“The time went by quickly, didn’t it?”
He looked up, surprised at her first words in quite a while. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
Julianne’s eyes narrowed at him, her lips tightening as she nodded. She didn’t look like she was having fun. She also didn’t look pleased with him although he had no clue what the problem was.
“Julianne...” he began, but she held up her hand to silence him.
“Don’t, Heath. This is what we wanted. I know the last few weeks have muddied the water between us, but it doesn’t change the fact that we shouldn’t be married. We aren’t meant to be together long-term. As you said, we were having fun. But fun is all it was, right?”
Heath swallowed the lump in his throat. That was his intention, but it had started to feel like more. At some point, he had forgotten about the divorce and just focused on being with her. Was he the only one that felt that way? It didn’t seem like it at the time. It seemed like she had gotten invested as well. Perhaps that was just Paris weaving its magic spell on their relationship again. “Fun,” he muttered.
Julianne brushed past him and pulled her wedding ring off her finger. They were both still wearing them after their weekend charade for Madame Badeau. She placed it on top of the paperwork. “We won’t need these anymore.”
Even as she said the words, Heath got the feeling that she didn’t mean them. She was unhappy. Her, the girl who slammed the door in his face and told him to move on. When he finally tries, she takes it personally.
“So now what?” he asked. Heath wasn’t sure how to proceed from here. Did getting a divorce mean their fling was over? They still had the crush of the Christmas season ahead of them. He wasn’t looking forward to the long, cold nights in bed without her.
“I think it’s time for me to move back into the big house,” she said, although she wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Why?”
“When I spoke with Mom yesterday, she said the live-in nurse would be leaving tomorrow. They were able to move Dad’s bed back upstairs since he’s getting around well. That means I can have my room back.”
“Your studio is out here.”
She nodded. “But under the circumstances, I think it might be better if we put some distance between us.”
Heath’s hands balled into angry fists at his side. It was his idea to move forward with the divorce and yet it still felt like Julianne was breaking up with him all over again. “Why is it that whenever our relationship gets even remotely serious, you run away?”
Her eyes met his, a flash of green anger lighting them. “Run away? I’m not running away. There’s nothing to run from, Heath. As I understand it, we were just having some fun and passing the time. I don’t know if that qualifies as a relationship.”
She was lying. He knew she was lying. She had feelings for him, but she was holding them back. Nothing had changed with her in all these years. She loved him then, just as she loved him now, but she refused to admit it. She always pulled away when it mattered. Yeah, he hadn’t confessed that he had developed feelings for her, but what fool would? He’d done it once and got burned pretty badly.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re always lying to me, Jules? Then, now, I never get the whole story.”
Her eyes widened. She didn’t expect him to call her on it, he could tell. She sputtered a moment before finding her words again. “I-I’m not always lying to you. You know me too well for me to lie.”
“You’d think so, and yet you’ll look me in the eye and tell me we were just ‘having fun.’ We’ve had a lot of sex over the last few weeks, but that’s the only barrier I’ve broken through with you, Jules. You’re still keeping secrets.”
“You keep your secrets, too, Heath.”
“Like what?” he laughed.
“Like the reason why you really wanted a divorce.”
Heath had no clue what she was talking about. “And what exactly did I say that was a lie?”
“It may not have been a lie, but you have certainly kept your relationship with that other woman quiet while you were sleeping with me the last few weeks. Now you’re free to take her to the Caribbean, right?”
“What woman?”
“The so-called Sweetheart you were gushing at on the phone that day.”
“You mean my sixty-three-year-old secretary?” He chuckled, although it wasn’t so much out of amusement as annoyance. “I knew you were listening in on my phone call.”
“You laid it on pretty thick. Do you really expect me to believe your sweetheart is a woman older than Mom?”
“You should. She likes to be flirted with, so I call her all sorts of pet names. I told her if she held down the fort while I was gone that I would give her a bonus big enough to cover the vacation she wants to take to the beach with her grandkids. Without me,” he added. “Do you really think I would’ve pursued something with you while I had a woman on the side?”
Julianne’s defiant shoulders slumped a bit at his words. “Then why did you really want the divorce, Heath? You came in here demanding it out of nowhere. I thought for sure you had another woman in mind.”
“There’s no other woman, Jules. How could there be? I’m not about to get serious with any woman while I’m married to you. That’s not fair to her. Just like it wasn’t fair to your almost fiancé. You just play with men’s minds but you have no intention of ever giving as much as you take. You’re right. It’s a good thing this was just ‘fun’ to pass the time. It would be foolish of me to think otherwise and fall for your games twice.”
“How dare you!” she said. “You don’t know anything about my relationships. You don’t know anything about what I’ve gone through in my life.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Because you won’t tell me anything!”
“I have always been as honest as I could be with you, Heath.”
“Honest? Really. Then tell me the truth about what happened on our wedding night, Jules. The truth. Not some made-up story about you changing your mind. You were in love with me. You wanted me. The next minute everything changed. Why?”
Julianne stiffened, tears glazing her eyes. Her jaw tightened as though she was fighting to keep the flow of words inside. “Any question but that one,” she managed to say.
“That’s the only question I want answered. Eleven years I’ve spent wondering how you could love me one minute and run from me the next. Tell me why. I deserve to know.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “I can’t do that.”
“Then you’re right, Jules. We shouldn’t be married. I’m glad we’ve finally gotten that matrimonial monkey off our backs. Maybe now I can move on and find a woman who will let me into her life instead of just letting me be a spectator.”
“Heath, I—”
“You know,” he interrupted, “all I ever wanted from you was for you to let me in. Over the years, I’ve given you my heart, my soul. I’ve lied for you. Protected you. I would’ve gone to jail before I let anyone lay a finger on you. And hell, I still might if Sheriff Duke comes back around. I’d do it gladly. Even now, although I really don’t know why. I just don’t understand you, Jules. Why do you keep me at arm’s length? Even when we’re in bed together, you’ve kept your distance, kept your secrets. Is it me? Or do you treat all men this way?”
Julianne looked back up at him and this time, the tears were flowing freely. It made his chest ache, even as he fought with her, to see her cry that way. But he had to know. Why did she push him away?
“Just you,” she said. Then she turned and walked upstairs alone.
Eleven
Julianne sat on the edge of the bed staring at the bags she’d already packed. This morning, she would move back into the big house where she belonged. It broke her heart and made her cry every time she thought about it for too long, but she had to do it. They were divorced. No matter how much she loved him, Heath deserved to be happy. He deserved his freedom and a chance with a woman who could give
him everything he wanted.
As much as she wanted to be, Julianne would never be that woman. She would always have her secrets. She would always have a part of herself that she held back from him. Even if she told him it was for his own good, he wouldn’t believe her.
After the last few weeks together, she could tell he was confused. It was easy to feel like things were different when they were together so much, but that wouldn’t last forever. They’d end up caught in the same circular trap where they’d spent the last eleven years. But she could get them out of it, even if he didn’t seem to like it at the time.
He wanted his freedom and she would give it to him.
With a sigh, she stood up and extended the handle of her roller bag. She was nearly to the door of her room when she heard a loud banging at the front door.
She left her luggage behind and went downstairs. The low rumble of male voices turned into distinguishable words as she reached the landing.
“I’m going to have to bring her in for questioning.”
“Why? You’ve asked a million questions. What do you want with her?”
Sheriff Duke was lurking in the door frame, looking larger and more threatening than ever before. “I need to talk to her. We also need a hair sample.”
Heath glanced over his shoulder to see Julianne standing at the foot of the stairs. He cursed silently and turned back to the doorway. “Ask her your questions here. And get a warrant for the hair. Otherwise, you have to arrest us both.”
“I can’t arrest you just because you ask me to, Heath.”
“Fine. Then arrest me because I killed Tommy.”
Duke’s eyes widened for a moment, but he didn’t hesitate to reach for his handcuffs. “All right. Heath Langston, you’re under arrest for the murder of Thomas Wilder. You have the right...”
The sheriff’s voice faded out as the reality of what was happening hit her. Sixteen years’ worth of karma was about to fly back in their faces. And to make things worse, Heath had confessed. Why had he confessed?
Duke clamped the cuffs on Heath’s wrists and walked him to the back of the squad car.
“Don’t say anything, Jules,” she heard Heath say before the door slammed shut.
Returning to face Julianne, Duke started his speech again and reached for his second pair of cuffs. She stood silent and still, letting him close the cold metal shackles around her wrists. He took her to the other side of the squad car and sat her there beside Heath.
The ride into town was deadly silent. Anything they said could be used against them, after all. It wasn’t until they were led into separate interrogation rooms that the nervous flutter of her stomach started up.
An hour went by. Then two.
She didn’t have her watch on, but she was fairly certain that nearly four hours had passed before Sheriff Duke finally came in clutching a file of paperwork. Her stomach was starting to growl, which meant lunchtime had come and gone.
He settled down at the table across from her. No one else was in the room, but she had no idea how many people were gathered on the other side of the one-way glass panel. He flipped through his pages, clicked the button on his pen and looked up at her.
“Heath had a lot to say, Julianne.”
She took a deep breath. “About what?” she replied as innocently as she could.
“About killing Tommy.”
“I’m not sure why he would say something like that.”
“I’m not sure, either. He had a pretty detailed story. If I didn’t know better I’d lock him up right now and be done with it.”
“Why don’t you?”
A smirk crossed the policeman’s face and Julianne didn’t care for it. He was too pleased, as though he had everything figured out. He was probably already planning to use this big case to bolster his reelection.
“Well, as good a tale as he told me, it just doesn’t match up with the evidence. You see, Heath told me that he found Tommy on top of you and he hit him on the back of his head with a rock to stop him, accidentally killing him.”
Julianne didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, didn’t so much as shift her gaze in one direction or another.
“Problem is that the coroner says Tommy was killed instantly by a blow to his left temple.”
“I thought they said on the news that Tommy had the back of his head bashed in.” She tried to remember what she had seen on television. That’s what the reports had said. Only she knew that injury came second. She didn’t know if he was already dead by then or not.
“He did. But we don’t release all the critical information to the news. Like the hair we found.”
“Hair?” She hadn’t heard anything about hair, either.
“You’d think that after all these years that any evidence would be destroyed, and most of it was, but we were lucky. Tommy died with a few strands of long blond hair snagged on the ring he was wearing. Hair and bone are usually all that’s left after this length of time. It was as though he’d had a handful of a woman’s hair in his hand shortly before he died.”
“There are a lot of blondes in Cornwall.”
“That’s true, but Heath has already stated he saw Tommy on top of you, so that’s narrowing it down for me.”
“You said you didn’t believe his story.”
“I said it didn’t match the coroner’s report. And it doesn’t. So that made me think perhaps he was protecting you. That made a lot of the pieces click together in my mind. Why don’t you just save me the trouble and tell me the truth, Julianne. You don’t really want me to charge Heath with Tommy’s murder do you?”
“It wouldn’t be murder,” she argued. “It would be self-defense.”
“Not exactly. He wasn’t being threatened, just you. It might have been accidental, but his lawyers will need to prove it. There’s nothing that says he didn’t come up on Tommy in the woods and bludgeon him for no reason.”
Julianne swallowed the lump in her throat. She wouldn’t let Heath take the blame for this. She just couldn’t. He’d always told her it wouldn’t come to this, but if it did, he wouldn’t be charged because he was protecting her. The sadistic gleam in Sheriff Duke’s eyes made her think Heath might be wrong about that. Heath wouldn’t spend a single day in jail protecting her. This had all gone on far too long. Keeping him out of prison was far more important than protecting his ego.
“I’m the one that killed Tommy. He...” She fought for the words she’d only said aloud a few times in her therapist’s office. “He raped me,” she spat out.
Sheriff Duke’s eyes widened for a moment and he sat back into his chair. He didn’t speak, but he reached over to check his voice recorder to make sure it caught everything.
She took a moment trying to decide where to go from there. “I was doing my chores after school. Same as any other day. The next thing I knew, Tommy was there, watching me. I was startled at first, but I thought I would be okay. Until he pulled out a switchblade and started walking toward me. I ran, but he grabbed my ponytail and yanked me back. I fell onto the ground and he was on top of me in an instant.
“He was so large. Bigger than my brothers. I was only thirteen and smaller than other girls my age. There was no way to fight him off. He had the knife at my throat so I couldn’t scream. I kicked and fought at first, but he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. He said if I didn’t keep still, he’d cut my throat and leave my body naked for my daddy to find me.”
Julianne’s hands started trembling. The metal of the handcuffs tapped against the tabletop, so she pulled her arms back to rest in her lap. Her eyes focused on the table instead of the man watching her.
“I knew in the pit of my stomach that I was dead. No matter what he said, he wasn’t going to let me run to my parents or the police. He would finish this and me before he was done. I tried to keep my focus and ignore the pain. It would’ve been so easy to tune everything out, but I knew that I couldn’t. I knew that eventually, he’d get distrac
ted and I would have my one and only chance to escape.
“I was able to slowly feel along the ground beside me. At first, there was nothing but pea gravel. I could’ve thrown that in his eyes, but it would have only made him angry. Then I found a rock. It was small but dense with a sharp edge I could feel with my fingertips. He still had the knife at my throat and if it wasn’t enough to knock him out, I knew it was all over, but I didn’t care. I had to do it. I brought the rock up and slammed it into the side of his head as hard as I could.”
Julianne had seen this image in her dreams a thousand times so it was easy to describe even after all this time. “His eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed onto me. I struggled as quickly as I could to push him up and off of me. When I was finally able to shove him off, his head flung back and struck a rock sticking up out of the ground. That’s when he started bleeding. I panicked. I kicked the knife away from him and started pulling my clothes back on. That’s when Heath found me.
“We kept waiting for Tommy to get up, but he didn’t. That’s when we realized that hitting his head on the rock must have killed him. There was so much blood on the ground. He told me to sit tight while he went for help. He came back with the other boys. The rest was a blur, but I heard him tell the others that he’d hit Tommy with the rock when he saw him attacking me. There were so many times that we should’ve stopped and gone to the house to call the police, but we were so scared. In the end, all they wanted to do was protect me. And they did. None of them deserve to get in trouble for that.”
“What about the note Tommy left? And all his things that were missing?”
“We did that,” she said, not mentioning one brother or another specifically. “We were running on adrenaline, reacting faster than we could think. We hid the body, destroyed all his stuff and tried to pretend like it never happened.”
“That didn’t exactly work out for you, did it?”
Julianne looked up at the sheriff. He didn’t seem even remotely moved by her story. He tasted blood and no matter what she said, she was certain he wasn’t going to just close the case based on her testimony. “It’s hard to pretend you haven’t been raped, Sheriff Duke.”
HER SECRET HUSBAND Page 14