Page 6 of Beside the Rolling Waves
She spun around, the voice from the doorway of the room startling her. She didn’t recognize it immediately.
Not until her gaze landed on the familiar dark eyes, the shock of black hair, the beloved Roman nose, and the strong chin. The face that she had looked to all through her youth for comfort and security and help and for kindness and for everything. He had been her everything. And he had ditched her without looking back.
“Rodney,” she said, keeping her hand from going to her throat with the last shred of her self-control. Her eyes narrowed. She hated him. Hated him with a passion.
“Becky.” The way he said her name, the way it curled off his tongue, shimmered in the air, slid down her backbone, made something warm want to burst in her chest, but she would not allow it. She squashed it down and narrowed her eyes even further.
“Yeah. Things are going to be uncomfortable.” She believed in meeting one’s trials head-on, so she marched in high gear toward the doorway, giving Rodney no choice but to step aside. She had horses to take care of.
Three
Rodney stared at Becky’s ramrod-straight back. Even with her coat on, he could tell that her muscles were stiff and hard and her back so straight like she had a rod jammed up her spine.
She stomped out to the wheelbarrow and grabbed the handles.
Her movements slowed down as she opened the Clydesdale’s stall door, and he thought he heard her ranting under her breath.
When he had thought of all the reunions that he and Becky might have, having it go like this really hadn’t been something he considered. He had expected to come back with gifts, a ring possibly, and on his knees, with an apology, a huge, massive, oversized apology, one that she couldn’t help but accept, in order to forgive him for what he’d done.
He hoped that what he had done would make sense to her when she heard it, but part of the reason he hadn’t contacted her at all in the last five years was because he was afraid that he decided wrong, and he should have told her everything.
In hindsight, it was easy for him to see that would have been the best choice, but at the time, he didn’t want anything that would make him look like less in her eyes.
He had two more years until the bankruptcy was off his credit record, and it could be buried forever. Or at least as buried as it would ever get. He thought he would wait two more years before he came to see her. Two more years to multiply the millions he’d made in the last five into perhaps a billion.
Becky, being the stubborn, willful, faithful girl that she was, wouldn’t ever be with anyone else. He was sure of that. She had told him she was devoted to him, and even if he disappeared from the face of the earth, she would never go back on her word.
But now, he had no ring, no big apology, no over-the-top gift, and it was freezing in here.
He had been spending most of his time in LA, and the climate shock was…massive, to say the least.
“Have you spoken with your sister?” he asked as he walked over. He knew that was the one thing she would talk to him about. If Rita had talked to her about taking care of the twins while Rita dealt with whatever it was she needed to deal with. She hadn’t told him. All she said was that she was going to be delivering twins on Friday and that she was not going to be able to take care of them right away. And she wanted them to be cared for by Becky and him.
Of course, he would give Rita anything she wanted, because he knew Becky doted on her. He hadn’t even asked how she had found his number or what had made her think that this was a good idea. Because he knew nothing about children and even less about babies, other than it was always nice when someone else was doing something with them, and he was not.
“That’s who was on the phone.”
“That’s who was on the phone that caused you to throw it against the wall and scream that you hated me?” That madesense. She had just been asked to take care of babies alongside him. Well, if he’d wondered how she felt about him, now he knew. And if he’d wondered how she was going to feel about taking care of her sister’s children with him, he had a pretty clear picture of that as well.
He’d made some dumb mistakes in his life, a couple that made him lose the fortune that he had spent ten years amassing, but typically he wasn’t stupid.
“Yeah. That was the cause of that little outburst.” She looked up at him, gave him an absolutely fake, saccharine smile, and then went back into the horse’s stall. She knew as well as he did that it was dangerous to work around horses when one was angry or upset. They were very sensitive to people’s feelings, and quick movements were liable to make an already jumpy horse do something that could put a person’s life in danger. Not that a horse, especially a Clydesdale who were known for their gentle, calm demeanor, would hurt someone on purpose, but a horse often wasn’t thinking about hurting anyone when they were just trying to get away from what they perceived as danger.
“I came as soon as she called me. Which was last night, late. She said she was getting test results back this morning, and she wasn’t sure what they were going to be, but she knew that she was going to need us.”
“Great. That was basically what she told me too,” Becky said, not looking up at him and not stopping her work.
She took the forkful of manure, dumped it in the wheelbarrow, and went back for another one.
“Can’t you stop working and look at me?” he asked, frustrated.
“Sure. Soon as I’m done here, because I’ve got a lot of things to do today, and I don’t have time to mess around with you.”
“I would have thought that not having spoken with me for five years, you’d be a little curious.”
“No. You not having spoken with me for the last five years made me not want to talk to you ever again.” She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He had obviously underestimated the strength of her feelings.
