Page 10 of This Time Around
“Under the kitchen sink.”
I turned and found what I needed, popped open the kit to ensure it was stocked and moved back to the table, pulling out a chair next to her.“Hand.”
Her face was now clear of tears, but her eyes were still red and puffy.
Reluctantly, she slid her hand toward me and I took it, gathering gauze, antibiotic cream, and bandages.
“It’s not that bad,” Rebecca said.
I glanced up at her.“You’re lucky you don’t need stitches.”
“It’s not the worst cut I’ve had, and it certainly won’t be the last.”
Her stubbornness made me want to grin, but I hid it, and focused on her cut while I tried to stop the bleeding.“Raise them tough in Kansas, huh?”
“Tougher than folks from Hollywood.”
Sassy woman.I liked it.It was better than the vacancy in her eyes and the tears.A crying woman was a man’s kryptonite.We had no idea how to handle it other than give them whatever they asked for to make it stop.
I pressed the gauze to her finger so hard she flinched in my hand, and I couldn’t resist ribbing her.“Good thing I’m not from Hollywood then, huh?”
A silent moment passed, and I almost wondered if she was going to ask where I was from.But, why would she?Like most people in America, she probably knew everything about me, and sometimes, that part of being well-known and adored by fans sucked.Was nothing private anymore?Based on the paparazzi stalking me the last several months, I ventured not.
The sparkle of the modest diamond on her ring finger caught my attention as I moved to reach for a Band-Aid.My curiosity was definitely piqued.
Perhaps he left her.Perhaps he drank the day away at a local bar.
“Max didn’t tell me you’re married.”
I said the words quietly, focusing on her cut while tearing open a Band-Aid but based on the way the room chilled, she heard me perfectly clear.
She said nothing, and as soon as I wrapped the Band-Aids around her fingers, she ripped her hand out of my grip.
“Uncle Max always used to only give the information he felt like giving and nothing more.Nice to know that hasn’t changed.”
“What do you mean?”
Her head was turned, giving me her profile, but the vacancy in her expression was still obvious, as was the way she bit her lip to stop her chin from trembling.The gentle curve of her nose, the small crinkle at the edges of her eye, the slope of her lips as she released it from her teeth, and then her tanned, slender neck and shoulders.
Shit.
I looked away before she caught me staring at her.I shouldn’t be staring at her.But there was that unease in her expression that felt so familiar I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“Joseph died last fall.November.A week before Thanksgiving.”
She shoved off the chair and moved to the kitchen.The chair wobbled on its legs before her words stopped rattling in my brain.The hell?Max hadn’t said a thing.
She was a widow?Why wouldn’t Max prepare me for that?I might not have remembered everything he said to me, but I was damn sure I wouldn’t forget that.
There was nothing I could say except ‘I’m sorry,’ but I was so tired of hearing those words directed at me, the pity and the pathetic look in people’s eyes, I refused to give that to her.She didn’t need it and with the way she was standing at the kitchen counter, arms quaking from emotion, head bowed, hair falling down almost to the countertop, those words would unravel the strength she was trying to maintain.
I rose out of my own chair and cleaned up the bandages and trash before I closed everything up, tossed the garbage into the wastebasket at the end of the island and met her at the counter.I found her broom settled in a pantry closet.Giving her space to deal with whatever she was currently feeling, I headed out to the patio and cleaned up the broken glass.I tossed everything away in her kitchen when I returned to see her still at the counter, hands braced on the edge, head twisted and staring out the window over her sink.
She reached for her bottle of wine on the counter, her hands trembling as she tried to remove the cork.I set the broom against the wall and moved quickly toward her.The last thing we needed was another glass on the floor, but at least now I understood her anger earlier about the horse.
I had encroached on her space, her husband’s space.
“Let me handle that.”I kept my gaze on her until she lifted her head.
