Bed of Lies

by Teresa Hill

  "You can do this and not be scared if it's just about sex."

  She nearly sputtered, she was so mad.

  "Julie, I'm not going to let you make this just about sex and nothing else," he said, looking as stubborn as her thirteen-year-old brother had this afternoon when she'd tried to drag him off to the therapist.

  "I don't believe you," she said.

  "I know. That's part of the problem. You don't believe this could possibly last. You don't believe I really want you, and you're trying to make this into something that won't terrify you. Sorry. If that's what I do to you, you're just going to have to get over it."

  "Get over it?"

  He nodded, finally announcing, "You can't have me until you do."

  "I can't have you?"

  He looked supremely satisfied with himself.

  She wanted to smack him, but she'd been on the wrong side of an exchange like that too many times to ever hit anyone. And damned if her body wasn't still humming along on pure sexual energy, nerve endings practically begging. And she wasn't going to get him?

  "This is the way, you'll see," he said.

  "The way to what?"

  "You and me. We did it all wrong in the beginning and ended up in bed together way too soon, and now we have to back up, take it easy. You have to know you can trust me, and I really do have some things I have to explain to you."

  "Something else along the lines of 'I'm not having sex with you'? Because I really don't want to hear it."

  "No, it's not about sex," he said, then frowned. "You know, this isn't going to be any easier for me than it is for you. I can't close my eyes without having some image pop into my head of you and me rolling around together on the floor or in that bed in my hotel room. I couldn't sleep there anymore, for thinking of you. I nearly jumped down the maid's throat one morning, because she stripped the bed and took the sheets that smelled like you."

  "Don't tell me this," she said.

  "It's true. All of it. You in that old-fashioned nightgown last night? Lying on the table? It hasn't even been twelve hours since I left your bed, and already I feel like it's been twelve years. We're going to have to get this right, and fast."

  No way. Julie thought. She didn't think it would ever be right. She'd just have to seduce him. How hard could it be? They practically set the world on fire when they touched.

  "I don't think I like that gleam in your eye," he said, finally looking worried.

  She took a step closer, her hands pressed flat against his chest. "You can't fight me forever."

  "You can't fight me forever, either," he said. "I'm counting on that."

  Julie fumed. It was a ridiculous argument to have, him wanting her for... What? Forever? That was crazy. And her wanting him in her bed, instead? Did he think he was going to win this argument? He didn't have a chance.

  Except he didn't look like a man who didn't have a chance. He looked like a man who argued for a living and won. Like someone who studied his opponent and the case before him, who plotted and planned and outwitted people until he got his way. She knew he was a master at it.

  But she was fighting for her emotional life, which made her more desperate than he was. "You're crazy," she said.

  "Maybe," he admitted, calm as you please now. "What are you and Peter planning to do tomorrow night?"

  Julie frowned at the change of subject. What was wrong with the man? "Probably grumble at each other some more, with more of the stuff he calls music played at ear-splitting volume, so that the whole house shakes." She couldn't wait for tomorrow night.

  "My parents are having a cookout. You two should come."

  "To your parents'?"

  He nodded. "You know, like a date, Julie. I'm inviting you out, and you can even bring the grumpy kid. This way you won't have to be alone with him."

  "He went nuts when he saw us together this afternoon."

  "When he saw us about to rip each other's clothes off. I can't have him thinking I'm only after you for your luscious body."

  "That's all I want you for, Zach," she claimed.

  "Liar."

  "How is it that I've never seen this snippy side of you?"

  He grinned some more. They really had to do something about this arrogant streak of his.

  "Come to my parents', Julie."

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to see you."

  She practically shivered at the words. He was getting to her. He knew how much she wanted to be with him. Be. In every way possible. And how much she wanted everything with him. It seemed ridiculous to even think of saying, Couldn't you just sneak into my bed late at night when no one's looking? Was she really crazy enough to throw away this chance? Even if the chance of it ever working out was infinitesimal?

  "I don't know what to do with you," she complained.

  "Keep at it. You'll figure it out."

  "Zach—"

  He kissed her once more, just long enough to set her heart to pounding once again, and before she could get a decent grip on his shoulders and just hang on, he was pulling away.

  "Six-thirty," he said. "Don't be late."

  "I never even said I'd come."

  He dismissed that as a minor detail and went right on. "Now, what else can I do for you today? I feel better when I'm actually solving problems, and I could have sworn there was something in the middle of that little tirade of yours that I could help with…. The house. Did you say someone's trying to take your parents' house?"

  "I don't know," she said miserably.

  "You don't know if someone's trying to take the house?"

  "No, I mean I don't know half of what I said to you. I was upset."

  "But someone's trying to take the house?" he repeated.

  "Yes," she admitted.

  He took a breath. "You know, they teach us about those things in law school. You remember that I went to law school?"

  She nodded.

  "Somebody sent you some threatening-looking papers?"

  "Yes."

  "Want to show 'em to me?"

  "You're too good to me," she said.

  "I haven't been to this point," he said offhandedly. "But I'm going to do better. Now, what else can I do for you?"

  Julie shook her head. He said that, and the oddest feelings welled up inside her, ones that left her wanting to lay all her troubles at his feet. But she couldn't do that to him or to herself. No one carried her burdens for her.

  "Tell me," he said. "If I can't fix my own problems, maybe I can fix yours."

  "Emma says I have to talk to my parents," she blurted out.

  "Oh."

  "I know. How could I come back here to take care of things and not even talk to them? I don't want to talk to them, Zach, and I sound like a six-year-old when I say that, but that's how I feel."

  "Hey, I've been avoiding a few people myself lately. I know the feeling. Is this about Peter? You need to talk to them because of Peter?"

  Julie nodded.

  "I could go with you," he offered. "And you don't have to talk to them about anything but Peter. Not if you don't want to."

  "Emma said Peter needs to know as much as we can tell him about what's ahead for them legally. The arrest. Bond. Court hearings. Anything."

  Zach took her face in his hands and waited until she looked at him. He was grinning in the kindest sort of way. "Hello? Law degree. Remember?"

  "I can't ask you to go help them."

  "You didn't ask, Julie. Remember our deal? You never have to ask, not as long as I can figure out what you need."

  "Still..." she said. "I can't stand them. They're horrible."

  "I have clients who kill people. I can defend a couple of small-town embezzlers. Especially if they're related to you."

  She couldn't help but smile a bit then. "So all my relatives get a break on the best legal services available?"

  "Bring 'em on," he said. "I don't have anything else to do for the next fifty-nine days."

  "Oh, Zach, I..."

 
"What?" he asked.

  It would have been so easy.

  I love you, Zach.

  She wanted to say it. God help her, she very nearly did say it.

  "Nothing." She closed the distance between them, pulling his mouth down to hers. His wonderful mouth. She reveled in the taste of him, the heat coming off his body. God, she missed him. "Couldn't we just go home and go to bed?"

  "No. The jail or the bank. You pick."

  "Let's see... Jail. Bank. Or my bed? How many men would pick anything but the bed?"

  "Hey, I'm not easy."

  No, he was not going to make this easy. But then nothing in her life had ever been easy. And nothing had ever been this good. Terrifying, but very, very good. She wondered briefly if that's what love was. Terrifying and so good.

  She put her hand in his. His fingers closed over hers, reassuring and comforting and real. He was here, and it didn't look like he was going away or giving up anytime soon. Everything was changing, and it was possible it might actually change for the better. Peter might forgive her some day, and she might actually do him some good by being here. She didn't care what happened with her parents, as long as she didn't have to deal with them, and Zach...

  She couldn't help loving the man, but maybe she could keep herself from telling him so. But what if he figured out that what she really wanted was his love? What if he just offered that to her, without her ever having to ask, and he made her trust in that love and in the idea that it could last?

  She'd be lost then.

  Or maybe she'd be found.

  Chapter 15

  She was a weak woman where he was concerned, so she just let him take over and try to fix everything. She had the threatening bank papers in her car. He glanced at them and frowned, eventually deciding to take them with him to study more closely. Then they headed for the town's new jail.

  Zach offered to come in with her, but she told him no. She didn't really want him to see or hear this. He knew enough of it from when they were younger.

  All too soon, she was sitting—separated by heavy glass —in front of a woman who looked impossibly old. Julie thought at first they'd made a mistake, that this couldn't be her mother. It looked like she'd aged twenty years in the past eight.

  Finally, Julie picked up the phone on her side of the glass, waited until her mother did the same, then looked away again. "Peter's with me," she said. "I have temporary custody, and I hope social services will let me keep him until... I don't even know when. We need to know what's going on with you. He needs to know. How long are you going to be here?"

  "I don't know," her mother said. "Until the trial, I guess. The judge set bail high enough to cover the money that's missing."

  "Do you still have it?" Julie asked. She'd thought of searching the house for it. Find it. Give it back. Be done with this thing.

  Her mother said nothing.

  "But you took it?" Julie asked. Still nothing. Julie took her silence as an admission of guilt. "Do you have an attorney?"

  "The court appointed one. A kid who looks about your age, maybe younger."

  "Zach McRae offered to help, as a favor to me and to Peter. But it has to be your decision, and you have to fire the other attorney first, for Zach to be able to step in. I left his business card with the guard for you. But whatever you do, I need to be able to tell Peter something. Social services needs to know. We can't all live in limbo like this."

  "You're really going to stick around?" her mother asked.

  "I don't know," she said. Anger poured in past the numbness that had gotten her through to this point. "Somebody has to take care of Peter. He was in a group home until I got here. That's what happens when your parents go to jail and there's no one left to take care of you."

  Julie turned her head away as far as the phone cord would allow, shifting in her chair to turn her body away from her mother's, too. She really didn't want to be here, and she didn't want to talk about this.

  "Also, the bank's foreclosing on the house, but I guess you already know that."

  Her mother stared blankly at her.

  "Right." At one time she would have sat there arguing until she figured out how to try to fix things, but she wasn't going to do that, not anymore. "You made this mess. You can get yourself out of it. I'll take care of Peter as best I can."

  Julie got to her feet and knocked on the door. The guard came to let her out.

  Oddly enough, it didn't feel like running this time. It felt like a choice she'd made. A smart one. How about that? Julie makes a good decision. She felt like shit, but she thought she was doing the right thing. It was more than she could say for most decisions in her life.

  * * *

  Julie still felt really lousy once she was done with her mother, and she had an idea that maybe if she looked really pitiful and asked nicely, Zach might change his mind and take her to bed. But he was one determined man, and he just wouldn't take her home for fix-everything-sex.

  He offered her ice cream instead.

  "What?"

  "It worked when you were seven."

  "I'm not seven anymore, Zach."

  "Does that mean you don't want ice cream?"

  "No, that is not what it means."

  "Thought so." He laughed as he parked her car near the town square.

  She hadn't wanted to drive when she'd come out of the jail. He'd taken the wheel, and at first he'd held her hand, and then as she'd gotten even more miserable, he'd tugged her across the console in the middle of the seats until her head was in his lap, her cheek against his right thigh, his hand toying with her hair.

  So she had that and she'd have ice cream. It wasn't the kind of comfort she'd find in bed with him, but it wasn't bad.

  He parked the car. She went to raise her head, but before she could get too far away, he drew her face to his and kissed her slowly, sweetly. She made a pitiful sound that might have been a whimper. She was a pathetic woman at the moment. He grinned and nuzzled his nose against hers and kissed her cheek.

  "I'm telling you, my sympathy doesn't extend that far."

  "Rat," she complained.

  "You haven't tasted this ice cream."

  He got out of the car and headed around to open the door for her, but she did it herself and was waiting for him when he got to her side of the car.

  "You're telling me this ice cream is somehow comparable to a night in bed with you?"

  Zach just grinned. It took her a minute to realize that he wasn't just grinning at her, but at someone behind her. Groaning, Julie turned around to find his sister Grace grinning like the devil herself.

  "I don't know, Zach. I have trouble thinking you're that good," Grace said, then burst out laughing.

  Julie thought she must have turned six different shades of red. Zach came closer, slipping his arm around her and not letting her move away from him.

  "They all know, anyway," he said softly, his mouth close to her ear. "They know everything. Always. It's the most annoying thing."

  Julie frowned at Grace, and the only thing she could think to say was, "He's not engaged anymore."

  "I know," Grace said, proving Zach's theory.

  Julie groaned once again, and Grace gave her a big hug, then pulled Zach into it, too. Zach kissed her and said, "I thought once we got you back from Paris, you'd stay a while."

  "Me?" Grace frowned at him. "I'm not the one who's been gone for the better part of four months."

  "I had some things to take care of," he said.

  "Sure you did." She turned to Julie. "I can't believe you're back! I feel like it's been forever. And look at you. You look great. How are you?"

  "I'm... handling things. Kind of," Julie said, then looked at Zach. "He's making me crazy."

  "He's good at that."

  "You look wonderful, too," Julie said. Grace had always been a beauty. A delicate, blonde angel. "Your mother said you were in Bloomington for a couple of days, visiting a friend you knew at art school in Paris?"

  "Yes, b
ut if I'd had any idea the two of you would show up, I would have been here." She glared at Zach. "You have to talk to me."

  "I will. Promise."

  "And you have to talk to me, too," she said, looking at Julie. "Are you two coming to Mom and Dad's tomorrow night?"

  "Yes," Zach said.

  "Good." She looked from one of them to the other, seeming thoroughly pleased with what she saw and what she'd heard. "I guess I'll see you there, then. I hate to rush off, but I have to take care of a couple of things and I wouldn't want to interrupt anything. Sounds like you have important things to settle about how good this ice cream is." She grinned, kissed her brother on the cheek, gave Julie a quick hug and ran off.

  "She does look great," Julie said. "And happy."

  "Grace is always happy," he said. "So... ice cream?"

  Julie glared at him, embarrassed to the core. "Your whole family thinks we're sleeping together and that I broke up your engagement."

  "No. They know the engagement's off, but I never told anybody it was because of you. It wasn't. I finally figured it out now because of you, but... You know what it was like."

  Julie winced. "They must think I'm awful."

  "No, they don't." He stood there holding her close, right in the middle of town on a sunny afternoon. "They think I'm a mess right now—that's what I told them—and they're glad you're here to help me through it."

  "The sex cure?"

  "No, Julie. It wasn't that. It was a lot more than that, and you know it."

  She would have protested long and loud. But then he kissed her again. It wasn't such a terribly inappropriate kiss. It was sweet and soft and kind, and he held her lightly, his hands on the sides of her face. But she just melted and clung to him, until she made herself break the kiss and back away.

  "What?" he asked, mild irritation coloring the word.

  "I don't know," she said miserably. "Can I have my ice cream now?"

  "Sure."

  He put his arm around her and steered her down the block and into the store. It was brand-new, and it smelled heavenly inside. They saw a half-dozen people they knew while they waited their turn and another half-dozen on the way from the store to the town park across the street. Julie sat on top of a picnic table eating her ice cream, and Zach stood beside her, leaning against the tabletop, looking out over the river.