Chapter Twenty

Tucker was brooding, and he didn’t like it.

Playing with Betsy the last couple of days had been great.

Ignoring the pile of work on his desk had been surprisingly great.

The weather, the lake water, the sauna, everything was great.

Except it wasn’t.

He missed Elise.

Without his realizing it, Elise had become such an integral part of the household in such a short time, and without her calm, quiet presence, Tucker felt off kilter.

Betsy couldn’t stop talking about her teacher and friend, and asked Tucker at least three times a day when Elise was returning. She was even asking about homework assignments and what the next field trip was going to be, so excited to be learning was she.

He told her Elise would be home soon, and fervently hoped it was true.

He sat in his aerie as the sun sank down to the horizon, half expecting to see Elise walk by during her evening sojourn on the beach, but she wasn’t there, and it rankled him to have the routine disturbed.

He looked forward to watching her evening walk, watching her concentration on the waves, on the sand beneath her feet.

Maybe it was best that she’d left, he thought, because it was time for Tucker to be honest with himself, and better to do that alone.

Here was the truth: he was falling for Elise Blake.

And it was wrong on so many levels.

He had his own demons – that he knew, glancing down at the tree line darkly – and it wasn’t fair to make Elise a part of them.

Not to mention the fact that he was her boss.

If she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, he risked her believing him guilty of sexual harassment, risked her leaving Timberline and Betsy behind, and also risked his own heart.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

If Elise felt the same way about him, damn the consequences of her employment. This wasn’t Wall Street – this was a personal arrangement, and Tucker didn’t care what anyone thought.

He was falling for the nanny.

He’d heard the cliché before, but Elise wasn’t the nanny – she wasn’t a bit of stuff on the side.

She was…

God, she was like his other half.

His better half.

And to know that in such a short time of knowing each other had to mean something, right?

Damn, he still had a lot of brooding to do.

#

Elise inhaled deeply, smiling at the scent of pine trees and the thunderous crash of water around her. She was sitting on a boulder near Bond Falls, mesmerized by the huge expanse of water flowing beside her, everywhere she looked a different vantage point of the powerful waterfall.

The last two days had been great, she mused, watching a duck paddle across the tributary. She meandered down the Keweenaw to the Porcupine Mountains, and had spent a solid day hiking, finding little waterfalls, and admiring the spectacular view of the Lake of the Clouds, before climbing back in the car, exhausted and happy and driving through the darkness to Iron Mountain.

She’d met up with a fellow elementary education graduate she’d been friendly with at NIU, and they’d spent the day exploring the area, trading teaching stories, and shopping for school supplies. They’d had a great dinner at a small restaurant on the square – Spiro’s – and Elise had fallen asleep in her hotel room that night, sated and happy.

She’d even told Emily about Tucker, and Emily had immediately latched onto the fact that Elise liked him.

And she hadn’t even been judgmental, but instead told Elise to follow her heart. Jobs come and go, but the right guy doesn’t always.

Elise appreciated the advice, and was glad she’d made the trip to see her.

She was now on her way back to Timberline, with only one more night before she returned, but she’d had a great time exploring the entire Upper Peninsula.

And thinking.

As Elise sat watching the water flow steadily, she suddenly felt a lightness in her chest that couldn’t be explained.

She suddenly felt… baptized.

Hating the cliché, she still stood by the welling of emotion she felt.

Not all men were bad.

There it was.

Not all men were bad.

It had only taken her twenty four years, but the realization was finally dawning on her.

And Tucker Hale was a good guy.

She’d known that from the start, but the way he’d dealt with Billy – had cast off one of his oldest friends for her, a woman he didn’t really know that well - restored her faith in humanity a bit.

Not all men were monsters.

A few of them were even angels.

And Tucker Hale was one of them.

And she was finally opening herself up to new ideas on men, new emotions, and new experiences.

The past was gone – she couldn’t change it, she could only grow and learn from it, and that she had in her short time in the Keweenaw.

The only problem was that the man she was falling for was summarily unavailable.

She didn’t want to be that cliché – she didn’t want to be the employee pining after the big boss man, and yet…

And yet she couldn’t help herself.

Tucker Hale had captured her imagination, her mind, and yes, even a piece of her soul.

So cliché, Elise thought with a mental eye roll. God she was full of them today…

What if he didn’t feel the same way?

Awkward much?

Elise loved her job – loved Betsy – and didn’t want to risk getting involved with Tucker and having it go south.

Or, worse, revealing how she felt to him, and not having him feel the same way.

But sometimes, the way he looked at her… she knew she wasn’t an expert on men, but the way he looked at her…

It was like he was the spoon and she was the bowl of ice cream.

It made the butterflies in her tummy turn into condors, she swore.

Tucker Hale was the most desirable man she’d ever met – now, she had to figure out how to live in his home, educate his ward, care for his house, without revealing her own emotions.

At least until he revealed his.

TH: Hi.

Elise nearly fell off the boulder as the smartphone in her pocket vibrated against her thigh, notifying her of a text message.

She glanced at the number, dimly remembering it from the caller ID when Tucker had called her from Munising.

TH2: Hi! What are you doing?

Elise wrote back, her fingers a bit clumsy on the small keyboard.

TH: Thinking about you.

Her eyebrows shot up in shock.

Well, that was unexpected.

She had just been trying to rectify her feelings about Tucker, and then this…

TH2: That’s nice. :-)

TH: How are you?

TH2: I’m really good. The trip has been good. Feeling great, but I miss timberline.

TH: Only timberline? ;-)

Winkies?

Was Tucker Hale, middle aged successful businessman, flirting by winky?

It made her laugh.

TH2: What ever else could I mean, sir? ;-)

Oh god, what were they? Twelve?

TH: Betsy misses you. She wanted me to tell you. And she saw a fox today. She’s going to write a paper about it.

TH2: I can’t wait to read it.

TH: When are you coming home?

Home. She liked how that sounded.

TH2: Should be tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

TH: we’ll be waiting for you. Drive carefully.

TH2: I will, thanks.

TH: Elise…

TH2: ?

TH: I really do miss you.

She smiled, and struggled to find the courage to send a return text. He’d said “I”, not “we”.

TH2: I miss you too.

TH: Until tomorrow.

TH2: Until then. :-)

TH: :-)

Elise was still smiling as she returned to the car and turned the engine over, bound for home.

Their home.

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