Coming Home (Vista Falls #4)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “I thought we should talk.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” her mother said, sounding too cheery given the awkward situation. “I’m off to volunteer at the library for a few hours.” She gripped Zeke’s arm on the way out, mouthing, “Good luck.”

  “I saw that!” Juliette called after her. Her own mother was a traitor!

  “Mind if I sit down?” Zeke asked, gesturing to a free chair.

  “Suit yourself.” She reached for the remote and turned off the TV. “You want something to drink?”

  “No,” he said, sitting across from her. “I want to know why the hell you haven’t called. I was going out of my mind wondering what you were thinking, how you were feeling. If we’re really over, don’t you think you should have the guts to tell me that?”

  She’d left his house claiming she needed time to think, and in the past week, that was all she’d done. “Don’t talk to me about guts. You should have had the guts to tell me the truth about what happened to your brother.”

  “Agreed.”

  She didn’t want him to agree with her. She wanted him to defend his actions so she could get pissed off at him and vent. “So why didn’t you?”

  “I told you—I was afraid of losing you.” He linked his hands and stared down at them. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Juliette. And while I’m not afraid of many things, I was terrified of losing you.”

  She understood that. She was afraid of losing what they had too. “You wouldn’t have lost me if you’d just been honest from the beginning, when we were getting to know each other.”

  Looking frustrated, he blew out a breath. “You don’t think I thought about that? But you didn’t even know me then. I was sure you’d think I was making excuses for what happened, lying to get on your good side.”

  She considered how she would have reacted if he’d shared his story with her that first night. He was right. She probably would have questioned whether things had really gone down the way he claimed.

  “The thing is I really liked you, and I didn’t want you to think I was lying to you.” He smirked. “Believe me, the irony isn’t lost on me.”

  “I told you countless times how important honesty was to me,” she said, pulling her legs up and resting her chin on her knees. “That’s what hurts the most, knowing that every time I told you that, you were living with this lie.”

  He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I know I screwed everything up, but if you give me a second chance, I swear to you it’ll never happen again.”

  A second chance to love him… to make all their dreams come true. Or a second chance for him to lie to her and break her heart. It was a hell of a risk. “I don’t know.”

  “Obviously we wouldn’t rush into anything. You could go on living here, and I’d stay at my place.”

  “Here? In Vista Falls?” she asked, surprised.

  “If you want to go on seeing me, this is where I want to be.”

  That would be a huge sacrifice on his part given there were no guarantees. “You sure you want to do that?”

  “That depends. Do you want me to?”

  She’d been miserable without him, but was she just deferring the pain if she agreed to continue seeing him? Either way, she knew it was time to be honest. “I still love you, but I’m just not sure I can trust you. If you lied to me about this, will you go on lying to me and find a reasonable excuse to justify it every time you do?”

  He moved to the couch and took her hand. “You have every reason to doubt me, and I know it won’t be easy for me to earn your trust back. Baby, I’m just asking for a chance. Will you give me that?”

  He wasn’t asking her to pretend it had never happened… just a chance to let him make up for it. If she didn’t give him that, she feared she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

  “I’ve never felt like this,” she said, gesturing to herself with her free hand. “Look at me. I’m a mess both inside and out.”

  “It’s my fault. Let me help to fix that.” He leaned in, brushing his lips across her cheek. “One day at a time, I believe we can rebuild what we had. The love. The trust. The hopes and dreams. All of it.”

  She wanted that more than anything, but was it even possible?

  ***

  Zeke could tell Juliette was still torn, but he hadn’t come here expecting winning her over to be easy. He knew she would still be angry and hurt, and he deserved her wrath, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to convince her they belonged together.

  “I want to,” she said hesitantly. “I already miss having you in my life.”

  “I miss you too.” Her tears and last words had haunted him, making it impossible to sleep. I don’t know, she’d said. I just need time. That uncertainty, not knowing whether he’d ever get to hold her or make love to her again, had been killing him. “I tried to give you time, but when your mom called and told me—”

  “Wait, my mom called you?”

  He hadn’t intended to tell her that, not that Adriana had asked him to keep it a secret. “She said that you were having a hard time, that she thought we needed to work this out once and for all so we could move on with our lives, either together or apart.” He was praying for together.

  “I thought you came here because you wanted to,” she said, shutting down on him again. “Not because my mother asked you to.”

  Great, he’d unwittingly tread on another landmine. “I wanted to come. I needed to come.” He grabbed her hand. “God, this is killing me, babe. Seeing you so miserable, knowing I’m the cause. Being cut off from you like this is almost as bad as…” He let his words die, knowing nothing could ever compare to the pain he’d felt when he found his brother in a pool of his own blood.

  “What were you going to say?” she asked, looking up at him. “Tell me.”

  He knew she was giving him an opportunity to be honest with her, and he had to take it. “The agony I felt, the sheer panic, when I realized I could lose you…” He shook his head. “Well, there’s only one other time I can compare that to in my life.”

  “Losing your brother,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you do it?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “Why did you let everyone think you were a murderer? I hate that you put yourself through that. You have to know that’s not what your brother would have wanted.”

  At least she was angry on his behalf. That had to be a good sign. “It wasn’t about what he wanted.” Mentally, he was transported back to that day, when he agonized over which decision to make while he waited for the emergency responders. “It was about my parents. At that moment, all I could think about was how horrible it would be to lose a child and by his own hand.” He shuddered as he always did when he tried to process their loss. “I couldn’t do that to them. I wouldn’t.”

  “But your parents have been gone a while,” she said, withdrawing her hand from his. “Why did you continue to perpetuate the lie? You could have come back to Vista Falls and set the record straight, but you didn’t.”

  “It’s not like I had any fans here,” he said, trying to hide his bitterness. Even his old high school friends barely looked at him when they passed him on the street. “Why would anyone believe anything I had to say?”

  “I would’ve believed you.” Tears fell from her eyes before she closed them. “If you’d given me the chance.”

  “I am giving you the chance. Now.” He was sorry for keeping the truth from her, but he couldn’t live in purgatory for the rest of his life. “It’s up to you whether to take that chance. On me. On us.” He stood, knowing it was time to leave. Once again, the decision was in her hands. “You know where to find me if you want to talk.”

  ***

  Juliette knew she should have called first. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and she was standing on Zeke’s doorstep. It had been eighteen hours since they’d talked, and she’d gained more clarity with each passing h
our. She knew what she had to do, had rehearsed what she needed to say. She only hoped it wasn’t too late, that he’d still be willing to hear her out.

  “Hey,” he said, when he opened the door several minutes after she’d rung the bell.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, taking in his appearance.

  He was wearing black sweats with a black T-shirt pulled tight across his broad chest. The backward ball cap on his head no doubt concealed a case of bedhead. And even with his serious scruff and bloodshot eyes, her mouth was watering from the memory of waking up next to him.

  “I should have called first.”

  He gave her a thorough once-over, taking in her sleeveless, black wrap dress and flat, gold sandals before settling on her flawless makeup and long, wavy hair. She’d taken more care getting ready that morning given the state he’d found her in the previous day.

  “It’s okay.” He stepped back from the door, allowing her to enter. “I had kind of a rough night last night.”

  She didn’t know if that meant he’d tossed and turned the way she had or hit the bottle to drown his sorrows, something she too had seriously considered. “I’m sorry for that too. I know I’m responsible.”

  He eyed her warily. “You’re not responsible for anything, Jules. This is all on me. If it weren’t for my stupidity, we’d be married by now.”

  She got an ache in her stomach every time she thought about where they’d be and what they’d be doing if her father hadn’t dropped his little bombshell. She knew he had been trying to throw a wrench into her plans because no matter what he claimed, he’d never be happy for her as long as her opinions differed from his own.

  “Am I so judgmental?” she asked, looking into his eyes. “Am I my father’s daughter? Is that why you felt you couldn’t tell me?”

  He chuckled, though he still looked miserable. “If I thought you were anything like your old man, believe me, I wouldn’t have wanted to marry you.”

  He used the past tense, reminding her how far they had to travel if they wanted to get back to the place they’d been before the truth surfaced.

  “I’m not like him.” She ran her damp palms over the flared skirt of her dress. “At least I don’t want to be. I’ll admit I tend to think of things as black or white, right or wrong. And that’s what I did when you told me you’d lied to me. I couldn’t see your side. I just knew you’d lied to me and that was wrong.”

  “It was wrong,” he admitted, hanging his head. “Dead wrong.”

  She curled her hand around his cheek, lifting his handsome face. “But you had your reasons. I get that now.” She stepped in closer, pushing him back until they were standing in the very spot they’d first made love. “I tried to put myself in your position and couldn’t. You made an impossible choice. You sacrificed your own future, your own happiness, to preserve your brother’s memory and spare your parents the pain of living with an agonizing truth for the rest of their lives.”

  “Still doesn’t make what I did right.”

  “I asked myself something. Do I want to be with a man who puts me first? Who considers my happiness above all else?”

  “I would, you know,” he said, curling his hands around her waist. “Put you first.”

  “I know you would.” She rested her hands on his chest. “Because that’s what you do. You proved that. You put your family above all else. You’d do anything for them, suffer anything to spare them pain.”

  He remained silent as his eyes traveled over her features.

  “And I realized that’s the kind of man I want to be my husband, the father of my children.” She smiled when he sank back against the wall, the breath leaving his lungs in a whoosh of relief. “I was an idiot to take so long to realize that, Zeke.”

  Without another word, he framed her face with his hands and kissed her the way he had that first night—as though he wanted her to be the last woman he ever kissed.

  When they finally came up for air, he whispered, “I was the idiot. I should have had the guts to come clean with you long before I thought about proposing.” He let his hands fall to his sides. “That impromptu proposal and rush to get married… that wasn’t fair to you. I was only thinking of myself. I didn’t want to lose you, and I thought marriage would be the answer.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to marry me anymore?” she asked, feeling a fresh wave of panic and hurt wash through her.

  “No, I’m not saying that at all.” He smiled. “I do want to marry you, but you were right. We were rushing it before. We need more time…” At her look of concern, he kissed her and followed it up with a soft smile. “So I can learn to love you even more if that’s possible.”

  She sank into his arms, finally feeling as though she could exhale. They were going to be okay. She just knew it. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, sweetheart. And about that wedding—”

  “We don’t have to talk about that now, do we?” She wanted to enjoy the feel of his arms around her without the pressure of having to figure everything out all at once.

  “No, that’s what I was going to say. We don’t have to talk about it at all until you’re ready.”

  She knew she would be ready to talk about it sooner rather than later, but she appreciated his willingness to wait. “I want to be your wife.” She tipped her head back to smile at him. “There’s no doubt about that.”

  “And when you become my wife, I want the whole town there.”

  “We don’t have to do that.” There were still a lot of close-minded people in Vista Falls who wouldn’t be willing to accept the truth even with proof.

  “I want to.” He seemed sincere as his eyes flashed with determination. “Most importantly, I want you to have the wedding of your dreams with all the people you love and respect there to witness it. Don’t get me wrong. The beach wedding would have been nice, I’m sure. But I suspect you’ve been dreaming of a big, white wedding since you were a little girl, haven’t you?”

  “I already got my prince,” she teased. “I don’t need the whole fairy tale.”

  “But you’re going to get it,” he said before kissing her. “Whether you like it or not. Besides, now that this is my home again, I refuse to walk around town hanging my head in shame. I didn’t do what they think I did. I did what I thought was right. The people who matter will respect that. The people who don’t—”

  “Don’t matter anyway.”

  He grinned, making her stomach flip the way it had the first time he’d flashed her that sexy smile. “You really believe that?”

  “You and our relationship, that’s what matters to me. Not other people’s opinions of you or us.”

  “But your job—”

  “Is just a job. It may or may not be a part of my long-term future, and I’m okay with that.” She’d never thought she’d be able to say she was okay with the idea of losing her job, but she was. It didn’t define her anymore. She now realized there was so much more to her than some title.

  “You’re sure? ‘Cause I would never want you to sacrifice something so important to you for my sake.”

  “I’d sacrifice just about anything for you,” she said, knowing he would do the same. “But this isn’t a sacrifice. I do my best for the people of this town. If they appreciate that, they’ll reelect me. If they don’t…” She shrugged. “Then I’ll live with it.”

  He chuckled. “Who would have thought that sexy little workaholic I first met would ever consider her job nonessential to her happiness?”

  “It is crazy,” she agreed, rolling forward on her toes to kiss him. “But I guess I didn’t know the real meaning of happiness until I met you.”

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