Outside The Lines (9 page)

“I am an orphan, but that’s not the whole truth.
I was born in the North Brentsville Women’s Shelter, because my mother was living in an abandoned warehouse when she went into labor with me. She turned me over to the foster care system when I was three, and I don’t know anything about my father other than the fact that he didn’t want me, either. Family services tried to place me with an adoptive family, but I was just another welfare kid in a system already full of them.”

Blake’s jaw went tight, a barely-there hardening of the muscles beneath the gold-brown stubble.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”

“Because where I come from, admitting your weaknesses gets you hurt. Or worse
yet, left behind.”

“
Growing up in foster care isn’t a weakness, Jules. Wait,” he said, his eyes going wide with realization. “Is
that
why you never told me about your family or took me to your place? You thought it made you weak?”

She nodded, unable to keep the words from pouring out like water spilled from an oversized glass.
“I’ve spent my whole life being tough just to survive. I couldn’t tell you the ugly details, Blake. You were pre-med at Brentsville University, smart and funny and from the wealthiest family in the entire zip code. What would you have said if you’d known I’d lived in seven foster homes in thirteen years, and that I left high school at seventeen because I needed to get a job or starve? That when I met you, I carried everything I owned with me in a duffel bag because it was the best way to keep it from getting stolen from my shitty apartment in Battery Heights? What would you have said if you’d known the truth?”

For an excruciating second, he said nothing
, and
damn
it, she should’ve just stayed quiet. But then Blake stepped in, the honesty on his face so real and open and true that Jules knew not only was she in love with him all the way to her bones, but she’d never really stopped.

“
I would’ve said that I wanted you anyway, Jules, no matter what. Just like I do now.”

“I
’m so sorry,” she whispered, her traitorous eyes filling with tears. “I was afraid that if you saw it all, even now, you wouldn’t want to be with me. I didn’t mean to keep anything from you, and I never meant to hurt you by leaving, but I’m not… I’m not…” Jules stumbled on the words, the echo of an eight-year-old memory sifting up from the back of her brain.

You’re
going to ruin him, you know. You’re not good enough for my son.

“That’s what made you leave
so suddenly eight years ago?” His voice was thick with surprise, and something deeper Jules couldn’t quite identify. “Because you thought you weren’t good enough?”

Oh no. No, no. There was no point in doing any more damage when the end result wouldn’t change. Telling Blake that his mother had shown up at her grungy apartment, deep in the underbelly of the worst part of Brentsville, three days before she and Blake were supposed to leave for New York City
to precipitate Jules’s decision would only make it hurt worse. And even though she hadn’t meant to, Jules had hurt him enough already. She couldn’t tear his family apart, too.

So
she nodded. “Yes.”

“Come here.” But rather than gather
ing her close, Blake took her hand, guiding her down the hallway and over the sun-strewn floorboards of his kitchen until he shushed to a stop in front of the pantry.

“Go ahead,” he said, gesturing to the door with a gentle incline of his head, and— not knowing what else to do— Jules palmed the knob to swing it open.

“
Oh
.” The hot tears she’d been able to blink away a few minutes ago redoubled their efforts, breaching her eyelids. She ran her fingers over the achingly familiar jar of orange marmalade and the day-old loaf of brioche, and oh God, there were three different jars of honey and a skillet on the shelf, too. “Why did you get these?”

“Because.” Blake
thumbed a tear from her cheek. “I don’t want to miss another single chance to have breakfast in bed with you. I don’t care what your past looks like, or where you grew up. I don’t want us to hide things from each other, ever. I’m done not living out loud. I want all of you, Jules. You can’t see yourself as good enough, but I can’t see you as anything but mine.”

Blake
leaned in, pressing his mouth over hers in a reverent kiss Jules felt from her bones to her belly. “I want us to be honest with each other, no matter what. I want to be with you, Jules. Tell me you’ll stay.”

She
kissed him back with matching need, her mouth seeking and finding all at once. His fingers knotted in her hair, holding her close as he tasted her lips, parting them easily with his own. Everything about him, from his hot palms on the back of her neck to the intoxicating hope in his words, sustained Jules from the inside out, and when Blake carried her to his bedroom with clear and vivid intention, she knew she’d never be the same without him.

“I’
ll stay, Blake. I’ll stay.”

CHAPTER NINE

Jules
balanced a stuffed-to-the-gills grocery bag on each hip of her black pencil skirt, side-stepping a pair of nurses on her familiar path toward Brentsville ER’s main triage desk. With five weeks’ worth of committee meetings under her belt, she no longer felt like an interloper in either dressy clothes or the hospital’s hallways, although she’d had to get creative with her wardrobe choices this week. After all, there were only so many times a girl could rotate the small handful of appropriate items in her closet before having to raid her best friend’s stash of skirts and suits.

“Oooh,
is it Thursday again?” Dr. Cross, who had eased up significantly on the cocky-factor since their first meeting last month, tipped his head at the load Jules’s arms in a wordless
may I?
as he fell into step next to her.

“Hel
lo to you too, Dr. Cross,” she teased, although her shoulder muscles were secretly relieved when he took one of the bags from her grasp. “I take it you’ve been eagerly awaiting breakfast.”

“Since about Monday afternoon.” He gave up a laugh, and huh. He was actually pretty handsome
when he went the genuine route. “How’s it going with the last-minute prep for the carnival? Anything I can do to help out before Saturday?”

“You’re already letting us sell off
a night of your life at the bachelor auction,” Jules reminded him. “It’s really nice of you to donate a date.”

“
It’s not exactly a hardship to be bid on by a bunch of Brentsville’s prettiest,” Dr. Cross joked, his confident air making an appearance in his grin. “But really, it’s for a great cause. Plus, you and Dr. Fisher have worked really hard to pull the carnival together for the hospital. Donating a date is the least I can do.”

The shrill sound
of the alarm on the intercom canceled out the
thank you
on her lips, and she and Dr. Cross hitched to a stop just outside the door to the staff lounge at the same time the voice on the speaker signaled a code red in one of the trauma rooms.

“Ah, that’s my cue. Sorry
, I’ve got to go.” He handed the grocery bag back to her with an apologetic smile, already poised to move down the hallway.

“No worries,” Jules sai
d, nudging the staff lounge door from its frame with her hip. “I’ll make sure to save you something to eat.”

“You do look out for us, don’t you?
Thanks, Jules.” Dr. Cross winked, way more charming than cheesy as he took off at a sprint toward the trauma bay, and Jules turned to step all the way into the lounge. If the incoming trauma was as serious as it sounded, she’d probably have some time to review her notes one last time after setting up breakfast, maybe even make a few calls before—

“Good morning, Ms. Shaw.
”

Frances Fisher’s crisp, no-nonsense voice sent Jules’s
easygoing mood into a full-bodied flatline.

“Good morning,”
Jules returned, and even though she had politely interacted with the woman a handful of times since the day of the kissing-on-the-desk debacle, every last one of Jules’s defenses clamored for DEFCON one.

Which was stupid, rea
lly. Yes, Mrs. Fisher might arguably be the most influential person in the city, and one who still held Jules’s job on this contract in the palm of her hand at that. But she was still just a person, who slept and breathed and ate just like Jules did.

Come to think of it, Mrs. Fisher looked kind of pale.

“I’ve come to sit in on your final meeting with Blake to make sure there are no last-minute glitches,” the older woman said with brisk efficiency. “With only two days left before the carnival, it’s imperative that we stay completely focused.”

Jules nodded in agreement. “
We triple-checked the updated plan just yesterday. I’ve got all the notes right here. Blake and I usually just go from the book to keep everything all in one place. But of course you’re welcome to review it all if you’d like.” She lowered the grocery bags to the table, her shoulders singing a hallelujah chorus as she released the food to unearth her trusty notebook from her purse.

The frown on Mrs. Fisher’s mouth broadcast her disdain
better than ten-speaker surround sound. “Am I to understand that all of your notes are longhand?”

“
Oh.” The word clunked past Jules’s lips, the back of her neck descending into a slow burn. “Well, that’s how I do my planning, yes.”

“On paper napkins?” Her voice dripped with disdain as she held up the original plan for the bachelor auction that Jules had scribbled out five weeks ago. Jules must’ve stuck it in the front of the book and forgotten about it once they got the real plan rolling.

Her cheeks went hot
to match her neck. “Blake keeps a backup set of notes on his laptop.”

Mrs. Fisher
smiled, but there was little humor in the gesture. “An e-mail copy from your latest session will be fine. I’ll have him send it to me when he arrives.”

“Okay, sure.” Jules bit back the sting welling up at the scrape of the older woman’s words, reaching for the cover of the grocery bags. The feel of the food in her hands brought her pulse to a manageable level, and she channeled her focus into unloading the containers, one at a time. 

Mrs. Fisher
turned toward her slim leather briefcase, rifling through some papers from her strategic spot at the head of the rectangular table. The bones in her wrists stood out in stark relief against the moonglow of her skin, snagging Jules’s attention and begging a closer look. The woman’s expensively-cut navy blue suit was flawless, but it hung on her frame too loosely, and the elegant double-string of pearls at her neck wasn’t quite good enough to cover the obvious flash of her stick-thin collarbones.

Holy shit.
Blake’s mother was
hungry
.

“I brought plenty for everybody
,” Jules said, sorting through the clear plastic containers without pause. “The blueberry muffins are pretty popular, but my friend Violet gave me the recipe for her breakfast burritos, too. I think Blake and Dr. Cross ate five of them put together when I brought breakfast last week.”

For a second, the woman’s expression dipped, just enough for Jules to recognize the hitch before she stamped it out.
“I’m not hungry, thank you,” Mrs. Fisher clipped out, but oh God, everything else about her said otherwise.

“Are you sure?” Jules pressed, but Mrs. Fisher just met her with a pointed stare.

“You are aware that it’s not part of your contractual obligation to provide food until the day of the carnival, correct?” Mrs. Fisher turned her gaze toward the table between them, and something way down deep in her gut forced the words right out of her.

“I’ve read the contract. But I didn’t bring breakfast out of any kind of
obligation.” She stepped in, and all of a sudden, there was nothing in the room but her and Blake’s mother, just like that night eight years ago she’d tracked Jules down in her dingy apartment. “I did it because I know how much this department means to Blake, and I care about him.”

Mrs. Fisher paused, as if she hadn’t expected Jules’s admission, and hell, that made two of them. But then she took a step herself and said, “Then it must be particularly bittersweet for you that we’re nearly done with this project.”

“I…I’m sorry?”

“Well, once the carnival is over, we won’t really have cause to see you here at th
e hospital anymore. Certainly you’ll be busy with other projects, and other people to care about.” One blond brow rose before she added, “As will Blake.”

Understanding slid through Jules’s veins like ice water. “
You think I’m going to leave him once this carnival is over.”

“You’
ve done it before, Ms. Shaw,” she pointed out, and of course she was right. Jules
had
left Blake eight years ago. Mrs. Fisher’s words might not have helped, but Jules had written the letter.
She’d
ignored the phone calls and called in sick at her job on the off-chance he’d go looking for her there.

She’d left of her own accord. Jules
hadn’t meant to hurt him so deeply. But of course, she had.

And didn’t Blake deserve better than that?

“A lot has changed since then. Things are different now. I’m… I’m different,” Jules said, but the waver in her voice was a dead giveaway, and Mrs. Fisher pounced.

“
Are you? Let’s be honest. You and Blake may have had your fun over the last few weeks, much to my dismay. But I told you eight years ago you’re not meant for him. Do you honestly believe that time has made you more worthy of my son? Do you really think
you’re
good enough to make him happy?”

The word
yes
ricocheted to Jules’s mouth, hot and brash and ready to go, but she captured it between her teeth.

Because deep down beneath her borrowed skirt and all her good intentions,
Mrs. Fisher was right. Underneath it all, Jules was exactly the same person she’d been eight years ago. She was still just a foster kid who nobody had wanted, a dirt-poor northie who wished for nothing more than to spend the rest of her life feeding people in the local diner.

Jules would never
be good enough for a man like Blake Fisher, no matter how badly she wanted him, and no matter how blindly he thought otherwise.

But before she could say so, a cold, masculine voice cut across the room to land right in the center of her chest.

“I’m not sure what the hell is going on here, but you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.
Both
of you.”

#

Blake’s head buzzed with a dangerous combination of raw shock and undiluted anger, neither of which helped to ratchet down the slam of his heartbeat beneath his light blue scrubs. He’d hadn’t exactly started off with cucumber-cool blood pressure to begin with, having just come off a moderately gruesome code red double trauma. But tending to the victims of the multi-vehicle car accident had been tea and fucking cake compared to what he’d just overheard between Jules and his mother. They’d both been too tangled up in their argument to notice he’d slipped quietly into the staff lounge, but Blake had heard enough to piece together a picture that made him want to scream.

He just couldn’t decide
which one of them to start with.

“
Blake.” His mother gripped the back of the chair in front of her as she turned to look at him. She rearranged the streak of shock on her face into impenetrable calm before saying, “I didn’t hear you come in.”  

“I’m sure you didn’
t. Otherwise you might have thought twice about interfering so directly in my love life.”

At the tail end of his sentence, Jules let out an unmistak
able flinch, and Blake dug into the linoleum even harder. “But it seems this isn’t the first time for that, now is it?”

“I’m not certain I know what you mean
,” his mother said, but the reply lacked all the trademark Fisher conviction she normally put to everything from board meetings to her breakfast order.

“
Blake, don’t do this,” Jules whispered, and his head whipped toward her, the muscles in his jaw going tight enough to burn as he locked his molars together.

“Don’t do what?
I deserve to know the truth, Jules. Although it’s not something you’ve been particularly forthcoming with, either, is it? So do you want to tell me what the hell happened between the two of you eight years ago?” The words came out more serrated than he intended, but Christ, his mother’s interference was bad enough.

But
not only did it look like Jules had kept it from him this whole time, but she’d actually
believed
his mother’s disdain instead of believing him. And from the way the look on her face was hardening by the second, the last five weeks meant nothing in the grander scheme of the last eight years.

Like an idiot, Blake had put his heart right ba
ck on the line. He’d trusted Jules impulsively, and rather than showing him how to live out loud, that trust was going to wreck him.

Again.

“No,” Jules said, but one way or another, he was getting answers. Right now.

“What about you?” Blake swung toward his mother, unwilling to let her off the hook, either. “Would you like to let me in on exactly what I’ve been missing?” 

The gravel he’d put to the question returned the steel to her spine, and his mother fixed him with a stare that said he was going to get the
fight he’d picked. “You were twenty-two years old, Blake. You were grieving your brother and about to begin medical school. You didn’t need the emotional upheaval of a rash marriage to the wrong person on top of that. I simply sought out Ms. Shaw to discuss the matter. And obviously she agreed.”

His pulse went ballistic in his veins. “You bullied Jules into leaving me?”

“It wasn’t quite so dramatic. I pointed out the truth that you were both too blind to see.”