Hidden Summit (Virgin River #17)(31)

“The talk?” she asked, digging into the Nam Sod—minced chicken with ginger, peanut and onions. “About expectations and stuff?”

His eyebrows lifted curiously. “You want to give me the talk?”

“I know how men think. You think that if I’ve slept with you, I’ll expect you to marry me. And you want to be sure I don’t.”

He tilted his head and thought about this. She was damn close. “Well, not exactly. Being with you is good—but I’m afraid I’m going to let you down. I have serious baggage. Things to overcome, work through, you know.”

“I know.”

“I should tell you about my ex-wife....”

“Only if you feel like it. I don’t think she has anything to do with me. With us.”

“Well, she might. You’re trying to get over a divorce after what you thought was a good eight-year marriage. My marriage lasted a year. I only knew Samantha for six months before we got married. And she cheated, too, but with something like a hundred guys....”

Leslie coughed and choked. Conner slapped her back until she recovered.

“I know. It’s a lot to swallow, no pun intended. I thought I had a great marriage, too. It worked for me. But my wife cheated, we had a confrontation and she said she was…” He paused. It was still hard to say. He cleared his throat. “She said she was a sex addict.”

Leslie’s eyes grew very large. “Is that so?” she asked cautiously.

He gave a nod. Then a shrug. “Maybe that’s correct, that’s what her problem was. My sister didn’t exactly forgive her, but she did kind of defend her, saying she was dealing with a compulsion. She went into a treatment program, though. I have no idea if it worked. She asked me to come to some kind of family week session so I could understand her and the disease, but I couldn’t. I was done. I said that I wasn’t family anymore and wouldn’t be. In the one year we were married, she was unfaithful more times than she could count. Or remember.”

“Oh, Conner, I’m really sorry.”

“So as you might expect, I have world-class trust issues. Not the way you think—I really don’t have a single problem trusting you. But I sure don’t trust me. I never thought I was the kind of guy who couldn’t see what was right in front of my face. I never suspected a thing. I never even had enough imagination to suspect something like what was going on right under my own nose.”

Leslie left her chopsticks standing in the Yum Woo Sen.

“Listen, I’ve been divorced almost two years and I’ve been completely checked and checked and rechecked,” he assured her. “There hasn’t been anyone since. I’m safe.” At least in that regard, he thought.

She was quiet for a moment. Finally she said, “It must have been awful.”

“I’m one of those guys like your old boss—I have strong feelings about that kind of commitment. My parents married for life. My sister married her husband for life, though his life was cut short way too early. I assumed any woman who made those promises meant them. I guess I can be naive. Put it another way—I had no idea how naive I could be.”

She smiled. “I know exactly how you feel.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Well, you don’t know exactly. You caught a text message. I came home early and found her banging the kid who delivered bottled water.”

Leslie gulped, trying to imagine.

“When I think back about it, it’s pretty ironic. I actually delivered bottled water part-time during my one semester in college.” He snorted. “No one ever met me at the door naked.”

She let herself give a short laugh. “I guess she hasn’t been in touch.”

“There have been letters, but I didn’t open them, just put them right in the shredder. I had made it pretty clear to her it was over for me, no grudges, nothing. It was a lie, of course—I was mad and I was carrying a grudge. But really, she needed to pick up the pieces somewhere else.”

“I’m shocked,” she said. “I can’t imagine a woman attached to you even having enough desire leftover for another guy. You’re pretty efficient.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Is this where I say thank you?”

“Not yet. Let me tell you a couple of things. You’re not the only one with a few revelations. Moving here a little over a month ago was the first time in my adult life I didn’t live in the same town with my parents and husband or my ex-husband and his perfect new little wife. And you know what happened? I immediately started learning a few things about myself. For years I had wondered if I deserved Greg, the fabulous future governor he thought he was, and now that I’ve had some distance from all that, it’s pretty clear I deserved much better. I give you a lot of credit for that, by the way, for really seeing me, and not just seeing me as a reflection of you. With my husband, I was always fading into the background, like an overexposed photo. Even though I was the one who did most of the work in our marriage, from the scut work around the house and yard to paying the bills to constantly supporting my wonderful spouse, I had a hard time thinking of myself as valuable. As competent. I didn’t even feel competent between the sheets!”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Les, you’re way past competent. Trust me.”

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve been liking myself a lot more. I like my little rented house, all the new flowers, my yoga classes, my job in the construction trailer. The crews respect me and do things my way, my boss already needs me. I have a kind-of boyfriend,” she said, pausing to grin at him, “who lets me call the shots. I’m getting to know myself, Conner. It’s okay that you don’t feel like marrying me because I don’t feel like marrying anyone. I feel so good being on my own. Take care of your issues, I’ll take care of mine and if we meet along the way and have a good time, more the better.