A Father's Name(75)

The only question was, how did she go about getting them short of beating Tyler’s hardheadedness? “Eli and Laura, I need some advice.”

Her friends stopped their conversation and waited for her to continue. “Tyler thinks our relationship ends this weekend because I deserve the best, and he doesn’t think that’s him. But while I agree I deserve the best, I know the best man for me is Tyler. So what do I do?”

Eli sighed. “The Tucker I’ve always known is a strong, independent woman who has never let anyone dictate what she should and shouldn’t do.”

“And she’s kind,” Laura added. “She’s the type of person who will help you even when you say you don’t want help. She’ll show up in a snowstorm with only a sweatshirt on to bring you food. She’s an amazing woman.”

“Who’s raised an amazing son,” Eli said. “She doesn’t let anyone dictate to her.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing with Tyler?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

“Well, you’ve admitted you want him,” Eli said. “But seem willing to give your relationship up because he’s said so.”

Laura picked up the tag-team dialogue. “What you need to ask yourself is—”

She didn’t let her friend finish. “What I need to ask myself is, do I want Tyler enough to fight for him? Especially because the person I will be fighting is Tyler himself?”

Her friends both nodded.

“So, what are you going to do?” Eli asked.

“I’m going to lull him into a false sense of security,” she said, realizing she’d made a decision. She would fight for Tyler.

“I’m going to let him think I’ve given up as quietly as he wants. I’ll take next week off and spend it with Bart, getting ready for, then moving him into college. But once he’s settled, all bets are off. Tyler will have thought he won, but I’ll sneak up on him and I’ll make Tyler Martinez realize he can’t walk away from what we have, much less walk away from me.”

Tucker studied her two friends. Eli, who’d been a part of her life for going on twenty years, and Laura, who was a more recent friend. And she suddenly knew that even if she didn’t win her battle with Tyler’s stubbornness, she’d never be alone.

Neither Laura or Eli mentioned Tyler’s past. They didn’t tell her that she could do better. They simply dove in and helped her make her plans.

She thought of a T-shirt Eli had given her a few years back. Friends Are Like Funeral Homes…Both Will Help You Bury the Body.



THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY evening, Tucker surveyed her truck. “Okay, that’s it.” She was impressed they’d managed to fit all Bart’s things in it.

She thought of Tyler. Not because packing a truck in any way reminded her of him, but because no matter what she’d done all week, she’d thought of him. She wasn’t sure what to make of him. She thought after they broke up, he’d steer clear of her, but instead, he’d been friendly and even asked how Bart was doing. Mainly he kept giving her the oddest looks. As if he were thinking or plotting something.



Or maybe that was her guilty conscience projecting on him, because she was certainly plotting and planning ways to convince Tyler he was the man she deserved. The only man she wanted.

He had turned over the new accounting and invoice system to her on Sunday. It was definitely going to cut the paperwork down, but not down far enough as far as Tucker was concerned.

Tyler seemed okay with the end of their relationship. She’d left Sunday night hoping he’d say don’t. Stay. Though knowing he probably wouldn’t. He didn’t disappoint. He’d let her go, and she’d simply gone.

“So, let’s go say goodbye to Jace and Tyler,” Bart said, pulling her back to the present.

She looked at her son. Having a child when she was not much more than a child herself was hard, but somehow they’d managed. In some ways, they’d grown up together. She reached out and touched his stubbled cheek, which served as a reminder that he wasn’t her little boy any longer.

If she were another kind of woman, she’d probably sniffle a bit, but she knew Bart would hate that, so she chucked his chin instead and said, “Yeah, they’re waiting to say goodbye to you.”

Bart motioned toward the packed truck. “We should have packed the Pilot after we went over. I would have been easier to drive.”