Return to Rose Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  It was the first time in her life she’d fully understood the meaning of magic and why women craved it.

  13

  Josh woke up to find the other side of his bed empty. He should have been accustomed to the feeling, but it felt lonely somehow after having Ashley in his arms for most of the night. He shivered in the chilly air, then dragged on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and went hunting for the woman who’d spent the entire night making his heart pound and his blood race. He doubted he would ever get enough of her.

  But today could change everything, he warned himself. Once he told her the truth about his career, about all of the issues that had brought him to Idylwild and that he had kept from her, she might walk out of his life. The prospect made his heart ache. He simply couldn’t allow it to happen. He would fight with everything in him to see that she understood his reticence and forgave him.

  First, though, he had to find the words and the courage to utter them.

  “Hey, beautiful, where are you?” he called out, heading for the kitchen and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

  When she didn’t respond, his heart began to thud. Despite her silence, he sensed that she was still in the house, which meant something was very wrong.

  “Ashley!”

  Again, nothing.

  He found her standing by his dining room table, where he’d been doing some work the day before. It had become his makeshift office, which meant there were papers there that could have given him away. He knew in an instant that that was exactly what had happened.

  She was staring out the window. Though the sun was glistening on the bay just outside, he had a sick feeling that it wasn’t the beauty of the view that had made her so still. He knew in his gut that the revelation he’d intended to make was now out of his hands. She knew.

  “Ashley?”

  She turned slowly, an expression of hurt and betrayal written all over her face. Whatever slim hope he’d held out that there was still time for him to tell her everything himself vanished.

  “What is it?” he asked, praying that he’d gotten it wrong. “What’s happened?”

  “I was looking for some paper to make a list,” she whispered. “I found this instead.” She held up a piece of stationery—letterhead from his firm—in a hand that trembled visibly. “You’re a lawyer,” she said as if it were some sort of crime. “You’re with a very prestigious firm, in fact.”

  “Yes,” he admitted, knowing the wounded expression in her eyes would haunt him forever. “I’m an attorney.”

  She shook her head as if she still couldn’t quite believe it. “I don’t understand, Josh. Why didn’t you tell me? That first night, when I made that crack about you definitely not being a lawyer, why didn’t you say right then that I had it all wrong? All this time, when you were so sympathetic to me, you could have told me that you understood because you know firsthand what it’s like, but you never once said that. Why not? Why keep it a secret?”

  “Because at that moment, I didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I liked that you thought I was something else.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said impatiently. “Are you ashamed of it for some reason? Are you one of those lawyers who bends the rules, does whatever it takes to win, the kind you described with such disdain? Is that why you didn’t think there was anything wrong with the way I handled Tiny Slocum’s case?”

  “It wasn’t about you, Ashley. And, yes, sometimes I am ashamed of being a lawyer,” he admitted. “And like you, I’ve spent a lot of time lately wondering about the path I’m on. Not for the same reasons, of course, but it’s still an identity crisis and, frankly, I was no more ready to talk about it than you were to talk about your situation. I came here to think, to make some tough choices. You know my philosophy on all that. I mull things over, push them to the back of my mind until the answer finally makes its way through the chaos. I’m not like you. I don’t worry it to death, make lists, debate the pros and cons.”

  “Not even with me? I thought I mattered to you.”

  “You did,” he said. “You do. It wasn’t about you. It was about me.”

  “But you had to know I had issues about people lying to me. There were a dozen different times when you could have told me and you didn’t,” she protested. “Why hide it, especially after I’d told you what was going on with me? All you had to do was say, ‘Hey, Ashley, I’m a lawyer, so I get what you’re going through.’ Period. That’s it. If you didn’t want to talk about your issues, fine. I could have understood that.”

  “I see that now,” he said honestly. “I see that keeping it from you was wrong, that I turned it into a big deal when it shouldn’t have mattered at all. And I can tell you that I regret staying silent. It was foolish and unfair. Rick and Mike made me see that last night.”

  “They know?” she asked incredulously. “You told them before you told me?”

  “No. I didn’t have to tell them. Apparently several people in town had mentioned it to them. They confronted me about it last night, told me that I was being an idiot for not telling you, that I was putting your trust at risk. That’s why I wanted to talk when I got back here and found you waiting. I knew I’d kept silent too long, that you had to know before you found out some other way.”

  “Too little too late,” she said disdainfully. “You made a fool of me,” she whispered. “Just like before, and once again I never saw it coming. What is wrong with me? How did I turn into such a lousy judge of character?”

  “Ashley, it’s not as if I’ve committed a crime or kept another woman from you. Law is a job, and at the time I wasn’t very happy with it.”

  “But it’s who you are. Now I have to question whether I ever really knew you.”

  “You do,” he argued. “You know everything important.”

  He reached for her, but she pulled away. Fighting the panic clawing at him when he realized he really could lose her over this, he tried to explain. “It just didn’t matter, Ashley, especially when being a lawyer was something I was questioning anyway. Why does what I do for a living matter so much to you, anyway?”

  “That’s not the point,” she said defensively. “You lied. That’s what I care about.”

  He studied her curiously. He had a feeling she wasn’t being entirely honest herself. His career did matter to her in some way he had yet to discern. “What did you think I did for a living?”

  She hesitated then, her turmoil evident. “I wasn’t sure. Fished maybe.”

  Josh laughed at the absurdity of that. “You must have thought I was damned bad at it. The biggest catch we brought in was three rockfish, and you caught those.”

  Her defensiveness came back. “I figured since you were on vacation, that you weren’t really trying.”

  He regarded her skeptically and waited.

  She sighed, then admitted, “Okay, it felt safe that you were nothing more than some halfway idle guy.”

  His heart sank as he realized what she was really saying. “Because you could never fall for a man like that, right? A man with no ambition?”

  She nodded, looking miserable. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds insulting.”

  “It is insulting, especially considering what went on here last night and on at least one other occasion. If you think what I did was so awful, think about how it makes me feel to know that essentially you were using me to scratch some itch, that you figured a mere fisherman couldn’t be hurt by whatever game you were playing.”

  She looked as if he’d slapped her. “It wasn’t like that, Josh.”

  “Really? Then how was it? Please explain it, because right this second I’m pretty sure I feel like an even bigger fool than you do.”

  “I was falling for you,” she insisted.

  “Despite me being some unsuccessful fisherman,” he said sarcastically, letting his fury reach a boil. Everything was falling apart and anger was just about the only thing that was going to get him through the pain of it. “How gracious of you to l
ook beyond my lowly lifestyle. How did I miss the fact that you are such a snob?”

  “I’m sorry.” She scraped a hand through her thick hair, leaving it more tousled than ever.

  Josh had to tear his gaze away. That was the way he liked her best, looking sexily rumpled and accessible. He couldn’t let himself think of her that way now. He had to hang on to his outrage.

  “I guess we’re both lucky,” he said.

  “Lucky?” she repeated incredulously. “How do you figure that?”

  “We’ve just avoided making a horrible mistake. I thought I was in love with a brilliant, generous-hearted woman. You thought you were falling for a guy who was good in bed and nothing more. Turns out we were both wrong.” He met her gaze. “I guess the reality isn’t nearly as appealing as the fantasy.”

  She winced at that. “I should go,” she said, then waited, almost as if she were hoping that he’d try to stop her.

  He didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. He could only think about the irony of this whole mess. He’d been falling in love with her and she’d been using him for easy, uncomplicated sex. That was definitely a turnabout in his life. One of these days when it stopped hurting so damn much, he might even laugh about it.

  Ashley drove back to Rose Cottage in a daze. How had everything spun so wildly out of control in little more than a heartbeat? She wished she’d never found the stupid letter, never discovered that Josh was a lawyer.

  Maybe in another hour, he would have told her himself. It would have shaken her, but at least the news would have come from him. Maybe that alone would have been enough to redeem him, so they could go on together.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she told herself as she went in side and made herself a cup of tea. She would have been just as angry, felt just as betrayed, if the announcement had tripped off his lips. His being a lawyer was a big deal. His hiding it from her was an even bigger one. She simply couldn’t stomach being with another person who couldn’t tell her the truth. How could anyone be expected to build a relationship on lies and half-truths?

  She sat at the kitchen table, sipping her tea and trying to work up the energy to pack for the return to Boston. It didn’t seem half as urgent to run back home now. The decision about what to do about Josh and her feelings for him had been made. It was a nonissue. They were over. Even if she weren’t furious at him for the lie, he would probably never forgive her for the judgments she’d made about him.

  As for the whole question of her professional future, she could just as easily decide that sitting right here at the kitchen table.

  Determined to get on with it, she pushed aside her emotions and retrieved a yellow legal pad and a handful of pens. Just spreading them on the table in front of her immediately made her feel better, more in control. Making lists was something she excelled at doing. She liked being organized and practical. It was about time she remembered that. Idle mulling might work for Josh, but it simply wasn’t her way. It was ridiculous. Decisions that were made like that couldn’t be trusted. They were little more than impulse. She liked her decisions to be based on sound logic and clear thinking.

  Okay, then, she thought, she had four basic choices.

  First, she could go back to Boston and begin applying at other law firms. Under that she jotted down a couple of quick notes on the positive side; that she would be near her family and that she had a reputation in Boston. She sighed and put that reputation down as a negative, too. It was hard to tell which way that one would go, to her advantage or her disadvantage.

  Next, she listed the option of looking for jobs in other cities, such as Richmond or Washington. More negatives than positives immediately popped into mind. It would mean relocating to cities where she knew no one, taking the bar exam again, being separated from her family. Those were all huge, though not insurmountable, drawbacks. On the plus side, such a decision would offer a new challenge, a fresh start. There was a lot to be said for that.

  Or, she wrote down, she could change careers entirely. She was a bright woman with many interests she had yet to fully explore. She could certainly find some way to utilize those skills and talents to find a whole new direction for her life. She sighed. If only that didn’t seem like such a waste, she thought, not just of her degree, but of her passion for justice. No, she was simply meant to be a lawyer. She just had to rethink the way she practiced, which cases she accepted.

  Satisfied that the third option wasn’t really an option at all, she crossed it off the list.

  That left one last possibility, at least for now. She could stay right here, open her own practice and be near her sisters. It would combine several advantages. She could have her fresh start, stay in law and still be close to family. The only negative was the prospect of running into Josh from time to time, but maybe he’d go back to his fancy Richmond law office any day now and never set foot in this region again.

  If it turned out that he did pop up occasionally, she could live with that, she concluded thoughtfully. They were both adults. What was the big deal? They’d had an affair and it hadn’t worked out. Happened all the time and people got over it and moved on. It didn’t have to make her heart ache forever that he’d betrayed her and she’d apparently hurt him just as badly. She’d just have to chalk it up to bad timing, bad karma, something like that. She’d get over it. He would, too.

  Tears pricked the back of her eyes, and she knew it was a lie. She wasn’t going to get over it. Certainly not anytime soon. That meant she had to deal with it.

  She ripped off the sheets of paper on which she’d listed her career options and wrote down another heading: What to Do about Josh?

  The answers weren’t half as clear-cut as she would have liked. Much as she hated to admit it, she needed another perspective. The prospect of going to Maggie and Melanie and telling them what a mess things had become held no appeal at all. Sooner or later, she would be forced to do it, but not this afternoon.

  What she needed this afternoon was a distraction. She needed to mull things over, let her mind drift until the answers rose to the surface.

  There was only one good way that she could think of to do that, since fishing with Josh was not a possibility. She hauled out the kayak and the new paddle she’d purchased. With any luck, a couple of hours of hard exercise would drive the whole Josh dilemma from her mind.

  But the instant she put the kayak in the water, the memory of the first day she’d taken it out came flooding back to her. She pulled the paddle out of the water and let the tears she’d held back earlier come flooding out. They were hot and endless, proving that it wasn’t going to be half as easy to put Josh behind her as she’d hoped.

  Her tears eventually slowed to a sad trickle, and she was drifting when he pulled alongside her in his rowboat.

  “Ashley?” There was an unmistakable note of worry in his voice.

  She wanted to disappear. She didn’t want him to know that he’d caused her one second of anguish. “Go away.”

  “Not with you floating around fifty feet from shore crying your eyes out. I could hear you from a hundred yards away.”

  Embarrassment turned her cheeks red. She’d had no idea she was sobbing so noisily. “I’m not crying over you,” she said, feeling it vital not to let him think she was.

  “Never thought you were,” he said, though his lips quirked just a little.

  “And I don’t need you to rescue me.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “I’ll just stick close by, in case the waterworks get out of hand again and the kayak starts filling with water. Doesn’t take much to swamp a little thing like that.”

  She finally lifted her gaze to meet his and wiped away the traces of tears on her cheeks. “Not going to happen,” she said fiercely. “See, dry-eyed. You can go now.”

  He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but eventually he merely nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll see you around.”

  She held on to the paddle until her knuckles turned white as she waited for him to
disappear from view.

  Oh, yeah, it was obvious she could handle bumping into him, she thought with self-derision. She’d all but come unglued just at the sound of his voice. A part of her had wanted to dive over into that rowboat so she could fling herself into his arms. Given that he was just as furious with her as she was with him, that could only have come to a bad end. It was entirely possible he’d have tossed her straight overboard. Just because he’d been worried finding her drifting along on the water didn’t mean he was any more ready to forgive her than she was to forgive him. He would have done the same for anyone, because that’s who he was…a nice guy.

  Well, she didn’t need his concern. Or his sympathy. Or his pity. In fact, the last would be unbearable.

  Which meant she had to get over him. Right now. A nearly hysterical sob rose up. Sure, like she could snap her fingers and make that happen.

  Much as she hated to admit it, she was probably way too much like her sisters. Once she gave away her heart, which she’d apparently done without giving it a conscious thought, it was all but impossible to take it back.

  Josh hadn’t wanted to feel a damn thing when he’d spotted Ashley out in that ridiculous kayak that she didn’t know how to handle. He’d wanted to turn around and row away before she even knew he was around, but the instant he’d heard her sobs, his heart had flipped over. He hadn’t been able to make himself leave, not without assuring himself that she would be okay. He figured his appearance alone would snap her out of it, and it had up to a point.

  Making her mad had accomplished the rest well enough. He knew she’d hate his pity, so he’d done his best to act solicitous and sympathetic, knowing that she would place the worst possible spin on that and assume it was based on pity. What he’d wanted to do was to haul her into his boat and into his arms. That wasn’t a good idea for either of them right now.