Tutoring Tucker. Debrah Morris
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the shocking urge to fall into his arms.
“I don’t want to be just another blustering redneck in hand-tooled boots, with a big truck and a double-wide.” His voice was slow, deep, hypnotic. “Why, a man like that is no more than a clown. Smart, powerful people would take advantage of him. He doesn’t deserve a gift.”
“What do you want, Mr. Tucker?” she whispered. Better question, what was he doing to her?
He looked at her intently, his gentle expression melting some of the ice inside her until she questioned her sanity again. “I want smart, powerful people to respect me. It’s the only way I can accomplish what I’m setting out to do. I know I have to earn their regard, and that’s where you come in.”
“Me?” The sound was more gulp than word.
“Yep. I’m not worried about what’s in here.” He patted his chest with one hand while clutching hers with the other. “Or here.” He tapped his head.
“I know what I have to do. But I need you to teach me how to act the part so people will believe in me.”
“That’s an admirable ambition.” And one heck of an assignment. Dorian slipped her hand free and gradually regained the power of thought she had lost when Tucker touched her. What was the matter with her? She didn’t do warm and tingly. Something was very wrong here. She would have to keep a tighter rein on all her body parts when this guy was around.
She crossed the room and opened the door, hoping he would take the hint and leave so she could pull herself together. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Oh, I’ll be there, Miss Burrell, ma’am.” He gave her a quick wink. “With bells on.”
Then he smiled again, and the heat slipped past her reserve to warm the cold corners of her heart. What had Malcolm called the man? Intriguing and ingenuous. Yes, he was those things. He was something else, too, something she was unfamiliar with and couldn’t quite name.
Not until his lanky form disappeared through the door and down the hall did she realize what set him apart from every other man she’d ever met.
The man was sincerity personified. There was nothing fake or phony or devious about him. She closed Malcolm’s office door and leaned against it. Lord help her. Briny Tucker, the only millionaire in Slapdown, Texas, was the genuine article.
And she was charged with changing him.
The doorbell rang as Dorian stepped out of the shower. Great. Leave it to Slapdown to be on time. She wrapped a thick towel around her wet hair and pulled on a short satin robe, which she cinched at the waist.
“First lesson of the day,” she admonished as she yanked open the door. “Never show up at the agreed-upon time. It’s extremely bad form.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Her gaze took in his grinning face, then dropped lower to settle on a most disturbing sight. “Omigod!”
“What’s wrong?” Tucker was startled by her one-word assessment of the companion panting at his side.
“You said you had a dog.” She looked accusingly at the quivering mass of flopping ears, drooping jowls and bloodshot eyes. “Is that supposed to be a dog?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He swept off his cowboy hat and tried valiantly not to acknowledge her state of undress. His awkward gaze swept down to her bare feet, up her legs, over her chest and back up to the towel on her head.
His efforts at not noticing made Dorian more aware of her nakedness beneath the thin layer of sapphire satin. She clutched the lapels of her robe together. “Are you sure?”
Gentleman that he was, he did not allow his eyes to wander. “Miss Burrell, meet Reba. She’s just about the sweetest old bloodhound in Texas. She was the best tracker in the county until she lost her nose.”
Dorian eyed the so-called dog and the damp slime trail of saliva on the foyer’s one-hundred-dollar-a-yard carpet. “That beast cannot live here.” She blocked the doorway, in case the motley pair decided to rush her, though the redoubtable Reba didn’t look up to rushing anything. “There are kennels, you know.”
Briny reached down and scratched the hound’s head. She looked up at him, her rheumy eyes filled with adoration. “Oh, no, ma’am. I couldn’t leave Reba with strangers. I understand if you’re not an animal lover, Miss Burrell, but my dog and I are a team. C’mon, girl, let’s go back to the hotel.” He picked up his ancient suitcase and turned to go.
“Wait!” She would live to regret offering these two a temporary home. But she didn’t want Tucker to think she was one of those promise breakers he held in such contempt. “Is she housebroken?”
“Sure thing. Reba’s trained. And quiet as a mouse, too. She’s so old, she mostly just sleeps. You’ll never know she’s around.”
“I don’t know about that.” Dorian sniffed. “She reeks to high heaven.”
“I guess the old girl could use a bath.” Tucker placed one hand on the doorjamb and swayed toward Dorian with a wide grin. “There’s nothing like a warm tub of bubbles to make a female smell good.”
She flung open the door and stepped back, to escape his thought-numbing nearness, and put an end to the unwelcome vision of him in a bubble bath. “Oh, stay, Mr. Tucker,” she said with resignation. “I wouldn’t want to come between a boy and his dog.”
He shook his head. “I can’t seem to get used to answering to Mr. Tucker. Since we’ll be living in each other’s hip pocket, I’d sure appreciate you calling me Briny.”
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’m sorry. I can’t, in good conscience, do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because Briny is not an acceptable name.”
“What do you mean?” He stepped closer, his smiling face darkened by a frown, like a cloud passing over on a sunny day.
Dorian backed up. He had an exasperating way of invading her personal space. “For one thing, Briny simply is not suitable for a man in your position. It’s a good name for a child. Or for the buffoon in the double-wide you mentioned yesterday. But not for a man of substance.”
His frown melted, replaced by a wounded-puppy look. Dorian’s throat tightened with an unfamiliar urge to reassure him, but she didn’t know how. She had little experience with compassion. Life had taught her to inflict hurt, but she didn’t know how to soothe the pain she caused. So why did she feel like she’d just kicked old Reba in the ribs?
She was being ridiculous. She had accepted a job which came with responsibilities. One of which was speaking plainly even if doing so seemed harsh. “Briny is a cartoon character’s name,” she told him. “Do you understand why it simply won’t do?”
“Not really.”
“Is there another name you can adopt? We can invent one if we have to.”
“Funny,” he said softly. “I always figured the good a man did in the world was more important than what he called himself.”
“Your name is the first impression people have of you,” she explained. “You do want to make a favorable impression, don’t you?”
He nodded, but was clearly unconvinced. “Well, my mama named me Brindon Zachary Tucker. That’s Brindon with an i not an e.”
“Hmm.”
“I gotta tell you though, no one has called me that since she died quite a few years ago.”
“Brindon?” Dorian tried out the sound, repeating the name several times until she could visualize it splashed across the society pages of the Dallas Morning News. “Brindon Z. Tucker. Yes. That will do. Briny is gone forever. From now on, you’re to answer to Brindon and nothing else.”
He