Nothing But Trouble (36 page)

The man curled around her, pressing his hard
thighs to the back of hers.

His thick arms enclosed her in a shelter of
his warmth and strength. He shifted, pressing even closer to her,
the rough hair on his legs grating against her bare ones. She let
out a content sigh when he dropped a kiss to the curve between her
shoulder and neck.

Then he was gone. Pulling away from her and
the quiet solitude that precluded sleep was yanked away. He left
the bed without a word. Not a, "I'll be right back," or "Try to go
back to sleep."

Hadn't they moved past this?

He must have seen the questions in her eyes,
which she hated. Her best poker face was laughable and probably
more like a neon sign on her forehead.

With gentle and slow movements, he pulled the
covers over and tucked her in. All nice and sweet. Kind of like a
big brother.

It made her want to scream.

The soft caress to her face stopped any
protest that had been moments away from flying out of her mouth.
Her eyes dropped closed and she turned her face into his palm,
unable to stop herself from reacting to his touch. The man was
leaving her again. She knew it. He knew it. And yet, she still
savored any sort of minimal contact from him, as though he was
going to change his mind and climb back into bed with her.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered.

Her heart dropped to the bottom of her
stomach when he left the room, shutting her in the darkness by
herself. And, suddenly, her melancholy turned into a full blown
ache in her chest when she realized what had just happened. The
intimacy they'd shared from simply sleeping next to each other had
been about an expression of love.

He'd been saying good-bye.

The aftermath of
the
storm left an overcast day with tepid temperatures and a gusty
breeze. The overall effect was gloomy, which matched Rebecca's
state of mind. Just as R.J. had commanded, she'd gone back to
sleep, only because the few hours she'd already caught had been
insufficient. When she'd woke a few minutes past seven a.m., the
house had been eerily quiet. R.J. had gone, leaving nothing more
than a handwritten note in his wake.

She'd supposed he'd written it to make her
feel better. At one point in time it probably would have. Call her
crazy, but she felt like they'd moved past the casual one-nighter
they seemed to repeat over and over again. The commitment thing was
still a hang up for him, and she'd be damned if she'd let him slink
away that easily.

It's not like she was asking for a wedding
ring. Just a shot at something more.

However, the note he scrawled made sure she
knew he'd be busy all day. His cop-out way of hiding from her.

I'll be at the shop all day. Sleep in if you
want and help yourself in the kitchen. Talk to ya later.

Talk to ya later. Like they were all chummy
with each other. As though he hadn't spent the night gracing her
with soft kisses, easing her anxiety and holding her while she
cried.

Coward.

Fine. She'd give him some time, if that's
what he wanted. But sooner, rather than later, she'd come after
him. They needed to have an all-out, and she'd force him to come
clean with his feelings for her. Until then, she'd bide her
time.

Plus, the free time gave her the opportunity
to do something she'd been contemplating for the past several
weeks.

Whether or not visiting Danielle was a smart
idea, Rebecca felt like it needed to be done. The two of them had
gotten off on a serious wrong foot and maybe the woman had the
wrong impression about her. Rebecca was a people person who strived
to get along with everyone. Danielle had been the first person
she'd met who'd outright hated her. Such negativity was a foreign
thing for Rebecca, and she couldn't stand it.

Who knew if the woman would actually speak to
her, but Rebecca couldn't let it go without at least trying. Under
any other circumstances the two women may have been friends.

Luckily she'd been able to look up Danielle's
address through Lindsey's medical file. Not a very kosher thing to
do, but what the hell?

On her way, she stopped at the market, picked
up a bouquet of flowers and purchased a vase to arrange them in.
They were cheerful, something that was seriously lacking in the
current weather. Hopefully they would at least put a smile on
Danielle's face and convince her that Rebecca wasn't the devil.

Danielle lived on a heavily tree-lined street
with old fashioned lamp posts and cracked sidewalks. Her home was
on the small-side with a one-car garage and overgrown bushes. She
slid her car along the curb and got out. A tabby cat with a sagging
belly came
this
close to tripping her, which would have
ended with the vase of flowers shattering to the cement. Somehow
she managed to hold on to them and retrieve the day's newspaper
from the front stoop.

Flowers and a newspaper.

She should at least get a half smile.

The newspaper slipped from under the crook of
her arm when she rang the bell. The stupid thing fell out of the
plastic, forcing Rebecca to set the flowers down so she could shove
the paper back in the bag. The door opened in time for her to
gather both items and right herself so she didn't look an
idiot.

The last thing she needed was to make her
already unfavorable impression get worse.

"Hi," Rebecca greeted with what she hoped was
a friendly smile.

The shock of Danielle's appearance threatened
to wipe that grin away. The other woman didn't look at all the way
she did the last time Rebecca had seen her.

A few weeks ago, her hair had been shiny, if
not a little ratty and she'd been about ten pounds heavier.
Presently, her dull black hair was pulled back in a sloppy bun with
wayward strands hanging out all over the place. Her sallow skin and
heavy-lidded eyes made Danielle look ten years older than she
really was. And a sharp collar bone protruded from the neckline of
her baggy t-shirt.

All in all she didn't even remotely resemble
the same stunning woman Rebecca had been mildly jealous of.

She held the newspaper out. "I picked up your
paper for you."

Danielle eyed the thing as though Rebecca
were trying to hand her a poisonous snake. Did the woman really
think so little of her?

Thoughts of leaving had just entered her
mind, when Danielle's features softened and she accepted the
plastic bag. "Thanks."

Hurdle one crossed.

Now if she could just get inside and say her
piece.

"Can I come in?" Rebecca asked when Danielle
made no attempt to move the conversation further.

"All right."

The admission came much faster than she
expected. Danielle stood back, allowing Rebecca to enter, and
closed the door behind them. She tossed the newspaper down,
probably because she had no intention of reading it. Whatever. At
least Rebecca had tried.

"I just wanted to come by and…" She glanced
around and tried not to grimace at the cluttered, unkempt state of
the home. "Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Danielle crossed her arms over her chest, a
classic defensive move. "I'm unemployed and just had my stomach
pumped. So not too well."

Wait, stomach pumped? What was she talking
about? R.J. hadn't mentioned anything about Danielle having an
overdose. Unless he hadn't known.

"R.J. found me," Danielle added, as though
she'd read Rebecca's mind. "If it hadn't been for him, I'd probably
be dead."

Okay, so he had known. Not only that, he'd
been the one to find her and get her in the hospital. Why hadn't he
shared that information with her?

The omission was like a dull, rusty knife
twisting in her heart. She shoved the feeling aside, which wasn't
easy, and tried to think of something appropriate to say. "I'm
sorry," she muttered.

You're sorry?

She was a doctor for crying out loud! Her
days had been spent comforting people and putting their minds at
ease. And all she could think to say was sorry?

"I mean," she stumbled. "It's a good thing
R.J. found you." Okay, that sounded slightly more sensitive.

And just what was R.J. doing here in the
first place? He hadn't mentioned anything about coming to see the
woman he used to sleep with.

Really? You're going to be jealous right
now?

Danielle shrugged the words off. "It was my
own fault. Anyway, it was the wakeup call I needed."

Rebecca almost said "good" but held herself
back at the risk out shoving her foot in her mouth again.

Instead, she held out the vase of flowers. "I
wanted to give you these. As sort of a peace offering," she added.
"I think we just got off on the wrong foot with each other. I don't
know about you, but it's kind of been eating away at me."

Judging by the look on Danielle's face, it
hadn't been eating away at her. In fact, she probably enjoyed
it.

To Rebecca's surprise, Danielle accepted the
flowers and lowered her nose to a Carnation.

"They're really beautiful," she said in a
sort of soft tone Rebecca hadn't heard from her before. "That was
nice of you."

The kind words eased some of Rebecca's
worries, but not completely. It had only been few minutes. Plenty
of time still for Danielle to toss Rebecca out the door.

However, she planned on doing what she could
to make amends with R.J.'s former employee.

"So, how are you doing now?" She wished she
could say Danielle looked good, but Rebecca couldn't bring herself
to embellish that much. Besides, she was a terrible liar. Best to
keep the words to herself.

Danielle placed the vase of flowers on an end
table and turned the glass around in a half circle. "I'm pretty
weak. Basically I'm trying to keep things together until I go into
a program."

Rebecca took a step toward her. "You're going
into a program? That's great." The news was just about the best
thing she'd heard all day. Or all week, for that matter.

"Yeah, listen…" Danielle's gaze darted around
the room. It touched on the flowers, the muted television in the
corner, then the floor. "I've been thinking about everything's that
happened and… well, I just wanted to apologize for the way I
treated you. I never gave you a fair chance, and that was wrong of
me."

O-kay.
That
, she was not expecting.
While the admission sounded completely heartfelt, it totally threw
her off-guard. True, Danielle hadn't given Rebecca a fair chance.
And she hadn't been entirely friendly. But after a while, Rebecca
hadn't cared about hearing the other woman say sorry. She just
wanted to put things with each other on the right track.

Rebecca cleared her throat and tried to think
of what to say without sounding ungrateful. "I really appreciate
that, but you don't need to say you're sorry."

"Yes, I do," Danielle said with her eyes
closed. "This isn't easy for me, so just bear with me."

Rebecca nodded and kept her mouth shut.

Danielle ran the tip of her fingernail over
the wood grain of the end table. "I wasn't in a good place when we
met." She inhaled a deep breath and pressed her lips together. "I
didn't like the way R.J. looked at you. I saw you as a threat, and
I disliked you on sight."

Well, then. She'd known part of the problem
had been Danielle's feelings for R.J., but Rebecca certainly hadn't
expected that kind frankness. Though it wasn't a surprise.

"Okay," Rebecca said, because what else could
she say? She hadn't exactly liked Danielle either.

She slanted Rebecca a look out of the corner
of her eyes. "He loves you," Danielle said, matter-of-factly. "I
know because I used to look at him the same way he looks at
you."

A wave of heat washed up to her cheeks. "I
really don't think―"

"Yes, you do." Danielle turned to face her
with her arms crossed over her chest. "Like I said, this isn't easy
for me. I knew when I got involved with R.J. that it was a bad
idea." She laughed but the sound wasn't genuine. "I really have no
one to blame but myself."

Rebecca didn't say anything. Couldn't,
really, even if she wanted to.

Danielle licked her lips. "The relationship
ended long before I wanted it to. Actually, I guess you could say
there never was a relationship. At least not that R.J. wanted."

With those words, Rebecca remembered what
R.J. had said to her about his fling with Danielle being only sex
and no feelings. At the time, Rebecca had been willing to bet all
the money in her bank account that hadn't been true for Danielle.
So hearing her say the words wasn't shocking. As one woman to
another, Rebecca totally understood where Danielle came from.

In fact, for the first time since she'd met
the woman, Rebecca had a semblance of understanding for Danielle.
One might even say that Rebecca felt sorry for her. Both had loved
the same man, both had been heartbroken by him.

That feeling wasn't easy to forget, nor was
it easy to get over. Years of practice had made Rebecca a pro at
that.

She took a closer study of the woman standing
a few feet away from her. Danielle must have been in much deeper
than Rebecca had originally thought. Sure, she'd come off as bitchy
and abrasive, but she'd been recovering from having her heart
trampled by one very sexy man.

Who was Rebecca to say how a person grieved
from that sort of loss? And it was a loss, no doubt about that. One
that could take years to get over. It had been years for Rebecca.
Danielle only mirrored on the outside what Rebecca felt on the
inside.

"Danielle―"

"You don't need to say anything." She held up
a hand and shook her head. "I know the two of you are involved, and
I need to just get over it. But the point I'm trying to make is
that it was wrong of me to judge you the way I did."