Bring Me Home for Christmas (Virgin River #16)(39)

“Becca, is that you?” Doug asked.

“How did you get this number?” she asked.

“From your brother.”

The reasons to kill Big Richie were stacking up.

“I was angry,” Doug said. “You caught me off guard and I was angry. I never expected it. I had no idea you were still hung up on the ex. We’ll work it out. You come back home, I’ll take the weekend off and spend it with you, we’ll talk things over and we’ll get it sorted out.”

“If I change my mind, I’ll call you, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Becca, we’ve been together for a year!”

“I know. I know. And I really wanted it to work, but no matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t. I just wasn’t feeling it, Doug. I had too many doubts. And I’m glad to know that before I was in too deep. Really, I am sorry. I am. You’re a great guy, a great catch. The right woman is just waiting for you to find her.”

“You just need some time to think this through! You can’t really be this stupid!”

She sighed, not even offended. She remembered how clumsy it felt each time she said I love you. “You need someone who is totally, completely and uncompromisingly in love with you. Doug, I’m sorry. I wanted it to be me, but it’s not.”

She disconnected.

The phone immediately rang. She looked at the caller ID and there he was. Big Richie. “I’m going to kill you!”

“What? It’s not like this is my fault!”

“You gave out this number—to Mother and Doug! Are you crazy? Do you just plain hate me?”

“It’s true, then? You broke up with Doug?”

“Surprised me as much as you,” she said. “It wasn’t what I intended to do, but I thought I had to tell him I was here with Denny… Well, not with him, but that I hoped while I was here I’d figure out… Oh, never mind, I’m tired of trying to explain this. Bottom line, I learned something important, and just in time. I don’t love Doug. I don’t think I ever did.”

“So,” Rich said, “you pretty much just lied to me about wanting to go hunting.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Although, I was kind of curious about hunting and I think I’d actually like to learn fly-fishing. You know I caught that big sailfish deep-sea fishing and—”

“Becca!” he yelled.

“What?”

“What’s going to happen now?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Mother’s furious with me for giving up a lawyer, Doug is furious with me for even thinking about giving him up and I’m stuck in Virgin River with a guy I used to love, who seems to be pretty distant right now. And you’re giving out any number where I might be found!”

“I never saw you with Doug,” Rich said.

“What are you talking about? You saw me with him all the time. You like Doug.”

“Yeah, he’s okay. I’m not sure I liked him for you.”

“Huh?”

“It just didn’t seem… I don’t know. Maybe I was still hung up on you and my best friend or something. I couldn’t see you with Doug.”

“Now, that’s interesting. Especially since I wouldn’t consider you sensitive. Or intuitive. Or even conscious, most of the time.”

“Try not to insult the only person on your side, Becca.”

“Then try to tell me why. If you like Doug, why don’t you like him for me?”

“Not sure,” Big Richie said. “Maybe it was that stick he has up his ass…”

She laughed in spite of herself. “The major important contacts through my fraternity stick?”

“Possibly,” Rich said, laughing.

“Or could it be the you’d give me up for a guy with only a high school education shtick?”

“Did he say that?” Rich asked. “I bet he actually said that, didn’t he?”

“He actually did,” Becca confirmed.

“See, that’s the thing about Doug. He can be cool. He can be fun. And he can be a real dick. Every once in a while, he has a hard time holding his dickness down.”

She laughed again. “I think this is the closest I’ve ever felt to you.”

“We’re the same age,” he informed her soberly. “I never had anyone special. I had a lot of girls I thought might get special, but they didn’t. I saw you all lit up once because you were totally caught… I didn’t know what it was at the time. Then I saw it gone and I started to get it. Then I saw you with Doug and it just wasn’t there. He had all the stuff that was going to make him a winner. But he didn’t have any of the stuff that lit you up.”

“Richie,” she said, touched and almost teary.

“Until everyone started freaking out, I thought you’d play it safe. Find a way to go for the lawyer, shtick or not. Problem is…I have no idea where Denny stands. You could be looking for the right one as long as me.”

“That’s okay. That makes more sense than playing it safe.”

“And, Becca?”

“Yes?”

“You ever lie to me and trick me like that again, you’re gonna pay!”