by Heidi Betts
After filling the glasses—one with milk for her, the other with orange juice for himself—he sauntered back to the table with that confident, loose-limbed stride of his, kicked his chair out and took a seat.
“How’s your omelet?”
She looked down, realizing she hadn’t yet tasted a bite.
“Oh.” Quickly, she scooped up a forkful of ham, cheese, onion, mushroom and pepper, mixed in with scrambled egg. Her personal trainer would kill her if he ever found out she’d eaten like this, but she had to admit it was delicious.
Of course, she wasn’t going to tell Connor that.
“It’s very good,” she told him, dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
“Glad you like it.” He dug into his own breakfast like a man who hadn’t eaten in a week.
She picked at hers more slowly, feeling the silence growing between them like a weight on her chest.
“I didn’t know you cooked,” she murmured, when she couldn’t stand it any longer.
After taking a swig of orange juice, he shook his head. “I don’t much. Just enough to get by.”
“I suppose Lori-Laura-Lisa does most of the cooking for you these days.” The words sounded bitter, even to her own ears, and Beth regretted voicing them as soon as they passed her lips.
“Lori-Laura-Lisa?” he asked, one brow quirking upward.
She shrugged, refusing to be embarrassed by either her comment or the grouping of names she used for his overly processed girlfriend. “I know it starts with an L.”
“Lori,” he emphasized. “Her name is Lori. And she cooks some, but mostly we go out or order in. How about you? What do you eat out there in L.A.?”
“Not eggs and ham, that’s for sure,” she said, stabbing at those very ingredients on her plate and relaxing into the conversation. “Tofu, protein shakes, salads. A lot of raw meals.”
“Raw?” he wanted to know, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Against her better judgment, Beth found herself smiling at his lighthearted teasing. “Not that kind of raw. Get your mind out of the gutter, pervert,” she fired back.
He only grinned and shoveled another pile of omelet into his mouth.
“Raw is a big thing out on the coast. Uncooked, unpreserved, organic foods, like chickpea burgers with shredded coconut or carrots on top.”
“Uh-huh. And this keeps you alive?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t hurt you to wolf down a real burger or two before you head back. You could stand to put on a couple pounds.”
Something warm and pleasant burst low in her solar plexus. She spent so much time working out and watching what she ate, trying hard to fit in with the “the skinnier the better” California mentality. It was an ideal she’d embraced when she’d first moved out there, but now it seemed to be a constant struggle just to maintain her current weight and figure.
Hearing Connor say she was too thin flattered her, even if it shouldn’t. He didn’t get an opinion about her physical appearance—no man did—and he didn’t have a clue what life in L.A. was like.
But after seeing his dress-up-doll girlfriend, knowing that he didn’t think she had to maintain a perfect image made her feel somehow normal and accepted. A far cry from her recent frame of mind.
“Red meat is strictly verboten,” she said. “And I work out two hours, three days a week to stay just this size, thank you very much.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you’re eating meat right now.”
She looked down at the specks of pink cooked into fluffy clouds of yellow egg. “Yes, well, technically ham isn’t red meat, and while I wouldn’t normally eat it, I thought it would be rude to turn down your offer of breakfast. Besides, it’s not much and there are other, healthier things in here, like onions and peppers.”
“Excellent job of justifying.”
She shot him a cheeky twist of her lips. “Thank you.” He didn’t need to know just how well versed she was at the justification game.
“You’re welcome to go running after you eat, if you want. Burn off all those nasty calories.”
“I just might.” But a sidelong glance out the kitchen window told her she wouldn’t want to. The day was looking decidedly overcast, and the wind was whipping the leaves around on the trees.
“Actually…” Connor stopped to clear his throat.
He stared down at the table rather than meet her gaze, and a slick, uncomfortable sensation snaked over Beth’s skin.
“I was kind of hoping we could talk after breakfast.”
Her heart kicked up its pace, sending the blood racing through her veins, and the slick feeling turned to a cool clamminess.
Honestly, she had no idea why Connor was so determined to speak with her. He’d tried to drag her off last night at the reception so they could talk, and now he was making a second attempt to get her to listen to whatever he had to say.
The queasiness in her stomach, though, told her she didn’t want to hear it. Or maybe she was just afraid that he’d bring up the past, tearing open a wound long ago healed over.
After all, what else did they have to discuss? They hadn’t seen each other, except briefly, in the last seven years.
She swallowed hard, taking a minute to get her thoughts and jumbled emotions in order before forcing herself to respond. “What do we have to talk about?”
He tossed his crumpled-up napkin on top of his now-empty plate and pushed them away from him. Crossing his arms in front of him on the table, he lifted his head and met her eyes with his own, which looked like two chips of brittle brown ice.
His voice rang low but clear as he drawled, “That night.”
The words drove into her like bullets and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe, even though she’d known exactly what was coming.
Why did he have to bring it up? Why now, after all these years? Why at all?
It had been a mistake, but it had happened. She’d gotten on with her life, and so, obviously, had he.
“What night?” she asked, playing dumb while her brain struggled to regain its equilibrium.
“You know what night, Beth. We both do. That night after the football game, in my truck.”
She laughed lightly, doing her best to act nonchalant while her insides continued to quake. “Goodness, why would you bring that up after all these years? It was aeons ago. I would have thought you’d forgotten all about it. I certainly had.”
A beat passed while he seemed to absorb her comment, and then his gaze grew shuttered, his mouth thinning into a flat, pale line.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s something I think about all the time.”
She didn’t know what to do with that piece of information. Be flattered, angry, curious?
At the moment, she mostly felt cold. He thought about that night all the time, but he hadn’t thought enough of her, or of what had passed between them, to pick up the phone and call her afterward. The next day, the next week…she’d have taken anything, any small sign that he was still interested in her.
Even a face-to-face meeting where he sat her down and told her he wasn’t interested and didn’t want to see her again would have been better than nothing. But he hadn’t even had the courtesy to do that, so instead they’d spent nearly a decade flitting around each other, avoiding, pretending, denying anything had ever happened between them.
And now…well, she had no interest in allowing him to bring all those stinging memories and emotions bubbling to the surface again. He’d had his chance to make peace seven years ago; she wasn’t willing to give him a fresh opportunity now.
Falling back on her day-to-day, all-business persona, she pushed her chair away from the table and stood, her posture yardstick straight, her movements quick and precise.
“Why are you bringing this up after so long?” she asked, carrying her empty plate and glass to the sink. Then she backtracked and did the same with his dishes.
He t
urned in his seat to face her, the wood creaking beneath his weight, and propped one arm on the table. “Because we never discussed it before, and it’s obviously putting a strain on our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” she said with a sharp bark of laughter.
For once, she was almost finding this situation amusing. It was the height of irony that Connor suddenly seemed so determined to discuss the state of affairs between them when she’d spent every single one of her teenage years praying for Connor to play a larger part in her life.
“Sure we do, Beth.”
She was leaning back against the counter by the sink, her arms up, the heels of her hands propped along the sharp edge at her waistline. When he rose to his feet and stalked toward her, her fingers tightened reflexively on the cool Formica, but she refused to move, refused to flinch or in any other way reveal her discomfort.
Her entire stay in this house with him was going to be an exercise in discomfort, so she might as well get used to it right now and learn to school her features, reactions and body language.
“Everyone in this world has a relationship with everyone else, from married couples to the cashiers and customers down at the Qwik Fill. You’re my best friend’s sister, practically family—of course we have a relationship. I wasn’t implying we were any more intimately involved than that.”
“Good,” was the best response she could come up with. Her lungs refused to expand and deflate normally, his nearness sucking all the oxygen out of the air around them.
“But we were once, weren’t we?” he murmured in a low voice.
The metal edge of the countertop dug into the soft cushion of her palms and she concentrated on that sharp throb of sensation to block the flood of memories threatening to spill into her brain. She would not go back to that time. She wouldn’t open herself up to that again, especially with him.
He was standing less than a foot away, his tall form towering over her. A faded forest-green T-shirt clung to the smooth, firm expanse of his chest, partially covered by an open blue-and-white-plaid flannel work shirt.
So informal, so blue collar… Considering the well-dressed businessmen and celebrities she worked with on a daily basis, it amazed her that she could still find his taste in clothing attractive.
After catching her breath and feeling steady enough to answer, she told him, “Once, Connor, a very long time ago. Don’t make more of it than it was.”
“I won’t, if you won’t, but that doesn’t explain why you’ve been avoiding me all these years.”
Five
“I haven’t been avoiding you.”
Her voice was firm, but the slight flicker in her gaze told him she was lying. Not that he needed the added assurance. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when one person entered a room and another either made an excuse to leave or simply slipped away unnoticed, something was going on.
Not that he blamed her. He’d acted like an ass all those years ago. Yes, he’d been twenty-six and thought he was grown-up and mature, but he’d handled the entire situation badly.
To start, he’d taken advantage of a twenty-one-year-old Beth. His hormones had gotten the better of him and he’d given in to raging, long-repressed desires that would have been better off remaining repressed. He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself for that. It ate at him like a wasting disease.
Then what had he done? He’d dropped her off at her house and never spoken to her again. Well, not never, but barely. He hadn’t phoned her the next day to see if she was okay, or swung by to talk to her about how their having sex might have changed things between them.
No, he’d taken the coward’s way out and stayed away until he knew she was back at school. And then he’d continued skulking around with his tail tucked under, content to keep his mouth shut on the topic for as long as she was.
But that plan had backfired on him, hadn’t it? Not discussing it hadn’t made the situation go away or allowed their relationship to settle back to normal. Instead, it had turned the incident into a boil that festered and grew not only ugly, but painful.
They’d drifted apart when they used to be so close. They avoided each other, when they used to seek one another out. They couldn’t even make eye contact without one or the other of them quickly looking away. And there were no more smiles, no more teasing, no more inside childhood jokes.
He hated that. He hated that his overactive libido and lack of control had caused Beth to throw up a barrier between them as thick and tall as the Great Wall of China.
And once again, he wasn’t making great strides at setting things right.
What was it about Beth that put all of his senses on high alert and made him want to push, prod, draw her out?
For better or worse, he wanted to get her to react. Yell at him, scream at him, slap him silly. Cry, laugh, or throw herself into his arms. At this point, he’d take just about anything. Any sign that she wasn’t as indifferent toward him as she claimed.
“No?” he put in, in response to her assertion. “What would you call seven years of circling each other like opposing magnets?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. It used to be that I’d come over and you’d race downstairs to see me. You’d beg me to stay and watch a movie or drive you to the store for the latest teen magazine. And then there was that night in my truck. After that, any time I came over while you were home, you made yourself scarce. You even moved all the way out to California so you’d have an excuse not to visit very often.”
She gave a small huff of laughter that never reached her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. I moved to California because I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer, and that’s the entertainment capital of the world.”
“Did you?” He took a single step closer with the question. “Or did you decide to become an entertainment attorney because it was the one type of law you couldn’t practice here at home?”
This time, she didn’t laugh. She didn’t even scoff at his accusation.
Her arms fell from where they’d been propped against the edge of the counter and took up stiff residence across her chest. Little did she know the gesture lifted her breasts and caused the airy silk of her white blouse to separate just above her cleavage, allowing him a clear view of full, fleshy hills and the deep, shadowed valley between.
The sight made his mouth go dry, but he didn’t look for long, for fear she’d catch him staring.
“I’m good at what I do, Connor, and I like living in L.A. Not that I have to justify anything to you.”
She was right, of course, but that didn’t keep him from being curious.
“Now, if you’re finished bringing up incidents from the past that have no relevance to the present and giving me the third degree, I think it’s about time we establish some ground rules for however long we’ll be forced to stay here together.”
“Ground rules, huh?” He crossed his arms, mimicking her defensive stance, even though he was fighting back amusement. “What do you have in mind?”
“For one thing, I get first dibs on the bathroom in the morning.”
“How do you figure?”
“It’s my brother’s house, and I’m the girl,” she remarked, deadpan.
He had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from hooting with laughter.
“You’re the girl? Is that a defense that would stand up in court?”
“I don’t spend a lot of time in court, so I wouldn’t know, but the fact remains that women need more time in the bathroom in the mornings.”
Having lived with Lori for the past three years, that was something he knew quite well. “I agree, but there’s one small problem with your plan.”
“What?”
“I was up a good hour earlier than you were this morning. Do you expect me to wait to use the john just because you’re supposed to get first dibs?”
Her lips turned down in a frown, her nose wrinkling only slight
ly at his frank terminology.
“Fine. If you’re up before I am, then you can use the bathroom. But as soon as I’m awake, my needs take precedence.”
“Deal. Anything else?”
“Meals. You cooked breakfast this morning, and I appreciate it. It was very good, thank you. But don’t feel that you have to do the same every morning, or for any other meals. And don’t expect me to cook, either. I say it’s every man for himself. If one of us cooks and wants to invite the other to share the meal, fine. But neither of us should expect the other to feed them.”
“Fine. How about takeout? Do we confer with each other before calling for pizza or Chinese, or do we treat it like a covert mission?”
“Very funny,” she smirked. “That’s your call. It might be polite to let each other know if we’re calling out for food, but it isn’t required.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
Several seconds ticked by while she considered, and then she shook her head. “I can’t think of anything more at the moment, but we can tack on new rules as they come up.”
“Fine by me.” He let his arms slip down and planted his hands halfway inside his front jeans pockets.
“So who does the dishes?” he wanted to know, tilting his head toward the dirty ones in the sink behind her.
“You do,” she said without batting an eyelash, then turned on her heel and sashayed out of the kitchen.
Connor watched her go, enjoying the sassy, well-dressed view. As soon as she disappeared around the corner, he chuckled, turning to the sink and running water for the dishes he was apparently expected to clean for as long as they were staying in the same house together.
Since she was going to be stuck in Crystal Springs for a few days, anyway, Beth decided to call some of her old friends and touch base. Most of her high-school girlfriends had drifted away, but there were still a few she kept in touch with, a few still living in town.
She was embarrassed to admit it, but she’d nearly let them slip away, too. The occasional phone call when she wasn’t working late, or a quickly scrawled note that she then asked her assistant to mail was about the extent of her contact with Jackie and Gail these past few years. And more often than not, those instances were prompted only by a friendly, if nosy, reminder from her mother.