Page 20 of Heart of the Sun

He answered on the second ring, sounding like I’d pulled him from sleep. “Hello?”

“Tuck?”

“Em?” I heard the creak of a bedspring as though he’d sat up.Or someone else had turned toward him.My heart picked up speed. “Are you okay?”

I paused, listening for a moment. When I didn’t hear anything—or anyone—in the background, I let out a breath. “I heard a noise on my patio.”

“A noise? What kind of noise?”

“I don’t know. Like someone—”

“Someone?” More rustling as though he was pulling on clothes.

“Or something.I don’t know. It just…it made me nervous.”

“Okay. I’m on my way. Go in your bedroom and lock the door.”

“That’s where I’m calling from.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

I hung up, pacing as I waited, attempting to hear through the door anything that might be happening on the patio, but no sounds met my ears. Either it really was nothing, or the person was being exceedingly quiet.

Tuck was true to his word, and a text came through my phone exactly ten minutes later, asking me to open my door.

I scurried through my apartment and opened the door to find Tuck standing there with his hair mussed and a shadow of scruff on his jaw. His chest rose and fell as though he’d run there from across town.

“Can I come in?” he asked, eyeing me as I stood and stared at him.

“Oh—” I stepped back, allowing him entrance “—yes, of course. Thank you for coming over. I…um…hope I wasn’t interrupting anything…”

“Nope,” he said. “I was in bed.” He strode through the apartment and pulled aside the shade on the sliding glass door. I jumped behind him, my fingers on his back as I peeked out, half expecting to see some hideous clown or equally diabolical beast.

A pigeon sat on the glass table. At the sight of us, she let out a soft coo and flapped her wings before flying a short distance upward where she disappeared under an eve.

I stepped from behind Tuck’s impressively large back and followed him as he opened the glass doors. “Stay inside for a minute. I’m just going to check things out,” he said. There weren’t many places to hide, except maybe behind the ivy, but I appreciated his diligence.

I watched as he checked each corner and ran his hand over the plants, then stood on one of the chairs and peered up into the place where the pigeon had flown. He stepped down and came back inside. “You have a nest on your balcony,” he said.

I sucked in a gasp. “Baby birds? Can I see?”

“It’s your space. I’d stand back if I were you. Mothers can get aggressive if they think their young are being threatened.” As if I didn’t know that. Had he forgotten I was a country girl?

I stepped into the cool night air, climbing carefully up on the chair and then stretching my neck to look into the nest. The mama bird was in there, busily feeding three little open, upturned mouths. I grinned with delight, turning my face toward Tuck, who was watching me with a small, confused smile on his lips.There it is. That look. The one he’d given me…once.

Time seemed to still for a moment, the delight I’d felt at seeing the babies eclipsed by the greater pleasure of seeing Tuck look at me the same way I’d once craved so desperately.

He held out his hand, and I took it, stepping down from the chair. I looked at his hand in mine, so much bigger, his palm rough and calloused. His skin had always been dark. He tanned so easily. He was paler now. Too much time indoors. Years. “Thank you,” I said, my words emerging in a rush. “For coming over so quickly. I hope I didn’t…disturb you.” I felt strangely shy in a way I hadn’t in…well, a long time. It was an odd feeling, but also somehow familiar.

“No,” he said, and I worked to bring myself back to the conversation. “You didn’t disturb me. I was just reading.”

I smiled, brushing past him into the living room. He followed, and I closed the sliding glass door behind him, latching it. “You and your books.”

He gave me a lopsided smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. They got me through a lot.”

A lot.Maybe he meant everything that had happened to him as a kid. Or maybe he meant serving time. Probably some of both. I shifted on my feet, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “That had to be very hard for you,” I said. “Being locked up.”

His eyes moved over my face as though searching, but then his expression seemed to fall in some slight way, and I sensed whatever he’d been looking for he hadn’t found. “It was, Emily.” He looked away, signaling that was all he was going to say about that. And I noted that it was back toEmily.No more Em.

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