“What do you think he did that you needed to save it?”
She picked up a sleeper out of the basket and carefully began to fold it. “Can I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may incriminate me?”
“This isn’t a court of law,” he reminded her. “You don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want you to think badly of me,” she admitted.
“I don’t think I could.”
She put the sleeper down, reached for another. “I had a very privileged upbringing,” she confided. “I had the luxury of a stable home and a loving family, but I didn’t always make smart choices.
“In my junior year of high school, a bunch of kids were planning to go to Mexico for spring break. My parents weren’t thrilled with the idea, but they agreed that I could go if I paid for it. After Christmas, I went shopping with a few friends and there was this gorgeous Kate Spade handbag that I just couldn’t resist. Except that, after buying the bag, I realized that I was almost two hundred dollars short for the trip and my parents refused to loan me the money.”
“Which made you furious,” he guessed.
She nodded and kept folding. “Because it wasn’t that they didn’t have the money—it was the principle, they said. They’d agreed that I could go if I paid for it, and I said that I would.”
“So you didn’t get to go on the spring break trip,” he concluded.
“No—I went. When I told Tomas, my boyfriend at the time, that I didn’t have the money, he said that he would loan it to me and let me pay him back in a few months. It seemed like the perfect solution to me, except that when we were ready to leave Mexico, Tomas wanted me to carry some souvenirs back for him as repayment for the loan.”
He could see where she was going with this story and he really didn’t want to hear anymore. But it was like passing the scene of a motor vehicle collision—he didn’t want to see the carnage, but he couldn’t seem to look away.
“I was young and naive, but I wasn’t stupid,” Julie continued. “I told him to carry his own drugs and I would reimburse him the cost of the ticket when we got home.”
“Nothing about that sounds scandalous to me.”
“No, that’s just background—the first really bad choice that I made. Of course, I promised myself that I’d learned my lesson. Then, about six months later, I met Randy Cosgrove.”
She’d finished with the sleepers and moved on to diaper shirts. “Randy was another bad boy. His father was a minister and Randy was the stereotypical preacher’s kid who went in the opposite direction of everything his family believed. He was dark and brooding and sexy—the type of guy that all fathers warn their daughters about.”
He wasn’t sure how much more he wanted to hear about her relationship with Randy, but he wasn’t willing to interrupt now that she was finally talking to him.
“My father warned me. My mother warned me. My brothers warned me. But I didn’t listen. I was so sure they were wrong about him, and even if they weren’t, I didn’t care. Because I had fun with Randy—he was defiant, sexy and exciting, and I was totally infatuated with him.
“One night Randy came by to take me for a drive in a friend’s car he’d borrowed. It was a candy-apple-red 1965 Ford Mustang convertible and it was a starry night, and we drove around for nearly an hour with the top down and the music blaring. And then the cops showed up and arrested both of us for stealing the car.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“That must have been a scary experience for you.”
“I was terrified. I don’t know how long I was at the police station before my parents came—probably not more than a few hours—but it felt like forever. Then my dad and the arresting officer were in conference for what seemed like several more hours, and when they finally came out, we went home.”
“The way you told the story to me, you didn’t even know the car was stolen.”
“I didn’t,” she assured him. “But I didn’t ask any questions, either. Not even the name of the friend Randy supposedly borrowed the car from. Randy did six months in juvie, and I walked away.
“Elliott told me that he could prove my dad had pulled strings and called in favors to keep me out of jail, that I wasn’t charged because I got deferential treatment. If that’s true, if he has proof, it will completely undermine my father’s assertion that everyone is equal under the law.”
“If you were never charged, what kind of proof could he have?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Then maybe you should consider that he manufactured whatever so-called evidence he has.”
“I wish I could believe that was true, but I never told Elliott about that…incident. Which means that he must have gotten the details from someone else. Someone who was there, at the police station, and who knows what happened behind the scenes.”
“Have you talked to your father about this?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t. At first, I couldn’t because I didn’t want to face my parents after what Elliott had done. And then—” she blew out an unsteady breath “—I was afraid to ask him about it.”
“Afraid that it might be true?” he guessed.
She nodded. “I didn’t want to believe it. At the time, I was so relieved that I didn’t have to be photographed and fingerprinted and go to court, that I didn’t even question it. But later, I started to wonder how I’d managed to slip out of that sticky situation so easily.
“Elliott’s allegation that my father pulled strings and called in favors would certainly answer that question. And after everything my parents had done for me, there was no way I could do anything that would risk my dad’s reputation and career.”
“Instead, you let Elliott get away with what he did to you?”
She winced at his blunt assessment, though it was true. “I chose to end my relationship with Elliott and walk away. It seemed like the easiest solution at the time. Of course, that was before I knew I was pregnant.”
“And now?”
“Now…I don’t know,” she admitted. “Elliott has political ambitions, and a strict timetable in which he wants things to happen. And I honestly don’t know how he’ll react to his ex-fiancee showing up with his out-of-wedlock child.
“I know I have to tell him about the baby, but one of the reasons I didn’t tell him when I first discovered that I was pregnant was that I was worried he would try to force a reconciliation. He would say it was for the sake of our baby, but it would really be for the sake of his career. In politics, married men are viewed as more trustworthy and reliable than unmarried men—add a baby to the mix, and he’d be laughing.”
“Do you think he’d still try to get you back?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Would you go back to him?”
“No.” Her response was unequivocal and without hesitation.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Asking you to talk about this.”
“You didn’t push me for more than I was ready to give,” she reminded him.
“Okay, then I’m sorry that talking about this undid all the good of Gia’s massage.”
She managed a smile. “Well, at least my toes still look good.”
* * *
There was a definite chill in the air on Monday, so Julie decided to put a roast in the oven for dinner. She peeled carrots and potatoes to go with it, and figured she would try her hand at Yorkshire pudding, too.
Sunday had been a quiet day. Despite the passionate kisses she and Lukas had shared on Saturday night and her heart-wrenching confessions afterward, there was no lingering awkwardness between them.
There were also no more kisses, and although she was undeniably disappointed, the rational part of her brain reassured her that it was a good thing. It was scary to think about how much he meant to her already,
how quickly he’d become not just a good friend but an important part of her world. And she knew that if there were more kisses, if they took their relationship to the next level, it would only be that much more difficult for her to leave.
After the basic prep for dinner was done, she spent some time playing with Caden—talking nonsense to him and showing him blocks and squeaky toys. Then they had a nap together, lying on a blanket on the floor with Einstein. When Julie woke up, she noticed that even Daphne had joined them. And when she reached a tentative hand out, the cat not only endured her gentle scratching but actually purred in appreciation.
She had just checked the potatoes when Lukas called to say that he was leaving the office. Caden wasn’t on any kind of schedule yet, but she liked to nurse him before Lukas got home. Despite his claim that he was okay with the nursing thing, and although she knew her breasts were functional rather than sexual, the sizzle she felt around Lukas was so completely sexually charged that she’d decided it was best to keep her clothes on whenever he was around.
After Caden was fed and his diaper changed, Julie put him in a clean sleeper. She was just fastening the snaps when she heard the crash.
She raced down the stairs with the baby in her arms just as the back door opened and Lukas walked in.
They stood on opposite sides of the room, staring at the scene. The roasting pan had been upended in the middle of the kitchen floor, meat juices were spreading over the ceramic tiles and Einstein was in the middle of all of it, joyfully wolfing down prime rib.
* * *
It took Luke all of two seconds to accurately assess the situation. “Einstein!”
The dog cowered, his ears flat, his belly against the floor. Which meant that he was pretty much marinating himself in beef juice.
Julie was silent for a long minute, trying to comprehend the carnage, then her blue-gray eyes filled with tears.
Luke’s first instinct was to go to her, to put his arms around her and reassure her that it wasn’t a catastrophe of major proportions. But he knew that if he took a single step in her direction, Einstein would jump up, vying for his attention, and splashing in the au jus. Instead, he moved toward the dog, trying not to step in the gravy. He scooped him up and held him at arm’s length.
“Let me get him cleaned up first, then I’ll come back to deal with that,” he told Julie, nodding toward the remains of Einstein’s feast.
Of course, bathing a wriggling puppy who didn’t like to be bathed wasn’t an easy task. Einstein kept trying to jump out of the laundry tub, which meant that Luke ended up as wet as the puppy, and every time he plunked the animal back down in the water, he howled so desperately and pitifully that Luke started to feel guilty for forcing the bath.
When he finally drained the tub and rubbed the dog down, Julie had cleaned up the kitchen.
“I hope you’re not hungry,” she said, when he came out of the laundry room. “Because that was dinner.”
“For what it’s worth, it smelled really good.”
“It would have been delicious.” She glared at the dog. “He didn’t even savor it—he scarfed it down like it was a bowl of three-dollar kibble rather than thirty dollars worth of prime rib.”
Luke tried to look in the bright side. “I was kind of in the mood for pizza, anyway.”
She just stared at him. “Pizza?”
“What’s wrong with pizza?” Aside from the fact that it wasn’t prime rib, of course. But he wasn’t going to bring that up again.
“Nothing,” she finally decided. “As long as we can get it with pineapple and black olives.”
“I’ll go along with the pineapple and black olives if I can add bacon.”
“Are you that determined to clog your arteries before you’re forty?”
“My doctor isn’t worried.”
“Fine. Pineapple, black olives and bacon,” she agreed.
“Speaking of doctors,” Lukas said. “Weren’t you supposed to take Caden for a checkup soon?”
“We have an appointment with Dr. Turcotte on Thursday afternoon.”
“What time?”
“Two o’clock.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
She lifted a brow. “You don’t think I can manage to take the baby to a doctor’s appointment on my own?”
“I’m sure you can,” he agreed. “But I usually book surgeries on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and it just so happens that I don’t have anything scheduled for this Thursday. Besides, I’m kind of curious to see how much the little guy has grown.”
“You’re not worried that going to see my baby’s doctor with me might send the wrong message?”
“Cameron isn’t the type to jump to conclusions,” he assured her.
“I wasn’t thinking about him so much as any other patients who might be in the waiting room—particularly those of the female variety.”
“They can jump to all the conclusions they want.”
She smiled. “So it’s true.”
“What’s true? Who have you been talking to?”
“Maybe I’m just observant.”
His gaze narrowed. “Kelly.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed.
“What else did she tell you?”
“I’m not dishing on our girl talk to you.”
“Then I’ll ask Kelly.”
“You do that,” she said, her tone reflecting certainty that Kelly would keep her confidence.
“We go back a long way,” he reminded her.
“You were the first friend she had when she came to Pinehurst in fifth grade and still her best friend,” she said, repeating what Jack’s fiancee had obviously told her. “And the woman you once proposed to.”
He winced. “Apparently she had no problem dishing to you.”
“She wanted me to understand what kind of man you are,” Julie explained. “But I already knew, and I’d already figured out that she was the woman you told me about.”
“When she told me that she was pregnant—I knew she was terrified. And I didn’t want her to think that she had to go through it on her own.”
“And you were in love with her.”
He frowned at the matter-of-fact tone of her statement. “Maybe I thought I was,” he allowed.
“Of course you were,” she continued. “And why wouldn’t you be? She’s a beautiful woman, you obviously shared a lot of common interests and history.”
He was surprised—and a little unnerved—by the accuracy of her insights. No one else had ever known the true depth of his feelings for his best friend. No one had ever guessed that the real reason he’d never fallen in love with any other woman was that he was in love with Kelly.
Then he’d realized that she was in love with his brother—and that truth wasn’t just a blow to his ego but a dagger through his heart. Until he’d seen them together and saw the way they looked at one another. Even when they were both still hurt and angry, there was no denying the love between them—and he knew they’d both tried.
And that was when Luke had finally let go. Because he knew that he could feel hurt and betrayed, but he couldn’t continue to pretend that he and Kelly had ever been anything more than friends.
“We did share a lot of things,” he admitted to Julie. “But never more than a single kiss when we were in seventh grade.”
She held up her hands. “None of my business.”
“I just want to make it clear that I didn’t have any kind of romantic history with my brother’s fiancee.”
“Aside from the fact that you were in love with her.”
“Infatuated,” he clarified, because he understood now that unrequited love wasn’t really love at all. He’d spent too many years comparing all the other woman he met to the ideal of the one he held in his heart, and now that he’d finally let go of that ideal, a different woman had taken up residence in his heart.
“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” she countered.
He frowned, feigning confusion. “I thought y
ou said bacon, pineapple and black olives?”
She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you actually order it so that we get to eat sometime tonight?”
So he did.
The pizza was delivered within twenty minutes, but even when the delivery boy rang the bell, Einstein didn’t move from the corner to which he’d been banished. In fact, he even stayed there the whole time that Luke and Julie were eating.
But when the pizza box was empty and pushed aside, the pup slowly inched across the floor on his belly until he was beside her chair. Even when Einstein dropped his chin onto her foot, Julie pretended she didn’t see him. Einstein, devastated by this rejection, licked her toes.
“He’s trying to apologize,” Luke pointed out to her.
“Well, I don’t accept his apology,” she said.
But in contradiction to the harsh words, one hand reached down to scratch the top of his head, and Einstein’s tail thumped against the floor.
She had every right to be furious with the animal still, but her soft heart couldn’t hold out against the obviously contrite puppy. It seemed to Luke further proof that she fit into every aspect of his life, and with each day that passed, he couldn’t help wondering if she might change her mind about passing through.
He’d dated a lot of women in his thirty-four years, and he wasn’t sure how to interpret his growing feelings for Julie. Was it just proximity? Was it the shared experience of Caden’s birth that had forged a bond between them? Or was it because his brothers had both fallen in love so recently that he was looking to fill some void in his own life?
He knew that was a distinct possibility, except that he’d never felt as if there was a void in his life. He’d always been happy—he had a job he loved, good friends, close family and pets that lavished him with affection.
Okay, so that might be a bit of an exaggeration where Daphne was concerned, but he knew the cat loved him, too. Or at least appreciated being fed every day, having a warm bed to sleep in and a clean litter box at her disposal.
But with Julie and Caden under his roof, even though they’d been there only a few weeks, he felt as if they belonged. Which wasn’t something he should be thinking when she was planning to go back to Springfield soon.
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