In theory.
The truth was she didn’t know what the hell was going on. One minute she’d been independent and asserting her need to create some distance between herself and Daniel, and the next his head had been between her legs. It was never like that with him before. It had been soft and sweet.
There was nothing soft and sweet about the man coming around the front of the truck to glare at her. He pointed. “I was coming to get your door.”
“Either develop Superman abilities or come to terms with the fact that I can get my own damn door.” She knew she was being rude, but she didn’t care. She’d spent almost half her life taking care of herself without a man—without him—around, and she wasn’t about to turn into a wilting flower just because he decided to walk back into her life.
Technically I walked back into his life.
And seduced him.
And messed up birth control.
And got pregnant.
It was kind of hard to maintain the moral high ground in this situation, but when it came to him sweeping in and taking over her life, it just wasn’t going to happen. The sooner he figured that out, the better.
To end the conversation, she turned toward the storefront. The place looked exactly like it had when she was in high school. It was crazy. So much had changed—she had changed—and yet Devil’s Falls was practically the same. It made it hard to differentiate between the past and present, too easy to fall back into the old rhythms she and Daniel had had. I can’t. The minute she dropped her guard completely, he was going to have her quitting her job, moving in, and the man would probably go so far as to propose because he thought that it was the right thing to do.
Once upon a time, she’d wanted to marry Daniel Rodriguez. But not now. Not like this. Not when he was operating under some misguided belief that he was going to do right by her.
She moved away from him and into the store. The whole point of coming into town was to get some of the stuff she needed for the night—mainly food. She might be leaving in the morning, but she still had to eat in the meantime. She didn’t know how he lived on the grand total of three items in his kitchen, but she wasn’t about to start smearing mayonnaise on saltine crackers.
Hope froze, her stomach lurching. Mental note—don’t think about gross food combinations if you want to be able to eat breakfast.
The woman at the counter looked up from the magazine she was idly paging through and gave a shriek fit to wake the dead. “Holy crap, Hope Moore, is that you?”
It took precious seconds to place the blonde, and by then she had hopped over the counter and was coming at Hope, arms spread for a hug. “Jessica Stroup?”
“The one and only.” She engulfed Hope in a hug that popped her back. “It’s been a million years! Why on earth are you back in this little shithole?”
She and Jessica had been on the cheerleading team back in high school, and the other woman had always had big dreams about heading west to L.A. and getting into modeling or acting. She was certainly beautiful enough for it. Hope smiled. “Visiting some old friends.”
Jessica peered around her, her blue eyes going wide when Daniel pushed through the door. “Old friends indeed. We’re going to have to go share a drink at the Joint and catch up. I know the bar isn’t as fancy as the places you must be used to in Dallas, but it’s what we have up here.” She grinned. “You look a little frazzled, and I know I’m talking a mile a minute, so I’m just going to write down my number and you can give me a call. We don’t have to drink. We can totally go for coffee or something. I’m off at three. Have you heard that Jules Rodriguez opened up a cat café down the street? Strangest concept I ever heard of, but it’s loads of fun to go in there and play with the cats while you chat and drink coffee.”
“Oh, ah, okay.”
“I’m doing it again.” She backed toward the counter, still smiling. “Go on and do your shopping. We can talk later.”
Hope had forgotten how overwhelming Jessica was—but in a good way. It was actually kind of nice to have an interaction in town that wasn’t fraught with undertones. She wasn’t ready to confide about the pregnancy, but a break later today from Daniel’s intense presence would be a good thing. Even though he didn’t say anything, she felt him at her back as she grabbed a cart and headed down the first aisle.
Glowering.
It took all of ten feet before her patience ran out. “You have something to say, so say it.”
He grabbed a can of soup off the shelf, seemingly at random. “I open doors, Hope. It’s what any man worth his salt in the South does. It has nothing to do with what you can or can’t do.” Another can of soup hit the basket of the cart hard enough to bounce.
So they were back to that. She should have known. Daniel could be like a dog with a bone when something bothered him. She took a deep breath and turned to face him. If they were going to fight about every little thing, this would never work.
If she was going to be honest, her pride was as much to blame as his stubbornness.
Hope took a deep breath and tried to take the high road. “I get overly defensive. I’m sorry.” She held up her hand. “I can’t promise I won’t snap at you again, but I’ll try to relax about the door stuff.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Just the door stuff?”
“Yes.” It came out sharper than she intended, but damn, could he give it a rest for a few minutes? She knew he wanted her in his house permanently, just like she knew he might have appeared to drop it, but he was just planning a different method of approach. She was so damn tired, and it was only beginning. Hope turned to the row of cereal boxes in front of her. “Now, I’m starving, and arguing with you is burning more calories than I’m comfortable with. We’ll talk when we get back to your place, and we’ll come up with some sort of game plan.” Staying in Devil’s Falls for the next nine months was out of the question. She could do her job in a limited capacity online, but she really needed to be in the office. If she up and told them she was moving back to a little town no one had ever heard of, she might as well quit on the spot.
No. Absolutely not. She might have put her life on hold waiting for Daniel when she was eighteen, but she most definitely wasn’t going to do it now because he was determined to pay penance by being with her.
She deserved better than that.
Both she and the baby did.
The look he gave her was downright indulgent. “Fair enough.”
She hated how suspicious she was of him, but it was hard not to be in their current circumstances. Daniel never gave up a fight unless he chose to walk away, and he hadn’t this time. That meant he was backing off only long enough to find a different approach to get her to do what he wanted.
They moved through the aisles without speaking, Hope pausing every few feet to consider what she felt like eating and Daniel throwing food into the cart seemingly at random.
She didn’t know what to make of that, so she focused on what sounded good. It was so strange. She normally loved oatmeal in the morning, but
when she picked up her favorite brand, she set it back without tossing it in the cart, that horrible nausea rising again. Instead, she ended up in the produce section, loading up on orange juice, fruit, and cucumbers. Through it all, Daniel shadowed her movements, a giant gray cloud warning of an impending storm.
Jessica managed to contain herself as they paid, but she slipped Hope her number with a smile. “It really would be nice to catch up.”
As much as part of her wanted to keep her distance from everything Devil’s Falls related, that goal wasn’t realistic. She was leaving. She had to leave.
Hope forced a smile. “I’ll call. I promise.” And she would. Even though she and Jessica had lost contact after the accident, they’d been really close in high school. It would be nice to have a friend who knew the whole history, someone she could talk to who would understand why she was hesitating to cut Daniel out of her life, even now, after everything they’d been through. Her friends in Dallas were wonderful, but they would, to a person, tell her to get rid of him.
He loaded the groceries into the bed of his truck in short, jerky movements that belied the calm expression on his face. In an effort to keep the peace a little while longer, she waited for him to hold the door open for her instead of climbing into the truck like she was perfectly capable of doing. It wasn’t until they were driving back out of town that he spoke. “My parents are going to want to know you’re back.”
“I’m not back.”
“Yes, darling, you are. At least for today.” He shot her a look. “You’re just pissed that I pushed too hard about it and you don’t want to give in, despite the fact that it’s what you want. If you go back to Dallas right now, it’s going to be a decision made out of spite.”