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Clowns hadn’t taken her mother from her. Cancer had. For that matter, no one in a red nose had forced her father to stop caring about her—unless she was doing something he disapproved of, which he cared about plenty. Floppy shoes had done nothing to get her in trouble or bring down society’s censure over a racy photograph. She’d done all of that on her own.
Clowns weren’t the problem. She was. She’d assigned so much blame to the crappy hand fate had dealt her as a child that she’d practically let it ruin her life. It was only because luck had handed her Hendrix Harris on a silver platter that anything good had happened.
She didn’t want that to be over. She didn’t want to live each day scared to death to assign importance to the man she’d married. Most of all, she wanted to know what it felt like to know she could wake up each day next to someone who got her. Someone who loved her.
She’d been so busy looking for the hammer about to drop on her happiness that she hadn’t considered the possibility that there was no hammer. Hendrix had even said they could put off the divorce, yet she’d let herself become convinced it was better to get it over with rather than see what might happen if she stopped assuming the worst. Maybe they could have tried being married for a few more weeks and let things develop. Go a little deeper.
If only Hendrix was here, she’d tell him that’s what she wanted before she lost her nerve.
A chime sounded at the front door as someone pushed it open. Great. She’d forgotten to lock it again. She had to get better at remembering that or else move her offices to a more secure location. Anyone could wander in off the street.
But when she popped out of the closet, cell phone in hand in case she needed to dial 911, the nerves in her fingers went completely numb. The phone slipped from her grip and clattered to the parquet flooring.
As if she’d conjured him, Hendrix stood just inside the door, as gorgeous in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt as he was out of them. Because he had the same smile on his face regardless, the one that he was aiming at her now. The same one that had flushed through her on that dance floor at the Calypso Room a million years ago when she’d first caught sight of him.
“Hendrix Harris,” she’d murmured then. And now apparently, as she realized she’d spoken out loud.
“Rosalind Harris,” he returned easily, which was not even close to what he’d said to her that night in Vegas but almost made her swoon in a similar fashion. “I like what you’ve done with your hair.”
Her fingers flew to her head and met the clown wig. Oh, God. She started to pull it off and then defiantly dropped her hand. “I’m practicing.”
“To be a clown?”
She shook her head. “Facing down my shortcomings. How did you know I was here?”
Which was only the first of a whole slew of other questions, ones that she couldn’t seem to get out around the lump in her throat. Hendrix was so close that she could reach out and touch him. She almost did. But she’d given up that right because she was an idiot, clearly.
“I didn’t. I went to your loft first but the moving guys said they hadn’t seen you. So it was worth a shot to come here. I saw your car outside.”
“You were looking for me? That’s funny. I...” Need to tell you some things. But she had no idea how to take the first step. When she’d wished he was here so she could say what was in her heart, she hadn’t actually thought that would happen. He was so beautiful and smelled so delicious and familiar that her muscles had frozen. “You could have called.”
“I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I, um, drove around a lot so I could practice.” His smile reappeared. “I guess we’re both doing that today.”
Oddly, the fact that he seemed nervous and unable to figure out how to navigate either melted her heart. And gave her the slimmest glimmer of insight that maybe she’d been completely wrong about everything. “Were you practicing something like, ‘watching my mom at the hospital made me realize I have a lifelong dream to be a clown’? Because that can be arranged.”
Instead of laughing or throwing out a joke of his own, he feathered a thumb across her cheek. “More like I messed up and let you pack all your stuff so you could leave me, when that’s not what I want.”
Her whole body froze. Except for her heart. That was beating a mile a minute as something bright fluttered through it. “It’s not?”
He shook his head once, never letting go of her gaze. “You’re my peanut butter and my jelly. Without you, I’ve got two useless pieces of bread that taste like sawdust. I want a chance to see what kind of marriage we can have without all the extra baggage. I mean, not to put too much pressure on you all at once.” He hesitated, looking so miserable that she feared he would stop saying these beautiful things. “I’m trying to say that I want—”
“I love you,” she blurted out. Oh, God. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t stop behaving like a dimwit when it came to this man? “Not that I’m trying to put pressure on you—”
“I love you, too,” he broke in and she was pretty sure the dazed look on his face was reflected on her own. “I’m changing my answer.”
“Because you’re a dimwit, too?” Maybe she should stop talking. “I mean, I’m a dimwit. Not you. I was scared that I was going to lose you—”
“No, you’re right,” he agreed readily. “I’m a complete and total dimwit. I have a problem with rejection so I try really hard to avoid it.”
“I wasn’t—I mean, I would never reject...” Except for when she’d told him she couldn’t stay. She should have stayed. What if he’d never come looking for her? She would have missed out on the best thing that had ever happened to her. “I messed up, too. A lot. I should have told you I was falling for you and that I didn’t want a divorce.”
Something tender filtered through his gaze. “Funny, that’s exactly what I practiced saying to you in the car as I drove around the whole of Raleigh. You stole my line.”
“So that’s it then? I don’t want a divorce, you don
’t want a divorce. We love each other and we’re staying married?” It sounded too good to be true, like a situation ripe for being ripped from her hands. Her pulse wobbled. This was the part where she had to calm down and face her fears like an adult who could handle her life. “I have a hard time trusting that all good things aren’t about to come to an instant end.”
She swallowed the rest, wishing he’d run true to form and interrupt her with his own revelations. But that didn’t happen. He did hold out his hand and when she clasped it, the way he squeezed back was better than any time he’d ever touched her, bar none. Because it was encouraging, accepting. A show of solidarity. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, he said without saying a word.
