Almost Perfect

Chapter 6

The gift of good intentions is often a burden to the receiver.

– How to Have a Perfect Life

"Gee, that went over well," Sandy grumbled as the screen door to the dining hall snapped shut behind Joe's retreating back. Through the large screen windows along the side walls, he remained in plain view as he went down the wooden stairs and toward the riverbank.

Maddy struggled with guilt as she watched him go. Ignoring Joe's silent treatment for her own benefit was difficult enough, but how did she ignore the fact that her presence clearly upset him? She couldn't skip every meal. Yet, all through dinner he'd sat quietly eating while the coordinators and Mama Fraser made plans for the following day. They'd gathered at the long table closest to the massive rock fireplace, amid a sea of other tables that would soon ring with the voices of campers.

Their lively conversation had died, though, when the meal ended and Carol suggested a game of tag football. Joe had simply stood, claimed he had a canoe to fix in the boathouse, and left.

"You're right," Dana said to Carol. "Something's clearly bothering him."

"But what?" Bobbi asked. "I refuse to believe he's depressed at the thought of being the permanent director of Camp Enchantment. How on earth could anyone be depressed about that?" Her gaze took in the lodge-style dining hall with its high log ceiling. Indian designs had been carved into the columns and beams, and years' worth of wood smoke permeated the air. "Living here year-round has to be one of the best jobs ever!"

"To us, yes," Carol agreed with a nervous glance at Joe's mother. "But maybe not to him."

"Actually, Bobbi has a point." Sandy scooted forward, her blond hair in its usual perky ponytail. "It could be something else."

"Maybe it's personal, like trouble with his love life." Bobbi turned to Mama. "Is he dating anyone?"

"Get real." Sandy scoffed before Mama could answer. "Men who look like Joe don't have dating problems."

"You don't know that." Bobbi's face creased into a scowl. "Just because he looks like… you know-"

"A total babe?" Leah offered with a sigh.

"Guys, please." Carol blushed. "His mother is sitting right here."

"Don't let me stop you." Mama chuckled. "I'm rather proud that women think my son is sexy. Although Bobbi's right. Being a… what did you call him? A baby?"

"No." Leah laughed. "Not baby. A 'babe.' "

Maddy could have argued that after the way he'd acted toward her the last day and a half.

"Well," Mama said. "Being a 'babe' doesn't mean he's never had woman trouble."

"Are you saying that's it?" Sandy frowned. "Some woman messed him over?"

"Give us her name." Bobbi's face turned thunderous. "We'll take care of her."

"Now, girls." Mama held up a hand. "I simply said it was a possibility."

"In which case there's nothing we can do to cheer him up." Carol sighed in defeat.

"Wait. I know," Sandy piped up. "I could date him."

"In your dreams," Dana scoffed. "Face it, Sandy, he's known all of us since we were in training bras, which I think pretty much ruins our chances with him."

"Life is so unfair." Sandy pouted.

Carol looked at his mother. "I don't suppose you have any suggestions?"

"Oh, I never meddle in my son's affairs."

Maddy choked on her iced tea, then gasped for breath.

Dana pounded her between the shoulder blades. "You okay?"

"Fine," Maddy replied, wheezing. "I just… swallowed wrong."

"So, Madeline." Mama smiled sweetly. "I don't suppose you have an idea for how to cheer Joe up."

"Not a clue." Actually, she did. She could move back to Austin and get out of Joe's life. Unfortunately, quitting her job a week before camp started would leave him in the lurch-which was not a good way to make up for hurting him in the past.

As the others continued brainstorming about ways to make Joe happy, she took the opportunity to gather her dirty dishes. "If y'all will excuse me, I think I'll head back to the Craft Shack and do a little work."

"Okay." Carol gave her a distracted wave. "We'll see you in the morning."

What a mess, she thought as she slid her tray through the opening to the kitchen. She could hear the kitchen staff, local women from one of the nearby pueblos, talking in their native tongue. It made her feel even more of an outsider. Everyone seemed to belong here but her.

When she left the dining hall, she glanced up to where the Craft Shack sat on the rise waiting for her, then in the direction Joe had gone. Sooner or later, they needed to clear the air between them or they'd both be in for a miserable summer. Unfortunately, she couldn't follow him right then, because everyone would see.

What would the others think if they knew she was the woman behind Joe's dark mood? Visions of them ganging up against her made her cringe. At the first opportunity, she definitely needed to have a very calm, very adult conversation with Joe. Together maybe they could find a mature way to deal with each other.

Rock music blared from the boom box in the corner, warring with the scream of the electric sander in Joe's hand. The sound of wild guitar licks suited him just fine as he sweated over prepping one of the canoes for a fiberglass patch. Finally satisfied that the area was smooth, he flipped off the sander, leaving only the angry beat of the music as he straightened. Removing his protective eye gear, he mopped his forehead with his arm. Fiber-glass dust gnawed at his skin, making him contemplate a dive into the river to rinse off. Maybe the exertion of a late-night swim would help him work off the temper simmering in his gut.

For now, he settled for pulling off his shirt and using the sink to wash up. He was drying his arms and chest with paper towels when his sixth sense raised the hair on the back of his neck. He whirled to find Maddy standing in the doorway against a backdrop of moon-washed night.

For an instant, neither of them moved. She stared at him with the wide-eyed shock of a virgin seeing a bare-chested man for the first time. Which might have made him laugh under different circumstances. Maddy was hardly a virgin, and he knew for a fact she'd seen a man's bare chest. His in particular.

Even so, her gaze traveled over his upper body, taking in the tattooed armbands circling both his biceps-which were new to her-then across his pecs and down his abs to the waistband of his shorts. His muscles bunched and fluttered as if she'd brushed him with her fingertips.

Swallowing a curse, he reached over and turned off the boom box, plunging the boathouse into silence. "You wanted something?"

Her gaze snapped back to his face and color flooded her cheeks. "I, um, I… saw the light on. From my balcony."

"And…?"

"And, I thought maybe this would be a good time for us to…"

"What?" Screw each other's brains out? The idea of an angry fuck appealed to him even more than a swim as a way to work off his foul mood. Espe-cially since she had caused both his mental and his physical frustration. The thought made his traitorous groin stir even more. Dammit.

"To talk," she finally managed to get out.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." He turned his back and tossed the paper towels in the trash. To save himself the embarrassment of standing before her with the beginnings of a hard-on, he reached for his shirt and shook it out with a snap. "In fact, I think you being here right now is a very bad idea."

"Joe."

He sensed her moving toward him and sent her a dark scowl over one shoulder.

She stopped. "We need to work this out."

"No. We don't." He jerked his shirt on, which made his skin itch all over again, but at least it hung down far enough to grant him some privacy. Reaching for a bottle of acetone and a cloth, he crossed back to the boat and started cleaning the area to be patched. "You're only going to be here twelve weeks. I've survived unpleasant situations longer than that."

"So that's it?" Her voice went up in pitch. "We're going to act like the past doesn't exist?"

"That's pretty much the plan, yeah." He concentrated on wiping dust away from the crack in the hull, forcing an outward show of calm when everything inside him wanted to lash out at her with all the things he wished he'd said fifteen years ago. Or pull her into his arms and beg her to take him back. His teeth clenched against the second impulse. He'd actually done that the last time, begged her and humiliated himself. With tears, damn it. He'd literally cried in front of her. The memory made him physically ill.

"Joe…" She took another step, sending his nerves on high alert. "I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry for that to the depth of my heart-"

"Stop!" He straightened, but refused to step back even as panic pounded in his chest. She seemed determined to rip open this old wound and watch him bleed all over again. If she stood there much longer, he feared she'd succeed. "Let's skip the big apology scene. What happened between us is ancient history. This may come as a shock to you, Maddy, but I got over you years ago. I've been a little too busy living my life since then for it to even be a factor. So, in case you're worried, let me assure you, I'm perfectly capable of working with you through the summer-at the end of which you'll do me the favor of leaving. Now if you don't mind, I have work to do."

Maddy watched as he bent over the canoe again. As uncomfortable as she felt with his anger pushing her toward the door like a physical force, she couldn't leave. Somehow she had to find a way to get through to him. Unfortunately, with Joe, sometimes prodding his temper was the only way to get him talking. She took a deep breath and braced herself. "Actually, I do mind. Because I don't think you are over it. Otherwise you wouldn't be this upset."

"But then whether I'm upset or not really isn't your business, is it? You made your choice years ago, and it wasn't me." The planes of his face hardened as he went back to work.

She thought for a moment that he'd leave it at that, that she'd never get him to open up, but then he surprised her by straightening.

"Although, for the record," he said, "I never asked you to choose. I never said you can marry me or you can be an artist but you can't do both."

"Joe…" She blinked, dumbfounded. "You asked me to marry you and move onto an Army base halfway across the country knowing I'd just won a full scholarship to UT."

"We could have worked around that, if I'd had some advance warning you even wanted to go to college. But no"-he tossed his rag onto the worktable-"I didn't have time to factor that in before I proposed, because you dropped that bombshell on me out of the blue."

Her own anger rose hot and fast. "Well, you didn't have to freak out about it."

A muscle in his jaw ticked as he spaced his words out. "I did not freak out."

"You panicked, then."

"I was angry." Echoes of the emotion flashed in his dark eyes. "Because you never shared any of that with me. I thought we were moving in one direction, only to learn you were making completely different plans behind my back."

"You make it sound like I was cheating on you."

"That's pretty much how it felt!" He took a deep, chest-expanding breath and let it out slowly in a visible effort to control his temper. "Maddy, we'd been dating seriously for nearly two years. Even when I went into the Army, we stayed together. We'd been talking about getting married and having kids for months."

"No, you talked about getting married and having kids. I just sat there trying not to freak."

"What are you saying?" Her words seemed to knock the wind out of him. "That the whole time we were together, you were never serious? Christ,

Maddy, what were you doing? Using me for sex?" He laughed harshly. "I can't believe I said that. But it's true, isn't it? Shit!"

"No-"

"You were getting off screwing the school troublemaker, running with the bad crowd, pretending to be one of us and all the while you were top of the class."

"I wasn't 'top of the class.' "

"Damn near." He shook his head in disgust. "Oh, the media had a field day with you. Daughter of an underpaid cop, with a stay-at-home mother and four siblings, has little chance of paying for college until lo and behold, she wins a full scholarship from the Lone Star Arts League, has her work displayed in the capitol, gets her picture taken with the flippin' governor. And if all that isn't enough, gee whiz, folks, she's not just pretty and talented, she's running neck and neck on her GPA with the saluta-fucking-torian!"

Maddy cringed, seeing in retrospect the shock he must have felt at Airhead Maddy making good grades.

"You never even told me you'd entered that competition."

"Because… what if I hadn't won?"

"Do you think I would have cared?" Hurt replaced the anger in his eyes. "I was in love with you. We were practically engaged. Don't you think I had a right to know you were working your ass off, trying to make something of your life? Don't you think I would have been proud of you? Do you know how insulting it was that you didn't share your dreams with me?"

"You're right." Guilt swamped her. "I should have told you. I was just… I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That you'd make fun of me." Tears prickled her eyes. "That you'd think I was putting on airs. Shooting too high. Too full, of myself."

" 'Putting on airs'?" He frowned at her. "Jesus, that sounds like something your father would say."

"It is what he said. My whole life, every time I did something good; he… insulted me." She bit her lip as the memories swelled into her throat. "Do you know what he said when he found out I'd won a scholarship? I promise you it wasn't 'congratulations' or 'I'm proud' or even 'nice work.' He said, 'Well, la-di-da, look who thinks she's something special.'" The tears tumbled down her cheeks. She swiped at them angrily, hating that her father could still make her cry. "I wanted out of that house, and out of that crummy neighborhood so bad, I could feel it in my bones. And I was going to do it, no matter what it cost or what it took."

"Marrying me would have gotten you out of there pretty damn fast."

"That's not a good reason to make a lifetime commitment."

"You're right." He sighed. "You know, Maddy, a part of me understands. Your father was an insecure asshole who only felt good about himself when he was cutting other people down."

"He's still that way."

"But I'm not him," Joe said quietly. "How could you think I'd be anything but proud of what you were doing?"

"But that's just it. At the time, to my ears, you were starting to sound exactly like him."

"How?" He looked taken aback.

"Being all gung ho military." She held up her hand when he started to interrupt. "Until I grew up and got out on my own, I honestly thought most cops, and therefore most men in uniform, were like my father. I've since learned that's not true. A good many of them are like the Colonel. They have conviction, integrity, and most of all, compassion. I should have seen that then. You weren't turning into my dad. You were turning into yours. And I can't think of a better man to emulate."

She took a step toward him, aching for him to understand. "Unfortunately, I didn't see that. I was too young. Joe, I was seventeen when you asked me to marry you."

"I know." Embarrassment flickered in his eyes before he looked away. "I actually didn't mean to ask you for at least another year. But then you told me you were going to UT and the thought of you running around campus with all those college boys…"

"Made you panic."

"If you call going out and buying the biggest engagement ring I could afford panicking, then yeah, I guess I did." His mouth tightened. "I knew we couldn't marry right away, but I wanted to be sure every guy who saw you saw that rock on your finger and knew you were taken."

She actually smiled a bit at that. It was so like Joe to stake out his territory. As a foster child, he'd learned to travel light, but what was his, he held on to with both hands, and he would battle any kid who touched it. The word "mine" was used sparingly, but when he said it he meant it.

He heaved a sigh. "I admit, I didn't like the idea of you going to UT, but I wasn't trying to hold you back. I was afraid of losing you to some frat boy.

But"-his gaze bored into her-"I never would have stood in the way of your dreams, if you'd only shared them with me."

"The problem is… I wouldn't have believed you. I wouldn't have been able to. Not with you standing there wearing a uniform, with your hair buzzed short, spouting macho military jargon." She took another step, laid her hand on the canoe that stood between them. "When you proposed, my whole life flashed before my eyes. Only it wasn't my life. It was my mother's. I didn't want to wind up like her, bowing to a man's wishes, cooking, cleaning, raising kids with little or no help, while all my dreams were trampled over. I didn't know marriage could be a partnership, not a life sentence where the woman's identity is ripped away the first day."

"Fire-breathing Maddy trampled over?" He shook his head. "I can't imagine you ever winding up like that."

"Looking back, I can't either. In fact, the opposite would have happened, and that wouldn't have been fair to you. Back then, I was too adamant about my independence, to the point of selfishness. The past eight years have taught me that sometimes you have to set yourself aside and put your own dreams on hold. But at least I did it for love, not lack of a backbone like my mom."

"The last eight years?" Confusion creased his brow.

She hesitated, not sure how he'd react to this topic. "My husband died of cancer after a long illness."

"I'm sorry." The honest sorrow in his eyes added weight to the words.

"I am too." Sympathy always brought the grief welling back to the surface. This time when the tears came, she let them. "I loved him very much, and I miss him every day."

"Oh God, Maddy-" He looked ready to step around the canoe and come to her.

"I'm fine. Really." She raised a hand, knowing she would lose all composure if he touched her now. "It's been hard, but it's time for me to get on with my life, get back to the dreams I set aside. Which is why I came here."

His frown deepened. "To work at a summer camp?"

"No, to Santa Fe. For my artwork." She smiled sadly. "You know what the big irony of my life is? I married a man who was the polar opposite of my father. Intelligent, successful, self-assured, and one of the kindest, sweetest men I have ever met."

"He sounds like a geek."

"He was!" She laughed. "The poor guy actually wore pocket protectors when we first started dating. He was also color blind and had no taste in art, which is how we met. His office manager kept badgering him to decorate. So Nigel-"

"Nigel?" Joe's brows shot up. "You married a man named Nigel?"

"I did." She felt her smile spread across her whole face. "He was a tall, lanky stereotype of an accountant, and the day he walked into the gallery where I worked, desperate for art and hilariously clueless, I took one look at him and thought 'Oh, honey, you so need me. For a lot more than picking out your art.'"

Sadness and envy filled Joe's eyes. "You must have made his life."

"I-" His words touched her so deep she didn't know what to say. "Thank you. I like to think I did. We were very happy together. The irony, though, is I married him thinking here was a man who will never ask me to ignore my needs to take care of him. And then he got cancer and that's exactly what I had to do."

"You're saying you stopped painting?"

"I didn't have the energy or the heart to paint. Not often, anyway."

"You must have resented him for that."

"Not at all. No."

"No?" he demanded. "What do you mean, no?"

She frowned in confusion at his outraged expression. "There were lots of days when I resented life, but never Nigel. I went through the full range of anger and grief, of railing at God, and finally coming to terms with the unfairness of life and injustice of death."

"Yeah, I know all about those last two."

"After serving in the Middle East, I imagine you do."

He studied her. "So you're telling me you gave up your chance to become an artist for this man and you have no regrets?"

"Regrets? Now those I have plenty, but marrying Nigel isn't one of them. I think we were meant to have that time together. Nigel helped me grow up, and I think I brought a lot of joy into his short life." She cocked her head, studying the man before her, this grown-up version of the boy she'd loved. "What about you? Regrets?"

"None I care to dwell on."

"There's a difference between dwelling on and dealing with. So, the question is"-she took a deep breath-"where do we go from here? Can you and I put the past behind us and be friends?"

"Maddy…" A humorless laugh escaped. "A five-minute conversation doesn't make fifteen years of anger go away. Especially after learning that you weren't willing to give up a single thing for me, but you gave up years of your life and the thing I thought mattered to you most for another man."

Her back stiffened. "I'd like you to remember, I was seventeen when I broke up with you-and twenty-four and married when my husband was diagnosed with cancer. What was I going to do? Divorce him?"

"No." Anger glinted in his eyes. "But it still pisses me off."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. I can't change the past. What concerns me now is the present. Can we or can we not work together without this bitterness constantly between us?"

"You're asking a lot."

"I know that." She wanted to shake him, since she was doing this as much for his sake as her own.

He finally sighed. "The most I can promise is to continue being civil."

"You call that civil?" She gestured toward the camp. "You're treating me like a total stranger whose presence you can barely tolerate."

"You are a total stranger! The Maddy I knew would never have put her art aside for anyone. I still can't believe you did that."

She shook her head. Reasoning with Joe was like reasoning with a rock. "If it helps, that's why I'm here. To find out once and for all if I'm good enough to make it as an artist."

"What do you mean 'if you're good enough'?"

His temper built again, but oddly, it seemed to be on her behalf. "You were good enough back in high school to win that scholarship."

"That doesn't mean I'm good enough to get a gallery to represent me."

"What kind of bullshit is this? Of course you're good enough." He paced away, confusing her with his agitation. Her art was the reason she'd tossed out for rejecting him. Why would he defend it? Turning, he came back. Planting both hands on the canoe, he leaned toward her. "You want to reach a truce with me? Fine! Here's my conditions. If you're going to put me through a whole summer of hell, you damn well better make it pay off."

"What are you saying?"

"I want you to do what you said you were going to do. Become a professional artist. That's why you jilted me, right? Well, if you want me to stop being pissed, you damn well better do it."

"Joe…" She blinked in surprise. "It's not that easy-"

"I assume you brought a portfolio or something."

"I did, but-"

"Good." He straightened. "I have to go into town tomorrow to pick up paint for this canoe. You're going with me so I can take you to some galleries."

"Joe, I have work to do tomorrow." And riding around with him was the last thing she wanted to do. "I'm supposed to help Sandy clean out the prop room."

"Tough. She'll have to manage without you, and you'll work twice as hard the next day to make it up to her."

"But-"

"I'm not kidding." He leaned forward again. "If you're staying, you are not going to play around at this. You're going to do it."

"I see." Her own jaw tightened. "Is this where I snap to attention and say 'Yes, sir!' "

"Damn straight. I'll pick you up at the Craft Shack at oh eight hundred."