Which had been a really bad reason to get married. But looking back, Rose knew she wouldn’t have changed anything even if she could have.
Oh, her marriage had been awful—but in a weird way, it had also been good for her. She had changed a lot, thanks to Henry’s being such a miserable husband. By the time that very brief marriage fizzled out, she had found the kind of courage and confidence she had always lacked before.
Without that sharp learning curve, Rose didn’t know if she ever would have had the nerve to open her own business, let alone take a stand against her older brother. When their father died, Dave had stepped into the patriarchal role as if he’d been born to it…which, he really had, actually. But Rose had already grown too much to give him the kind of power over her their father had once claimed.
She smiled wistfully to herself, remembering the expression on Dave’s face the first time she had said no to one of his orders. It had been well worth the jittering anxiety and the hot ball of tension in her stomach. It hadn’t been easy to take that first step, but when she did, the world hadn’t ended. Dave hadn’t stopped loving her.
In fact, to give Dave his due, once she had set down ground rules and let him know that she wouldn’t be bossed around for the rest of her life, he had actually backed off. Oh, he was still authoritarian, but half the time she didn’t listen and he didn’t really expect her to anymore.
Which was a victory of sorts, wasn’t it?
But Lucas…he was a different matter. She could still see him in his bedroom, glaring at her as he told her that if she were pregnant, they’d be getting married, like it or not.
Resentment jumped into life inside her. She straightened up in the chair and unconsciously squared her shoulders. Rose wouldn’t trade one bossy man for another. She wouldn’t stand her ground against her brother and then cave for Lucas.
Rose had already done marriage for the wrong reasons. The next time she said I do, it would be because she was madly in love—and loved just as fiercely in return. She wouldn’t accept less and if she did turn out to be pregnant, she certainly wouldn’t marry him just because of their child.
Her mind racing with arguments she couldn’t use because Lucas wasn’t there, Rose couldn’t sit still another minute. Dropping the shirt on the chair back again, she got up and walked out to the living room.
Mindlessly, she straightened the already tidy room, fluffing pillows, stacking magazines on the corner of the coffee table. She could have turned on the stereo for company, but her thoughts were already so busy, she didn’t need the extra distraction. A little silence, she told herself, was probably just what she needed. She should have known it wouldn’t last.
When the doorbell rang, she jumped and whirled around. Her silly heart raced suddenly as her first thought was that Lucas was there. But in the next instant, that hope died.
“Rose!” her brother called out, hitting the doorbell again just for good measure. “Rose! I know you’re home. I see your skillet car in the driveway.”
Just what she needed, she thought, the other hard-headed man in her life. Hurrying to the door, she threw it open and instantly, wind-driven rain slapped at her with icy needles of wet. “Dave, what’re you doing here?”
“Nice to see you, too, sis.” He bent down and briefly kissed her forehead before walking past her into the house. He shook his head, swiped one hand through his wet hair and asked, “Wow, what smells so good?”
Rose sighed. Looked like she would be having company for dinner. “Beef-and-barley soup.”
He looked at her and his eyebrows lifted. “Homemade?”
She had to smile at his hopeful expression. “Of course. You want some?”
“That’d be great.” He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks behind her front door. As he followed her to the kitchen, he kept up a running monologue. “This storm’s got lousy timing. I’ve got a crew out on Pacific Coast Highway trying to shore up a retaining wall before the rain gets too bad. There’s a mud hole where another family’s new den was going to be and I’ve been out at a site helping the crew tack plastic up on a torn-off roof before the house flooded. The rain caught everybody by surprise.”
Rain clattered at the windows, and the wind moaned as it swept under the eaves of Rose’s old bungalow. The lights in the kitchen were bright against the dark, and the scent of the bubbling soup welcomed them into the room.
“Did you get the roof covered?”
“Yeah, but it was close,” he said, scrubbing both hands over his face as if trying to rub away the memory. “We’re putting in a second story, so we had the tarps ready to go—they just had to go up a lot faster than we thought. And did you notice? Not one damn weatherman predicted this storm?”
Rose was used to hearing construction stories. She’d grown up on them. And usually, Southern California weather cooperated nicely with builders. But every once in a while…
“Sounds like you’ve had a busy day,” she said, going directly to a cabinet and taking down two soup bowls. She grabbed spoons from a drawer and carried them to the narrow table. Then taking the bowls to the stove, she filled each of them with the soup that had been simmering most of the afternoon.
“Busier than I’d like,” Dave admitted, arms braced on her narrow table. “What about you?”
“Hmm?”
“Haven’t talked to you in a couple of weeks, so thought I’d stop by and—”
“Get dinner?” Rose finished for him as she carried the steaming bowls of soup to the table.
He grinned, and she couldn’t help returning his smile. She loved her brother. She really did. Rose just wished they had the kind of relationship that would allow her to tell him what was happening in her life. But not only could she not talk to Dave about a man, she also knew only too well how he would react to the mention of Lucas King. She just wished she knew why.
Dave pulled one of the four chairs out for her to sit down and that’s when he spotted the green T-shirt.
Rose held her breath and then made a grab for the shirt before he could get a good look at it. But Dave was faster. He held it up and immediately saw it was a man’s shirt.
“So who’s the guy, Rose?” he asked, smiling at her in a way that made her think this might turn out all right after all. “Is he a secret? Because as the big brother, I should be able to check him out before you get too attached. Make sure he’s good enough for my baby sister.”