Star-Crossed (45 page)

“I’ll give you a show.” Romeo gave her a wide, amused smile that lit up his face.

“All you gotta do is ask.”

Jules giggled as they came up to the table. “Hey, y’all.”

“You look like you just took a bath with your clothes on,” Melody said with a laugh. “You wanna towel?”

“If it ain’t too much trouble,” Jules agreed as she sat next to her brother. Romeo sat on her other side at the table next to Tino and his precious trophy. Romeo scooted his seat close to her as Jules looked around the diner with trepidation. “You’re gonna have to smuggle that towel out here. Looks like plenty of folks could use one.”

“If they take a towel from a woman pregnant with twins, then they’re gonna have me to deal with,” Wyatt said darkly as he took a bite of his meat loaf.

Wyatt’s words were punctuated by his sheriff’s uniform. He was the only other person at the table without a 5k shirt. He’d left after the race to get ready for work rather than enjoy the festivities. Even Melody had earned herself one. She and Clay looked adorably coordinated as they sat side by side.

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“I’ll sneak it.” Melody slid out of the booth and headed to the back of the diner despite being off work.

Jules winced. “I feel guilty ’cause there is certainly a high demand for towels. I ain’t never seen so many wet and dirty folks shoved into one place.”

“Anyone’s got a problem with it, they can talk to me.” Wyatt reached over and patted her stomach affectionately. “We got to take care of my retirement plan.”

“You call my sons your retirement plan one more time and I’ll—” Jules was cut off when Romeo leaned over and kissed her. Then he smiled against her lips. “Stress isn’t good for you. I read—”

“I’m gonna take those books away from you.” Jules huffed. “Stealing my tea and—”

Romeo just kissed her again.

“We got an heir and a spare,” Wyatt went on, capitalizing on Romeo’s distracting actions. “One of ’em’s got to have the sheriff gene. I’ll be retired by sixty. That ain’t half bad.”

Tino laughed. “That would be the funniest shit ever. One of Romeo’s kids being the sheriff of Hicksville.”

“They’ll be built for it,” Clay added, frowning at Jules across the table. “Have the doctors given ya an idea how big these babies are gonna be?”

“I hear that question all the time.” Jules sighed. “I ain’t even sure it’s all that polite.”

Melody came back before they could answer, and Jules dried off with the clean kitchen towel. Then she worked on her hair, squeezing the water out of her pigtails that she’d started wearing to combat the heat rather than her usual ponytail. She was still self-conscious about the long, pink scar on her neck, even if Romeo kept telling her it was fading.

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Once she was done, she handed the towel to Romeo, but it was already so wet it did little good. They should have come in earlier like Clay and Melody had, but it’d been so nice to just enjoy the day and appreciate being together when they’d fought so hard to get here.

“This is a terrible mess,” Melody was telling Clay. “They’re swamped. They still ain’t come to take an order. I should’ve worked today.”

“You work every holiday,” Clay reminded her with a growl. “You’re allowed time to yourself. Not like you have to work. You do it ’cause you like it, and Hal knows that.

He should be treating ya right.”

“No, it ain’t like that. Hal told me to take the day off,” Melody argued. “But I just hate seeing ’em in the weeds like this. Not to mention starving a pregnant lady.” Jules laughed. “I ain’t that starving.”

“Hal’s got that new cook. He’s still green—”

Melody stopped when Wyatt kicked her foot under the table and then lifted his head and smiled. “Hey, Terry, where’s your 5K shirt?”

“I didn’t run today.” Terry came around the table, looking apprehensive. “Can I have a moment with ya, Sheriff?”

Wyatt looked at Jules pointedly. “She doesn’t slide out of booths as well as she used to. Is there a problem?”

“No, I just, ah—” Terry crouched down, resting his arm on the booth. “I figured I still owed you for New Year’s.”

“Shoot.” Wyatt laughed. “That was six months ago, Terry. Stop worrying ’bout it.”

“Yeah, see, but I just rented out the lake house again, and I thought you might wanna know ’bout it.”

“Really?” Jules asked in surprise, knowing it was far more expensive than his other properties. “Who rented it? You didn’t run the rental agreement by me. Is it last minute?”

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“Yeah.” Terry nodded, still looking hesitant. “That…and she wasn’t really keen on you being the one doing her paperwork. No big deal. I ain’t really worried ’bout her stiffing me.”

“Who is it?” Wyatt asked with a catch in his voice as if afraid to hope for the answer.

“She doesn’t know I’m telling ya,” Terry went on. “But I reckoned with your history and all, you had a right to know. Plus, like I said, I owe you.”

“Oh Christ.” Clay groaned, voicing Jules’s thoughts out loud.

“Tabitha’s back,” Terry finally stated despite it being blatantly obvious. “I met her up at the lake house to give her the keys earlier this morning.” Jules glanced to her brother, seeing he’d paled despite all the summer sun he’d been getting. He looked at Terry in shock for one long moment. Then he turned back to his plate and stared at it for several heartbeats before he finally whispered, “I reckon I’m ’bout done with lunch.”

“Wyatt,” Jules said in her sternest voice. “You cannot be thinking ’bout going up there.”

“Are you gonna slide out of this booth?” Wyatt countered, meeting Jules’s narrowed gaze with one of his own.

“No, I’m not.” Jules folded her arms over her chest. “I will fight this. I will not go through all that again.”

“I have to agree with Jules,” Clay interjected. “Seeing Tab again is just asking for trouble.”

“I will crawl over this table to get out,” Wyatt countered, casting a glare from Clay to Jules as if they’d both just betrayed him. “’Cause I sure ain’t sitting here listening to you lecture me after all the drama I’ve gone through with y’all. It’s my life. That’s what you said, right?
My life.
Now get up, Jules.”

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“It is your life,” Jules had to reluctantly agree. “But the difference between you and me is—”

“What’s the difference?” Wyatt barked incredulously. “I am just dying to hear this.”

“Romeo took me with him,” Jules finished, feeling guilty about the way Wyatt flinched when she said it. “
She left you
, and if you go over there like it ain’t a big thing, I’ll—”

Wyatt slid on the bench away from Jules and then brought his long legs up, fighting for room before he stood up. The busy diner fell silent as the sheriff of Garnet County stepped on the table, then rose to his full height. He ducked low as he moved past the booth to the table Chuito, Romeo, and Tino were sitting at, and then jumped down. He brushed at his uniform and turned to leave without saying another word.

“For a town without a nightlife it seems like lotsa interesting shit happens around here,” Tino observed. “Never a dull moment in Garnet.” Jules watched Wyatt walking to the front doors of the diner and said, “Thanks for paying us back for that favor, Terry.”

“Maybe someone ought to tell him to start wearing a bulletproof vest,” Terry mused.

Jules turned to glare at him. “That ain’t funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” Terry shrugged. “Seems like anytime someone in the old Conner house falls in love, it ends with one of y’all getting shot.” Jules put a hand to her head, feeling a headache forming. “Oh God.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Romeo put an arm around her, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head. “Getting shot
wasn’t
how it ended. We’re together and healthy now.” Romeo put a big hand on her stomach, and one of the babies kicked him back as if sensing his father on the other side. “This is where it ended, Juliet.”

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“Wyatt’s a different story.” Jules looked up at him and shook her head. “There just ain’t no way for it to work out with them.”

“If we can have a happy ending,” Romeo started, giving her a handsome smile,

“anyone can.”

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