by Sara Orwig
Her shock transformed to anger. “Like you forgot to tell me you were having repairs done to the house! What else are you holding back from me? Your brother is wanted by the police, and you didn’t mention it?” Hurt and anger mush- roomed within her. “I trusted you! You don’t know one thing about keeping someone’s trust. Has your brother been in jail?”
“Yes, and in prison,” Cal said in clipped tones, staring at her and seeing Andrea all over again, remembering when Andrea had learned about Webb and screamed at him about having a jailbird in the family when her father hoped to run for senate someday. He could hear her screaming at him about his notorious brother ruining her life in Dallas society.
His anger grew. At the same time, disappointment crashed through him because he had expected Juliana to be more forgiving and tolerant. He should have told her, but this was why he hadn’t. He knew he would lose her.
“How could you have kept that secret from me?” She trusted Cal, telling him about everything in her life. Yet he wouldn’t share or deal with her with the same openness and honesty. “Your parents knew, you knew—”
“Yes, I did,” he snapped, thinking he was twice the fool for giving his heart. Only this time he had given more and loved more. And it was going to hurt more.
Juliana’s face flushed and fires danced in the depths of her blue eyes. “How could you! You don’t know anything about trust!”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t go through with the marriage.”
“You would do anything to get your hands on money!” she cried.
“Dammit. I should have told you about Webb, but then you wouldn’t have married me. I had a tough enough time talking you into it, as it was,” he said in a rush. He placed his hands on his hips. “I needed the money for Webb’s de- fense.” He also needed it for his parents’ medical bills, but he didn’t want to sound as if he were whining about his needs. And he figured it wouldn’t matter whether he told her or not. It was Webb’s police record that sent women running.
“From the start I told you that trust was important to me,” she said. “I have no idea what else you’re hiding or what you’ll hide from me in the future.”
“What future?” he asked in a flat voice.
She stared at him, hurt and furious with him because he didn’t seem to understand anything about trust and hon- esty. “There can’t be one when there is a—”
“You don’t have to say it,” he interrupted cynically, knowing she was going to say jailbird or something equiv- alent. “I knew this is how it would be,” he said.
“You still have your precious money,” she said, hurting more than she had ever hurt before, “but I don’t want you in the same bedroom.”
His eyes narrowed and he inhaled swiftly, turning to yank up his tie and cross the room to get his jacket. He went to his chest of drawers, yanking out clothing, going to the closet to snatch his jeans and a T-shirt. “I’ll get the rest later. I’ll stay out of your way and out of your life.” He strode across the room and through the door that slammed behind him.
Numbly, she stared after him and ran her fingers across her forehead. Why hadn’t he trusted her? She realized it just was not in the man to trust someone else. And he was gone now, but that’s the way she wanted it because she couldn’t love someone or live with someone she couldn’t trust. Yet, why did she feel as if he had ripped out her heart and taken it with him?
She walked to the window and looked at the yard and the new corral that Cal, the boys and Stoddard were building. The boys were hammering on it as she watched, Red stretched in the grass near them and Snookums curled on the low branch of an oak.
The boys. Losing Cal would break their hearts just as she had once feared. Quin had made wonderful improvements, coming out of his shell, beginning to trail around with Cal the way Josh did. And Cal spent so much of his time at home doing activities with the boys. She paused, thinking about Cal playing ball with them, seeing his hands deftly catching and throwing the ball, teaching Chris how to swing a bat, patiently working with all three of them. She gave in to a sob. Why was he so marvelous on one hand and so un- trustworthy on the other? Why hadn’t she kept up the bar- riers between them and avoided hurt?
She turned around to look at the bed and remembered the wild nights and the passion they shared. She shook with hurt and anger and went to strip back the covers and rip off the sheets, yanking at them in fury, heedless of tears burning her eyes or streaming down her cheeks.
Why hadn’t he told her about his brother? If he had been ashamed to admit his brother’s criminal record, he should have realized he couldn’t hide it forever. Bitterly, she clenched her fists in the sheet she held in her hands. He hadn’t told her because he hadn’t wanted to do one thing to jeopardize getting Elnora’s bequest.
She buried her face in the sheet to cry, inhaling the faint scent of her perfume and his after-shave. She gave a little cry and thrust the sheet away from her body as if it were his hands reaching for her. She balled it up and flung it toward the door and then ripped the bottom sheet from the bed. She wanted to start forgetting now. To start at this moment get- ting over him. She had gotten over Barry—she wouldn’t want to go out with Barry if he called tonight. Someday, she would be that way with Cal.
Only she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. She had never loved the way she loved this man. In so many ways, he was very special. In so many ways, he was a good man. She went back to the bed to pull off the pillow slips and toss them onto the pile of laundry.
Was she making a mistake? Could she live with him when she couldn’t rely on him to confide in her? She shook her head. At the same time, could she live without him? And right now, that came back to the same negative answer.
“Get over him,” she whispered. “Go ahead, heart. For- get how marvelous he is or how sexy he is or what fun we’ve had together.” She put her head in her hands to cry.
An hour later, she heard the dinner bell. She longed to tell them she didn’t feel well, which was the truth. She didn’t want to go downstairs and face Cal or to be studied by the boys and Gladys.
She hurried to the mirror. Her eyes were red, her nose equally red and her face pale. She looked dreadful, but she knew she had to put in an appearance or her nephews would be in her room to try to find out what was wrong. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped into the hall.
Instantly, her palms became sweaty. What would it be like to sit though dinner with him? She suddenly felt nervous.
Josh came barreling out of the kitchen, almost plowing into her. She caught his shoulders as he threw up his hands.
“Wow. ’scuse me, Juliana. Dinner’s ready. I was com- ing to get you.” He squinted at her. “Have you been crying?”
“I’m fine. Let’s go eat.” She suspected the dinner hour was going to be an even worse experience than she had ex- pected.
“Cal said he had to go back to the office. He’s gone,” Josh said.
Relief swamped her. They wouldn’t have to go through a strained meal trying to make polite conversation. Soon enough the boys would realize the rift and start asking questions, and when they did, she’d better be ready to give them some answers.
As she approached the table, Gladys glanced at her, frowned and looked away. Chris studied her openly.
“Juliana, you’ve been crying,” the boy said. “Did you and Cal have a fight?”
Quin’s head came up and his eyes grew wide. She wished she had gotten Chris alone before dinner and talked to him.
“We’ll work things out,” she said, hoping Chris stopped his questions. She glanced at Quin who was frowning and staring at her.
“Is Cal going to move back to his house?” he asked sol- emnly.
“No, he’s not,” she replied, knowing she couldn’t be sure what he would do. “He’s gone down to the office and he’ll be home in a while,” she said, wondering if he would move away.
* * *
Cal turned up the graveled driveway to his house. Ins
ide, he strode through his dark house, switching on lights.
He missed Juliana. He was in love with her, wanted her at his side. Cal clenched his fists. All his life, Webb had caused him trouble, and he wondered if it would ever stop. His father had always given Webb preferential treatment. In school, Webb had been the fair-haired hero, the football star, the track star while Cal had been reliable, making ex- cellent grades, going out for baseball, but never the star Webb had been.
When Webb’s troubles started in junior high, their fa- ther had always bought Webb’s way out of it. Webb was a juvenile, had good grades and was a football star, and his father had been able to get the local police to look the other way or to get Webb off with a reprimand.
After their parents had lost their savings and his father had lost his job in the oil bust, the trouble deepened. Webb was out of college by then and no longer underage, and Harris Duncan no longer had money to bail his son out of predicaments. The first felony, Webb was released on pro- bation. The second, he went to prison for three years. When he was released, he went right back to his old ways. Gam- bling, spending too much money, stealing.
Swearing, Cal moved through his house. He had come here hoping to feel a sense of peaceful solitude, the way he used to. Instead, the empty house was lonely. There weren’t any boys racing through the rooms or Stoddard’s quiet voice or the smells of Gladys’s cooking. Most of all, Juliana wasn’t here.
The image of Juliana, gazing up at him, her pale hands moving over his body, made Cal draw a deep, painful breath. He loved her. More than Andrea. More than he would have believed possible. He should have told Juliana about Webb, yet he needed the money desperately and this same thing would have happened then.
He had misjudged her. He had thought she would accept the truth about Webb, that it wouldn’t become a driving wedge between them that would kill the special love they had found. Mentally, he heard her soft laughter, her moans in moments of passion. Clenching his fists, Cal swore again.
This was one lady he couldn’t stop loving. He paced the house and finally locked up and climbed back into his car to drive around for an hour while he thought over what to do. The first thing was to get his belongings out of her bed- room where she did not want them. He would do it when she was away at work. The more they avoided each other, the happier she would probably be.
When he finally turned up the driveway at Green Oaks, he killed the engine near the house and sat staring at its dark bulk. A light burned in a downstairs room, probably left on by the boys. Everyone would be in bed by now. He stared at the upstairs, knowing that her room—the room they had shared—was across the back of the house. She would be in bed now. His body tightened as images flitted in his mind of Juliana in his arms, of her soft, voluptuous body beneath him. He could remember exactly how it felt to have her long legs around him.
For a few minutes, he entertained the idea of storming her defenses, seeing if he could get past her anger and convince her to forgive him for not telling her about Webb. To see, even in a weak moment of passion, if she could love him in spite of his brother’s follies.
Cal stormed out of the car and into the house, locking the back door behind him, going up the stairs two at a time. In the hall he turned and faced her closed door. He halted.
He wanted to kick open the door, pull her into his arms, love her senseless until her anger melted into passion. In- stead, he stood rooted to the spot because with the rage she had felt, he knew that it wouldn’t be that simple.
Clenching his fists, he went to his own room, moving to the window to stare into the dark night and think about the future.
The next day, Cal moved his things to another bedroom and left for work before any of the rest of the household, except Gladys and Stoddard, had stirred. That night, he was home the same time as Juliana. Dinner was quiet, with the boys constantly looking from one to the other of them. Conversation revolved around the boys’ activities.
Juliana was acutely aware of Cal seated across from her, of moments when their glances would meet. Her body had no awareness of the trouble between them and responded to his nearness, to his slightest look. Her gaze lowered to his mouth, remembering his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his hands sliding over her.
“You’re not eating,” Josh said, staring at her. Quin was studying her, as well, and she took an unwanted bite of food, glancing at Cal to find him watching her with an in- tensity that made her breath catch. Their gazes locked and she felt tension snap between them. She wanted him, wanted his love, yet she was still furious with him and certain she couldn’t trust him again. For a long moment, she forgot the boys or Gladys or anyone except Cal.
He looked angry, as if he found it unreasonable for her to expect him to confide in her. She had given to him com- pletely, her heart, her body, her trust. She wanted as much in return. He should have trusted her enough to confide in her about his brother.
Finally, she tore her gaze away from him. With a scrape, he pushed his chair away from the table. “We’re done. We better get back to our building, guys.”
“Yes, sir,” Chris said, falling into step beside Cal.
She watched the two leave the room, her gaze resting on Cal. At the door, he paused and glanced back at her. She looked away, embarrassed to be caught staring at him, wishing things were different.
Juliana went to the sun room to look out the recently re- paired windows. Cal was hunkered down in the yard, jeans pulled tight on his long legs as he nailed a board in place for the corral.
She hurt more than she had the day before. He had moved his things from the room they shared back to the bedroom he’d occupied originally. Last night, she hadn’t slept until the early hours of morning, too aware he was at the end of the hallway, remembering each moment in his arms. If she could forgive and forget—not care whether he confided in her or not, he would be back. She had caught some of the hungry looks he had given her. His glances held anger, but they also held a blatant longing that tore at her heart.
That night was another sleepless torment until she finally slipped out of bed to stand at the window and look at the moonlit yard. A figure moved across it and her heart jumped in fear, but just as swiftly, she recognized Cal’s long legs, broad shoulders and purposeful stride, with Red trail- ing along behind. She watched Cal walk down to the boat dock where he was lost in the shadows of the night. Was he having as much difficulty sleeping as she?
Idly scratching Red’s ears, Cal stood on the edge of the dock and looked at moonlight and the shadows of trees play across the dark surface of the water. Barely seeing the shimmer of silvery light, his thoughts were on Juliana. He needed to move out. They could stay married. Maybe they could get around the stipulation in Elnora’s will that they had to stay at Green Oaks. If he didn’t move and they had many more dinners and hours like tonight, the boys would share the strain. None of them needed that, especially Quin.
Cal swore silently. He ached to storm back into the house, down the hall to her room and silence all her protests and anger in the one way he knew he could. But with morning, she would be as angry as before. And there was no way to expect her to want to live with him when he had a notori- ous brother. She ran a successful preschool. What would happen if the parents of her little charges learned that her brother-in-law was a felon?
He needed to pack and move out of their lives and let them get back to the routine they’d had before the mar- riage. He felt a knot in his throat. He loved Juliana and her nephews. He loved all of them and didn’t want to leave them. He looked down at the dog and squatted to scratch Red’s ears. Cal’s throat burned and he hurt. “I’m going to have to say goodbye to you, too. You lucky dog, you get to stay with them. You and that fur-ball and the horse. I’m the un- wanted one here. You take good care of the boys, Red. You need to bark if they get hurt or need help.”
Red wagged his tail happily and Cal stood, wiping his eyes. “Elnora, you ruined my life. I wonder if I’ll ever stop hurting.” He clenche
d his fists, knowing Elnora hadn’t ru- ined his life. Elnora had nothing to do with his problems. She had only brought Juliana and the boys into his life. With a sigh, Cal finally headed back to the house.
The next morning, his plans of moving were temporarily placed on hold when he received a call about early delivery of the mare. The corral was sufficiently finished so Cal made arrangements to have the horse delivered that eve- ning so he would be home when the animal arrived.
That night, the boys were ecstatic over the new arrival. All the time Cal worked with the horse and the boys, he was aware of Juliana sitting on the fence watching them. She wore a blue sundress, sandals, and had her hair fastened with a ribbon behind her head. He ached to hold her, to hear her laughter.
Juliana watched Cal saddle the horse, carefully instruct- ing Chris in what to do and then Cal swung into the saddle with a graceful ease and moved around the corral. If only he wasn’t so damned handsome and appealing and good with the boys! So many wonderful things. Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears and she scrambled off the fence and headed toward the house.
A week later, Cal felt the boys had a routine for taking care of Midnight, the mare. Stoddard was familiar with horses and would oversee the boys’ riding. It was time to pack and go. Late that night, unable to sleep, Cal sat on the dock as he had a week earlier and watched clouds race across the sky. It was a hot, muggy night, a hint of rain in the air. Red was stretched out beside him and Cal idly ran his hand over the dog, feeling the silky hair. Finally, he went inside, spending time packing, deciding that after work to- morrow, he would get his things and move out. This was his last night at Green Oaks.
The next day, the thunder clouds building in the summer sky mirrored his feelings. Cal left for the office, driving to Dallas, losing himself in work and thankful that he had to focus his attention elsewhere for a while.
The rain began by ten o’clock, beating in sheets against the courthouse windows, making him remember the night the poplar fell through the sun room. He glanced at his watch. A quarter past ten. Tonight, he was moving from Green Oaks, out of Juliana’s life, away from the boys. Hurt knotted his insides as Cal tried to focus on business.