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Rebecca’s sob caught in horror.
“But you’re all right?” Hannah inched forward as if to emphasize that Rebecca’s safety was more important than the automobile.
Mortification stung her face as she pointed to the broken piece of metal. “I can’t believe I did all that.”
“Shh, now, don’t fret.” Grammy Rose patted Rebecca’s back. “We all have accidents, sweetie. I’ll never forget the time I ran my car into the front porch. Broke up a hornets’ nest. Those dad-gummed bees attacked me, almost bit me in the behind.”
“Yeah, I’ve had some fender-benders myself,” Mimi chimed in. “Even worse than this. Right in our own driveway.”
“I can vouch for that,” Seth added.
Mimi poked him with her elbow. “It wasn’t my fault that garbage can jumped in the way. Or that you parked the minivan so close to my Miata.”
Seth opened his mouth to argue, but Mimi’s mutinous glare stopped him. Thomas almost laughed at Jake and Wiley’s skeptical expressions. Apparently Rebecca and Mimi had a reputation for freak crashes.
“Well, it’s just metal,” Grammy Rose said, smacking her lips.
“Pricy metal.” Jake whistled, propping the door against the side of the car.
This time Hannah’s glare cut across the crowd. “Fixable metal,” Hannah added. “All it needs is a good body shop mechanic.”
“Or a miracle worker,” Rebecca muttered between sobs.
“Nah, baby, it’s fixable.” Wiley hugged her to his side. “It’s just not drivable now.”
“He’s right.” Thomas’s gaze flickered to the customized paint chipping off from the collision.
Mimi bounced the baby on her shoulder. “You want Seth to call a tow truck?”
Thomas nodded. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“Nonsense.” Wiley waved a beefy hand. “I’ll phone my service to tow it. You can borrow a car from my used-car lot till yours is fixed. Now, pull yourself together, Bec, darlin’.”
Rebecca sniffed as she accepted her uncle’s handkerchief and swiped at her nose.
“That would be great, Mr. Hartwell.” Thomas cast another look at Rebecca, grateful she’d stopped crying. What had she expected him to do? Turn into a tyrant because she’d totaled his car?
REBECCA DABBED AT HER EYES with her uncle’s hankie. How could she have done such a stupid thing?
And how could Thomas stand there so calmly when she had destroyed what must have been his dream car, a Porsche that cost more money than she earned in two years. Men usually obsessed about their automobiles. They worshipped them more than their women, more than the remote control.
Worse, now her insurance would skyrocket, she’d probably have to take a second job to pay her bills, and everyone in town would talk about her klutzy ways, just as they had in high school years ago.
Thunder rumbled above, the darkening sky hinting at a winter storm. Rain began to drizzle and chaos erupted, everyone suddenly racing for the house.
Grammy Rose hugged her one more time. “Don’t fret, everything will work out all right. At least the hope chest wasn’t damaged.”
Rebecca bit the inside of her cheek. Great. She had a hope chest but no man. And the only man she’d wanted since her dating disasters in high school was standing beside her, his car crunched like a tin can because she lost control of her senses every time he was near.
For all she knew, the crash could have broken some of the things in her chest, too. She was too afraid to look.
Lightning streaked through the cluster of pine trees, another clap of thunder booming closer. “I’ll make sure the tow truck picks up the car,” Wiley offered. “Bec, you wanna give the doc a ride back to town?”
Rebecca’s face blanched.
“Good idea,” Thomas said with a grin. “You don’t mind taking me home, do you?”
Rebecca gaped at him in surprise. She couldn’t very well turn him down when she was responsible for his dilemma.
“I…sure.”
Thomas pointed inside the station wagon. “It looks like some of your stuff spilled out. We’d better put it back before we go.”
The bride’s book lay on the floor, a blue garter belt beside it.
“No, it’s all right.” She pushed Thomas toward the car. “Let’s go before the storm gets any worse.”
And I do anything else stupid. Rebecca ran to the other side and jumped in. Thomas took the passenger seat, buckled his seat belt, then stretched his left arm along the back of the seat, calm as a cucumber.
Darn him.
Rebecca glanced at her clenched hands, then slowly met his gaze. “I’m surprised you’d want to ride with me. Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you on the way home?”
THOMAS CHUCKLED. Hell, yeah he was, but he couldn’t admit it without seeming like a coward. “No, of course not.” He shifted, but the broken springs from the tattered seat protested, then jabbed him in the behind. Rebecca glanced his way and nearly ran off the road.
The deep dropoff on his side swam before his eyes. “Rebecca!”
She snapped her eyes back to the highway, her mouth dropping open as she jerked the wheel to the left.
“Are you sure you’re all right? I could drive if you’re feeling dizzy from the accident.”
She pursed her lips. “No, I’m f-fine.”
Rain splattered the windshield, and the car windows fogged up, cocooning the two of them inside the vehicle. He wondered if Rebecca had bought this jalopy from her uncle; if so, he hoped Wiley had cut her a good deal. It wasn’t worth a dime.
Was she was always this nervous around men or did her reaction have something to do with him? He’d seen her conversing with customers in the bookstore. She handled herself with grace, her knowledge about the book market extraordinary. And she laughed and joked with her cousins as if she were perfectly at ease.
Maybe she just didn’t find him attractive. The thought smarted. Especially since most of the women in town seemed to like him.
“Rebecca, can I ask you something?”
She winced and slowed the car as if driving and talking weren’t compatible activities. “If it’s about the insurance, I d-do have it. You can get my card from my purse.”
“It’s not about the insurance.” He sighed. “I wish you’d relax and forget about it. I’m not worried.”
“But how can I forget?” She glanced at her tiny silver purse, which lay on the seat, the contents spilled, a tampon poking out of the top, then jerked her attention back to the road, the oncoming lights of a truck glaringly bright. “That car costs a fortune. And I destroyed it in less than a minute.”
“Money isn’t the most important thing in the world,” he said with conviction. Although he was frugal with his money. With good reason. After all, he’d grown up in a fairly low-income family where money was sparse and love even more so. But he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at Rebecca when she was so upset herself.
A nervous flutter of her eyes followed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Thomas. I’m not implying that you’re materialistic….” She let the sentence trail off, obviously shaken by the turn of the conversation.
“I didn’t mean to imply you thought I was—”
“I didn’t think you were.”
His head was spinning. “Well, thanks for that. I was beginning to think you didn’t like me.”
“What?” The shock in her voice surprised him.
“You run every time I get near you.” He pried his fingers off the door handle, forcing his hand to relax on his thigh. “I thought maybe you’d heard some bad things about me or something.”
“Bad things?” Her gaze found him again, her blue eyes luminous in the foggy interior. “No, I’ve only heard good things about you. What bad things would I hear?”
“None.” At least not that he knew of.
His gaze fell to her scalloped neckline, which revealed a hint of creamy skin and rounded breasts. “I’ve heard nice things about you, too.”
She hit a pothole, and the car jerked sideways. An oncoming car blasted its horn. He grabbed the dash, and she swung the car back in line just in time to avoid a head-on collision. “I…good.”
“Well, now we’ve got that settled,” he said, finding the radio. “We can relax.”
Like hell. Maybe some soft music would calm her. He certainly needed something to steady his nerves, considering the way she kept courting the embankment. And that sultry scent enveloping her was rattling other nerves that had no business being awakened.
He simply wanted a friendship with Rebecca Hartwell. An uncomplicated, platonic friendship with no feelings or commitments or expectations to hinder him from his goal of leaving Sugar Hill.
“So, why did you go into medicine?”
His fingers tightened on the knob. “I like the challenge. And no matter how many babies I deliver, the miracle of birth never ceases to astound me.”
“Babies are wonderful.” Rebecca’s voice softened. “I love watching Mimi with Maggie Rose. That little girl is adorable.”
“Both her parents dote on her.”
Rebecca laughed. “I’m glad it worked out for them to be together. I thought Mimi might raise the baby alone for a while.”
Thomas nodded. He’d heard something about that. Once again his thoughts turned to his own mother and how difficult his teenage years had been. “Being a single mom is tough. I admire women who raise children alone these days.”
“Yeah, I miss my mom. She died when I was young,” Rebecca admitted.
Thomas placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I lost my mom a while back, but she was alive when I was little.”
A few moments of companionable silence stretched taut between them. Then she hit another bump and her purse flew from the seat to the floor. The tampon rolled out. She blushed, then reached for it.
He grimaced. Good grief, he was an OB-GYN.
The car swerved sideways, and he yanked up the purse, stuffed the tampon inside and closed it for her. Her lips snapped shut.
Then she hit another bump in the road, and the chest in the back bounced up and slammed down with a thump. He angled his head to see it. “What’s in that box, anyway?”
Rebecca’s gaze darted everywhere but at him. “Just some junk for a garage sale.”
He lapsed into silence as he remembered the dozens of garage sales his mother had had. She’d sold everything she could stand to part with just to provide for them. He’d hated seeing their things being hocked to strangers for mere pocket change.
Surely Rebecca wasn’t that desperate for money.
If she was, she’d have a hell of a time paying her insurance if the company raised it after they covered the damages to his car.
But her finances were not his problem, he reminded himself, battling a twinge of sympathy. He was not playing Mr. Nice Guy again. He would befriend Rebecca so she could introduce him to her father, then he’d secure the job and move to Atlanta.
Nothing more.
A HALF HOUR LATER Rebecca’s insides still quivered. What had happened to her today? Not only had she ruined Thomas’s Porsche, but she’d damn near run off the road and killed him. Then she’d lied to him about the silly hope chest.
But she didn’t want him to think she was husband hunting, that she would mistake his kindness for an advance. Because Thomas Emerson was the nicest man she’d ever met. And the sexiest. And someone was going to be the luckiest woman alive one day to have him for a husband.
Of course, that someone would not be her.
Memories of at least three painful past relationships traipsed through her mind, trampling her mood altogether. Memories of men who had used her to get to Suzanne.
No, Thomas wasn’t like those men. He was trustworthy and sincere and helped women through his work. He would never use a woman. Although, she had overheard him asking Hannah about Suzanne when she’d gone for punch.
She veered onto the interstate toward his house, grateful for the soft jazz music filling the tense silence. Once she dropped him at his house, she wouldn’t have to face him again. She could handle the insurance information over the phone and never have to look into those startling green eyes again. As long as she didn’t see him, she could put him firmly out of her mind.
Then she wouldn’t have to drool over him and want the man so badly.
After all, she was a realist. She refused to torture herself and dream about things she could never have.
Like Thomas Emerson.
Chapter Three
Thomas shook his head as Rebecca drove away. She was an enigma. He’d finally grown tired of the strained silence in the car and had ventured into asking her about a book he’d ordered that hadn’t yet arrived.
She had transformed into an intelligent, well-spoken woman.
The past half hour they’d enjoyed a long discussion of various popular titles as well as nonfiction topics. Rebecca was well-read and insightful, and had even argued with him about the authors of some hard-to-find classics. But when he’d suggested they stop by her place so he could help her unload that chest full of garage sale items, she’d grown flustered again. She’d claimed her neighbor, Jerry Ruthers, would assist her instead.
Was this guy Jerry her boyfriend? Was he the reason she’d rushed to get home and had refused Thomas’s offer of coffee?
An odd feeling pinched his gut. Maybe it was from the chocolate groom’s cake he’d eaten at Alison’s wedding. No, probably from the jostling his body had been subjected to on the harrowing ride home.
He walked inside his house, smiling at the expanse of polished hardwood and detailed molding. As a child, he’d never imagined owning a house like this, one with space and class. He tossed his keys onto the marble table in the foyer and stopped in the den, his gaze riveted to the Palladian glass window overlooking his backyard. A cluster of oaks so ancient the branches swayed with age provided shade while a fish pond added more visual interest.
Pride swelled in his chest at his accomplishments.
Still, material things weren’t enough. His thirst for knowledge couldn’t be quenched. He’d vowed to learn everything he could about high-risk deliveries. A child’s life might depend on his skill and expertise.
The key to reaching his goals lay in that job in Atlanta.
