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“Eliza!” We spin as he refuses to let me go. When he finally sets me down, he captures my face in his hands, staring at my hair with wonder. “Look at you. Never figured you’d ever go red.”
“Yeah, well, desperate times I guess.”
“Eliza?” Silas whispers to Austin, caught on the outside of my reunion with my brother.
I take Tucker’s hand and point to the two cowboys. “Guys, this is my stepbrother, Tucker.” Tucker squeezes my hand, and it reminds me. “Sorry, Dr. Tucker Cromwell.” I make a show of giving him his full title like his vanity requests.
“Doctor, huh?” Austin frowns. “I got this weird rash on my stomach—”
“Sorry,” Tucker laughs easily because it happens quite a bit, “I’m a psychiatrist. I deal with brain chemistry for the most part.”
I can’t count the times that I’ve heard people come to him with their ailments. He’s always so gentle in letting them down.
“This is Silas. He trained me. And this is Austin. He’s the ladies’ man around here.” I set my opposite hand to his arm. “But don’t get all protective. He’s never made a pass at me.”
Tucker extends his hand to shake theirs, obviously still reeling from my sudden appearance. “Nice to meet you guys. I guess I should tell you thank you. You’re obviously protecting little Liza here.”
“Yeah, um, we call her Sunny.” Austin shifts nervously.
“Sunny?” Tucker ruffles my hair. “Because you’re so congenial, right?”
“Hey, they like me.” I glance over my shoulder in time to watch Rhett slip in next to Silas. With a couple words, he excuses both of them to get to work, but I’m glad he doesn’t leave too. I want to do some introductions. “Tucker, this is Rhett.”
“Geez, you’re huge.” Tucker eyes him with a little more nervous energy than I might expect. I forget how tall Rhett seems at first. “What do they put in the water around here?”
Rhett’s face reverts to the steeled expression that won’t break. “So, how’d you find her?”
I almost apologize for him, but Tucker speaks before I have the chance. “That’s a long story.” To me he says, “Can we talk?”
But Rhett takes a step forward to put himself between me and my brother. “Anything you need to say to her can be said in front of me.”
Tucker exhales, but eyeing Rhett’s size, he doesn’t look like he plans to argue. “Yeah, okay.” With a scratch to his forehead, he considers his words for a moment. “Things got pretty bad after you left. Mom, Charlene, she thinks you killed your dad. She’s been sending her team out searching for you, but no one has found you yet. I went out on my own because we both know how they handle things. I knew you didn’t do it, so I wanted to get to you first, to make sure you’re safe.”
“She’s safe.” Rhett looks like he might pull me away, but he keeps his hands to himself. “You still didn’t say how you found her.”
“Monroe.” Tucker rubs the back of his neck. “I found him outside town, pretty beat up, he said you did it. He claims he’s quitting, but I think he’s holding out for some more cash. I asked where he last saw you, and he told me here. So, I came looking.”
“Easy as that?” Rhett’s face won’t soften. He may not trust Tucker, but he doesn’t know him like I do. Tucker has been there for me when no one else would be. When Charlene used to come down on me for doing things wrong, he was the one who stood up for me and stayed by my side. When I was upset about the fights I had with my dad, Tucker took me for a drive and let me vent. Tucker has been nothing but a true brother since the day our families joined together.
I set my hand to Rhett’s shoulder to call him off his strike. “So, it’s true then? My dad is dead?”
Tucker’s face twists with the awful truth. “I’m sorry, Liza.”
“They found the body?” Rhett pushes for more information. I get his persistence, but hearing Dad referred to as something as simple as a body grates on me. It feels callus for him. I mean to glare but the silence from Tucker cuts me short. It’s a simple answer. Why hasn’t he said anything?
Instead, he shifts his feet, staring at the ground. “Not yet. They think whoever killed him,” I don’t miss the short glance he sends my way, “they might have hid him.”
“Wait, Tucker,” I put up my hands to stop him, “you don’t think I did it, do you?”
“No, of course not. I know you didn’t.” But he doesn’t look up. “Look, Eliza, it’s such a mess. We need to sort it out.”
“I’m not coming back with you, Tucker. Not so that your mother can pin this on me.” I press on, speaking over the top of him. “She gave me those pills. She started the fight between Dad and me. Who’s to say she isn’t behind the whole thing?”
The air stiffens like she heard me. Chills run down my spine. Just the thought of her brings it all back. The fear. The control. The way she tried to mold me into everything she wanted. Everything that drove the wedge between Dad and I a little deeper every day.
“I know.” Tucker’s voice hovers just above a whisper. “I’ve thought the same thing. It’s awful for me to say, because she’s my mother, but I saw the redraft on the will. She stood to lose a lot.”
“Dad changed his will?” He never mentioned it to me, but Anderson had started working as a paralegal in the firm. It would make sense that he could find a way to see a copy. It wouldn’t take much to share it with his brother. “What did it say?”
