For a long moment, all she could do was stare. “Excuse me?”
“Ruth told me he was here the other night, that he’s been hanging around. I don’t like it. He’s not a good influence on Macy and Owen.”
“You don’t like it.” Her temper, which had already been simmering like Macy’s red sauce after what Riley said, started to scorch and smoke.
“You know his reputation with women. You’ve been friends with Alex your whole life and you’ve heard the rumors, too. He’s a tomcat and always has been. He goes through women like I go through exam gloves and then tosses them away with as little care. He’s not good for you, Claire.”
She drew in a steadying breath, but it had little effect against the fury sparking through her. That her husband—currently married to a woman ten years his junior and dressing like he was on an MTV reality show, for heaven’s sake—would dare lecture her about her choice of friends was beyond belief.
“I do not want to have this conversation with you.”
He ignored her quiet warning. “I care about you, Claire. I know how you can be when you pour your heart into something. You always go all the way and don’t hold any part of yourself back. I would hate to see that happen with McKnight. Whatever game he’s playing, I just don’t want you to be crushed when he moves on.”
Did everyone see her as some pathetic loser who, first of all, couldn’t keep a man and, second of all, fell apart when said man left?
She wasn’t, darn it. She didn’t need either of them in her world to be perfectly content. She had a great life. Good friends, a thriving business, a comfortable home in a town she loved. She wasn’t trying to fill any emptiness in her life with either unhealthy relationships or community events.
She sipped at her cold water in hope that it might cool her temper.
“Riley and I are friends, Jeff. That’s all.” And right now, truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to claim even that.
“Are you sure? Because Riley McKnight does not strike me as the kind of guy who would hang around playing basketball with a kid and pruning your trees and fixing a roof for you unless he wanted to slurp you up with a spoon.”
“Apparently you and my mother have had plenty to talk about.”
“I’m concerned about you.”
She set her glass in the sink with a loud clank. “Funny, don’t we have a divorce decree lying around somewhere that clearly indicates you decided you no longer wanted the right to an opinion about my friends?”
“I didn’t stop caring about you just because we fell out of love.”
You fell out of love, she wanted to yell at him. That was totally a knee-jerk reaction, though, and not even true. They had become roommates those last few years of his medical training and after they first came back to Hope’s Crossing.
Anyway, she wouldn’t go backward even if she could. She wasn’t the same person anymore and probably wouldn’t last a week married to him, always catering to his opinion and working with tireless effort to make his life run smoothly, the same pattern she’d perfected growing up with Ruth.
“Be careful. That’s all I’m saying,” Jeff said. “The kids don’t need to see you making a fool of yourself over him.”
Oh, she so wanted to point out his Ed Hardy shirt and the Botox injections, but she was trying to be a nice person, right?
“Riley is my friend, that’s all. He has been for years. When you think about it, he’s been in my life longer than you have. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but I’m not going to hurt somebody I care about by pushing him away just because you suddenly have some ridiculous notion the two of us are secretly carrying on some hot, steamy affair.”
Jeff studied her for a moment, then he suddenly smiled in a self-deprecating way. “You’re right. I’m being silly, aren’t I?”
Conversely, his capitulation only made her feel more like that pathetic loser Riley apparently thought her.
Just once, maybe she would like to be wild, wanton, crazy. The kind of woman who could have a man make a fool of himself over her. She would prefer he didn’t do it by suddenly streaking his hair and going for facials, like Jeff had done for Holly. But, hey, at this point she would take what she could get.
The sound of tromping feet down the stairs effectively ended their discussion and a moment later Owen burst into the kitchen.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“Let’s go, dude.” Jeff slung Owen’s bulging backpack over his shoulder.
“I’ll see you after school on Wednesday.”
“Love you, Mom. Bye.”
She hugged him and felt that little clutch at her heart as she always did when they were going to stay with their father.
“Don’t forget your present,” Owen said to his father as they headed for the front door.
Jeff picked it up from the console table and gave it a little shake. “Heavy.”