With This Ring

“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.

Chapter Three

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.”