A Husband of Her Own (Dundee, Idaho #2)(49)
Author: Brenda Novak

God, did she have to say it? He deserved to lose his Excursion. He’d always had everything, everyone’s admiration and affection. He was sexy and gorgeous and could kiss like the devil himself. And now he was rich while she scraped by doing hair. She’d always lived in his shadow. Even her own father preferred him to the gangly girl with the skinned knee who could never do anything right….

He waited, obviously taken aback but curious enough to give her the time she needed, even though the cold was turning his normally smooth skin to gooseflesh.

Lifting her chin, Rebecca looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry,” she said.

She dashed a hand across her face because her vision was blurring so badly she couldn’t make out the muddy flowerbeds from the still-steaming Excursion. Then she hurried back to her car.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JOSH COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. Somehow he’d pierced the thick hide that had always kept Rebecca Wells so aloof and unreachable and tough—tougher than any boy he’d ever known—and found something soft and sweet and very…vulnerable.

Damn. He shoved a hand through his hair, then tried to straighten the covers he’d twisted into a mess and told himself to go to sleep. Dawn was only an hour or so away, and he’d been up all night.

But he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the tears rolling down Rebecca’s cheeks. It was the first time he’d ever seen her cry. Those tears grabbed hold of his insides and squeezed until he could hardly breathe.

Think about what she did to your truck. He stared at the ceiling, preferring the simplicity of the outrage he’d felt before her visit to the confusion he’d experienced since she’d left. She was in the wrong. She’d burned down his brand-new Ford Excursion, for crying out loud. Which meant she deserved to pay for it.

He’d provoked her, though. What he’d done seemed pretty innocuous compared to her reaction, but considering the size of the backlash, he’d apparently created some serious waves for her and Buddy. Maybe Buddy had even broken up with her. Something must have happened to set her off like that.

He glanced at the clock by his bed and wondered why he’d never lost any sleep over Mary. Because she was nice and uncomplicated, he decided. Those were good things. He’d heard all about the differences in the male vs. female psyches, the jokes about guys never knowing a woman’s mind, the talk about how hard it was to please a woman. But in his experience, keeping a woman happy wasn’t so difficult. Give her plenty of attention, a few compliments, some gifts and laughs and candlelight dinners, and everything went smoothly enough.

Except when it came to Rebecca. With her, there were no hard and fast rules. She played in a whole different ballpark.

Punching his pillow, he rolled onto his side and gazed at the phone. He felt terrible to think he might have cost her the man of her dreams—if a milk-toast man like Buddy could be the man of her dreams. And he felt even worse that his interference had made her do something as stupid as torching his truck, landing her with three-hundred-dollar-a-month payments she probably couldn’t afford. But he didn’t really know what to do about the situation at this point, and he wanted to release himself from whatever kept twisting his gut every time he remembered the pain in Rebecca’s eyes.

I’ll call Mary. She never makes me feel like this, never makes me want to rant and rave or slug inanimate objects.

Of course, if he was being honest, she didn’t make him feel much of anything. Certainly she inspired no passion. Nothing like what he’d felt when he held Rebecca in his arms, their bare skin pressed together, their mouths hungry for each other. The primitive drive to possess her had been startling in its ferocity, thrilling, exulting, the absolute pinnacle of sexual experience.

Only he hadn’t wanted to tear off her clothes tonight. Tonight he’d wanted to pull her into his arms and beg her to forgive him—and he was the one who’d lost a thirty-thousand-dollar vehicle!

“I’m screwed up,” he said aloud. Then he grabbed the phone, determined to put Rebecca and this restless night behind him.

“Hello?” Mary’s voice was barely audible.

“It’s me.”

“Josh?”

“Yeah. Sorry to wake you.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I like hearing from you anytime. Lets me know you’re thinking of me.”

Josh winced at the guilt he couldn’t fathom, any more than he could’ve explained anything else about this crazy night.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, nothing.” Other than the charred hunk of junk that used to be my truck. “I just want you to come over.” And help me get my head on straight.

“But it’s five o’clock in the morning.”

“Your mom’s there with Ricky. You can go back before it’s time to get him off to school.”

“That’s true….”

“And it’s not like we’re on some kind of schedule where we can only make love on Friday nights,” he said, even though their relationship had actually settled into something almost that predictable.

“Of course not. I just…I don’t want you to see me this way,” she said. “I don’t have any makeup on.”

So? What did makeup have to do with anything? Rebecca hadn’t been wearing a stitch of makeup when she’d appeared at his door. She’d stood tall and proud and looked up at him with those clear green eyes filling with tears and—

No more Rebecca! “I don’t care about makeup,” he insisted. “Just come over. Please.”

She giggled. “Boy, are you eager. Did you have a naughty dream? Or have you just been thinking about me?”

I’ve been thinking about Rebecca, and I can’t stop, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. I need you to remind me why I’m with you. Help me out here. “It…it just hasn’t been a very pleasant night.”

“But I look terrible.”

Josh rubbed one temple and gave in. He didn’t really want to see her anyway, he realized. With or without makeup. And that was when he knew he was even more screwed up than he’d thought.

“Forget it,” he said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

JOSH LEANED his elbows on his desk on Monday, and stared blankly at the stack of papers and checks awaiting his attention. After the terrible weekend he’d spent, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on a damn thing all morning, hadn’t been able to muddle through half of what he needed to get done. The memory of Rebecca at his door kept intruding, along with other memories that stirred him just as much, only in a far different way. She’d been so responsive, so aroused by him a year ago last summer—that meant she couldn’t hate him too badly, right?