Nothing But Trouble (10 page)

"Something's not right with her," Rebecca
stated. "And I think you know it."

He straightened from the desk, which made him
tower over her. "What I know is for some reason you don't like
Danielle. I don't really give a damn if you're jealous, but you
can't come in here and toss around and ask questions like
that."

His words threw her for a loop. Jealous?
Okay, yes a very small part of her resented the hell out of the
woman. But enough for Rebecca to do something vindictive?

"What?" she stammered. "Why would I do
something like this if I didn't have a good reason?"

His warm palm cupped her chin and tilted her
head up. "Jealousy sounds like a good enough reason to me." His
voice dropped down to that delicious husky that always had her toes
curling and her eyelids dropping.

Not this time though. Her blood was too
boiling to allow her body to react in a sexual way. She slapped his
hand away. "Go to hell, R.J. I came here because I care about your
business. I'm sorry that I can't tell you more, but I think you
already know there's an issue."

White hot anger had her storming out of his
office. Just to drive her point home, she slammed his door shut,
then spun around on her heel. Her high heels made an annoying
clacking sound on the concrete floor which she ignored. Let him
listen to her walk away. And let this be the last time she tried to
help him.

How dare he? What kind of person did he think
she was?

Tears of frustration burned her eyes. Why did
it always have to be this way between them? Why couldn't they have
an amiable relationship like two normal human beings? Whenever they
got to good terms something would happen and she'd go back to
hating his guts. Whoever coined the phrase "thin line between love
and hate" must have had a personal relationship with R.J. Devlin.
The man was so maddening, she didn't know whether to strip his
clothes off or punch his lights out.

But why was she surprised? And why did she
continue to do this to herself? She couldn't logically blame anyone
else. She was a glutton for punishment who always came back for
more. Every time she walked away from R.J., confusion created a
sick feeling in her stomach because she had the hardest time
figuring him out. Bouncing back and forth between love and hate
gave her enough whiplash to last her a lifetime.

She finally got in her car and whipped out of
the parking lot.

Not once had R.J. defended her the way he
defended Danielle. No, he always went out of his way to make her as
uncomfortable as possible. It was like it gave him some kind of
sick satisfaction. She told herself she didn't care. But if she
truly didn't, why couldn't she stop the tears from rolling down her
cheeks?

****

By the time Rebecca pulled onto her street,
she'd been drained of all her anger, and in its place was plain old
exhaustion. Enough that she didn't even have the energy to groan
when she spotted her mother's car on the other side of the
driveway.

Rebecca had a good relationship with her
parents. They often had dinner together a few times a month, and
sometimes she and her mother would go shopping together. But she
was not in the mood to deal with either of them tonight. In fact,
she wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone. All she wanted to do
was soak in the tub and sleep off her stress. Even Yoga didn't
sound appealing. And Rebecca was
always
in the mood for
Yoga.

Lord only knew what her mother wanted.
Probably to scare her with some ridiculous statistic about having
babies. Like maybe Rebecca had a better probability of being
abducted by aliens than having kids after the age of thirty-five.
With the mood she was in, Rebecca would welcome little green men
whisking her away to the far reaches of the galaxy.

Despite that, she pulled into the garage and
let herself inside the home. Her parents were painfully predictable
people. Whether at home, or at someone else's house, they could
always be found doing the same things. Her father had made a home
for himself stretched across her couch. And her mother was at the
kitchen sink, running the water over some dishes. Something smelled
absolutely heavenly, which did little to lift her spirits.

"Hey baby doll," her father greeted. "Hope
you don't mind us crashing here."

"Honey, we got struck by termites," her
mother called from the kitchen.

"Of course I don't mind," Rebecca replied
even though she didn't want her parents all but living here for who
knows how long.

She set her things down in the hallway that
led to her bedroom and walked toward the kitchen. Her mother
greeted her with a hug, which chased away some of Rebecca's
worries.

"What are you cooking?" she asked.

"Your favorite. Chicken fried steak with rice
and gravy," her mother said with a cheerful smile. The apron tied
around her waist read "I bake with love" and had various stains on
it from years of use. The yellow color of the apron was faded and
the memories of her mother wearing that went back a long time.

"That sounds good," Rebecca said even though
she wasn't hungry, which she didn't have the heart to say. "So how
bad are the termites?"

Her mother waved a hand in the air and
stirred the gravy. "Oh, they're all over the place. The house is
all covered up, and I don't have a clue how long it will take to
fix the damage. Will you hand me the milk?"

Rebecca withdrew the two percent from the
fridge and handed the carton to her mother. The older woman poured
some into the brown gravy, then swirled it around with her wooden
spoon. Her mother had always been a magician with gravy. Somehow
she knew the right amount of drippings and milk to make it perfect.
A second ago she wasn't hungry. But the sight of the homemade gravy
had her stomach rumbling.

"Honey, are you okay?" her mom asked. "You
look tired."

Rebecca leaned against the counter. "I am
tired. But I'm okay. I'm just going to eat and turn in early."

Patsy Underwood stirred the gravy and shook
some pepper into it. "Your daddy and I can go somewhere else. I'm
sure there's a hotel we can stay at. I don't want to put you out if
you're worn."

She smiled to reassure her mother. "Don't be
ridiculous, Mom. You and Dad can stay here as long as you need to.
The second bedroom is more than big enough."

"We sure appreciate it, honey. I think I
finally have this perfect," she said about the gravy, which was a
mouth-watering shade of brown and just thick enough to Rebecca's
liking.

The meal, though low-key with mundane
conversation, was as delicious as anything her mother had ever
cooked. Rebecca took care not to overload her plate because she was
already feeling uneasy.

Her mother questioned it of course, saying
things like, "You're not eating very much," and "Do you not like
the meal?" The meal was delicious, but her appetite was
non-existent. Rebecca was smart enough not to tell her parents that
because they wouldn't stop until Rebecca spilled every last detail.
Patsy Underwood was a human lie detector. When coupled that with
Rebecca's poor lying skills, came a situation Rebecca wouldn't be
able to escape from. So she ate, even when her stomach told her to
stop.

Thankfully she was able to plead a headache
and escape to her bedroom. Her mother assured Rebecca not to worry
about the dinner dishes, even though Rebecca felt bad for leaving
her parents to clean the mess. Even so, she was grateful for a
chance to escape. Thousands of thoughts still churned through her
mind. All those kids and whether or not they were taking Adderall.
R.J. and his weird defense of Danielle. Or, maybe not so weird,
given they used to be involved. And now having her parents share
space with her.

In order to wash the day away, Rebecca took a
long bath and soaked for longer than she needed to. Her skin was
nice and pruny when she wrapped herself up in a robe. By the time
she crawled into bed, she was just drowsy enough for her eyes to
drift shut. Just as she was about to drift off, her cell phone
vibrated on the nightstand.

With a groan, Rebecca snatched it up and
glanced at the screen.

Sorry for being an ass. It's the damn
mango
.

The reference to the fruit had her laughing.
When she was fifteen, she and Courtney had been sitting on a high
branch in a tree of her parents' yard. They'd been talking and
eating mangos when R.J. had come strolling by, right under where
they'd been sitting. Rebecca had been feeling extra frisky and
looking to get back at him for something he'd done, for what now
Rebecca couldn't even remember. On a whim, she'd dropped a whole
mango and it had hit him right smack on top of his head. He'd
cursed and threatened to end their lives, but his anger hadn't been
able to stop hers and Courtney's laughter. For weeks after that
R.J. had been surly and snappy with her. When she finally
questioned him, his response had been, "Why don't I drop a mango on
your head and see how you like it?"

From that point on, she'd never been able to
look at mangos with a straight face. And R.J. always referenced
them when Rebecca called him out when he was in a bad mood. "It's
the mangos," he'd always say.

The year after that incident, she'd taken her
life in her own hands by putting a mango in a gift bag for his
birthday. The next day, she'd found a note in her mailbox that
said. "Run and hide, Ms. Underwood."

She stabbed her teeth into her lower lip and
returned his text message.

Mango season is coming up, so watch
out
.

Taunting R.J. was the equivalent to playing
with fire. He always found a way to get even. Her cell phone
vibrated again, and she glanced at the screen.

Your bedroom's on the first floor. If
you're smart, you'll lock your window this time
.

This text didn't have her smiling. In her
smile's place was a tingling heat that spread all throughout her
body. Why did her girly parts have to get themselves all worked up
like that?

This was his way of getting back at her;
sending her to bed sexually frustrated.

She dropped her cell phone back on the
nightstand with a heavy sigh. Why couldn't she have said something
really simple like, "Hey, no sweat."

"You'll never learn, will you?" she whispered
to herself just as her eyes drifted shut.

He ought to have
his
head examined for coming in to the shop on a Sunday. A normal
person would be at home reading the paper and catching a ball game
on T.V.

But the tingling sensation going down his
spine wouldn't allow him to relax with the sports section. Since
waking up that morning, he'd been unable to shake the feeling that
something wasn't right. He could thank Rebecca and her questions
for that one. But however much he could ignore Rebecca's words, he
couldn't ignore Danielle's odd behavior.

Had he noticed a weight change in her? Come
to think of it, she did seem thinner over the past few weeks. Was
she working longer hours? Actually, she'd been staying later, and
arriving even before him in the mornings. The weight thing could be
because of a diet, even though she didn't need to diet. And maybe
she'd been working longer hours because she had too much of a
workload. If that was the case, then the fault fell on him for
overloading her.

All reasonable explanations, and yet…
something still wasn't adding up. Was it just a coincidence that
Rebecca's warning came on the heels of Danielle's recent mishaps?
Then there were the sudden outbursts of her snapping at him over
the littlest things. Forgetting to place orders, mixing accounts
up. Very un-Danielle-like.

Besides that R.J. was restless and felt the
need to get dirty. After a sleepless night of fantasizing about
Rebecca, he needed to get his hands into some grease. He had a few
new arrivals that needed to be stripped down to the bare chassis.
So that's what he did. After whipping his shirt off, R.J. went to
work on the first car

For the next hour, he dove into what he loved
best: Getting into the inner workings of a classic vehicle to
reveal the inner beauty. The sound of metal on metal was like music
to his ears in the quiet shop. As he worked, he tried to align his
focus to the '71 Corvette Stingray. Vehicles like this didn't come
in very often, so when thoughts of Rebecca kept intruding on his
concentration, his frustration grew. He tossed aside an old timing
belt with more force than he needed to. The thing clattered to the
ground and skittered under the wheel of the next car.

He had no business touching her. Past
experience was enough for him to know that even the simplest touch
always led to more. Once he got a taste of that downy skin, his
body wouldn't rest until it had more. And more had never been
enough. Dammit, he knew better. Even climbing through her bedroom
window and making love to her hadn't been enough. For weeks he'd
been tortured with the memory of sinking into her welcoming body,
of hearing her moan and sob and feeling her quiver around him.

The experience had shaken him and created
feelings inside that scared the shit out of him. The next night
after taking Rebecca's virginity, he'd called an old girlfriend.
But the hours of vigorous sex had only pronounced his feelings for
Rebecca. She wasn't just someone he'd slept with. She'd never been
just another notch in his bedpost, no matter how much he wanted her
to be. She'd been something else, but admitting to it was something
he'd been unable to do.

From an early age, R.J. knew he had no desire
to be in a committed relationship. After seeing what his mother had
gone through with his father, R.J. figured it would be best for
women in general if he kept commitment out of it. Sex was okay. In
fact sex was out of this world, as long as the relationship stayed
on that level. Rebecca was better than that. She deserved a guy who
would take her out to dinner on Valentine's Day or cooked her
breakfast in bed. R.J. wasn't built that way, and he cared about
Rebecca too much to lead her to believe otherwise. So he cut her
loose with the idea planted that he didn't care. She needed to
think he didn't give a rip either way, so she would go find that
guy who could give her what she wanted.