by Teresa Hill
Emma made sure the kids were settled, then she and Zach took off.
"I would have followed through and made the appointment with your friend, Em," he said as they walked.
"That's not why I asked you to come today."
"Then why?"
"You'll see."
They were still a block away from her office when he spotted Peter and Julie getting out of Julie's car, which was parked in front of Emma's office.
Zach stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and grumbled, "Do you and Mom tell each other everything?"
"Gotcha." Emma grinned. "Rachel didn't say a word about you and Julie. I guessed."
"Shit," he said. They drove him crazy, just knowing stuff like this about him. "What gave me away?"
"You wouldn't call us, Zach, no matter what we did or said. But when Julie needed help, you were on the phone to us right away."
"That's it? A couple of phone calls, and you've got me and Julie—" He broke off abruptly.
"You and Julie, what?"
"Never mind," he said.
"You knew they were coming, right? I mean, I wouldn't have had you come down here..."
"Yeah, I knew, and I hope you can do something with this kid," Zach said. But this was just great. He and Peter could be in therapy together. Then Zach realized something else he really should tell his sister, for Peter's sake. "Listen, the kid saw us together earlier today, and he was pretty upset."
Emma stopped where she was, still half a block away from her office. "What were you and Julie doing?"
If he remembered correctly, he was wishing he could strip her naked under that big old tree and have her right there.
"We were kissing," he said. Technically, it was true. Which sounded like something Julie would say. Zach started grinning.
"Must have been some kiss," Emma said.
"It was." And then he had to add, "Peter thinks we were involved in Memphis and that Julie came here to be with me, not because Peter needed her."
His sister, surely through sheer force of will, managed not to ask exactly what had gone on in Memphis. So he didn't have to try out Julie's sex-is-nothing line, which Emma wouldn't have bought anyway.
He settled for saying, "It didn't happen that way. She came for Peter. I told her I wasn't even going to be here. I had a trial starting in Texas, and..." Shit. Hadn't meant to get into that today. She'd worry even more.
"I remember. You're not heading for Texas anytime soon, are you?"
"No." Nothing else. Just no. She'd find out sooner or later. "Anyway, Peter was upset. I just thought you should know."
"Okay."
"I don't want him to hurt her. I mean, I know he's already hurt her—emotionally. But I'm worried." He hated even thinking this way. He defended kids who did things like this, but the thought of someone hurting Julie... "Should I be worried that he might hurt her physically?"
"If I saw anything that made me worry he might be a danger to anyone, I'd warn her and social services—"
"Emma?" That wasn't going to be good enough for him.
"I know how to do my job, Zach. I'm really good at it."
"Okay, but..." He couldn't let it go. Not with Julie. "I don't want her hurt."
"I understand. Now get out of here. If you're trying to convince Peter nothing was going on between the two of you until you came back to town—"
"Okay. I'll wait around the corner."
"I'll tell Julie."
"Thanks, Em."
* * *
Peter was nervous and complaining bitterly about having to see a shrink. The nice lady at the reception desk gave Julie a mountain of forms to fill out. She followed Peter into the darkest corner of the room, where he seemed to be hiding out, hoping no one he knew saw him here.
Julie was just starting to worry about what this was going to cost and whether her parents had any insurance when Emma walked in. She came straight over to the two of them and gave Julie a big hug.
"It's so good to see you again," Emma said. "You look great."
"So do you. And... someone told me you're having another baby."
Emma's hand went to her slightly rounded tummy. "Yes. Number four. Another girl."
"Congratulations," Julie said.
"And you must be Peter," Emma said, turning to him.
Peter didn't say anything at first. Julie supposed this was where the parent type would prompt him to remember his manners, but before she could get them out, the funniest look came over Peter's face.
"Are you Dana's mother?" he asked.
"Yes," Emma said.
Peter looked horrified.
"My oldest," Emma told Julie. "She's twelve. The two of you go to the same middle school, don't you, Peter?"
He nodded.
"I won't tell her you're seeing me, if that's what you're worried about."
He shrugged, as if he didn't care at all, and looked down at his feet.
"Well, why don't we go back to my office and get started?" Emma said, pointing Peter toward a door. He went into her office, and Emma turned to Julie. "Rough day?"
"Day? I've only had him for a few hours," Julie admitted.
Emma laughed. "Yes, days can go on forever with kids, especially when they're unhappy. I'm sorry about all of this. I know it must be hard on you."
"Harder on him," Julie said. How about that? Here she was, putting someone else's welfare above her own. "I don't know what to do for him."
"You know how it felt to be him, and you know what you wish you'd had when you were living here," Emma said. "Just try to give him what you needed."
Julie frowned. Stability? Predictability? A sense of safety? She couldn't give him what she'd never had, could she? What she'd never been able to find for herself.
"Margaret told me you have temporary guardianship. Any idea how long your parents will be gone?"
Gone? Nice euphemism. "No," Julie admitted, then felt like the worst kind of a coward as she admitted, "I haven't talked to them."
"Oh," Emma said.
"I have to talk to them? Is that what you're saying? Peter needs to know?"
"I'm sure he'd feel better if he had some idea of what was going on."
"Of course." Julie groaned. "I should have thought of that. I just... I really don't want to see them, and I wasn't thinking of him. I was thinking of me."
"It's all right. You've only had him a few hours. I'm sure you haven't managed to scar him for life in that amount of time."
Julie nodded, feeling like a screw-up, but determined to do better. "If I have to see them, I'll see them." It wasn't going to kill her. "I want to do anything I can to help Peter."
"Good," Emma said. "Stability is always a big concern. He's going to want to know how long this living arrangement's going to last. It may be that no one has a hard-and-fast answer right now, but it would be better if we could tell him what to expect of the legal process. That sort of thing."
"Okay. I'll find out. Anything else?"
"We'll talk more when I'm done with him. Give us until four-thirty, okay?"
"Sure. Thanks for coming in today to see him."
"No problem. And Julie?"
"Hmm?"
"Zach's waiting for you around the corner. He was at my house when I left to walk over here, and he didn't think it was a good idea for Peter to see him."
"Oh." Had Zach told her Peter found them rolling around in the grass?
Emma smiled kindly. "Thanks for helping us get Zach home."
"Oh, I didn't. I mean... She was going to say he hadn't come home for her, but if he meant what he'd said once he got here...
Maybe he had come for her. At least, he might believe that now. When he was thinking more clearly, he'd feel differently. Then she'd have to hold her head up and try to smile and let him go, and it would be horrible.
Emma put her hand on Julie's arm. "Go on. He's waiting."
"Okay. Thanks."
Julie left the office in a daze.
Me and Zach? Get real,
Julie.
He'd caught her unaware that afternoon. She'd been so happy to see him and he'd been so happy, the air between them full of possibilities and something that felt like magic. As if such a thing truly existed in relationships. She'd given herself a stern lecture since then about being smarter, more of a realist.
When she turned the corner and walked into the parking lot, there was Zach. Time to remember all that she'd told herself. Time to be strong.
He came to her, stopped inches away and cupped her elbows in the barest hint of an embrace. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Come on, Julie. It's me."
And then, just like that, she almost started to cry.
"Hey." He drew out the word, almost like a caress. He slipped one arm around her waist, led her deeper into the small, secluded parking lot and backed her up against the brick of the building, standing between her and the rest of the world. "Tell me."
She shook her head, stubbornly trying to hold back her tears and the words.
"I don't know how relationships have worked for you in the past, Julie—"
"They haven't worked at all. You should know that."
"Well, that's about to change," he said. "And we need to set up some ground rules. One of which is that when you feel so bad you're about to cry, you have to tell me what's wrong, so I can help."
"That's a rule?" she asked, sniffling a bit and feeling miserable.
"Yes. Start talking or else."
"Or else what?"
"I'll kiss you, and you know what happens when I do that. We probably shouldn't risk it in a parking lot in the middle of downtown."
She closed her eyes and dipped her head lower. "You scare me to death," she whispered.
"Okay, now I have to kiss you."
She gave up then. The tears in her eyes overflowed and ran down her cheeks. He gently brushed them away, brushed his lips ever so softly across hers.
She made herself push him away. "Zach, someone will see us."
"Who cares? As long as it's not Peter. Is that what this is about?"
"No," she admitted, then berated herself for that. She should say they had to slow down so Peter wouldn't be so angry or so suspicious. She should hold Zach off until he came to his senses. And maybe, if it never went any further, it wouldn't hurt so badly to give him up.
"This will never work out," she said miserably.
"Why the hell not?"
"It just won't."
"Scared, Julie?" he asked, calm as you please and maddening as hell in his dead-on assessment of the situation. "Sorry. You'll just have to get over it."
"I don't want to get hurt, Zach."
"Neither do I. How can you be so sure I'll hurt you?"
"Everyone hurts me," she said.
"Well, that's going to have to change, too."
He looked downright arrogant then and irritatingly calm about this. Lawyer training, she supposed. State your position and stick with it. Overcome all objections. Win. How was she supposed to fight him when she wanted him to win this one? Which made her think of his trial.
"Do you have to go to Texas soon?" she asked.
"No."
"What happened?"
He actually looked embarrassed. "I've been ordered not to show my face in my office or in any courtroom for two months. That's what happened."
"Why?"
"I kind of... yelled at the judge in Memphis," he admitted.
"Zach—"
"I tried to tell you before, Julie. I'm a mess right now, and if you don't want to be with me because of that, I'll understand—"
"Oh, hell. I could never not want to be with you," she blurted out.
He grinned wide enough that those adorable dimples showed up in his cheeks.
"Shit," she muttered.
"No, really..." he said, looking ridiculously pleased. Then he returned to being serious. "When you know the whole of it, you might have second thoughts. I'd understand."
Julie looked at him. Really looked at him. He kept saying that—that he had things to tell her, but he hadn't said much yet. Not that they'd had that much time. They seemed to keep getting distracted. It was too easy when he was this close.
He seemed a little tense, but not too bad. Julie studied him more closely. She would have said she was the world's best at covering, but maybe he was better. After all, he was so worried he thought she might change her mind about wanting to be with him. He was dead serious. And scared. Zach full of confidence was a hard man to resist, but Zach vulnerable slayed her through and through.
"I'm not going to change my mind," she said, resigned to the fact that she simply had no defenses against him. "Not about you."
It was scary as hell, but it felt good, too. How something could be both at the same time, she would never understand. But there it was. She'd come out here determined to push him away and ended up in his arms.
"Well, you don't have to look so miserable about it," he said. "Is it that bad? Feeling this way about me?"
"It will be," she said, raising her chin defiantly. "This will never work."
"Why?"
"Oh, Zach. Look at me."
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with the way you look."
"Think about who I am," she cried. "I'm a screwed-up woman. I had a lousy childhood. I don't trust anybody—"
"You can trust me."
"I haven't ever been able to make a relationship work. My parents are in jail, and my brother's in therapy. I probably should be in therapy myself. I have no job and hardly anything in the bank, because I spent so much on a wedding I called off at the last minute. The bank's repossessing my parents' house. Jesus, I'm a mess, and you're... you're..."
"I'm the one who understands all of that."
"Don't say that," she yelled.
"You think I'm going to condemn you for your parents' mistakes? My old man's a murderer and a drunk, and my mother let him beat her until he put her into an early grave."
"I know, but that's not who you are."
"And you're not your parents."
She raised her chin and proclaimed, "I'm a liar."
"Well, you're just going to have to give that up, Julie."
As if it were that easy. Will herself to change, and what? She'd just be different?
"What else?" he asked. "Might as well get it all out up front. Tell me. What else about you is so bad?"
"I run away when things get hard," she said, laying one of her trump cards on the table. "If I can't lie, I run."
"You'll have to give that up, too," he said, maddeningly calm and so sure of himself.
"What if I can't?"
"What do you have to lie about?" he reasoned. "Your childhood? Your parents? I already know all about those things. And you ran away because you thought there was nothing left for you here. I understand that."
"I ran away from Memphis after I screwed up everything there."
"No, you came here for Peter."
"Oh, Zach. I'd love to believe that. I'd love for you to believe it. But if my life had been going really well there, I probably would have stayed."
"You could have. All you had to do was never tell Steve about you and me or about Peter, but you couldn't lie to him about either of those things."
"I could have."
"You didn't," he countered. "Face it, Julie. You have a conscience, and you care about your brother and me. And right now, you're scared. But it's going to be okay. I'm going to be here, and when you get scared, you just run to me, and I'll hang on to you so tight you won't be able to get away."
She blinked up at him through her tears, the promise of his words too much for her to take in. She found it in her to make one more tiny protest.
"That doesn't seem very fair to you."
"Well, I'm counting on you holding on to me, too, when I get scared."
"You don't get scared," she insisted.
He looked a little uncomfortable then, and for a moment she thought he'd finally listen to her,
that he'd see this would just never work. Then he'd turn around and walk away, and Julie didn't think she could stand that.
It looked like she was going to be one of those awful women who said one thing and then did the opposite. Who wanted a man to talk her into what she really wanted in the first place. She felt mildly guilty about that, even as she threw her arms around him and just held on, not breathing any easier until his arms locked around her in return.
He slowly brought her fully against his body, doing that interlocking thing he did, until she just fit, as if she were made to be the other half of him. To hell with the idea that surely someone else in this world would be so much better for him than she would. She needed him. She'd worry about the fairness of that later.
Julie snuggled against him, reassured by the solid bulk of the man. That wicked little zing of awareness was heating her blood, humming in her veins, and then she was kissing him, as wildly as she had that morning on the grass.
She remembered then he wasn't engaged anymore. And she had a thirteen-year-old living with her. It wouldn't be easy for them to find time to be alone.
She dragged her mouth from his. "Forget about this, about all the talking. We're ten minutes from my house—my empty house—and we have an hour and a half before Peter's done. Take me home, Zach."
He groaned and gave her a scorcher of a kiss. It was going to be okay, she decided. For the immediate future, it would be okay. They'd have this. She'd make it through the next few days or weeks, maybe even months, and she wouldn't worry about what would happen after that. She'd make the most of what they could have now, during this otherwise awful time.
"Come on. Let's go," she said.
Zach pulled back and nearly growled in frustration.
"What?" She could strip him right here, the way she felt right now. It seemed like it had been decades since they'd been together.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Julie."
She frowned up at him. "What do you mean, it's not a good idea? It's a great idea."
"No, it's... There are things you have a right to know before this goes any further—"
"You didn't think so last night," she reminded him.
"Yeah, I did. I just... have a hard time sticking to any promise I make to keep my hands off you, and you... You know what you're doing. We're both doing the same thing."