Page 49 of An Engagement for Erica

“So you are nervous?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she said. “I don’t want to mess up or make matters worse. What happens weeks from now? What do you tell your grandfather?”

“I just want to get through the next few days, Erica. That sounds horrible, I know.”

She read between the lines of the uncertainty of TC’s recovery.

She didn’t need to see the pain in Tucker’s eyes; she could hear it in his voice.

Here they were trying to take his mind off of things and talking in the car and she made it worse.

“Then we will get through it together,” she said.

After a minute, he said, “Not the first date I had hoped for us.”

She laughed. “No one says dates have to be traditional.”

“I’d like to still take you on a traditional one after this,” he said. “Are you interested?”

“Really, Tucker. Do you think I’d be doing this if I wasn’t? I know I’m a nice person and all, but I know how to say no.”

She wasn’t sure anyone would say she was nice.

She was professional.

Competent.

Businesslike.

Friendly.

Nice? Not a word used for her and the sarcastic tone she’d asked that question in had him laughing.

“I think you’re nice,” he said. “Among a lot of other things.”

“What are they?” she asked. “Maybe I need to hear them.”

He turned as he was pulling into the parking lot. “Funny,” he said. “It takes me a while to get you to show it, but I’m happy you do. Just like the playful comment right now.”

She rarely showed that side of her personality with anyone other than her siblings.

She supposed the fact she did with Tucker was part of the reason she was doing something that she’d never agree to for anyone else.

“Maybe there is part of you that brings out something in me,” she said quietly.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said.

He parked and they got out to walk to TC’s room.

When they arrived outside of his grandfather’s room, she heard a nurse in there.

“Do you want me to wait out here while you go see what is going on?”

It sounded as if TC might be arguing.

“Yeah,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Thank God you’re here, Tucker,” she heard TC say. His voice was pretty firm. “Get this woman out of here if she is going to try to make me use my right arm. I want to eat with my left.”

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