Bed of Lies (26 page)

"Going to tell me to be careful? To make sure I'm doing this for the right reasons and not to hurt her?"

"No. You've already asked yourself those questions."

"You're good, Mom. You're really good," he told her, shaking his head. He'd asked himself those things, but he still wasn't sure he knew the answers.

"What I did want to tell you is that when life gets hard, you want someone by your side who understands and really cares about you. Someone you can depend on. Think about that."

Zach frowned. He could see wanting a woman he could trust, wanting one who understood, wanting one who was loyal and kind, but to depend on one? He was certain Gwen had never truly depended on him, and that he hadn't depended on her.

But he was sure as hell depending on Julie right now.

"All I really know is that I have to see her," he said finally.

"Well, that should tell you something," his mother said.

* * *

Gwen answered the door wearing an old bathrobe of his and probably nothing else. Her hair was all mussed up, her eyes puffy and slightly red, her face pale and bare of anything resembling makeup. He didn't think he'd seen her in anything except a power suit, perfectly groomed, in longer than he could remember.

She looked almost vulnerable at the moment.

"Rough night?" he asked casually.

"I got drunk," she said with a hint of defiance.

"You don't drink," he said.

"Which apparently makes it very easy to get drunk, when one decides to do it."

"Can I come in? Just for a few minutes." She hesitated. He supposed it was worth asking, "If I'm not interrupting anything?"

"Did you sleep alone last night, Zach?" she shot back.

"I am sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to come here and accuse you of anything. I know I started this."

"And you came to finish it, didn't you?" She crossed her arms in front of her, her battle-mode position. It lost something when executed as she was, but she let him in.

"Do you really think anything is left, Gwen? We hardly saw each other. We had to download our schedules into each other's cell phones to be able to find each other on any given day." The absurdity of it was just starting to dawn on him.

"We were busy. We had priorities—"

"Which never involved each other. I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying we never seemed to be that important to each other."

"I thought we were building something, that you wanted it this way, and that one day..." Her chin came up. Mouth quivering, eyes glistening, she changed tactics. "Dan says you had to be deaf, dumb and blind not to appreciate me."

"Well, good. You deserve someone who feels that way about you."

"So you're just giving me to him? Like a piece of furniture or something? You're done with me, and if he wants me, he can have me?"

"No. I really do think you need someone who appreciates you more than I have, and I'm sorry it took me so long to figure things out. We're a lot alike, you know. And we're comfortable together. We're just not in love."

"And you think you're in love with this woman who used to live down the street from you? Whose parents are embezzlers?"

"I'm not sure," he said slowly, telling himself to try not to get his back up. He'd hurt Gwen, and now he just needed to end this. Trying to take the heat out of the words, he said as gently as possible, "I really don't want to hurt you, but I know I'm not in love with you."

Some women would have crumpled to the floor and wept. Gwen stood her ground, all the more furious. She hated any show of vulnerability or weakness, which meant she must really hate him today.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I believe that, once you think about it, you'll realize you're not in love with me, either."

"Well, that would be convenient, now, wouldn't it? Since you're done with me." She glared at him for a moment, then went to the tiny desk in the hallway, took something from a drawer and held it out to him. It was the ring he'd given her two and a half years ago.

He held up a hand and said, "Please, keep it."

"You don't get to be noble, Zach. It's not your place. Not in this breakup." She shoved the ring at him, and he took it.

The doorbell rang, and they both stared at the door for a moment.

"Expecting someone?" Zach asked finally.

"Maybe."

He walked over to the door and peered through the peephole, then straightened and gave her a speculative look. "Dan."

"He's persistent," she said.

"I'll entertain him while you get dressed, if you like."

"No, thank you. You can go now. I'll be away all weekend. You can get your things then. I'm keeping the apartment."

"Okay," he agreed.

She pulled open the door. Dan looked quite pleased with himself until he saw Zach.

"Don't mind him. He was just leaving," Gwen said.

It wasn't the prettiest end to a relationship, but it was done.

* * *

Surprisingly, the closer he got to Julie's house, the more he didn't want to be there. Not yet. Couldn't he just wait until dark and slip into her bed again? Not say anything, just be with her? Because that was so much easier.

But he'd done that twice now, and both times, he'd known it hadn't been fair to her that he hadn't told her what was really going on.

Help me.

Did he really have to say that?

He was afraid he did.

I'm
falling apart.

He probably couldn't avoid that little gem, either.

He didn't think she'd run, not when he needed her, and he'd pretty much accepted without reservations that he did. He needed everyone who really cared about him now. It was just the agony of admitting it. Being vulnerable. Being weak.

Zach remembered his father telling him about those painful days when he almost walked away from his marriage. His parents had almost lost everything important because, in a time of crisis, they'd turned away from each other, each locked in their own misery and guilt, instead of toward each other.

So this was the really hard part for him and Julie. The who-can-you-turn-to-when-life-turns-to-shit part. The stuff that really matters. And it probably wasn't right coming now, at the beginning of their relationship. If you could call a lifelong friendship, a couple of heartfelt conversations and two crazy nights together a relationship.

So no, this wasn't fair—not to her—and he knew life had never been fair to her.

But I need her.

Still not fair,
he argued with himself.

But I need her.

So, he'd at least have to tell her exactly what she'd be getting into with him right now.

He got out of the car and approached the house. Music emanated from it in waves. Really horrid-sounding music, played abominably loud. He frowned and rang the bell on the off chance she could hear it.

Nothing happened.

The door wasn't locked, so he let himself inside.

"Julie?" he called out as he walked around the ground floor. No luck. He glanced out a window to the backyard, and there she was, raking leaves. He felt better just at the sight of her. Nervous, but better.

Zach stood there, drawing in her presence like a calming drug, the kind he'd feared someone would inject him with last night before he'd come here to lose himself in her. This was much, much better, being with her. He could breathe. No more counting in and out. The wide, tight band across his chest eased. His feet moved of their own accord, out the back door, across the yard, to her.

She caught sight of him when he was about ten feet away and stopped dead still, the rake in her hands, leaves dancing on the wind around her feet.

Her hair was loose and danced, too, in its own way. He remembered it spread out around her on the table the night before, and then he remembered it from that first night on the floor. He loved filling his hands with her hair, using it to anchor her to him.

He'd thought in those two nights that he'd lost himself completely in her, but looking back on them now, it seemed like something else. It seemed like he'd given up that damnable control of his, just for a few moments, and let the feelings take him completely. He'd reached for her, and she'd saved him.

That sounded a little better to him than
Help me.
But maybe he could say that to her.
Save me. I'm drowning, and there's just no strength left inside me.
He was weary, but hopeful.

She stood there, leaning on the handle of the rake, looking at him. He thought abruptly of how pretty all the colors were. The lazy blue of the sky and the puffed-up whiteness of the clouds. The fire of the light caught in her hair and the paleness of her skin. The wisps of color in the leaves in a pile at her feet and the ones dotting the trees behind her.

A gust of wind came up, and her pile of leaves rustled and skittered away. He thought all those pieces of himself he'd fought so long to hold together might be a lot like these leaves, fighting all efforts to contain them as the restless energy inside him became a howling wind determined to scatter them.

He was so glad she'd been there when everything started pouring out.

Where to start telling her all this, now that he was here? He just had so much to say.

"I meant to tell you last night," he finally said, "before I got distracted by the sight of you in that pretty gown—you know that thing you said about the first night we spent together not meaning anything?"

She nodded, looking a little bit scared.

"You were flat-out wrong, Julie. And last night... that was just delicious and perfect and... I need you so much."

He thought she'd smile in return, maybe say something smart or try to play it off as nothing. But she didn't do any of those things. Instead, she looked like she might cry.

He took one of her hands in his, leaned down and nudged the tip of her nose with his, his forehead pressed against hers. He closed his eyes and just took in the scent of her for a moment and listened to the wind and the leaves. The sun was warm on his skin.

With his other hand, he cupped her cheek, his thumb playing at the corner of her mouth, which he really wanted to taste.

They didn't have to talk right away, did they?

"I'm not engaged anymore," he said, his lips a breath away from hers.

"Oh?" She kept her head down, so he had to bend his to touch her. Her voice was low and a little shaky, her breath uneven, body humming with energy, like she might bolt at any second.

"You don't believe me?"

"I don't think you'd lie to me. Not ever. I just... You came straight from her to me?"

He nodded. He'd done exactly that.

"It's fast, Zach. Really fast."

"I know. And so we're absolutely clear about this, I'm not talking about just wanting you in bed with me—"

"Right. I thought you were talking about more than that." She stepped back, one hand on his chest, holding him away when he would have come after her. "Zach, I—"

"Because I want more than that, and you have a lot more to give a man than a few nights in bed," he insisted.

She wrinkled her brows and looked put out. "This thing you do where you read my mind... I don't like that. I really don't want anyone seeing inside me that way."

"I let you see inside me," he said. "Those two nights... I was more honest with you than I'd been with anyone in years."

"Don't do this, Zach," she said, choked up and frowning.

"What do you mean, don't do this?"

"Not unless you mean it."

"I mean it," he said.

She swore and let her head fall back so she could stare up into the sky.

"I need you, Julie."

"You need me? Why? It's never been that way for us. It's always been me needing you, and that worked really well, but if you need me, I'm worried you're going to come out on the short end of this deal, and that I'll... well, that I won't measure up."

Her chin came up defiantly on the last words, as if she were proud of herself for getting them out, as if the honesty had cost her a great deal, and she was daring him to disagree with her.

" I don't want to hurt you," she said. "Or disappoint you. I really don't think I could handle that, Zach."

"Well, I've already hurt you," he said.

"No. I told you—"

"I barged into your life and started giving you hell about the way you were living, when I had no right. But I can't bring myself to be sorry it happened, because it opened my eyes, and it made me stop running," he said. "All those years, I was after you to stop running away from everything, and here I was, running myself. I finally owned up to it, Julie. Because of you."

She had tears in her eyes, and it hurt him to see them. They spilled over from the corners, and he took the pads of his thumbs and the sides of his hands and wiped them away.