His Best Friend's Baby (16 page)

“I called her three times,” Sue said. “I talked to Agnes Adams each time.”

The world spun and dipped. “You called me?” she asked Virginia. “Julia Adams?”

“Three times, like I said. We got to talking after you came in with your boy and figured we’d be better hiring someone who’d stick around rather than those high-school kids that flake off at the end of every summer.”

“You called to offer me a job?”

Virginia and Sue exchanged looks and then nodded.

“You talked to Agnes?” Julia needed to clarify the situation. Every controlling maneuver, every conversation Agnes had listened to, every unwanted opinion the woman offered had paled in comparison to this crushing betrayal. Julia couldn’t breathe past the anger and hurt.

“Left messages to have you call us. Last one was—”

“Last week,” Sue supplied.

Last week. Last week when the letter from Lawshaw came through.

“She never gave me the message,” Julia
whispered, despite the tightness in her lungs. “I never received those messages.”

“Apparently,” Virginia said.

“Is the job still open?”

“Sure, but we need someone right away. We’ve sort of waited long—”

Julia bit her lip and looked back at the girls at the coffee station. Jodi wanted more hours so she could pick up Julia’s shifts if she quit. Plus a girl had come by yesterday to fill out an application, so the bosses could get someone else in right away.

“I can start on Monday,” she said rushing headlong into unknown territory.

“Monday morning would be fine,” Virginia said.

“What time?” Julia asked.

“6:00 a.m.”

“Wonderful.” She reached out to shake Virginia’s hand, feeling both giddy and weak. “Thanks.” She shook Sue’s hand. “Really. I appreciate it.”

“Well, if nothing else, it looks like you’re going to be entertaining,” Virginia said with a smile.

Julia finished her shift early and then resigned with promises that she’d be out to visit.

She left Petro and walked back to the Adams’, fanning the fire of her anger the whole way. She’d been duped. Tricked and betrayed and she felt like a sucker for ever giving Agnes the benefit of doubt. She’d let Agnes make her feel guilty, given Agnes far too much authority in her life and the whole time Agnes had been lying.

“Hello?” she called, walking through the front door. “Agnes?”

She heard Ben’s squeal from the kitchen and the clatter of something hitting the floor before he came tearing into the dining room, covered in flour with a dish towel around his neck.

Oh, sweetie
, she thought,
how can this be
happening to us? I thought I was doing the
right thing
.

“Hi, Julia.” Agnes followed, wiping her hands on another towel. “You’re home early. Is something wrong?”

She had the nerve, the gall to look worried, as if she cared.

“Yeah, I’d say something is wrong,” Julia managed to say in normal tones. “I’m going to sit Ben down with the TV for a minute—”

“Oh, Julia, do you have to? We were just having—”

“Yes, Agnes,” she snapped. “I have to. Let’s go, Ben,” she said to her son, whose eyes had gone wide at her tone. “Let’s see what we can find on TV.”

Ben followed her, subdued. But thanks to the satellite selection she was able to get Ben settled with Dora and that pesky Swiper and all was well in Ben’s little world.

She found Agnes in the kitchen, sweeping mounds of flour from the counter into the garbage can.

“Ben and I were making some cookies and he got pretty—”

“I had a conversation with Virginia and Sue Holmes this morning,” Julia interrupted. Agnes swallowed but didn’t pause, didn’t even flinch.

“I don’t much care for your tone, Julia.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad, Agnes. Because I don’t much care for your lying to me.”

“I never lied.” She returned the garbage can to under the sink and began to stack bowls without once looking at Julia.

“They called three times to offer me a job.”

“Did they?”

The top of Julia’s head just blew right off. She reached out and tugged on Agnes’s elbow, forcing her to at least face Julia.

“They left three messages with you.”

“Well, I’m sorry I seem to have forgotten.” She put a hand to her forehead. “My memory is not—”

“Cut the shit, Agnes,” she snapped. “You managed to give me every message for every job that didn’t want me.”

“Yes, well—” She shrugged.

Standing in her mother-in-law’s kitchen, wearing her bad polyester uniform, Julia realized that this wasn’t something she could change. She could confront Agnes with all of her anger. All of her rage and disappointment. She could try and try, beating her head against the wall, to get Agnes to admit she’d done something wrong. But it would never happen. And if Agnes did admit it, what would it change? Nothing.

Julia turned for the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Agnes asked.

“Packing,” Julia shouted over her shoulder while she stomped up the steps. She pushed open the door to the Mitch Museum she and Ben had been sleeping in.

She pulled her suitcase from under the bed and flopped it open.

“What are you talking about?” Agnes asked
from the doorway. She looked panicked, sincerely worried. Julia steeled her heart.

“I’m taking Ben and we’re leaving,” she said clearly, so there would be no misunderstanding.

“Where will you go?”

Jesse’s
. Her heart pinged and popped at the thought. But she couldn’t say that, not without starting World War Three. “I’ve made some friends here, Agnes. I will stay with them.”

“What about Ben?” she cried. “You’d just take Ben away from us?”

Julia sighed and braced herself as she wadded up clothes in her suitcase. “Of course not, Agnes. I am not leaving town. I am not running away.”

To join the army. Oh, Mitch, it all makes so
much sense right now
.

“It sure looks like it.”

Julia heaved a deep breath. “You lied to me.” She looked Agnes right in the eye. “I needed the support and stability of family and you used that need to make me totally dependent on you. You’ve made me feel guilty and like I’m the worst mother on the planet. I wanted that job at Holmes. I wanted it a lot and you almost cost me that.”

“Julia, I just forgot. Surely—”

Julia shook her head. Why did she even try?

“Ben and I are moving out. I will let you know where we are in a few days. Maybe a week. But I need to cool down. You will be allowed to see Ben, just not right now. Not when I am so mad.”

Agnes’s jaw went tight. “Ron is not going to like this.”

Ron can kiss my
—

“I don’t much like it, either, but you’ve left me no choice.”

Julia grabbed the assortment of toys and sippy cups from the beside table and threw them on top of everything else in the suitcase.

She zipped up the beat-up bag and heaved it off the bed.

“Well, at least wait until he comes home and he can help you—”

“I’ve had enough of your help.” She stood nose-to-nose with Agnes in the doorway. “Let me go, Agnes, before you make things worse.”

Agnes didn’t move for a long second and Julia wondered if she was just going to have to shove her way out of this house. But finally, eyes on the floor, Agnes stepped back.

“You’re breaking our hearts,” she whispered and Julia felt herself waver, felt her strong resolve and anger flicker.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry things happened this way. But you are at fault, Agnes. Not me. You should think about that.”

She stumbled past Agnes with the diaper bag and her suitcase banging into her legs.

“Ben,” she called. She put the bags down by the front door.

“Swiper no swipping!” he called in response. She smiled despite the tension ratcheting up her back.

“Hey, buddy, we’re going on a walk.”

He ran out of the TV room, his dish towel bib all askew.

“Here, let me help you.” Julia reached for the towel and Ben jerked himself out of the way.

Oh no, please, buddy. Please let’s just go
.

“No walk!” he said, his blue eyes suddenly mutinous.

“He doesn’t want to go,” Agnes whispered over Julia’s shoulder, her voice dripping with criticism and Julia felt her reserves drain. Tears pricked her eyes.

“He’s two, Agnes. His mind changes every few minutes,” she spat. She crouched in front of Ben and fought tears. “Ben, we have to go,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to!”

“Me, either, but—”

He stomped his foot. His face twisted and a full-blown tantrum gathered steam. She rubbed her forehead and wished herself a million miles from this place.

“Stay!” he shouted.

She pulled the towel from around his neck and he started to cry. She picked him up, kicking and screaming, and put him in his stroller.

“Julia! Look what you’re doing!” Agnes cried. “Look at him—”

“I see him, Agnes,” she growled.

She clipped her screaming, writhing son in, threw the diaper bag over her chest and picked up the suitcase. “I’ll be in touch,” she told Agnes and left.

She knew Agnes would be watching her, so she didn’t take the shortcut. She took the long way—even though it meant parading Ben and his tantrum through the neighborhood—hoping Agnes would never dream she’d go to Jesse.

As exits go, it was a disaster. But at least it was an exit. She’d take her points where she could get them.

J
ESSE SET DOWN
the planer and lifted the headboard. He blew off the sawdust and shavings
then eyed the line. Straight.
True
, as his grandfather used to say.

His blood stilled, his ears pricked as a shoe hit gravel outside the door. He could smell her even before he turned.

“Jesse?”

He faced her and saw a different woman, a woman full of anger and hurt, wearing a Petro uniform. Her eyes were watery and her skin flushed an angry deep red. Jesse glanced at Ben, who sported puffy eyes and a blotchy face.

Jesse had the sinking feeling a disaster had just landed at his feet.

“You okay?” he asked.

She told him a story about Holmes Landscaping and Agnes and messages she’d never gotten, but she knew what was really happening. He knew as she took the deep breath what she’d ask.

“Can we stay here, just for a little while?” Her sky-blue eyes tore into him.

His whole body was suffused with heat, and the pins and needles that accompany flesh asleep for too long, finally awakening.

“Sure,” he said.

J
ULIA CAME INTO
the kitchen from the bedroom where she’d spent the last half hour putting Ben down for a long-overdue nap. She still looked rigid, as if anger had fused her joints.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Jesse told her. She eased into the chair. Her hands were fisted in her lap.

It was a physical battle to keep himself from touching her.

Friends
, he reminded himself.
Don’t be an
ass
.

He put an open bottle of water in front of her, thinking she could probably use it. She drank half of it in one long swallow.

He watched her, that shift and play of her throat, and wondered what he was supposed to do. What did friends do right now? If she were Mitch—his only other friend—they’d go get drunk. Or rather, Mitch would get drunk and
Jesse would sit and listen to Mitch’s bullshit until he ran out of it.

“I don’t think you realized what you agreed to when you said we could stay.” She set the water down. “We’re sort of a logistical nightmare.”

He nodded and pushed himself up to sit on the counter—the same spot where she’d sat the other day. He walked a dangerous line having her here, when every moment with her was like brushing against a live wire. And he found that the very time when he needed to be an asshole to preserve himself, he didn’t have anything left.

Go figure.

“I have to ask Amanda to babysit, but since I don’t have a car, I can’t get Ben up to her house. Would it be all right if she—”

“Yes.” He nodded and he could practically see the weight of responsibility coming off her in big chunks, her body loosening.

“Jesse,” she whispered in the manner of someone who’s been saved from going underwater. “I can’t—”

“It’s no problem,” he said. “I’m serious.”

She was going to say something else and he couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to see her so grateful for these meager things.

“I’ve got some work to do,” he told her. “You
can use that bedroom and make yourself at home.” He knew it was cowardly, but he walked away from her. Headed out to the garage.

There was only so much he could do. Only so much of her presence he could take before his good intentions deserted him.

H
OURS LATER
dusk turned to night and he was almost satisfied with the curve of the cradle’s rocker. He rolled it once more along the flat surface of the workbench. No wobbles.

The oak was good and the old tools still had some magic left in them. And he…well, he remembered how much he loved this work to begin with.

He’d made serious progress today. It was nearing completion even though he’d only started it a few days ago. He glanced down at the parts stacked carefully against the wall. Pieces of oak took the form of railings and spindles. The finished headboard and footboard sat to one side.

He couldn’t quite figure out how he felt about this project. He’d spent years of his life forgetting Rachel, burning her letters, giving away the food, candy, socks and books she’d sent in her care packages.

He’d see her name on the return address and refused to feel anything. He’d refused to be curious. To care.

And now he was making a cradle for his niece or nephew because Rachel had asked. Because she’d looked at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Please.”

Of course, the real reason he’d made so much progress today was that he was scared to go into the house with Julia there. He’d tried three times in the last few hours, but she was still awake and puttering around so he’d turned, tail between his legs, back to the garage.

He wiped sawdust off the bench and smiled ruefully at his own cowardice.

If my men could see me now…

He moved some of the spindles and imagined for a moment the kid in Rachel’s belly. Smart probably, blue-eyed, tons of spunk. They’d take the kid to the ocean, watch the waves lap at their toes. And they’d go to the mountains.

He remembered those camping trips Rachel and Mac had taken him on when he was young. They’d be better supplied now, of course. More food, functioning flashlights and perhaps even a tent.

He smiled thinking about those cold nights that he wouldn’t have traded for the world.

The bitterness slid in, as it always did, and covered his memories like a veil, changing the way he saw everything.

He wasn’t so dumb to believe that Rachel could have taken him with her when she left for school. It was her complete desertion that had turned him from her. She hadn’t returned for weekends or holidays. One day she’d been there, screaming at their father, taking Jesse to the rock quarry and the next…gone.

The rug had been pulled out from under his entire childhood. The person who had sheltered him from their father’s abuse and their mother’s weariness had left him with no idea how to survive. Every idea he’d had about himself and his sister and family had been ripped away from him and he’d had to make new rules.

The person he was now had no connection to that kid who’d idolized his big sister, besides some shared memories. He didn’t know how to love anyone the way he’d once loved his sister. He didn’t know how to trust anyone the way he’d once trusted her.

That’s what he couldn’t forgive.

She’d ruined that little boy before he even had a chance.

He sighed, tired of thinking of these things. That was the trouble with woodworking, With his hands busy there was too much time to think.

He turned off the light over the bench and shut the rickety door behind him.

Julia had to be asleep by now. She’d had a long day. She must be exhausted.

Please let her be exhausted
.

The house was dark. He grabbed the jug of orange juice from the fridge, took a good whiff and decided it was still this side of drinkable.

He closed the fridge and for a moment was taken aback by his mother’s chili pot sitting on the stove. His mouth watered at the thought of his mother’s chili, a recipe she’d stolen from the diner where she worked most of her life.

He lifted the lid, and steam and spice wafted up to brush his face. His stomach growled and he grabbed a bowl.

This was something he could get used to, that’s for sure. He lived like a dog when things were left up to him. He set himself up with a spoon and some paper towels and walked through the dark living room.

He tucked the jug of juice under his arm and balanced his bowl so he could hit the latch on the front screen door. He’d dine alfresco tonight on the porch, instead of over the sink.

“Hello, Jesse.”

He almost dropped his bowl at the sound of Julia’s husky purr coming from the shadows in the corner of the porch.

Her face was lost in the dark, but her bare legs were stretched out, her toes curled over the railing. The streetlight hit her skin and those mile-long legs, turning them to gold dust.

“I thought you’d be asleep, I’ll go back—” He moved to retreat into the safety of inside, away from those legs and her husky voice.

“Stay.” Her soft voice floated from the darkness. “Please.”

“Ah.” His military mind summed up the dangers in a nanosecond—her legs, the dark, the living breathing heat that existed between them. This was a suicide mission if ever there had been one.

“Please, Jesse. Stay out here with me.”

He nodded. “Sure.”
I’m a goner
. He balanced the jug and the bowl on the railing next to her delicate toes. He noticed the chipped red nail polish, so girlish and at the same time so
womanly that he nearly fell to his knees. “I’ll go grab a chair.”

He ducked back in the house. “Such an idiot,” he muttered the obvious, grabbed a cracked vinyl chair from the kitchen and carried it outside.

Eucalyptus and the trumpet vine growing at the corner of the house turned the air sweet and spicy. He tried not to watch as Julia recrossed her legs at the ankle.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, settling down with his dinner.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Night sounds filled the silence between them—bugs, a far-off screen door slamming, Wain huffing and shifting. Jesse realized the dog was curled up by Julia. Her hand reached out of the darkness that shrouded her body and she absently stroked his ears.

“Don’t spoil my guard dog,” he said, joking to crack the tension.

“Some guard dog.” He heard the affection in her voice and he couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, we do what we can.”

“I thought you might be hungry….” She pointed at the bowl in his lap. “It’s sort of a poor man’s chili. You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it.”

“It’s great, trust me. Better than whatever I would have put together.” He took a bite and his taste buds applauded.

The rocker creaked under her and neither of them said anything. The awkwardness built and built until he could feel the pressure crowd his ears.

“When I called Amanda I talked to Rachel. She invited me to come to dinner with you tomorrow. She said she’s been inviting you every week and you never show.”

“I’m busy.” The idea of Sunday dinner with Julia and Ben, his sister, Mac and Amanda as if they were a normal family, absolutely robbed him of thought. Made him stupid.

“Sure you are,” she scoffed. “Anyway, I’m going. I never turn down a free meal, but I wasn’t sure if you could make it.”

“Probably not,” he said.

“Why are you so angry with your sister?”

“I’m not angry,” he said. He drank the last of the juice and set the plastic jug down at his feet.

“She said you were angry.”

“Why are you talking to my sister?” he snapped.

“She’s nice. Her daughter is babysitting my
son, I’m living with her brother.” She shrugged. “Seems like I should talk to her.”

“Well, there’s no reason to talk about me.”

“She wants to talk about you,” she said softly. “Incessantly.”

“That’s her problem.” He looked up at the roof wishing he could sit with his dinner in silence. “I’m sorry.” He sighed.

“Me, too. I don’t mean to pry into your business with your sister. She was just asking me so many questions about you.”

He laughed humorlessly. “I imagine.” He was about to tell her, give her all the maps to traverse the giant rift between him and his sister. Then Julia would see that some things couldn’t be fixed or forgiven. Not that she’d understand. She’d forgiven Mitch, for crying out loud, a man who’d cheated and lied. His sister’s betrayals seemed minor in comparison. She’d just left him behind when he’d needed her most.

Julia took a sip from a glass he hadn’t noticed. The smell of Scotch drowned out the smell of eucalyptus.

“Are you drinking?”

Ice cubes clinked and clattered against glass as she set the tumbler on the armrest of the rocker.

“I found the bottle in the liquor cabinet, covered in an inch of dust. I couldn’t sleep.” Her voice was huskier, deeper. “Seemed like a good idea.”

Jesse caught scent of trouble on the wind and he set his empty bowl on the ground. The shadows, the light on her golden legs, the smell of booze and flowers. He felt doomed, reckless.

“Do you want some?” she asked, gesturing behind her as though the bottle were there somewhere.

“No. I didn’t know you drank.”

“I don’t.” She shrugged and sighed. “Tastes terrible.”

“Good a reason as any not—”

“I don’t think I can sleep here, Jesse.”

He took a deep breath. Another. A long steady exhale as though he were going into battle.

Calm your mind. Calm your heart
.

“Why not?”

“The bed…the sheets, the pillows, even the towels in the bathroom, it all smells like you.”

And there it was. The match touched to the dormant flame. His body went hot, his skin felt too tight, too small to contain all of his impulses. She crossed her legs again and he bit
his lip against the urge to run his hands up those smooth thighs, past her shorts…

“It’s killing me, Jesse.”

Stand up. Go inside. Leave. Walk away
.

“It’s killing me to be in this house with you and not touch you.”

But he sat there, waiting for the inevitable.

She stood. “I’d better go,” she whispered.

She stepped in front of him to make her way inside, but he stopped her. He put his rough palm to the satin skin of her knee and she moaned.

All of the large and small reins he’d attached to himself strained. All of the locks he’d used to manage his feelings for Julia bent and twisted under the force of his desire.

“I can’t do this if you’re going to pull away from me,” she said. “It hurts too much.”

“I know.” He brushed the back of his hands up her lean muscles until his fingers slid under the hem of her shorts. “It hurts me, too.”

The locks snapped and he pressed on the backs of her knees with his fingers until she folded across his lap, straddling him. His hands curled around her hips to the flesh he’d admired for so long and he pulled her in closer until their bellies touched.

Her damp lips parted and, before she could say anything, he kissed her.

It was wet, her mouth open and hot and waiting for him. It was like sliding into fire. He went from fighting himself to fighting to get closer in a heartbeat. His hands slid from her hips to her back and pressed her as fully as he could against his chest. She was so small, he could wrap his arms around her twice. His fingertips brushed the soft sweet curve of her breast under her T-shirt and she moaned into his mouth.

She buried her hands into his hair and arched her hips against him. He could feel the heat of her through his jeans.

He wanted to touch her. He wanted her in his arms, naked and wet. For hours. Years. The rest of his life. These tastes, the desperate touches and soft squirms of her body against him, were torture. Torture he couldn’t get enough of.

“We have to go inside,” he murmured and, before she could shift or pull back, he simply stood. Julia, bless her, curled her legs around his hips so he could carry her.

He nearly pulled the screen door off its hinges with his urgency. He walked through the dark house to the bedroom he’d been using.

He bent, setting her on the rumpled sheets and, as if she’d read his mind, she didn’t let go. She pulled him on top of her.