He was a great doctor. A great man. He just hadn’t been a great husband for Karen Rafferty.
Usually, when Hunter sought his own personal fun, he ended up with similar kinds of people.
Yet there he was, sitting outside on a Saturday night with a beautiful woman who was much too deep for him, when not far away he had the opportunity to observe the fruits of his labor, enjoying the way his guests were enjoying themselves.
Not that he was seeking personal fun at the moment. Trouble was, he didn’t know what he was seeking.
He just knew he had at least another fifteen minutes before the event started to break up. At least a quarter of an hour before her brother would be ready to leave.
“I’m surprised Colin and Chantel haven’t come looking for you.”
“They’re used to me slipping out.”
“So they knew you were hailing a cab?” Then why was she sitting there with him? His blood started to heat up.
“No. Usually I wander around the venue. Find a quiet place to sit.”
Whoa. “Usually? You do this a lot?”
“Only when I’m required to attend a social evening function.”
She’d said she didn’t date. Some guy had ruined her trust in men. Must’ve been unfaithful to her. Or lied to her to some atrocious extent. Hunter wasn’t good at figuring out the drama. But...
“Which is pretty much all the time, right?” he said. She had the gala on Thursday. And, he assumed, other functions on a regular basis, based on how many boards she sat on.
“Almost never. Colin and Chantel handle the socializing part of our obligations.”
Hunter was truly shocked. And...something more. It wasn’t as though he had enough of a personal investment to care. But a guy could feel concerned for a fellow human being.
And then something else hit him. “But tonight you weren’t finding a quiet place to sit. You were actually leaving. Why?”
“You.”
“Me?” When he heard his voice reverberate around him, he consciously took a deep breath. Quieted his tone. “What on earth have I done to you? Why would I drive you to the point of needing to get a cab?” He was the guy who made everyone comfortable. He’d always been that guy.
“You’re the only reason I was there,” she said. And he wondered if she was backtracking. Or if he was missing some crucial fact. “Or rather, your need for reassurance where Joy was concerned. We were finished talking about Joy, so I wanted out.” She didn’t sound like herself.
“You said I was the reason you were leaving.”
“Like I said, our business was done. It was time to go.” She paused. “I don’t get you. I don’t get what you’re about.”
“You don’t get me?”
“You...keep pursuing me when...”
“When what?”
“You’re gorgeous, successful, charming...not the type of guy who needs to pursue a woman. Any woman. And especially not one as backward as I am.”
Backward? Had she looked at herself? Heard herself in a meeting? Seen herself with Joy?
“I told you, it’s the spell.” He had no other answer for her.
She grinned again. And he felt like he’d hit a home run.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JULIE DRESSED WITH Joy in mind Sunday morning. The little girl had been in jeans and T-shirts every time she’d seen her. And because she knew they’d brought Joy’s clothes from home and that she was choosing what she wanted to wear, Julie figured jeans and T-shirts were what made her comfortable.
She only owned two T-shirts.
The one she chose was old but hardly worn—because, technically, it wasn’t hers. She’d purchased it for her mother as a Mother’s Day gift the year she’d died. White with pink and purple glittery hearts across the front, it read Best Mom Ever. She’d chosen it because she and Amy and Joy all missed their mothers. And because the only other one she owned had been a freebie, advertized a local winery and was extralarge.
The jeans were her own. Skinny jeans. Cut low on the hips. The ones Chantel had given her for Christmas.
Pausing with her brush halfway through her long dark hair, she stared at the mirror in her bathroom suite, wondering if she should take off the makeup she’d so carefully applied. She always wore some. But only when she went out to a function did she bother with her eyes. Breakfast with Joy wasn’t a function.
And she hadn’t put on the makeup with the little girl in mind, either.
Was it wrong to be dressing herself up because of a man she had no interest in encouraging?
Was it wrong to want to feel good about herself?
Hunter desired nothing from her but a flirtation. He’d made that quite clear. Just as she’d made clear that she wasn’t interested.
With that honesty between them, was there any harm in enjoying a bit of nonthreatening banter with him? Since they were being thrust together for Joy’s sake. And then at Thursday night’s gala.
Yanking the brush down, she winced and put it away. No time now to pull her hair back into her usual careful ponytail.
Out of the house before Chantel and Colin were up and could comment on the makeup and lack of ponytail, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t like that reaction and felt a little guilty about it. She loved her family. Trusted them. More than anyone.
If she felt she had to hide something from them, that something was not good.
Determining that she’d talk to Chantel about the whole situation when she got home that afternoon, Julie turned her car toward the highway.
* * *
HUNTER MADE EDWARD change his clothes. Who wore a suit and tie to breakfast with a child on Sunday morning?
Not anyone he could think of. Not if the guy wanted the child to warm up to him. Or find him in any way playful.
Playful. Wasn’t that what seven-year-old kids wanted? Julie had said he should try to remember himself at that age. But he wasn’t sure he remembered seven any differently than nine or eleven. It had always been about the fact that his folks got mad at each other, and he made them both happy. But he remembered wanting to have fun. And doing dumb stuff to make them laugh.
He’d loved it when his parents laughed together. Which they did if they were having fun.
Things were bad when the fun stopped.
Now, as he waited for Edward in the hotel lobby, he directed his attention to a thirtysomething blonde woman who was walking toward the reception desk. In wedge heels and a short dress, she looked a bit too done up for Sunday morning, too.
But attractive. She might be fun for a night of clubbing. If she was single.
Hunter always drew the line at married women. Or engaged women.
A glance at his watch told him they were losing the fifteen-minute window he’d scheduled into their travel plans that morning. He’d wanted to be at the restaurant first, ahead of Julie Fairbanks. He wanted to be certain he had a chance to sit beside her.
The time he’d spent with her last night had left him craving more. And feeling weirdly confident that with her nearby, he’d do just fine with Joy. Maybe because he was convinced that if he screwed up, she’d kick him under the table to keep him in line.
Gently, of course.
“This better?” Edward stood there in khakis and a long-sleeved plaid button-up shirt, looking like something out of an elite men’s magazine.
“Much,” Hunter replied, pulling the keys out of his jeans pocket and heading toward his SUV. They could still be first on the scene.
But they weren’t. Lila and Joy were already seated at a round table for five in front of a window by the time Hunter followed Edward into the restaurant. Still, things worked out fine when Edward took the seat next to Lila rather than the one next to Joy. Leaving Hunter to snag the one beside Edwa
rd for himself without drawing attention to the fact that Julie, when she arrived, would be in the perfect place, next to him and next to Joy, too.
He didn’t even have to worry about entertaining the child until Julie got there because Lila was asking Edward what he thought of Joy’s T-shirt.
It had some colorful character on it. He wasn’t up on kids’ wear. Edward seemed to recognize it, though. He was a general practitioner, so he probably saw some kids. Maybe even had kids’ stuff in his waiting room.
Bottom line, Hunter was off the hook. Which was pretty much the way the whole breakfast went, even more than he’d intended. Sitting next to Julie didn’t go exactly as he’d hoped. Focused as she was on Joy, she was turned away from Hunter through almost the entire meal.
She’d said hello when she arrived. He thought she’d smiled, but she’d turned toward Joy so quickly, he wasn’t completely sure.
Her leg bumped into his under the table once. He liked that. In a pathetic kind of way.
A guy who took undue notice of an accidental leg bump needed a head adjustment.
The good news was that Edward was actually getting to talk to Joy. She wasn’t responding, but there was nothing wrong with her hearing. He wasn’t saying much. Answering questions that Lila was posing to him—or rather, following her suggestions.
“Tell Joy about your house,” she was saying as their waiter, Tom something, laid a plate of huge pancakes in front of Hunter. And a plate of similarly thick but smaller ones in front of Joy. Julie’s toast and fruit seemed tame in comparison.
“It’s right on the beach,” Edward said, looking directly at the girl. “You finish your lunch and you walk outside the door and play in the sand. Or go for a swim.”
Hunter had no idea if Joy liked to swim. But living in Ventura, she’d be familiar with the beach. The ocean.
From what he’d been told, though, her home, on the far inland side of town, had been about as far from the ocean as you could get.
But with a surfer father...
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Edward asked. “Spending part of every day on the beach?”
The girl’s expression didn’t change. Hunter just caught the slight flinch because he’d been staring at her. Looking for any sign of softening for Edward’s sake.
Surfer father. Abusive father. Kid might not love the beach.
Hunter tipped over his glass of orange juice. Choosing it rather than the water he wasn’t going to drink because the water glass was completely full and the orange juice mostly gone. Jumping up, he mopped with his napkin at the little puddle he’d made.
He noticed Joy watching him, as he’d hoped. He made a goofy face for her benefit.
“I’m sorry,” he said to the table, then quietly sat back down.
Julie was putting syrup on Joy’s pancakes. Edward and Lila were eating their eggs. Joy glanced at Hunter again. Like she wanted something from him.
Like he was supposed to know what to do.
Or maybe she just thought he was nuts.
Maybe he was.
Snatching a couple of grapes out of Julie’s bowl of fruit, he shoved them deep into his pancake, giving it eyes. Joy was busy eating, but glanced over once.
A stolen strawberry became a nose.
“I intended to eat that,” Julie said dryly.
“You want it back?” He dug it out of the pancake, catching a finger full of dough, and pretended he was going to plop the whole thing back in Julie’s bowl.
“No, thank you,” she said, covering her bowl with both hands.
Shrugging, he put the glob in his mouth. Not bad. Would’ve been better with some strawberry syrup to go along with it.
“I thought maybe we could go to the park up in Santa Raquel after breakfast,” Lila said. It was so far from Ventura that even if Shawn Amos was looking for his daughter, he’d be unlikely to go there.
Edward enthusiastically concurred.
“What do you think?” Julie turned to Joy.
Hunter took advantage of that to steal another strawberry out of her bowl, dropping it in the nose hole on his pancake.
Joy glanced at it.
He snatched up a bottle of ketchup and made a straight line for a mouth. Looked at the little girl, then scrunched his nose and wiped the red off his pancake, licking the finger with which he’d done so.
“I think going to the park’s a good idea,” Julie said. Hunter couldn’t tell if she was purposely ignoring him or was simply unaware of what he was doing. But Joy was relaxing the rigidity that had appeared in her shoulders when Edward had mentioned the beach.
He wanted to tell her how cool surfing was. How he’d found his lifeline in the waves and she could, too. How your stomach jumped as if it was on a carnival ride when a wave hit you just right.
Instead, he grabbed the syrup and drew a squiggly line for a mouth on the pile on his plate. He was getting kind of hungry, but he was a bit too keyed up to eat. He’d hoped to have a minute or two to speak with Julie that morning.
To undo whatever he’d done the night before, whatever had made him think of her more rather than less. If not today, he’d have to wait until Thursday’s gala and he didn’t like the thought of that.
“Have you ever climbed a tree?” Julie asked the girl.
Joy glanced at his plate again.
Hunter cleaned the syrup off his pancake with his cookie dough finger and licked it clean.
“Amy learned to climb trees when she was little,” Julie was saying. Hunter didn’t have a clue who Amy was, but he figured Joy must know. Probably a little girl at the shelter. Or maybe someone from Joy’s school.
Pulling a glob of syrupy pancake out of the stack, he left a hole for the mouth.
“She thought trees were a good place to hide, high above everyone else, and read,” Julie was saying. “When we go to the park, we can see if there’s a tree with a low enough branch for us to sit on.”
When Julie reached over to cut a piece of pancake for Joy and hand her the fork, he grabbed some lettuce off her plate and dropped it quickly above the eyes on his. Green hair.
Joy laughed out loud.
Edward froze. Lila stopped, fork suspended, and stared at the little girl.
“You want to climb a tree?” Julie asked.
Hunter snatched a piece of cantaloupe and stuck it in his mouth.
“Yes,” Joy said. In a little girl lisp. And then, as though she hadn’t been mute for more than a week, added, “If you take me and he comes, too.”
She was pointing at Hunter.
He’d been caught. Mid-chew.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OF ANY SESSION for Sara to be absent, this was the worst. Heart pounding, Julie drew on more than a decade of calming her own fears and keeping up appearances. She smiled at Joy, who’d finally gifted them with the sweetest little voice, and hoped she was hiding the fact that the world was shifting.
“I can certainly go with you,” she told Joy, pretending to herself that they were in their small art room, in front of a pair of easels. “But Ms. McDaniels wants to take you there...” She tried to recall everything Sara had told her.
They didn’t want Joy to be afraid or feel as though she was in prison. And yet, they couldn’t insult her intelligence, either. She was observant. And living with other victims.
Sara had also counseled her on how to handle things in the event that Joy spoke for the first time while alone with Julie.
They weren’t currently alone. Julie looked at Lila.
“How about if Julie rides along with us?” the older woman asked Joy, with her hint of a smile. She could’ve been talking to any of the residents’ children, in any situation. Lila was the same with all of them.
Instilling a confidence that couldn’t be shatte
red.
Joy turned to Julie, who nodded.
The child remained silent. But looking at them, rather than down or vacantly away. That direct look was something Julie had begun to recognize as acquiescence.
There was so much they needed the child to tell them. As soon as possible. And yet, to push her, to instill any kind of alarm, or even drama, could force her back into her shell.
Hunter, calmly eating his pancakes beside her, was the perfect antidote to the urgency Julie was trying hard to contain.
She glanced at Edward. The older man’s eyes glistened. He’d been counseled, too. And Lila had leaned over to speak quietly to him.
Still, Julie felt it was time for them to get out of there.
Edward might need a little while to collect himself.
* * *
THEY FOUND A TREE. At the park not far from The Lemonade Stand. Lila’s choice. She’d wanted to be close, just in case.
Julie didn’t want to think about “in case” of what. But she knew Lila was concerned about Joy’s emotional and mental state. And that she wanted to be close to the Stand because Sara was there.
Edward had driven Julie’s car, with Hunter’s Escalade behind him.
From her perch on the long branch that hung low, propped up by an equally thick branch behind her, Julie peered over at Edward and Lila, sitting on a bench, wishing the other woman was within hearing distance.
She glanced down at Joy. Felt a tremendous tug at her heart. And knew she was getting in deep.
“I’ve been telling you so many stories about Amy, I was thinking maybe, while we’re way up here in one of Amy’s special places, you could tell me a story,” she said, an arm around Joy as the child sat tucked between Julie and the tree trunk. The small girl with her big brown eyes asked for so little, and yet compelled Julie to give her everything she had.
Since that one sentence at the table over breakfast, Joy hadn’t said another word.
Hunter stood just beneath them. He’d said it was because he was Joy’s ladder. She figured he was there to catch her if she fell.
But she had a feeling he’d deny that if she called him on it.
For Joy's Sake Page 11