Crazy on You by Rachel Gibson Page A

of wood he’d reclaimed from a demolished ranch house near Houston. She also learned that he ran five miles on a treadmill and lifted weights, which was good because he liked a big breakfast before he went to bed in the morning.
    While he ate, she sipped coffee and answered questions he asked about her life. He himself gave up little about his own, though. He talked about his job and who he’d arrested and on what charge, and he talked about playing basketball with Pippen while she was at work. He talked a little about the men who’d served with him in the Army and his time in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that after he got out of the Army, he was closed off but wasn’t anymore. For a guy who didn’t consider himself “closed off,” he would only go so deep into his life, and when she asked about his family, he told her they were all dead. Case closed. End of story.
    Conversely, he asked a lot of questions about her family, and like him, she only went so deep. She told him about growing up in such a small town and that she’d fallen for Rat Bastard Ronnie Darlington because Ronnie owned a truck and looked good in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She talked about her low expectations and lower self-esteem. She talked about Ronnie leaving her with a two-year-old and a drained bank account, but didn’t mention the part about driving her car into his house.
    On the third Monday they both had off, she told him about the time her sister Daisy had tried to kick Ronnie in the crotch outside the Minute Mart. Of course, she didn’t mention that she’d been involved in a hair-pulling fight with Kelly the Skank at the same time. Let him think Daisy, the responsible one, was the crazy sister.
    They spent the next few hours in bed, and when she got up and dressed he stacked his hands behind his head and watched her.
    “When are you going to come to my front door?” he asked.
    She looked across her shoulder at him as she hooked her bra behind her back. “I can’t do that.” She’d been the subject of gossip and speculative gazes most of her life, but she hadn’t given the people of Lovett anything to talk about in a long time. She planned to keep it that way. “People will talk.”
    “Who cares?”
    She reached for her blouse and threaded her arms though the sleeves. “I do. I’m a single mother.” She pulled her hair from beneath the collar. “I have to be careful.” And if and when their relationship ended, no one would know about it. She’d probably be upset. It would be awkward, but the whole town wouldn’t know she’d been dumped again—this time by a younger man. She could hold her head up, and Pippen wouldn’t have to live it down.
    Tucker sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He watched her button up the front and he stood and stepped into a pair of jeans. He loved opening his back door and seeing here there, but he wanted more. “There’s a difference between being careful and thinking we need to keep a dirty secret.”
    She glanced up from her hands. “I don’t think we’re a dirty secret.” A secret, yes. Dirty, no.
    “Have you told your sister about me?” He arranged his junk then zipped up his pants. “Your mother? Anyone?”
    Her blond hair brushed her cheeks as she shook her head. “Why is it anyone’s business?”
    “Because we’re sneaking around like we’re doing something wrong and we’re not.” He reached for a T-shirt and pulled it over his head. “I told you right up front I want all of you. I’m not going to treat you like you’re just a piece of ass.”
    “I appreciate that, Tucker.” She stepped into a pair of black pants. “But I have a ten-year-old son and I have to be very careful.”
    “I like Pippen. I’d play ball with him even if you weren’t in the picture. He’s a funny little kid, and I think he likes me.”
    “He does.”
    “I would never do anything to hurt him.”
    She looked up at him as she buttoned her pants. “Kids are cruel. I