loaded. If that bothers you, say so now.”
He bent to kiss her dark hair. “It doesn’t. Maybe I’ll marry you for your money.”
She laughed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Whew! I’m out of breath from talking so fast. But now you know everything, even the ugly parts.”
“I think you’re amazin’. Do you ever go back to Ketchikan and thumb your nose at the people who said you’d never amount to nothin’?”
“They’re mostly all dead now. I went back to bury each of my parents. Afterward I left as fast as my feet could carry me.”
“How much time before our dinner’s done?”
She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes.”
“That’ll give me time to tell my story. It won’t be as interestin’, though.” He finished off his tea. “No yawnin’ allowed.”
She got up and carried their glasses to the kitchen. When she resumed her seat, Tuck settled back to tell her that he’d been born in Texas and raised on a cattle ranch. “When I was thirteen there came a drought and my folks lost pert’ near everything. A few months later I quit school and started searchin’ for work to help my dad keep the land. I had to go a far piece. The ranches near ours couldn’t afford help. For a spell, I worked in Oklahoma for a farmer who gave me room and board. I sent all my wages home. But my parents lost the place anyhow and moved to Houston, where Dad got a factory job.