Beauty to Die For

by Kim Alexis

  “I wonder if she’s married?” she added, eyes twinkling.

  Not trusting himself to speak, Marcus merely grunted in reply. Prior to the disaster of his encounter with Juliette out by the bench, he would have silently rejoiced at the answer to that question, which was no. But once the woman had summarily rejected him, what difference did it make? Married or not, Juliette didn’t want him, and that’s all that really mattered. Marcus wanted to be bitter at that thought. After all he had gone through to get here, he had the right to a little self-pity. And yet . . .

  And yet.

  Watching her now, Marcus’s heart ached, not from the pain of rejection, but from the thrill of seeing her this way, in her element. He just couldn’t believe they were under the same roof again after all these years. They were breathing the same air, inhabiting the same space. Despite the fact that she wanted nothing to do with him, Marcus allowed himself to treasure those facts regardless.

  As he’d suspected twenty-five years ago, Juliette Taylor was born to encourage and inspire. Already she had these women in the palm of her hand. Clearly she had been using her God-given gifts exactly the way He intended her to.

  If only God had also intended for the two of them to be together. Obviously, that was not going to happen. But as Marcus watched the woman he’d come clear across the country to see, he knew he’d have to proceed regardless. She may not be interested in him romantically or even care that he was here. She may not even remember him, for that matter. But he’d known going in there would be no guarantees, emotionally speaking. And as difficult as it may be, he would persist with his original goal of connecting, friend to friend, for the purpose of keeping her safe.

  He just wished it didn’t hurt so bad.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER JULIETTE wrapped up her introductory talk to enthusiastic applause and took her seat at the side of the stage as Didi came out to the podium to review key information about the more logistical elements of their weekend—sessions, lectures, small groups, treatments, meals, and more.

  As Didi spoke, Juliette peered out at the audience, her eyes again wandering to the man who was sitting in the next-to-last row, the one who’d been looking at her oddly earlier. His features seemed to have softened somewhat since then, thank goodness. Suddenly, as if he sensed her attentions, he shifted his eyes to meet her gaze. They locked in on each other for a long moment, and then Juliette looked away.

  She just had the oddest feeling . . .

  Did she know this man? She stole another glance and realized where she’d seen him. He was the one who came up to her on the path earlier, just moments after she learned that Raven had been murdered.

  Her mind racing, Juliette tried to remember exactly what he’d said to her, and if she’d said anything in return. She couldn’t recall. He did speak, she remembered that. A simple greeting? At the time his words had been drowned out by the pounding of her heart and the spinning of her mind. Now she tried her hardest to bring it back, but it was no use.

  Thinking through their brief encounter, Juliette caught her breath, remembering something else. Not only had he spoken to her, he had also given her something. He’d handed it to her, something shiny, and all she’d been able to do was mumble and push past, shoving whatever he’d given her into . . . where? Her pocket?

  As discreetly as possible, Juliette pressed her hands to her pants pockets, but both lay smooth and flat against her hips. No, she realized, not her pants pocket, her jacket pocket. Currently, that jacket was hanging across a chair in the back of the room. Looking toward it, Juliette’s gaze once again met that of the handsome man. What had he given to her? Suddenly she very much wanted to know. For some reason she couldn’t help but feel like whatever it was, it had been important. She needed to check that pocket!

  The problem was that if she waited until Didi was finished, it would take forever to get back there. The crowd would spring from their seats and fill the aisles. People would try to talk to her, some of them at length. She didn’t want to wait that long.

  Better she go back there right now, while Didi was still talking and the audience members were still in their seats. Moving quietly Juliette stood and stepped down from the stage, avoiding all eye contact as she walked up a side aisle toward the back of the room. She’d almost reached the jacket when Didi launched into the closing prayer. Juliette stopped to join in, then she kept going after Didi’s “amen.” As expected, the room sprung to life, women laughing and talking as they stood and began to mingle. Seizing the moment, Juliette thrust her hand into one pocket and then the other until her fingers closed around something. Something small. She pulled it out and opened her hand. There in her palm was a silver foil packet with blue lettering.

  A Peppermint Pattie.

  In a flash the knowledge conveyed by that single piece of candy struck Juliette with such force that she had to sit for fear she might fall down.

  It was him.

  Marcus.

  The one who got away.

  Heart pounding, mind racing, Juliette looked up, hoping against hope that he would still be there, that he’d been watching and now understood by the shock in her eyes that she just didn’t “get it” before.

  But he was gone. The woman he’d been with was still there, chatting with several other guests, but Marcus Stone was nowhere to be seen.

  Trying to keep her breath even and slow, Juliette stood and worked her way closer to that woman, who must be his mother. She had the same blue-gray eyes. Juliette had never forgotten his eyes.

  Barely trusting herself to speak, Juliette introduced herself to the woman, who greeted her with a broad smile in return. “How nice to meet you. I’m Beverly. Beverly Stone.”

  Stone. So it really was true. Hearing his last name spoken out loud hit her like a sucker punch.

  Somehow she managed to chat for a full minute before asking the question that was burning inside her. “The man sitting next to you—I assume that was your son?”

  Beverley nodded, beaming. “That’s my boy, Marcus. He insisted on bringing me, and I’m so glad he did.”

  Marcus Stone. After all these years.

  Juliette knew it was probably time for Beverly to get to her first spa treatment, but she couldn’t bring herself to end their conversation just yet. As the room emptied around them, she pressed onward. “Marcus Stone? Why does that name sound familiar? Did he say anything to you about whether or not he and I had ever met?”

  Juliette knew she was being sneaky, and though she felt a little guilty about that, her brain was too addled at the moment to broach this topic any other way. Had the man not shown up here and given her a Peppermint Pattie at the get-go, she would have played things differently. But the candy changed everything. Clearly he wanted to remind her of what the two of them had once shared.

  “No, but I hear that a lot with him. You’ve probably seen his picture in the papers or on the news, maybe read about him in Newsweek.”

  “Newsweek magazine?”

  Beverly nodded. “He’s an expert in disaster prevention and recovery. He’s shown up in there a few times, once with a photo and everything.”

  “I see.” Juliette’s heart soared. An expert in disaster prevention and recovery? So he’d done it! He really had changed the course of his life!

  “Maybe I could introduce you to him tonight at dinner,” Beverly added with a smile. “Right now I need to go, it’s time for my first-ever scalp massage.”

  Juliette thanked her and watched as the woman turned and walked away. She stood in the quiet of the empty conference room for a long moment after that, pinballs pinging around inside her head and heart.

  She had so many questions! Was he married? Did he have children?

  Had their single encounter in that airport twenty-five years ago really changed his life as much as it had changed hers?

  Taking a deep breath, Juliette headed out the door, pausing in the sunny lobby when she passed a resort employee. “Excuse me, may I ask you a strange questi
on?”

  “Yes. Of course.” The woman gave her a polite smile.

  Juliette took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “Can you tell me if there’s somewhere around here where I could buy a bag of Peppermint Patties?”

  MARCUS SAT ON THE couch in his suite, remote in hand, flipping back and forth between a Braves pregame special and an NFL Playoff analysis, unable to focus on either. He’d been sitting there for the past hour, ever since the opening session of the retreat came to a close, and he made a beeline out of the conference center auditorium to head straight back to the room. He’d have given anything not to go in the first place, but his mother had practically begged him, so he’d relented. The moment it was done, however, he had murmured an excuse and left. He just wasn’t ready to come face-to-face with Juliette Taylor and get rejected again, even though he knew he couldn’t put it off forever. He’d come here to see her and talk with her, and that’s what he would do. Eventually.

  He just needed some time to reframe things in his mind first. Time to recalculate the route.

  Marcus groaned. He wasn’t used to feeling like this. He was the one who alleviated other people’s suffering, who stayed calm and cool-headed when disaster uprooted other people’s lives. He showed them how to survive, how to cope, how to start over. Now he would have to take his own advice—only instead of navigating floodwaters or earthquake-damaged buildings, he would have to make his way through matters of the heart.

  Not exactly his specialty.

  Before he could even decide where to begin, the door opened and his mother walked in, raving about her first-ever spa treatment.

  “That was simply amazing! I never knew that you could pay someone to massage your scalp, let alone that it would feel so grand!” Her eyes were sparkling, but her hair was a filthy, scrambled mess, like a greasy version of the tumbleweeds he’d seen on his earlier jog.

  “Glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself, Mom. Not sure what I think of the new ’do, though.”

  She laughed, reaching up to pat the top of her head gingerly. “It’s all the conditioning oils. They said I’m supposed to leave them in for as long as I can stand it, but I think I’m about at that point already.”

  He chuckled. “You look like one of those ducks after the Macondo blowout, like we need to dip you in a tub of cleaning agent and tag you for release back into the wild.”

  She laughed again, and Marcus couldn’t help but think how adorable she was. She’d always been an upbeat person, but he hadn’t seen her this light and carefree in a long time.

  “All teasing aside, Marcus, you’ve been looking pretty tense since we got here. You should think about getting one of those scalp massages yourself.” She gestured toward the door. “That is, if they don’t kick you out first for littering.”

  “Me? Littering?” Had the scalp massage scrambled her brain?

  “Yes, dear, didn’t you notice the mess you made out front when you spilled your candies?”

  “What are you talking about, Mom?”

  “I saw you with a Peppermint Pattie earlier today. I didn’t know you had a whole bag, but it must have ripped open between here and the car, because they’re spread all over the walk. A real mess.”

  Marcus stared at her but she simply clucked her tongue and told him he was far too old to expect his mother to clean up after him. “Besides, I have to get in the shower. I’ve had it with the oil, I know it’s softening and conditioning, but it just feels too icky.” She headed for her room, adding, “Don’t forget, dinner’s at six.”

  It couldn’t be . . .

  Could it?

  Once she’d disappeared into her bedroom, Marcus jumped up and flung the front door open. One look confirmed what he hadn’t dared to hope: There on the path outside was a long line of wrapped Peppermint Patties, practically forming a trail.

  It was a trail. Had to be.

  He paused only long enough to grab his room key and put on his shoes, then he set off to follow where it led.

  That pursuit brought him down the walkway toward his car but then veered off to the right, in the direction of the jogging path. The foil-wrapped candies were spaced farther apart as he went, but it was still a definite and distinctive trail. He followed it across the parking lot, around the edge of the wooded area, and onto the jogging path. He made it through the stand of trees, and as he neared the bend around the big rock, he held his breath. When he got to the other side of that rock, he stopped in his tracks.

  Standing before him, a smile on her face and a Peppermint Pattie in her open palm, was Juliette Taylor.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  JULIETTE STARED INTO MARCUS'S vivid blue-gray eyes, her heart pounding. It had worked. Her cornball, chancy ploy had brought him to her just as she’d hoped.

  “Hello.” His greeting was tentative, cautious.

  Juliette’s throat went dry. She held out her hand. “Care for a Peppermint Pattie?”

  He smiled then, the slightly crooked, incredulous smile that had melted her heart all those years ago. She’d remembered it, and yet she’d forgotten how powerfully it affected her.

  “Yes, I would.” He reached out to take the candy. “But don’t call me Patty.”

  They grinned, eyes locked, neither one to look away.

  “Marcus,” she whispered.

  “Juliette,” he replied.

  They continued to hold each other’s gaze.

  “I’m so sorry about earlier,” she said. “I don’t know what to say except that you showed up at the exact wrong time. I had just gotten some really bad news and I could barely think—or even see, for that matter. I had no idea why some guy was talking to me and trying to give me something. My mind was a trillion miles away.”

  His eyes filled with concern. “Is everything okay?”

  She shrugged. “Long story, I can explain later. I just wanted you to understand it had nothing to do with you.”

  He nodded. “Well, I’m sorry for whatever happened that was so upsetting, but I’m glad to hear this just the same. The whole encounter was rather, uh, humiliating.”

  Juliette couldn’t help but smile. How endearing he was! How honest. She’d forgotten that. “I can imagine. I saw you during the opening session, and though I had no idea who you were, I could tell by your expression that you were put out with me, like I’d hurt your feelings or something. The more I thought about it, I realized you must have been the guy who approached me earlier. Then I remembered being handed something. By the time I could check my pocket and found the candy, you had already left the auditorium.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched ruefully. “Yeah, I went to the session for my mom’s sake, but I didn’t feel like hanging around afterward and risk getting snubbed again.”

  “Aw. Forgive me?”

  “Absolutely. And I’m sorry too, about the timing, I mean.”

  She waved away the thought. “Not your fault.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, but thanks for asking. It’s complicated.

  He looked like he wanted to say something but then changed his mind, glancing away as he slipped his hands into his pockets.

  “Right now, I just need to ask the obvious question,” she said.

  He waited, eyebrows raised.

  “Marcus, what are you doing here? Obviously, you knew I would . . .” Her voice trailed off as she gestured toward the silver-wrapped candy he still held in his hand. “Well, they don’t exactly have those things in the resort’s vending machines. You came prepared.”

  “The truth is . . .” He faltered, cleared his throat, tried again. “I came here specifically to see you. I mean, my mom definitely deserved the trip, but I’m feeling kind of guilty because she doesn’t know I was just using her to get myself here.”

  “She doesn’t know about—” Juliette caught herself in time, but then he finished the sentence for her anyway.

  “About us? Nope. I probably should’ve told her, but that would’
ve made me too self-conscious. After all, what if I walked up to you to say hello and you just snubbed me, like took the candy and kept going?” Glancing at her, eyes twinkling, he added, “Oh right, that is what happened.”

  She chuckled.

  “Anyway, at that point I was really glad I hadn’t told her. I mean, it was bad enough by myself, but it would’ve been far worse if she’d known our history and had witnessed such a complete and utter rejection.”

  Again Juliette chuckled. Again, he was being so honest. It made her dare to be honest in response. She looked at him, her head tilted.

  “But why now, Marcus? Why now, after so many years?”

  He looked away, a cloud passing across his eyes for a long moment. “It’s hard to explain. For one thing, the timing seemed right, I guess.”

  “The timing,” she echoed. “Are you saying you’ve come to find me at last?”

  His cheeks colored at her words, but to his credit he didn’t try to bluff his way out. “That’s part of it. Too extreme?”

  She chewed her bottom lip, unsure whether she wanted to punch him or kiss him. Maybe both. “About as extreme as the fact that I’ve been waiting for you to show up for the past twenty-five years.”

  And there it was, she had laid her heart out on the table too. Suddenly emboldened, she took it a step further. “I ought to deck you right here, you know.”

  “Deck me?” His confusion was tinged with startled delight.

  She raised two fists. “Yeah, like punch your lights out? Knock your block off?”

  Marcus laughed. “Knock my block off? I don’t think anyone’s used that expression since we were kids and boxing robots were all the rage.”

  He was charming, but she maintained her stance, unwilling to back down.

  “Seriously,” he added, smile fading. “Why do you say that?”

  She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her response. “Um, do you own a calendar, Marcus? Do you even grasp the concept of time? It’s been twenty-five years! What took you so long?” She lowered her fists and placed her hands on her hips.