Crazy On You

CHAPTER TWO

Fingers of gray crept across Lovett, Texas, as Officer Tucker Matthews pulled his Toyota Tundra into the garage and cut the engine. Full dawn was still half an hour to the east and the temperature hovered just above freezing.

He grabbed his small duffle and the service Glock from the seat next to him. He’d just started his third week with the Potter County Sheriff’s Office and was pulling his second twelve-hour night shift. He moved into the kitchen and set the duffle and pistol on the counter. Pinky meowed from the vicinity of the cat condo in the living room, then ran into the kitchen to greet him.

“Hang on, Pinkster,” he said and shrugged out of his brown service coat. He hung it on a hook beside the back door, then moved to the refrigerator. The veterinarian had told him milk wasn’t good for Pinky, but she loved it. He poured some two-percent into a little dish on the floor as the pure black cat with the pink nose rubbed against his leg. She purred and he scratched the top of her head. A little over a year ago, he hadn’t even liked cats. He’d been living on base at Fort Bliss, ready to be discharged from the Army after ten years of service and preparing to move in with his girlfriend, Tiffany, and her cat, Pinky. Two weeks after he moved in with her, she moved out-taking his Gibson custom Les Paul guitar and leaving behind her cat.

Tucker rose and moved back across the kitchen. At that point, he’d had two choices: reenlist or do something else with his life. He loved the Army. The guys were his brothers. The commanding officers, the only real father figures he’d ever known. He’d enlisted at the age of eighteen, and the Army had been his only family. But it was time to move on. To do something besides blow shit up and take bullets. And there was nothing like a bullet to the head to make a guy realize that he actually did care if he lived or died. Until he’d felt the blood run down his face, he hadn’t thought he cared. It wasn’t like there was anyone but his Army buddies who gave a shit anyway.

Then he met Tiffany, and thought she cared. Some of the guys had warned him that she was an Army groupie, but he didn’t listen. He’d met groupies, swam a few times in the groupie pool, but with Tiffany he’d been fooled into believing she cared about him, that she wanted more than a soldier deployed months at a time. Maybe he wanted to be fooled. In the end, he guessed she’d cared more about his guitar. At first, he was pissed. What kind of person abandoned a little cat? Leaving it with him? A guy who’d never had any sort of pet and didn’t have a clue what to do with one? Now, he figured, Tiffany had done him a favor.

So what did a former Army gunner do once he was discharged? Enroll in the El Paso County Sheriff’s Academy, of course. The six-month training program had been a piece of cake for him, and he graduated at the top of his class. Once his probationary period was over, he applied for a position in Potter County, and, a few months ago, moved to Lovett.

Sunlight spread across his backyard and into the neighbors’. He’d bought his first house a few weeks ago. His home. He was thirty, and except for the first five years of his life, when he’d lived with his grandmother, this was the first home to which he truly belonged. He wasn’t an outsider. A squatter. This wasn’t temporary shelter until he was shuffled off to another foster home.

He was home. He felt it in his bones and he didn’t know why. He’d lived in different parts of the country-of the world-but Lovett, Texas, had felt right the moment he arrived. He recognized Lily Darlington’s red Jeep even before he ran her plates. For the past week, since he moved in, he’d be getting ready to hit the sack as she backed out of her driveway with her kid in the car.

Before he shined his light into her car, the impression of his neighbor was… single mother with big blond curls and a long, lean body. After the traffic stop, he knew she was thirty-eight, older than she looked and prettier than he’d imagined from his quick glimpses of her. And she’d clearly been annoyed that he had the audacity to pull her over. He was used to that, though. Generally people weren’t happy to see the rolling lights in their rearview.

Across his yard and Lily’s, separated by a short white fence, his kitchen window faced into hers. Today was Saturday. There weren’t any lights on yet, but he knew that by ten that boy of hers would be outside bouncing a basketball in the driveway and keeping him awake.

He’d been out of the Army for two years but was still a very light sleeper. One small sound and he was wide awake, pinpointing the position, origin, and exact nature of the sound.

He replaced Pinky’s milk, then she followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. A remote control sat on the coffee table he’d made from a salvaged old door. He’d sanded and varnished it until it was smooth as satin.

Tucker loved working with his hands. He loved taking a piece of old wood and making it into something beautiful. He reached for the remote and turned the big screen TV to a national news channel. Pinky jumped up onto the couch beside him as he leaned over and untied his tactical boots. A deep purr rattled her chest as she squeezed her little black body between his arm and chest. With his attention on the screen across the room and the latest news out of Afghanistan, he finished with one boot and started on the other. The picture of tanks and troops in camouflage brought back memories of restlessness, violence, and boredom. Of knocking down doors, shooting anything that moved, and watching his buddies die. Adrenaline, fear closing his throat, and blood.

Pinky bumped the top of her head against his chin and he moved his head from side to side to avoid her. The things he’d seen and done in the military had certainly affected him. Had changed him, but not like some of the guys he knew. Probably because he had his share of trauma and stress before signing up. By eighteen, he’d been a pro at handling whatever life threw his way. He knew how to shut it down and let it all roll right off.

He hadn’t come out of the military with PTSD like some of the guys. Oh, sure he’d been jumpy and on edge, but after a few months, he’d adjusted to civilian life. Perhaps because his whole life had been one adjustment after another.

Not anymore, though. “Jesus, Pink.” The cat’s purring and bumping got so annoying he picked her up and set her on the couch beside him. Of course she didn’t stay and crawled right back onto his lap. He sighed and scratched her back. Somehow he’d let an eight-pound black cat with a pink nose totally run his life. He wasn’t sure how that had even happened. He used to think cats were for old ladies or ugly chicks or gay men. The fact that he had a five-foot-square cat condo that he’d built himself, and a pantry stocked with cat treats, pretty much shot his old prejudice all to hell. He wasn’t an old lady or ugly or gay. He did draw the line at cat outfits, though.

He stripped down to his work pants and the cold-weather base layer he wore beneath his work shirt. He made himself a large breakfast of bacon and eggs and juice. As he rinsed the dishes, he heard the first thud of the neighbor’s basketball. It was eight thirty. The kid was at it earlier than usual. Tucker glanced out the window that faced the neighbor’s driveway. The kid’s blond hair stuck up in the back. He wore a silver Dallas Cowboys parka and a pair of red sweatpants.

When Tucker worked the night shift, he liked to be in bed before ten and up by four. He could wear earplugs, but he’d rather not. He didn’t like the idea of one of his senses being dulled while he slept. He pulled on his jogging shoes and a gray hooded sweatshirt. If he talked to the kid, maybe they could work something out.

He hit the garage door opener on his way out and moved into the driveway. The cold morning chilled his hands, and his breath hung in front of his face. He moved toward the boy, across a strip of frozen grass, as the steady bounce-bounce-bounce of the ball and the sound of it hitting the backboard filled his ears.

“Hey, buddy,” he said as he stopped in his neighbor’s drive. “It’s kind of cold to be playing so early.”

“I got to be the best,” he said, his breath streaming behind him as he tried for a layup and missed. The ball hit the rim and the kid caught it before it hit the ground. “I’m going to be the best at school.”

Tucker stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt. “You’re going to freeze your nuts off, kid.”

The boy stopped and looked up at him. His clear brown eyes widened as he stuck the ball under one arm of his puffy coat. “Really?”

No. Not really. Tucker shrugged. “I wouldn’t risk it. I’d wait until around three or four when it warms up.”

The kid tried a jump shot that slid around the rim. “Can’t. It’s the weekend. I gotta practice as much as I can.”

Crap. Tucker bent down and grabbed the ball as it rolled by his foot. He supposed he could threaten to give the kid some sort of citation or scare him with the threat of arrest. But Tucker didn’t believe in empty threats or abusing his power over the powerless. He knew what that felt like. And telling the kid he was going to freeze his nuts off, didn’t count. That could really happen here in the Texas panhandle. Especially when the wind started blowing. “What’s your name?”

“Phillip Darlington, but everyone calls me Pippen.”

Tucker stuck out his free hand. “Tucker Matthews. How old are you Pippen?”

“Ten.”

Tucker was no expert, but the kid seemed tall for his age.

“My grandma says you named your cat Pinky. That’s a weird name.”

This from a kid named Pippen? Tucker bounced the ball a few times. “Whose your grandma?”

“Louella Brooks. She lives on the other side of me and my mom.” He pointed behind him with his thumb.

Ah. The older lady who talked nonstop and had given him a pecan pie. “We have a problem.”

“We do?” He sniffed and wiped the back of his hand across his red nose.

“Yeah. I’ve got to sleep and you bouncing this ball is keeping me awake.”

“Put a pillow over your head.” He tilted his chin to one side. “Or you could turn on the TV. My mom has to sleep with the TV on sometimes.”

Neither was an option. “I’ve got a better idea. We play a game of H-O-R-S-E. If I win, you wait until three to play. If you win, I’ll put a pillow over my head.”

Phillip shook his head. “You’re a grown-up. That’s not fair.”

Damn. “I’ll spot you the first three letters.”

The kid looked at his fingers and counted. “I only have to make two baskets?”

“Yep.” Tucker wasn’t worried. He’d been watching the kid for a couple of days and he sucked. He tossed the kid the ball. “I’ll even let you go first.”

“Okay.” Pippen caught the ball and moved to an invisible free-throw line. His breath hung in front of his face, his eyes narrowed, and he bounced the ball in front of him. He got into an awkward free-throw stance, shot, and totally wafted it. The ball missed the backboard and Tucker tried not to smile as he ran into his own driveway to retrieve it. He dribbled back and did a left-handed layup. “That’s an H,” he said and tossed the ball to Pippen. The boy tried his luck at a layup and missed.

Tucker hit a jump shot at the center key. “O.”

“Wow.” Pippen shook his head. “You’re good.”

He’d played a lot of b-ball on his downtime in the military, and it didn’t hurt that the kid’s hoop was lowered to about eight feet and there was no one playing defense.

The kid moved to the spot where Tucker had stood. Once again his eyes narrowed and he bounced the ball in front of him. He lined up the shot and Tucker sighed.

“Keep your elbows pointed straight,” he heard himself coach. God, he couldn’t believe he was giving the kid pointers. He wasn’t even sure he liked kids. He’d never really been around any since he’d been one himself, and most of those had been like him. Throwaways.

Pippen held the ball right in front of his face and pointed his elbows at the net.

“No.” Tucker moved behind the kid, lowered the ball a few inches, and moved his cold hands to the correct position. “Keep the ball lined up, bend your knees, and shoot.”

“Pippen!”

Both Tucker and the boy spun around at the same time. Lily Darlington stood behind them, wrapped up in a red wool coat and wearing white bunny slippers. Crisp morning light caught in her blond hair curled up in big Texas-size rollers. The chilled air caught in his lungs and turned her cheeks pink. She was pretty, even if her ice blue gaze cut Tucker to shreds. She stared at him as she spoke to her child. “I called your name twice.”

“Sorry.” The kid dribbled the ball. “I was practicing my shots.”

“Go eat your breakfast. Your waffles are getting cold.”

“I have to practice.”

“Basketball season is over until next year.”

“That’s why I have to practice. To get better.”

“You have to go eat. Right now.”

Pippen gave a long suffering sigh and tossed the ball to Tucker. “You can play if you want.”

He didn’t, but he caught the ball. “Thanks. See ya around, Pippen.”

As the kid stormed past his mother, she reached out and grabbed him. She hugged him close and kissed the top of his head. “You don’t have to be the best at everything, Pip.” She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I love you bigger than the sun and stars.”

“I know.”

“Forever and ever. Always.” She moved her palms to his cheek. “You’re a good boy”-she smiled into his upturned face-“with dirty hands. Wash them when you go inside.”

Tucker looked at her slim hands on the boy’s cheeks and temples, cupping his ears. Her nails were red and her skin looked soft. A thin blue vein lined her wrist and disappeared beneath the cuff of her red wool coat. The chilly air in his lungs burned. “Go inside or you’ll freeze your ears off.”

“My nuts.”

Uh-oh.

“What?”

“I’ll freeze my nuts off.” He glanced behind his shoulder and laughed. “Tucker said it’s so cold out here I’ll freeze my nuts off.”

Her gaze cut to his and one brow rose up her forehead. “Charming.” She ran her fingers through her son’s short hair. “Go eat before your waffles are as cold as your… ears.” The kid took off and she folded her arms across her chest. The curlers in her hair should have made her look ridiculous. They didn’t. They made him want to watch her take them out. It was silly, and he dribbled the ball instead of thinking about her hair. “You must be the new neighbor.”

“Tucker Matthews.” He stuck the ball under one arm and offered his free hand. She looked at it for several heartbeats then shook it. Her skin was as warm and soft as it looked; he wondered what her palm would feel like on the side of his face. Then he wondered why he was wondering about her at all.

“Lily Darlington.” Her blue eyes stared into his, and she obviously didn’t recognize him from the night before. She took her hand back and slid it into her pocket. “I’m sure you’re perfectly nice, but I’m very protective and I don’t let just any man around my son.”

That was wise, he supposed. “Are you worried about me doing something to your kid?”

She shook her head. “Not worried. Just letting you know that I protect Pip.”

Then maybe she shouldn’t have named him Pip because that was just a guaranteed ass-kicking. Then again, this was Texas. The rule for names in Texas was different from the rest of the country. A guy named Guppy couldn’t exactly beat the crap out of a Pip. “I’m not going to hurt your kid.” He folded his arms and rocked back on his heels.

“Just so we’re clear, if you even think about hurting one hair on his head, I’ll kill you and not lose a wink of sleep over it.”

For some perverse reason, the threat made him like her. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know that you’re playing basketball with a ten-year-old at nine o’clock in the morning,” she said, her accent thick with warning. “It’s about thirty-two degrees, and you’re talking about your freezing nuts with my son. That’s not exactly normal behavior for an adult man.”

Since she obviously lived alone, he had to wonder if she knew anything about normal behavior for an adult man. “I’m playing basketball and freezing my nuts off so I can get some sleep. I just got off work and your kid’s basketball keeps me awake. I thought if I played a game of H-O-R-S-E, he’d cut me a break.” That was close enough to the truth.

She blinked. “Oh.” She tilted her head to one side and a wrinkle pulled her brows as if she were suddenly trying to place him in her memory. “You work the night shift at the meat packing plant? I worked there for a few weeks about five years ago.”

“No.” He dribbled the ball a few times and waited.

“Hmm.” Her brow smoothed and she turned to go. “I’ve got to see to Pip. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Matthews.”

“We met last night.”

She turned back and once again her brows were drawn.

“I pulled you over for inattentive driving.”

Her lips parted. “That was you?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “You’re a shitty driver, Lily.”

“You’re a sheriff?”

“Deputy.”

“That explains the tragic pants.”

He looked down at his dark brown trousers with the beige stipe up the outside legs. “You don’t think they’re hot.”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

He tossed her the ball and she caught it. “Tell Pippen that if he cuts me a break tomorrow morning, I’ll teach him how to slam dunk tomorrow afternoon around four.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“You’re not afraid I’m a pervert?”

“Pippen knows he can’t leave the yard without telling me or his grandma.” She shrugged. “And you already know I’m licensed to carry concealed. I’ve got a Beretta 9mm subcompact.” She stuck the ball under one arm. “Just so you know.”

“Nice.” He managed not to laugh. “But are you bragging or threatening a law officer?”

“Pippen’s daddy isn’t really in the picture. I’m all he’s got and it’s my job to make sure he’s safe and happy.”

“He’s lucky to have you.”

“I’m lucky to have him.”

Tucker watched her go, then turned and walked back to his house. Only one person in his entire life had made sure he was safe. His grandmother Betty. If he thought hard, he could recall the touch of her soft hand on his head and back. But Betty had died three days after Tucker turned five.

He moved into his kitchen and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. His mother had split when he was a baby and he had no memory of her. Just photographs. He didn’t know who his father was and doubted his mother had ever known. She’d finally killed herself with a drug cocktail when Tucker was three. As a kid, he’d wondered about her; wondered what his life would have been like if she hadn’t been an addict. As an adult, he just felt disgust-disgust for a woman who cared more about drugs than her son.

He turned off the television on his way to his bedroom and kicked off his shoes. After Betty’s death, he’d been shipped off to aunts who didn’t want or care about him; and by the time he turned ten, he was turned over to the state of Michigan and shuffled through the foster care system.

He took off his pants and tossed them into the hamper he used for dry cleaning. No one had wanted to adopt a ten-year-old with his history and bad attitude. He’d spent most of the years between the ages of ten and sixteen in and out of foster homes and juvenile court, which finally landed him in a halfway house run by a retired Vietnam vet. Elias Peirce had been a no-bullshit hard-ass with strict rules. But he’d been fair. The first time Tucker had given him lip, he gave Tucker an old cane-back chair and a pack of sandpaper. “Make it as smooth as a baby’s backside,” he’d barked. It had taken him a week, but after his daily homework and chores were done, Tucker sanded until the chair felt like silk beneath his hands. Following the chair, he’d made a bookcase and a small table.

Tucker couldn’t say that he and Elias Peirce had been as close as father and son, but he changed Tucker’s life and never treated him like a throwaway kid. Elias made him work out the pent-up anger and aggression just below his skin in a constructive way.

Tucker didn’t like to talk about his past-didn’t really talk about his life. During the course of normal conversation, whenever anyone asked about his life, he just said he didn’t have much family and changed the subject.

He thought of Lily Darlington and the way she touched Pippen. The way she looked into his eyes and touched his cheek and told him she loved him bigger than the stars. Tucker was sure his grandmother had loved him, but he was equally sure she’d never threatened to kick ass on his behalf. He’d had to kick ass on his own behalf. He’d always had to take care of himself.

He was a man now-thirty years old-and he was the man he was because of the life he’d been dealt. He knew a lot of guys who’d come back from Iraq or Afghanistan and had a hard time adjusting to life outside of the military. Not Tucker. At least not as much. He’d learned long ago how to deal with shit thrown at him. How to cope with trauma and how to let it go. Oh, he had some really dark memories, but he didn’t live with them. He’d worked them out and moved on.

He stripped to his gray boxers and climbed into bed. Everything he had, he’d earned. No one had given him anything and he was a content man. He fell asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow, and at some point, when he was warm and comfy and deep into REM, Lily Darlington entered his dreams. She wore red silk and her hands touched his face and neck. She looked into his eyes and smiled as she cupped his cheek. “You’re cold, Tucker,” she said. “You need to warm up.” The dream started nice and innocent but quickly turned hot and dirty. Her hands slid across his chest as she lowered her mouth to the side of his neck, and the things she whispered against his throat weren’t in the least innocent.

“I want you,” she whispered as her palm moved over his chest, down the side of his waist, then back up again. “Do you want me?” Her touch was soft and slow, frustrating, sliding back and forth and driving him mad.

“Yes. God, yes.” He ran his fingers through her hair, bunching it in his hands as she kissed his neck and inched her hot palm lower-lower, down his stomach and belly until her fingernails scraped his skin just above the elastic of his underwear.

Her fingers slide beneath the elastic waistband and she wrapped her soft warm hand around his extremely tight erection. “You’re a good boy with dirty hands.”

His heart pounded in his chest as he shoved her against the wall and into her. All caveman aggression and hunger. In his dream she loved every second of it. She met every hard plunge of his hard dick with insatiable greed, shoving her hips into his, begging for more and moaning his name. “Tucker!” she screamed in his head-and his eyes flew open. He sat up in bed, his lungs pulling oxygen into his chest and his pulse pounding in his ears.

A sliver of light sneaked beneath his blackout blinds and streaked across the dark room. The sound of his heavy breathing filled the space around him. He’d just had a wild sex dream about Lily Darlington. Obviously he’d gone without for too long, and he’d lost his mind. He didn’t know her. She was a single mother. He felt like a pervert.

A pervert who needed to get laid before he lost his mind again.