“There was light!” Carrie exclaimed.
“There was light,” Angel confirmed with a quick glance at Carrie before resuming his gaze on Julia. “The sun came out, and she opened all the curtains. They made love facing each other in the healing afternoon light.”
There was a collective sigh. Julia couldn’t speak, but the warmth of Angel’s words melted her insides, enthralling her. Healing afternoon light. She loved that turn of phrase, could picture it perfectly like a golden aura around Mia and Damon.
“It was beautiful,” Mad said, rubbing her wet eyes with a fist. At the collection of shocked expressions, she tossed her recently dyed purple hair. “What? I have feelings too.”
“I don’t know,” Principal Johnston said matter-of-factly, “I missed the illicit dark scenes.”
“But that’s all they were,” Hailey said, gesturing wildly. “Like the first two books, Fierce Longing and Fierce Craving, were all dark, all sex. They needed the light for loving.” She turned to Angel. “Gosh, Angelo, I don’t know if we would’ve picked up on that light metaphor if you hadn’t come along. Thank you.”
Angel flashed a devilish dimpled smile. “I’m sure you smart ladies would’ve figured it out.” He paused and pinned Julia with a knowing look. “Especially Julia. She minored in English lit.”
Julia waved that away, mortified to be the center of attention. “I was so busy with my decluttering book, I didn’t give any thought to the Fierce trilogy at all.” But she secretly loved it. She just didn’t want to talk about it while she was throbbing in front of a group of women and especially not in front of Angel, who could read her too easily and would call her on it.
The women launched into a discussion of Damon, debating what was so appealing about him and if he was better than other book boyfriends, while Julia listened without comment.
Finally Angel interrupted with a question. “As a guy who’s not an alpha or a billionaire, I’d really like to know, what’s so appealing about that?”
Charlotte put a hand on Angel’s upper thigh and purred, “I suspect you have some alpha in you.”
Julia knew he did. He’d been so alpha as Damon, so wicked. She tore her gaze away from Charlotte’s hand on Angel’s leg, which he was not pushing away, and a buzz of adrenaline surged through her, urging her to bolt. She didn’t want to hear Angel discussing the deep, dark desires of women, and she really didn’t want to watch Angel with Charlotte.
“It’s just a fantasy,” Principal Johnston said.
Julia hesitated, not wanting her boss to see her fleeing the scene and wonder what the hell was wrong with her.
“I think it’s our brain wiring,” Suzanne, ever the science teacher, said. “Simple biology. We needed men to be the warriors and go hunt. Some part of us responds to that caveman appeal in the bedroom.”
“Good to know,” Angel replied, his slow sexy smile leveled right at Julia. She shot out of her seat, drawing everyone’s attention.
She grabbed her jacket and purse, turned, and spoke in a rush of explanation. “I need to straighten up at home for an open house on Saturday and prepare tomorrow’s lesson. Lots to do. Good seeing you all.”
She rushed out the door like Damon himself was on her heels.
Chapter Eleven
Julia headed to Brad’s parents’ house two days later, Saturday, with a rental van full of his boxes. She thought she’d be worked up, crazy with anxiety for what waited for her there, but instead she was numb. She could only sustain a high level of anxiety for a week, it seemed, before she wore herself out. The realtor would be showing her house to prospective buyers all day while she was away. Unfortunately, Angel had some kind of family thing last night that he couldn’t get out of, which meant they’d have to have that boundaries talk tomorrow. She anticipated today would be horrible but necessary. Sort of like all of her moving-forward stuff.
She’d get through it. Hell, she’d come this far, right? She’d gone through Brad’s stuff, put the house on the market, and she was putting out some feelers for assistant principal positions. Not her dream job, but it would change things up. Sometimes you just needed to kick-start your life. She smiled ruefully to herself. Sure, it had taken her five years to do anything at all, but now she was on her way.
The hour drive was easy, mostly highway¸ and the enormity of it didn’t really hit her until she pulled into the driveway of the well-maintained colonial. Suddenly she was racked with nerves and wishing she’d taken Angel up on his offer to go with her. She forced herself to take a deep breath, anxiety always made her hold her breath, and got out of the car.
Brad’s mother, Donna, greeted her at the door with a watery smile and then pulled her in for a tight hug like Julia was a long-lost daughter. She hadn’t visited in more than a year, though they did speak on the phone regularly. Donna had aged significantly after Brad’s death, her blond hair turned white, her back was stooped, and deep lines had formed around her mouth and her blue eyes. Julia might not have changed tremendously on the outside, but she felt a similar aging had happened on the inside.
“How are you, honey?” Donna asked, holding Julia by the upper arms and studying her face.
“I’m good, Donna. How are you?” Julia never could bring herself to call her Mom. Even Donna was difficult for her to say since she’d first met her when she was so young. But the familiarity made Donna happy, so Julia forced herself to say it.
Donna dropped her hands and stepped back. “I’m hanging in there. So you’re really selling the house?”
Julia nodded. “I’ll pay you back your share, of course.” Brad’s parents had given him the down payment.
“Not at all. That was our wedding gift to you. We’re just glad you’re here.”
“I wanted you to have his things. He had a lot.”
Mr. Turner, Ken, she reminded herself, stepped into the foyer. She took in his cardigan sweater and neatly pressed pants as he put a comforting arm around Donna in her conservative floral blouse and tailored pants. Brad was so different from his parents, both serious-minded psychologists. He’d been a bundle of uncontrolled energy, firing all over the place as he bounced from one thing to another until he joined Army ROTC and became very serious. The change in him had been startling.
Ken gave her a peck on the cheek. “Julia, how are you?”
“Good, thank you.”
He pressed his lips tightly together. “I’ll get the boxes.”
“We’ll all help,” Donna said. “No one has to do this alone.”
The three of them made short work of it. Fifteen boxes in all, stacked in a spare room upstairs. “That boy kept so much junk,” Ken said, pulling a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his eyes.
Julia took a deep breath. She knew they’d want to look through the boxes, but there was one more thing she had to do. She hadn’t told them about the letter over the phone. They were supposed to read it together, according to Brad’s instructions, but she wanted to read it first to deal with her own reaction privately. She’d call them in to read it with her once she was sure she could hold it together enough to share that heart-wrenching rush of remembrance.
“Can I have a moment alone in Brad’s room?” she asked.
Donna squeezed Julia’s shoulder gently. “Of course. Take as long as you need. I’ll make some tea and wait for you downstairs.”
Ken stood frozen in the spare room, staring at the boxes, not seeming to notice when she and Donna left the room.
She pushed open the door to Brad’s room. It looked exactly like it had when she’d first seen it. The room of a teenage boy—blue walls, blue plaid comforter on the bed, posters of NBA players, along with a pullout poster from the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. His shelves held autographed baseballs, some books about sports, and a collection of comic books. She stared at the tall chest of drawers and slowly crossed the room to stand in front of it. Her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to summon a mental picture of a smiling Brad,
the way he’d been before the military, but what came to her was Angel staring at her with those deep brown eyes, silently standing by, supporting her. She opened her eyes as a calm came over her and eased open the top drawer. It was empty. Not too surprising. He’d taken most everything with him when they got married. She bent and peered up at the top of it. Another envelope with her name printed neatly on the front. Her heart raced despite expecting it. Something about seeing her name in his writing after all these years was jarring. She took another deep breath before carefully peeling the envelope off.
She crossed to Brad’s twin-size bed and sat, staring at the neat handwriting with her name. She shivered, sensing his presence here. She pulled out the letter on the same lined paper as the other letter, and began to read. Brad’s voice in her head was so clear it was like he was sitting right next to her on the bed, grinning his mischievous smile, talking to her.
Dear Julia, Mom, and Dad,
If you’re reading this, it’s probably been a while, and you’ve made me out to be some kind of saint. I was always a screwup. I know it. I didn’t care about anyone but myself. Mom and Dad, I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused—the wrecked car, the accidental fire in the garage (at least I didn’t get a drug charge on that one), trashing the house when you were away, my bad grades, back talk, and general lack of respect. You should’ve shipped me off to military school. Ha-ha. I put myself there, huh? My life changed when I met Julia, and I tried to be the man you raised me to be. Thank you for your valiant efforts on my behalf. Please remember me best for my charming recklessness, which is probably how we all found each other in this predicament. Donate my stuff and turn my old room into a home gym or a secret sex club. I don’t care. Just don’t make it a freaking museum. Love you both. Now say goodbye to Julia. She needs the push to move on.
Julia, this is called closure according to my psychologist parents. Get my baseball card collection back from Angel, empty the box, and read the letter I taped to the bottom with Angel. And don’t make that face. You have to follow a dead man’s last request(s).
Love,
Brad
P.S. Julia, I’m sorry I never told you this, but here goes—I lied about being adopted. I wanted you to go out with me, so I made that up, and it meant so much to you that I never told you the truth. These are my biological parents.
Julia’s hand crumpled the note involuntarily, the room swam in front of her eyes, and then everything faded to black.
The next thing she knew, someone was pressing a cool washcloth to her forehead and brushing her hair back from her face. “Julia, come back to us,” Mrs. Turner said. “Come on, honey, open your eyes.”
Julia licked her dry lips and slowly opened her eyes. “What happened?”
Mr. Turner stood nearby, looking concerned.
“You passed out,” Mrs. Turner said. “Have you been sick?”
She jackknifed upright as it came back to her, her head spun from the movement, and a ringing in her ears drowned everything else out. She could see Mrs. Turner’s lips moving but heard nothing. He lied! He lied! He lied!
And then she was being lowered back to the bed, and the room came back into focus. Brad lied about being adopted. Thank God she’d never mentioned it to his parents. That shared feeling of abandonment, of never fitting in with their families, was what had bonded her and Brad together. It was why she’d chosen him when she’d been drawn to both men, him and Angel.
She’d based her entire life around a lie.
The letter. Where was the letter? She eased herself up and found it under her hip. “He left a letter. For all of us. I read it first. I’m sorry. I needed a moment with him.”
“A letter?” Mrs. Turner asked in a whispery soft voice. She turned to her husband, tears in her eyes. “He left us a letter.”
Mrs. Turner took the letter with shaking fingers. Mr. Turner sat next to her and put his arm around her as they read it quietly together.
Julia eased herself off the bed. The shock was giving way to a whole flood of emotions, but the biggest one was fury. How could Brad listen to her all those years, bitterly lamenting her fate, while pretending to be in the same boat when he was the farthest thing from it? That sob story he’d told her about the orphanage, the foster homes, never being accepted by his adoptive parents—all of it one big lie. He’d sucked her in, and she’d fallen for it.
She stood by the doorway and looked in on the two people who didn’t deserve the way they’d been treated, but loved their son unconditionally anyway. Brad had been damn lucky, and he’d thumbed his nose at all of them. “Goodbye, Mr. and Mrs. Turner.”
“Julia,” Mrs. Turner croaked out, “I’m so sorry. This must be such a shock to you. It is to us. We had no idea he told you he was adopted. He was such an odd child.”
“A screwup,” Mr. Turner said.
“We tried our best with him,” Mrs. Turner said helplessly. “Please know, you don’t have to say goodbye to us forever no matter what Brad said. We’re happy to have you in our lives.”
Mr. Turner turned to her, his eyes bleak. “You’re all we have left of him.”
“I’m sorry,” Julia choked out. It really was time to say goodbye. She rushed back and hugged them both. “Thank you for being so kind to me over the years.” She straightened and wiped her eyes. “I think, though, that closure is important. On that one point, he was right. So…goodbye. I love you.”
“We love you too,” Mrs. Turner said before breaking down in tears. Mr. Turner pulled her close.
Julia raced out the door, down the stairs, and made it all the way to the driver’s seat of the van before she broke down in tears. She sat there for a moment, her emotions swirling through her, making her thinking fuzzy. She’d severed the last tie she had to Brad. Some part of her was proud of that. The rest of her was still reeling from betrayal.
Somehow she managed to start the van and get herself back on the road home. It was just long enough a drive to get her thinking about Brad. The first time they’d met, he’d called them both strays, said they had to stick together, two adopted kids left by their mothers. She’d thought he really understood, on a deep level, the abandonment she’d always felt. He’d played on her sympathy and used her very personal pain to get close to her. Her gut clenched, and her eyes got hot. She had to pull over before she lost it again. She found a rest stop a few miles ahead, pulled into the parking lot, and called the one person she knew would understand the pain of this betrayal.
“Angel,” she managed, “it’s me. I saw Brad’s parents.”
“I’ll come over.”
Her world righted itself again, stabilizing with the strong center Angel had always provided. Her rock. She quickly decided not to bring up all the stuff that would get her upset again. It was too much over the phone, and she needed to see Angel’s familiar face, hear his reassuring voice, feel his arms around her to get her through it.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she said softly. “I’m at a rest stop. We’ll talk more when I get home.”
“How far away are you?”
She took a shuddering breath. “I think about half an hour.”
“I’ll be at your place.”
Then she remembered the realtor and potential buyers touring her house today. But she didn’t want to go to Angel’s place because that was where Brad’s baseball card collection was with another letter, and who knew what bombshell awaited her in that one? He wanted her to read it with Angel. Oh, shit. Did Brad suspect she’d been with Angel? Her chest tightened, and she sucked in another shuddering breath.
“Julia? You’re scaring me. I’m not sure you should drive.”
“No, I’m okay. Can you clear out the people from the open house at my place? Tell them it’s a family emergency and to please come back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Done.”
“Thanks,” she choked out, “for always being there for me.”
“Nothing could drive me away,” he said fiercely. “Not you, no
t him. Nothing.”
She closed her eyes and dropped her head back on the seat. “Angel,” she said more to herself than to him, savoring the name that meant so much to her, “I’d better go.” But she didn’t. She just sat there, overwhelmed by it all.
There was a pause. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come get you?”
She straightened, the small connection enough to keep her going. “I got this. See you in half an hour. Bye.” She hung up and headed home.
Angel’s car was in her driveway when she arrived. He must’ve let himself in. She hoped the realtor had gotten some leads, even though the open house was cut short. More than ever, she couldn’t wait to sell this house and move on. She’d just pulled out her key when the front door opened. She took one look at Angel’s sympathetic expression, and her lower lip quivered. She bit her lip, tired of crying over Brad.
He pulled her inside and into his arms. She dropped her keys and purse and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her head against his warm chest.
“He lied,” she said against his chest.
He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “What?”
“Brad lied about being adopted.”
Angel didn’t look surprised at all; in fact, he looked resigned. “So that’s what the letter was. He finally told you.”
She jerked away. “You knew?” The fury she’d felt toward Brad spiked as she realized the betrayal was now doubled. “How could you not tell me? What kind of shitty game were you guys playing with me? I was a wreck over the adoption thing. You both knew it! He lied and you let him! You just let me believe all this time when you knew! How could you!”
Angel pulled her back into a hug, and she fought his embrace, but he wasn’t letting go, just hugged her tighter until she went limp.
“Julia,” he said gently, his grip on her loosening, “it wasn’t my place to say.”
That just renewed her fury. “I can’t believe you were in on this! Let me go!” She pulled away, and he let her.
A Tempting Friendship (Clover Park #10) Page 12