Romancing the Brush: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (The Michelle Hodge Series Book 3)
Page 29
“It’s not that, Dean. It’s just—”
“What? I know I was wrong to refuse to listen to you! I’ll change, Shell. I’ve already changed. I was changing even before I talked to Lisa about what really happened!”
“We need to talk about something,” she said, turning toward the car and reaching for her laptop so he wouldn’t see her tears.
He could only think that she was gearing up to end their relationship, and he could feel the steady hammer of his heartbeat in his temples. “Okay. Let me help you with your stuff, and let’s go sit down and talk.”
“Okay.”
They carried the overnight bag, the clothes, and Shell’s computer into the house and tossed them on the bed in their room. Shell busied herself putting things away while Dean sat at the dining room table waiting for her with a worried expression on his face. She was using the time to compose herself, but Dean couldn’t know that. As far as he knew, she was planning the words she was going to use to tell him it was all over between them.
“Shell, let’s talk now,” he said, when she returned from plugging her phone into its charger in the kitchen. He couldn’t bear waiting any longer.
“Okay. How’s your head?” she asked, taking a chair across from him, her hands trembling a little.
“It aches, but I don’t want to take the pain meds today. I’m afraid they’ll knock me out, and we’re still talking, aren’t we? Anyway, it’s not as bad as feeling like we’re not really back together,” he said, reaching across the table for her hand as he tried to think of an argument that would convince her to stay with him.
“I want to thank you for rescuing me,” she said. “Did I say that last night? I knew you’d try to help me, even if you did think awful things about me.”
This really was sounding like she was going to tell him goodbye in a minute.
“I’m sorry, Shell. I know it’s not enough to just be sorry for the way I acted. I blame myself for everything, if that makes any difference to you.”
“I blame myself, too. I should have stayed here and fought it out with you. I realized that when I was lying there in that barn. If I’d had the courage to fight you, really argue with you and make you understand what really happened, neither one of us would have suffered the way we have,” she said.
Maybe she’s saying, “It’s not you it’s me,” he thought anxiously.
“Shell, nothing could have stopped me from hunting for you. I’d have hunted for you till I found you whether we’d broken up or not. You have to know that. My feelings for you didn’t change just because I was…confused about everything.”
“I believed you would try, but I still have to ask you something,” she said, her voice husky.
Just don’t ask me to leave.
“Okay.”
“Did you sleep with Melinda Gardner?”
“What?” he asked. “Is this why you’re so distant with me? You think I—”
“Just answer me. And be honest.”
“The answer is no,” he said, looking directly into her eyes.
She felt a slight easing of the pain in her chest. “Did you kiss her?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did you want to?”
“No. Why are you asking me this?”
“When I came over here on Wednesday, she was acting very intimate with you, and I heard you call her Mindy, and she was carrying an overnight bag out of your house.”
“Shell! It was full of binders and pictures of cheesecakes for her website!”
“An overnight bag?”
“I didn’t think a thing of it. It was flat. It just had business stuff in it. She didn’t stay with me! She was here about forty-five minutes! I was busy worrying about you.”
“And why did you call her Mindy?”
“Because she asked me to. She said everyone who gets her advice calls her Mindy. She was giving me relationship advice because I was an obvious mess without my girlfriend, and she and her boyfriend apparently worked some stuff out, so she thinks she knows all about—”
“She has a boyfriend?”
“Yeah. A very nice guy named Steven.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Yeah. Both of the times I went to her business he was there. When she came over here it was the first time I’d seen her without Steven. She brought photos of cakes she’d made a long time ago, so I couldn’t take pictures of them myself, and she and Steven don’t have a scanner. Anyway, she was thinking the four of us would become friends, but then you weren’t here and—”
“You told her we broke up? You told her personal things about me?”
“Yeah. I told her I loved you.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t doing very well, Shell, and she could see it. And she asked me if I loved you, and I told her yes. And she said, that was my problem—that I was just sitting there not finding you and working it out with you. She was right, of course, but I couldn’t see it. She told me men always think things are more complicated than they really are. But I still thought you had feelings for him, and I didn’t know how talking could fix it.”
“Did you tell her that? Did you tell her you thought I’d—”
“No! That would’ve been a lot of personal information.”
“Seems like telling her you loved me was pretty personal.”
“Do you mind?”
“It’s a lot better than what I thought you told her.”
“Which was?”
“I don’t know. That you wanted to be with her, I guess.”
“Shell! I’d never do that!”
“Sounds like something I’ve said myself.”
“Maybe now you know what it’s like to be the one jumping to the wrong conclusions.”
“I was really feeling jealous,” she said with tears of relief spilling from her eyes.
“Me, too,” he said, remembering the hotel room in Dallas. “I thought I’d die.”
“I wish you’d told me first.”
“Told you what?”
“How you felt.”
“I was trying to wait. I was afraid I’d scare you off with how serious I was about you,” he said standing up.
“Was?” she asked as she stood up in front of him.
“Am,” he answered, pulling her into his arms.
“Maybe you should tell me now.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
About the Author
Roslyn Woods, an oil painter and watercolorist, has quietly written fiction for years. She lived in Barcelona as a child, the daughter of two writers. Roslyn now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and her dog, a lovable mutt.
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Also by Roslyn Woods
The Point of Death (Book 1)
The Murder Motif (Book 2)
Romancing the Brush (Book 3).
The Girl With the Dragonfly Tattoo (Book 4)
Could you forgive the father who abandoned you to an indifferent mother when you were only two? When thirty-nine year old Octavia Bishop hears from an Austin lawyer that she needs to come to Texas to bury Edwin Bishop, the father she can barely remember, she finds herself in emotional turmoil. It's especially confusing to discover he had a secret life and a different name. After learning his death is being looked into as a homicide, Octavia has little hope of finding answers until she meets two important people: Shell Hodge, the person who heard her father's last words, and Gus Kerr, her father's closest friend--a man who is too attractive, and possibly too dangerous, to ignore.
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