“Thanks for trying to cheer me up,” Rebecca said.
“Sorry.”
Rebecca gave up pacing to stand and stare out the kitchen window at the black night beyond. “I need another cigarette.”
“Hang on. The desire will pass.”
Maybe her craving for a cigarette would pass, but what she’d done to Josh’s truck had to be reckoned with. “It’s just a vehicle, right?” she said suddenly. “I’ll pay for it.”
“You’ll what?” Delaney responded.
“I’ll pay for it.”
“Uh-huh. You’ll write him a check on your big, fat bank account. Or do you think Buddy should help pay for it once you two finally get married?”
If they ever married, Rebecca thought Buddy probably should help pay for it. “Buddy has some responsibility in all this,” she said.
Delaney turned to gape at her. “Why’s that?”
“He believed what Josh told him.”
“It was the truth!”
“So what if it was? He could’ve defended me. He could’ve had a little faith. Instead, he’s seriously doubting I’ll make him a good wife.” Rebecca hated the way her voice cracked on that last statement, especially when Delaney’s sudden softening told her she’d heard it.
“Oh, Beck,” she said. “Buddy will come around.”
“Why’d Josh have to do it?” Despite herself, Rebecca couldn’t mask the pain behind her words. “Why shouldn’t I burn his Excursion, Laney? What difference does it make? I can’t have a fresh start. I’m damaged goods, even with Buddy. I’ve always been damaged goods.”
“Don’t say that! You have too much to offer the world to let anyone’s opinion hem you in, even Buddy’s. I can’t imagine why Josh did what he did. But you can be anything you want to be, regardless of the past.”
Rebecca curled her fingers into her palms as the reality of what she’d done sank even deeper. “No, I can’t. Because I just proved everybody right, didn’t I? These kinds of things don’t happen to good people. Only to bad seeds. I’m not marriage material. I’m not even ‘friend’ material. I dragged Booker over there with me, which means I could’ve gotten him in trouble, too. I deserve to do hair in Nowhere, Idaho, until I die of old age,” she said. And then, because she resented Delaney’s sympathy as much as she craved it, she left.
THE SMELL OF SMOKE HUNG thick in the air as Rebecca stood facing Josh’s house. The lights were out, and the place looked peaceful and sleepy. The fire was out, too, leaving the Ford Excursion looking like a soulless heap.
She’d done that. She’d killed it in her anger, and now she had to pay the price.
Resolute, Rebecca threw back her shoulders and made her feet carry her to the front door. She hated knowing she’d wake Josh at three o’clock in the morning, hated standing out in the cold, humiliated and alone. But she was afraid that if she waited, she’d lose her nerve and never say what had to be said.
Swallowing hard, she fought a sudden mutinous onslaught of tears and raised her hand to knock.
The light came on. Rebecca quickly stepped into the shadows as the door swung open.
“Back to torch the house?” Josh asked, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
Rebecca hunched into her wool coat, wishing she were small enough to disappear. But she refused to let herself move any farther back. She had to own up to her mistakes, accept responsibility, apologize. And she had to say those things to Josh. There were insurance issues, which could easily become criminal issues. And there were moral issues, too. She knew no one would ever believe her, but it was the moral issues that had brought her traipsing across town in the middle of the night.
“So—” She cleared her throat because it felt like someone was squeezing it and she wanted to ensure that her voice remained steady and true. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it with dignity. “So I guess you already know it was me.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. Rebecca knew he had to be freezing, standing there barefoot and without a shirt. But he didn’t invite her in or ask her to wait while he grabbed a jacket. “I know it was you. And it doesn’t surprise me a bit.”
Of course it wouldn’t surprise him. She was the only one who’d ever done anything bad to him. All the other residents of Dundee turned themselves inside out to give Josh Hill whatever he wanted.
“Right,” she said. “Well, I came to—” Suddenly it felt as though she couldn’t catch her breath. “To tell you I’ll pay for the damage.”
“You will?” he said, not hiding his astonishment. Sticking his head out the door, he looked around as though expecting to be ambushed at any moment. “Are you trying to throw me off here? Are you setting me up for something else?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have the money to pay the whole amount right now, which might put you in a bind as far as replacing it. But I can pay as much as—” She hesitated, knowing that what she could afford would sound paltry to him, then forced the words out of her mouth anyway, because it was the best she could do. “Three hundred dollars a month.” At least I won’t be smoking again. I won’t have the money for chewing gum, let alone cigarettes.
He seemed unsure how to respond. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re taking responsibility for destroying my SUV, and you’re going to pay me three hundred dollars a month to make up for it?”
She jammed her hands in her pockets and nodded.
“It could’ve gone down as an accident.”
“It was an accident,” she said.
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I know you don’t believe me, and I don’t want to explain. I’m taking responsibility. That’s all you need to know.”
“The insurance would’ve replaced it.”
“They might have investigated.”
“There were no witnesses. Anything with any finger-prints has been burned to cinders.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“That you had a good chance of getting away with it.”
“I know.”
He scratched his head. “Then what are you doing here?”
Proving to herself that she wasn’t what he thought she was, that she wasn’t what anyone thought she was. But this was the hard part, the part she’d rehearsed so many times on the way over. “I came to apologize. I don’t appreciate what you said to Buddy, but I should never have come out here and…”