“What’d I say?”
“The beautiful thing. Okay, so I won a beauty pageant way back there, but I’m not the same woman I was then, and I am really not so beautiful! I don’t get fawning all the time, in fact, I never get fawning. In case you haven’t noticed, Grayson and I aren’t exactly whirling around with busy social calendars.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That I can’t have flings. I have Grayson, and I have . . . this is going to sound stupid, but I have standards—”
“Like I don’t?”
“You’re the one with the shirts,” she said, nodding at his polo.
He nodded thoughtfully, studying her face. “I also told you I love you,” he said. “I really must have lost my mind, because I am sitting here, in the middle of a ridiculous conversation with you, like it means something, but every time I come near you, you freeze up like an ice cube! Why do I waste my breath? Why do I splay my heart open for you?”
Rebecca stood up. She thought of a billion retorts. So many that she couldn’t manage to get even one out, and suddenly walked away from the little table and down the steps to the lawn, to where, she had no idea.
Matt was right behind her. “Uh-uh, no way—I’m not going to let you swim away this time,” he said. “Stand and declare!”
“Okay, how’s this? I’m very upset to learn that I’m the moron in this equation!”
“At least you’re the gorgeous one—”
She stopped, whirled around to face him. “Do you think,” she asked, stabbing him in the chest with the tip of her finger with each word, “that because I haven’t jumped right into your bed then I must be frigid? Is that what you are trying to say?”
“No!” he said, grabbing her hand. “I mean you are scared stiff. Literally.”
Rebecca sucked in a breath to tell him that was a lie, but thought the better of it (since it was true), and closed her mouth. They stood there under the moonlight, staring at each other, and all Rebecca could hear was the river running just a few yards away, running slowly, running away, just like she’d been doing from the moment she’d met Matt. “You would be, too,” she admitted, and laid her forehead against his chest.
Matt put his arm around her. “Isn’t it obvious that I adore you?” he asked. “Four Seasons debacle notwithstanding, of course. Do you know the last time I told a woman I loved her?”
“No.”
“I was seven.”
Rebecca laughed into his chest.
“And look at it—I came all the way out here to grovel at your feet for having made an ass of myself. And I stood there and let you throw stuff at me, and then I pretty much admitted I’ve got a thang for ya, baby. I was just sort of hoping you had one for me, too.”
Rebecca laughed again, then lifted her gaze to Matt. “I do. I guess it’s really hard to explain.”
Matt put a hand to her face, cupping her chin. “Try me,” he said, and he looked like he meant it. Try me. Try anything.
“Okay. For starters, I’ve never really been with . . . I mean, I’ve only been with one—”
“Oh, I get it,” Matt said, nodding, and started to sway softly with her under the moonlight. “So you’re not quite over him, is that it?”
That was so preposterous that Rebecca snorted loudly through her nose. “Oh my God, I’m going to have to get a blackboard and chart this out for you. No, Matt,” she said, and with a loud sigh, lifted her gaze to the stars. “I was over him years ago and I’ve never been sorry that it’s over. What I’ve been sorry for is that he left me without any emotion at all. Just up and announced he was leaving one day, like he was going to the store, like ending ten years of marriage was no more than stepping out for a six-pack. And even though I had stopped loving him eons before that, I couldn’t understand how two people could have passed so much of their lives together and there be no emotion at all. Just nothing. Unless . . .” Unless she was nothing, she wasn’t worth it.
Matt didn’t say anything.
Rebecca’s gaze blurred; she blinked. “And now,” she said, smiling nervously, “I’ve met you, and I think you’re pretty darn wonderful in spite of all the evidence to the contrary—”
“Careful—”
“—and I guess I’m more afraid than I realized.”
“Not of me, I hope.”
“Of not being worth the effort.” And having voiced her fear aloud, she turned her face into his shoulder, ashamed.
“Ah, baby,” Matt said, and wrapped both arms around her, rested his chin atop her head, and together they swayed in the cool night breeze, neither speaking for a long moment.
“That’s not something you’d ever have to worry about with me, you know,” he said quietly. “If you think about it, it’s been pretty emotional between us from the beginning, wouldn’t you say?”
Rebecca laughed into his shirt. “Definitely.”
“I think this could be all you could ever want, Rebecca. But you might have to let the facade crumble away and just be who you are.”