LITMIR.BIZ

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      How could she answer that without conceding it would be okay to wait? “I guess.”

      “At least, I’m still going to be in love with you,” he added, and Rebecca felt herself soften. She didn’t want to wait any longer to be married, but if it would make Buddy happy, how could she refuse? “Okay,” she said at last.

      “Great.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I knew you’d understand. You’re the best, babe, you know that? Listen, I’ve got someone at the door, so I’ll have to call you later.”

      Rebecca slouched into a chair at the kitchen table and started peeling off the nicotine patches she’d plastered on herself. “Fine.”

      The phone clicked and a dial tone filled her ear. Hanging up, she sat in a stupor for several seconds, waiting for her emotions to reach some kind of equilibrium. She’d behaved admirably. She’d succeeded in remaining calm and should be proud of herself for that. But it was hard to celebrate when Buddy was still postponing their wedding. She’d have to tell her family and friends. She’d have to make new arrangements at work and with her landlord. She’d have to withstand all the snide remarks she was bound to receive at the Honky Tonk.

      Propping her chin on her palm, she gazed dejectedly out the window at the front drive. Everything will be okay, she told herself. This wouldn’t be the first time the whole town had snickered behind her back. Folks still told and retold the crazy things she’d done over the years, even though some stories went all the way back to her childhood. But she always managed to smile through the telling. And she’d keep on smiling. The trick, of course, was never to let anyone know how much it hurt.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “MARTHA CALLED EARLIER, said you wanted me to come over for dinner so you could talk to me about something,” Rebecca said. Dropping her car keys on the counter, she plopped onto a stool in the middle of her parents’ large white kitchen.

      Her mother, wearing a cherry-print apron over her June Cleaver dress, was busy chopping onions at the center island. A puzzled expression knotted her brows as she glanced up. “Who’s Martha?” She grimaced as understanding dawned. “Oh, you mean Greta.”

      “There’s a little Martha Stewart in all of us. Some of my sisters just have more than their share.”

      “There’s nothing wrong with being a good homemaker,” her mother replied.

      “I would’ve agreed with you—” Rebecca toyed with the fresh fruit that graced the bowl at her elbow “—but Greta lost me when she tried to make roses out of the ends of her toilet paper. Presentation isn’t everything. Some things are meant to be functional. Next thing we know, she’ll be trying to camouflage the commode.” She took a bite out of an apple and was mildly surprised when her mother didn’t insist she wait until after dinner. “So what did you want to say to me?”

      Her mother scooped the onions she’d been chopping onto a plate. “I just wanted to tell you that I found some pretty candles I think will work well for the wedding. They’re vanilla-scented.”

      The way her mother’s eyes settled on her, then shifted quickly to her task again, suggested she had more to say. But mention of the wedding was enough to make Rebecca uncomfortable. She’d called the printer in Boise this morning and managed to talk them into holding her order, but she hadn’t mentioned the latest wrinkle in her love life to anyone closer to home. When her sister called earlier to set up dinner, she’d thought tonight might be a good time to talk to her parents. But her mother was preparing a lot of onions. Probably she wasn’t the only one coming to dinner.

      “Can I help?” she asked.

      “Sure. Grab a bowl and start cutting up vegetables for a salad. Everything’s in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator.”

      “I may be less like Martha Stewart than your other daughters, but even I know where to find the veggies,” Rebecca grumbled, crossing to the fridge and pulling out the romaine lettuce. “Who’s coming tonight?”

      “Greta and the kids.”

      “She told me she had a headache.”

      “She called just before you came. She’s feeling better.”

      “And Randy?”

      “He has to work.” With a population barely reaching 1,500, Dundee had only two full-time firemen. Randy, husband of the sister closest to Rebecca in age, was one of them.

      “I’ll miss him,” Rebecca said, making little effort to mask her sarcasm.

      Her mother arched a reprimanding eyebrow at her. “That’s not a very nice tone to use regarding Randy. He’s your brother-in-law.”

      He’d also been sidekick to Josh Hill all through high school. But then, her parents didn’t understand her feelings toward Josh, either. They’d worshipped him ever since his family moved in across the street twenty-four years ago. Especially her father. From the beginning, if Josh got into a brawl at school or skipped class to catch frogs in the nearby creek, her father would say, “He’s all boy, isn’t he?” And there was no mistaking the pride in his voice. In high school, if Josh was caught with his hand up Lula Jane’s blouse or sticking his tongue down Betty Carlisle’s throat behind the bleachers, her father wouldn’t go on about the evils of promiscuity. He and Josh’s father would dismiss it with a wink and a nudge, then slap Josh on the butt and tell him he played one helluva football game.

      Maybe the double standard wouldn’t have bothered Rebecca so much if her father hadn’t wanted a son so desperately. But she knew, as the youngest, she’d been Doyle Wells’s last hope for a boy, and he wasn’t happy she’d failed him. The suspicion that he’d rather have the boy across the street than his youngest daughter had soon made Josh the bane of Rebecca’s existence. She’d immediately set out to conquer and defeat—or at least to prove that anything he could do, she could do better. If Josh climbed a tree, she climbed higher. Once she fell and broke her arm and he had to run for help, but that didn’t put an end to the rivalry that raged between them. Her humiliation only escalated it. If Josh hopped a fence, or waded through the creek on his way to school, ruining his clothes, she proved she wasn’t afraid to do the same.

      Though her father generally reacted with something far less than pride, she did have a few moments of glory. On Josh’s ninth birthday, when he received his first two-wheeled bicycle, she challenged him to a race around the block and somehow managed to beat him. Her father was absolutely beaming when she crossed the finish line; his father was not.

      So much for glory days, Rebecca thought as she immersed the lettuce in cold water and started ripping it into pieces. Sheer determination couldn’t make up for Josh’s advantage in size and strength forever, so Rebecca had been forced to find other areas in which to assert herself. If Josh ran for student body president, she ran against him—and lost. If Josh took debate, she challenged him on the other side of the argument—and thanks to her sharp tongue, usually won. If Josh made honor roll, she tried for Principal’s List—and most semesters fell laughably short.

      Fortunately life with Josh as part of the community eventually achieved a sort of precarious equilibrium. Once they graduated from high school, he went off to college in Utah and she went to massage school in Iowa before changing her mind and going to beauty school, instead. When they both returned to Dundee, they pretty much left each other alone. Until that hot August night a year ago last summer. What happened then, Rebecca couldn’t explain. She didn’t even want to think about it. She could only concede that Josh had come a long way since the age of eight. He was now six-four and two hundred pounds of lean hard muscle—which she knew because she’d had the pleasure of exploring nearly every inch of him.

      “Are you going to answer me?” her mother prodded.

      Rebecca’s throat had gone dry at the memory of Josh’s bare chest. “What was the question?” she asked, shoving his image from her mind.

      “I want to know why you don’t like

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