His Best Friend's Baby (13 page)

She hiked herself up onto the counter, curled her legs around his hips and his erection pressed tightly into her.

“Yes,” she hissed, when he raked her neck with his teeth. She sighed and groaned and pulled at the back of his shirt until he felt her hands, her short nails against his skin.

“Anyone home?”

She jerked away and stared at him in stunned, panicked silence.

“Hello?” the voice said again and this time there were footsteps heading from the front door to the kitchen.

“Shit!” Jesse muttered. He stepped away and he and Julia tried frantically, uselessly to put themselves right.

He watched her smooth her hair and wipe her mouth, but her lips were still swollen and her nipples were hard under her shirt.

“This is why I don’t want you around,” he told her.

She smiled at him the way Eve must have
when she had that apple in her hands. For a minute he didn’t recognize Julia as Julia. The quiet, shy woman whose smile was like summer and whose eyes forgave every stupid thing he’d ever done had disappeared. She was someone else, someone else with secrets and hidden depths. A woman with a plan, an agenda of her own.

She scared the bejesus out of him.

“You’re such a coward,” she murmured moments before his sister and niece barged in.

J
ULIA WAS TREMBLING
. Shaking from a giddy combination of adrenaline and desire. Had she done that? Was that her saying those things? Good gravy, she felt… great. Liberated.

Oddly enough, she felt taller.

Did I just call Jesse a coward?
She nearly laughed.

“Well, well.” To Julia’s horror, Rachel, Jesse’s sister, walked into the kitchen and suddenly she didn’t feel quite so bold. Instead, she felt like a teenager caught with her pants down. “Good to see you again, Julia.”

She could hear Amanda in the front room talking to Ben. Rachel stepped deeper into the room and leaned against a kitchen chair. She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled as though she knew exactly where Jesse’s hand had been just moments ago. There wasn’t any
anger in that look, just a feminine understanding, but it still made Julia uncomfortable.

“I was just…ah…” Julia couldn’t look at Jesse and she couldn’t get a feasible lie to stumble through her lips.

“She was leaving,” Jesse said and Julia’s overheated body temperature chilled considerably.

“Right.” She turned to Jesse. “Glad to see you’re doing…okay.” She nodded once, briskly. And walked past Rachel.

Ben heard her coming and greeted her as though she’d been gone for months. “Mama!” he cried.

“Hi, Julia.” Amanda pushed herself up on her elbow from where she’d been lying on the floor beside Ben. “Ben was just telling me about his train.”

“He loves his train,” Julia said stupidly. She could feel Rachel’s and Jesse’s eyes on her back and she wanted out of there immediately.

This is what happens to bravery
, she thought.
It turns into foolishness real fast
. “Let’s go, Ben.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Amanda said, standing with Ben.

“No, it’s—” But Ben clapped, clearly besotted with Amanda.

“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling caught.

She didn’t turn back around, she didn’t wave or say goodbye, but she was barely out the front door before a rough touch on her hand stopped her.

“Thank you,” Jesse said, his eyes sincere and warm. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“You’re welcome,” she whispered, hope and her heart lodged in her throat.

He squeezed her hand before dropping it and she, in her short years of marriage, had never felt something so tender. So important to her bruised and battered spirit.

Ben and Amanda skipped on ahead and Julia followed with a foreign lightness in her own step.

And just like that, foolishness pays off
, she thought with a smile.

“Hey, Julia?” Amanda turned around and walked backward.

“Yes, Amanda.”

“You know, if you ever need a…like, a baby-sitter or something. You could call me.” Amanda smiled and tripped a little, ruining her sales pitch.

“I could?” She smiled at the girl. God, could it be this easy? A great girl whom she trusted and liked ready to babysit?

“For sure,” she said emphatically. “I babysit all the time and this summer I’m going to be doing an internship at the paper, so I’ll be, like, totally broke.”

“Sadly, Amanda, I know that feeling very well.”

“Well, you should know—I am very affordable.”

Julia laughed, feeling free and easy in a way she couldn’t remember feeling. Jesse’s kiss still burned her lips, his touch still burned her hand and her heart floated someplace above her head, in the low-lying clouds that filled the California sky.

“That’s good to know. I just got a job and I am going to need someone to take care of Ben while I’m working in the mornings.”

“Really?” Amanda’s face lit up. “I could totally do that. I mean, I could do it at your house or—”

“Hey, this is me,” Julia said pointing at the Adamses’ house. They’d done some work on the lawn and it no longer looked like a neglected eyesore. She knew she’d done that. Well, she and Ben. They’d given Agnes and Ron the emotional boost they’d needed to rejoin their life.

She was glad she’d been able to do something,
besides fill out applications and listen to Mitch stories.

“I totally forgot,” Amanda said, the smile and color leeching from her face. “You live with the Adamses.”

“Yeah, I’m Mitch’s widow.” Julia watched her, puzzled by Amanda’s suddenly nervous and worried demeanor as she walked Ben back to Julia.

“I won’t be able to babysit here. I’m sorry, I should get going—”

“Julia!” The front door opened and Agnes, animated and clutching a letter, stepped out onto the cracked sidewalk. “You’re never going to guess—”

“I really need to go,” Amanda whispered and she took off running back to Jesse’s house.

“What was she doing here?” Agnes asked, her eyes following Amanda as she ran. “What were you doing with her?”

Julia forced herself not to roll her eyes like the kid Agnes seemed to think she was. “I met her the other day, she offered to babysit Ben if I needed her to.”

Agnes’s mouth fell open. “Absolutely not.”

Julia blinked, at a loss for words. “Agnes, what—”

“She’s completely inappropriate to take care of Ben.”

“I think I can judge the appropriateness of who takes care of Ben.”

Agnes’s eyes turned to hard stones. “All right, but that girl was arrested a few years ago. Did you know that?”

Julia swallowed. “No, I didn’t. But I’m sure there’s—”

“She burned down a farm.” Agnes crossed her arms over her chest, looking as smug and mean as possible. “Nearly killed a man. And now, thanks to her father marrying Rachel Filmore, she’s related to—” Agnes’s face turned hard, as though her anger turned her into a statue “—Jesse Filmore. Who, I don’t have to tell you, shouldn’t even be allowed to breathe the same air as Mitch’s little boy.”

Julia reeled, silent. There were so many things wrong with Agnes’s assumptions and prejudices that she felt paralyzed. “Amanda has been nothing but kind to me and Ben,” she said, lamely. “And Jesse—”

“I can’t expect you to understand in a few short weeks what that girl is like.” Agnes patted her arm in a patronizing way. “You just have to trust me on this. That family is trash.”

Julia pulled away, determined to defend Jesse. “Agnes, that’s not fair. And it’s untrue. I know what everyone in town is saying about Jesse. But they’re wrong. Jesse didn’t kill Mitch. They were friends. Mitch’s death is tearing Jesse apart.”

For a second Julia thought Agnes was going to slap her. Or have a heart attack. Her nose flared and the letter she carried crumpled in her fist. Her skin went pale and sweat beaded her lip. She even seemed to sway.

“Agnes…?”

“Do not mention that man’s name again.” She bit the words out.

“Jesse?”

“He should have burned in that accident. He should be dead, not Mitch.” Her eyes dilated, her eyelids fluttered. “Not Mitch.”

Julia did not know how to handle this malice, this violent hatred for Jesse. She wanted to run far away from this venomous woman, yet, at the same time, she worried that Agnes would collapse right there in front of her.

“Let’s go inside, Agnes. You should lie down.”

“I just want the best for you,” she whispered. “The best for Ben.”

“I know. I know.” Julia put her arm around Agnes’s soft, round shoulders. “Ben, go on inside, let’s find out what Ron is doing.” Ben skipped ahead and Julia took one of Agnes’s fists in her hand—the fist holding the letter.

Agnes looked down at it as if she’d forgotten it.

“It’s for you,” she finally said. Color was coming back into her face. “It’s from Lawshaw.” She put the letter into Julia’s hand and smiled, big and warm and friendly. Julia could only gape at the change from the hateful person she’d been just moments before. “You’ve been accepted.” Agnes pulled a stunned Julia into her arms. “I’m so proud of you. Now you can forget about that job and get your degree like Mitch wanted you to.”

She read my mail!
That was the only thing Julia could think.
She opened my mail!

“Oh, Ben!” Agnes yelled, her attention inside the house. “You do not put that in your mouth. I better go get him his lunch. He always comes home so hungry when he’s been walking with you.”

With that unsubtle jab, Agnes hurried into the house.

Julia stayed in the front yard. The words of
the letter—
Dear Mrs. Adams, it is our pleasure
to inform you that you’ve been accepted
—blurring in front of her eyes.

What have I done? What am I in the middle
of?

And how do I get out of it?

“I’
M SORRY
, J
ESSE
,” Rachel said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“You didn’t,” he said. He tore his eyes away from Julia’s back as she crossed the street with her boy and his niece. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”

“That’s not what it looked like.” Rachel laughed and Jesse wanted to put his hand through the wall. He stomped past her to the kitchen. He took all the plates and dumped them in the sink, where one of them broke.

“Jesse, I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his shoulder and he jerked away. “I didn’t mean to make a joke.”

“No, make jokes. It’s hilarious. Me and Mitch’s widow. It’s the funniest damn thing on the planet.”

“It’s not. It’s not funny.” Rachel’s dark green eyes swept over him. “I can tell it’s really important to you.”

God, sympathy…understanding even, from his sister of all people. He rubbed his hands over his face and cursed when he bumped his nose and he tasted the copper of blood all over again.

“Here.” Rachel emptied her pockets of tissues and held them out to him.

“Thanks,” he muttered and snatched them out of her hands.

“Have you known her a long time?” Rachel asked, her voice a soft comforting purr that smoothed all of his ruffled feathers. It was stupid—ludicrous—but he wanted to talk about Julia. He was a mess. He was spinning in circles, paralyzed by his guilt and his want.

“I met her a few weeks before the accident.”

“Do you…are you…?” Rachel stalled and he lifted the wad of tissues from his nose.

“In love?” he asked, brutally of himself and her.

She nodded.

So did he and instantly felt better. Better for having admitted it to someone, anyone.

“Wow, Jess, that sucks,” she said the words that so perfectly summed up his entire life that he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Excellent assessment, counselor,” he said
and when her eyebrows creased he realized the error he’d made.

“How’d you know I was a counselor?”

“I threw away your letters, not Mom’s.”

He kicked out a chair and collapsed into it. The easy moment they’d just shared lay gasping between them. “I’m leaving, I’m not joking. The house is yours.”

“You should wait until you can see out of that eye.” Rachel leaned against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest, and suddenly Jesse was hurled back in time.

He was watching his big sister talk on the phone, the cord wrapped up her arm as she leaned against that counter. She was talking to Mom, leaning against that counter. Fighting with Dad, helping Jesse with his homework.

Being in here with her brought it all back, those things he thought he’d forgotten. The rare good islands in the sea of rot that’d been his childhood.

And now hot memories of Julia were thrown into the mix and he couldn’t look over there without thinking of her. Pressed against him, her breast in his palm.

He shut his eyes.

“Mac and I are having a baby.”

His eyes flew back open. Something small and weak ignited in his head. “What?”

“We’re having a baby.” Rachel smiled, though the tears in her green eyes stood out like gems. “In December.”

Jesse was speechless. Surprised, actually, that he felt something about this. That he could be moved by this news.

“Mac is at the lumberyard right now, picking out wood. We’d like you to make a cradle.”

“I don’t do that anymore,” he said.

“Well, I know you probably didn’t have time in the army, but maybe while you’re here. If you stay…we’d like you to stay.”

The words weren’t out of Rachel’s mouth before Amanda came running into the room as if she were on fire. He didn’t have a chance to say no, to even shake off the sickening desire he had to do just what his sister wanted.

Something in his gut wanted to sit in this kitchen with the ghosts of his sweet childhood sister and the hot available Julia circling him.

Quicksand.

I am never drinking again
, he thought.

“Whoa, Mom, you’re never going to guess who I just saw—” Amanda stopped abruptly, her shoes squeaking on the old linoleum.
“What’s going on?” she asked, warily eyeing him and Rachel.

“I just told your uncle about the good news.” Rachel wiped at the tears under her eyes and Jesse held the tissues to his nose.

“Isn’t it great!” Amanda cried. “I swear to God, I’m like the only person in the world without a little brother or sister. I mean, Mom always says that having you as a little brother was the coolest thing in the world. That she and Dad used to go camping with you all the time and that you followed them around wherever they went.” She shook her head. “I cannot wait!”

There were explosions in his brain. Memories long suppressed. Wood smoke and Mac playing Eagles songs on a beat-up guitar. Jesse falling asleep with his head in Rachel’s lap while the fire burned out.

She used to let him sleep in her room.

She used to put him on the handlebars of her bike and ride him to school.

She used to make breakfast when Dad was passed out and Mom was at work.

He moved the tissues and stared down at the blood pooled there. He’d forgotten those things. Her leaving had cut through his life like a wide scythe.

“I have to leave sometime,” he said thinking about San Diego and Chris.

“But maybe not for a while,” Rachel said. “Not right away.”

“You should come for dinner Sunday. Dad’s making steaks,” Amanda said and licked her lips in exaggerated appreciation of steak.

“We’d love to have you,” Rachel said, hope, like mist filling the air.

All the rejection and denial rushed to his lips.
No
, and,
I can’t
, and,
get the hell out of
my house!
He was silent instead.