poured himself another cup of coffee. As he sipped, he turned and leaned on the long jut of counter that divided the breakfast room from the kitchen.
Molly said, in that way she had that cut right through the crap, “So. You got you a yen for your old girlfriend’s twin sister, Tucker? You thinkin’ you might like to try convincing her to come home a little more often—even to stay home?”
Tucker didn’t answer. There was no need. He could see in Molly’s eyes that she knew he did.
And he was.
“Daddy makes you crazy, huh?” Lena lay sprawled face-up on the bed in the upstairs room that had been Lori’s when they were growing up.
It was after dinner. Everyone else was downstairs watching Sunday night TV. Lena had hung around before going home to her cute little apartment on Oak Street. She’d wanted some one-on-one time with Lori.
Lori dropped to the side of the bed. “Yeah. Daddy does get to me. Sometimes. Like when he tries to override me with Brody.”
Lena kicked off her shoes and scooted farther up onto the mattress, grabbing a pillow and tucking it under her head. “You just never did accept the fact that you have to use your feminine wiles on Daddy.”
“Feminine wiles?” Lori made a gagging sound.
Lena giggled and slapped her lightly on the knee. “Stop that. There’s nothin’ the least wrong with a woman using what the good Lord gave her to smooth the way with the men in her life.”
“I am going to wisely withhold comment on that one.”
Lena rolled to her side and studied her sister. “I still can’t believe you went red—red.”
Lori smoothed a hand over her own hair. “Yeah. I kind of like it.”
Lena nodded. “Me, too. It looks real good.”
Lori made a threatening face. “Don’t you dare even consider going red, too.”
“But if it looks that good on you, just think how incredible it’s going to look on me.”
They both laughed at that one. And then Lori said, “Hey. Go for it.”
“I might. I just might…” Lena let out a long sigh, rolled to her back again and gazed up at the light fixture overhead. “Tucker was givin’ you looks today at the diner.” She rolled her head to face Lori again. “Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t notice.”
Lori had no idea what to say—and her pulse was racing, her stomach drawing into knots, the way it had been doing since she first ran into Tucker yesterday at the Gas’n Go…
Lena said, “Amazing.”
“What is?”
“Oh, just the way life can go sometimes.” She lifted her right hand and studied her manicure. “Tucker’s interested. Really interested. In you. I could tell.”
Lori tried a little teasing, hoping that would lead the subject elsewhere. “I’m surprised you noticed. You’ve got eyes only for Dirk.”
“It’s true.” Lena raised both arms in a lazy stretch. “Dirk is the center of my world and I couldn’t be happier about that.” She let her arms flutter down and folded her hands on her stomach. “But at the same time, true love has made me more observant. And since Tucker moved back to town, I’ve made it a point, I truly have, to make amends for the tacky way I treated him—you know, back when. Last winter, when Dirk decided to change his will to leave everything to me, I took him to Hogan and Bravo and had Tucker do the work. Tucker is Dirk’s and my own personal family attorney now and I like to think that he and I have become friends.”
“Good for you,” Lori said, for lack of anything better, hoping they could now leave the subject of Tucker Bravo behind.
But no. “You haven’t said what you think. About you and Tucker.”
“I don’t think anything. I haven’t seen him for years and years. I hardly know the guy.”
“Lori. Come on. I mean, it seemed to me by the way you looked at him at the diner that you maybe kind of like him, too—and don’t give me that huffy look. Okay, he was my boyfriend. But that was centuries ago. And it was pure puppy love, anyway. I know that now. It was nothing like I have with Dirk—and it’s not like I slept with Tucker or anything. I mean, that might be kind of icky. To think of you getting together with some guy I’d seen naked, but—”
“Lena.”
“Um?”
“That is altogether more information than I need to have.”
Lena gave her another light slap on the thigh. “Oh, come on. I know what you’re doin’. Acting all snooty to push me away. You’re just too…private. You always have been. Even for me, it’s tough to get through. And, as your twin, I should be the one who understands how your mind works. Lori Lee, you need to…open up a little.”
“Thank you for the input.”
“Oh, now, don’t go getting snippy on me. Look in your heart. You’ll see that what I’m telling you is true. And I miss you, gosh darn it. We don’t see you often enough. It’s like, since all that mess eleven years ago, you never want to come home.” What could Lori say to that? Not much, since it was true. Lena went on. “I swear, sometimes I think if Mama and I didn’t call you all the time, if we didn’t keep you up-to-date on what’s going on in town and stay on you until you come home now and then, we’d never see you at all.”
Lori caught her sister’s hand and twined their fingers together. “I know. I don’t visit often enough.” She said the words gently—and silently promised herself she’d make more of an effort to keep up the bond with her family.
Lena heaved a huge sigh. “You know what?” Lori squeezed her hand to let her know she was listening. “I never did apologize to Tucker about prom night. Did you?”
Lori blinked and felt her stomach squeezing tight all over again. She pulled her hand free of her sister’s. “I…when would I have done that?”
“Relax. I was just asking. And think about it. The poor man still believes he went to that prom with me. I mean, it’s not that big a deal, but still, one of these days one of us ought to tell him. When I look back on that night, I sometimes wonder what could possibly have been going through my mind, to do that to him.”
Lori remembered what had been going through Lena’s mind. She remembered with crystal clarity. Lena had told her. “You were mad. You were really steamed. You came home after breaking up with Tucker and you marched right up here to my room and shut the door and burst into tears. You said how you knew, you could tell, that Tucker was relieved to be getting rid of you. You said sometimes you hated being so perfect, you hated how everyone expected you to be so darn happy all the time. You said you almost wished you could be the mousy, shifty, shy one instead of me, how maybe then, folks wouldn’t expect so much of you.”
Lena gasped. “How rude. I didn’t.”
Lori nodded. “You did.
