“Sure. We picked up the wedding arch from the Porters’ house yesterday and we’re delivering it to Mom and Dad’s tonight, so it’ll be there in the living room for the anniversary party. Once we get it unloaded, you can take the truck.”
“Thanks. Is there anything I can do for Mom and Dad’s big celebration?”
“Let’s see…the house is basically ready. I’m having the food catered except for a few extra dishes I’m making myself. Mom’s made out the guest list, and Delia and Hillary have already created the invitations using a program I found at the computer store in Boise. It’s amazing what you can do with a home printer these days, isn’t it? So I think we’re fine. Unless…You don’t know how to do calligraphy, do you?”
“If you mean that fancy scroll-like writing, no.”
“It’s not that difficult, Beck.”
Rebecca could feel her sister’s irritation through the phone. “I thought you were just marveling at the modern miracle of desktop publishing.”
“I think addressing them by hand will add a personal touch.”
“Why don’t I take charge of cleaning up after the party?” Rebecca asked before her sister could suggest she sign up for a class in calligraphy.
“Perfect,” Greta said, which was probably what she’d been hoping for all along, and hung up.
Rebecca waited for a dial tone, then called her fiancé.
“There you are,” he said the moment he heard her voice. “What’s going on? Are you mad at me?”
“Of course not.” She was making such progress with patience.
“Then why haven’t I heard from you?”
“I was super-busy at work yesterday.”
“And last night?”
“An old friend’s moved back to town. We went out for a drink.”
“Oh.” A pause. “So everything’s okay between us?”
“Of course.”
“Great. You had me worried. What are you doing today?”
“Packing. I’ve found another house.”
“You’re moving?”
“I have to. I couldn’t extend my lease.”
“But you still have another six weeks before your lease ends.”
“This other place will be a lot cheaper.”
“And your current landlord doesn’t mind? Good for you. See? Postponing the wedding might turn out to be the best thing for both of us.”
Rebecca hardly considered two thousand dollars worth the wait, considering the abuse she was going to suffer when she told her family those cookies of Greta’s would have to remain in the freezer for an extra two and a half months. “I’m thrilled it’s turning out so well,” she said.
Fortunately, he missed the slightly sarcastic tone to her voice. “We’ll be set up, babe.”
“Life is good.”
“I miss you.”
“Miss you, too.”
“I still have the plane ticket I bought for the wedding, so we’ll get to see each other soon.”
“My mother and father are having an anniversary party in a couple of weeks. Can you change your flight and come for that?” she asked.
“Maybe. Let’s see about the cost. We wouldn’t want to waste any of what you’re saving in rent.”
As far as Rebecca was concerned, her moving early meant they’d have money to burn. But then, she was impulsive. Impulsive people weren’t typically big savers. Which was just another of the many reasons Buddy would be good for her. He was so levelheaded.
“Let me know what you find out,” she said.
“Are you in a hurry to get off the phone?”
“I promised myself I’d start a workout regimen today. I was about to go jogging.”
“You? Jogging?”
“You say that as though you can’t imagine it.”
“Because I can’t. Why bother? You’re already skinny and you smoke. What good’s it going to do?”
“I don’t smoke anymore,” she said, thinking positively. “And I want to tone up. Something wrong with that?”
“No, it’s just—” a brief silence “—you don’t have to do it for me.”
Rebecca couldn’t say why she suddenly felt the desire to get in shape, but she was pretty confident Buddy wasn’t part of the equation. It worried her, now that he’d pointed it out. The last time she’d shown any interest in diet and exercise had been right after her night with Josh Hill—a funny coincidence, considering he was now front and center in her life again.
“I appreciate that,” she said.
“I love you just the way you are.”
Which was why she’d had to wait two days since their last conversation before she could safely call him back. “Have you ever thought about giving up cigarettes and losing some weight?” she asked.
“Not really. I’ve never been the athletic type. But you’ve known that from the beginning,” he added, a defensive note in his voice.
Rebecca ignored his slight bristling. She wasn’t trying to make him feel bad. She wasn’t even trying to get him to lose weight. She was trying to understand why he didn’t feel he needed to change something that was obviously less than ideal. “So you’re saying, ‘I am what I am.”’
He seemed to clue in to the fact that she wasn’t belittling him. “I guess. Why?”
“A friend of mine said the same thing about himself last night.”
“So?”
“He’s sort of a thug.”
“And?”
“I like the concept. ‘Take me or leave me’ is right up my alley. But on the other hand…”
“Yes?”
“It sounds like a cop-out.”
“Rebecca, what are you talking about? No more smoking. Workout regimens. Take me or leave me. What’s going on with you?”
Rebecca wasn’t sure, but she hoped to hell it had nothing to do with Josh Hill.
MAYBE JOGGING over to her parents’ house hadn’t been such a good idea.
Rebecca wiped the sweat off her forehead and squinted down the highway to the next bend in the road, trying to count how many more of those bends there’d be until she reached the turnoff to her parents’ neighborhood. Doyle and Fiona Wells lived on the outskirts of town, only about five miles from Rebecca’s rental house. But those five miles had to be the longest she’d ever traveled. To add to her misery, the weather was cool enough that she hadn’t thought to carry water, and now she was so parched she felt as though she might pass out.