“I survived,” Reeve told him cheerfully. “Cancel the nine-one-one.”
“That’s her, huh?” Landscaper asked, frowning thoughtfully. “She doesn’t look like a banshee. She looks—”
He trailed off.
“Sofia’s equal parts banshee and angel,” Reeve said.
“And the husband?”
“Oh, they’re not married.”
“Not married?” Landscaper shot her a hard, searching look.
A few dots connected in Reeve’s brain. Putting her hands on her hips, she turned to glare up at the guy’s face and let him know she was not the one to stand by while he tried to mess with her friend.
“I’m not going to have any problems with you, am I?”
The guy blinked. Looked away.
Sofia, her arms now full of an umbrella, papers and other items from the SUV, started to climb out and hit her head on the door frame. The contact dislodged her scarf, which slid to the driveway, releasing a sleek tumble of brown curls around her shoulders.
Landscaper gasped.
Reeve glowered at him.
He didn’t notice.
“Keys?” Repo Man asked Sofia as she headed back to the porch.
“Screw you,” Sofia said without breaking stride.
“Suit yourself,” Repo Man said indifferently. “They’ll charge you for ’em, though. About three hundred dollars a set.”
Aghast, Sofia stopped and shot him a look of deepest loathing. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Wait here,” she snapped.
Repo Man went to work getting the SUV onto the flatbed.
Sofia brushed past Reeve and noticed Landscaper for the first time. He was on point, Reeve noted sourly, his body alert and gaze greedily sliding over Sofia’s beautiful face, stained with anger and unhappiness though it was at the moment.
“Who’re you?” Sofia demanded.
This proved to be a difficult question for the guy at the moment. Maybe he was distracted by Sofia’s sweetly seductive orange blossom scent at this close range; Reeve could almost see his nostrils flare.
“The, uh, landscaper,” he said, his voice lower and huskier than it’d been before.
Sofia glanced around him, to his truck. “Oh. Well, why aren’t you landscaping?”
With what looked like great effort, the guy blinked, took a deep breath and got a grip. “This seems like a bad time.”
Sofia, proud to the polished pink tips of her toenails, furrowed her brow as though she couldn’t imagine what he meant. “Why would you say that?”
A gleam of admiration lit his eyes.
“You sure you’re okay with...everything?” he asked delicately.
Her pouty mouth thinned with annoyance. “Don’t worry, Mr. Harper. You’ll get paid.”
With that, she marched into the foyer, dumped the stuff on the floor with a clatter and returned a second later with two sets of keys in her hand. She stalked back to Repo Man, who was now in the cab of his truck, starting the engine, and thrust them at him. He gave her a slip of paper. Then, without another word to anyone, Sofia went back into the house and slammed the door, making the windows rattle.
Meanwhile, a bell dinged over Reeve’s head as she watched Landscaper. “Harper? You’re a Harper?”
The guy, who had a distinctly glazed look about the eyes as he stared after Sofia, focused on Reeve with difficulty. “Yeah. Ethan Harper. Why?”
“I, ah...met Edward. Yesterday,” she said, doing her feeble best to keep the awkwardness out of her voice. Met Edward? She’d done a hell of a lot more than meet him, hadn’t she?
Something of that must’ve shown on her face, because Ethan’s gaze turned speculative, which only caused her uncontrollable flush to deepen.
“Met him, eh?” he asked silkily. “I’m not going to have any problems with you, am I?”
“Get to work, Landscaper,” she barked, rolling her eyes and resisting the urge to shove his broad shoulders to get him going. “I hope Sofia’s not paying you by the hour.”
With a chuckle, he turned and walked off toward his truck just as Repo Man pulled out of the driveway.
Reeve opened the door, went inside to assess the damage Sofia and Toby had done to each other and had the door nearly shut again when some impulse made her look back, over her shoulder. Ethan had changed his trajectory and was now headed, like a heat-seeking missile, to Sofia’s scarf, which lay forgotten, pink and sadly limp, on the driveway. Picking it up, he cast a furtive look around (Reeve shrank back into the shadows) to make sure no one saw what he was doing. He studied the scarf, rubbing it between his fingers to learn its feel, and then pressed it to his nose, inhaling deeply. After a final glance around, he shoved the scarf into his pants pocket and went to his truck to begin unloading it.
Reeve shut the door all the way, deeply ambivalent about what she’d witnessed. But this was no time for processing her thoughts, because a lethal silence had descended on the house, and, as she walked through the flawless living room and elegant dining room, lingered in the gleaming high-end kitchen and even glanced out back, to the Adirondack chairs surrounding the over-the-top pool/grotto area, complete with splashing waterfall, there was no sign of the lovers turned combatants.
Such a beautiful house. Such ugliness inside it.
She made up her mind on the spot: she was leaving here today. If she didn’t like any of the apartments she saw this morning, she’d check into a hotel and stay there until she found one. Sofia and Toby had plenty of problems to work through and more than enough seething tension in which to do it. They didn’t need a third wheel hanging around complicating matters.
Deciding they’d retreated to the master suite upstairs to lick their wounds and hopefully talk, she turned toward the first floor guest room where she’d dumped her suitcase yesterday, and that was when she heard it.
A muffled wail. Stifled sobs. Wet sniffles.
She paused, cocked her head and listened, zeroing in on the source.
Laundry room.
“Oh, Sofia,” Reeve said when she saw her.
Sofia was slumped on the floor between the dryer and the wall, with her elbows resting on her bent knees and her head buried in her arms. Hearing Reeve’s voice, she looked up, her face wrecked by red splotches, tears and pain, her body shuddering with the effort of choking back her emotions. Muffin reappeared with a tinkle of his bell, brushed by Reeve’s legs and headed straight for Sofia to offer comfort the only way he could, which was by butting his head against Sofia’s hands and demanding she pet him.
“I-I-I don’t know what’s happening,” Sofia sobbed. “Everything’s falling apart.”
Reeve hurried in, sank to the floor beside her and, nudging Muffin aside, scooped her in for a hug. Compliant as a baby, Sofia curled against her side and rested her head on Reeve’s shoulder while she cried it out.
“Shh,” Reeve murmured, rocking her. “It’ll be okay.”
“Toby’s going to leave me.”
“You’ll calm down and talk to him,” Reeve said. “He knows you didn’t mean it.”
Sofia raised her head to look at Reeve, startling her with the flash in her brown eyes. “That’s just it! I did mean it! I’ve been thinking it for weeks! Every time I worked my ass off all day, then came home and found him playing video games on the sofa, and he didn’t go to the gym and he didn’t send out any résumés, and he didn’t go to the store to pick up bananas and milk, much less even think about starting dinner—you bet I meant it! I think he’s depressed, but he won’t talk to his doctor about it. Forget about going to see a counselor. It’s like the old Toby is gone and I can’t get him back.” She hesitated, swiping her nose and trying to control the trembling in her lips. “I’m not sure I’d want the old Toby back even if I could get him.”
“Sofia! What’re you saying? I thought you’d be getting married soon.”
“I think he’s cheating on me. Again.”
“What?”
“
I’m not sure I even care at this point. Other than being pissed off.”
“Well, why are you still here?”
Sofia’s crying had nearly tapered off by this point, but now it amped up again, accompanied by an unhinged bark of laughter that worried Reeve more than anything else had. “I haven’t told you the best part: I’m getting downsized. They’re reshuffling the territories and I didn’t make the cut. So, as of August first, I’m unemployed. There’s no way I can afford this house after I make the next mortgage payment. We’ve already gone through all of Toby’s signing bonus and salary, and he’s got nothing coming in.”
“Oh, my God,” Reeve said helplessly.
With an angry roar, Sofia slammed her hands on the floor and stomped her feet. “This was why I worked so hard in school! This was why I was so excited to hook up with an NFL player! I will not be my mother! I will not scrounge around for any job I can get and be evicted from everywhere I try to live! I will not eat freaking beans and rice for every meal because I can’t afford anything else! I’m not doing it, Reeve! I’m not doing it!”
There was only one response to this.
Reeve gently smoothed Sofia’s hair away from her wet face. “You’re not your mother, honey. You’ll never be your mother. Anyone can see that.”
Sofia’s gaze locked on hers, and it was so searching and vulnerable that Reeve had to fight the urge to cover her eyes. At last, Sofia nodded, looking reassured. Reeve opened her arms again, and Sofia rested her tired head on her shoulder while Reeve rocked her and told her—over and over again—that everything would be okay.
* * *
Chapter 13
Edward wasn’t home, Reeve discovered later that evening.
It was just before nine, that shadowy time right before the streetlights flickered on, but there was still enough light for her to easily navigate her way down the sidewalk, to his house. Muffin trotted along beside her, enjoying the grass and pausing for the occasional butt-wagging pounce onto some minuscule creature that Reeve couldn’t see.
Edward really had a beautiful place, she decided, noticing details she’d been too overheated to see last night. It was a nice white brick Colonial, with gray trim and black shutters, a railed porch with hanging ferns, a couple Adirondack chairs and a porch swing. He had a small but immaculate front yard, with profusions of shrubs and flowers, a brick path leading to the beveled glass front door and a pool out back.
The house was also stone cold dark at the moment.
“Uh-oh,” Reeve said when they got to the edge of his driveway, at the end of which was a detached garage with carriage doors. “His car’s not here.”
Muffin stared up at her with those indifferent tawny eyes and twitched his tail.
“Do you think it’s a sign?”
The cat blinked, meowed and ambled off to explore Edward’s hydrangea bush, which was in full blue pom-pom ball bloom.
“Great,” Reeve called after him. “Good talk. Thanks for your help.”
The cat’s furry butt disappeared around the corner of the house.
Sighing, she started up the walk, determined to at least ring the bell and make sure he wasn’t napping on his sofa or some such. And if he didn’t answer, she’d wait a little bit—no more than ten minutes, though, because that’d just be pathetic—to see if he showed. She’d worked up her courage to come this far, right? This was no time for faint hearts or half steps.
Except...
What if he wasn’t home because he’d reunited with his ex today?
Now, there was an unhappy thought, which was pretty much the only type her morose brain was capable of generating, at least when it came to her personal life. Maybe the two of them were together right now at the ex’s place. Maybe Edward had realized, after dipping his toes in the dating pool with Reeve, that no other woman could ever measure up to the ex’s perfection. Maybe— Stop it, Reeve. Think about something else.
There, see? She was getting better at catching herself before The Black caught hold of her. Not good, mind you, but better. And better was a huge improvement over where she’d started out four years ago when Adam died.
Taking a steadying breath, she stepped onto the porch, dodging the nearest hanging fern as it swayed lazily in the breeze, rang the doorbell and waited.
No answer.
No sounds or signs of life whatsoever, just as she’d suspected.
Ring one more time, Reeve.
She’d just hit the button again when another winning thought hit her: what if he was inside somewhere, pretending he wasn’t home because he didn’t want to see her? That was a possibility, right? That he’d screen her the way he’d screen pollsters during an election year. Maybe— Give it a rest, Reeve. Have some confidence. Put your big girl panties on and keep them on for more than ten seconds at a time, why don’t you?
Edward wasn’t home. She’d come at a bad time. There was no need to read anything more into the situation than that.
Fighting her disappointment, she sat down on the swing to wait.
The thing was, somewhere between her phone conversation with Edward this morning, the disastrous scene with Sofia and apartment hunting this afternoon, she’d come to a realization that cleared up all the clutter in her anxious mind. Well, not all, but a lot. And the realization was a more resolute version of what she’d been thinking under the oak tree this morning: she really liked Edward and would regret it if she didn’t give him—them—a chance. Plain and simple, full stop, end of story.
Her fear of regret had, for once, trumped her fear of living.
How cool was that?
The problem now was managing the soaring hope and absolute giddiness she felt at the mere prospect of seeing Edward again.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
Just then, a car slowed in front of the house and turned into the driveway, with lights ablaze and a red kayak on the rack.
Oh, God. Edward.
Heart thundering with renewed nerves, she jumped to her feet, smoothed her skirt and hair and stepped to the edge of the porch to wait for him. Muffin, meanwhile, reappeared from wherever he’d been in the back, leapt lightly to the SUV’s hood and stretched out on his side just as the car stopped and Edward got out.
“Hey,” he said, looking surprised. “This is quite the reception committee.”
“Yeah, well, Muffin has been asking about you all day. Moping. Off his Tender Vittles. It’s really been hard to watch. Pretty pathetic. So I thought I’d better bring him down to see you.”
“I’m glad you did,” he said, grinning, his intent gaze holding hers as he shut the SUV door and leaned over to scratch Muffin’s ears. Muffin, always ready to play with any likely candidate, batted his hand with his paws and purred loudly.
Reeve stepped down off the porch, drawn to Edward in the most disconcerting ways. It was like now, finally, she could breathe again after a full day of holding her breath, and the warm gleam of his eyes on her face, and only that, made her skin shiver to life.
He looked amazing, with the windswept hair and ruddy cheeks of someone who’d spent the day outside, apparently on the river. He wore another pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt, gray this time, and it was all she could do not to launch herself into his arms and fold him up into hers.
“So,” she said, stopping just short of touching range because she didn’t trust herself any closer than that. “How was your day?”
“Long,” he said ruefully. “Yours?”
“Long,” she admitted.
He stilled and stared at her, as on point, she realized with a slow curl of delight in her belly, as Ethan had been this morning when he watched Sofia. And that reminded her—
“I met your brother earlier,” she told him. “Ethan. He’s landscaping Sofia’s house.”
“Yeah?” Edward stepped closer, his voice dropping. “You realize you just told me a way to find you, right? Try not to hyperventilate.”
“I’m not that bad!” she said, laughing.
�
�You’re close.” He took another step. “I’m just relieved that I don’t have to microchip you like I do my dog and cat patients.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Hell, yeah, I would. Come here.”
But she didn’t need to come because he hooked a couple of fingers in the belt of her dress and hugged her. She went eagerly, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her face to the base of his throat, where she could feel the hard thud of his pulse and smell the dizzying scents of clean sweat, sunshine, air and water on his skin. The whole time she was breathing him in, she tried not to think about how good he felt, and how easily being right here could begin to feel like home. Except that every time she tried to throw some distance between them, even if it was only in her own mind, it felt like a lie or a pointless diversion.
“I missed you today,” he murmured, his lips brushing her forehead and his breath hot against her skin.
“I missed you, too.”
“Yeah?” He pulled back enough to frown down at her, his brows coming together in an uncompromising line. “So you won’t be pulling any more disappearing routines, will you?”
“I’m not planning on it.”
His expression didn’t change, but his voice became game-show-host pleasant. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to try that again. You won’t be pulling any more disappearing routines, will you?”
“No,” she said firmly.
“Thank the good Lord for that,” he muttered with grim satisfaction. “Do you want to grab dinner? I can take a quick shower—”
“No, but I was coming about dinner. Friday night, maybe? At my new apartment?”
“You found one?”
“Yep. It’s in a Victorian house around the corner from here.”
“The yellow place?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I get the bottom floor.”
“Nice digs. You excited?”
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