Naturally, Rebecca’s first thought was that a stranger was spying on her. But in the next instant she realized it was Matt and a huge bouquet of roses sneaking around the old barn, and her brief, heart-stopping fear turned to nuclear fury.
In fact, her fury was so nuclear, she could hardly get her clothes on, and was hopping around the dock on one leg like a crazy loon as she tried to stuff the other leg into her shorts without tumbling right back into the river. All the while, Matt was striding toward her, waving his hand and the flowers, saying something she couldn’t hear because she was so desperate to clothe herself.
The moment he stepped onto the dock (with her traitor dogs behind him, howdoyoudo), she yelled, “Don’t you dare come near me!” And proceeded to get tangled up in the T-shirt she was so frantically trying to pull over her head.
“Rebecca, please just give me a minute!” she heard him say as she managed to get her head through.
With one arm caught in the fabric, she pointed with her free arm. “Stop right there!”
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he said, holding out the roses as some sort of peace offering. “Really. I was looking for you—”
“I don’t care,” she snapped as she managed to punch her arm free of the T-shirt, pull it down, then dig her hair out of the neck. “You can turn right around and crawl back to the rock you’ve been living under.”
“Okay, I will. Just let me just say a couple of things,” he tried again, and stood there, holding the flowers upside down now, looking so goddamn good and completely repentant.
But no, oh nonono—he had sorely underestimated the strength of her fury, and her mouth was moving before she could think. “You want to say a couple of things?” she seethed. “Like you haven’t already said enough? What did you forget? Between I’m a bad mother and I’m trying to stab you in the back, what could there possibly be left to say?” Just speaking those transgressions aloud infuriated her even more, and without really knowing what she was doing, Rebecca gave into her furious anger as she abruptly picked up the soda can Jo Lynn or Grayson had left behind and threw it at him.
Matt easily ducked it, but looked at her like she was deranged. She threw the core of Grayson’s apple at him before he could say a single, solitary word. “Hey!” he shouted as the core bounced off his boot, which caused Frank to rise from lounging in the shade and trot over and have a look.
“Get out!” she shouted, madly looking around for something else to throw. “I told you I never wanted to see you again, and believe me, I’ve heard everything I ever want to hear from you, you . . . you—”
“Go ahead and say it, because whatever it is, I deserve it and then some,” he offered.
“Dickhead!” she obliged him.
“Ouch,” Matt said with a wince. “Good one. I was sort of hoping for your run-of-the-mill asshole, but okay. So now that you’ve got that off your chest, may I please try and apologize?” he asked, holding up the flowers again.
“Don’t you dare make light of it!”
“I’m not, baby, I swear I’m not. I’m just trying—”
“You don’t get it, Matt! I don’t want to hear your apology,” Rebecca said. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want your constant judgment, or your bizarre paranoia, or the arrogance you take everywhere you go.”
“All right. Okay,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair as he helplessly looked around the dock. “You’re so right, Rebecca. I’ve been very arrogant. I feel a hundred times worse, so will you please let me talk?”
“No, no, no. You are such an asshole.”
“Wait just a minute,” Matt said, putting one hand on his waist. “A dickhead and an asshole? I mean, I was wrong and all that, but aren’t you sort of stretching it a little?”
Arrogant, impudent backwater asshole—Rebecca heaved a cheap synthetic rubber thong at him, which floated close enough to hit him in the chest before wafting down to the ground. Matt looked down at her thong, then slowly lifted his head with a look that made her heart skip a beat. “That’s not helping,” he said low, “so stop it. I am trying to tell you something.”
“I told you, I don’t want to hear it,” she said, and picked up the other thong. Matt instantly pointed a long and menacing bouquet at her. “If you throw that, you better be prepared for the consequences, missy!”
“Missy?” She couldn’t help herself; she gave a shout of maniacal laughter. “What are you going to do, throw me in the river?”