ring . . . oh, you had your hands full.” She swung the door open so Tucker could come inside.
Sassy rose up on her hind feet when Tucker carried in pizza and then hurried off toward the kitchen, where she jumped up on the countertop.
“She loves pizza. Meat lover’s with extra cheese and marinara sauce,” Tucker explained as he took the first piece out of the box and cut it into bite-size pieces for her.
“I can see that. She almost beat me to the door when the bell rang.” Jolene got out paper plates and napkins.
“Like Pavlov’s dog . . . or cat? Anyway, the doorbell means pizza to her.” He chuckled.
“She never does that when it’s the ladies.”
“She can smell pizza a mile away.” Tucker stacked three pieces on a plate.
That’s when she noticed that his wedding ring was gone. That was a huge thing. She was glad that she had a mouthful of food, because her first idea was to ask why he’d taken it off. With the ring gone and the difference she could feel in him, she wondered if he’d found a final piece of closure that day. She tried not to stare at his hands, but it was impossible to keep her eyes away from the pale indentation on his ring finger.
She shouldn’t ask about that, even though she was itching to know the details of why now, where it was, and what had made him take it off. The silence was getting uncomfortable, so she started talking about the first thing that came to mind—the website she’d been working on just before he came home.
“This is going to be a fantastic website. I sent pictures of the first three bedrooms for the webmaster to get into the site. We’ll have tabs of each room with pictures and prices and the whole nine yards. We should talk about prices. I charged that little couple who stayed here Aunt Sugar’s old rates, but we can’t operate on those twenty-year-old fees and keep things running.” She got a second slice and bit into it.
“Look online or call around to see what everyone else is charging. Then we’ll make a decision,” he said.
She felt a lot like she had that morning when she’d looked at the calendar. It reminded her of that eerie feeling out in West Texas when a tornado was blowing through the flat countryside, only this wasn’t fear of getting blown away. Tucker had taken off his ring, and that was really big. She couldn’t wait for the opportunity to tell Dotty. Maybe she’d even call Aunt Sugar that evening and talk to her about it.
She grabbed a third piece of pizza and started toward the table with her plate, stumbled over her own feet, and barely got control, but not before she got marinara sauce all over her hand.
Tucker was instantly on his feet to help her. “Hey, I like that sauce too much to waste it.” He picked up her hand and licked it clean.
Jolene’s breath came out in short gasps. Sparks danced around the room. Electricity flowed like a live current between his mouth and her palm. The chemistry was hot enough to curl her toes. She should do something, but she was frozen on the spot until he took the plate from her other hand and set it on the table. Keeping her hand in his, he led her to the sink and pumped a little liquid soap into her palm. Then he turned on the water and rubbed her hand with his.
Her eyes went to his mouth and then their gazes locked. Her breath came in short bursts like she’d jogged a mile. When he leaned forward and his eyes fluttered shut, leaving his dark lashes to float on his angular cheekbones, she tiptoed and met his kiss halfway.
It started sweet, but then it deepened into more, and by the time he pulled away, she was panting. All the voices in her head were screaming that she shouldn’t have let it happen, and she knew they were right.
“That might not have been such a good idea,” she whispered.
He brushed another kiss across her lips. “What if it was meant to be and we ignored it? What if this is what fate has in mind for us? What’s that old sayin’ about not fighting city hall?”
“That’s a pretty big basket of what-ifs to think about. We need to cool off for a few minutes.” She fanned herself with her hands.
“Maybe we