“And I forgot to mention it for the same reason,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything when I see you at the house.”
“Yes, you will,” she said, sounding grimly determined all of a sudden. “I expect to be told everything you know that concerns our daughter.”
“I wasn’t deliberately keeping it from you,” he said, knowing how her mind worked. She could turn this into some major slight at the drop of a hat, just as she could his failure to mention his plans for the hardware store.
“Okay, if you say so,” she conceded eventually, though her tone was still cool. “I know I’m probably overreacting. I’ll see you in an hour and we’ll settle this then.”
It wasn’t until Ronnie had hung up that he remembered his appointment tomorrow with Butch. A couple of years ago he would have tried to juggle it all. Now, with his priorities where they belonged, he knew that as critical as that meeting was, Annie’s homecoming was more important. He called the man on his cell phone.
“Butch, it’s me again. Can we postpone for a couple of days? I just found out my daughter’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow. I want to be with her. And the following day we’re supposed to meet with her doctor. Since I don’t have the details yet, it might be easier if we just rescheduled for the end of the week.”
“Not a problem,” Butch said at once. “I’ll see you Friday, same time. How does that sound?”
“Perfect. Thanks.”
“No need to thank me. The way you care about that girl is one of the reasons I like you so much.”
Relieved that he’d done the right thing and it had turned out okay, Ronnie whistled as he showered and changed into clean clothes, before heading over to the house that had been his home for nearly twenty years. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to feel crossing the threshold again after all this time. He was just glad that Dana Sue was finally willing to let him inside, instead of greeting him on the lawn with a cast-iron skillet in her hand.
* * *
Dana Sue figured she had ten minutes to make the house look reasonably presentable before Ronnie saw it again. Since Annie had been in the hospital, she’d kicked her shoes off just inside the front door and left them there. Plates and glasses from late-night snacks were strewn around. There was a layer of dust over everything. She wasn’t the most attentive housekeeper under the best of conditions, but even by her low standards, it was a mess.
She’d managed to toss her shoes into the closet and get the dishes into the kitchen and in the dishwasher before she heard Ronnie’s pickup pull into the driveway. To avoid any awkwardness over whether he should just walk in or knock and wait at the door of the house he’d once lived in, she met him at the entry.
“Thanks for coming over,” she said, standing aside to let him in.
As he brushed past her, he dropped a quick kiss on her forehead that left her feeling completely disconcerted. It had been so innocent, so casual, he could have been kissing a distant cousin. It was nothing like the soul-searing kisses they’d once engaged in the second he came through the door. The lack of passion in this kiss stirred the daredevil in her, the woman who’d once grabbed what she wanted and held on for dear life.
Apparently puzzled by the fact that she hadn’t followed him inside, Ronnie turned around and stared at her. “You okay?”
Was she? she wondered. Was it okay for her to be struggling with the desire to bunch his shirt in her fist and drag his face down to lock lips with him? Or was that insanity?
Even as heat and need rushed through her, she convinced herself it was crazy. It was nothing more than an instinctive reaction to having him back under this roof, back in this room where they’d made love more times than she could count, both of them too eager and frantic to wait to climb the stairs to their bedroom. They’d been more circumspect once Annie had come along, but this room still held an astounding number of tantalizing memories.
“Dana Sue?” he asked, still watching her with a bemused expression.
She shook off the memories and forced a bright smile. “Sorry. Just a momentary lapse.”
She started to breeze past him and take refuge in the kitchen, but he snagged her arm and met her gaze. “I remember, too,” he said softly.
“Remember what?” she said, a false note of cheer in her voice.
He grinned at her attempt to pretend they hadn’t been thinking about the exact same thing. “Everything,” he said succinctly, his gaze locked with hers. “I used to lie awake at night in my motel room and think about the way we were together, the way it didn’t take more than a look or a casual touch to set us on fire.”
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
“Don’t tell you or don’t remember?” he asked.
“Either one,” she whispered. “We can’t go back, Ronnie.”
“No,” he agreed, still holding her gaze. “But we can start fresh, make new memories.”
“How? The image in my mind, the one I can’t shake, isn’t so pretty.”
“The affair,” he said bluntly.
“Yes, the affair.”
“It was a meaningless one-night stand,” he told her. “That doesn’t make it okay, but is that enough reason to give up on us forever?”
“I thought so,” she said, then realized she’d used the past tense, which might be just enough to give him the encouragement he was obviously seeking. “I still do,” she added. “Apparently you did, too, since you left town.”
“You really do not want to go there,” he told her quietly. “I left because you didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“Oh, please, I hardly banished you.”
“No, you just made it very clear how
