Lee Mckenzie - With This Ring

“While you were out I called my brother and left a message on his machine. I didn’t tell him where I am, so thank you for covering for me.”

“No problem.”

She tightened her grip on the bag of clothes as if it was a security blanket, which in a way it was. The things Brent had brought for her meant she wouldn’t have to go home for a few days. If he didn’t want her to stay here, maybe he’d lend her some money so she could stay at a hotel. “Did your mother know what happened? Why I—”

Brent shook his head. “And my mother’s not one to gossip. She won’t tell anyone where you’re staying.”

Leslie supposed she should be relieved to hear that, but she knew Brent’s mother. They had served on Collingwood Station’s redevelopment committee and from the start, Colleen Borden had treated her like an adversary. Still, she hoped Brent was right and that his mother wouldn’t tell anyone she was here.

She wasn’t ready to face her family and friends, and she definitely wasn’t ready to tell them what had happened. But what about Brent? Did she owe him an explanation?

“Gerald is having an affair,” she said, even before she’d made a conscious decision to tell him.

He looked as though he didn’t believe her. “Are you sure? I mean, maybe—”

“I saw them together.” The flash of memory was accompanied by a wave of nausea.

“Why didn’t you dump him when you found out?” He sounded incredulous.

“I found out this morning.”

She watched as he processed that piece of information, and then the understanding of what she’d just told him spread across his face.

“You mean he…? They…? At the church? No.”

She glanced down at her feet and wriggled her toes inside Brent’s socks. “I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, Leslie. I’m so sorry.” He pulled her into his arms then, and she let him. He felt safe and dependable and surprisingly nonjudgmental, and she pressed her face against his shoulder and let the tears flow. Oddly enough, she wasn’t sure what was making her cry—Gerald’s infidelity, or having to tell Brent about it.

Taking her into his arms had been purely instinctive. Reacting to her now that she was in them was perfectly natural, he told himself. Strictly physical. Totally unbelievable. When he’d picked her up by the church, the delicate scent of her perfume had filled the cab of the truck. Now, after using his soap and shampoo, she smelled like she belonged here.

He’d driven by the church that morning with the intention of finally closing a door on one chapter of his life. Instead the door was wide open and the pages of that chapter were blowing all over the room. Which was a really dumb metaphor to be thinking about, considering that the woman of his dreams, the one to which he still compared all others, was now soaking his shirt with her tears. As far he knew she had never in her life needed anyone or anything, but she needed someone now. Not him, specifically, but he was here and she was here, and the bag of clothes he’d given her was squished between them, and that was a good thing.

This isn’t about you, he told himself. Ha. The hell it isn’t.

Meanwhile, he had no clue what to say to her. There, there, everything will be okay.

No. “I’d like to track that guy down and beat the crap out of him.”

Or he could say that.

She took half a step back and looked at him through watery eyes. “That sounds like something a brother might say.” For the first time that day, she smiled, just briefly, but long enough to remind him about the adorable little dimple to the left of her mouth.

And he was so glad he wasn’t her brother. “If yours never said it, he should have.”

“Nick never gives advice.”

“This time he should have made an exception.”

“And what should he have said?”

“Don’t marry that guy, he’s a jerk.”

“He told you that?”

Brent knew thin ice when he was standing on it, and this ice was getting thinner by the minute. “Not in so many words, but he obviously didn’t like Gerald.”

“He never said anything like that to me.”

“He has some misguided idea that he shouldn’t stick his nose in other people’s business.”

“I know. Nick hates having people tell him what to do, so he’d never interfere with anyone else’s decision.” She looked down at her hands and fidgeted with the handles of the bag of clothing. “So you think Gerald’s a jerk and you’d like to beat the crap out of him,” she said. “Anything else you want to tell me while we’re on the subject?”

The question caught him off guard. Thin ice, he reminded himself. “Gerald and I don’t exactly move in the same circles so I don’t know him all that well.”

“But you have an opinion.”

And as much as he found it difficult to believe, she seemed to want to hear it. So he said it. “I don’t think he’s good enough for you.”

“Really?”

“That surprises you?”

“A little.”

“What did you expect me to say?”

“That we deserved each other.”

“Then you don’t know me very well.”

“You’re right. I don’t know you at all. You’ve changed a lot since high school.”

He shrugged. “I’m still the same person.”

“I guess I didn’t know you then, either.”

“You never gave me a chance.”

“You were always goofing around and trying to get me to go out with you. Now you seem…”

He waited for her to finish her sentence, but she didn’t. “Grown-up?” he asked.

There was that dimple again, and he had to resist the urge to stroke the tip of his finger across it.

“Definitely grown-up. And thank you for not…” She stopped herself and her face flushed pink.

I’ll be damned, he thought. Had she actually thought he might make a pass at her? He searched those soft brown eyes, looking for a hint of wishful thinking, but detected none.

He moved closer and she stepped back until she was against the kitchen counter. “This is what you expected?” He put his hands on the counter on either side of her and leaned closer but without touching her.

Her eyes went wide.

“This was the last thing on my mind. Under the circumstances, making a pass at you would have been out of line. But now that you’ve suggested it…”

She eyed him warily. “I didn’t suggest anything.”

That’s right, he reminded himself. If anyone was guilty of wishful thinking, he was.

“I’ll just say one more thing,” he said as he backed away from her.

“What’s that?” Her voice was barely audible.

“I always thought Gerald Bedford was a jerk but until today I never had him pegged as a fool.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“Trust me, he is. And when he realizes how badly he screwed up, he’ll think so, too.” He’d bet that regret was already eating at Bedford like a cancer. Guys that arrogant thought they could have it all—beautiful wife, slutty mistress and whatever else money could buy. If he hadn’t come to his senses yet, he soon would. When he did, would he try to get Leslie to take him back?

And would she fall for it?

Brent wanted to believe she was too sensible for that, even though it was none of his business. Had nothing to do with him at all. He’d keep her here as long as he could, but once she was ready to go back home and face the world, they’d go back to being casual acquaintances. She’d ignore him if she ran into him at the deli, or avoid him altogether.

Coping with that would be easier if she didn’t get back together with Gerald. Since he couldn’t tell her that, he decided it was time to change the subject.

“I still have to deliver that lumber to a job site and take the truck back to the warehouse.”