Page 23 of The Summer House

He nodded. “I started thinking after you left. About why my mom suggested we get together. You know she doesn’t do anything without a reason. In this case she was right, wedohave unfinished business between us.”

His words were a little too close to what she and Cassie had talked about for comfort. She shifted in her seat. “Is that a surprise? I would think most divorced couples have left a few untrimmed threads. Does that have to be significant?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Mandy, two hours ago we were making love. I’m going to guess that makes our untrimmed threads damned significant.”

Well, if he was going to put it likethat.“Okay. Maybe.” She rubbed her temples. Trouble was coming; she could feel it all the way down to her bones.

“I think we need to straighten this out so we can both move on with our lives,” he said.

She glared at him. “I’ve sort of figured that out for myself.”

With a little help from Cassie. Not that she wanted to. Let the threads dangle—that was her motto. Except there was every possibility that Rick was the reason she hadn’t once fallen in love in the past eight years.

“I thought you might,” he said. “So what do we do now?”

She sighed. Lord but she hated being mature. “I don’t know. Spend time together, I guess. Talk about stuff.” She narrowed her gaze. “Stay out of bed.”

A flicker of fire flared to life in his eyes. “You sure about that one?”

“Absolutely.”

She was lying, but he didn’t have to know that.

“I’ll agree to your terms,” he said. “But only on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“You won’t tell my mom she was right.”

Mandy stared at him, then burst out laughing. He had a point. Jo would hold it over them for months.

“I won’t say a word,” she promised. “I don’t want to hear about it any more than you do.” She leaned forward a little. “This is a real mess. How did we get here?”

“I don’t know. You’re the woman. Aren’t you supposed to be the relationship expert?”

He was being funny, but she didn’t smile. “I’m hardly an expert. If I was…a lot of things would have been different.”

“Like what?”

Like a thousand things, she thought sadly. “I would have talked to you more. Told you what I was feeling. I wouldn’t have—” Gee, they were going to jump right into this, weren’t they? “I wouldn’t have used sex as a weapon.”

He winced. “We’re both guilty of using sex to get what we wanted,” he said. “I used it to tell you I cared about you, because saying the words made me feel weak, as if I was giving you the upper hand.”

She hadn’t known that, but the information didn’t surprise her. “I used sex to keep you in line and get what I wanted. When I didn’t, I withheld. Not my finest hour.” She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. “I wanted to feel that you were close to me emotionally, but all I could get was the physical.”

“I don’t know that I was capable of more. Not then.”

And now? But she didn’t ask that. Besides, she already knew the answer.

“More if onlys,” she said. “If only we’d been more grown-up. If only we’d talked. If only I hadn’t run back to my dad’s that last time and—”

She pressed her lips together to hold back the words. Not that there was any point. Rick already knew what had happened.

Embarrassment swept over her. She straightened and fought the urge to change the subject. Except they needed to talk about this—about the fact that Rick had fooled around with some woman but hadn’t gone all the way, while she’d slept with a stranger.

“Mandy, we don’t have to go there.”

“Why? It was significant.”

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