Love Is the Drug (20 page)

Julie’s heart sank into her toes.
“Jason, no!”
She gripped his upper arm. “Don’t. Please. I know you’ll regret it.”

“No, Julie. I won’t.”

She crossed her arms and looked down.

Finally, she said, “But I will.”

Then, blinking away the mist, and straightening her crumpled features, she took in a deep, steadying breath and slipped the ring from her finger. The platinum metal met the porcelain tile with a hollow
clink.

* * *

Jason gunned the engine and smacked his hand down hard on the steering wheel. “This is all a load of bullshit!”

The Vette fishtailed on the wet road. “Ohhh, shit!” He let up on the gas and gently turned the wheel in the same direction the backend was moving. It took a couple more of such maneuvers before he was able to gain control of the vehicle again.

Rain hammered his windshield and the dark sky matched his mood. He could barely see five feet in front of him.

He’d left the ring on the counter where she’d put it.

He didn’t want it.

And she could choke on it for all he cared.

Now all he wanted to do was get to DFW, slam down a few shots, and catch that plane to Dubai he’d made reservations on late last night.

What an idiot he’d been. Of course, a girl like Julie would want kids. And he’d
known
it. Deep down. Way deep down. He’d known it. And ignored it.

He guessed he’d just hoped they’d have so much fun—fill their days with adventure—that she’d
forget
she wanted them.

But those condoms—he was convinced now it hadn’t been her who’d tampered with them. Maybe some psycho employee of the hotel where he’d bought them? He’d sure as hell be giving the hotel a call.

Damn!
He’d have to call his dad from the airport. Or—maybe he should turn around and drive to Houston to talk to him in person? But,
fuck!
He had to catch that damned flight. The head of operations was going to be waiting for him at the airport when he landed, and he and Paul really needed this gig. It would not go over well for him to delay the trip due to a personal issue. Nothing short of death or near-death in the family would fly with those folks.

Nope, a phone call it would have to be.

God! He had totally, totally,
totally
fucked up.

* * *

“Pookie!”
Julie called a third time from the porch, but it was useless. The roar of the rainwater pouring from the roof and slapping the ground drowned out her voice.

A flash of black lightning darted past her peripheral and she snapped her head around.
“Pookie! Come here!”
She dashed down the steps into the mud and rain and snatched the kitten up just as it was about to shimmy under the house.

She stood up with the frightened kitten in her arms and rushed back toward the porch steps.

A boom of thunder sounded.

She jumped and the kitten screamed. It clawed at her chest, drawing blood, but Julie managed to keep her grip on it. She trotted up the steps just as another firebolt flare slashed the heavens. For a split second, the porch was lit with an eerie blue light, and then it was awash once more in dismal storm-cloud gray.

Her hands shook and her teeth chattered, but she dried the kitten first, using one of the towels she’d brought out before. Then she opened the door a crack, nudged the kitty inside, and closed the door again, shutting the animal in and herself out.

She couldn’t bear to face the emptiness of her family’s home just now. Of being, once again, all alone—on her own. Not yet. So she dried herself as best she could with the remaining towel and then slumped onto the porch swing and began to softly sway.

For another half-hour the rain continued to pound the ground and the wind blew so strong it bent the trees, but Julie stayed put. Finally, the dark lady of the heavens slowly stopped weeping and only a soft pitter-patter was left to gently collide with the roof. It lulled Julie with its hushed repeat.

After awhile, her lids grew heavy, so she lay down on her side and dozed.

* * *

Gabe set the phone down on the end table. What a mess everything was. And even now, knowing that those two had not legally been married, as they’d all thought, he still wished his ploy had worked.

Because, even if Jason didn’t believe it, Gabe knew, without a doubt, that Jason would have found it within himself to welcome his own offspring into the world, if he’d had the opportunity.

Jason had only needed a little push in that direction was all.

But, it seemed, it was too late now.

Gabe had just tried, unsuccessfully, to convince his son to call Julie and tell her he’d been dead wrong, that he had no intention of getting a vasectomy, that he loved her too much to allow their relationship to end.

But instead, Jason was doing what Jason did best: running away.

Just as he’d done after reading his mother’s diary five years ago. And it hadn’t been until Gabe had shown up at that bar on Sixth Street where Jason had been holing up as a bartender for way too long that Jason had finally come back home and turned his life around.

What Jason needed was a swift kick in the pants. Not literally, but figuratively.

But, for right now, all Gabe could think to do was go see how Julie was faring.

So, that settled in his mind, he rose from his recliner and padded into his bedroom to change into some traveling clothes.

* * *

Gabe swung his pride-and-joy, custom eggplant-purple ’66 Dynamic 88 convertible into the left lane of I-45 and turned the silver volume dial of the vintage car radio up to blast.
Surfin’ Safari
rattled the windshield and warred with the sound of passing cars, but he didn’t care, because he was having a good time.

He should’ve taken his two-year-old Caddy instead, but it made him feel old and stodgy. And right now, he wanted to feel young and alive. He wanted to feel the warm breeze on his face, in his hair, to enjoy the music and the vintage car and the open road.

Because, once he got to Buffalo Pass, there’d be some somber business to deal with. Something he wondered if Jason had ever even told Julie about, but something that Gabe was hoping, once she knew, would maybe change her mind and make her give his son another chance.

He’d barely gotten to the bank in time before it closed an hour ago. And now, on the black vinyl seat beside him lay the leather attaché, inside of which was the tattered
Mork & Mindy
spiral notebook that held the story of his poor wife’s secret shame.

* * *

The roar of a car engine and the crunch of wheels on gravel startled Julie out of a troubled sleep. She sprang into a sitting position, ramrod straight. Her sudden movement made the porch swing rock and it banged against the house behind her.

The blinding bright white of the headlights shimmied and shook, lighting up the porch like the rotating spotlights of a three-ring circus. She slammed her lids shut, covered her eyes and tried hard to clear the fog from her brain.

What time was it anyway? Nine? Ten? Eleven? Well, it was late anyway. Too late for visitors.

But not murderers.
She shot to her feet and pushed the door open with a swift turn of her wrist and a butt of her shoulder and hip.

* * *

“Sorry I frightened you a minute ago,” Gabe said and took a sip of his iced tea.

Julie folded and unfolded the dishtowel on the island counter. She shook her head. “I was just being silly—I don’t know what got into me—too many years in a crime-filled city, I guess. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve come, because—”
Oh, God.
She looked up at him. “You do know that Jason’s not here?”

Gabe reached over and patted her hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d fisted it around the towel until his touch loosened her grip on the thing. “Yes, Julie. I know the whole story. Jason called me from the airport.”

“Airport?”

Gabe nodded. “A client in Dubai wants him to build a sustainable space hotel and resort—he didn’t tell you?”

Julie busied herself straightening and refolding the towel. “No—no he didn’t. Good for him. It sounds like a great project.”

“Julie, look at me.”

She blinked a few times and cleared her throat. Then with a sniffle, she tossed her head a little and brought it up.

“He was planning to take you with him, but you broke up with him.”

The battle between her sorrow and her pride came to an abrupt and crippling end. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

Gabe put his arm around her shoulder, gave her arm a rough pat, and then squeezed her to him. “Now, now. None of that. I’m sure this can all be fixed in no time.”

* * *

“My wife was only twenty-one the year she wrote that,” Gabe said. He and Julie were seated in her living room now and she was quietly, and avidly, reading every word in the notebook his wife had used as her diary.

It was crowding midnight, but neither he nor Julie was ready to call it a night. He reckoned the nap he’d awakened her from was her reason. He just didn’t sleep as well as he used to.

Although…he was curious as hell why she’d been asleep on the porch swing when he got here. Well, that conversation could wait for another day.

It was this one that he was determined to have with her now. Especially after the reaction she’d just had in the kitchen. It’d given him even more hope than his earlier conversation with Jason had done. And that one had been a real eye-opener for sure.

Jason was so nuts for this little gal that he’d actually told Gabe to shove it and hung up on him. Totally out of character.

His son was clearly having the battle of a lifetime.

And Gabe planned to add just enough pressure on the heart side to smash his kid’s fear once and for all.

Now all he had to do was get Julie in his corner as well.

Even if she didn’t know she was.

* * *

Julie slowly closed the notebook, but kept a light grip on it, holding it in her lap. “It was worse than I ever imagined.”

Gabe sat forward. “So—Jason told you? It wasn’t a complete surprise?”

Julie glanced down at the diary. “Yes. He told me—but…” She met Gabe’s gaze again. “He said—the way he phrased it—I don’t know. I guess I got the impression that his mother—your wife—
manipulated
you. Maybe even made you believe the baby was yours so that you would marry her.” She looked back at the notebook and ran her hand over the once-shiny, now dulled-with-age-and-wear, cover. “But that’s not what happened at all.”

“No. We’d been married for almost a year.”

Julie shook her head. “How awful for her.”

“Yes. Yes it was. It was a horrible shame that she kept to herself—took it to her grave.” Gabe sighed and sat back. “I suppose I would have gone to mine as well—maybe even Jason, too—not knowing the truth of what happened, if it hadn’t been for my damned heart.”

“I don’t understand,” Julie said. But she was beginning to suspect.

“Transfusions. Blood transfusions.” Gabe tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Jason and I both needed one after the car crash.”

“Oh.”

“Yep. It was actually Jason who put two-and-two together: I’m O, he’s AB. But I was so sure the so-called inheritance pattern for blood types had more wiggle room—I mean, this is the Twenty-first century, for Christ’s sake!—that I allowed Jason to talk me into getting a DNA test done.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I wish now that I’d refused it, because once those damned results confirmed Jason’s suspicions and I found that—” He indicated the notebook with a wave of his hand. “Well, nothing’s been the same between us since.”

Julie sat forward and placed her hand on Gabe’s knee. “How did your wife die?”

“That, to me, is the saddest part of all.” He pressed his fingers against his eyes. “She died of a brain aneurysm. A year before the car crash.”

“I’m so sorry, Gabe.”

“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, going through her things to try and find some information on who had fathered our child.” He looked at her then. “I know. It sounds crazy. You’d think burying her would have been harder—but it wasn’t.” He shrugged. “It—it just hadn’t seemed real to me.”

Gabe got to his feet and walked over to the stone fireplace. He picked up one of the wooden and brass candlesticks and then set it right back down again. “After she was gone, I—I don’t know—I just liked keeping everything as she’d had it before. So, I left all her clothes in the closet, kept her makeup and hairbrushes and goo-gaws on the bathroom counter.” He looked down into the fireplace and toed the iron screen. “Going through her things—imagining that she’d been unfaithful—suspecting every friend I had. It was—” He looked up toward the ceiling. “It was a living, breathing
nightmare
.”

He looked over his shoulder and caught her eye. “But you know what was worse? My going through her things made her absence from my life so final.”