Taking Her Time by Cait London

braced himself for a new experience, because somehow he had to tear her out of his life, his mind and his body. “We may as well talk about this,” he said slowly and sat beside her on concrete steps.
    Her words were muffled. “The whole town is probably talking about us now.”
    â€œThat’s likely. They have before.” He wanted to place his hand on that shiny mussed hair, smoothing it, and rub the tension out of her shoulders and back. Tucker was surprised to see his hand hovering above Carly’s head. He lowered it and gripped his jeaned knee firmly, anchoring his need to touch his ex-wife.
    â€œI really did save your life by marrying you,” she said.
    Tucker nodded; at the time her father hadn’t been happy, and Billy Walker had a temper. “Thank you.”
    She looked at him with suspicion. “Now you’re just tormenting me.”
    â€œI married you because I was afraid you’d get away from me. You always were a fast mover.” His words surprised him; but they rang true in the sweet summer air.
    Her eyes widened. “You never said that before.”
    He took a deep breath and decided to hand her the rest. Because he couldn’t bear to look at her tear-streaked face, he looked up at the fading square of blue sky, wedged between the 1890s two-story buildings. “And I didn’t think I could catch you. I appreciate that you did try, and I shouldn’t have done some things like comparing your cooking to my mother’s. What you could do best just ran in a different direction…. I turned off your laptop. You can finish off whatever you have going—that office emergency—and then you’d better leave.”
    â€œYou were embarrassed because we didn’t have sex that first week.”
    â€œWe made up for that. Things change and so have we.” He looked down at Carly. “You smell like fish. Did you find what you were looking for at my house?”
    She looked stunned and guilty for a just a heartbeat, before she recovered to come back at him. “ My house. I don’t know what you mean, but I want to make an offer to buy back my grandmother’s house.”
    â€œYou’re not getting it, Carly.”
    â€œYou could make a profit,” she insisted. “And you’ve been drinking. It’s Saturday night. Why don’t you go to what’s-her-name blond-woman and think about selling to me?”
    Tucker had just bared his scarred heart to his ex-wife, and she’d stepped right in and started wrangling over property values. He wouldn’t let her know that he hadn’t managed a relationship after her. Every woman had seemed dull in comparison. He couldn’t think of getting naked and having sex with anyone else. Since they’d rolled on Anna Belle’s lawn, that was all he could think about doing with Carly.
    Tucker forced himself to stand and stretch and breathe the alley’s hovering scents of summer and fish. He wasn’t certain how the intimate-talk business was supposed to go, but he’d just bared his heart, cleaning out a little of the ache, and got a real estate offer in return. His throat was dry and tight, but he managed, “I think I’ll just do that. I don’t appreciate you messing up my closets and drawers. Whatever you think you want was gone a long time ago.”
    Â 
    Carly could not let Tucker do that to her—just drop something on her that they’d wrangled about in their marriage, that had haunted her since—and walk away.
    Tucker was doing just that—all six-foot-two-inches of broad shoulders, tapering down to narrow hips and long legs in those good-fitting jeans. He’d just given her the intimacy that she’d wanted and ached for in their young, short marriage—and he wasn’t giving her a chance to return it. It was just like him to leave the field while he was ahead. “Do not take one more step, Tucker.”
    He