Bed of Lies (4 page)

She thought about just going to him, slipping her arms around him and hanging on to him, asking him to hang on to her. She tried not to do that too often, tried to hold the feelings at bay and not seem too needy.

It wasn't working now.

"Nothing. I'm just... there's just so much to do, still, for the wedding, and I want it to be perfect. Your mother wants it to be perfect."

She went to Steve, her head bent low and coming to rest against his chest. She grabbed the edges of his suit jacket, to hold on to what they had, and her breath caught until his arms reluctantly came around her.

Acquaintances of hers, upon meeting him, said he didn't seem very exciting, that he was a bit set in his ways. They'd done everything but come right out and call him dull, but Julie had never thought that. He was stable, something she'd craved her whole life, and it meant a lot more to her than that little zing of heat she'd felt when Zach touched her.

Then there were the friends who'd implied she might be willing to overlook certain shortcomings of Steve's because of the money. He wasn't rich. Just comfortable. That's what Steve called it. Julie had so seldom been the least bit comfortable, and never in the way he meant it. She hadn't gone after him because of his money, but at the same time, she knew they wouldn't ever have to worry about losing things, like their electrical service or even their home.

Steve's family had been in this town for nearly a hundred and fifty years. They had roots and staying power, the likes of which she'd never known. Steve hardly ever drank. He didn't have a temper. He didn't flirt with other women, didn't belittle her or discount her opinions or yell. He didn't lie. He didn't cheat. He didn't bet on ball games or cards. He didn't hit her.

He was the epitome of calm in a world she often thought was crazy. It had been the first thing that attracted her to him. They'd been in a meeting room full of screaming people, facing a major crisis at one of the stores the Lands owned, and Steve had been the picture of calm. He'd gotten everyone to settle down and solved the problem. They'd all gone on with what they needed to do, and she and Steve had gone on to dinner and then to dating for a full year and now to being engaged.

She meant to hang on to him for dear life.

"Sorry," he said, his arms finally tightening around her, his body relaxing against hers. "I just don't think I've ever seen you even appear to be interested in another man. You hung on every word the man said."

Because she was scared of what was going to come out of his mouth.

"He's never been interested in me that way, Steve. He never would be."

"Why not? I happen to find you very interesting."

"You didn't know me when I was twelve." Thank goodness.

"I would have found you interesting at any age," he said. "Forget all this. Come home with me." His lips found hers.

She closed her eyes and tried so hard to fall into that kiss, to let it take her away from here, make her forget every fear.

But the business card Zach had given her was practically screaming at her from inside her purse. She eased away from Steve, head down low.

"I'm sorry." She really didn't want to lie. She'd never set out to. It had just happened. "I still have all those tiny decisions to make about details of the wedding."

Truly, she felt bombarded by it all lately.

"Just remember," he said, "I don't care about the details. I just want to marry you. The rest really doesn't matter, does it?"

"No, it doesn't."

"All right." He gave her a quick kiss, helped her into the car, and waited, watching as she drove away.

Once Julie was out of his sight, she pulled out the card Zach had given her. On the back, he'd scrawled out the name of his hotel and his room number.

She turned north, toward downtown, and his hotel.

Chapter 2

He was staying in one of those extended-stay, apartment-like places, which she took as a bad sign.

Murder trials took a while, didn't they?

Julie knocked on his door. A moment later, it swung open to reveal Zach, minus the tie and jacket, white dress shirt open at the collar, revealing a long strip of tantalizing muscles and tanned skin.

Oh.
She really didn't need to see him this way, as a very attractive man.

"Julie." He stepped back, gesturing for her to come inside.

He had a small living room with a tiny kitchenette. Through the open doorway in the corner she could see a slightly rumpled bed, pillows piled up against the headboard, a pile of papers strewn off to the side. Another pile of papers, equally big and messy, sprawled on the coffee table by the floral-print sofa.

"Sit down." He pointed to the sofa as he cleared away papers from the coffee table. "Sorry about the mess. It gets worse the closer I get to trial. I shouldn't have taken the time out for dinner tonight, but it's become a pretrial tradition. The last decent meal before insanity sets in."

Julie wished so badly that he hadn't been at dinner. She thought about all the little fibs she'd ever told him and wondered why she'd even tried with him. He'd always seen right through her.

"Zach?" She stood there, ready to beg, worrying it was a bigger mistake to have come here. "I don't know how to say this without sounding totally ungrateful for everything you and your family ever did for me." They'd been a refuge of calm in a chaotic childhood. "But this... My life, now, it's..."

"None of my business, huh?" Seeming perfectly at ease, he leaned back in his seat and smiled slowly.

She nodded, making herself meet his gaze.

"Okay." He shrugged. "If that's the way you want it."

"It... Well..." It was, wasn't it? Wasn't that the way it had to be?

"Julie, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You seemed nervous at the restaurant, and I thought..."

"That I'd gotten myself into another mess, and you were going to come rescue me?"

"I would have," he said quietly.

All the breath went out of her at the understanding look in his eyes and the promise of the words.

She believed he would have, even after all these years, and to someone like her, who'd never really had the kind of family she could depend upon, it meant the world to her.

And she was kicking him out of her life at practically the first sight of him in years? It sounded crazy when she thought about it like that. It wasn't like she had a lot of people in her corner.

Julie sat down, her legs trembling, her hands, too.

Zach leaned back in his chair, looking perfectly comfortable, waiting for whatever she'd say next.

It was an old trick of his. He sat and stared at people, and they confessed everything. She used to squirm and look at the floor and tell herself to just get up and walk away. But she didn't. She'd found herself telling him the hardest things, the things she'd most wanted to hide.

"That's it?" she asked finally. "You're going to let me off that easy?"

"You want me to give you a hard time, I will," he said with a grin. "I'd probably say something about it being a mistake to lie to a man you're going to marry, but I doubt you need me to tell you that."

"No, I don't." She'd told herself that very thing time and time again. "And I told him, Zach. I did. I told him there were things that happened back home—"

"In St. Louis? Did you ever live in St. Louis?"

"No," she admitted. "But does it really matter where I was?"

"It seems to. To you."

She let that go. Honestly, it wasn't important. She'd just felt safer, thinking if anyone ever went looking, they'd go there and not find anything. Because she'd never been there.

"Anyway," she went on. "I told Steve I hadn't had the greatest childhood, that there were things I wasn't dying to talk to him about, and he's okay with that. He said I didn't have to tell him anything I didn't want to."

"Okay," Zach said.

But with his tone, he managed to say he didn't think it was.

"Everything is different for me here," she said. "I'm different."

"Are you happy, Julie?"

"Yes," she insisted.

Zach put his feet up on the coffee table, like he was settling in for a nice long chat. His shirt gaped open even farther, showing more skin, tanned and delineated by the muscles beneath. "Talk to anybody back home lately?"

"No." And she liked it that way. Honestly, she did.

Something seemed so nice about being in a brand-new place and starting over completely. She could be anyone she wanted to be. So she was surprised to sit here with him and realize how nice it was to be with someone so familiar. A million memories flooded back, tiny little things she'd done and people she'd known that he would know, too. It might be nice to sit here and catch up, but it seemed dangerous, too. Like opening a door she might not be able to close again.

And she liked having that door closed.

"Your mother and stepfather are still there," Zach said. "Your little brother, too."

"Half brother." He'd be thirteen now, and she barely knew him.

She had to turn away for a moment. She remembered a time... a you-and-me-against-the-world kind of time, when Peter had been so little and the house had been loud and crazy. When things had scared him, and he'd come running to her.

But that was a long time ago. Her stepfather had seen what was happening and hadn't liked it. She'd never known exactly what he'd said or done to change things between her and Peter, but they had changed. Not that it mattered now. The damage had been done a long time ago.

"Zach, there's nothing back there for me anymore."

"Okay."

He waited, patient as always, as if he thought she might change her mind. She wouldn't.

"Look, it was good to see you again," she said. Unsettlingly good. She knew she couldn't afford to linger.

"You, too. You look great," he said, and it was probably her imagination, had to be, that he stared at her legs for a minute as he said it.

She grabbed her purse, dug for her keys, then remembered one more thing. "About the engagement party... You don't really want to go, do you, Zach?"

"What if your parents were in some kind of trouble, Julie? What if Peter was? Would you want to know then?"

"No," she insisted, that little voice inside saying,
Go now, while you still can.

They were a mess no one could fix. She'd be damned if, now that she'd built a new life for herself, she'd be drawn back into theirs. If that made her selfish in Zach's eyes... It did. She could see that. Family was so important to him.

But then, she'd disappointed Zach McRae so many times before. She'd disappointed herself, too, but she could live with that. The distance from her family kept her safe—and halfway sane.

"I really have to go," she said.

He nodded once again, still watching her in that quiet, unsettling way of his. She would not let him make her feel bad, and she wouldn't defend herself to him.

She wasn't going to let herself admit she probably wouldn't see him again. Judging from her unsettling reaction to him, it was certainly for the best.

"I'm sorry, Zach," she said at the door.

He stood leaning casually against it. "I hope this works for you, Julie. I hope it makes you happy."

But she knew he didn't think it would. He thought it would all backfire in her face, and everything she was trying so hard to hide would come out.

* * *

She hurried home, kicked off her shoes and took down her hair, working out the soreness at the back of her neck and head that came from piling it up the way Steve liked it. It was such a small thing, putting her hair up.

Checking her voice mail, she saw that he'd called, wondering where she was. Julie sat down on the chair in the corner. She was tired. It was hard to believe sometimes how tired she could be, and she wasn't even twenty-six years old yet.

Her phone rang. She jumped at the sound, then grabbed the receiver in the dark. "Hello."