Animal Instincts [The Andersons 2] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Marie Jermy

  “Because I loved her. And I thought she loved me. Whenever she was away on a photo shoot or a show, she’d call me. She’d tell me about her day. I’d tell her about mine. Despite the vast differences in our careers, we shared a lot in common. Our dysfunctional upbringing, for one.”

  “She was abused too?”

  “Lord, no. Her parents doted on her. To the extreme. Wrapped her up in cotton wool and gave her anything she asked for. Nothing was beyond reach or means for their daughter. So, while I had nothing, Stacey had everything. Which in some perverse sense of logic kind of balanced us out. I even suspect her parents exploited her good looks, too, because even as a child, Stacey was a stunner. But like I said, it was all on the outside.”

  “How did you meet?” Ramona asked, curious to know.

  “We were neighbors. She was the girl next door. I was the boy.” He laughed without humor as he swept his right hand through his hair, mussing it further. “Yes, she was on the pill, but no she wasn’t sick. I don’t know exactly how she fell pregnant. Batch of faulty pills?” His tone turned cynical. “Maybe I’ve got ‘nothing’s-gonna-stop-us’ super-strength sperm. Or how about an act of God?” He shrugged and the cynicism faded. “Anyway, when she found out, she panicked. She thought all her contracts would disappear as soon as her size-zero waistline expanded. I persuaded her she was wrong. I said her pregnancy bump would open up a new world in her career.”

  Again, his laugh was humorless. “At first, she was as happy as I was, but the moment she miscarried—I believe at thirteen weeks and a few days after our first scan—she blamed me. Said I was a conniving bastard. Damaged. She tore the scan photo into pieces and called our baby a freak. An incident.”

  The anguish with which he spoke those words was as clear as the pained expression. Ramona’s own heart squeezed, and sympathy kicked in. The man she loved had been ripped inside out for something nobody was to blame for, and by the one person who should have turned to him for comfort and to share the grief. Instead, his wife had turned against him. She placed a comforting hand on Rex’s arm. “God, that’s terrible.”

  “No, what’s terrible is that I believed her. You know when you asked me how I met Greg? Well, I’d just left the hospital where I had some tests. They were checking my genes. When I got the all-clear, I was so angry. At myself. At Stacey. I drove my Mustang into a fire hydrant. Greg was the only passerby brave enough to approach and ask if I was okay. I owe him a lot. He gave me the opportunity to walk away and start afresh.” He took her small hand in his large one. “I’m sorry, Ramona. I should have told you when you first asked. But I couldn’t. It hurt so goddamned much. Still does.”

  “That I can understand, Rex, really I do. You were not to blame. Nobody was. But that doesn’t excuse you for jumping to the wrong conclusion about me. You said I disgusted you.”

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me?”

  “Why? What exactly did I do to disgust you?”

  “When you were looking in the mirror, patting your stomach, your face, that grimace, it was exactly the same as what Stacey showed the moment that blue ‘positive’ line appeared on the test stick. And I know it’s no excuse, but—”

  Something inside—anger, hurt, probably both—sparked dangerously close to her heart. This felt worse than finding out Owen what’s-his-face was a married man. “Damned straight, it’s not!” Ramona snatched her hand away. “I’m nothing like Stacey.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” she demanded, knowing her tone sounded accusing but not giving a fuck.

  “Yes.”

  Rex tried to take her hand again, but she moved off the bed and left the room. Butt-naked, he followed and stood on the threshold watching her hurriedly dressing in a lime-green bra and panties, her faded Levi’s and an equally faded blue T-shirt.

  “Ramona, listen,” he said as she stuffed her feet first into socks then into a pair of boots. “In the office, our first time, when you said you were on the pill, it threw me, made me remember things I didn’t want to be reminded of. Then the time in the stable, you let me tie you up. Even after Samantha’s ordeal, you trusted me to do that. And I’ve trusted you. I haven’t used a condom since… Well, since I took you up against that tree.”

  “Big fucking deal.”

  “Ramona—”

  “No, Rex, no. I’m hurt. I’m angry. And I’m gonna say something I’m gonna regret. So, I’m gonna spend the day with Sammy. I’ll be back this evening. We’ll talk then.”

  And with that, Ramona pushed past Rex and left.

  * * * *

  “Jerk!” Rex berated himself the moment he heard the front door slam. How many times had he been a jerk now? It didn’t matter. What did matter was that he’d done the one thing he’d promised, not only to himself but to Ross Junior, too, never to do. He’d hurt Ramona.

  He should go after her, yet firmly decided against it. She’d said she was angry, but really, she hadn’t needed to express that. He’d seen the fire in her striking green eyes. It was the same fire he’d witnessed when she informed him her beloved twin had been attacked after he’d thrown a hissy fit for having to deal with Bud “Pain in the ass” Watson for the umpteenth time.

  Yes, of course, he knew Ramona was nothing like Stacey, but past experience taught him that if he were to run after Ramona, to try and reason with her, get her to listen to him, his smugness would only inflame the situation. He’d then end up saying things he’d later regret. And the last thing he wanted was to hurt her further. One knife to the heart was enough.

  Time and space was what Ramona needed. And that was exactly what Rex was going to give her. He knew her well enough to know she was good at her word and would be back in the evening. They’d talk then. And hopefully, he could make amends and heal the wound to her heart.

  But what to do in the meantime? For once, and unless an emergency arose, they had no patients to look after in the practice, though Bonnie and Clyde still needed feeding and grooming. What then after that? Should he wash and wax his SUV? Bury his nose in his current science fiction novel maybe? Stuff himself full with Mimi’s peanut butter cookies? Or what about jerk himself off? Without Ramona, neither option appealed, particularly the latter.

  The shrill of the telephone downstairs brought Rex out of his thoughts. Still butt-naked, he went down and answered it, for the first time grateful and happy it was Bud Watson.

  After quickly establishing Watson only wanted to know who to make the check for his last invoice out to—as if he didn’t already know the practice hadn’t changed its name!—Rex said, “Sundance? I’m interested. Can I come and look at him?”

  “Well, sure. What time you thinking?”

  “I’ve just got to see to Bonnie and Clyde first, so give me an hour. Two at the most.” He replaced the receiver and returned upstairs to dress.

  It was precisely one hour and forty-five minutes later that Rex shook hands with Watson, sealing his purchase of Sundance.

  “For the practice?”

  Rex nodded as he followed Watson into his office to sign the paperwork and to write his own check. Though in all honesty, he had toyed with the idea of buying Sundance for Ramona as a gesture of how he felt about her and as an apology for being a jerk earlier, as well for all the other times. It was an idea that had been dismissed after all of two seconds. Overblown gifts of affection never worked. Neither were they his style. The words I love you meant so much more. He bitterly regretted not saying them that morning.

  But then Ramona should know how he felt. He’d shown her more than enough times during the last week through his lovemaking. Their lovemaking had been both tender and wild, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Monday’s episode on the garden swing seat had been such an occasion. Laughing hard and climaxing equally so at the same time was a first.

  “Penny for them?”

  Scrawling his signature on the check and tearing the slip from the book, Rex looked up at Watson to find him watching him, just the hint of a “do-tell-
all” smile creasing his tanned features. He would rather cut off and dine on his balls than discuss his and Ramona’s relationship with the likes of Watson. He pushed the check across the desk. “Actually I was going to ask if you wouldn’t mind keeping Sundance for tonight.”

  “A good idea. Since you forgot to bring suitable transport.”

  Rex mustered a smile and rose to his feet. It was time to leave before the pacifist within him planted his foot up Watson’s ass and kicked him all the way to Helena.

  Fifteen minutes later, and he pulled up outside the Post Office, General & Hardware Store on Second Street for supplies. When Ramona returned home for their talk, he decided they could do it over dinner. Wine they already had, so he chose penne pasta and a selection of vegetables to make a simple sauce. Taking into account Ramona’s “overload of chocolate cake” the day before, he settled on strawberries for dessert, thinking that if their talk went well, he would, as part of the healing process, and if she agreed, eat them off her gorgeous body later.

  That put a silly smile on Rex’s face and a concerned expression on Robert Cannell’s, the store’s owner, as he rung up the purchases.

  One bag tucked under each arm, Rex left the store and came to an abrupt halt before his parked SUV. His silly smile vanished. A woman stood outside Denham’s Outfitters on the opposite side of the street. Her back was to him, but he knew those ash-blonde curls and that willowy figure anywhere.

  Then just to confirm his worst nightmare, the woman turned, and what he knew would be raspberry-colored lips curved into a cool smile.

  Stacey.

  Chapter 13

  As Stacey nonchalantly glided across the street to him, and wearing killer heels, too, Rex felt certain a ton of concrete had encased his feet. His guts churned. If he had a lick of sense, he’d tell her to go to hell and make a swift exit. But nothing would move. Well, except for his guts, which were on a fast-spin cycle.

  “Hello, Rex. You’re looking well.”

  Her cool tone matched the smile, and Rex wondered if winter had come early. He half expected cotton wool snowflakes to start tumbling from the sky, or in his ex-wife’s case—golf ball-sized hailstones. He also wondered if emptying the contents of his stomach over Stacey would make him feel better, but decided it wouldn’t be gentlemanly. Though why he was worried about his manners was lost on him. Being nice to Stacey was not going to happen…

  “You’re such a conniving bastard, Rex, wanting a family when you know you’re damaged. Your kids will all be freaks. And I don’t want them, or”—she’d slapped the divorce papers his lawyer had drawn up across his face, the sharp sound akin to when he himself had slammed the door on his marriage a week earlier—“the freak of a husband!”

  No, definitely not going to happen. Rex finally found his voice and injected his own coolness to it. “I’d like to say it’s a pleasure seeing you again, Stacey, but I can’t.”

  “Don’t be like that, Rex. I’ve come a long way, and I don’t want to spend precious time trading insults with you.” Her smile warmed minus ten degrees. “I passed a nice café on my way into town. Let’s go for a coffee.”

  “Let’s not.” He gave her a hard stare. “Why are you here, Stacey?”

  “Like I told you when I called, I want us to try again.”

  “Try again?” he repeated, not sure if he had heard correctly.

  “Yes, try again.”

  Okay, he had heard correctly. And instead of telling Stacey to go to hell and making that swift exit, Rex momentarily mislaid his brain and every scrap of common sense he possessed and asked, “As what?”

  “As man and wife. What do you think? I love you, darlin’. Always have. Always will.”

  “Can’t say the same myself.”

  “But you did, before the…”

  When Stacey broke off, Rex finished her unfinished sentence with a sneer. “Before ‘The Incident’?” He watched as she spread her hands in a pleading gesture. It made him sicker than before.

  “I was grieving.”

  “What, and you think I wasn’t? Dammit, Stacey! You put me through hell. And now you want me to return to it? To you? Well, I won’t. I have a new life and you form no part of it.” He turned his back on Stacey, placed one of the grocery bags on the SUV’s roof, and went to unlock the door, but she stuck out a hand. Her French manicured nails bit into his forearm.

  “Are you seeing somebody else?”

  “If I am, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “It has if we’re to make another go of our marriage, Rex.”

  Incredulous, he stared at her. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I don’t want anything to do with you. And I’ve got nothing more I want to say. Well, apart from get lost!” Shaking his arm free, Rex opened the door, placed the bags on the passenger seat, and went to get behind the wheel, but Stacey yanked on the sleeve of his T-shirt hard enough for him to stumble and knock his shoulder against the top of the door ledge.

  “Rex, we need to talk.”

  “Like fuck we do!” He glared at her and resisted the urge to rub his shoulder like some little girl. “You make me sick! Now fuck off and leave me alone!”

  “Is there a problem here?” a familiar man’s voice asked behind Rex.

  Ah, great. Just great. After the hailstorm comes the heat wave. Rex turned and mustered a friendly, yet “mind-your-own-business” smile at the uniformed officer. “Matt. Yeah, everything’s fine. Just fine.”

  Matt Anderson turned to Stacey, probably for confirmation. “Ma’am?”

  “My husband and I were just talking.”

  “Ex-husband!” Rex fired in sharply. He had to give Matt credit. Faced with a statuesque beauty and well-known celebrity such as Stacey and the only reaction to that comment was the slight hitch of his right brow. “We’ve been divorced for near enough eight months now. And no, actually, everything’s not fine,” he added, changing his mind. “She’s hassling me.”

  “Hassling you?” Matt repeated with another hitch to his brow.

  “Yes, hassling me.” Rex’s eyes narrowed as something occurred to him. “Hang on a minute. How did you know where to find me?” he asked Stacey. “You couldn’t have gotten anything out of Andy because he wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. And my former employers in Miami are not obliged to tell you anything, either. Past and present personnel records are confidential.”

  “I hired a private detective,” Stacey said with as much audacity as Rex knew he was smug.

  “You did what!” Disbelief flared into anger, but while Rex never made a move toward Stacey, Matt still placed a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Don’t even think about it. Or you’ll be seeing the inside of a cell.”

  Taken aback, Rex frowned at Matt. “What kind of a man do you think I am? I would never strike a woman.”

  “Glad to hear it. Now I suggest you go home.”

  “And what about her?”

  “Excuse me, Rex, but I do have a name,” Stacey said. “I’m your wife.”

  “Ex-wife!” Rex snarled, really pissed now. “Or have you forgotten putting pen to paper and ending your five-year marriage to a conniving, damaged bastard and a freak of a husband?” He had to give Stacey credit now. She actually looked contrite. But he’d had enough. “Come within three thousand miles of me again, Stacey, and I’ll get a restraining order.”

  Then with an acknowledging nod to Matt, Rex jumped into the driver’s seat, turned the key, slammed it into gear, and roared away without so much as a backward glance.

  He should have.

  * * * *

  “All right, what’s happened?”

  Taking a five-minute break, which had already stretched into thirty, from helping Samantha in their parents’ garden, her hip against the kitchen counter, Ramona stared at her father over the rim of her coffee mug as he tugged on his boots, trying her hardest not to appear as though she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  This sounded like it w
ould turn into a father-daughter interrogation, and there hadn’t been one of those since the time when she’d accidentally set fire to the rug in the living room and had blamed it on Matt. Sure, she’d been guilty then, but not now. If anybody was in the wrong, it was Rex. He was the one who couldn’t differentiate between herself and his ex-wife. And that scared her. Rex had never cheated or lied to her—well, not in the traditional sense anyway—but could she still end up with a broken heart? “Nothing. Did Matt say what time his shift finishes?”

  “Is this going to happen every time one of my children falls in love, they change the subject? First Ross. Now you.”

  She pretended not to have heard the “falls in love” part. “I didn’t change the subject. I told you, nothing’s happened.”

  “Oh, right. This argument with Rex? Was it about his ex-wife?”

  The mouthful of coffee she’d just taken choked her. Why did her father have to be so perceptive? Or was she just easy to read? She carefully placed the mug on the counter, not wanting her father to see the sudden trembling of her hand. Her anger had long since dissolved, so she could only put this reaction down to her fear of another broken heart.

  Of course, he saw her trembling hand because he said, “Want to talk about it? After all, a problem shared is a problem halved.”

  Ramona shook her head. “I can’t, Dad. Rex told me things, private things. And yes, while we did argue, I can’t betray his confidence.”

  “And neither would I want you to, but it’s obviously affected you.” Ross cupped his daughter’s shoulders with loving hands. “Ramona, if you’re worried that Rex will go back to his ex-wife, then you’re worrying over nothing.”

  She flashed a self-assured smile. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that Rex would never return to Stacey. “The day I return to you, will be the day when hell freezes over.” That’s what he’d said. And he’d meant it with bells on.

  So why the sudden identity crisis? He’d said it was because he’d thought she was pregnant. Even if she were, she would never react or treat Rex with the abhorrent disdain that Stacey had done. She loved Rex. So why hadn’t she told him? Ramona knew why. She wanted to hear him say the words first. It was important to her that he did.