Mutual Release (50 page)

Julie stood, unable to stand the odors another minute, and stumbled out to find a restroom. She sat, trembling, on the floor of the bathroom and pushed it away, shoved it all back down under a solid layer of denial. She rinsed out her mouth, splashed water on her cheeks, and ran fingers through her hair. Her face was pale, her eyes red, and as she stared hard at herself she realized there was something yet buried in her that she had to face. And that being in this hospital was likely to be the catalyst. Would her own drama never cease?

A knock on the door made her jump. “Mrs. – um… Adams?” She smiled at the sound of that. She needed Evan. Required him to be here, with his arms around her, his lips against her ear, telling her everything would be okay. She would marry him tomorrow if that’s what he wanted – anything to hide from the terror enveloping her, the dread creeping up her spine about this whole scenario.

“Yes, sorry.” She opened the door and let the nurse guide her back to the ICU bed where Evan’s mother lay, her eyes open and blinking in the bright lights.

“She just regained consciousness and seems very cognizant of her surroundings. She keeps asking for you, though.”

“Me?” Julie watched as nurses fussed around the woman’s IV line, checked her vital signs.

“Yes, well, she keeps calling you her daughter. But the information from the memory care center says she only has a son, so we just figured…”

Julie gulped and went in, sat, and took the woman’s frail hand. Amanda smiled at her.

“Olivia, darling, thank you for coming.”

Julie took a deep breath. “No, Mrs. Adams. It’s Julie. Olivia is dead.”

“Oh.” Amanda seemed to deflate at that. The nurse shot Julie a sharp look as she made some notes on a computer nearby.

“Yes, and Evan is on his way. He’ll be here very soon. I promise.”

“Okay.” The woman’s eyes narrowed, her gaze seemed to sharpen. She turned her head and stared at Julie, obviously working hard to sort out where she was and what was happening. “I fell, I think.” She touched the bandage on her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear fell from one. Julie gripped her hand harder. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember you. I can’t remember anything. No matter how hard I try.”

Julie kept holding onto her hand but had no words. The nurse bustled out. As soon as the door clicked shut, Amanda looked back over at Julie. “I heard what you told me,” she said, surprising Julie with the clarity of her words. “And I want you to know something.”

She lay back, staring up at the ceiling again. “I will never forgive myself for what happened to Olivia. How I let that… that… boy ruin her. I let him ruin me too, in a way. He came between me and my own son. Not that our relationship was great to start with, thanks to my own half-assed parenting. But… I didn’t believe anything Evan told me. I chose to believe Damian instead. I don’t know why.” Another tear slid down her cheek. “Evan is so very special. He still takes care of me. He always has. Even though I don’t deserve it.”

Julie started to speak. But Amanda kept talking, her voice getting stronger with every word. “You saved him, though. You made him happy for the first time in his life. Truly happy.” She turned to face Julie, her face set in a way Julie would bet looked so much like her old, sometimes organized, always bossy self that Evan would be shocked. “Get married. Make him a father. Evan will be the best dad a child could ever want.”

“He says he doesn’t want kids,” Julie blurted out, surprised at herself. “I mean… um, I don’t either… really.” She bit her lip.

Amanda’s eyes sharpened even further. “Of course you do, my dear. The most wonderful thing you can ever do for a man you truly love is bear his child. Don’t let him convince you otherwise. He’s still hiding behind guilt and fear. You can bring him out of it. Complete him. With a baby.”

She backed up staring at Evan’s mother as the woman held her gaze. When she hit the wall, she slid down, crouching on her ankles. The overwhelming odors of sick, injured, dying people was suffocating her. She had to get out of here. But Evan needed her to stay until he arrived.

She took deep breaths, tried not to pass out, but the memory floodgates were open now, and there was no stopping the onrush. The efficient doctor, his freezing cold, sometimes rough touch, the eyes of the nurse who stood on her other side while her friend Amy held her hand. It hurt – what Bart had done to her had damaged her, badly. She’d cried, softly, until she saw him. Her mother had the nerve to let that rapist into her space in the hospital.

When Julie had spotted him she had screamed so loudly the entire hospital floor came running. The cop outside her room had arrested him, but he had plenty of lawyers who had him freed within hours pending “investigation of the allegations.” But the hospital called protective services, and Julie had been allowed to live with Amy’s family as an emancipated minor the rest of her senior year. She barely remembered it all. Until this second. She had not spoken to her mother since then.

“Julie,” Amanda said. “Come up here, honey. Hold an old woman’s hand a minute.”

She got to her feet, shaky and in the grip of remembered pain and horror so fresh it was as if it had just happened to her. She made her slow way across the small room, sat, took Amanda’s hand.

“Tell him all of it.”

Julie nodded, biting her lip.

“I mean it. My boy will take care of you. If you let him.” Her eyes fluttered. “I’m so tired. Wake me up when he gets here, okay?”

Julie watched as she dropped into a deep sleep. The monitors kept up their beeping, no alarms went off. So she got up and wandered out into the hall, feeling as if she were a different person, one who finally remembered all of her life. As shitty as that was, thanks to the mother of her fiancé who was slowly losing all of her memory.

She slumped against the wall, waved away a nurse who asked if she needed anything. After locating the waiting room, she dropped into a chair and succumbed to the mental fatigue she’d been fighting for weeks and fell sound asleep.

Chapter Three

Evan arrived by three the next morning, exhausted and disheveled from a long series of connecting flights. Julie was there, with Jack, who’d shown up at midnight with food. He was asleep on a waiting room couch when Evan had made it up to the ICU floor and stumbled into Julie’s arms.

“Hurry,” she said. “She wants to see you.”

His mother had had a series of small strokes, but remained surprisingly lucid. As she instructed them about their responsibility to bring her grandbabies as soon as possible, Evan tensed up, until Julie put a hand on his arm and smiled, sending him a “humor her” vibe. His mother mentioned Damian once, telling Evan he had made her sign some papers. Evan sat by her side, holding her hand and told her he’d tracked down the documents and had them declared void due to her mental state. The guy had honestly thought he could get Amanda to declare him her heir. The situation had been sorted out long ago, he assured her.

Finally, at about seven, she’d declared herself too tired to talk anymore and shooed them out of the room. By nine a.m. her heart had stopped. Evan had not signed a do not resuscitate order, but all the efforts the medical team made would not bring her back.

He watched, clutching Julie’s hand, his eyes dry. He turned to her when they declared the time of death. “You are all I have now,” he said, his voice firm.

“I know,” she said, holding him close. His heart pounded with terror at being so utterly alone. Until he allowed Julie’s arms and her quiet words to soothe him, reminding him that he was not.

“What else is wrong?” he’d demanded at one point, sensing her tension that had nothing to do with his own family drama.

She told him the rape kit story, and he absorbed it, the small compartment of fury labeled “Julie’s past” filling up to overflowing once more.

“Okay,” he whispered, as she cried into his shirt. “It’s all going to be okay now.” As he watched the medical team leave his mother’s room, he realized he was saying it as much to himself as he was to Julie.

* * * *

Amanda Adams saved two lives with her kidneys that day. Evan had her cremated and planned a memorial service with Julie’s help. And now, he found himself staring at the container of his mother’s remains, unable to quell a rising anger at her, at Julie, at himself – none of which he could explain. So he sat alone and spoke to a few of his mother’s and father’s friends who’d sit next to him. Leaving the rest of the room for Julie and Jack to manage, he kept still, trying not to lose it.

At one point Jack sat next to him for a few minutes until Julie tapped his shoulder and pulled him away. But Evan hardly registered it. He knew this was part of the process and he would snap out of it, but right now he had never felt more bereft and alone.

Then, something in his brain clanged. He looked up, eyes narrowed, taking in the room. Jack and Julie weren’t there amongst the knots of people. He saw brewery staff, salespeople from Dawson, many others there to support him. But he shouldered past everyone, instinct propelling him in one direction.

When he reached the back hall of the classy, expensive funeral home, he stopped and stared. Disbelief combined with resolve and no small amount of rage hit him in square in the chest at the sight of Damian Slate, in the midst of a heated discussion with…

“Get the fuck away from her,” he growled, stepping between Julie and the man who had the nerve to show up at his mother’s service.

Damian smiled, bringing back so many memories Evan nearly gagged. But he launched himself forward, had his hands around the guy’s throat for a few glorious seconds until someone pulled him back.

“I think you should leave,” Jack Gordon told the tall blond man staring at Evan as if he were a science experiment gone bad.

“Good to see you too, brother.”

“Don’t speak to me. Turn around and leave now before I call the police.” Evan’s voice was rough, raw. Red haloed his vision.

Damian chuckled, almost sending Evan back over the edge. He jerked out of Jack’s grip.

“It’s okay,” Evan said to Jack, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him. “I won’t kill him. I don’t want to get my hands dirty.”

Damian raised an eyebrow at the human wall in front of him. “Just came to pay my respects.”

“Yes, and good luck getting anywhere near her estate. I fixed that, you stupid, greedy fucker. Consider your respects paid. Go.”

The other man’s gaze clouded, then his face opened in a wide, smarmy grin. “Ah yes, well.” He took a quick step to his right, letting his steely gray eyes rake up and down Julie’s body. She had moved out from behind Evan and stood on his other side, arms crossed.

Evan’s fury was at fever pitch, blinding him with memory and of deeds left undone. But Julie gripped his hand.

“And you must be the lucky Mrs. Evan. How very sweet. You scored, brother. This is truly your best one yet.” Before Evan could stop him, he put his foul hand on Julie’s face. She slapped him so hard and fast his head rocked back.

“Touch me again, douche bag, and I will feed you your nutsack for lunch. You heard what Evan said. Leave.”

Damian put his palm up to his reddening cheek. His grin got wider. “Ah, my brother, you know how much I like them feisty. I’ll have to get to know this one better.”

Julie opened her mouth, but Evan shoved her behind him. “Don’t talk to him again,” he said, his heart pounding and his vision darkening. “Damian, if you don’t turn around and walk out the door
now
, I – ”

Jack took a step towards the man, putting the full force of his alpha personality behind a simple command. “You heard him. Beat it.”

The man threw up his hands. “All right, all right. I’m going.” He sauntered down the hall.

Evan felt Jack’s hand on his shoulder. “Let him go,” his friend said. “We’ll deal with it later. Now is not the time or place.”

Evan glared at Jack, then turned the full force of his fury on Julie. “You had no business talking to him. I warned you. I can’t… protect you… if you won’t… Forget it.” He walked back into the large room, his vision still tunneled, his heart beating a harsh, alarming rhythm in his chest. He ignored her the rest of the day, trying to get his head around the fact that Damian now had her in his sights, and he knew what the man was capable of, had seen it with his own eyes.

The week of high emotion bore down on him, making him tremble, so he took a seat. He stared at his hands, clenched them into tight fists to keep them from shaking. And tried to quell the urgent instinct to yell at her, anything to impress upon his woman that Damian Slate was not to be toyed with in any way.

He leaned back and shut his eyes and saw it again – the sick, evil look in Damian’s eyes when he stared at her, his Julie. He launched up out of his seat and made a beeline for her as she chatted with some of her staff, flanked by Jack and Suzanne.

Without a word to anyone, his mind focused but about to explode with frustration, he touched her arm. “Would you excuse us a minute?” he said to the small crowd. They made murmuring sounds he barely heard. She raised an eyebrow, then followed him back into the hall which Damian had fouled by his very presence. He tugged her into a large alcove in front of an empty chapel, gripped both her arms, and opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out for a few seconds. He looked down.