“But, Fox, I—”
“This is the deal. No dessert if you keep asking questions.” He added, “This is between her and me.
There’s no one else in the universe but her and me. Not as far as our private lives go.”
And he couldn’t talk any more about it. Not without panic climbing a sharp ladder up his spine. She hadn’t even blinked when he’d talked about building the house for the two of them, much less given him even a tiny sign that she might be willing to build that home with him. And as far as the whole rotten thing her ex-fiancé had pulled on her…hell.
Fox just couldn’t see how to make any move without making the situation worse. If he tried to make love to her, she’d think he wanted her for sex. If he didn’t try, she’d think he’d stopped wanting her.
That jerk had done a number on her from the inside, and Fox couldn’t remember feeling more frustrated.
That someone could twist Phoebe’s sensual, loving, nurturing and, you bet, sexy nature against her made him see red. Bull red. But short of finding the guy and beating him up, there was little Fox could do—and besides, that would only make him happy.
He wasn’t used to feeling impotent.
In fact, he’d never felt the sensation before.
But if Phoebe needed to know how much he respected her, he’d already shown her how much he did…by reaching out to her. By revealing his most vulnerable side. By sharing his weaknesses with her the way he’d been unable and unwilling to share with anyone else.
Fox didn’t just respect her in theory; he respected her with his heart. The more critical problem was Phoebe herself. The jerk had dented her self-respect. And that was something he had no way of fixing for her.
He looked down at Phoebe’s cilantro chicken and the infamous holiday potatoes—the potato dish no man had been able to resist since the beginning of time. And suddenly he couldn’t eat.
He had one more occasion to see her, but he doubted it would help. He’d lost her.
And he knew it.
Exhausted and frazzled, Phoebe opened the van door and let Mop and Duster leap up on the seat. They faced the window and determinedly ignored her.
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“Look, guys. Everybody has to have shots. The vet loves you. The nurse loves you. You hurt their feelings when you treat them like they were torturers, did you ever think of that?”
Neither pup bothered to turn around. She’d pay all day for taking them to the vet. Probably have to feed them steak. Take them for extra walks. Suck up for hours. She knew what to expect. They’d been through this before.
Phoebe drove straight home, relieved it was Saturday, because she’d lost all her usual energy. She didn’t want to work, didn’t want to see people, didn’t want to do anything. As soon as she got home, she was inclined to lock all the doors and mope in peace with the dogs.
At the base of her driveway, she stopped at the mailbox, picked up three bills, five catalogs and a reminder that she needed to renew her physical therapist’s license this coming fall. She was still shuffling through envelopes when she glanced up and realized that there was already a vehicle in her driveway. A white RX 330.
Fox’s car.
The pups noticed it at the same time she did and, turncoats that they were, promptly commenced a barking frenzy until she braked and let them out. They zoomed for the door, Mop quivering with excitement, Duster’s tail swishing the ground in equally ardent fervor. “What is it about him,” Phoebe muttered, but it was a silly question, when she already knew what it was about Fox that inspired the female of the species to fall totally and irrevocably in love.
She shouldn’t have been that surprised he was here, because she’d given him a house key weeks before. It just made sense. He tried to work on the waterfall when she didn’t have clients and he wasn’t in her way. Usually, though, he didn’t show up early on Saturday mornings, because she often had neighbors over…and, besides, this Saturday she’d just thought he wouldn’t come.
He hadn’t called or been around since their walk in the rain.
She knew she was to blame, which ached all the more—because she’d only told him the truth. She couldn’t seem to get past what Alan had done to her—how to get past the whole feeling that she wasn’t…good. That the sensual and sexual part of her nature was a flaw instead of something good and natural. The thing was, when a girl got down and naked with a man and then he crushed her for it, it did something to her spirit. Her heart. Her self-respect.
And Phoebe believed she’d had no choice but to be frank with Fox…until she’d gotten home that day, walked into her bedroom, peeled down for a shower and started crying her eyes out.
Maybe she’d told him the truth…but she suddenly realized there were other truths. She kept remembering what he’d said at the house site—how he wanted to build a deck off the kitchen, a place to sit outside, eat grapefruit in the morning.…
Grapefruit. Her vice, not his. Her goofy favorite food, not his. He’d been talking about living in that house withher. Building that house forthem.
And until that grapefruit word poked in her mind and stabbed her sharply, she just hadn’t realized that Fox was thinking about her seriously. Not as a lover. But as a wife. Not as a red-hot mama when he needed healing.
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But as the kind
