That wasn't to say she didn't want to settle down someday. She did. And she wanted a family. The kind of family she'd missed out on growing up. But she also wanted to be picky. She didn't want to settle for someone like Henry, and she almost had. She wanted to be an equal partner. And she wanted excitement and passion at least once in her life. There was nothing wrong with that.
She was thirty years old, so she figured she had a few more years before she really needed to panic. Besides, her social calendar was about as full as it could get. She worked (granted, the dead weren't exactly considered social), she took yoga three mornings a week (though sometimes she walked right by the studio to the donut shop next door), she was a member of a book/wine club (albeit, she and her best friend Miller were the only members), and she'd almost worked all the way through her expert-level crossword puzzle book.
Busy. As. Hell.
She'd never been the type of woman to be able to attract a man like Deacon Tucker, but there was something about him that . . . clicked. Sure, he was sexy as hell. He had those dark, brooding good looks that reminded her of the heroes she liked to read about. And his hands . . . they were large and rough-working man's hands. Then there was that hint of a dimple in his cheek that peeked out during one of his rare smiles, and the slight misalignment in the bridge of his nose that made her curious to know how he'd broken it.
And then there was the fact that he was just a good guy. He was a man who liked to keep busy, and more often than not if things were slow, he'd fix something around the funeral home or work in the yard. The harder the work, the more he seemed to like it, as if he were punishing himself by working himself to the bone.
He wasn't amusing or boisterous like Elias, or smooth and charming like Dante. But there was an air about him that stood out from the others. He commanded without having to say a word. She was drawn to him, and there were moments when they spoke or stood close that the space around them was so electrically charged she didn't know how others couldn't feel it.
His eyes were an intense blue she could get lost in for hours. There'd been a moment not too long ago when she thought he might lean down and kiss her. When they'd been lost in conversation, their words softening to whispers and their breath mingling as they stood close together. A spell had been cast, and she'd leaned in, only to be interrupted when the back door opened.
He hadn't seemed to mind that afternoon that she wasn't a bombshell and didn't have the same raw sex appeal he did. He'd wanted to kiss her anyway. She hadn't imagined the desire in his eyes. But she wasn't going to change a darned thing about herself to try and get his attention. She was who she was, and what she wasn't was the kind of woman to make heads turn when she walked into a room. Except the time she'd gone to a wedding reception with the back of her skirt tucked into her underwear.
She was done trying to please men. She'd learned that very difficult lesson with Henry. She wanted a man to please her for once, and if Deacon Tucker couldn't look at her and see how great she was, then he just didn't deserve her.
"Gah," Tess said, grabbing one of her pillows and whacking herself in the face a couple of times with it.
Her internal monologue sounded dangerously close to the pep talks her grandmother used to give her as a kid. There was no dwelling on things that couldn't be changed. What she needed to do was to make a choice for her future. Whether or not that future included the Last Stop Funeral Home was still up in the air. She'd never fit in in Last Stop. But it was the only home she'd ever known.
The biggest question was, if not Last Stop, then where?
"I'm a grown woman," she muttered, tossing the pillow aside in frustration. "I'm not going to fear change. I'm going to take life by the balls . . . and . . . and . . . never mind. Life doesn't have balls. It's a ridiculous saying. I'm going to make an adult decision about my future and be happy about it. Dammit."
Having made up her mind, she nodded defiantly and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She had no idea what that future held, but she couldn't see herself living forever on the third floor of a funeral home she didn't own. She should be settled by this point in her life-with long-term job security and at least the possibility of a home and family on the horizon. What kind of quality of life was it to spend each day behind her desk, wondering when someone would die? That was weird, even for her.
Another crack of thunder shook the room, and this time the red numbers on her clock went blank as the electricity went out.