A Husband of Her Own

“I’ll meet you there,” he said and hung up.

“OH, MY GOD! Would you look at her?” Mary said, straining to see through the crowd. “She’s got a tattoo on her belly.”

“You’re kidding. A tattoo? Of what?” Across the table from Josh, Candace made her date, Leonard Green, move so she could see the dance floor.

“Seems to be a butterfly. She’s over there with Booker Robinson,” Mary answered. “You know he’s back in town, right? He drove past me on that motorcycle of his a few days ago.”

“You already told me,” Candace replied.

Mary watched for a few seconds in silence. “You think they’re sleeping together?”

Josh had been trying to ignore the conversation—just like he’d been trying to ignore Rebecca—ever since he’d arrived at the Honky Tonk. But he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “No,” he said flatly. “She’s not.”

“How do you know?” Mary asked, her tone eager.

Candace pursed her lips in obvious skepticism. “They look like they’re sleeping together to me.”

“I thought she was engaged,” Leonard said. Until that moment, Josh hadn’t realized Candace’s date was even listening. He’d been too busy craning his neck to see over the half wall that separated their table from those playing darts.

“She’s engaged, all right,” Mary said. “But I wouldn’t put anything past Rebecca. She likes guys on motorcycles, remember? Besides, her fiancé isn’t from around here, so how would he know?”

Josh felt his jaw clench as he put his beer on the table. “She isn’t sleeping with Booker. She didn’t even know he was in town until this morning, okay? Can we cut her a little slack?”

Mary frowned at the impatience in his voice. “What’s wrong with you, Josh? I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I have better things to do than spend the whole evening gossiping about Rebecca’s every move,” he said.

A pouty expression claimed Mary’s face. “Boy, are you touchy tonight.”

“I’m just tired of talking about Rebecca as though she’s the devil incarnate. She’s not all bad, you know.”

Candace arched her brows. “She’s not?”

“No. For one, she has more grit than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Mary and Candace exchanged a look. “Whatever you say, Josh,” Mary told him.

“I’m serious. Do you remember when we were in the seventh grade and Buck Miller was teasing Howie Wilcox?”

“Candace and I weren’t in junior high then.”

“I was,” Leonard said, turning back to the table as the game of darts he’d been watching broke up and the participants sauntered over to the bar. “Buck was always teasing Howie.”

“He was always picking on someone,” Josh said. “And this day we’d had to run the mile for Phys Ed. Poor Howie was so overweight he could barely walk a mile, let alone run one, and Buck was all over him about it, saying the only person he knew with more rolls was the Michelin Tire Man, crap like that.”

Leonard nodded. “I remember.”

Josh focused on Mary and Candace. “Rebecca heard what Buck was saying to Howie and decided she’d had enough. She threw down her books, marched up to Buck and told him to keep his big fat mouth shut or she was going to shut it for him.”

“She did?” Candace said. “Buck was one of the strongest kids in school.”

“He went through puberty in the sixth grade, but she didn’t care,” Josh said. “She told him he’d better quit teasing Howie or she’d make him pay.”

Mary pulled her chair closer to the table. “What’d he do?”

“Started shoving her, telling her to mind her own business before he taught her how.”

“And she…”

“Shoved him right back. Pretty soon they started swinging at each other and all the kids gathered around.”

Mary laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. Did she come out of it okay?”

“No.” Josh took another drink of his beer. “She got her ass kicked. For Fat Howie.”

“Why?” Candace wanted to know. “Were they friends?”

“Not that I know of. Fat Howie didn’t have any friends.”

“Why didn’t she try to get away when she could see that Buck had the best of her?” Leonard asked. “All she had to do was go crying for the principal.”

“Rebecca wouldn’t give up. She just kept swinging.” Josh shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

“How’d it end?” Mary asked.

“The yard duty finally came and broke it up.”

“Did Buck get suspended?”

“They both did.” He sighed as he toyed with the condensation on his glass, watched a drop roll from the rim to the base. “I’ve always been ashamed of myself because of that day,” he admitted.

Mary’s brows gathered above her wide blue eyes. “Why? What did you do?”

“Nothing,” he said. “That’s just it. I stood by and let a girl defend Howie.”

“No one else jumped in,” Leonard said. “We were only twelve, just out of grade school, and pretty surprised by the whole thing.”

Josh had been more than surprised; he’d been shocked. And even though he remembered it in slow motion, it had actually happened very fast. Still, he should’ve done something. He’d felt worse when he realized that because of her reputation for being a difficult child, Rebecca was going to get into as much trouble as Buck.

Shoving away from the table, Josh left Mary and her friends and strode over to the jukebox. If he’d thought he had any chance of getting Mary to leave, he would’ve headed home at that moment. But she loved hanging out at the Honky Tonk, socializing with all her old friends, and generally insisted they stay until well after midnight. Sometimes he wondered if she realized they weren’t in high school anymore.

He stared down at the songs listed on the jukebox, forcing himself to focus on the titles in an effort to block out the mental picture of how Rebecca had looked after she’d fought Buck. Blouse torn and dirty, nose bleeding and hair mussed, she’d shaken her fist at Buck as the yard duty was dragging them both away, and shouted, “You leave him alone, you hear?”

There was no one like Rebecca, he decided. No one.

He glanced over at Mary, and suddenly saw her as rather plain. She liked tailored, conservative clothes, the same kind all her friends wore. Which had suited him just fine—until this moment. Now he wanted her to get a tattoo. Probably because he knew she’d never do it. But, if not that, something to prove she could step out of line and dare to be different, to be an individual, instead of a compilation of all the traits and beliefs that were patently approved by the masses. God, he was dating someone who was completely…homogenized.

He jammed his hands in his pockets. No, that wasn’t kind or fair. He was only reacting to this day, this moment. Because of Doyle Wilson and his little truce, Rebecca Wells had been tossed back into his orbit, and he hadn’t yet adjusted. After not seeing her for months, other than brushing elbows occasionally on the street, he’d sat in her chair at the salon for half an hour this morning, her breasts at eye level, while she ran her fingers through his hair. And now, here she was at the Honky Tonk, looking like a wet dream. The tattoo was daring, and sexy because it was daring, and made him remember a year ago last summer and wish he could finally have the satisfaction of making love to Rebecca.