Liz Flaherty - The Happiness Pact

The boy rolled his eyes. “It’s nice to see you again,” he told Meredith politely. “I’m going over to my grandma’s. She needs help eating her lasagna.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine thirty,” said Jack.

“Wear your coat,” said Arlie.

When the door had closed behind Charlie, Tucker said, “I’m Tucker. It’s nice to meet you.” He didn’t know what else to say. He’d dated beautiful women before, but he’d never gotten particularly good at just talking to them. He would never admit it to his already-too-smart nephew, but they seriously intimidated him.

“You, too.” She smiled at him, but the expression faded. “I’m sorry. You’re the first date I’ve had since...well, since I got married, I guess. I don’t know how good I’m going to be at it.”

Huh. She was beautiful, but she was also scared and unsure of herself. And a puppy had peed on her coat. The least he could do was be a nice guy. “My friend Libby says I’m really lousy at the whole dating thing, so you’re in good company.”

Jack stepped forward. “Don’t listen to him, Meredith. He’s never good company.”

“Dinner’s ready. Let’s get started so that Meredith and I can talk shop about our shared profession and turn you guys green,” said Arlie brightly. “I haven’t had a good breech-birth conversation during the main course in a long time.”

Tucker gestured for Meredith to precede him to the dining area. “That’s okay. Jack and I can hold forth about fishing lures and go into graphic detail about when Paul Phillipy had to extract a hook from my leg.”

The evening was okay. More than okay, really. Tucker liked Meredith. He asked her if she’d like to go into Sawyer one night to see a movie and have dinner. Her kids could come, too, if she liked. Tucker liked kids.

She said she’d like to, blushing the whole time, but that she’d get a sitter. She didn’t think they were at all ready for the idea of Mom dating. She shook her head then, and Tucker thought for a minute she was going to tear up, but then she admitted, “I’m not sure Mom’s ready for it, either. But I like you. I’d like to go if it’s a chance you’re willing to take.”

Tucker thought it was.

She left at nine, anxious about the children she’d left with someone they didn’t know well. Tucker refused her offer of a ride. He hadn’t walked in a few days, and the weather was unseasonably mild. “Come on,” said his brother. “I’ll go with you as far as Gianna’s. Arlie has someone on the verge of delivery, so she’s not leaving her post.”

They walked around the lake, and Tucker felt a familiar rush of gratitude to be so close to his Irish-twin brother again. Born ten months apart of different mothers, they’d been reared mostly together. But Jack had left Lake Miniagua the autumn after the prom-night accident, guilt driving him away from both Arlie and his younger brother. Their father, who’d been driving drunk and caused the collision, had been angry at Jack at the time. In Jack’s grieving seventeen-year-old mind, he should have been able to prevent the accident and keep everyone safe. Not until their grandmother’s death had he returned and made his peace with both himself and the people he loved.

When he moved back to the lake, Tucker did, too.

“You’re a great dad,” Tucker said as they walked toward Arlie’s mother’s house. “Where’d you learn that?”

Jack laughed. “From Charlie. Same place you learned to be a great uncle.”

They walked on in silence. Finally, Jack said, “What’s on your mind, Tuck? Why the sudden urge to jump onto the marriage and family wagon?”

Tucker grinned at him. “At the risk of sounding like the stereotypical younger brother, I want what you have. What you and Arlie have. I don’t think I’m going to feel about anyone the way you do about each other—unfortunately I’m wired more like our father than my mother. The feelings just don’t go that deep. But I can like somebody a lot, and she can like me and we can both love kids. There are worse reasons to be married than just wanting a family.”

“There are.” Jack’s marriage to Tracy, Charlie’s mother, had been based on friendship alone—in college, he’d wanted to help the lab partner who’d been impregnated by an abusive boyfriend. The fact that Charlie wasn’t Jack’s biological son had never had any bearing on anything. “Tracy and I are still close. We probably always will be.” He slowed enough to capture Tucker’s gaze. “But we couldn’t be married. Friendship wasn’t enough to base a marriage on.”

“I know. If it was, I’d marry Libby.” As soon as the words were out, Tucker regretted them. They sounded disrespectful, as if she would be a fallback choice. Libby Worth might not be particularly beautiful, based on society’s magazine-cover criteria, and her only claim to a degree was a diploma from Miniagua High School, but she was no one’s last resort.

His brother hooted laughter that rang out across the still lake. “Like she’d have you.”

Tucker walked to Seven Pillars from Gianna’s, suddenly anxious to talk to Libby about Meredith. He hadn’t seen his best buddy since her new stove was delivered, when she’d called him to come and see what she’d done with her gambling spoils. She’d pulled a small cherry pie out of the new oven while he was there, gotten out two forks and poured two cups of coffee. They’d eaten every bit of the pie and emptied the coffeepot, laughing the whole time.

Maybe she’d be up for a cup of Mollie’s hot chocolate at the Grill, although the lights on in the tearoom kitchen usually meant Libby was still baking for the next day. He tapped on the back door and pushed it open. “Lib? You still working?”

She looked up from the island Caleb Hershberger had built from scrap wood when he’d helped remodel the big Victorian that housed the tearoom. She smiled a welcome that went a long way toward warming Tucker’s cold feet. “Come on in. Help Nate test the new pie recipe.”

Another survivor of the accident and the owner of Feathermoor, the golf course near the lake, Nate Benteen was also a lifelong friend. He was sitting on a stool at the far end of the island with a cup and a plate in front of him. He looked comfortable there. Very comfortable.

But what was he doing here? He was supposed to be in North Carolina designing links-style golf courses. Even as he was shaking hands, Tucker asked the question.

“The owners of the new course are coming up for a few days in April. They want to get a look at Feathermoor now that it’s been here a few years and matured, so to speak,” Nate explained. “They’re going to stay at Hoosier Hills—not the campground, but the cabins. I was looking for a place to have long business dinners with them without going into Sawyer or Kokomo, so I came to beg Libby to feed us.”

Libby handed Tucker a cup of coffee and waved him to a seat. “Did you meet Meredith? Did you like her? More to the point, could she stand you?”

“Yes and yes, and she said she’d go out with me, so maybe. She was fun to talk to.”

“Good. Are you taking her to the Valentine’s party at the clubhouse?”

“On a first real date? No. Although if the first date works out well, the party would be a great second or third one. Are you going?”

“I’m going with Nate. We figure our last date was when he was a senior and I was a junior, so maybe we should try again.” She beamed, but there was something a little off in the expression. What was it?

Oh.

That had been the night of the accident, when everyone’s lives had changed. Nate, who’d had a golf scholarship and plans to play professionally, had ended up with pins in his hips. He’d settled for designing golf courses for a living instead, starting with Feathermoor. Back then, it had still been his parents’ farm that had abutted the Worth place. Nate didn’t like the term settled, though, and he was one of that happiest people Tucker knew.