She held out her dresses to him. “Would you please hang these for me? I won’t be able to reach the rod.”

He took her clothes and hurried to the closet. The task kept him busy for several minutes as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say now. He’d been an idiot. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut? But no. He had to go spouting off.

As if his own personal humiliation wasn’t enough, Annie May’s words came back to haunt him. A couple of days before, she’d accused him of only pretending to compromise so that he could be the good guy while Josie took all the blame. He still didn’t know if his friend had been right or not. But he was beginning to see the faults in their marriage might not have been as black-and-white as he would like.

Josie sat by the window and stared into the growing twilight. She knew that she couldn’t hide in her room forever, although when the alternative was to face Del, it didn’t seem like such a bad plan.

She’d managed to sleep a little after she’d unpacked. The nap had given her energy, although it had done little to brighten her spirits. She’d been prepared to have to deal with Del for a few weeks when she’d known that he’d offered to take care of her until she was walking again. She hadn’t counted on having to live and breathe within the same walls that had witnessed the disintegration of their marriage.

A whisper of music teased at her memory, and she recalled a song about ghosts in the house. Fleeting remnants of memories tangling with wishes of what could have been. That’s how she felt-surrounded by ghosts, some friendly, some not. If only…The magical phrase. If only things had been different.

A light knock on her closed door made her turn her chair. She smoothed her hands over the skirt of her dress, then she called out for Del to enter.

He stuck his head around the door and grinned. “Dinner has arrived,” he said with a wink. “I emphasize the word arrived because I had no hand in the preparation. No. I take that back. I made the phone call. That should count for something. It’s Mexican and I ordered your favorites. Are you hungry?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Then come on. It’s getting cold.”

She forced herself to wheel toward him. He wore jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt. Nothing special. Yet he was painfully handsome, and just looking at him made her heart beat faster than was healthy.

He held the door open wide, then fell into step behind her. Self-consciousness settled on her like a cloak. She hated the feeling. She also hated that he so obviously felt sorry for her. She would rather he was angry and raging than pitying her. Everything about the circumstances that forced them back into the same house made her crazy. Worse, she couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

She went into the kitchen and found the takeout containers spread over the round pine table. A space had been made for her wheelchair. She moved toward it, but even before she got there, she knew she was going to be too low.

Del stepped behind her. “I was afraid of that,” he said, then bent toward her. “If my lady would allow me?”

Before she could protest, he’d gathered her in his arms and lifted her to a regular seat.

Josie caught her breath as his strength surrounded her. He lifted her effortlessly, as if she hadn’t gained twenty pounds in the past year. As if her being an invalid didn’t matter.

She didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted to cling to him until all her doubts disappeared and she felt whole again. Which wasn’t going to happen. To cover her weakness she busied herself with her napkin.

“If you bring the walker into the kitchen before meals,” she said, studying the containers of food rather than him, “I can get into a regular chair by myself.”

He sat down across from her and winked. “But what if I like picking you up and carrying you around?”

“Like I’m the family cat?”

He tilted his head and studied her. “No. I don’t think of you as a cat.”

Before she could come up with a snappy response, he pointed to the different containers. “As promised, all your favorites. Fajitas, rice, a quesadilla and those crunchy things you like.” He opened a bag and dumped chips into a bowl. “There is both hot and regular sauce. I didn’t bother with margaritas because you’re still on antibiotics, which means you can’t drink alcohol, but I have just about everything else. What will it be? Soda, juice, water?”

“Water’s fine.”

Josie felt awkward and faintly foolish. She reached for a chip and nibbled on it. Del got her a glass of ice water and a beer for himself. When he was settled across from her again, he pushed the fajitas and the foil-wrapped tortillas toward her.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m feeling a lot better.” She filled a warm tortilla with a grilled steak and vegetable combination, then spooned the hot salsa over the filling.

Del munched on a chip. “Remember when we went to Mexico that one time,” he said, taking the fajitas she’d pushed toward him.

Josie took a bite of her dinner and chewed. Mexico. She and Del had vacationed there during the first year of their marriage. “We had a good time,” she said when she’d swallowed. “Well, except for that one night.”

He grinned. “Hey, it wasn’t the night that was so bad. It was the next morning.”

She found herself smiling in return. “Too many margaritas,” she admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick in my life.”

“But we recovered quickly. Probably because we were so young.”

“We had to have been younger. Older people have matured and know better than to drink that much.”

They’d also made love, she thought taking a bite of rice. In those days they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other. Nearly every afternoon had included a lengthy session of intimacy.

“You made me dive off that cliff,” he said.

Josie wrinkled her nose. “I’d nearly forgotten. You were terrified. I was sure you were going to back out at the last minute.”

“No way. You’d already jumped, so what could I do? Be a wiener dog in front of everyone in line?” He laughed. “At least I survived.”

She remembered the long plunge to the water and the contrast between the heat on the top of the cliff and the cool, swirling water below. “It was great. You loved it.”

His dark gaze met hers. Something almost affectionate glinted there. “Actually I did love it. I’m glad you talked me into it.”

They shared a few more memories, then quieted to eat. Josie managed to work her way through a fair amount of food. She wasn’t especially hungry but she knew she had to make sure she kept up her strength. Not eating much or well was one of the reasons she’d had the relapse in the first place.

“Josie?”

She glanced at him. He’d finished his dinner and was leaning back in his chair. To their left was the family room with its he-man television.

“What?”

He wadded up his paper napkin and tossed it onto the table. “When we were married we talked about dividing up the work around the house.”

“I remember.”

He shifted as if he were uncomfortable with the topic. Josie pushed away her plate. Suddenly her stomach didn’t feel very good.

“I automatically took the yard work for myself,” he said. “I guess because it’s a more traditional male chore. Would you have liked to have done it?”

She hadn’t had a clue about what he was going say, but she would never have guessed the topic to be yard work. It took her a couple of seconds to switch gears and respond to his question.

“Um, yeah, I think I would,” she said slowly. “I have always enjoyed being outdoors and I like working with plants. Sure. It would have been fun. At the risk of starting trouble, that is a very strange question. Want to tell me what brought it up?”

His mouth twisted slightly. “Annie May. I spoke to her a couple of days ago. She took great delight in pointing out all my flaws. One of them was my insistence that we compromise on the household chores. But instead of writing down all that needed to be done and deciding together how to split them, I came up with the compromise all on my own. Which, as she said, is the same as making sure it’s going my way. I wanted you to agree, not to give me input.”

Josie opened her mouth, then closed it. She’d never thought about their problems in that light, but it made sense. Del had insisted on coming up with the compromises when there had been trouble. Some had been fine, but others she’d really hated. And when she’d protested, he’d accused her of not being willing to do her share. She’d been trapped without a way to win.

“I hadn’t thought about it like that, but you could be right,” she told him. “We had all those fights about cooking. I always hated it. I grew up on a ranch, so I was used to hard work. I didn’t mind that, but I would rather have done anything than get stuck in the kitchen.” She leaned forward slightly. “Not only didn’t I know what I was doing, but I constantly worried about being compared to your mom. The woman is practically perfect. I always knew I was going to come up short. In my effort to avoid spending my life fetching for someone else, I probably went overboard to protect my interests.”

Del nodded slowly. “I was crazy about the whole thing, too. Somehow cooking dinner and doing the laundry became a power play for us. We lost sight of getting the work done and focused on who had to do it and when. I never saw how expecting you to cook all the meals and be responsible for having food in the house would make you feel. I eat, too. I could have learned.”

“Or hired your mom,” she teased.

“I don’t think I could have afforded her.” He shifted closer. “I’m sorry, Josie. I didn’t mean to be such a jerk about it all.”