by Leger, Lori
Julia’s glare pivoted from Chad to their daughter.
Miranda’s face fell. “He did, Mom. I was in the middle of a project for school at the time. I forgot all about it. I’m sorry, Dad.”
Chad crossed his arms, gave his daughter a stern look. “Did you spend that money on something else?”
“No. It’s still in the emergency fund in my bank. I haven’t touched it.”
He sighed, seeming to accept her excuse. “Well, you sure as hell can’t drive to Houston on those tires.”
“We have to go today.” Julia glanced over at his brand new Yukon. “Would you consider letting her drive us there in your truck?”
He shook his head. “It’s out of the question. It’s only a month old, and nobody’s putting the first scratch or dent on it, but me. There’s no choice but for me to drive you there myself.”
“The hell you are.” The last thing she wanted was to be in an enclosed vehicle with her estranged husband for three hours. “Mr. Pete will let us borrow one of their vehicles.” She turned to walk back into the house to ask her in-laws, but Chad grabbed her arm.
“Look, you’re always telling me I’m not willing to sacrifice for you. Here I am, attempting to do something and you won’t let me.”
She pulled away from him, and spun around, truly annoyed at his suggestion.
“Come on, Mom,” Jacob pleaded. “I’d like to get some more time in with Dad and Miranda. Please, let him drive us there. It’ll be nice.”
Overcome with guilt at her son’s pleading, Julia took a deep breath and turned to her husband. “All right, but if you can’t get a room in the airport hotel, you can stay with Chad, and Miranda will stay with me. Understood?”
Chad
Chad nodded, trying not to grin like a six year old boy with a toad in his pocket. “You go tell Mom and Dad what’s going on and Jacob and I will transfer the luggage. Please ask Mom to get the change of clothes I left here the last time I came for a visit. I don’t have anything else with me.”
Julia and the others came out a few minutes later. Vivi went straight to her son, with his clothes hung on a hanger, while Pete went to check out the tires on Miranda’s vehicle.
He clucked his tongue at his granddaughter. “Honey, you’re lucky they’ve lasted this long. Chad, I can bring it in first thing tomorrow morning and have new tires put on here in town. By the time you get back it’ll be taken care of.”
Miranda handed her grandfather a card. “Here gramps, use this to pay for them. It’s the debit card for my emergency fund and there’s nearly a thousand dollars in it. The PIN is my birthday, April 1, or 0401. Can you remember that?”
Pete’s eyes narrowed. “Look here, Missy—I’m not the one driving around on bald tires. Of course, I remember the birth date of my oldest grandchild. It’s the younger ones I can’t seem to retain. Your grandma keeps telling me I need more RAM, whatever the hell that means.”
“Are you okay, Jules? Need me to stop for a bathroom break or water or anything?”
Chad’s voice sliced into her quiet thoughts like the screech of an owl in the woods at midnight. She didn’t look up from the book she’d remembered to place in her purse, thankful for a reason to avoid conversation. “I’m fine.”
“Let me know if you need me to stop at any time.”
She kept her eyes on the book. “I will.”
“You know, you might want to be careful with that. Reading in a vehicle makes you sick sometimes.”
Her jaw tightened. “If I start to get sick, I’ll stop.” She prayed for him to keep silent.
“How’s Jacob doing in school?”
She sighed at the waste of a good prayer. “He’s doing well—the top two percentile in all of his subjects, except for one.”
“Let me guess. Speech?”
She nodded, lifting the corners of her mouth just a bit.
Chad snorted. “Poor kid—he gets it from me. I’d die if I had to do any public speaking.”
Julia nodded, choosing to remain silent.
“Miranda made the Dean’s list again last semester. Did she tell you?”
“Yes, she told me.”
Chad nodded. “Yeah, I guess you two talk quite a bit, huh? Probably more than she and I do.”
Julia made a big show of turning a page she hadn’t read yet. “We talk at least three or four times a week.”
Chad nodded. “That’s good, then. How’s your brother and his family?”
“I didn’t get to see them for Christmas. They’d had a ski vacation planned over the holidays for months.” She turned another page she hadn’t read. Dammit! The man hadn’t called her in three months. You’d think he could keep quiet for a little longer.
He reached out slowly and placed his hand on hers. “Do you think we could use this time to talk?”
She pulled her hand out from under his. “I’d rather not.”
“Come on Jules. This is serious. This is our future. We’ve got two more hours on the road. Maybe we could get some things out in the open.”
Julia gave her head an emphatic shake.
“Are you telling me you don’t want to try to save our marriage?” His tone was deflated.
She measured her words before speaking in a quiet voice. “Are you telling me you do? Because the papers you had delivered to me several months ago told a different story.”
“I was mistaken in sending those papers. I was thinking that if I … if you …” He ran his hand nervously through his hair.
Julia finally faced him. “You were trying to use emotional blackmail on me. You thought if you gave me an ultimatum, I’d run back home to you?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t thinking at all. But, I know two things, Jules. I love you and I don’t want a divorce.”
“I love you too, Chad, but it doesn’t change anything. We’re at an impasse, and neither of us will give an inch.”
“Jules, please …”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now.” She reopened her book and pretended to read again. Thankfully, Chad ended his efforts to converse. Her eyes grew heavy with the effort to read, and she finally closed the book and reclined the seat to take a nap.
Chad glanced over occasionally to watch his wife sleep in the passenger seat. She wore a pair of black jeans that fit her hips snugly, paired with a two piece sweater set in a deep burgundy color. The sweater had a scooped neckline that complimented the flawless, creamy skin of her neck and upper chest area.
Sleeping soundly now, she raised her left arm above her head, causing the hem of her sweater to rise and expose her bare midriff and belly button to his view. He glanced at the roadway, then back down to the expanse of smooth skin. His sex starved brain immediately sent a message to his groin area, and soon Chad was in a significant amount of discomfort.
Checking in the mirror to make sure both kids were still asleep, he slowly reached out his hand and placed it on her bare belly, and held his breath. When she didn’t waken, he slowly began to move his thumb with a feather light touch in a circular motion. Julia moaned in her sleep. His groin tightened significantly. He softly caressed her waist and belly, aching with need for his wife. As she stretched and arched in her sleep the waistband of her jeans gaped slightly and he couldn’t resist slipping his hands just under the snap to caress the velvety softness of her skin. Another moan escaped Julia’s lips and this time her hands came down to cover and caress his own as she spoke his name softly in her sleep.
His hand froze inside her jeans as he stared down at the sleeping beauty he’d been married to for twenty-one years. God, he’d missed her. After all this time she was still as beautiful as the day they had wed. He gazed at her lovely face, her fair complexion, set off by the coal black of her hair. Her gorgeous lips were formed in a pout as she slept, making him ache to kiss her. He tore his gaze back to the I-10 Westbound roadway. When he looked back at her his gaze locked onto her startled blue eyes.
Julia blink
ed twice, and her eyes widened before she pushed his hands roughly away and pulled her sweater down. She raised the seat back to the sitting position and cleared her throat, all the while blushing furiously.
“Jules. I’m sorry. I just—It’s been so long …” He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, trying to adjust himself so he wasn’t in such a bind. He checked the roadway before glancing back at her, but his hand froze in place at the sight before him. Julia’s embarrassed staring at his significantly bulged crotch area, as though totally mesmerized. The sight of her licking her lips caused another, somewhat painful, stiffening in his jeans and Chad sucked in his breath sharply.
The sound seemed to wake her from her sexually induced trance and she tore her gaze from his crotch to his face. Mortified at being caught staring, she tore her gaze and faced frontward.
Chad did the same and clasped both hands on the steering wheel in a vice grip that had his knuckles turning white. “I’m sorry, Jules. Like I said. It-it’s been a long time for me.”
Julia turned to stare out of the passenger window, stiff and unyielding.
Neither of them spoke for the remainder of the drive.
Drake’s gaze followed Annie through the kitchen door after her mother, before turning to face Pete. “I guess she’ll want to be heading home soon. She hates leaving Martin and Lewis alone too long on the weekends.”
Pete’s face broke into a big grin. “How are those two?”
“They seem to be doing fine.”
Pete picked up his glass of iced tea and sipped at it. “I never was too fond of cats in the house, but Martin never bothered me much.” He chuckled. “That damn bird about drove me crazy sometimes, but I swear, after she left with him, it got too damn quiet in this house.” Vivi bought those to replace some of the noise he used to make around here.” He pointed to a set of large wind chimes hanging in the patio. “I’m kind of partial to that old bird.” A grin suddenly spread across his face. “Taught him few sounds of my own over the years.”
Drake didn’t bother hiding his amusement. “Yeah, Annie told me she’s hoping he forgets all about the fart noises. I have to admit, I like him a whole lot better now that he calls me by my real name.”
“What was he calling you before?”
“Prick mostly, as in ‘Who’s the prick?’, ‘Where’s the prick?’, and ‘Prick’s on the phone.’”
Pete’s eyes sparkled with laughter. “The real prick was Annie’s date. Sitting out in that car, blowing the horn for his homecoming date. Can you imagine? He’s lucky she dumped his ass and went without him. If he’d set foot in this house after that incident, it wouldn’t have been pretty.”
“Yeah, Red told me she handled it.”
“Annie’s always been full of sass and brass, except for the time …” He swallowed. “Except for the first couple of months after she and T.J. split up.” His mouth tightened in a frown. “Let me tell you, when you have a daughter as full of spirit as Annie was, and have her close herself off like she did for two months …” He shook his head. “It wasn’t an easy thing for her mother and I to watch.”
Drake turned serious. “Can you tell me about it, sir? Please?”
Pete sighed and nodded. “How about a beer while we talk?”
Drake went inside and returned with two beers, handing one to Pete as they made their way to his shop.
Annie’s dad pulled up two chairs and seemed to contemplate, to choose his opening words with care.
“T.J.’s dad is one of my closest friends, and our families have always been close, so we were fine with our kids dating for two years in high school. Everything was fine until it was time to choose a college. Long story short, he forced her to choose. She chose LSU and T.J. chose to make a clean break.”
Pete set his beer bottle on a nearby table and leaned forward with his hands clasped tightly.
“Annie didn’t seem as outwardly upset as she was withdrawn. I never saw her shed a tear, but she stayed to herself for the next two months. She lost her appetite, must have dropped fifteen pounds. For someone as tiny as she is, that’s a significant loss.”
He popped his knuckles nervously and got really quiet for several moments before continuing in a low drone.
“Vivi and I finally sat her down for a talk. We discussed depression, whether or not she needed counseling, or anti-depressants. She asked us to leave her alone in her room for the rest of the day, and promised us she’d be fine. We trusted her, so we did as she asked. She came out of her room around nine that night, and it seemed as if she was over it.”
Pete sat back in his chair. “She started eating again and went back to being outwardly sociable. It seemed forced, at first, as if she avoided being alone at all costs after that night. It got easier, and by the time she left for college she seemed to be back to her old self, or almost—”
“Except for the wall she put up to stop anyone from getting too close,” Drake added. “The night I met her we had this instant attraction. I’m telling you, no woman has ever had that kind of effect on me before, or since. I know she felt it too, because it scared the hell out of her and she ran. Introduced herself as Nicole, but as soon as I met Red, Melissa, and Bailey I knew she had to be one of them.
A wave of understanding flashed over Pete’s face. “So, you knew, but she didn’t. That’s why she was so upset at Christmas.”
“I figured Red would have told you about that before now. I’m sorry.”
Pete waived his hands in front of his face. “Hell, no! If they don’t offer, I try not to ask. Keeps me sane.” He drank from his beer and sighed. “It’s hard enough handling the things you need to know.”
Drake sensed a distinct in his words. “Does it have anything to do with Annie, Mr. Pete? Is it anything you could share with me to help me to understand her better?”
Pete took a deep breath, his face paled, his expression turned somber enough to cause Drake’s stomach to turn.
“A month after Annie left for LSU, I came home from work and found my wife in tears. The kind of crying that scares the hell out of a man, you know? Hysterical, heartbroken sobs that took ten years off my life, I swear. She couldn’t speak, just handed me a letter she’d found while cleaning out Annie’s closet.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes, and sniffed loudly. “Now, I know you’ll hate me for this, but it’s not my place to tell you the contents of that letter. I will tell you this much, though. Her fear of being alone at the time was justified. It also explains her unwillingness to let anyone too close.”
He sat forward, grasped his beer bottle in both hands. “Maybe one day you’ll be able to tear down that wall enough for her to tell you about it herself. If that day ever comes, you just might have a chance with her.”
“When,” Drake added.
“Excuse me?” Pete asked.
“When that day comes,” Drake said. “I’ll have that chance, and I don’t squander chances.”
Pete’s chuckle turned into full blown laughter. “I’m looking forward to it, Drake. You look like you can carry your weight in hay bales, and by God, I can always use the free labor.”
Annie sat in the quiet kitchen with her mother, staring out at the workshop the two men had disappeared into. “I wonder what they’re talking about out there.”
“Oh, your dad’s probably going to show him his new cordless drill. I think at last count he had four of them.”
“Well he needs that many when the damn things grow legs and walk away,” Annie interjected as her mom snorted with laughter.
“My husband is seriously obsessed with power tools. I may need to arrange an intervention.” Vivienne poured herself another cup of coffee and turned to her daughter. “Okay, Annie love. We’re alone now, so what’s going on?”
Annie swiveled back and forth in her chair, stealing cautious looks at her mother. “Nothing’s going on, Mom.”
The older woman cocked her head to the side. “Can it, baby girl, you always were
a bad liar. Now, why are you here with a man you’ve been trying to avoid?”
Annie took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Okay, but don’t freak out.”
Vivienne frowned at her daughter. “I was awarded that God-given prerogative the day you were conceived, but I’ll try to hold back.” She sat down beside Annie. “Talk to me, Annie Nicole.”
Several minutes later, Vivienne sat there, in utter shock. “Oh, my God! He’s a murder suspect?”
“Yes, of a woman in Arkansas, and rather than put anyone important to me in danger, Drake offered to move in just until they catch this guy.”
Vivienne stood suddenly, staring at nothing, open mouthed, hand on her chest. She finally managed to speak, her voice shaky with nervous tension. “Drake is staying with you? In your house, as a bodyguard?”
Annie nodded. “In the guest room.”
Vivienne turned her wide eyes on her daughter. “In the guest room?” Her voice squeaked, tinged with hysteria. “Do you think that’s wise, Annie?”
“Mom, nothing’s going on between us. He’s in the guest room.”
“I know sweetie, but think about it. If you are asleep in your bedroom, and he’s in the guest room, how can he protect you?”
Annie stared, dumbfounded as her mother continued in a hysterical rant.
“What if that man crawls in through your bedroom window and Drake doesn’t hear, or doesn’t wake up? Is he a light sleeper? Your father can sleep through a hurricane! What good is Drake if he’s in the guest room?”
Annie stared at her mother. “What do you want me to do, Mom? Let him sleep in my bed?” Her question seemed to take her mother by surprise.
“Not in your bed, but in the same room. He could make a bed on the floor—no wait! I’ll send you home with our inflatable air mattress. He doesn’t have to be in your bed. Oh my God, Annie. I think your father and I should go stay with you. There’s safety in numbers, right?”
“Mom, stop. You’re not supposed to freak out, remember?”
“Annie Nicole, the man is suspected of murder. Don’t you dare ask me not to worry about something like that. You’re my baby girl!” Vivienne stood quickly, spun around to clutch at the rim of the kitchen sink. “Oh dear Lord, first it was that awful business with Red, Tiffany, and Benji, and now this? What the hell is going on with my family?”