Josie hoped that her extreme pleasure at seeing Del didn’t show. If he knew how hard her heart was pounding and that she couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say, he would wonder if she ever got out these days and if there was something wrong with her.
“I hope you like Chinese,” he said as he walked into the main room, turning on lights as he went. “I decided on half orders of several different entrées so we’d have a choice.”
“Sounds great. Chinese is one of my favorites.”
She trailed after him, her uneven gait much slower than his. By the time she reached the sofa, he’d already pulled up the rickety folding table and set the bags on top of it. From one he pulled several small cartons of steaming food. The delicious smell made her mouth water and her stomach growl. From the other bag he drew out thick paper plates, plastic utensils and two bottles of beer.
He tapped the latter on their caps. “There’s soda in the refrigerator if you’d prefer that.”
She smiled. “No. Beer is great.”
She and Del might have fought about nearly everything, but Chinese food dishes and imported beer hadn’t ever been a problem. On that they’d agreed perfectly.
He motioned to the sheet-covered sofa. “If the lady would be so kind as to take a seat, the gentleman will serve the meal.”
His elegant speech and deep bow were at odds with his red flannel shirt and worn jeans. Josie couldn’t help a small smile of contentment as she settled on the sofa and set her cane on the floor. Del moved the table close, then unfastened the cap on the bottles and set one in front of her.
He’d thought of everything, even napkins and cheap wood chopsticks.
“I’m too hungry to mess with those,” she said when he offered her a pair. “I’ll use a fork, thank you very much.”
“As the lady wishes.” He opened the cartons and displayed their contents. “Egg rolls and paper wrapped chicken. Kung pao chicken, orange-flavored beef, sweet and sour pork, shrimp with lobster sauce, fried rice and steamed rice. What would you like?”
Everything looked tempting. Josie hesitated only a second before pointing to the orange-flavored beef and the shrimp with lobster sauce. “I’ll start with those, along with steamed rice. But you don’t have to serve me. I can do it.”
“I’m showing off,” he said, scooping the food onto a paper plate. “You’re responsible for your own seconds.”
After he handed her a full plate, he sat next to her on the sofa and served himself. Then he held up his beer bottle. “To old houses and new friends.”
She picked up her drink and clinked it against his. “Thanks, Del.”
“You’re welcome. Now eat.”
She did as he requested, taking a sip of the beer before diving into the Chinese food. Her heart was still line dancing inside her chest, and her nerves felt a little quivery having him so close. She couldn’t believe he’d stopped by with dinner. His kindness made her happy and apprehensive at the same time. She got the impression that he liked her. Except the woman he liked-Rose-wasn’t who he thought. He was going to be angry when he found out the truth.
She should probably tell him now. Just blurt out the words. Except she didn’t want to spoil a potentially lovely evening. She’d been so alone for so long. Was it terribly wrong to want to enjoy Del’s company for a little while before she had to ruin everything between them?
She didn’t have an answer, or if she did, she didn’t want to think about it. So for now…for today at least…she would continue to keep her secret just a little longer.
“Do you like it?” he asked, pointing to her plate and the beer. “I thought you might be more of a wine woman, but I took a chance.”
“Everything is wonderful.” She nibbled on a shrimp and swallowed.
As she savored the delicate flavors she suddenly realized that the dishes he’d chosen had all been his favorites. Some of her humor faded as she remembered the times they’d argued about what to order. As she studied the open cartons she realized that she liked these items, too. There were a few other dishes that she would enjoy as much, but it wasn’t as if she’d hated Del’s favorites. But even in picking Chinese food, she’d insisted on being right. She hadn’t been willing to take turns or have them each pick an entrée. Why had she been so difficult all the time?
“Do you eat here often?” she asked, pointing at the name on the bag.
He grinned. “About twice a week. I’m not much of a cook.” He shrugged. “Now that I’m on my own, I wish I’d learned, but my mom never taught me.”
“You could teach yourself.”
“What? And be a responsible person? Naw. Takeout is better.”
Humor glinted in his eyes. She took in the slightly damp hair and the clean line of his jaw. He’d obviously showered and shaved before dropping by with dinner. Josie told herself not to read too much into his actions. Maybe he was just being nice. But in her heart she wanted it to be more than that. She wanted Del to be attracted to her, while at the same time she feared his interest. Not only because of the lie she was living, but because she was so different from what she’d been before.
“I’m surprised your mother would send you out in the world so unprepared,” she said.
“I guess she thought there would always be a woman around to take care of me. Plus I’m an only child. I was spoiled.”
“Really?” She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
“You’re shocked that she would cater to me? A lot of moms do-especially if they only have one child.”
“No. I’m surprised you’d admit it.”
It was something she’d accused him of dozens of times when they’d been married. She told him that Catherine’s catering to his needs had made it difficult for anyone else not to fall short of his expectations. At the time he’d told her she was paranoid.
He drank from his beer bottle. “My mom is one of those women who believe that taking care of her family is the most important thing in her life. She helped at the business, took care of the house, catered to my dad and me. If there was a burned piece of something or a smaller serving, she claimed it for herself. If there was a draft, she sat in it.”
“She sounds like a saint,” Josie said, careful to keep her voice neutral. Saint Catherine, she thought grimly. How many times had her mother-in-law’s actions been thrown in her face? Although she’d liked Del’s mother, she’d never come close to measuring up, and eventually she’d stopped trying. Her greatest goal had never been to be a servant in her own home.
“She was old-fashioned,” Del admitted. “But she’s changed.”
Josie scooped some sweet and sour pork onto her plate. “What do you mean?”
“About two years ago my mom went on strike. She said she was tired of catering to my dad, of working part-time at the business and full-time at home. He got weekends off but she was expected to still cook and clean and take care of him. Who was taking care of her?”
“Your mother said that?” Josie blurted out before she could stop herself. Saint Catherine had lost control?
“Absolutely. She and my dad fought about it for weeks. They nearly split up. She said she wanted a fifty-fifty relationship, and he wasn’t willing to give up his personal maid. At least that’s how she described it. My dad’s version was a little different.”
Josie blinked in surprise. She remembered all the times she and Catherine had talked about Del. His mother had always taken his side, telling Josie that she had to be the one to bend, the one to make Del feel special. Josie had wanted to know when her new husband was going to make her feel special, as well. She’d never thought Catherine had once heard a word she’d said, but maybe she’d been listening after all.
“What happened? Are they still together?”
“Oh, yeah. Dad couldn’t live without her. She moved out for about forty-eight hours. She went to San Francisco and spent a couple of days at a luxury hotel. Apparently she had the time of her life. Some business guy even tried to pick up on her in the hotel restaurant. My dad fell apart. He begged her to come home and swore everything would be different.”
“Is it?”
“Sure is. She told him she wanted him to retire and for them to spend more time together. They decided to buy a motor home, and now they spend most of the year driving across the country. They’re having a great time, and my dad has learned to cook.”
Who would have thought? She wanted to ask more questions about Catherine’s transformation but didn’t know how without giving herself away.
“So they left you in charge of the business,” she said instead. “Do you like that?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big surprise. I’d been taking over more and more of the responsibility over the past few years. Business has been booming. Despite being out of the way, Beachside Bay is growing. We’ve had more work than we can handle, even with bringing on more employees.”
He leaned forward and got another helping of food. “Enough about me,” he said. “Where did you live before you came to Beachside Bay?”
Josie hesitated. She didn’t know how much Del knew about his ex-wife’s life. Not that he seemed to be linking Rose with Josie.
“I lived in Los Angeles. I was a teacher-at least until a year ago.”
He set down his plate. “That’s when you had the accident, right?”
She nodded. “That changed everything.”
“Do you mind talking about it? I would like to know what happened, but not if it will bother you.”
She didn’t mind sharing the details of what had happened, but she was a little nervous about giving him too many clues to her real identity. She finished her last mouthful of food and put her plate on the table in front of them.
“I was driving home for lunch when a truck ran the red light and hit me broadside. The brakes had failed so it was going pretty fast when it slammed into me.”
He shifted so that he was angled toward her. “That sounds ugly.”
“I don’t remember much, which is a good thing. Most of the damage was on my left side. My left leg was really battered, as was my face.” She wished the big, empty room wasn’t quite so bright.
“So you’ve had a lot of surgeries.”
He wasn’t asking a question but she nodded, anyway. “Dozens. For the first six months I was dealing with facial reconstruction along with my leg. I don’t look the same.”
He pushed away the table, his half-eaten plate of food apparently forgotten. Then he leaned toward her and gently touched her cheek. The tender gesture surprised her, especially when her first instinct was to lean into the contact.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“My face doesn’t. There are a few tender spots, but except for a little swelling, I’m about as healed as I’m going to get there.”
He studied her as if seeing her for the first time. He traced her eyebrows, then the length of her nose.
“What’s different?” he asked.
They were treading on dangerous territory but she didn’t know how to avoid the question. “My cheeks are a little higher and my chin is more round. The bones were completely shattered. The replacement shapes are a special plastic. Like an action figure.”
He smiled faintly. “I can’t picture you looking any other way.”
That was good news, she thought.
“What else changed?” he asked.
“My voice is a little lower and huskier. There was some damage to the vocal chords. Obviously the most injury was done to my legs. I’ve been through several surgeries, and I still have a couple more to go. My goal is to be able to walk without a cane.”
“Will you get there?”
She liked that he didn’t offer platitudes, promising that she would be fine when he didn’t know the details of her situation. She thought about the question.
“If nothing else, I’m pretty stubborn, so I would say there’s a good chance.”
“I’m glad.”
He was sitting very close. She hadn’t noticed him moving, but suddenly he was in her personal space. Her chest tightened and her mouth got dry. She didn’t know what to say or do. Her hands fluttered on her lap before she laced her fingers together to keep herself still.
She wanted him to kiss her.
The thought came from nowhere, but once it appeared, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She wanted him to pull her into his arms and kiss her. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, to taste him again and be filled with the heat of desire.
At the same time, she wanted him to know the truth about her. She wanted him to be this close, this open and friendly and know that she was Josie Scott, his ex-wife. An impossible fantasy, she told herself.
He reached out to touch her face again. In that second she knew he was going to kiss her. Then, suddenly, he pulled back, shifting to his side of the sofa and reaching for his beer.
Disappointment filled her. She’d been so sure. What had happened to change his mind? Had the thought of all her injuries, surgeries and scars repulsed him? Was he concerned about getting involved with a client? Or was it something else? Make that someone else. She knew he was single, but there was a lot of material between not living with someone or being engaged and not being involved at all.
“I’m sure when you were first in the accident it was hard to imagine being where you are now,” he said. “This house is a little like that. Right now it’s a mess, but in a few weeks you’re not going to recognize it.”
“I agree. It has a lot of potential.”
They were changing the subject. Josie decided that she didn’t mind. Maybe a few minutes of chatting about the impersonal would allow her to catch her breath.
Del looked around the main room. “I’ve always had a thing for this place.” He grinned. “Would it shock you to know I almost bought the house with my ex-wife?”
Josie was startled-not by the information but by the fact that he would admit it. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “Some of it was money. When we were first married we didn’t have enough to afford a place like this. Later, when we could have swung the loan, we couldn’t seem to agree on what needed to be done.” He swallowed the last of his beer. “Actually those plans I showed you are the same ones I’d had drawn up about three and a half years ago. I’d done them for Josie and me. I’m glad you liked them.”
Hearing him speak her real name felt strange. As was his appreciation that she’d been in favor of his work.
“From all I’ve heard, you’re doing so well now you could afford to buy the house on your own.”
“Sure, but I guess I never made the time.” He looked at her. “This place suits you. I’m glad you bought it.”
“Me, too.” She took in a deep breath. A question hovered on the tip of her tongue but she wasn’t sure she had the courage to ask it. Or the courage to hear the answer. But it might give her the lead-in she needed to confess her identity. She squared her shoulders and plunged in with both feet. “At the risk of intruding where I’m not welcome, what went wrong in your marriage?”
Del took his time responding to the inquiry. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Josie. Not with a woman like Rose sitting next to him. He would rather discuss why someone as interesting and obviously intelligent as Rose wasn’t married or even involved. He would rather go on at length about how attractive he found her, especially with the light catching the waves in her long, blond hair. He wanted to stare deeply into her eyes and go back to touching her pretty face. He’d come damn close to kissing her a few minutes ago. He wanted to slide next to her and this time give in to the hot need building inside of him.
But getting involved with a client wasn’t smart. So he’d stopped himself before, and he would distract himself now. Even if that meant talking about Josie.
“You’re nothing like her,” he said by way of an answer.
Rose smiled. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“It’s good. You’re a comfortable person to be around. Quiet, thoughtful. I feel relaxed. Josie was always going a hundred miles an hour. Sometimes I wanted to just sit and be.” He grimaced. “That wasn’t her style.”
Rose touched her left leg. “She probably had a choice in the matter. I don’t.”
“I think you would be restful, regardless.”
He found his thoughts drifting to what life had been like with his ex-wife. To what had gone wrong. For the first time, he found himself willing to pick at the past and discuss it. Maybe because Josie had been on his mind for the past couple of weeks. A phenomenon he still couldn’t explain. Or maybe it was because of Rose. He respected her. With all she’d been through during her recovery from the accident, she could have been a bitter, closed person. But she wasn’t. She was a fighter. He respected that. Josie would have been throwing things and complaining about the unfairness of it all. He doubted she would have had the character to tough it out for any length of time.
Rose was feminine and delicate-something Josie could never be. Even if she’d known how, she would rather have eaten glass than given in to him. But that wasn’t something he could share with the woman sitting next to him. Nor did it answer the question about what had gone wrong in his marriage.
“I met Josie when she was nineteen,” he said slowly. “She was going to college and wanted a part-time job to give her spending money. The rest of her schooling was covered by a full athletic scholarship. Josie was all things physical.”
Rose didn’t say anything, but he felt her stiffen slightly. Only then did he understand his remark was a little insensitive. “Sorry,” he said quickly.
“No, don’t be. I asked because I’m curious. So she was an athlete?”
Del wasn’t sure if he should keep talking or not, but when Rose nodded encouragingly, he continued.
“She was more than that. Josie was movement. She couldn’t sit still, couldn’t imagine a world without exercise and sports. In a weird way, her athletic prowess got in the way of her being a woman. I’m not saying she wasn’t pretty,” he added hastily. “She was very attractive. But never feminine. She hated dresses and makeup and sexy lingerie. I guess a lot of it comes from her background. She was raised in Texas, on a ranch.”
“More barrel racer than queen of the rodeo?” Rose asked.
“That’s her. Some of the problem was her dad. He’s a real difficult man-stubborn, opinionated. He raised Josie to believe that emotions were a weakness and that the only thing that mattered was winning-be it a race, a game or an argument.”
Rose gave him a slightly shaky smile. “Not exactly good background material for a successful marriage. No one can win all the time.”
“Tell me about it. But Josie was determined to try. I knew that, even before I married her, but we were both pretty young and I was in love with her. I thought we could work things out.” He paused. “I don’t know what she thought about it all.”
“She was in love with you,” Rose told him. “It’s why most women marry.”
“Maybe. But I never thought Josie was comfortable wanting to love anyone. She didn’t like showing any kind of weakness. Loving means being vulnerable.”
“So she kept that side of herself from you?”
“If she even had it.” He shifted so that he was facing Rose and stretched out one arm along the back of the sofa. “A lot of the blame for the marriage failing is mine. I wanted a traditional wife, and that wasn’t Josie. I knew what she was when I married her and still I tried to change her.”
“So you were looking for June Cleaver?”
“Or someone like my mom,” he admitted. “Pretty dumb. In the end, I didn’t get her. Josie wasn’t about to change for anyone-certainly not for me. She wouldn’t compromise, either. She got stubborn about some things. Like doing the laundry or cleaning house. She was so concerned about only doing her half that she wouldn’t start either chore unless I was right there with her, doing my half. It used to make me crazy. She got home from work before me, but she wouldn’t make dinner. She said it made her feel like a slave.”
He heard a soft sound and glanced at Rose. She tucked her thick blond hair behind her ear. “Josie sounds like quite a character.”
“She was, but some of it was me. I was too young to know how to handle her, so I pushed back, probably more than I should have. Josie wasn’t one to walk away from a fight. So things got ugly pretty fast. There were times when I wanted us both to admit we’d been wrong, but she wouldn’t have any of that. She wanted me to say I was wrong. Even when it was obvious that the fighting was ripping us apart, she wouldn’t stop.”
He paused and listened to the sound of his own breathing. Talking about it like that brought back a lot of the emotions from that time in his life. He didn’t like the remembering or the feelings. He’d put all aspects of his marriage behind him, yet it oddly felt so close tonight.
“At the risk of offending you,” Rose said, “she sounds like a selfish person.”
The statement made him mildly uncomfortable. “Maybe. Maybe it was how she was raised. All I know for sure is I wanted us to be a team, to learn how to communicate like rational people. She wanted…”
His voice trailed off as he realized he didn’t know what Josie had wanted from him. “Maybe she was too much like her father, or maybe I wanted someone to treat me like my mom treated my dad. Maybe it was a personality thing and we never had a chance. I don’t know. But she’s gone now, and it’s good that we’re apart. I have a lot of regrets from that time in my life, but being divorced from Josie isn’t one of them.”
Rose busied herself collecting their plates and dropping them into one of the bags. She seemed stiff, almost embarrassed. Del wondered if he’d said too much.
“More of an answer than you want?” he asked.
She gave him a smile that seemed more pain than humor. “Not at all. I appreciate your candor.”
He wanted to believe her, but he wasn’t sure he could. “What about you? What’s your story?”
“I, um, was married before.” She cleared her throat. “Nothing much happened. I guess we drifted apart over time. Like you and your ex-wife, we were young. Sometimes that makes things more difficult.”
Del had the sense that something was wrong. “Did I offend you with what I said?”
“Not at all.” She touched a hand to her stomach. “I’m suddenly not feeling very well. I guess it’s all the activity from the week catching up with me.”
Del immediately stood. Disappointment passed through him. While he hadn’t expected anything to happen between them, and even though he’d been telling himself that a personal involvement with a client was dumb, he had secretly hoped that he might get a chance to kiss Rose. Maybe just a quick goodbye peck as he left. But he could tell from the lines of tension around her mouth and the white cast to her skin that she was very close to being ill.
“Are you going to be all right by yourself?” he asked. “Should I call a doctor?”
“No. It’s not serious. I just need to rest a little. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
He wasn’t sure he believed her, but didn’t think he should push the point. So he gave her a nod and headed for the door.
“I’ll be around all weekend,” he said, as he paused in the foyer. “Page me if you need anything. Even if it’s just to talk because you’re tired of your own company.”
“I will,” she murmured, but he sensed she was lying. “Good night, Del. Thanks for dinner.”
He hesitated before letting himself out. Waiting, he guessed, for Rose to change her mind and invite him to stay. But she didn’t, so he stepped out into the night and wondered what had happened to shift things between them. Obviously, he’d said too much about Josie. But it wasn’t just that, he thought as he climbed into his truck and started the engine. He had the sense of having been close to something significant and then of missing the point completely. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what he hadn’t been able to see.