HER SECRET HUSBAND

by Andrea Laurence

  “Then no, I’m fine standing.” Heath wasn’t interested in getting comfortable and drawing out this conversation. He could outstand the older officer by a long shot. “What can I help you with?”

  Duke nodded softly, obviously realizing he wasn’t going to be offered a seat and some tea like he would if Molly were home. “First, I wanted to let you know that Ken and Molly are no longer suspects. I was finally able to verify their story with accounts of others in town.”

  “Like what?” Heath asked.

  “Well, Ken had always maintained he was sick in bed all that day with the flu. I spoke to the family physician and had him pull old records from the archives. Ken did come in the day before to see the doctor. Doc said it was a particularly bad strain of flu that year. Most people were in bed for at least two days. I don’t figure Ken was out in the woods burying a body in the shape he was in.”

  “He was sick,” Heath added. “Very sick. Just as we’ve told you before.”

  “People tell me a lot of things, Heath. Doesn’t make it true. I’ve got to corroborate it with other statements. We’ve established Ken was sick that day. So, how did that work on the farm? If Ken wasn’t working, did the whole group take the day off?”

  “No,” Heath answered with a bit of a chuckle. Sheriff Duke obviously hadn’t grown up on a farm. “Life doesn’t just stop when the boss is feeling poorly. We went on with our chores as usual. Wade picked up a few of the things that Ken normally did. Nothing particularly special about it. That’s what we did whenever anyone was sick.”

  “And what about Tommy?”

  “What about him?” Heath wasn’t going to volunteer anything without being asked directly.

  “What was he doing that day?”

  Heath sighed and tried to think back. “It’s been a long time, Sheriff, but if I had to guess, I’d figure he was doing a lot of nothing. That’s what he did most days. He tended to go out into the trees and mess around. I never saw him put in an honest afternoon’s work.”

  “I heard he got into some fights with the other boys.”

  Heath wasn’t going to let Duke zero in on his brothers as suspects. “That’s because he was lazy and violent. He had a quick temper and, on more than one occasion, took it out on one of us.”

  Sheriff Duke’s dark gaze flicked over Heath’s face for a moment as he considered his answers. “I bet you didn’t care much for Tommy.”

  “No one did. You know what kind of stuff he was into.”

  “I can’t comment on that. You know his juvenile files are sealed.”

  “I don’t need to see his files to know what he’d done. I lived with him. I’ve got a scar from where he shoved me into a bookcase and split my eyebrow open. I remember Wade’s black eye. I know about the stealing and the drugs and the fights at school. You can’t seal my memories, Sheriff.” Some days he wished he could.

  Duke shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. “When was the last time you saw Tommy?”

  “The last time I saw him...” Heath tried to remember back to that day. He spent most of his time trying not to think about it. The image of Tommy’s blank, dead stare and the pool of blood soaking into the dirt was the first thing to come to mind. He quickly put that thought away and backed up to before that moment. Before he heard the screams and found Tommy and Julianne together on the ground. “It was just after school. We all came home, Molly brought us some snacks to the bunkhouse and told us Ken was sick in bed. We finished up and each headed out to do our chores. I went into the eastern fields.”

  “Did you see Tommy go into the woods that day?”

  “No.” And he hadn’t. “Tommy was still sitting at the kitchen table when I left. But that’s where he should’ve been going.”

  “Was he acting strangely that day?”

  He had been. “He was a little quieter than usual. More withdrawn. I figured he’d had a bad day at school.” Tommy had also been silently eyeing Julianne with an interest he didn’t care for. But he wasn’t going to tell Duke that. No matter what happened between the two of them and their marriage, that wouldn’t change. He’d sworn to keep that secret, to protect her above all else, and he would. Even if he grew to despise her one day, he would keep his promise.

  “Had he ever mentioned leaving?”

  “Every day,” Heath said, and that was true. “He was always talking big about how he couldn’t wait to get away. He said we were like some stupid television sitcom family and he couldn’t stand any of us. He said that when he was eighteen, he was getting the hell out of this place. Tommy didn’t even care about finishing school. I suppose a diploma didn’t factor much into the lines of work he was drawn to. When he disappeared that day, I always figured he decided not to wait. His birthday was coming up.”

  Duke had finally taken out a notepad and was writing a few things down. “What made you think he ran away?”

  This was the point at which he had to very carefully dance around the truth. “Well, Wade found a note on his bed. And his stuff wasn’t in his room when we looked the next morning.” The note and the missing belongings were well-documented from the original missing-persons report. The fact that they never compared the handwriting to any of the other children on the farm wasn’t Heath’s fault. “It all added up for me. With Ken sick, it might have seemed like the right day to make his move.” Unfortunately, he’d made his move on Julianne when she was alone in the trees.

  “Did he ever talk to you about anything? His friends or his plans?”

  At that, a nervous bit of laughter escaped Heath’s lips. “I was a scrawny, thirteen-year-old twerp that did nothing but get in his way. Tommy didn’t confide in anyone, but especially not in me.”

  “He didn’t talk to your brothers?”

  Heath shrugged. “Tommy shared a room with Wade. Maybe he talked to him there. But he was never much for chatting with the rest of us. More than anything he talked at us, not to us. He said nothing but ugly things to Brody, so he avoided Tommy. Xander always liked to keep friendly with everyone, but even he kept his distance.”

  “And what about Julianne?”

  Heath swallowed hard. It was the first time her name had been spoken aloud in the conversation and he didn’t like it. “What about her?”

  “Did she have much to do with Tommy?”

  “No,” Heath said a touch too forcefully. Sheriff Duke looked up at him curiously. “I mean, there was no reason to. She lived in the big house and still went to junior high with me. If they spoke, it was only in passing or out of politeness on her part.”

  Duke wrote down a few things. Heath wished what he’d said had been true. That Tommy hadn’t given the slightest notice to the tiny blonde. But as much as Julianne tried to avoid him, Tommy always found a way to intersect her path. She knew he was dangerous. They all did. They just didn’t know what to do about it.

  “Were they ever alone together?”

  At that, Heath slowly shook his head. He hoped the sheriff didn’t see the regret in his eyes or hear it in his voice as he spoke. “Only a fool would have left a little girl alone with a predator like Tommy.”

  * * *

  Heath had been quiet and withdrawn that night. Julianne expected him to say something. About what happened with Sheriff Duke, about their kiss, about their argument or the divorce papers...but nothing happened. After Duke left, Heath had returned to unloading the truck. When that was done, he volunteered to drive into town and pick up a pizza.

  While he was gone, the courier arrived with the package from her attorney. She flipped through it, giving it a cursory examination, and then dropped it onto the kitchen table. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with that today.

  Heath’s mood hadn’t improved by the time he got back. He was seated on the couch, balancing his plate in his lap and eating almost mechanically. Julianne had opted to eat at the table, which gave her a decent view of both Heath and the television without crowding in his space.

  There was one cold slice of pizza remaining when
Julianne finally got the nerve to speak. “Heath?”

  He looked startled, as though she’d yanked him from the deep thoughts he was lost in. “Yes?”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  “You mean with Sheriff Duke?”

  “I guess. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “Yes and no,” he replied, giving her an answer and not at the same time.

  Julianne got up and walked over to the couch. She flopped down onto the opposite end. “It’s been a long week, Heath. I’m too tired to play games. What’s wrong?”

  “Aside from the divorce papers sitting on the kitchen table?” Heath watched her for a moment before sighing heavily and shaking his head. “Sheriff Duke just asked some questions. Nothing to worry about. In fact, he told me Ken and Molly are no longer suspects.”

  Julianne’s brow went up in surprise. “And that’s good, right?”

  “Absolutely. The conversation was fine. It just made me think.” He paused. “It reminded me how big of a failure I am.”

  It didn’t matter what happened between them recently. The minute he needed her support she would give it. “You? A failure? What are you talking about?” Every one of her brothers was at the top of their field with millions in their accounts. None were failures by a long shot. “You’re the CEO of your own successful advertising agency. You have a great apartment in Manhattan. You drive a Porsche! How is that a failure?”

  A snort of derision passed his lips and he turned away to look at the television. “I’m good at convincing people to buy things they don’t need. Something to be proud of, right? But I fail at the important stuff. When it matters, it seems like nothing I say or do makes any difference.”

  She didn’t like the tone of his voice. It was almost defeated. Broken. Very much unlike him and yet she knew somehow she was responsible. “Like what?”

  “Protecting you. Protecting my parents. Ken. Saving our marriage...”

  Julianne frowned and held her hands up. “Wait a minute. First, how is a nine-year-old boy supposed to save his parents in a car crash that he almost died in, too? Or keep Dad from having another heart attack?”

  “It was my fault we were on that road. I pestered my father until he agreed to take us for ice cream.”

  “Christ, Heath, that doesn’t make it your fault.”

  “Maybe, but Dad’s heart attack was my fault. The second one at least. If I’d come clean to the cops about what happened with Tommy, they wouldn’t have come here questioning him.”

  He was being completely irrational about this. Heath had been internalizing more things than she realized. “And what about me? How have you failed to protect me? I’m sitting right here, perfectly fine.”

  “Talking with Sheriff Duke made me realize I should’ve seen it coming. With Tommy. I should’ve known he was going to come for you. And I left you alone. When I think about how bad it could’ve been...” His voice trailed off. “I never should’ve left you alone with him.”

  “You didn’t leave me alone with him. I was doing my chores just like you were, and he found me. And you can’t see the future. I certainly don’t expect you to be able to anticipate the moves of a monster like he was. There’s no reason why you should have thought I would be anything but safe.”

  He looked up at her at last, his brow furrowed with concern for things he couldn’t change now. “But I did know. I saw the way he was looking at you. I knew what he was thinking. My mistake was not realizing he was bold enough to make a move. What if you hadn’t been able to fight him off? What if he had raped you?” He shook his head, his thoughts too heavy with the possibilities to see Julianne stiffen in her seat. “I wish he had just run away. That would’ve been better for everyone.”

  The pained expression was etched deeply into his forehead. He was so upset thinking Tommy had attacked her. She could never ever tell Heath how successful Tommy had been in getting what he’d wanted from her. He already carried too much of the blame on his own shoulders and without cause. Nothing that happened that day was his fault. “Not for the people he would have hurt later.”

  Heath shrugged away what might have been. “You give me credit for protecting you, but I didn’t. If I had been smart, you wouldn’t have needed protecting.”

  Julianne scooted closer to him on the couch and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Heath, stop it. No one could have stopped Tommy. What’s important is everything you did for me once it was done. You didn’t have to do what you did. You’ve kept the truth from everyone all this time.”

  “Don’t even say it out loud,” he said with a warning tone. “I did what I had to do and no matter what happens with Sheriff Duke, I don’t regret it. It was bad enough that you would always have memories of that day. I wasn’t about to let you get in front of the whole town and have to relive it. That would be like letting him attack you over and over every time you had to tell the story.”

  It would have been awful, no question. No woman wants to stand up and describe being assaulted, much less a thirteen-year-old girl who barely understood what was happening to her. But she was strong. She liked to think that she could handle it. The boys had other ideas. They—Heath especially—thought the best thing to do was keep quiet. Unlike her, they had to live with the fear of being taken away. They made huge sacrifices for her, more than they even knew, and she was grateful. She just worried the price would end up being far higher than they intended to pay.

  “But has it been worth the anxiety? The years of waiting for the other shoe to drop? We’ve been on pins and needles since Dad sold that property. If you had let me go to the police, it would be long over by now.”

  “See...” Heath said. “My attempt to protect you from the consequences of my previous failures failed as well. It made things worse in the long run. And you knew it, too. That’s why you couldn’t love me. You were embarrassed to be in love with me.”

  “What?” Julianne jerked her hand away in surprise. Where the hell had this come from?

  Heath shifted in his seat to face her head-on. “Tell the truth, Jules. You might have been intimidated by having sex with me or what our future together might be, but the nail in the coffin was coming home and having to tell your parents that you’d married me. You were embarrassed.”

  “I was embarrassed, but not because of you. It was never about you. I was ashamed of how I’d let myself get so wrapped up in it that I didn’t think things through. And then, what? How could we tell our parents that we eloped and broke up practically the same day?”

  “You’re always so worried about what other people think. Then and now. You’d put a stranger ahead of your own desires every time. Here you’d rather throw away everything we had together than disappoint Molly.”

  “We didn’t have much to throw away, Heath. A week together is hardly a blip in the relationship radar.” How many women had he dated for ten times as long and didn’t even bother to mention it to the family? Like the woman on the phone packing her bags for the Caribbean?

  “It makes a bigger impact when you’re married, I assure you. What you threw away was the potential. The future and what we could have had. That’s what keeps me up at night, Jules.”

  It had kept her up nights, too. “And what if it hadn’t worked out? If we’d divorced a couple years later? Maybe remarried and brought our new spouses home. How would those family holidays go after that? Unbelievably awkward.”

  “More awkward than stealing glances of your secret, estranged wife across the dinner table?”

  “Heath...”

  “I don’t think you understand, Jules. You never did. Somehow in your mind, it was just a mistake that had to be covered up so no one would find out. It was an infatuation run awry for you, but it was more than that for me. I loved you. More than anything. I wish I hadn’t. I spent years trying to convince myself it was just a crush. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to deal with your rejection if it were.”

  “Rejection? Hea
th, I didn’t reject you.”

  “Oh, really? How does it read in your mind, Jules? In mine, the girl I loved agreed to marry me and then bolted the moment I touched her. Whether you were embarrassed of me or the situation or how it might look...in the end, my wife rejected me and left me in her dust. You went off to art school without saying goodbye and just pretended like our marriage and our feelings for each other didn’t matter anymore. That sounds like a textbook definition for rejection.”

  Julianne sat back in her seat, trying to absorb everything he’d said. He was right. It would have been kinder if she’d just told him she didn’t have feelings for him. It would have been a lie, but it would have been gentler on him than what she did.

  “Heath, I never meant for you to feel that way. I’m sorry if my actions made you feel unwanted or unloved. I was young and confused. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle everything. I do love you and I would never deliberately hurt you.”

  He snickered and turned away. “You love me, but you’re not in love with me, right?”

  She was about to respond but realized that confirming what he said would be just as hurtful as telling him she didn’t love him at all. In truth, neither was entirely accurate. Her feelings were all twisted where Heath was concerned. They always had been and she’d never successfully straightened them out.

  “Go ahead and say it.”

  Julianne sighed. “It’s more complicated than that, Heath. I do love you. But not in the same way I love Xander or Brody or Wade, so no, I can’t say that. There are other feelings. There always have been. Things that I don’t know how to...”

  “You want me.”

  It was a statement, not a question. She raised her gaze to meet his light hazel eyes. The golden starbursts in the center blended into a beautiful mix of greens and browns. Heath’s eyes were always so expressive. Even when he tried to hide his feelings with a joke or a smile, Julianne could look him in the eye and know the truth.

  The expression now was a difficult one. There was an awkward pain there, but something else. An intensity that demanded an honest answer from her. He knew she wanted him. To tell him otherwise would be to lie to them both. She tore her eyes away, hiding beneath the fringe of her lashes as she stared down at her hands. “I shouldn’t.”