From Glowing Embers (4 page)

She wasn’t sure why, but the atmosphere seemed to change subtly after that. She had been physically comfortable with Gray almost from the beginning of their relationship. Now she felt distinctly uncomfortable. As the silence extended, she felt something unfamiliar building inside her. She wanted to run away, and at the same time she wanted to climb into his lap and lose her composure in his arms.

For Gray, the coast meant a large two-story beach house perched on stilts on an inlet of St. Louis Bay near Pass Christian. The house belonged to the Sheridan family, and they used it as a retreat from their life in Granger Junction. Gray’s mother’s family, the Grangers, had owned the inlet for close to a century, and although the land was worth a fortune, they had never considered selling any of it to developers. They wanted privacy, and it was worth any price.

Julie Ann was thrilled when Gray pulled into the yard beside the beach house. The reflection of an amber moon caught fire on the calm surface of the inlet. Sandpipers stood at the water’s edge between clumps of reeds, and a lone sea gull circled overhead.

“It’s so lovely. How do you ever make yourself leave?”

“I just promise myself I’ll come back soon.”

“I’d like to live on the beach.”

“You’d get pretty sandy.”

She punched him affectionately. “In a house on the beach.” Julie Ann opened her car door and got out to head down to the water. She heard Gray’s footsteps behind her. “Can you swim here?”

“It’s passable. The bottom’s muddy.”

“I wouldn’t care.”

“There’s probably a suit in the house that would fit you.”

Julie Ann imagined that in a bathing suit she would look like Peter Pan. She wasn’t sure, since she didn’t own one. “Not tonight,” she said regretfully. “I’ll settle for looking at the moon.”

“You’re a funny kid. I can never tell what you’re thinking.”

She put her fingertips to her forehead and closed her eyes, stopping as she did. “I’ll relay my every thought to you. Thought number one: I am not a kid. Thought number two: I am not funny, not on purpose anyway. Thought number three: I’ll race you to the water.” She took off running before Gray could recover.

She was sitting on the sand waiting for him when he got there.

“Are you on the Junction track team?” He flopped down beside her.

“I have to walk everywhere I want to go. It makes for strong legs.”

“You’re not angry about everything you’ve had to put up with in your life, are you?”

“What good would it do me?” she asked, knowing full well what he was referring to. “I found out when I was seven that there was a better world than the one I’d been born into. Someday I’ll live in that world. For now, I’m just getting myself ready for the day I do.”

“How’d you find out?” Gray stretched his jeans-clad legs out beside Julie Ann’s bare ones. His knee brushed the flowered fabric of her gathered skirt.

“I learned to read. I learned real quick as soon as I got glasses and could see the page in front of me. My teacher took me to the library one day after school and helped me get a card. From then on, I read everything I could find.”

“And that was a different world?”

“There was a different world in the books I read. Not everyone lived the way my family did.” She stopped, ashamed she had revealed so much.

Gray covered her hand with his. “When I said you were a funny kid, I didn’t mean to insult you. You seem so young at times, I guess I do think of you as a kid. Sometimes, though, I think you’re older than I’ll ever be.”

“Sometimes I think I’m older than anyone.” Julie Ann wanted to move her hand. She wasn’t used to Gray touching her. It stirred feelings she’d planned on ignoring forever.

“What are you going to do in this different world of yours?”

She withdrew her hand. “You’ll laugh.”

“I will not.” He reached for her hand again and clasped it firmly in his.

“I want to be a fashion designer.” She waited, but there was no laughter forthcoming from the man beside her. Hesitantly she went on. “I know it sounds stupid, but I sketch clothes all the time. I love fabric and color. That’s why I took the job at TG&Y. I started sketching when I was a little girl. I didn’t have nice clothes, but I used to draw the things I’d want if my parents had money. It was a game to make me feel better, I guess, but I’ve got a stack of drawings that’s two feet high by now. When I go to college, that’s what I’m going to study.”

“Is this one of your designs?” With her hand still clasped in his, Gray lifted her skirt off the sand.

“No. I’ve never made anything I’ve designed. I can’t afford to waste material learning how. Besides, I’d want a better model than me.”

“You’re thin enough to model anything.”

“I won’t be if you keep trying to fatten me up at Dairy Queen.”

“I worry about you.”

She was torn between gratitude and sadness. Probably the strongest feeling he had for her was pity. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time now, and see? I’ve survived.”

“There’s more to life than survival.” He dropped her hand, turning as he did to touch her cheek. “You deserve more.”

“Feeling guilty because you’re rich, Gray?” Julie Arm stood, brushing the sand off her skirt as she did. “Don’t bother. We can’t help where we’re born. You don’t have to feel responsible for me.” She started toward the water’s edge.

“Why are you so touchy tonight?” he asked, following her down.

Julie Ann was asking herself the same question. Why was she trying to pick a fight with Gray? He had brought her to this beautiful place; he cared enough about her to ask questions about her life, to express sympathy and concern. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“Are you having your period?”

She gasped in astonishment. “None of your business!”

He laughed, putting his hands on her shoulders to turn her toward him. “Every time I start to get close to you, you back off.”

“I’m a funny kid. Remember?”

“How many men have kissed you, funny kid?”

“Too many to count!’’ She felt his hands tighten as he moved closer.

“Am I going to be the first?”

“You keep asking questions that are none of your business, Gray.”

“I’m a nosy guy.” He laughed softly. “A perfect match for a funny kid.”

“Who said you could kiss me, anyway?” She tried to pull away, but he held her still.

“Do I have to ask?” His face was only inches from hers, and without her glasses it was little more than a blur. But even without seeing him clearly, she knew he was smiling.

“Prepare to be turned down if you do.”

“Then I won’t ask.” His hands left her shoulders to slide across her back. Then his mouth was on hers.

Julie Ann protested deep in her throat, but Gray’s answer was to pull her closer. She struggled for a moment, but the struggle was more with herself than with the man holding her so tightly against him. There was no room in her life for this, not until she had seen more of the world. Feelings as powerful as the ones he was evoking could destroy everything she was working so hard to achieve.

But they were feelings that couldn’t be denied. She gave in to them finally, leaning against Gray and letting his mouth roam over hers. When he drew away, she was instantly lonely.

“Pretty good for your first time. You’re not supposed to fight me, though,” he instructed her as he stroked her back with one hand. “You’re supposed to be thrilled beyond belief.”

“You’re arrogant beyond belief!”

“It comes with the territory.”

She knew he was teasing, and, reluctantly, she smiled. “Did you bring me all this way to give me kissing lessons?”

“No,” he said seriously. “I didn’t plan that at all. I like you. I hope I didn’t just spoil the fun we’ve been having together.”

She was touched by the tone of his voice. She fished in the pocket of her skirt for her glasses and slid them onto her nose. His eyes were troubled, and she frowned. “You didn’t spoil anything, Gray. It was a wonderful kiss, but I won’t expect one every time we’re together if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“What’s worrying me is that
I
might expect one every time. You’re unbelievably sweet, Julie Ann. I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Just be my friend.” She turned and started to walk along the sand beside the water. As she did, she realized that her knees weren’t quite steady. Somehow that worried her more than anything Gray could say.

“Friends,” he echoed, taking her hand as they walked.

It was late when they started back to Granger Junction. The silent moon-shadowed miles sang a seductive lullaby, and Julie Ann fell asleep in the car. She was dreaming of Gray when his lips touched hers to wake her. She slipped a hand behind his head and held his mouth to hers for a long, sleepy kiss. When it was over, she brushed her fingertips along his jawline. “It’s been a lovely night.”

“We’ll do it again.”

If she had known then that the words that held such promise could change the course of her whole life, she would have shuddered with dread. Instead she just smiled drowsily and kissed Gray’s cheek before opening her door.

GRAY STALKED DOWN
the airplane aisle to his seat. The flight attendant who had been talking to Jody shot the little girl a smile and moved away so that Gray could take his seat. His fists were still clenched when he sat down and buckled his seat belt. He rarely miscalculated anything, but in the last half hour he had made two serious errors. One, he had not realized that Julie Ann—he grimaced—Julianna might be on the flight. Two, he had not anticipated the extent of her bitterness. He had expected her to be shocked when she saw him, even cynical, perhaps. But he had never expected hostility.

Ten years was a long time to be that bitter. But why should he have believed it would be any different?

“Are you scared?”

Gray turned to the wide-eyed little girl beside him. He had been so deep in thought that for a moment he didn’t know what she was referring to. Then the plane seemed to drop out from under him, lurching as it recovered, and he realized she was talking about the flight. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” he reassured her as the plane continued to fight its way through the winds buffeting it from every side

“I’m scared anyway,” she confided.

“This is a very big plane. It’s made to fly in this kind of weather. We’re going to be fine.”

“That lady gave me headphones.” Jody held up an orange plastic headset that looked like a stethoscope. “She said listening to music helps if you’re afraid.” Jody plugged the headphones into a connection on her seat and settled them over her ears.

Gray was almost sorry to have the little girl’s attention diverted. With nothing to distract him now, his thoughts returned to Julianna. But it wasn’t the adult he remembered. It was Julie Ann, eighteen and frightened and head over heels in love with him.

“D’YA HAVE A
date tonight, Son?”

Gray pulled a clean shirt out of his closet and slipped his arms through the sleeves. “Yes, sir.”

Judge Sheridan stood in the doorway of Gray’s bedroom and watched his son finish dressing. “May I ask with whom?”

Gray stood very still for a moment. He knew his father well enough to know what was coming. “Julie Ann Mason,” he said finally. He shrugged the shirt over his shoulders and began to button it.

“What’ya see in that gal? You’ve been going out with her all summer.”

“I just like her.”

“She anything like that sister of hers?”

Gray shook his head. “She’s nothing like anyone else in her family.”

“I put her daddy in jail. Judge Randolph got to put her brother away. Wish I’d had that pleasure.”

“What are you trying to get at?” Gray turned and faced his father.

“She’s trash, son. Good doesn’t come from bad.”

Gray had been taught to be respectful of his father’s opinions, even if he didn’t agree. But he couldn’t let this one pass. “Julie Ann isn’t trash.”

“Some things can’t be changed.”

“We disagree.”

Judge Sheridan nodded. “Just don’t let those bleeding heart professors of yours at Ole Miss convince you to forget everything you learned at home. Keep your eyes open when you’re with that little gal. Keep your eyes wide open.”

“What can she do to me?”

“Ruin your life.”

Gray thought about his father’s words on the drive to Julie Ann’s. There was only one way a girl could ruin a man. She could trap him into marriage. And Gray knew that marriage was as far from Julie Ann’s mind as anything in the world.

Marriage was that far from his mind, too. He had too much to accomplish before he thought about settling down. Someday he wanted a wife and kids, and maybe when that day arrived he’d want someone like Julie Ann, someone he could talk to about anything, someone he could be proud of.

Someone he could hold in his arms and make love to.

Lately his thoughts had turned in the direction of lovemaking more and more. He’d had his first real encounter with a woman the year before. He’d had the required number of experimental trysts in high school and the early years of college, but he hadn’t known what sex was all about until his junior year. Then he’d met a graduate student with more than a doctorate in sociology on her mind.

He was grateful to the young woman for the initiation she’d given him, but she’d never been able to touch his heart the way Julie Ann did.

Gray had been fighting his attraction to Julie Ann. From the beginning he had known she was off limits. She was too young, too innocent, too vulnerable. If he made love to her, it would bewilder her, and in the end it would make her bitter. If the life she’d led hadn’t made her cynical, Gray didn’t want their relationship to be the thing that did. He cared about her too much for that. He cared about her a lot.

Julie Ann cared about him, too. He could see it in her eyes. He could see it when she struggled to pretend he was just another man. He could see it when he kissed her—which he’d begun to do more and more often.

He’d never intended for their relationship to be a physical one. She wasn’t the kind of girl who had always attracted him before. She wasn’t pretty; she was too thin, too underdeveloped to stir his male appetite. And yet, as the summer drifted to a close, he’d begun to notice things that stirred him deeply. Her hair was poorly cut and unmanageable, but it was the most beautiful shade of brown, as dark and shiny as polished walnut. Her eyes were a blue that made the waters of Granger Inlet seem gray in comparison, and her skin...