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Carly’s pink cheeks made her brown eyes sparkle, and her forehead was a little damp from cooking in the kitchen. “Whew, getting that air-conditioning can’t come soon enough. Thanks for braving the hot kitchen with me and for holding Noah. I can take him back.”
He eased the baby into her arms. “Sure thing. Why isn’t your sister in here helping out?”
She shifted Noah on her shoulder. “Amelia doesn’t cook. She hates for her hair to smell like food.”
“You fixed shrimp and grits. Her breath will smell like garlic.”
“And Dillard will give her mints. She wasn’t always such a diva. Dillard has certain standards.”
“He’s a dirtbag,” Lucas spat out and scowled. “Expecting you to haul heavy suitcases around is ridiculous.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes husbands have certain standards, and we wives like to please them, especially if it’s something easy.”
There was a certain note in her voice that caught his attention. “Was Eric demanding?”
She kissed the soft down on Noah’s head. “Not at first. But he listened to his mother a little too much. According to her, I didn’t fix the best lunch for him, and I organized the kitchen wrong. When we first married, he was appalled at the thought that I would even fix him lunch. He liked grabbing it with the other officers. But her constant harping wore him down. I don’t fault him for it.”
Lucas didn’t know what to think of that. He hadn’t met Eric until their late teens, and he hadn’t been around Eric’s mother much. Lucas’s dad had never been that way with Mom. Instead he’d catered to her every request and treated her like a hothouse flower. But she had been damaged and frail. Taking care of Mom had consumed all his dad’s attention, and Mary’s as well. As long as he could remember, Carly’s grandma had walked across the backyard with casseroles for the family and hugs for him and Ryan. Their childhood would have been very different without her calming presence in the midst of chaos.
He snagged a chocolate chip cookie to help hold him until dinner, and the sound of an engine caught his attention. It sounded close. “I think someone’s here.”
“It’s probably Emily.” Carly sounded resigned and excited all at the same time.
He followed her through the dining room to the living room, where the rest of the family sat sipping tea out of Mary’s blue Polish mugs.
Carly glanced out the big window to the red Nissan parked behind the Escalade. “It’s Emily!”
Mary held out her arms, and Carly deposited the baby into them before rushing toward the door with a smile and bright eyes. Lucas stood where he was and watched the body language. When Carly reached her, Emily stood with her arms to her sides when her older sister hugged her. The only smile was a forced one.
Emily’s tight red dress didn’t lend itself to bending and stretching to grab luggage, and she’d likely break an ankle trying to drag them in heels high enough to give her a nosebleed. She’d gotten streaks in her brown hair, and it curled around her pointed chin.
Carly’s face fell, and she bit her lip before she went around to the trunk to help with the luggage. He should go help so she wasn’t lugging them by herself. He could already see how this interchange was going to go. He stepped quickly out the door and walked to the drive to grab two bags.
Emily finally smiled when she saw Lucas. “Are you still living next door, Lucas? I haven’t seen you in ages.” Her flirtatious smile came, and she took a step closer as if to hug him.
He skirted her and went to the trunk. “Yep, still here.”
This family was a mess. While he and Ryan might have occasional disagreements, he never doubted his brother loved him. And he’d do anything for his little brother. Was there no sense of family support in the Tucker family? It had to break Mary’s heart to see her granddaughters behaving like cautious enemies.
He carried the luggage up the steps and paused in the entry for Carly and Emily to catch up. “Which room?”
“The first one on the left at the top of the stairs,” Carly said.
Emily dropped her leather bag on the stand along the wall. “You put me in the Rose Room? I want the Honeysuckle Suite. Did you give it to Amelia instead?”
“Emily, she’s married. It makes more sense for them to have it.”
“What about the Lavender Suite? It has a bathroom too.”
“Noah and I have that one.”
“And you’ve had it for months! There’s no reason you can’t change.”
Was she for real? Lucas stared at her angry face. She might have been beautiful with the perfect skin that needed no makeup, but the petulant twist of her mouth and the angry slant of her eyes erased anything attractive in her angular face. He willed Carly to have a backbone and stand up to her sister, but she stood there biting her lip like she was considering the request.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Don’t be such a dimwit, Emily. Carly has a ton of stuff for the baby, and all her things are there. Sheliveshere now. What kind of sister would come in here and try to throw her and the baby out of their room? I’m taking these to the Rose Room, and you can live with it. If you don’t like it, there are many nice hotels in town.”
Bags in hand, he tromped up the steps and tried to ignore the stunned expressions he left behind. Stunned or not, he was sure he saw a glint of relief in Carly’s eyes.
