Rebecca hesitated, tempted to give Mary a firm no. Then she reminded herself that she wasn’t moving to Nebraska, that she wasn’t moving anywhere, at least in the near future, and decided it was probably best not to let the hostility between them linger. Josh hadn’t broken up with Mary because of her. Rebecca hadn’t even heard from him since the night he’d said all those crazy things, things she was sure he didn’t mean in the first place. That he’d happened to break up with Mary the same night was just a coincidence. Maybe if Mary understood that, they could return to being more discreet enemies.
“Sure,” she said. “Do you want to go in the back?”
Mary glanced at Mona, who was watching them both curiously, and shook her head. “No. You’ll probably tell everyone here what I said the moment I leave, anyway, right?”
Rebecca didn’t bother denying it. She knew she’d cave in to the pressure of having Katie, Mona and Ashleigh, the new girl, nag her for details of their conversation before Mary could so much as pass through Dundee’s main intersection in her Camry. “Probably,” she admitted.
“Well, I just wanted to say that I wish you’d told me you and Josh had something going, instead of sneaking around behind my back.”
“Josh and I didn’t have anything going, and we weren’t sneaking around behind your back.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said.
“I’m not lying.”
“My next-door neighbor told me Josh spent the night with you a couple of weeks before he broke up with me.”
“And how would your next-door neighbor know that?”
“Randy told your sister, who told her best friend, who told her mother, who is my next-door neighbor,” Mary recited smugly.
“It’s not true,” Rebecca said, and felt okay with the lie since Josh hadn’t spent the night in the way Mary meant it.
“So you two aren’t having a little…fling?”
“No.”
“Then I guess you won’t mind me telling you that he’s going to come back to me eventually,” she said.
Rebecca hated the sinking sensation that came over her and struggled to keep her face blank. “He is?”
“Of course. He still loves me. He’s just suffering from a bad case of the jitters. It happens all the time. A guy gets too close to marriage and starts to buck.”
Horse talk again. Maybe Mary was perfect for Josh. “Seems to me he bucked you right out of the saddle,” she said.
“Not for long. That’s the point I’m trying to make,” Mary said. “I just wanted to let you know—so you won’t get hurt.” With that she studied her newly manicured nails and blew on the wet polish. “Have a nice day.”
THAT NIGHT after Granny Hatfield went to bed, Rebecca tried to entertain herself by playing twenty-one with Booker. But her heart wasn’t in the game. She kept thinking about Josh getting back together with Mary and how much she’d hate running into them. And she kept wondering why Josh getting back with Mary would somehow be more difficult for her to get over than her own breakup with Buddy.
“Quit thinking about him,” Booker said.
Rebecca glanced at the cigarettes in his pocket but refused to ask for one. She hadn’t smoked in weeks. For the most part, she’d managed to get over her cravings. But there were still times….
“Who?” she said, as though she could fool him.
“You know who,” he said simply. “You want another hit?”
Rebecca looked at her two cards as though she didn’t already know what they were—a king and a deuce. “What the hell,” she said, “give me one.” She’d probably take his bust card, but standing on a twelve was far too conservative for her.
He slid her another card. When she saw it was an eight, she smiled broadly. Sometimes it paid to be aggressive. “I’ll stand,” she said.
He turned over his cards, and Rebecca felt her momentary joy evaporate. He’d been holding a queen and a jack. So much for the success of her big risk.
“How are things between you and Katie?” she asked as he dealt her another hand.
“About the same as they are between you and Josh,” he said, his focus on his cards.
Rebecca studied what he’d dealt her. “You’ve been calling her. You’ve been seeing her occasionally. That’s a lot better than what’s happening with me and Josh.”
“If you’re not seeing Josh, where do you go when you leave here late at night?” he asked.
He’d noticed? She should’ve known he would. “You don’t want to know,” she said. “It’s too pathetic.”
He cracked a rare smile. “Yeah, well, I’m beginning to feel pretty pathetic myself. Katie told me she’s in love with Josh’s brother last night.”
“I told you that before you ever got to know her,” Rebecca pointed out.
“It was a little different coming from her. Your timing was certainly better.”
“How’s that?”
“She waited until after we wound up in her bed.”
“Ouch.” Rebecca considered her cards again. A queen and a three. Not a big improvement.
“It’s a good thing we’re not in Vegas,” she grumbled.
“You going to take my bust card?”
She answered his challenge by motioning for another card. “Probably.”
Sure enough, he gave her a jack. Then he turned over a ten and a two and promptly garnered all the change in the center of the table.
“You beat me on a twelve?”
He stacked the money in front of him like chips. “When I’m playing with you, I always stand on a twelve.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because I always bust?”
He grinned.
“I don’t always bust!”
“You take a hit on anything less than eighteen, which means your busting average is a lot higher than most.”
“I’m just not myself tonight,” Rebecca said. “My birthday’s coming up and, instead of spending it in Cancun with Buddy on a warm beach, enjoying our honeymoon, I’m going to be here.”
“Buddy wasn’t right for you.”
Rebecca didn’t want to admit that she’d finally reconciled herself to that fact, so she said nothing.
“Besides, Delaney’s due to have her baby any day,” he added.