“You could be nicer to him,” Rose said. “He was a big help today. And he’s going to tape all the crown moldings tomorrow. And he bought that sound system—”
“I’m getting him pizza!” Tom interjected, shoving his feet into shoes. What, did she want him to kiss Boyd on the mouth for her?
Rosie rounded her eyes at him, seeming to detect his plunge in mood.
“I’ll pay for the pizza, at least,” she said. “Since I invited him and the girls.”
Tom tried to demur, but she rolled off the love seat and went to her purse. She fished a credit card out of her wallet and tried to press it into his hands, only seeming to think the better of itat the last minute. Her eyes widened with a flash of apparent panic, and she jerked the card back toward herself.
This double take caught Tom’s attention, and acting on instinct, he intercepted her tipsy, uncoordinated hand and snatched the card from her fingers. Rosie made an abortive jump for the card as Tom held it up over her head, out of her reach.
“It’s not what you think,” Rosie blurted.
Tom turned his back to her so he could bring the card protectively against his chest and read it.
“I’m not thinking anything,” Tom temporized. He supposed there could be a lot of reasons that Rose’s credit card was still in the name of ROSE K. WILCZEWSKI, and all of them were appealing ones. He turned back and smirked at her, card pressed flat against his chest. No, maybe tonight wasn’t ending on a disappointing note.
“Lots of women don’t go back to their maiden name when they get divorced,” Rose said unevenly, her face turning bright red.
“Uh-huh,” Tom said. “I can see why you’d want to hang on to Wilczewski, especially.” He grinned wider.
“It’s not a weird name,” Rose said.
“That’s what my grandmother from Lódz told me,” Tom said, taking a step closer to her.
“I only kept it because people at my first job would have made really terrible R. Kelly jokes if my email address had changed,” she insisted. “I just didn’t want to call any attention to it.”
“Makes sense to me,” Tom said, placing his hands on hershoulders. This was amazing. He couldn’t wait to tell his parents.
“And I use my maiden name at this job,” she said. “On everything except legal documents, actually. I may still do the name change thing.”
“Sure,” Tom said, beaming now. Rosie was not the sort to put things off. Something had kept her from taking that last step and erasing the evidence that she’d ever been married. He dared more commentary. “I just think it’s charming that you always planned to be Rose Kelly Wilczewski for the rest of your life.”
Rosie’s lips thinned in distress. “I didn’t.”
“What?” Tom asked.
She shot an unhappy look up at him, then glanced away again. He waited for her to explain, but she only did it reluctantly.
“I didn’t think I’d be Rose Wilczewski for the rest of my life. I didn’t think I would be at this point, even.” Her shoulders bunched, and she sighed. “Shows how good I am at planning how my life should go. I thought I’d do the exact same thing I couldn’t handle the first time, then ended up doing nothing at all.”
It took him a moment to work through that, plus why she’d expected him to be upset. When would she have changed her name? Oh.
She’d thought she’d get remarried and take some other guy’s name. She just hadn’t wanted to go back to Kelly in the interim.
Tom had worried about that. He’d never stopped worryingabout it, actually. That someday Adrian would take him out to get stone drunk on a flimsy excuse, then drop the news that Rosie was marrying someone else. Tom thought that news would have prompted him to action in the same way the hurricane had, but this opportunity was surely a lot neater than hiring assassins to knock off her fiancé.
She ducked her head like she was embarrassed, and he cleared his throat. He waved the card between two fingers. “I’ll go buy the pizza. Do you want to get dressed and meet me over at the inn?”
“Sure. I should probably move over to the inn suite if the bees are gone? I could pack up?” She made it a question.
Tom shook his head. “I wouldn’t. It’s still a mess. And there’s lots of construction to come. Let’s stay here for now.” Like hell he was letting Rosie sleepfartherfrom him tonight.
She agreed easily. Very easily, he noted as he put shoes on and headed for the door.
He liked to think it was the same reason she hadn’t ever changed her name. She still wanted what she’d always wanted. Some part of her still thought he could give it to her. And the part of himself he liked best still thought he could too.
He still liked the idea of Rose Wilczewski, for the rest of their lives.
