“I… I just didn’t want you hurt.”
The thought of that happening made my stomach churn.
He pierced me with his light eyes. A slight breeze lifted the hair from his forehead. He was so handsome, so intensely perfect. “And why is that?”
“Because… because I love you, too. I always have.”
Tucker stood to his full height and walked over to me. I had to tilt my chin back to look up at him. He was so tall, so foreboding I had to wonder why I’d ever questioned their abilities. He scooped me up by my upper arms, hauled me against him, and kissed me. My feet were off the ground, dangling, but I didn’t care. Tucker’s mouth was on mine, hot and eager, searching and… God, perfect.
Wrapping my arms about his neck, I held on, afraid to ever let go.
He pulled back, then set me back down on my feet, but he tugged me with him so he was sitting once again on the step, this time with me on his lap.
“Do you know why I’m so protective of you, precious?”
I shrugged against his shirt. “You did say you love me.”
“That, yes.” Tucker grunted then kissed the top of my head. “It’s time I told you a story of my own. About a girl named Clara. My sister long before my father married Gabe’s mother. Before I knew him at all.”
Sometime while Tucker was telling me about his sister, Gabe sat beside us, looked out at the prairie, the buildings in the distance. At Bridgewater.
Tucker had me crying once again before he was done, the poor girl without any understanding of people being so mean. No wonder he was so ruthlessly protective.
“Can you see why I was speaking the truth—”
“We, brother,” Gabe added.
“Why we were speaking the truth when we said we don’t see the scar? We love you. We have for years.”
Gabe laughed. “Probably for too long.”
“Then you’re not mad?” I asked.
Gabe tucked my hair back behind my ear. “Mad? At you?”
I nodded, bit my lip.
“Furious for putting yourself in danger,” he replied.
“Disappointed you didn’t believe in us enough to know we wouldn’t go along with Masters,” Tucker added.
“Upset you didn’t tell us the truth.”
“Irate you went off on your own.”
The list was long and they added to it, back and forth.
“But we love you,” Gabe repeated.
I relaxed and exhaled a pent-up breath at the last. To hear those words from him, from them, was like a balm to a festering wound. It healed me in ways I never, ever, imagined.
Tucker stood up easily, holding me in his arms as he did so. He turned and strode up the steps and into the house. “But that does not mean you won’t be punished.”
***
Gabe
Tucker carried Abigail up the stairs and into his bedroom. I followed, but at a slight distance, afraid I might get kicked with all the wiggling and thrashing about she was doing.