by Brenda Novak
“The kitchen table, I guess. But first I need to get out some blankets we can use as padding.”
The inside of Rebecca’s house was certainly different than Josh had expected. Because she came off as rather unconcerned about domestic things, he’d assumed her place would be messy. But it wasn’t. There was no clutter, no dusty corners or blinds, no dirty dishes in the sink, no crumbs on the counters or floors. Even the dishrag had been folded neatly across the faucet. Some of the furniture was obviously old and mismatched, but there was evidence of creativity—an antique icebox that doubled as a sideboard, a tile mosaic that hung above it, a braided rug beneath the kitchen table. One whole wall of the dining room was covered with shelves that had been made using simple planks and cinderblock, but the collection of blue, green and yellow jars displayed there, and the assortment of wonderful-smelling candles, somehow made them look trendy. If he had to pick a word to describe Rebecca’s home, it would have to be…unique, he decided. Like her.
“If you store your kitchen table, where are you going to eat until the wedding?” Josh asked as Rebecca came into the living room carrying a stack of blankets.
“At my new place.”
“What new place?”
She dropped the blankets on a recliner that faced an entertainment center made of distressed pine. “I’m moving to another house until I get married.”
“Why would you do that?”
She went into the kitchen, and he followed.
“It’s a long story,” she said, pulling the chairs away from the table.
“Where is this other house?” he asked, helping her.
“Out in the boonies.” She grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and walked outside with it, and he brought two more.
“Just put them on the lawn,” he told her. “We’ve got to get the table on the truck first.”
“Where’s Mary tonight?” she asked as they headed inside.
“I think she’s home with her mother and her son.” Actually, he knew she was. She’d just called him at his folks’ house and invited him over. He’d told her he was too tired because he’d thought he was. But, strangely enough, since he’d arrived at Rebecca’s, his energy had apparently revived.
Rebecca moved the quart jar filled with fresh flowers that had stood on the kitchen table to the counter. “Do you think you two will be getting married soon?” she asked, positioning herself on the far side of the table.
He glanced up at her, instead of taking hold of his end, surprised by the personal nature of her question.
“Friends ask friends those kinds of things,” she said defensively.
“Right. Well…I don’t know.” He leaned, palms down, on the table. “Do you think we should?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Friends ask friends those kinds of questions,” he said.
She thought for a minute, then obviously tried to sidestep giving him a direct answer. “Everyone says you two are perfect for each other. You know, golden boy marries golden girl. Cheerleading captain marries football captain.”
He made a face. “Golden boy? Don’t call me that. Anyway, that cheerleading captain, football captain stuff is pretty superficial. Is that the best you can do? As a friend?”
She propped her own hands on the table and leaned forward just enough that Josh was distracted by what her blouse threatened to reveal. Working to keep his eyes from straying, he waited for her response.
“You want the truth?”
He wasn’t really sure, but he nodded.
“Okay, as a friend, I’d have to tell you that Mary’s an opportunist,” she said. “She’s only interested in what makes her look good. If you were ever down and out, really down and out, I suspect she’d walk away without a backward glance, move on to more promising opportunities.”
Her answer made him blanch. “I’d say that’s a definite no.”
“I’m not finished. If you were anyone else, I’d tell you to stay the heck away from her. But you’re not. You’re Josh Hill.”
“Why do I get the impression that means you think we deserve each other?”
She shrugged. “I’m not saying you deserve each other. I’m saying you’re always on top, so what do you have to worry about? Chances are, you’ll never see the worst of Mary.”
“I had to ask,” he grumbled.
She started to lift her end. “Ready?”
He was about to help her, then changed his mind. “No, I’m not ready. I think I’m offended by what you just said.”
“Why?”
“I work as hard as anyone else for what comes my way.”
She didn’t answer.
“Rebecca? You don’t believe I’ve earned what’s mine?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You asked me what I thought about Mary, and I told you, okay? Can we get this table loaded?”
Josh had the feeling they’d just scratched the surface of what had always stood between them, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue it any further. Rebecca was leaving in a few weeks. They’d finally managed to form a friendship—or some semblance of one. Probably best to leave well enough alone.
They fit the table and all four chairs on the truck, along with a small end table, a bench and several lamps, and padded everything with blankets before tying it down. Then they jumped in the cab of the truck to make their first trip to the Store & Lock. “Can I tell you what I think of Buddy?” Josh asked as he started the engine, still annoyed by what she’d said earlier about him and Mary.
Rebecca fastened her seat belt. “You don’t know Buddy.”
“I’ve heard a few things.”
She folded her arms and braced herself against the door. “Like what?”
Josh checked for oncoming traffic and pulled out when he saw, as he’d expected, nothing. Rebecca lived on a short street that dead-ended into a trailer park. Not exactly a high traffic area. “That he’s too young for you.”
“Who told you that? My dad?”
Josh checked both mirrors to make sure the furniture wasn’t going anywhere as he accelerated and didn’t answer.
“Of course it was my dad,” she said. “He’s so weird about the age difference. Buddy’s twenty-six. That’s hardly robbing the cradle.”
Twenty-six was better than Josh had figured, after what Doyle had said, but he was still convinced Buddy wasn’t the right man for her. “It’s not just his age,” he said. “From all accounts, he’s pretty mild-mannered.”
“From my father’s account, you mean.” She kicked off her shoes and adjusted her seat belt so she could put her feet up on the dash. “What’s wrong with being mild-mannered? Isn’t that exactly what I need?”
He turned onto Main Street. “No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you need someone who understands your nature. Someone who can fulfill you without giving you too much rope, on one hand, or breaking your spirit, on the other.”
“I’m not one of your horses, Josh.”
“The concept is the same. You won’t be able to respect Buddy if he doesn’t stand up to you.”
“You don’t know that he won’t stand up to me. He’s put the wedding off…er…a couple of times already. I certainly wasn’t happy about that.”
“He isn’t corralled yet.”
“Horses again?”
He ignored her in favor of making his point. “It’ll be different once he feels he’s committed.”
“And you know all this because—”
“I know you.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “We weren’t even friends until an hour ago.”
He slung an arm over the steering wheel. “You asked me what I thought.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said. “You just wanted to tell me.”
“What do you see in him, anyway?”
“Besides the fact that he’s going to take me five hundred miles away from here?” she asked, twirling a section of hair around her finger.
; “Yeah, besides that.”
Her hand dropped into her lap and she turned to stare out the window. He could barely hear her when she spoke. “Maybe I like the fact that we get to start in the present.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” she said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FRIENDS. She and Josh were now friends. He was actually sitting in her living room on the only chair she had left—a recliner that belonged to Delaney and had to go out to the ranch—waiting for her to make him something to eat in exchange for all his hard work. Booker had canceled a few hours earlier, when he found out she already had help, which left her and Josh to move everything into the little cubicle she’d rented from the Store & Lock at the far end of town. Now it was after midnight and they were finished, but they were both hungry and exhausted.
“How about some macaroni and cheese?” Rebecca called from her small kitchen.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked, hardly exuberant.
“Unless you want cold cereal. My mother sent home some garlic bread I can warm in the oven, if that helps.”
“Sounds good,” he said. She could hear him flipping through the channels on her television. Rebecca had decided to leave the TV for last, knowing she could always fit it in the passenger seat of her car. She wanted to finish moving tomorrow, because she had the day off, but the house was too quiet to go without television for even twenty-four hours.
“Who’ll be around to help you tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’m sure Randy will come by. I’ve got his truck.”
“Is all your other stuff going with you to your new place?”
“No, my new place is furnished. Once I get packed, a lot of boxes will have to go into storage—all the kitchen stuff and my summer clothes. Which reminds me. I need that key I gave you to my storage unit.”
“I left it in my ashtray when I took that last load of small stuff you didn’t want rolling around in the back of Randy’s truck. I’ll give it to you when I leave.”
“What if you forget?”
“You’ve got another one, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, but that isn’t any reason to lose my duplicate.”
“I’m tired. And it’s not going anywhere.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I can handle the boxes. Randy will only need to help me with my bedroom furniture.”
“Good thing we’ve only just become friends,” he said. “If we were old friends, I’d have to come back.”
Good thing was right, Rebecca thought. Despite their agreement, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be even casual friends with Josh Hill. He unsettled her, made her think about possibilities she was better off not thinking about—possibilities that weren’t very reassuring for someone who was engaged. But she had to admit he’d been a godsend tonight.
As she started cooking, he settled on a movie that sounded a lot like Terminator. He’d offered to help her in the kitchen but she’d declined. She felt indebted after all the work he’d done and hoped to relieve at least some of that sense of obligation. She certainly couldn’t walk around town feeling beholden to Josh Hill. It wasn’t natural.
The macaroni and cheese took Rebecca longer than she’d thought it would. By the time she’d boiled the noodles, added the Velveeta, brown sugar, milk and seasonings and taken the garlic bread from the oven, twenty minutes had disappeared. Josh hadn’t spoken for a while, but she could hear Arnold Schwarzenegger’s relentless pursuit of Linda Hamilton. Soon she and Josh would eat, she’d thank him, and that’d be the end of entertaining him. As before, they’d occasionally pass on the street, nod and that would be that.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said, setting everything on the counter that separated the dining area from the kitchen, since she no longer had a table.
He didn’t respond, so she filled a plate and carried it over. She figured there wasn’t any need to make him move. He already had the only seat in the house. “Josh?”
Again no response.
Rebecca leaned closer so she could see his face in the flickering light of the television. Sure enough, his eyes were closed. He’d fallen asleep.
“Josh.” She shook his arm. “Are you still hungry? Do you want to eat?”
His eyes fluttered open and he mumbled something unintelligible, then dropped off again.
Now what? She couldn’t let him sleep in Delaney’s recliner. His truck was parked in front of her house. If he stayed, it would be all over town in the morning that they’d had an affair. Maybe her father deserved that for pushing them together, but she didn’t think Buddy would be especially happy about it.
Of course, she was moving in with Booker. Rumors were bound to rage about the two of them. But Buddy was the reason she’d had to come up with other living arrangements in the first place, which made it okay. More importantly, Rebecca didn’t want to have sex with Booker.
Josh was a different story entirely.
Putting his plate on the floor, she shook him harder. “Josh, you’d better wake up. You wouldn’t want Mary thinking you spent the night with me, would you?”
“Stop it,” he growled and knocked her hands away. She doubted he even knew who she was, but she definitely got the point that he didn’t want to be bothered.
“Well, damn,” she said. “What am I going to do now?”
She stepped back and stared at him for another few seconds before coming to a decision. She’d just move his truck. She’d seen him drop his keys on the counter earlier, when they were struggling to drag Delaney’s old bed outside. She might not be able to remove him from her living room, but she could certainly remove his truck from in front of her house.
Problem solved. Until morning. She wasn’t sure what it would feel like to face Josh Hill upon waking. But she was too tired to deal with that prospect right now. Maybe she’d wake up and he’d be gone—provided he was smart enough to figure out she’d moved his truck and that it hadn’t been stolen.
Before going out, she picked at the macaroni and cheese she’d made, polished off two pieces of garlic bread, cleaned the dishes and put the extra food away, thinking he might wake up after he’d had a little nap. But he didn’t.
“Josh?” she said again as she left the kitchen, just to be sure.
He didn’t answer, so she scooped his keys off the counter and parked his truck in a far corner of the trailer park.
He was still sleeping like the dead when she returned. Taking one of the blankets from her bed, she threw it over him and turned off the television. Then she showered, towel-dried her hair, pulled on a big T-shirt and fell into bed.
* * *
SHE’D POISONED HIM. That had to be it, Josh thought. He’d never felt sicker in his life, even that time she’d duped him with the laxative. Chills wracked his entire body, he could hardly open his eyes for the pain lancing through his head, and nausea roiled in his stomach. She must’ve put something in his food again—but he didn’t remember eating anything before falling asleep.
“Rebecca?” he called.
No answer.
The house was completely dark. She’d been kind enough to provide him with a quilt, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep him warm. Not right now. He longed for some Tylenol, a hot water bottle, a big feather comforter and his own bed. He had to get home.
Except he didn’t think he was capable of driving.
Forcing himself up and out of the recliner, he stumbled around the unfamiliar living room, searching for his keys. He could have sworn he’d left them on the counter, but he patted the top of it for a full five minutes without finding anything. Finally he sought a switch on the wall and flooded the room with light.
He winced against the sudden brightness and put his head down so he wouldn’t pass out from dizziness. When he could look up, he found his keys next to the telephone. Dragging them off the counter, he used the wall to keep himself upright until he could stumble to the front door. But when he gazed outside, he could only stare in silent wonde
r. The road was empty; his truck was gone.
“Dammit, Rebecca,” he muttered, sliding down the wall. He didn’t have the energy to shut the door, even though the air was far colder outside than in.
He was shivering uncontrollably by the time he heard some noise coming from the back of the house.
“Josh?” Rebecca asked, standing in the hallway, blinking. It looked as though she wasn’t wearing anything except an oversized T-shirt. But she could’ve been standing there stark naked; he was too sick to care.
“What are you doing?” she asked when her eyes adjusted and she saw him sitting on the floor. “Why’s the door open?”
“My truck’s gone.”
“No, I just moved it. It’s at the trailer park. Is something else wrong?”
“Tell me you didn’t do this to me,” he said.
She hurried forward and shut the door. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sick.”
“In what way?”
It took a moment to catch his breath. “Chills. Aches. My head feels like it’s going to explode. And you might want to bring me a pan.”
“Oh, it’s just the flu,” she said. “My nephew has it right now.”
“Just the flu?” he mumbled. “You gotta take me home.”
“I can’t take you home when you’re this sick. Your dad said your brother’s out of town. There won’t be anyone to look after you.”
“Then…” He tried to think of a good alternative. “I guess you can take me to my parents’ house.”
“I can’t do that, either,” she said. “They’re going to think what you did—that I did this to you. And even if I’m able to convince them I’m not to blame, they’re going to wonder why you were with me in the middle of the night. It’s nearly three o’clock.”
Despite the flu, what she said made sense. His mother wouldn’t be particularly happy to think he’d been spending the night with Rebecca. Come to think of it, neither would Mary.