Kim Mckade - That Kind Of Girl

“I asked them not to let anyone know. I didn’t want everyone knowing Doff had done it to me again.”

Again, Becca asked, “What do you mean?”

But instead of answering, he stood and paced, clutching the quilt in front of his chest. “I don’t know for sure that I won’t be able to ride again. There was a surgeon in Portland I went to, and they say he’s really good. He gave me a lot of exercises to do, and I do them—” his upper lip curled “—most of the time. But he said my spine was like a stack of wooden blocks right now. Another toss could put me in a wheelchair. And wouldn’t Doff just love that.”

Becca didn’t know what to say to that, so she sat quietly, letting him talk. And hurt for him.

He stopped and blew out a gust of breath. “So, there’s your answer. The only one I have, anyway. It’s not as if I have a long list of pressing engagements waiting for me elsewhere. Until I get the okay from the doctor, I might as well keep busy. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

He stopped, then turned to face her, his brow drawn low. “I don’t know how you do it, Becca. I know you wanted to get away from Aloma as much as I did. But you stayed, here in this house. Doesn’t it all bring back memories that—” He clenched his jaw and made a fist. “That just make you crazy?”

She hadn’t intended to stand, didn’t realize she was doing so until she was before him, one palm against his stubbled cheek. His eyes met hers, and for what felt like a long moment she saw something there, something desperate, and pitifully grateful. And she allowed herself the thought that he was here because she was here.

Then they shifted, and the moment was gone. He took her wrist and pulled her palm away.

“I don’t need your sympathy, Becca. And I don’t want your comfort.”

“What do you want, Colt?”

“I want—” He broke off and looked out at the pouring rain. “Damn it, I wanted revenge.”

“You got your revenge, Colt. You were successful. More successful than he ever dreamed you’d be, I’m sure.”

“I wanted to beat him. And I wanted him to watch me beat him.”

“And that would have made a difference? That would have taken back every hateful thing he ever said? Every punch he ever threw?”

He shook his head and rubbed his jaw. “I guess I’ll never know, now.”

The rain slackened, tapering to a steady pour that patted on the grass beyond the porch. Thunder rolled again, softer and more distant. Inside, she could hear the metallic clink of the buttons on Colt’s jeans as they tumbled in the dryer.

“No. You won’t ever know. Not for sure.”

He turned and leaned against the porch rail. The blanket drooped, and he pulled his arms free and balled it at the center of his chest. “You didn’t answer my question. How can you stay here? Why did you even come back?”

“Mama got sick right before I got out of college. She needed someone to take care of her. I tried hiring people, but she kept running them off.” She tilted her head and wrinkled her nose. “She could be a little hard to get along with at times.”

Colt snorted but refrained from comment.

“So I moved back home and took care of her. When she died, she left the house to me.”

“Didn’t you want to sell it and get the heck out of here?”

“This is my home, Colt. By the time she died, I had a job, friends here. And while I grant you I have a few unpleasant memories of my childhood, they’re really not any worse than the average, I think.”

“Still, when we were kids you said you were going to see the world.”

“Which is a great dream for a kid to have. I’m not a kid anymore, Colt.”

His gaze stayed on hers for a moment, then drifted to her lips and back up again. “Yes, I noticed. Still, you could have—”

“Colt.” Becca laid her hand on Colt’s arm. “Just because you went out and pursued your dreams doesn’t mean it was that easy for the rest of us. For some people it’s just not meant to be.”

“Who decides what’s meant to be? There are always choices.”

“What choice was I supposed to make, Colt? To abandon my own mother? I know she wasn’t easy to get along with. She had problems of her own that made her difficult at times. But she was my mother. She was all I had.”

“And she’s been gone, what—two years now?”

“Almost four,” Becca said quietly.

“Don’t you think it’s time you get a life of your own, instead of—”

“What are you doing, Colt?” She drew a deep breath in through her nose and blinked hard. “Who are you arguing with? Me, or yourself? What is so bad about my life that you feel the need to come in and show me all its flaws? Am I so pathetic that you have to save me from myself before I end up a shriveled old—”

“God, no.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Aw, I’m sorry, Becca. Of course I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean—it’s just that, when you said…” He closed his mouth and frowned.

“When I said I was still a virgin—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard and narrowed her eyes. “When I said I was still a virgin, you decided I had wasted my life and you were going to be the one to shove me into what you think my life should be.”

“I hate to see you end up—”

“An old maid schoolteacher?” She put her hands on her hips and bumped her chin up, taking a few steps back. “I’ve got news for you, Colt. I’m already an old maid schoolteacher. An old maid math teacher at that. Not even a class that anyone likes.”

“You’re not—”

“Oh, stop.” Becca hugged herself and turned away from him. “Just stop it. You said you don’t want my sympathy. Well, I don’t want yours. I’m not like you, Colt. I don’t go around railing over all the ways that life has treated me badly.” She was surprised by the anger in her voice but unable to stop it. From the look on Colt’s face, he was shocked, too. “I’ve found that my life is a lot easier when I quit wishing for what I don’t have and focus on what I do have. When I quit wondering why things turned out the way they have, and just accepted that they did, my life became a lot more peaceful. Things happen for a reason, Colt. I know they do. And who the hell are you to come here and point out all the ways you think my life should be different?”

“I’m your friend, that’s who.” He stepped away from the rail and made a movement toward her. “I want to see you get what you want out of life.”

She put her hands back on her hips and glared at him. It wasn’t his fault, she told herself, even as she wanted to slap him for making her feel this way. “I told you what I wanted,” she said quietly. “I told you twelve years ago. And you left.”

“You mean…” His voice tapered off and he stared at her. “You don’t mean Paris.”

She found she couldn’t answer, couldn’t even move her head in affirmation or denial.

“Becca, you don’t still want me to…” He took a step toward her. “You’re not seriously saying you still want me to make love to you, are you?”

Words stuck in her throat. Rather than speak them, she swallowed them down.

“Good God, Becca, what are you trying to do to me here? Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to walk away last time? It almost killed me.”

“You managed.”

“Just. Becca, I’m naked under here. You don’t want to say things like that to me.”

“I’m not drunk,” she said, quietly but with force. “If I made the offer again, and you said no, you wouldn’t have that as an excuse. Your only excuse would be that you just don’t want me.”

He took another step, stood in front of her now. She could see the stubble on his chin, the lines around his eyes from worry and lack of sleep. She could see where the shadow of his tan carved down to a V over his chest.

“Are you offering?” His voice was so gruff, he sounded like someone else, a stranger.

She lifted her eyes to his, and the moment stretched between them, heavy with the knowledge of what could be.

“Becca, are you offering?” He emphasized each word.

She swallowed and opened her mouth to answer.

The buzzer on the dryer went off.

She didn’t know he’d been holding his breath until he blew it out in a gust. She lowered her head, looked at his hands, the floor, the rain outside.

“Bit of a cliché, isn’t that? Except, it’s a buzzer that’s saved you and not a bell.”

She moved to step around him. He put a hand out to stop her. “Wait—”

She kept moving. “I’ll get your clothes, Colt.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she walked across the porch and opened the door. Could feel them, though she didn’t turn back to see.

Colt scraped putty from the edge of the new window and rubbed a knuckle into his back. This was the last of the three windows he’d had to replace; he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how Doff had managed to break them all. Not that it mattered now.

He groaned, flexed his shoulders and looked at the sky. Judging both from the low sun in the west and his aching back, it was time to knock off for the day. His eyes drifted downward, and he saw Becca walking toward the quarry, a canvas and easel under one arm and a small tackle box in the other hand.

It irritated him, seeing how serene she looked walking across the field, when he’d felt like chewing nails all day. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. He’d lain awake, stiff as a rod all night because he couldn’t get her off his mind. And she was out for a stroll without a care.

He dropped the putty knife into his toolbox and closed the lid with a satisfying bang. Was she trying to drive him crazy? Was she trying to tease him until he was ready to pull his hair out? Because if she was, she was doing a damn fine job.

But he knew she wasn’t. Becca wasn’t a tease. She was naive, and so genuinely good that it was almost unbelievable. It wasn’t her fault he wanted to drag her to the ground.

He felt like an idiot, tagging after her. But he did it, anyway. He told himself he wanted to see what she was painting. And he actually did ask about the painting, when he joined her at the quarry.

She cast a quick glance at him over the edge of the canvas. “It’s the quarry, of course.”

Of course. She was as breezy as if the previous day hadn’t happened. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and fidgeted around behind the easel. She went back to painting.

“So…” He kicked a small stone into the quarry.

“Yes?”

“How’s school going?”

“It’s almost gone, thank goodness. The spring gets longer every year and the summer gets shorter.”

“Hmm.” Fascinating conversation. He bounced on his heels a few times and turned back to her.

“I was wondering…I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. But I’m curious. How is it that you’re—”

“Still a virgin?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I was waiting for marriage.”

“Are you?”

“Maybe I’m toying with the idea of becoming a nun, but I just can’t commit to the black habit.”

“Is joking about it your way of saying you don’t want to talk about it?”

Becca faced him, and he could see what a struggle it was for her to look him in the eye.

“Yes, it is. It’s an embarrassing subject.”

“I don’t mean to embarrass you, Becca. I just—”

“Then, let’s not talk about it. I’ve worked really hard, Colt, to overcome the person I used to be. And…I don’t know, seeing you again…for a while it was like I was back in high school again.” She swirled her brush in a dab of paint before she met his eyes again. “For some people, that’s a pleasant trip down memory lane. For me, it’s not. I don’t want to go through all that again, and I don’t want to think about it. The past is the past, and I can’t undo it. I’d really rather just not talk about it.”