I knew my demand hadn’t been fair; it put both of us in an awkward position. But I couldn’t just stand there pretending like I wasn’t going crazy. His eyes burned with an intensity I could see even in the moonlight, and I just couldn’t take the whiplash again. Because that look was the same one he’d had in that paddock only a few hours before. Except Tucker was stuck—an immoveable object determined to frustrate and fascinate me all at the same time, and he seemed desperate to keep us both standing still as he held me with the hand that bore his dead husband’s ring.
“I’m a married man,” he said it so simply, like the fact should have been obvious, and maybe it was to Tucker. But what did you say to that? How could you argue against something so fundamental to another person without completely tearing apart their belief system? I didn’t want that for Tucker. His love and devotion to Raleigh was something beautiful.
“This and that are two different things.” I tried to reason.
“But they’re not.” Tucker countered, eyes narrowing. “I stood on an altar and made a promise to another man.”
“I know, and believe me, I’m not trying to disrespect the commitment you have to Raleigh, I just?—”
“Just what, Jackson?” Tucker cut me off, something blazing behind those whiskey eyes that looked an awful lot like bitterness. “Because it sounds like to me you’re wanting me to admit something that would go against those vows.”
My eyes bounced back and forth between those twin burning flames, trying to find the words to properly describe how wonderful it was to me that Tucker loved so wholly; how I could never ask him to put aside his love for Raleigh, because it was just another piece of him. I wanted to cherish that part of him just as badly as he did, but I couldn’t do it if he wouldn’t let me.
Instead, I dragged my gaze down to his hand still clinging to my arm like it was the last lifeline before he was forever lost in the sea of his misery—to the band that had been exchanged with so much love it permanently etched itself into Tucker’s soul.
“Do you think he would have wanted this for you?” I found myself asking.
“What?” For a brief second, Tucker’s grasp on my arm loosened marginally in his confusion and I held my breath wondering if that was the straw to break this camel’s back. But the pressure returned, and I couldn’t explain the relief that flooded through me.
“Do you think Raleigh would have wanted this for you?” I repeated. “I’m genuinely asking, Tucker, because I didn’t know the man. But you did. So tell me, what kind of life would Raleigh have wanted for you?”
The muscle in Tucker’s jaw jumped as he stared me down, the only sound between us was his heavy breathing and the cricket chirps. I thought maybe we’d once again be stuck, locked in this stare off of past and future till the literal sun came up, but then Tucker spoke. It was low, angry, but the pain rang clear in his words.
“He would’ve wanted to be alive, working this land and these horses by my side.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know because I can’t think about a world without Raleigh in it because it feels like my heart is being ripped from my chest. Is that what you want to hear? That I can’t picture my future anymore because it means picturing a world where the best man I know is six feet under? That every day feels like an endless rerun of the one before it because time hasn’t moved forwardsince he died?” Tucker’s voice broke, choking on the emotion seeping out of him. “Until you.”
Something inside me surged forward at that and before I could register it, I was launching myself toward him. My intention wasn’t to do more than finally hold him against me, but maybe he thought I was trying to make a move on him in his vulnerable state, because he used his free hand to push back at my shoulder. But I wouldn’t be stopped. I couldn’t be. Not when he’d admitted I fit somewhere in the equation of his life.
The problem was, he still had hold of my arm, so the combination of my determination and his opposition caused us to stumble around like a newly born foal learning to walk, and we likely would have once again found ourselves flat on our asses had there not been a fence nearby. His push and my pull caused a twisting motion that had us fumbling till my back hit against the wooden slats of the fence. Using the momentum in my favor, though, I tugged Tucker’s body against mine.
“Hey, hey.” I soothed, as he thrashed like some wild animal trying to evade capture. “You’re safe. You’re okay.”
It took a second for him to realize that all I wanted was to hold him, and that I wouldn’t be going for more without him initiating it, but once he did, I felt him relax. He shifted to let me hold up some of his weight, as he buried his face against my neck. The coarse hairs of his beard scraped against the sensitive skin there, making me shiver, but I didn’t pull away. Whatever he needed, however he needed it, I would give it to him. He could take anything, because I’d willingly offer it all.
Tucker’s hat must have fallen off in the shuffle because I was able to press my cheek against his temple. I let the hand on his back slowly slide up until it met with the soft hairs at the base of his neck, gently running my fingers up and down through them. We stood there for a few heartbeats, me playing with his hair while he tried to calm his breathing, before Tucker’s shoulders began to quake.
Instinctually, I pulled him tighter against me, not minding thedampness that started to seep into my shirt below the jacket he lent me. Closing my eyes, my hand continued to sift through the surprisingly silky strands of his hair, trying to pass along wordless comfort as he poured out his pain. Selfishly, I wanted it to be three years worth of tears. Because then maybe when Tucker lifted his head and looked at me, it would be with red-rimmed eyes that were looking to the future. But I knew they wouldn’t be.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TUCKER
My body felt heavy—rung out and weary—after I’d cried an oceans worth of tears. Jackson’s shirt and skin had soaked up everything, though it was a wonder I hadn’t drowned us both in the process. He’d been my boat in the storm of my own making, literally holding me afloat while I purged myself of so many pent-up feelings.
The guilt. The anger. Maybe some of the devastation.
But not all the pain.
The pain was too tightly woven into the fabric of who I was, but I realized something as a man eleven years younger than me soothed me with words of safety and gentle hair caresses: I may have been dangling over the pit of despair, looking into a familiar dark chasm that was hungry for my torment, but for the first time I felt a rope tied to my waist.
Or rather, the strong arm wrapped around it.
It wasn’t the first time I’d cried in the arms of another person. There’d been no stopping the tears in the early days, but I’d never allowed myself to unload like I just had onto someone else. It felt too selfish. Too vulnerable.
These hadn’t been the simple tears of a man coping with his new reality, they were the torrent of someone who was struggling to find the will to keep going. They were the cries of someone begging for understanding from a God that would never respond with any. It was a downward spiral to a place where Nighttime would be at her worst because every part of me was left tender and exposed.
