by Brenda Novak
“Here,” she said. “I know what to do. We’ll get you fixed up.”
Josh thought it was a sad day when he had to rely on Rebecca Wells to take care of him. “That’s okay. I’m not sure I trust you that much.”
“Oh, quit being such a baby,” she said, scowling at him. “I promise you’ll like what I’m going to do.”
Two days earlier, before the truce, he would’ve made it out of her house if he’d had to crawl. But he didn’t want to miss anything he might like—especially since she seemed so definite about it. And she’d done a good job on his hair….
“Just get me warm,” he said.
“I can do better than that. Come on.” She was next to him then, helping him stand, and the softness and warmth of her body felt so good he wasn’t sure he’d be able to let her go.
She guided him through the living room, down a short hall and into her bedroom, which was the only room he hadn’t visited while they were moving her furniture. The blinds were pulled, so he could scarcely see it even now. But he thought he could identify the outline of a double bed, a nightstand, a dresser and something low and square—a steamer trunk?—off to one side. He couldn’t tell whether the room was decorated in the same offbeat way as the rest of the house. But he knew one thing: it smelled like heaven.
“First let’s get your boots off,” she said as he sank gratefully onto her bed.
She bent down and removed his boots. He heard them clunk against the wall as she tossed them out of the way. Then she pulled off his shirt.
“Okay, now take off your jeans and crawl under the covers,” she said.
He stared up at her. “Take off my jeans? You’re kidding, right?”
“Do you want to feel better or not?”
She left the room, obviously bent on some errand, and he tried to think clearly enough to decide what to do. He already felt pretty vulnerable. He wasn’t sure he wanted to make himself any more vulnerable by sacrificing what remained of his clothes.
“You haven’t moved,” she said when she came back into the room carrying a pan in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
“I think I’m better off with my pants on. Just in case.”
“In case of what?” she asked.
“In case you’re going to throw them outside and leave me to find my way home.”
She smiled. “Would I do something like that?”
“There was definitely a time when you would’ve done exactly that.”
She handed him a couple of Tylenol and put the pan within easy reach. “Then play it safe,” she said.
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep the pills down, but he swallowed them anyway and curled up on the bed. “You got a hot water bottle?”
“Here, cover up at least,” she said, helping him get beneath the blankets. “I’ve got a heating pad and a few other things. Just wait, okay?”
She lit a couple of candles on the nightstand, and he recognized the slightly floral scent as the one that had been lingering in her room. Then she turned on some low, wordless music, and went to her closet. A few minutes later, he heard her by the bed again and opened his eyes to see her rummaging through a square case. She withdrew what looked like a big bottle of hand lotion, wrapped the heating pad around it and plugged the cord in at the wall.
“I thought that heating pad was for me,” he complained, shivering.
“You’ll be warm in a minute.”
He tried to be patient. The candles, the music and the heating pad promised good things. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to give you a massage. It’ll help your body rid itself of the toxins that are making you sick and ease the aching in your muscles.”
Years ago Josh had heard something about Rebecca attending Carlson’s School of Massage Therapy in Iowa. She’d been there part of the time he was attending the U of U. But when he graduated and returned home, she’d already changed her focus to hair care.
She disappeared into her closet again. When she emerged, she carried a big vinyl-covered headrest, which she positioned on the bed beside him.
“Put your face in the opening,” she told him as she situated the heating pad between his chest and the mattress.
He did as she said and immediately felt the wonderful heat from the pad seeping through his skin. He was about to tell her to pull up the covers and just let him sleep. He felt too miserable to be around anyone. But then she poured warm oil on his back and began to rub, and he knew she was right—this would help. As the candles scented the air and the music played softly in the background, her fingers seemed to find every sore spot on his back. Gently yet firmly, she worked each muscle. She moved up his spine to his neck and then massaged his head, soothing away his aches and pains until he scarcely felt them anymore. Finally, his eyelids lowered, blocking out the dim light, and he drifted off to sleep.
* * *
REBECCA CONSIDERED massage to be very therapeutic. She believed the right kind of touch could heal people on more than one level. She also knew that touching some people affected her differently than touching others—and touching Josh Hill seemed to have the greatest impact of all.
Drawing a bolstering breath, she gazed down at his smooth bare skin, gleaming with oil in the candlelight, and wondered how it had come to this. Just two days earlier, she hadn’t spoken to him in ages—other than that August 16th and an occasional “how do you do.” Now he was in her bed, and the massage she performed so mechanically on others felt more like a labor of love. Her hands actually shook with the desire to explore the rest of him….
Buddy. Think of Buddy. He was a kind, gentle lover. A good man. So what if they’d never enjoyed the same type of mind-blowing sex she’d almost had with Josh? So what if during those few unguarded minutes in Josh’s arms last summer, she’d fancied herself so deeply in love with him she thought she’d drown? She’d been dazed, confused, drunk. Tonight her body’s response stemmed from the music and the candles.
Or maybe she was as flawed as everyone said she was.
Wiping the oil from Josh’s back, she got up and put her things away. She was stupid to have agreed to this friendship. All it did was shine a bright light on her weak character. She was engaged and yet, when she came into contact with Josh Hill, she lost sight of the small, neat house she imagined sharing with Buddy.
Fortunately nothing had happened that she needed to be ashamed of. She hadn’t been disloyal or unfaithful to Buddy or anyone else. All she had to do was stay on the straight and narrow course that would lead her to marital bliss and not moral ruin. And that shouldn’t be too hard, she reasoned—not if she kept her perspective. If Josh wanted her at all, he wanted her for only one thing. It wasn’t as though he could ever fall in love with her or marry her, as Buddy was willing to do. She wasn’t about to destroy her engagement for a cheap, unfulfilling fling, despite the desire that dogged her so tenaciously. She was better than that, smarter than that.
In the morning, she’d tell Josh that she didn’t want anything more to do with him, that he was to leave her alone beginning immediately—
“Rebecca?” he murmured.
She froze at the entrance to her closet. “Hmm?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” he said. “I should have taken off my pants.”
Rebecca’s shoulders slumped as she dragged a blanket out to the living room. Cutting him off wasn’t going to be easy. As much as she wanted to believe that what she felt for him was strictly a physical response, the one he inspired in most women, she knew she was starting to really like Josh Hill.
* * *
“I DON’T WANT to be friends anymore,” Rebecca announced as soon as Josh stumbled out of her bedroom the next morning. She’d been up for several hours already, scrounging boxes from various businesses in town and packing. She’d just finished telling herself that she was going to wait for the right time to spring her change of heart on Josh. But there didn’t seem to be a good time to wreck a friendship. And when her first glimpse of
him made her heart pound and her body grow warm, even when he was looking sleepy and unshaven, she knew sooner was better than later.
“What?” Obviously not quite coherent yet, he scratched his head and glanced around as though trying to find his bearings.
“I said I don’t want to be friends with you anymore.”
He was still wearing only his blue jeans, which were zipped but not buttoned. Yawning, he walked toward her. “Was it just last night we loaded up all your furniture?” he asked, sprawling on the floor a few feet from where she was packing dishes. “It seems like eons ago. What time is it?”
“Nearly noon. Didn’t you hear me?” she asked.
He propped himself up on his hands. “Yeah, I heard you. You don’t want to be my friend. I assumed you were joking, of course.”
She gathered what she could of her remaining nerve. “Well, I wasn’t.”
He met this statement with several seconds of wary silence. “I don’t understand,” he said finally.
Rebecca wrapped newspaper around a plate and put it in with the other dishes she’d already packed. “It’s simple. I want to call off the deal we made last night.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“Because I don’t like the change, that’s why. I don’t want your help moving. I don’t want your truck in front of my house. I don’t want you spending the night.” She hesitated. “How are you feeling? Can I get you a glass of juice?”
He shook his head. “You don’t want to be my friend and how am I feeling? God, you’re confusing. What did I miss between last night and this morning? I’m sorry I got sick while I was here, if that’s what has your panties in a bunch.”
“It has nothing to do with you getting sick. I just want things to go back to the way they were.”
“What’s so appealing about being enemies?”
“Nothing. It’s just more appealing than being friends.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
She kept packing so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “It does to me. We made a mistake trying to turn our relationship into something it can’t be.”
He sat up and crossed his legs. “Do you mind telling me how I’m supposed to react here? Because I’m at a complete loss. I’ve never had anyone decide they don’t want to be my friend anymore, at least not out of the clear blue and without a reason.”
“Can’t we just pretend the past two days never happened?” she asked. “Then you can say goodbye and go, and after another hour or two, I can pat myself on the back for doing the right thing.”
“How can you say that’s the right thing? You’re being mean to me!”
“I’m engaged!”
“I know that. But we’re only friends. We haven’t done anything wrong. I mean, there was last summer, which was—” he let his breath go all at once “—crazy good, I’ll admit. But that was before Buddy and you—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she interrupted, taping up the box she’d filled.
He sat without moving and watched her search for the marker she’d been using to label everything, and Rebecca thought if he didn’t leave soon the butterflies in her stomach might make her lose the donut she’d had for breakfast. “Well?” she said.
“You really want me to leave?”
She swallowed hard, wondering why, if this was the right thing to do, it was hurting like some kind of breakup. “Yes.”
He stood. “Then come over here and tell me that.”
She looked up at him from where she knelt by the box on which she was writing kitchen. “You’ve got the flu. I wouldn’t want to catch it.”
“I’m better now.”
“You can’t be completely better.”
“I’m mostly better. Come here.”
“Why?”
“Because. I’ve never seen you scared of anything in your life. But I think you’re scared of me.”
“I’m not scared of you,” she said, capping the marker. “That’s silly. Why would I be scared of you?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
She rose, dusted off her low-cut jeans and cap-sleeved T-shirt and moved closer, telling herself she’d stare him in the eye without flinching and repeat everything she’d just said. Then maybe he’d believe her. She wasn’t going to be anything less than what Buddy deserved her to be, wasn’t going to settle for “I am what I am.” She wanted to be so much more.
She stopped a few feet away from him.
“Is that the best you can do?” he taunted.
“You borrowed my toothbrush!” she accused, catching the scent of toothpaste on his breath. “When did you do that?”
“I woke up this morning while you were gone.”
“So you helped yourself to my toothbrush?”
“I had to. I’m a real clean freak when it comes to teeth.”
“Good for you. But that’s sort of a personal thing to do, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re stalling.”
She stepped closer, determined not to let him know how deeply he affected her.
When they stood only a foot apart, she stared into his eyes—the gray-green eyes that had always tormented her in some strange way—and felt the strongest magnetic pull she’d ever experienced. She’d moved too close to the sun. It was going to pull her in and burn her up. Or simply cause her to instantaneously combust.
She wasn’t sure whether she closed the gap or he did, but a moment later they were standing so close the tips of her breasts tingled as they grazed his bare chest through her shirt. His lips hovered near her own. She could feel his breath fanning her cheek and smell the oil she’d used on his skin the night before and, for a fleeting second, imagined his mouth on hers in one of those hungry, passion-filled kisses she remembered so well from last summer….
She was hovering only inches away from complete ruin, hanging on by her fingertips, she realized dully.
And then everything that hung in the balance—her self-respect, her engagement, her escape from Dundee, her refusal to become another of Josh’s conquests—suddenly came into sharp focus, and she jumped back.
He must’ve felt something, too, because his head snapped up and he stepped away at almost the same time.
“You’re right,” he said gruffly. “Forget the damn truce, forget the friendship, forget it all.” Grabbing his boots and his keys, he left without even bothering to pick up his shirt.
CHAPTER NINE
SITTING ON THE FLOOR, her face buried in her hands while she tried to make some sense out of what had just happened, Rebecca didn’t realize that Randy had entered the house until he spoke.
“Tell me that wasn’t my best friend I just passed on the street,” he said, standing in the open doorway.
She jerked her head up. Her brother-in-law’s company was the last thing she needed right now. She had no emotional reserves left, no energy to spar with him. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
His eyes narrowed as he gave her a searching look. “He was tall, blond and driving like a bat out of hell. And he didn’t seem to be wearing clothes. That ring any bells?”
“No.”
“Rebecca, he didn’t even recognize me. Only a man who’d just encountered you could be that crazed.”
Rebecca counted silently to ten and found her feet. “Randy, I don’t want to argue with you today. Maybe Josh has a new girlfriend. Maybe she lives at the trailer park. How should I know?”
“Come on. The only women in that trailer park have a houseful of kids or they’re over seventy. What did you do to him?”
“I didn’t do anything to him!” She waved a hand at the boxes and newspapers and tape. “Can’t you see I’m working here? I’m trying to get moved. Are you going to help me or not?”
He didn’t look completely convinced, but Rebecca could see him wavering.
“Randy, I’m fully dressed. I’m obviously in the middle of packing. And I’m engaged. Can’t you cut me a little slack?”
Finally he nodded. “Yeah, you want to get married too badly to screw it up. You wouldn’t get involved with another guy right now.”
“Try never,” she said.
“Okay. I’m with you. So, where does everything go?”
“This box here needs to—”
A rap on the open door caught both their attention. “Hey, babe,” Booker said, sauntering inside. “You still moving in with me today?”
Randy straightened, instead of picking up the box he’d been about to lift, and his eyes went immediately to her. “You were saying?” he muttered.
Rebecca felt her stomach drop. “Your timing is impeccable,” she told Booker.
* * *
“HEY, GUESS WHAT I just heard? You’re gonna love this one.”
Startled by his brother’s intrusion into the otherwise quiet stable, Josh jumped up and accidentally knocked over the bucket he’d been sitting on while brushing Sheza Beaut. “What’d you hear?” he asked, kicking it out of the way.
The mare stomped and nickered at the disturbance. “Whoa, girl, it’s okay,” Josh murmured, stroking the mare’s neck.
Mike, older by three years, paused at the front of the stall to lean on the gate. “Rebecca Wells is moving in with Booker Robinson.”
“What?” Josh felt as though his brother had just slugged him in the stomach. He hadn’t completely recovered from last night’s flu but until that moment, he’d been feeling much better. “Where did you hear that?”
“I stopped by the diner on my way into town just a few minutes ago. Judy said Booker and Rebecca had been in with Hatty. She heard them talking about the move.” He chuckled and rubbed his neck with one hand. “Only Rebecca would shack up with another guy when she’s supposed to be getting married in six weeks. Doyle’s probably going to have a coronary when he learns, if he doesn’t know already. Can you imagine? Having a daughter who…”
Mike kept talking about the rumors that were flying around town. He mentioned that some folks were speculating Booker had served time in prison during the past fifteen years. But Josh couldn’t concentrate on his brother’s words. He was too busy remembering snatches of conversation with Rebecca last night, remembering all the opportunities she’d had to tell him she was moving in with Booker. He’d even asked her where she was going—and she’d said, “Out in the boonies.”