The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

  It was funny what a person could make of a single word, a gesture, a look . . . but he’d known last night that she wanted him to end her four-year trek through the desert, and he could have sworn it was more than just a little fun between adults when it was all said and done. In fact, he’d felt something extraordinary—he had wanted to fall back and lie in that state of grace as long as he could, hold the emotion they had created in his hands. Maybe it was the raw release wrenched from her gut that did it to him. Maybe it was just the honesty of it all. Whatever it was, he’d never felt quite that way in his life, and it was a little weird.

  Which was probably why he’d been so quick to throw in the towel and chalk it up to a Friday night shenanigan. But the moment he said that, she’d been so damn relieved, like she’d rather die than . . .

  To hell with it—whatever the reason for her relief, it had annoyed him, and in the shower, he had tried to scrub the taste of her from his lips.

  He couldn’t do it.

  Looking at her now, head down, trying to choke down a steak sandwich, he could not believe that of all the women he had ever known in his life (and had lost count of way back there), this wacko ex-beauty queen could unhinge him so completely with one, single, breathtaking question. Her whole body had lit up, had pulsed beneath his hands and his mouth. And that smile of hers, that little smile she had on her face when he was . . . well, doing her. Christ.

  At the moment, he was wishing pretty hard that the passionate, free Rebecca would wake up, take a peek outside, say hi, say something—but instead of receiving the message telepathically like he hoped, she pushed her plate aside, leaving the better half of a delicious steak sandwich (even if he did say so himself). “Go on, eat it,” he said, wolfing down the last of his. “You could stand to put on a little weight.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Rebecca said, and with a groan, put her head in her hands. “Will you please take me to my car now?”

  Great. Now he felt like some guy she might have picked up at a bar, when, at the same time, he was feeling all warm and fuzzy about her. “Sure. Okay.” He tossed the dish towel onto the countertop. “Just give me a minute,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen, to the master bedroom. As he banged around looking for shoes, his mind was racing and he was, incredibly, pissed off. After all, he was the one who was usually doing the morning-after regret thing. And furthermore, she had started it, not him, and she had jumped right in with both feet, lighting up like the University of Texas Tower from the moment he touched her. Hell, he’d just hung on for the ride. One would think Miss Four Years would appreciate all his efforts for her sake.

  How could she not?

  Alien. That was how.

  Frankly, her everyday I’m-above-this attitude was really starting to grate. He didn’t want her. Well, okay, yes he did—but only in a very base man-level way. He damn sure wasn’t going to do anything about it. And if the earth should ever stop revolving, which it would have to do before he would even consider touching her again, no matter how long she’d been without, she just might have to crawl and beg. Ha. That would teach her.

  Matt found loafers, shoved his feet into them, and went marching out of his bedroom to get rid of her.

  But when he entered the living room, Rebecca was standing at the windows, wearing a very gentle smile that slowed him down a step or two. “You know what?” she asked immediately. “You were right.”

  Damn straight he was right. She had started this whole thing, not him.

  “I feel so much better after that sandwich. I really can’t thank you enough, Matt. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I mean, I never drink too much—I’m usually very careful about that.”

  Usually very tightly wound was more like it.

  “I really appreciate your help,” she said with a grateful smile.

  All right. Well okay then. This was more like it. “It wasn’t anything,” he lied, and picked up his keys. “Ready?” He gestured toward the door and followed her, pausing to pick up a couple of baseball caps.

  “What’s this for?” Rebecca asked as he handed her one.

  “We ride with the top down.” He opened the door. “After you, Mork.”

  She gave him an inquisitive look, shook her head, and walked out.

  Matt had every intention of taking her directly to her car, do not pass Go . . . but in spite of her lack of attachment after last night’s activities, she looked sort of cute with the baseball cap on, and it was a glorious early-spring day, with temps hovering around seventy.

  The kicker was his mom’s birthday, which he didn’t really remember was next week until he saw the West Lynn Art Festival, a tony little two-street art show. His mom loved crap like that, filled her whole house with it. And then, a gift from heaven—a Chevy half-ton had pulled away from the curb right in front of him and opened up the greatest parking space in the history of mankind.

  Matt instantly jerked his car into it.

  “What are you doing?” Rebecca asked, gripping the door to keep from being tossed onto the sidewalk.

  “My mom’s birthday is next week.”

  Rebecca leaned forward, looked down the little street where the art festival was in full swing. “Won’t you take me to my car first?”

  “No way,” he said, slapping the gear into park. “I will never get a parking space this good again in my lifetime and you owe me at least that much.” That left her speechless. “I’m just going to pop in and find my mom something nice for her birthday. I won’t be a minute. You can come with or you can sit, makes no difference to me.”

  She puffed her cheeks out, obviously debating, then huffed her disgruntlement as she opened the car door, swung her bag over her shoulder, and slammed the door shut before marching around to his side of the car. “Okay. Let’s go,” she said grimly.

  “It’s not like I am asking you to jump off a cliff, you know,” he said as he unthinkingly grasped her elbow to shepherd her across the street.

  “I just think it would be better if we went our separate ways and moved on,” she said pertly.

  What was he, the last guy on earth or something? “Why are you making this out to be such a big deal?”

  “I’m not making it into anything,” she said. “And FYI, you may think it’s all well and good, but it is a big deal to me—”

  “It would be to me, too, after four years,” he grumbled, steering her down the path.

  “Do you mind? I’m trying to say I am not the sort for casual sex.”

  Matt quirked a brow and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Like to really go at it, eh?”

  “Matt.”

  He sighed. “Just trying to get you to lighten up, Rebecca. We agreed—a good time was had by all. That’s it, nothing more,” he said, noticing her cheeks were turning an appealing shade of pink. “And since it was agreed that I am not going to drop down on a knee and ask you to make it permanent, I think you could stand a little shopping.”

  She sighed. “Okay.” She followed him into the first row of canvas-bound booths. “Are you an art enthusiast?” The tents were filled with original oil and watercolor paintings, colorful pottery, wrought iron yard art, woodworks, and metal sculptures.

  “I don’t know. I just like originality in anything.”

  “I wanted to be an artist,” she said wistfully, and paused, looked at an oil painting of a field of bluebonnets. “When I was a girl, I never went anywhere without my sketch pad and pencils.”

  Honestly, Matt had her pegged as the cheerleader homecoming queen type, not the thoughtful artist type. “So what stopped you?”

  “Life,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “What else?” And she continued into the little booth, looking at more paintings of windmills and bluebonnets and dilapidated country barns.

  But that sounded like a cop-out to Matt, and he followed her inside, asking, “Why would life stop you? Life happened to me, too, but I still went to law school.”

  “Of course. But you’re a
smart man.” (Matt immediately chalked that up in her pro column). “But I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to be me. I tried to be who others wanted me to be.”

  “Now why on earth would you want to be who others wanted you to be?”

  Rebecca flashed a funny, sad little smile that crinkled the corner of her eyes. “That is the million dollar question. I don’t know. I was so young and so stupid and I gave up so much. I’ve only recently begun to realize how much.” She moved away from him to look at a painting of a herd of cattle.

  Her answer intrigued him—Rebecca didn’t seem like a woman who had ever had to give up anything, but in fact, quite the opposite. “So you made some mistakes as a kid— everyone does,” he said. “Can’t you just get it back?”

  “Get what back?”

  “Your life. Whoever you were going to be.”

  Her laugh was pleasant and light, washing over him like some freaky cosmic rain. “I would if I could go back in time.”

  “I know you can’t go back in time, but you can pick up where you left off,” he insisted, suddenly wanting nothing more than to see the Rebecca that might have been.

  “No, I can’t. Too much time has passed since then, and besides, you should never look back, only forward, for tomorrow is where the future lies, not in your past.”

  Matt laughed. Where did you get that? Out of some lame self-help book?”

  That remark earned him a cool look. “I suppose you have something against people who try to improve themselves?”

  “No. But I have something against people deciding they can’t have the same desires and dreams they did when they were a kid. Do you still want to pick up a sketch book?”

  Rebecca sort of rolled her shoulders.

  “What’s that?”

  “What?

  “That little thing you just did with your shoulders. Was it a yes or a no?”

  “I didn’t do anything with my shoulders. I just don’t have anything else to say on the subject.”

  “Ah,” he said as they paused at a potter’s booth. “I hit a button.”

  “Nooo, you didn’t hit a button, Matt,” she said impatiently. “I’m just not the same person I was then.”

  “Or last night, for that matter,” he muttered.

  “I’m going to ignore that,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “I will tell you, however, that most people go through at least seven stages of personal development before they are transformed into who they really are!”

  Man, she had been reading self-help books. “That’s a bunch of crap. We are all essentially the same person we were as a kid. And I think you still want to paint but that you’ve been trained to think it is some sort of childish wish.”

  “It is a childish wish. And besides, I have Grayson now.”

  “That’s just a lousy excuse not to try.”

  She came to an abrupt halt in front of a glazed clay pitcher and matching cups. “Why should you care if I paint or not?” she demanded.

  “I couldn’t possibly care less,” he assured her. “I just don’t like adults copping out on their true desires. If I were you, I’d quit reading self-help books and follow what’s in my heart, because you can be whoever or whatever you want to be, Rebecca. There is no limit, no rule, no childish fantasy if you really want it. Just be. And furthermore . . .” He glanced around them, leaned down to whisper in her ear. “It’s okay to enjoy sex for the sake of sex now and again. It’s good for you.”

  She jerked backward. “Thanks for the tip, Mr. Know-It-All—”

  “Congratulate me; I’ve climbed up a notch from moron—”

  “But I don’t need any advice. I have a mom, a dad, two sisters, a grandmother and grandfather, plus an ex-husband who are more than happy to give me all the advice I could ever want without even being asked. I certainly don’t need you to—”

  “Mr. Parrish!”

  Both Matt and Rebecca whirled about at the sound of his name; Matt immediately suppressed a groan. It was good ol’ Harold, looking like a giant Pez dispenser in his festive weekend wear (seersucker shirt, white denim shorts, and sockless leather boat shoes), arm in arm with a man Matt presumed was his lover—a short, buff guy in shorty-shorts and a tank top, boots, and carefully scrunched socks. Judging by the grin on his face, Harold was much happier to see Matt than vice versa. He came galloping forward, pulling Arnold Schwarzenegger with him. “Mr. Parrish! How are you?” He beamed.

  “Good, Harold.”

  “Have you met Gary?” he asked breathlessly.

  Well, as he hadn’t been to any gay bars lately . . . “Ah, no—”

  “This is Gary,” he said, letting Mr. Atlas go long enough to shake Matt’s hand, then grabbing him right back as if he feared Gary might float away.

  “Good to meet you, Mr. Parrish!” Gary said. “I’ve heard an awful lot about you.”

  “That right?” Matt asked, and looked at Harold, who avoided his gaze altogether by looking at Rebecca, at whom he cocked one well-groomed brow. “Oh ah . . . Harold and Gary, I’d like you to meet Rebecca Lear,” Matt said. “She’s working on Tom Masters’s campaign with me.”

  “Hel-loh,” Harold said, immediately floating over to offer his hand to her.

  “Harold is my secretary,” Matt said, trying not to wince.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Harold. And Gary,” Rebecca said with a winsome smile that would have felled lesser—certainly straighter—men.

  “You know, you look really familiar,” Gary said, cocking his head to one side, finger tapping against his cheek as he peered at Rebecca.

  “Ohmigod, do you know each other?” Harold gasped, ecstatic over the prospect.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” Rebecca said politely, and took, Matt noticed, a small step backward.

  “No, no—I’m sure I’ve seen you,” Gary insisted, matching her backward step with a forward one.

  “She was Miss Texas one year,” Matt said helpfully.

  Harold and Gary gasped at the exact same moment; Rebecca shot him a withering look. “You’re kidding!” Harold exclaimed.

  “I knew I knew you!” Gary cried. “This is wonderful! Wait until we tell Jim!” he said, and Matt suddenly feared that Harold and Gary were dangerously close to grabbing hands and dancing around in a circle. But Gary swirled back around to Rebecca, beaming from ear to ear. “Miss Lear, I can’t tell you how thrilling it is to meet you! We have all the Miss Texas pageant tapes from the mid-eighties on!”

  “You do?” Rebecca asked skeptically.

  For the life of him, Matt couldn’t figure out why anyone, save maybe teenage girls, would be interested in the pageant thing—well, except maybe the thing about hemorrhoid cream, which fascinated him on some morbid level he didn’t want to explore too deeply—but it was painfully clear Rebecca wasn’t too crazy about the recognition. “Listen, guys, we need to get going,” he said, and grasped Rebecca’s hand.

  “Oh! Oh, oh, of course!” Harold said, and he and Gary turned twin beams to Rebecca. “It was great to meet you, Miss Lear!” he said, dipping a little at the knee to emphasize just how great. “I just can’t believe we did!”

  “Thanks,” Rebecca said, inching closer to Matt. “A pleasure meeting you, too,” she said, lifting her free hand and crowding into Matt with a not-so-subtle elbow to the ribs. Matt didn’t need any encouragement; he pulled her away, into his side, and as they disappeared into the crowd; he had a final glimpse of Harold and Gary standing side by side, watching her with reverence.

  “Thanks a lot,” Rebecca said as they stepped into the middle of the throng, and pulled her hand free of his.

  “He said he knew you,” Matt reminded her. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? It’s not something to be embarrassed about.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.”

  “You act like you are. And you said as much last night.”

  “I did?” she asked weakly.

  “Maybe not in so many words, but you definitely sounded like there were some re
grets. I don’t get it—why not be a former beauty queen?”

  Rebecca paused in front of some iron sculptures, obviously pondering that question. “I guess it just doesn’t seem very important,” she muttered.

  “Important?” Matt laughed. “We could all look back at our lives and say the same about any number of things. What’s important, really?”

  “Art,” she said resolutely. “Art is important. For example, look at this piece,” she said, pointing to a strange looking thing, explaining what she saw in the maniacally shaped vase with holes in it, while Matt quietly wondered how it held water. And when they moved on to the next booth of paper sculptures, shapes delicately molded and painted, Rebecca pointed out a bouquet of flowers that was truly exquisite with unusual colors and lines. Matt picked it up; she suggested that it was a nice gift for his mom. It was something that his mom would like.

  He paid for it and found her outside at the next booth, admiring some pottery work. With the flower thing in the crook of his arm, he asked if she had dabbled in any other art besides painting. Pottery, she said, pausing to look at more pieces. And when he asked what her favorite art form was, Rebecca slowly began to talk about a life she once had as a teenager, the life of a budding artist, who had painted and made sculptures from clay, and had even sold a few pieces to friends of her parents who thought she was destined for greatness. She talked with such animation that Matt could see it really had been important to her. Still was, regardless of what she wanted him to believe—or what she was trying to make herself believe.

  More importantly, by the time they reached the end of the booths, he realized he had glimpsed a woman behind the beauty queen, one who was far more interesting and vibrant and funny than he had originally thought, and he was fascinated. She was a challenge, too, as he imagined ways one might draw that vibrant woman out of her shell of suppressed perfection. The only problem was—and it was sort of a big one—she didn’t particularly like him. For the first time in his life, Matt was looking at a woman who didn’t like him. What had happened to the universe as he knew it?