“It?”
“Life.”
“I’m enjoying it plenty.” He picked up the chair and dumped Dell out of it.
Dell stood up and dusted himself off. “Nice. You’ve been bench-pressing again.”
Dell had a full gym in his basement, and they often spent time beating the shit out of each other for fun, under the guise of keeping in shape.
“You’re in deep with Holly,” Dell said. “Everyone can see that plain as day—except you.”
Adam shoved his fingers in his hair. “This no longer applies.”
“I already admitted I was a complete dumbass when it came to Jade. And I nearly messed it up, too. Remember?”
“Your point?” Adam asked.
“You were always the smarter one of the two of us, so why don’t you learn from our combined mistakes and prove just how smart you are?”
Twenty-four
An hour later, Holly stood in the big ranch kitchen at home, with only the pouring rain for company. She was making her own lasagna and thinking not-so-nice thoughts about Liza’s meat-and-five-cheese lasagna. Probably Liza was a good cook and her meat-and-five-cheese lasagna was perfect, but Holly’s was…not. First of all, she only had two cheeses.
And second of all, she didn’t enjoy cooking. Eating, she enjoyed just fine. Preparing what she ate, not so much.
And third of all…She sighed. Third of all, she was an idiot. She should have picked something up in town or called a friend. But Kate had a date tonight from her online dating service.
Holly wondered if that would be her soon—resorting to a dating service.
Hope was a strange thing. It was easily kept in check when the very thing she hoped for was pretty much a fantasy, nothing more. But then she’d gone and allowed it to take root in her mind, telling herself it could become real.
She and Adam…
And hope had blossomed, taken hold…only to be crushed by Adam himself. It wasn’t his fault. He’d been brutally forthright and honest with her. As always. The fault—the crushed hope—was all hers. Just as the hurt was.
In tune to the driving rain beating at the windows, she layered noodles, sauce, cheese, then repeated, popping a noodle into her mouth. Overcooked. Damn, she was as bad at this as she was at wearing miniskirts to stupid dog obedience training classes. She looked down at her jeans and the thigh-length oversized sweater she’d stolen from Adam the other night. She’d pilfered it because it was soft and comfy, and…because it smelled like him. In fact, it smelled so good she nearly had an orgasm every time she tucked her nose into it and inhaled. She shoved the pan into the oven, hoping the oven would magically fix it into something edible.
The doorbell rang, and her heart leapt with the last of her silly little hope. Adam? She rushed toward the door, but her dad beat her. “Got it,” he said, and opened the door. Wind and rain blew in, along with…
Not Adam.
“Deanna,” her dad said, surprise and pleasure warring on his face at the sight of the beautiful brunette standing there wringing out her long, drenched waves. She wore skin-tight jeans, cowboy boots, and a siren red leather jacket that matched the dinner-plate-size earrings swinging from her ears. She stepped into the foyer like she owned the place and gave Donald a not-so-little shove. “How could you not tell me?”
Donald looked flummoxed, both at her bigger than life appearance and the sheer volume of water coming off her. “Tell you what?”
Deanna went hands on hips, and if she’d not been turning blue from the cold, steam would have been rising from her roots. “You haven’t been feeling well.”
Donald blinked at the raw, genuine emotion that broke her voice up. “You haven’t been around.”
She sniffed, patting down her pockets, pulling out an already soggy tissue. “I was out of town on business. Not on the moon.”
“You were out of town with your boss,” Donald said with that look on his face that men got when faced with a pissed-off, teary woman—wariness. “Thomas Pines.”
“Yes. On business,” she repeated, and sniffed again. “I told you that. I told you it was work.”
“I thought it was a euphemism,” Donald said.
Deanna blinked. “What’s a euphemism?”
Donald shook his head and reached into the coat closet where they kept a stack of towels for the dogs. He handed one to the dripping wet Deanna. “Why are you here? You dumped me, remember?”
“Yes, well, it was just a silly fight. I’m un-dumping you,” she said, gathering herself together, attempting to dry off.
It was going to take more than one towel. Donald grabbed another and began to help her. “Why would you un-dump me?”
“Why?”
“Yes, Deanna. Why?”
“That’s a stupid question, Donald.”
His eyes met hers, an unusual amount of emotion in his. “You’re half my age. You could get a younger man, a stronger one. A better man—”
Deanna put a fuchsia-tipped finger over his mouth, then went up on tiptoe and kissed him softly. “Baby, I don’t want a younger man. I want a seasoned one, who knows exactly what he’s doing, one who appreciates life, who’s not looking over my shoulder for the next best sweet young thing to come along, one who wants me. Just me.”
“I want you,” Donald said seriously. “Only you. I thought—”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Earrings jangling, water still dripping from her all over the floor, she cupped his face and peered into his eyes. “Are you okay, really? Because they said—”
“They’re wrong.” He pulled her in against him. “We changed up the meds, and I’m going to be fine.”
“But—”
“Fine,” he repeated with a gentleness that Holly rarely saw from him. “In fact, now that you’re here, I’m going to be fantastic.”
“Come home with me,” Deanna whispered, leaning into him. “Let me take care of you.”
“I can’t. I told Holly I’d eat her…lasagna?” he said, looking to Holly, who nodded.
“Holly makes crappy lasagna,” Deanna said, and then met Holly’s gaze. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Holly said. “It’s true. I make crappy lasagna. Go, Dad. I’ll be fine here.”
“Are you sure, honey? The storm’s getting crazy and—” He broke off when Holly gave him a shoo-get-out-of-here gesture. She knew he wanted to go, and Holly got it. She really did. She’d be fine. It took more than a storm to scare her. Hell, only a week ago, she’d gone straight into one to go after his sorry ass, and they both knew it. “I’ll be fine,” she promised. “I’m tired and going to bed early, anyway.”
Five minutes later, she’d gotten rid of the lovebirds and gone back to the kitchen to check her lasagna. Five minutes after that, the power flickered and then went out. Damn. She grabbed a flashlight from the junk drawer and was just trying to decide her next move when someone knocked on the door. This time she refused to allow her heart to take another hard leap. It wasn’t Adam. It wouldn’t be Adam, not after the things she’d said to him.
She was right. She peeked through the front door’s peephole and went still from shock. When he knocked again, she nearly leapt right out of her skin. She hauled the door open and stared at Derek. Again, wind and rain slashed at her face, this time cooling off the heat of temper that the sight of her ex-husband brought. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
“Aw. I’ve missed you, too.” He started to come in but Holly blocked him.
“Hell no,” she said. He was tall, built, and dressed to impress. He was as drenched as Deanna had been but still somehow managed to look like a million bucks in his New York–sophisticated raincoat, long and slick, collar up.
Two million when he smiled, which he did now. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
“No.”
He let out a long breath. “Holly.” His voice was low, and he tried the sad eyes—an oft-used trick in his How to Screw Women Over repertoire. “Please,” he said.
Once upon a time, he’d been her everything, and she’d been unable to refuse him a single thing, especially when he’d used the soft, coaxing, I’m-so-sexy “please.” But she was done letting a man be her everything. Maybe earlier tonight she’d have said otherwise, that she had room in her heart to try again, but Adam had crushed that.
“I only need a minute,” Derek promised, shoving the wet hair off his forehead, a gesture of frustration that at one time would have melted her and made her want to stroke that hair from his eyes herself. There was a very good reason the man had been able to charm the panties off her—and every other coed he’d gone after: he was smooth as whiskey.
“No,” she said.
“Holly—”
“No.” Tired of getting wet, she shut the door in his face, brushing off her hands as if to rid them of unwanted dirt.
That had felt good. Really good. Pivoting, she headed back through the dark house to the kitchen. There she lit a bunch of candles and hoped the lasagna was done. Stuffing her face would be infinitely better than giving too much thought to her life and how she kept screwing it up.
She’d always gone with the flow of the tide, never fighting the current. She’d taken the path of least resistance but no more. Seeing Derek reminded her that she’d come back here to Sunshine to get over herself. To live in the moment. She was determined to follow her own path, to be herself. At first she honestly hadn’t known who she might be, but she was getting a handle on that now. She was strong, tough, and—shocking even herself—very able and willing to love in spite of being burned. She had plenty to offer a man, and she wouldn’t change for anyone.
And yet…and yet she’d wanted Adam to change for her. She wanted him to let her in, to want what she wanted—a real relationship.
Which made her a hypocrite. At the realization, her stomach clenched. She was no better than…“Derek,” she said in surprise as he walked right into the kitchen like he owned the place. “How did you—”
“You’ve been out of New York too long—you didn’t lock the front door.”
“That doesn’t mean you can walk right on in!”
He looked around with a curiosity he’d never shown when they’d been married. He’d never once come home with her, hadn’t shown the slightest interest. “We need to talk,” he said.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Leaning against the kitchen counter, she picked up a fork and started eating the lasagna right from the pan. At her first bite she grimaced, because Deanna was right, her lasagna was crappy. She pushed the pan aside and sighed. “Fine. Talk.”
Derek opened his mouth but paused when a gale of wind battered at the windows. He glanced at them uneasily. “I’ve never seen wind like this.”
“Yes, well, welcome to winter in the Bitterroots.”
He eyed the open-beamed ceiling above them as if worried the entire thing was about to come down on them. “Are we safe here?”
“If I say no, will you leave?”
He made a sound of regret. “I’m sorry, Holly. So damn sorry.” Born and raised in Texas before he’d remade himself into New York suave, he let the drawl drip into his voice now. “I was such an ass. Please say you’ll come back to me. Say you’ll be mine again.”
“I haven’t been yours in years.” She shook her head. “And this doesn’t make any sense to me, your sudden play at the doting husband. What’s really going on here?”
“We were good together.” He moved toward her, turning on the bedroom eyes. “Don’t you remember?”
“I do remember,” she agreed. “I remember being very happy with you, all the way up until the day your cute little fall-semester TA came to the door, sobbing that you’d broken her heart the night before when you’d left her for your brand-new cute little spring-semester TA.”
He sighed. “Well, if you’re going to hold a grudge.”
Another gust of wind rattled the windows, and Holly shook her head. “You’re on the sixty-second countdown, Derek. Get to your point.”
“Okay,” he said, dropping the good-old-boy act as he came toe-to-toe with her, holding his hands out as if entreating her to really hear him. “I screwed up. I did. But I can make it right.”
“No, you can’t,” she said, backing up into the counter. He was too close, making her feel claustrophobic in the dark kitchen, with only the flickering candles for light.
“Don’t,” he said softly, not giving her the space she needed. “Don’t push me away. We can work all this out, babe. I know I let you down, but I can be the right man. I can be whatever you need. Did you like the flowers I’ve sent?”
She went still. “They were from you?”
“Well, of course. Who did you think?”
Holly let out a low laugh, shaking her head at her own stupidity as she rubbed her temples.
He pulled her hands from her face. “We can do this, Holly. We can make this work. Just come back with me.”
Yanking her hands free, she pushed him. “What’s with this sudden need to have me back in New York? What aren’t you telling me?”
Something shifted in his eyes. Something that looked suspiciously like guilt.
“Dammit, Derek. Just tell me. Tell me why after years of not giving a shit, you’re suddenly sending flowers, spending money to appeal the divorce, flying across the country to see me.”