Tucker hit a jump shot at the center key. “O.”

“Wow.” Pippen shook his head. “You’re good.”

He’d played a lot of b-ball on his downtime in the military, and it didn’t hurt that the kid’s hoop was lowered to about eight feet and there was no one playing defense.

The kid moved to the spot where Tucker had stood. Once again his eyes narrowed and he bounced the ball in front of him. He lined up the shot and Tucker sighed.

“Keep your elbows pointed straight,” he heard himself coach. God, he couldn’t believe he was giving the kid pointers. He wasn’t even sure he liked kids. He’d never really been around any since he’d been one himself, and most of those had been like him. Throwaways.

Pippen held the ball right in front of his face and pointed his elbows at the net.

“No.” Tucker moved behind the kid, lowered the ball a few inches, and moved his cold hands to the correct position. “Keep the ball lined up, bend your knees, and shoot.”

“Pippen!”

Both Tucker and the boy spun around at the same time. Lily Darlington stood behind them, wrapped up in a red wool coat and wearing white bunny slippers. Crisp morning light caught in her blond hair curled up in big Texas-size rollers. The chilled air caught in his lungs and turned her cheeks pink. She was pretty, even if her ice blue gaze cut Tucker to shreds. She stared at him as she spoke to her child. “I called your name twice.”

“Sorry.” The kid dribbled the ball. “I was practicing my shots.”

“Go eat your breakfast. Your waffles are getting cold.”

“I have to practice.”

“Basketball season is over until next year.”

“That’s why I have to practice. To get better.”

“You have to go eat. Right now.”

Pippen gave a long suffering sigh and tossed the ball to Tucker. “You can play if you want.”

He didn’t, but he caught the ball. “Thanks. See ya around, Pippen.”

As the kid stormed past his mother, she reached out and grabbed him. She hugged him close and kissed the top of his head. “You don’t have to be the best at everything, Pip.” She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I love you bigger than the sun and stars.”

“I know.”

“Forever and ever. Always.” She moved her palms to his cheek. “You’re a good boy”-she smiled into his upturned face-“with dirty hands. Wash them when you go inside.”

Tucker looked at her slim hands on the boy’s cheeks and temples, cupping his ears. Her nails were red and her skin looked soft. A thin blue vein lined her wrist and disappeared beneath the cuff of her red wool coat. The chilly air in his lungs burned. “Go inside or you’ll freeze your ears off.”

“My nuts.”

Uh-oh.

“What?”

“I’ll freeze my nuts off.” He glanced behind his shoulder and laughed. “Tucker said it’s so cold out here I’ll freeze my nuts off.”

Her gaze cut to his and one brow rose up her forehead. “Charming.” She ran her fingers through her son’s short hair. “Go eat before your waffles are as cold as your… ears.” The kid took off and she folded her arms across her chest. The curlers in her hair should have made her look ridiculous. They didn’t. They made him want to watch her take them out. It was silly, and he dribbled the ball instead of thinking about her hair. “You must be the new neighbor.”

“Tucker Matthews.” He stuck the ball under one arm and offered his free hand. She looked at it for several heartbeats then shook it. Her skin was as warm and soft as it looked; he wondered what her palm would feel like on the side of his face. Then he wondered why he was wondering about her at all.

“Lily Darlington.” Her blue eyes stared into his, and she obviously didn’t recognize him from the night before. She took her hand back and slid it into her pocket. “I’m sure you’re perfectly nice, but I’m very protective and I don’t let just any man around my son.”

That was wise, he supposed. “Are you worried about me doing something to your kid?”

She shook her head. “Not worried. Just letting you know that I protect Pip.”

Then maybe she shouldn’t have named him Pip because that was just a guaranteed ass-kicking. Then again, this was Texas. The rule for names in Texas was different from the rest of the country. A guy named Guppy couldn’t exactly beat the crap out of a Pip. “I’m not going to hurt your kid.” He folded his arms and rocked back on his heels.

“Just so we’re clear, if you even think about hurting one hair on his head, I’ll kill you and not lose a wink of sleep over it.”

For some perverse reason, the threat made him like her. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know that you’re playing basketball with a ten-year-old at nine o’clock in the morning,” she said, her accent thick with warning. “It’s about thirty-two degrees, and you’re talking about your freezing nuts with my son. That’s not exactly normal behavior for an adult man.”

Since she obviously lived alone, he had to wonder if she knew anything about normal behavior for an adult man. “I’m playing basketball and freezing my nuts off so I can get some sleep. I just got off work and your kid’s basketball keeps me awake. I thought if I played a game of H-O-R-S-E, he’d cut me a break.” That was close enough to the truth.

She blinked. “Oh.” She tilted her head to one side and a wrinkle pulled her brows as if she were suddenly trying to place him in her memory. “You work the night shift at the meat packing plant? I worked there for a few weeks about five years ago.”

“No.” He dribbled the ball a few times and waited.

“Hmm.” Her brow smoothed and she turned to go. “I’ve got to see to Pip. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Matthews.”

“We met last night.”

She turned back and once again her brows were drawn.

“I pulled you over for inattentive driving.”

Her lips parted. “That was you?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “You’re a shitty driver, Lily.”

“You’re a sheriff?”

“Deputy.”

“That explains the tragic pants.”

He looked down at his dark brown trousers with the beige stipe up the outside legs. “You don’t think they’re hot.”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

He tossed her the ball and she caught it. “Tell Pippen that if he cuts me a break tomorrow morning, I’ll teach him how to slam dunk tomorrow afternoon around four.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“You’re not afraid I’m a pervert?”

“Pippen knows he can’t leave the yard without telling me or his grandma.” She shrugged. “And you already know I’m licensed to carry concealed. I’ve got a Beretta 9mm subcompact.” She stuck the ball under one arm. “Just so you know.”

“Nice.” He managed not to laugh. “But are you bragging or threatening a law officer?”

“Pippen’s daddy isn’t really in the picture. I’m all he’s got and it’s my job to make sure he’s safe and happy.”

“He’s lucky to have you.”

“I’m lucky to have him.”

Tucker watched her go, then turned and walked back to his house. Only one person in his entire life had made sure he was safe. His grandmother Betty. If he thought hard, he could recall the touch of her soft hand on his head and back. But Betty had died three days after Tucker turned five.

He moved into his kitchen and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. His mother had split when he was a baby and he had no memory of her. Just photographs. He didn’t know who his father was and doubted his mother had ever known. She’d finally killed herself with a drug cocktail when Tucker was three. As a kid, he’d wondered about her; wondered what his life would have been like if she hadn’t been an addict. As an adult, he just felt disgust-disgust for a woman who cared more about drugs than her son.

He turned off the television on his way to his bedroom and kicked off his shoes. After Betty’s death, he’d been shipped off to aunts who didn’t want or care about him; and by the time he turned ten, he was turned over to the state of Michigan and shuffled through the foster care system.

He took off his pants and tossed them into the hamper he used for dry cleaning. No one had wanted to adopt a ten-year-old with his history and bad attitude. He’d spent most of the years between the ages of ten and sixteen in and out of foster homes and juvenile court, which finally landed him in a halfway house run by a retired Vietnam vet. Elias Peirce had been a no-bullshit hard-ass with strict rules. But he’d been fair. The first time Tucker had given him lip, he gave Tucker an old cane-back chair and a pack of sandpaper. “Make it as smooth as a baby’s backside,” he’d barked. It had taken him a week, but after his daily homework and chores were done, Tucker sanded until the chair felt like silk beneath his hands. Following the chair, he’d made a bookcase and a small table.

Tucker couldn’t say that he and Elias Peirce had been as close as father and son, but he changed Tucker’s life and never treated him like a throwaway kid. Elias made him work out the pent-up anger and aggression just below his skin in a constructive way.

Tucker didn’t like to talk about his past-didn’t really talk about his life. During the course of normal conversation, whenever anyone asked about his life, he just said he didn’t have much family and changed the subject.

He thought of Lily Darlington and the way she touched Pippen. The way she looked into his eyes and touched his cheek and told him she loved him bigger than the stars. Tucker was sure his grandmother had loved him, but he was equally sure she’d never threatened to kick ass on his behalf. He’d had to kick ass on his own behalf. He’d always had to take care of himself.

He was a man now-thirty years old-and he was the man he was because of the life he’d been dealt. He knew a lot of guys who’d come back from Iraq or Afghanistan and had a hard time adjusting to life outside of the military. Not Tucker. At least not as much. He’d learned long ago how to deal with shit thrown at him. How to cope with trauma and how to let it go. Oh, he had some really dark memories, but he didn’t live with them. He’d worked them out and moved on.