Summer Love - Page 59

She couldn’t remember ever having felt more foolish, and she straightened her shoulders defensively. “Right down to my coffeepot.”

“Amazing,” he murmured.

“I bought new clothes, new luggage, and flew to London. First-class. I’d never been on a plane before in my life.”

“You’d never flown, but took your first trip across the Atlantic.”

She didn’t hear the admiration in his voice, only the amusement. “I wanted to see something different. Tobesomething different. I stayed at the Ritz and took pictures of the changing of the guard. I flew to Paris and had my hair cut.” Self-consciously she lifted a hand to it.

Because he could see that she was overwrought, he was careful not to smile. “You flew to Paris for a haircut.”

“I’d heard some women discussing this stylist, and I— Never mind.” It was no use trying to explain that she’d gone to the same hairdresser, to the same shops, for years. The same everything. “Right after Paris, I came here,” she went on. “I met you. Things happened. I let them happen.” Tears threatened. She could only pray he didn’t see them. “You were exciting, and attracted to me. Or attracted to who you thought I was. I’d never had a romance. No one had ever looked at me the way you did.”

Once more he chose his words carefully. “Are you saying that being with me was different? An adventure, like flying to a Paris salon?”

She would never be able to explain what being with him had meant to her. “Apologies and explanations really don’t make any difference now. But I am sorry, Stephen. I’m sorry for everything.”

He didn’t see the tears, but he heard the regret in her voice. His eyes narrowed. His muscles tensed. “Are you apologizing for making love with me, Rebecca?”

“I’m apologizing for whatever you like. I’d make it up to you if I could, but I don’t know how, unless I jump out the window.”

He paused, as if he were considering it. “I don’t think this requires anything quite that drastic. Perhaps if you’d sit down calmly?”

She shook her head and stayed where she was. “I can’t handle any more of this tonight, Stephen. I’m sorry. You’ve every right to be angry.”

He rose, the familiar impatience building. But she was so pale, looked so fragile, sounded so weary. He hadn’t treated her gently before. At least he could do so now.

“All right. Tomorrow, then, after you’ve rested.” He started to go to her, then checked himself. It would take time to show her that there were other ways to love. Time to convince her that love was more, much more than an adventure. “I want you to know that I regret what happened tonight. But that, too, will wait until tomorrow.” Though he wanted to touch a hand to her cheek, he kept it fisted in his pocket. “Get some rest.”

She had thought her heart was already broken. Now it shattered. Not trusting her voice, she nodded.

He left her alone. The door scraped against the splintered jamb as he secured it. She supposed there might have been a woman somewhere who’d made a bigger fool of herself. At the moment, it didn’t seem to matter.

At least there was something she could do for both of them. Disappear.

Chapter 10

It was her own fault, she supposed. There were at least half a dozen promising accounting positions in the want ads. Not one of them interested her. Rebecca circled them moodily. How could she be interested in dental plans and profit sharing? All she could think about, all she’d been able to think about for two weeks, was Stephen.

What had he thought when he’d found her gone? Relief? Perhaps a vague annoyance at business left unfinished? Pen in hand, Rebecca stared out of the window of the garden apartment she’d rented. In her fantasies she imagined him searching furiously for her, determined to find her, whatever the cost. Reality, she thought with a sigh, wasn’t quite so romantic. He would have been relieved. Perhaps she wasn’t sophisticated, but at least she’d stepped out of his life with no fuss.

Now it was time to get her own life in order.

First things first. She had an apartment, and the little square of lawn outside the glass doors was going to make her happy. That in itself was a challenge. Her old condo had been centrally located on the fifth floor of a fully maintained modern building.

This charming and older development was a good thirty miles from downtown, but she could hear the birds in the morning. She would be able to look out at old oaks and sweeping maples and flowers she would plant herself. Perhaps it wasn’t as big a change as a flight to Paris, but for Rebecca it was a statement.

She’d bought some furniture.Somewas the operative word. Thus far she’d picked out a bed, one antique table and a single chair.

Not logical, Rebecca thought with a faint smile. No proper and economical living room suite, no tidy curtains. Even the single set of towels she’d bought was frivolous. And exactly what she’d wanted. She would do what she’d secretly wanted to do for years—buy a piece here, a piece there. Not because it was a good buy or durable, but because she wanted it.

She wondered how many people would really understand the satisfaction of making decisions not because they were sensible but because they were desirable. She’d done it with her home, her wardrobe. Even with her hair, she thought, running a hand through it. Outward changes had led to inner changes. Or vice versa. Either way, she would never again be the woman she’d been before.

Or perhaps she would be the woman she’d always been but had refused to acknowledge.

Then why was she circling ads in the classifieds? Rebecca asked herself. Why was she sitting here on a beautiful morning planning a future she had no interest in? Perhaps it was true that she would never have the one thing, the one person, she really wanted. There would be no more picnics or walks in the moonlight or frantic nights in bed. Still, she had the memories, she had the moments, she had the dreams. There would be no regrets where Stephen was concerned. Not now, and not ever. And if she was now more the woman she had been with him, it had taken more than a change in hairstyle.

She was stronger. She was surer. She was freer. And she’d done it herself.