A Husband of Her Own. Brenda Novak

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 your brother-in-law.”

      She shrugged. “I don’t have to like him. I’m not the one who married him.” Shaking water off the leaves, she tossed them into the bowl she’d removed from one of the glass-fronted cupboards. Like everything else—the sink, the counters, the appliances and the tile floor—the cupboards were so white the reflection of the setting sun, streaming unchecked through large square windows running along the entire back of the house, nearly blinded her. The windows and the shiny new kitchen were the results of a recent renovation. The old kitchen had been avocado-green and brown—a color scheme Rebecca hoped would never gain popularity again.

      Her mother scraped the onions into a frying pan and added a pat of butter. “But he’s a great guy. What’s not to like?”

      “Nothing. Forget it,” Rebecca said.

      “Now that you’ve brought up it up, I’d finally like to know.”

      “The memories we have of each other from high school aren’t the most pleasant, that’s all.”

      “What memories?”

      Most of them had far more to do with Josh Hill than Randy, but Randy had been constantly at Josh’s elbow, which meant he was included. “We had a few run-ins,” she said vaguely.

      “Because he was a friend of Josh Hill’s?”

      Unfortunately the conversation was drifting toward Josh and she wasn’t sure she could stop it. “Maybe.”

      “So we’re not really talking about Randy. We’re talking about Joshua.”

      “No, I’m not talking about Josh. I never talk about Josh,” Rebecca responded.

      Her mother found a spatula in the drawer and began stirring the sizzling onions. “Well, perhaps it’s time you did,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to get to the bottom of this feud between you two. We love Josh and his older brother. His parents are good friends of ours.”

      Rebecca sighed. “I know. But it’s too late to improve relations between Josh and me, so don’t get it in your head to try. The bad blood between us is old, old news.”

      “That might be the case, but I want you to bury whatever grudge you’re holding against him.”

      “Are you kidding?” Rebecca paused in her knife attack on the radishes. The sudden absence of her rapid thump, thump, thump made the silence seem loud. “What’s the point? We run into each other a lot, but it’s only in passing. We could go on like this indefinitely. There’s no reason to change anything.”

      “Now there is. You’ll soon be seeing each other more than in passing.”

      “That sounds pretty specific. When?” And Rebecca had thought Buddy’s news was the worst she could receive.

      “Your sisters are planning an anniversary celebration for your father and me. It’s in two weeks.”

      The scent of her mother’s grilled onions became almost overpowering. “Somehow I knew you didn’t invite me over to talk about candles.”

      “I did find some good candles,” her mother said.

      Rebecca retrieved two stalks of celery from the fridge, washed them and started chopping them on the cutting board. She realized she could probably avoid the subject of Josh by using the candles to segue into Buddy’s postponement of the wedding. But the words stuck in her throat when she envisioned what her experience at the anniversary party would be like if she mentioned her latest setback too soon. “Heard you and Buddy are waiting a few weeks longer…You think that boy really knows what he wants?…Musta figured out what he was getting himself into, huh?” (said with a hearty chuckle).

      Deciding СКАЧАТЬ