Love to Believe: Fireflies ~ Book 2 (22 page)

Man up, Rebecca. Man up.

She pushed away from the door jamb and stood tall and straight. She blinked, heedless of the burning tears that overflowed to scald her cheeks. She ignored them in favor of meeting him with a direct gaze and credited him for not looking away.

“You need to leave now.” She spoke with quiet dignity and stepped aside to allow him room to pass.

The muscle in his jaw tightened and he nodded. He paused in the kitchen doorway. His mask fell for the barest of seconds when he said, his voice raw, “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you.”

“Just go.”

She forced herself to watch him leave, kept her eyes on his back, until the front door opened and he disappeared through it, leaving her alone, hurt, and confused. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the tears come, and then dissolved right where she stood. And when the tears changed from heartbroken to angry, she moved her pity party to the bedroom where she curled up on the bed and cried, as if the weeping could wash away the pain threatening to eat her whole.

Why? Why did he do this? Everything was perfect. They were perfect together.

Until you said you wanted to be a mother.

Understanding trickled through her. Sean’s statement the night at Chez Eloise echoed in her brain: ‘
A wife and children are not in the cards for me. Ever. As in never, ever.
’

And hadn’t he stopped her last night from saying the “L” word out loud?

Rebecca’s tears began anew, but her anger fled. She understood now. In spite of the fact that she thought their status had changed, it hadn’t. Or, to be accurate, it changed for her but not for him, and he did the kindest thing possible under the circumstances. He ended it with one quick slice.

No strings, no drama, no questions.

Just goodbye.

Chapter 11

“Daddy, you have to pick one.” Rebecca stood at Big Will’s desk, her arms akimbo. “Any one of these women is capable of managing the office. You can’t drag your feet anymore. We just left February behind. These people won’t be available forever.”

Big Will glared at his daughter from beneath bushy brows. She didn’t back down. He tugged his ear and sniffed. “Why are you all fired up to leave Walker & Son, anyhow? You’ve been working here since you were a teenager. I thought you loved this business.”

“That isn’t the issue and you know it.”

“I hired Mitch Bonner to handle everything in the field, so now you don’t have to do that anymore. Why can’t you stay on to run the office?”

Rebecca dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. The man was going to drive her to drink. She sighed and focused on her father again, resisting the urge go around the desk to box his ears.

“Look, you got your way. I’m not the operations manager anymore. Now please hire an office manager this week so I have the rest of the month to train her. I’m done in thirty days. After that, you’re on your own.”

“Now, listen here, little britches--”

“I’m meeting Nate for dinner and I have to go or I’ll be late.” She stepped around his desk to plant a kiss on top of his head. She tugged one of his ears, resisting the urge to yank. “I love you, Daddy. See you tomorrow.” At the doorway to his office she said over her shoulder, “Hire one of those women. I’m gone in thirty days.”

“Yeah, yeah. Mañana, iguana.”

“Adieu, kangaroo.”

Rebecca heard his chair squeak and grinned, knowing the sound meant he sat leaning back with his hands behind his head, lips pursed, thinking. Maybe she’d gotten through to him this time.

She grabbed her purse from the bottom door of her desk, took her sweater from the back of her chair, and headed for the door. As she reached for the knob, she backed up, startled, when the door burst open and TJ ran in with Caleb behind him.

“Auntie Becca!”

“Hey, Batman.” Rebecca bent down with open arms. TJ obliged her with enthusiasm. “Heard you had baseball tryouts already.” She tousled his hair and leaned back to look him in the eyes. “Kinda early, isn’t it?”

“Never too early for baseball. Right, Dad?”

“That’s right,” Caleb agreed.

“Thought I heard my grandson out here.” Big Will lumbered from his office. “What’s this I hear about baseball?”

“Grampa!” TJ ran to give the big man a hug.

“I have to go.” Rebecca kissed Caleb on the cheek and opened the door. “See you guys later.”

“Hey, you’ll be out to TJ’s party on Saturday, won’t you?” Caleb asked. “Whole family is coming.”

Rebecca’s stomach pitched. The Kinkaids would be there, too. Maybe she’d get lucky and Sean wouldn’t come. She’d managed to avoid him since their breakup but, though it had been well over a month, she still didn’t feel ready to face him. She forced a smile. “Of course, I’ll be there. My only nephew is turning six.”

“We’re cooking out rain or shine. Or snow.” He grinned.

“Shh. Don’t mention the S word, unless it’s spring.”

“Come over around noon. It’s potluck, so bring something edible.”

“Beer is edible.”

Cal flashed a smile. “Yes, it is.”

Rebecca closed the door behind her and stepped into the gloaming. It would be another few weeks before Daylight Savings Time extended the sunshine hours, and she shivered in the cool evening air. She set her purse on the hood of her car and donned her sweater, glad that springtime had begun to encroach on winter, and fished inside her purse for her keys.

Aha! There you are.
She grabbed a key, but it wasn’t attached to her key ring. She stared at the offending item and tossed it back into her purse as if it had burned her.

The key to Sean’s house. She’d never given it back.

“Damn it.” She blinked back quick tears and hunted again for her keys, found them in one of the zippered pockets, and unlocked the car door with a click. She turned on the engine and the heat, shivering now from more than the cold.

Angry with herself for being so emotional, she laid her head against the headrest and focused on reigning in her misery and the nausea that roiled in her stomach. Sean didn’t want her but, she reminded herself, Nate still did.

A few weeks after the breakup with Sean, Rebecca ran into Nate at the grocery store. She admitted that she’d just had her heart broken--though she didn’t divulge the culprit--and had no desire to date. “No problem,” Nate had said, his kind eyes full of sympathy. “Let me be your friend.” And he’d done his level best to be just that, never once stepping over the line.

Rebecca wished she felt something more for Nate than mere friendship. He was a good man, a kind man. He had his faults, but who didn’t? God knew she was no picnic. She had hoped that spending time with Nate would help her forget Sean, or at least ease the ache, but she soon admitted no man alive could do that for her.

Sean owned her heart and she didn’t know how to get it back.

She turned into the strip mall parking lot and turned her car toward the restaurant at the end of the building. Although early, just six on a Monday night, most of the spaces in front of Caravicci’s Pizzeria were filled. She parked beneath a streetlamp near the middle of a row and allowed herself a moment to regroup before going inside. She smeared on some lip gloss and frowned at her hair in the rearview mirror.
Medusa lives
. Not her best look.

She spotted Nate’s cruiser parked in a darkened area at the back of the lot. She hadn’t noticed it when she first pulled in. Odd, too, that he parked back there. She glanced at the dashboard clock to be sure she wasn’t late.

Purse in hand, she marched down the aisle toward Caravicci’s, sparing a glance at the alley on the side of the building where Maddie and TJ had first seen their three-legged dog, Pirate. Hard to believe that had happened almost a whole year ago, soon after Maddie had hired Caleb to remodel her kitchen. And look at Maddie and Caleb now, planning a wedding. She marveled at the life changes that could occur in such a short space of time.

She stepped into Caravicci’s and breathed in the tantalizing odors of pizza sauce and fresh-baked dough, garlic, and oregano. The place swarmed with families taking advantage of the Monday night two-for-one special. The video games in the back hid beneath three layers of kids waiting their turn, and a clean-cut guy, who looked like his day job might be as an accountant, sat on a stool in the front corner of the restaurant strumming a plugged-in Gibson twelve-string and singing a Tim McGraw song into a microphone. The dinging of the video games and kids’ chatter made it tough to hear him, but he crooned on, in spite of the distractions. Rebecca wondered when it might occur to him to increase the volume on his amp.

Nate stood up from a booth across the restaurant and waved, a smile splitting his face. Rebecca returned his smile and wave, and walked his way. She felt eyes on her and glanced to her right.

Sean.

Burning heat exploded and raced to her nerve endings when her gaze met his. He looked from her to Nate and back to her, smiled and nodded hello, and returned his attention to the blonde sitting across from him.

Rebecca swallowed hard. The background noise receded to a buzz in her ears. She couldn’t peel her gaze from Sean, and watched him laugh at something the woman said. The woman flipped her hair, sleek as glass, over her shoulders.

And Sean had no right to look so handsome, damn him, and sexy in his expensive suit, Hermes tie loosened at his throat making him look like a professional man glad to find an end to his workday--which, of course, he was. She thought of how his five o’clock shadow would feel against her skin. And his hair needed a trim. She curled her fingers into her palms and berated herself.

With an effort, Rebecca returned her attention to Nate and forced a bright smile. She strode the rest of the distance to him and returned his hug, a quick squeeze, offered her cheek for a kiss, tossed her purse into the booth, and slid in after it.

“This place is nuts, huh?” Nate sipped his beer and shook his head, smiling. “Caravicci really knows what he’s doing. I heard he’s opening a place in town, too. Something fancy.”

“Dante’s Bistro. I can’t wait.”

“I like this place.” Nate glanced around. “It’s friendly in here.”

Rebecca’s eyes strayed to Sean and the blonde. “It sure is,” she said.

The woman turned her head enough for Rebecca to see her face. Well, it just figured. Emma, the Nordic goddess. Apparently, Sean decided to overlook her status as a Justin Bieber fan girl in favor of her blonde hair and big boobs. And she was a law student, so add brains to the appealing palette, and it was no wonder he’d given in to temptation. Rebecca frowned and cut her eyes back to Nate. Misery pitched in her belly. It appeared both she and Sean had fallen back to old habits.

A waitress came by and took Rebecca’s drink order. Nate declined a second beer, opting instead for water. After the delivery of Rebecca’s sweet tea, they ordered garlic knots and pizza--Pepperoni Power rather than Dante’s Inferno because Nate couldn’t tolerate the hot peppers on the latter.

Rebecca employed all of her willpower to give Nate her full attention. When she couldn’t stand it anymore and her hungry eyes strayed to Sean’s table, he and Emma were gone, replaced by a plump family of four, all dressed in jeans and red T-shirts emblazoned with the Caravicci’s Pizzeria logo that screamed their devotion to Dante’s culinary skills. They sat together, but separate, each one basking in the glow of a cell phone, fingers tap-tap-tapping away. Modern family night.

Her mind wandered to Sean and Emma. Where were they now? What were they doing? Had they gone back to her house, or his? She gulped and pushed the thought away. The mental imagery made it tough to breathe.

Nate rested his hand on her arm. “Hey, you okay?”

“What? Yes. Sorry.” Rebecca shook her head and smiled. “I guess I’m tired. Worn down from the day, you know?”

After finishing their meal, they paid the bill and left the restaurant, Rebecca noting that neither the noise level nor patronage seemed to have diminished. Nate walked her to her car and waited while she got her keys from her purse and opened the driver’s side door.

“Hey. What happened to your cruiser?” Rebecca pointed to where the black sheriff’s car had been.

“What?” Nate glanced around. “I’m off tonight. I drove my truck.”

“Oh.” Rebecca shrugged. “I thought it was weird that you parked all the way at the back of the lot in the dark.”

“You sure it was a sheriff’s vehicle?”

Rebecca nodded. “Why would a cop park in the dark like that?”

“Maybe he was filling out paperwork, or maybe he followed someone here he thought might be DUI and wanted to watch for them to come out of the restaurant, make sure they weren’t drunk. It could have been something like that.”

“That makes sense, I guess. Listen, thanks for dinner. I’ll treat next time.”

“I’ll call you later in the week. If you’re free, maybe we can take in a movie or something this weekend.”

Nate waited for Rebecca to back from the parking space before he marched off toward his truck. She waved as she drove past him, tamping down guilt. She knew Nate hoped for more from their relationship than simple friendship, no matter how patient he was willing to be. She wanted to feel more for him and regretted that she didn’t, but hoped with time she would. Prayed she would, because that would mean she was over Sean.

She arrived home and readied for bed, settling under the covers with a book. With a burning desperation, she wanted to avoid thinking of Sean and his Nordic goddess, but her imagination flared and the words in her book blurred as her mind brewed carnal images she wished it wouldn’t.

Why can’t I get past this? He obviously has.

She tossed the book aside and nibbled her thumb.

It was an incomplete goodbye.

Maybe that was it. Maybe she couldn’t let go because she still had all this stuff, these feelings locked up inside her. Maybe she needed to just toss it all out there, like dumping trash. She was like Lindsay. She carried baggage with Sean’s name on it and she had to cut it loose.

Renewed energy pulsed through her. She threw the covers off and jumped from the bed. She marched to the kitchen and emptied her purse on the counter, pushing items aside to find the key to Sean’s house. She took the key, an envelope, a pen, and a notepad back to the bedroom where she settled on the bed and spent the next hour pouring her heart onto paper--all of which she balled up, only to try again.