Tucker (The Family Simon 1)

She made a noise and his heart turned over.

He could barely breathe and glanced at his brother helplessly. Fuck, he hadn’t felt this helpless since...since Marley.

As if the very thought of Marley was enough to do it, an image of her smiling up at him, face flushed, eyes sparkling, hit him like hammer against stone. It was so real that for a moment he could smell the ocean. Feel the sun. He could feel Marley.

Startled, he shook his head. Disorientated.

“Tucker?” Abby croaked, sounding so small.

“I don’t know if it’s true,” he repeated, not knowing what else to say.

A heartbeat passed.

“Well, then,” Abby replied, raising her face to him, her hands clutched to his suit jacket. “I guess you better find out.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Sometime later, when Lisa stroked her hair as the two of them cuddled on the sofa and asked her if she was all right, Abby replied, yes. When her brother Mick dropped by with a pot of soup made fresh by Dani, their cook at The Black Dog, and he asked her how she was doing, she’d told him that she was fine.

Heck, when her mother called and told her that she and her father would be on the first flight back from Arizona, Abby had told her no. She’d told her mother that she was good and would feel awful if they cut their stay short.

Her mother had protested, but Abby insisted they not come and told her that she’d call when she had news. Her mother asked one more time if she was fine and once more Abby said that, yes, she was good.

But the truth of it was, Abby Mathews was nowhere near good.

The truth of it was, Abby Mathews was so close to losing her shit, big time, that the fear of losing her shit is what kept her teetering on that edge. She was so close and yet she refused to give in.

It had only been a few hours since the Marley Simon story had hit the news. Hours since her world had imploded. Since Tucker had brought her back to their place…the home she now shared with him.

Hours since Tucker had kissed her. He’d held her close and whispered that things were going to be okay.

But there were so many questions. Questions that she wanted to ask. Questions that she was afraid to.

And so she said nothing. She’d sat on the edge of their bed and watched as he changed into a pair of jeans and an old Duke University hoodie. Said nothing as he rummaged for his passport, though she kissed him softly when she found it in the top drawer of the dresser in his closet. It had been clipped together with hers, along with two tickets to Costa Rica.

Costa Rica. And yet she said nothing.

She kept the tears away when he slipped into the worn leather jacket that she loved so much and shoved his feet into the Doc’s he’d worn that first time he’d shown up at her apartment.

Abby tried to appear calm when he called his in-laws, though inside she was breaking. She made tea while they discussed getting a special license that would enable them to fly into Havana, though Tucker’s twin was all over that.

Abby tried not to be resentful of the fact that Tucker’s twin was all over that.

But she was. She was resentful and hurt and scared as hell.

In the nearly twenty-four hours since Tucker had left with his brother, she’d only had one brief conversation with him. A quick call to tell her that they’d secured the license they needed and would fly to Montreal and then to Cuba.

She’d sat alone in the middle of their bed, holding the phone so tightly that her knuckles were white.

“You sound tired,” she’d said.

“I am.”

Silence.

“Your brother is with you?”

“Yeah. Teague’s here and so is Jack, thank God.”