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Tucker's Bride
By Lois Richer Harlequin Enterprises
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises
All right reserved. ISBN: 0373871899
Chapter One
Two things hit Tucker Townsend squarely between the eyes on his first evening back in Montana.
First, after seven years, Ginny Brown was more beautiful than he remembered. And second, even Jubilee Junction, the place he'd once thought stoicly immune to change, had probably been transformed from the homey little haven of his youth.
And why not? Nothing else in his life had stayed the same.
Still, hope burned inside, refusing to be dampened - hope that with the rest of his life in upheaval, Ginny and the Junction would be there, rock solid as always. He'd needed to believe that, for his own self-preservation. Over the past days and weeks, he'd clung to his memories of Ginny and the sleepy little town like a kid clings to Santa Claus.
Please God, let this be the place I find answers. "Hey, Tuck! I wondered when you'd get here. Your phone calls are always too short." Coach Bains whacked him on the back hard enough to topple an oak tree. The wrinkled face beamed with delight. "I knew you'd come here first."
The little white church - his sanctuary. Back in the old days, hadn't he always run here first when he was in trouble? Looking for a miracle, no doubt. Tucker winced at the foolishness of that. There were no miracles, not for him.
"You're just in time to celebrate." Tuckercould see that. At First Avenue Church, the fellowship hall hummed with vibrant displays of spring daffodils and rich blue hyacinths. There were baskets crammed full of the wild lilac crocus flowers he remembered from springtimes past. The verdant forest green of ferns and newly budded leaves arranged in the center of each table only added to the riot of color.
But all of this bounty took second place to the paper wedding bells dangling over Ginny Brown's curly head.
"What's up, Coach?" Tucker forced his eyes off Ginny and the masculine arm tossed so carelessly behind her shoulders.
"Bridal shower." Tucker swallowed. Hard. So Ginny was getting married, the bells weren't an illusion his damaged eye had conjured up. He should be happy for her. So why did he suddenly feel as if he'd been abandoned?
Because he desperately needed her help. Tucker quashed that thought immediately. He had no right to ask her. None. She owed him nothing, no explanations, no justification for her choices, nothing at all. He'd forfeited everything while he chased his dream.
Coach leaned closer. His voice dropped a decibel. "Nice things, these showers. Everybody gets to celebrate before all the hoity-toity of the wedding. Don't have to wear a suit here, either." Coach's merry blue eyes winked with fun.
"You own a suit?" Tucker tore his eyes away from Ginny long enough to blink at the old man.
"Yep. Wear it once, maybe twice every year. I suspect the wife'll dig it out when this shindig happens, too."
"And when might that be?" Tucker swallowed again, his eyes moving to Ginny and the man who sprawled on the chair next to hers.
Riley Cantrel. Tucker should have guessed. Riley had always planned his life down to the nth degree. He probably had lists of pros and cons when it came to Ginny, though there couldn't be many cons. Ginny would make a great wife. But not for Tucker. Never for him.
"I guess it's time she got married." He pretended a nonchalance he absolutely did not feel.
"Way past time, if you ask me. All this thinking and making up problems where there aren't any. In my time we just got married. Then we handled the problems. Made life a whole lot easier." Coach snorted his indignation.
"She's been going with him for that long?" Tucker mocked himself. He'd been a fool to run back here, tail between his legs. What had made him think Ginny would even speak to him after seven long years?
"What's the matter, your other eye doesn't work, either?" Coach jerked his thumb forward and to the left. "They must have taken a hunk of your brain out if you don't remember how long those two have been a couple."
"I guess I forgot." Tucker frowned as he watched Ginny tilt her head to whisper something in Riley's ear.
Coach poked him in the ribs, face perplexed. "You forgot Drusilla Andrews and Rob Lassiter have been canoodling in corners since tenth grade? You better see a doctor, son. You're sicker than I thought."
Tucker's breath whooshed out of his chest in a surge of something very like relief.
"Drusilla and Rob are finally getting married," he murmured, more for his own edification than anything else. He might have known Coach would pick up on that.
"That's what I been saying for the past five minutes. Those two are getting hitched. Why else d'ya think they'd have a wedding shower?"
"Wasn't thinking, I guess." Tucker grinned as his glance sought and found Rob, his high school buddy - the only guy in their graduating class who'd never wanted more than the cattle and the spread his daddy had raised him on. Except for Drusilla. Rob had always wanted Dru.
"Well, they took long enough." Tucker chuckled at the lovesick pair. Some things never changed!
"You should talk!" Coach glared at him, and the warmth in his eyes frosted over. "What's this I hear about you getting engaged to some bird called Amanda DuPres?" His lips made a mockery of the old Bostonian name.
Did the whole world know? "I'm not sure what you heard, Coach." Tucker's hands fisted at his sides, but he hung on to his composure out of sheer willpower. "Doesn't matter anyway, I suppose. Amanda is a wonderful woman and a good friend, but we're not getting married. I made a mistake."
"Of course it was a mistake, you idiot! You're not the type for some fancy rich girl. Doesn't matter how far you go. The Junction's your home. That won't change." Coach whacked him on the back once more, for good measure, his mismatched teeth sparkling in a grin of pure happiness.
Tucker checked, but no one else had noticed them, not yet, anyway. He relaxed, gave in to the urge and let himself drown in the sight of her just once more.
Everything about Ginny was so - normal. Her big green eyes sparkled and shone as she teased Riley. Her lips still curved in that wholehearted grin, generous, nothing held back. Her hands still fluttered around when she spoke, accenting her words with a touch here, a motion there.
But it was Ginny's hair - that glossy, bouncing mane of almost black curls that refused to be constrained - that held his scrutiny the longest. Tucker almost laughed out loud. How many times had his high school Ginny despaired of her naturally curly hair? She'd tried the shorn-sheep look, the straight look, the scraped back and tied tight look. None of them worked. Ginny's curls simply would not obey. They rioted across her scalp however they wished, proclaiming her - what did that guy at the French station in Paris call it?
Joie de vivre - the joy of life. That was Ginny, all right, bubbling joy. Tonight she looked very happy.
Tucker's eyes strayed to her hair. Once he'd loved the touch of those curls. Once - a lifetime ago.
One hand lifted of its own accord to rub the healing tissue on his face as Tucker soaked in the rest of her, clad tonight in a brilliant turquoise velour pantsuit that begged you to brush your fingers against the glossy threads.
Excerpted from Tucker's Bride by Lois Richer Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
