Bed of Lies (31 page)

His sister, surely through sheer force of will, managed not to ask exactly what had gone on in Memphis. So he didn't have to try out Julie's sex-is-nothing line, which Emma wouldn't have bought anyway.

He settled for saying, "It didn't happen that way. She came for Peter. I told her I wasn't even going to be here. I had a trial starting in Texas, and..."
Shit.
Hadn't meant to get into that today. She'd worry even more.

"I remember. You're not heading for Texas anytime soon, are you?"

"No." Nothing else. Just no. She'd find out sooner or later. "Anyway, Peter was upset. I just thought you should know."

"Okay."

"I don't want him to hurt her. I mean, I know he's already hurt her—emotionally. But I'm worried." He hated even thinking this way. He defended kids who did things like this, but the thought of someone hurting Julie... "Should I be worried that he might hurt her physically?"

"If I saw anything that made me worry he might be a danger to anyone, I'd warn her and social services—"

"Emma?" That wasn't going to be good enough for him.

"I know how to do my job, Zach. I'm really good at it."

"Okay, but..." He couldn't let it go. Not with Julie. "I don't want her hurt."

"I understand. Now get out of here. If you're trying to convince Peter nothing was going on between the two of you until you came back to town—"

"Okay. I'll wait around the corner."

"I'll tell Julie."

"Thanks, Em."

* * *

Peter was nervous and complaining bitterly about having to see a shrink. The nice lady at the reception desk gave Julie a mountain of forms to fill out. She followed Peter into the darkest corner of the room, where he seemed to be hiding out, hoping no one he knew saw him here.

Julie was just starting to worry about what this was going to cost and whether her parents had any insurance when Emma walked in. She came straight over to the two of them and gave Julie a big hug.

"It's so good to see you again," Emma said. "You look great."

"So do you. And... someone told me you're having another baby."

Emma's hand went to her slightly rounded tummy. "Yes. Number four. Another girl."

"Congratulations," Julie said.

"And you must be Peter," Emma said, turning to him.

Peter didn't say anything at first. Julie supposed this was where the parent type would prompt him to remember his manners, but before she could get them out, the funniest look came over Peter's face.

"Are you Dana's mother?" he asked.

"Yes," Emma said.

Peter looked horrified.

"My oldest," Emma told Julie. "She's twelve. The two of you go to the same middle school, don't you, Peter?"

He nodded.

"I won't tell her you're seeing me, if that's what you're worried about."

He shrugged, as if he didn't care at all, and looked down at his feet.

"Well, why don't we go back to my office and get started?" Emma said, pointing Peter toward a door. He went into her office, and Emma turned to Julie. "Rough day?"

"Day? I've only had him for a few hours," Julie admitted.

Emma laughed. "Yes, days can go on forever with kids, especially when they're unhappy. I'm sorry about all of this. I know it must be hard on you."

"Harder on him," Julie said. How about that? Here she was, putting someone else's welfare above her own. "I don't know what to do for him."

"You know how it felt to be him, and you know what you wish you'd had when you were living here," Emma said. "Just try to give him what you needed."

Julie frowned. Stability? Predictability? A sense of safety? She couldn't give him what she'd never had, could she? What she'd never been able to find for herself.

"Margaret told me you have temporary guardianship. Any idea how long your parents will be gone?"

Gone?
Nice euphemism. "No," Julie admitted, then felt like the worst kind of a coward as she admitted, "I haven't talked to them."

"Oh," Emma said.

"I have to talk to them? Is that what you're saying? Peter needs to know?"

"I'm sure he'd feel better if he had some idea of what was going on."

"Of course." Julie groaned. "I should have thought of that. I just... I really don't want to see them, and I wasn't thinking of him. I was thinking of me."

"It's all right. You've only had him a few hours. I'm sure you haven't managed to scar him for life in that amount of time."

Julie nodded, feeling like a screw-up, but determined to do better. "If I have to see them, I'll see them." It wasn't going to kill her. "I want to do anything I can to help Peter."

"Good," Emma said. "Stability is always a big concern. He's going to want to know how long this living arrangement's going to last. It may be that no one has a hard-and-fast answer right now, but it would be better if we could tell him what to expect of the legal process. That sort of thing."

"Okay. I'll find out. Anything else?"

"We'll talk more when I'm done with him. Give us until four-thirty, okay?"

"Sure. Thanks for coming in today to see him."

"No problem. And Julie?"

"Hmm?"

"Zach's waiting for you around the corner. He was at my house when I left to walk over here, and he didn't think it was a good idea for Peter to see him."

"Oh." Had Zach told her Peter found them rolling around in the grass?

Emma smiled kindly. "Thanks for helping us get Zach home."

"Oh, I didn't. I mean... She was going to say he hadn't come home for her, but if he meant what he'd said once he got here...

Maybe he had come for her. At least, he might believe that now. When he was thinking more clearly, he'd feel differently. Then she'd have to hold her head up and try to smile and let him go, and it would be horrible.

Emma put her hand on Julie's arm. "Go on. He's waiting."

"Okay. Thanks."

Julie left the office in a daze.

Me and Zach? Get real, Julie.

He'd caught her unaware that afternoon. She'd been so happy to see him and he'd been so happy, the air between them full of possibilities and something that felt like magic. As if such a thing truly existed in relationships. She'd given herself a stern lecture since then about being smarter, more of a realist.

When she turned the corner and walked into the parking lot, there was Zach. Time to remember all that she'd told herself. Time to be strong.

He came to her, stopped inches away and cupped her elbows in the barest hint of an embrace. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Julie. It's me."

And then, just like that, she almost started to cry.

"Hey." He drew out the word, almost like a caress. He slipped one arm around her waist, led her deeper into the small, secluded parking lot and backed her up against the brick of the building, standing between her and the rest of the world. "Tell me."

She shook her head, stubbornly trying to hold back her tears and the words.

"I don't know how relationships have worked for you in the past, Julie—"

"They haven't worked at all. You should know that."

"Well, that's about to change," he said. "And we need to set up some ground rules. One of which is that when you feel so bad you're about to cry, you have to tell me what's wrong, so I can help."

"That's a rule?" she asked, sniffling a bit and feeling miserable.

"Yes. Start talking or else."

"Or else what?"

"I'll kiss you, and you know what happens when I do that. We probably shouldn't risk it in a parking lot in the middle of downtown."

She closed her eyes and dipped her head lower. "You scare me to death," she whispered.

"Okay, now I have to kiss you."

She gave up then. The tears in her eyes overflowed and ran down her cheeks. He gently brushed them away, brushed his lips ever so softly across hers.

She made herself push him away. "Zach, someone will see us."

"Who cares? As long as it's not Peter. Is that what this is about?"

"No," she admitted, then berated herself for that. She should say they had to slow down so Peter wouldn't be so angry or so suspicious. She should hold Zach off until he came to his senses. And maybe, if it never went any further, it wouldn't hurt so badly to give him up.

"This will never work out," she said miserably.

"Why the hell not?"

"It just won't."

"Scared, Julie?" he asked, calm as you please and maddening as hell in his dead-on assessment of the situation. "Sorry. You'll just have to get over it."

"I don't want to get hurt, Zach."

"Neither do I. How can you be so sure I'll hurt you?"

"Everyone hurts me," she said.

"Well, that's going to have to change, too."

He looked downright arrogant then and irritatingly calm about this. Lawyer training, she supposed. State your position and stick with it. Overcome all objections. Win. How was she supposed to fight him when she wanted him to win this one? Which made her think of his trial.

"Do you have to go to Texas soon?" she asked.

"No."

"What happened?"

He actually looked embarrassed. "I've been ordered not to show my face in my office or in any courtroom for two months. That's what happened."

"Why?"

"I kind of... yelled at the judge in Memphis," he admitted.

"Zach—"

"I tried to tell you before, Julie. I'm a mess right now, and if you don't want to be with me because of that, I'll understand—"

"Oh, hell. I could never
not
want to be with you," she blurted out.

He grinned wide enough that those adorable dimples showed up in his cheeks.

"Shit," she muttered.

"No, really..." he said, looking ridiculously pleased. Then he returned to being serious. "When you know the whole of it, you might have second thoughts. I'd understand."

Julie looked at him. Really looked at him. He kept saying that—that he had things to tell her, but he hadn't said much yet. Not that they'd had that much time. They seemed to keep getting distracted. It was too easy when he was this close.

He seemed a little tense, but not too bad. Julie studied him more closely. She would have said she was the world's best at covering, but maybe he was better. After all, he was so worried he thought she might change her mind about wanting to be with him. He was dead serious. And scared. Zach full of confidence was a hard man to resist, but Zach vulnerable slayed her through and through.

"I'm not going to change my mind," she said, resigned to the fact that she simply had no defenses against him. "Not about you."

It was scary as hell, but it felt good, too. How something could be both at the same time, she would never understand. But there it was. She'd come out here determined to push him away and ended up in his arms.

"Well, you don't have to look so miserable about it," he said. "Is it that bad? Feeling this way about me?"

"It will be," she said, raising her chin defiantly. "This will never work."

"Why?"

"Oh, Zach. Look at me."

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with the way you look."

"Think about who I am," she cried. "I'm a screwed-up woman. I had a lousy childhood. I don't trust anybody—"

"You can trust me."

"I haven't ever been able to make a relationship work. My parents are in jail, and my brother's in therapy. I probably should be in therapy myself. I have no job and hardly anything in the bank, because I spent so much on a wedding I called off at the last minute. The bank's repossessing my parents' house. Jesus, I'm a mess, and you're... you're..."

"I'm the one who understands all of that."

"Don't say that," she yelled.

"You think I'm going to condemn you for your parents' mistakes? My old man's a murderer and a drunk, and my mother let him beat her until he put her into an early grave."

"I know, but that's not who you are."

"And you're not your parents."

She raised her chin and proclaimed, "I'm a liar."

"Well, you're just going to have to give that up, Julie."

As if it were that easy. Will herself to change, and what? She'd just be different?

"What else?" he asked. "Might as well get it all out up front. Tell me. What else about you is so bad?"

"I run away when things get hard," she said, laying one of her trump cards on the table. "If I can't lie, I run."

"You'll have to give that up, too," he said, maddeningly calm and so sure of himself.

"What if I can't?"

"What do you have to lie about?" he reasoned. "Your childhood? Your parents? I already know all about those things. And you ran away because you thought there was nothing left for you here. I understand that."