Signed, Sealed, Delivered (6 page)

For what seemed like the millionth time that day, Juliana Kelley crossed his mind. He’d decided to search for her as soon as he had enough listings that he was confident his new firm was off and running sufficiently to make him a decent choice of a date. Or a boyfriend.

Or a husband.

Funny, but that thought didn’t frighten him as it always had in the past. Considering how he’d avoided any kind of permanent attachment, even having the idea came as a surprise. Of course, he’d never been husband material before, not with his checkered past. Had he tried to commit to a woman, he would’ve destroyed that relationship the way he’d flushed the rest of his life down the crapper.

When he was finally ready to hunt her down, would she reject him? For all he knew she believed he was nothing more than a one-night stand and didn’t want anything serious. He’d just have to convince her otherwise, no matter what it took. While his budget might limit the number of roses he could send, he’d find other ways to win her over.

After crawling into the driver’s seat of his car, Connor picked up the folded newspaper. He’d used a red pen to make a pecking order for the fizbos he wanted to visit. He just wasn’t ready quite yet.

The closing on his house was tomorrow. Then he needed to get his furniture out of storage and move in. The place was barely livable, but he wasn’t choosy. The short sale was cheap, had plenty of room, and could be renovated and flipped for a nice profit. All he had to do was live and work through those renovations—and sell enough other houses to pay for it.

Cloverleaf was a fresh start, a chance to make something good of himself. It might be too soon to think of a relationship, but there was something about Juliana. She called to him on too many levels to ignore. He was clearheaded enough to know that was rare. Unique. Special.

When they’d made love, he’d tried “sweetheart” on for size. It didn’t fit. Since her hair was the first thing he’d noticed, he’d wanted to call her “Red,” and when it slipped from his lips it felt right. Now it was the name that popped up every time he saw her face in his mind’s eye.

Red.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Jules?” Bethany asked as she fiddled with her salad, shifting it more than eating it.

Since Juliana had dropped her bombshell, it seemed Bethany couldn’t do anything but repeat the same question until Juliana wanted to scream her frustration.

She’d expected some reticence, but not outright catatonia. It wasn’t like she was moving to Siberia or something that drastic. She was simply changing jobs.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “I’m
absolutely
sure this is the best thing for me. It’s time. It’s been time for longer than you know. I have to do this.”

“It’s just so fast,” Danielle retorted. “You were only going to a seminar to check things out. Now you’re leaving?”

“Not all that fast.” Juliana tried again to explain it to her best friends. At least Mallory was still firmly on her side. “You know I’ve been unhappy here.”

“We all feel that way from time to time. But we’re not running away.”

“I’m not running away, Dani. I’m making a change. Yes, it’s a big change, but this is more than being unhappy. It’s me having to force myself to get out of bed every morning. It’s about how I spend every single minute here feeling as if I’d give anything to be somewhere else. It’s just time to go.”

Bethany gave up the pretense and put down her fork. “Look at this from our point of view. You’ve been a fantastic special education teacher for almost fifteen years, and now you want to quit and—”

“I don’t want to quit. Not yet. Not entirely. I’m only taking a year’s leave of absence. That’s all. We’re allowed to do that, you know. Lots of people have.” Although she could only remember two. One took a year off for medical reasons—a heart attack. Then she retired. The other left to follow her husband to a new job and never came back.

Bethany tossed her a worried frown. “And you suddenly want to sell real estate. Where is all of this coming from?”

Since they probably wouldn’t want to hear about her uncle Francis or how awfully long she’d been exploring the possibility, Juliana kept things simple. “I’ve been thinking about a change for a while, but it was Robert who helped me make the leap.”

“Wait’ll I get my hands on him.” Beth twirled a few more leaves of lettuce, scowling at her plastic bowl.

“All Robert did was give me a nudge. I’m the one who ran with it. A good agent can make a lot of money. I worked in sales in college.”

“That was women’s clothing,” Danielle said.

“But selling is selling, and I was damned good at it.”

“You’re leaving a job that’s steady and safe,” Bethany insisted. “Why would you want to take this kind of risk?”

“C’mon, Beth. You eat lunch with me every day. You know how unhappy I am, how frustrated I’m getting.”

“We’re frustrated, too,” Beth countered. “It happens in this job. We all have good kids, but the bad ones are a drain. Parents aren’t supportive a lot of the time.”

“
Most
of the time,” Mallory said with a smirk.

Beth pressed on despite the interruption. “Administrators don’t back us up. Yada, yada, yada. But this is who we are—it’s
what
we are. We’re teachers. How can you walk away from your vocation?”

“Because it’s not my vocation anymore. It’s nothing but a regular old job. Clock in, struggle through the day as time drags, then clock out. It’s time for me to get off this merry-go-round.”

Danielle leaned back in her chair—as always, waiting to hear all the arguments and then serving as the Ladies’ voice of reason, their self-appointed moderator. “I know you’ve got some challenging kids this year, but they promised to look at getting you a new aide next year. Won’t that take some of the pressure off you?”

“It’s not that…” Juliana took a deep breath and tried to find the words to make Bethany and Danielle understand.

Since she and Mallory were so close, Mallory “got” her. Always had, always would. But Beth and Dani? They were younger, not all that much, but enough that they still looked at the world with less experienced eyes. Neither had been through bad marriages like she and Mallory had, so they weren’t jaded. Mallory was also a cancer survivor, well grounded in reality and living life to the fullest.

Juliana dug deep down to try to express the turmoil that was forcing this choice. “Look at it through my eyes for a minute. I work with kids whose abilities range from semi-independent to wheelchair-bound and unable to even speak. I have to feed some with tubes, even tolerate it as they unload verbal assaults or spit and punch at me. It’s getting to be too much to bear anymore. I’m burned out. The kids deserve someone who’s still passionate about helping them.”

Mallory put her hand over Juliana’s. “We understand. Burnout goes with the territory.”

“But we’ll hate it,” Danielle added. “No more Ladies Who Lunch.”

“This won’t affect our friendships.” At least Juliana hoped not. “I’ll be able to come and have lunch with you from time to time. And we still have weekends and our getaways. Why should any of that end just because I’m out trying to sell houses instead of being in a classroom?”

“It might be different,” Mallory offered. “But we’re friends. Always will be. We’re the Ladies Who Lunch, right?”

Beth and Dani nodded.

“Then why should our friendship change simply because Jules wants something besides teaching?”

“You’re right,” Bethany said. “We’re friends. We’ll always be friends. You’re going to knock their socks off, Jules!”

There was the eternally optimistic Beth that Juliana needed.

“So what can we do to help?” Danielle asked. “If you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna need all the help you can get. Are you sure you want to go it alone? I mean, couldn’t you go with Max Schumm or—”

Juliana shook her head. “No. No way. That man would make the worst principal seem like the best boss in the world. I need to do this on my own. Kelley Realty. It’s time for someone to give Max Schumm a challenge.”

“What about the other guy, that Connor, who you… um…” Mallory was evidently having a hard time saying the obvious.

“The guy I slept with?”

Bethany and Danielle appeared properly startled, both staring at her with wide-open mouths.

Knowing they’d want an explanation, she kept it succinct. “I met a guy at the seminar, and we hit it off. I went back to his room with him, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What are you going to do about him?” Mallory asked again.

Juliana shrugged. “I have no idea. He wasn’t any more enthralled with Max than I was, so I don’t know what he did after I left him.”

“After you ran away.”

Mallory—blunt as always.
Which was probably why they got along so well.

“Yeah, Mal. After I ran away.” No matter how close she was to them, Juliana had a hard time letting her friends know exactly how much Connor affected her. “Can we stop this topic now?”

He was constantly in her thoughts, and although she wasn’t one to obsess over mistakes she’d made, she couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened. What if she’d stayed long enough to discover if he wanted more from her than a one-night stand? If she was totally honest with herself, she’d have to admit she
had
run away like some frightened child from her own feelings.

It wasn’t often she let men reach inside her deeply enough to stir her tender emotions. Sure, she might feel compassion for her students and love for her friends, but to let a man touch her heart?

Unthinkable.

Her ex-husband had been an exception, and she’d paid a high price for that error in judgment. She’d fallen in love with a selfish, immature man whom she’d thought was everything she’d ever wanted.

Then she’d grown up.

He hadn’t.

Seeing him at least once a week—in the teachers’ lounge, at the copy machine, at staff meetings—had become more bearable. But she still hated the constant reminder of her stupid choice to marry someone because he was good looking and made her body sing. She never should’ve allowed those good traits to conceal his less desirable ones. His excessive drinking. His putting himself before anyone else, especially her. His verbal abuse. A handsome face and fantastic sex hadn’t been enough to make a good marriage. Not even close. At least she’d had the smarts to walk away pretty damned fast.

Perhaps that was what scared her the most about Connor Wilson. He was a man she could easily make another mistake with by taking him into her heart. He’d be an even worse error because he was better looking than her ex and had made her experience a depth of passion she hadn’t known existed. With him she’d felt free with her body in a way she could easily learn to crave.

Hell, she already did. Her dreams were filled with him. Her fantasies were of no one else. He was as bad as any addiction, and she intended to fight it. She wasn’t tumbling into another relationship with the wrong guy. Changing careers was risky enough. She wasn’t about to fuck up her personal life as well.

Besides, she had no idea where he was or how to find him.

“Have you seen him since then?” Bethany asked in that intuitive way of hers.

Juliana shook her head. “Let’s talk about Kelley Realty.”

“Not a very subtle segue there, Jules,” Mallory said with a grin. “In other words, you don’t want to talk about him.”

“Exactly.”

“Then how about we talk about money?” Danielle suggested. “You think you can go a whole year off without a paycheck?”

“Oh, I intend to earn lots of paychecks,” Juliana replied. “One at each house I close.”

“I hope you make a million bucks, but…” Bethany took a moment of thoughtful reflection before continuing, “what happens if you can’t make a sale? Don’t you have a mortgage? Car payments?”

“Where did all the eternal optimism go, Beth?” Juliana teased.

“Even I have to face reality sometimes,” she tossed back.

“Here’s what I’ve got planned. The car’s paid off. The mortgage, too. I refinanced several years ago and finished off the principal last winter. Everything else is manageable.”

“Manageable when you’re getting paid,” Danielle pointed out. “But you won’t be.”

“I have my retirement savings.”

“You’re risking your retirement on this?” Bethany furrowed her brow. “That would scare the heck out of me.”

Mallory let out a chuckle. “You know our Jules. Loves free-falling.”

“Yeah, but this is free-falling without a parachute.” Bethany shook her head. “Too scary.”

“Relax,” Juliana said. “I have a nice little savings account, too. I’ll use it first. I’ve saved quite a bit over the years. I like shoes as much as the next girl, but I always buy clearance.”

The Ladies laughed, so at least the mood was lightening. If she was going to do this, she needed them in her corner.

“I really don’t have that many expenses. Food, electric. Shit, I don’t even have cable or satellite TV.”

“Seriously?” Danielle gave a little shudder. “How can you stand it?”

Juliana shrugged. “I’d rather listen to music and read. And e-books are mucho cheap. I can get by on very little for a while, at least long enough to see if I can make Kelley Realty work. If it doesn’t”—she shrugged—“well, then I guess I can always come back here. Might have to tuck my tail between my legs and admit defeat, but I have that safety net.”

When her three friends all nodded, Juliana smiled, not surprised to feel relief sweep over her. If she was going to get this plane off the ground, she’d need their full help and support.

“We’re with you,” Mallory said. “Let’s make this work.”

* * *

The weeks had flown faster than any she’d ever known. For the last month, she’d taken every online real estate course she could to get the rest of the instruction hours she needed to get her license. The final exam had ended and the ink on the new license was barely dried, but she was making her move.

Juliana stood at the doorway of what had been her classroom, getting ready to walk away for what might be the last time.

She’d been granted her year’s leave of absence for personal reasons by the school board, but somehow she knew she’d never be back. This part of her life was ending.

For good.

After making a couple of trips to her car with boxes of her things she couldn’t leave behind, she came back to grab one last box and bid Douglas High School a fond farewell.

The room was a lot different from when she’d arrived. It had been so stark, walls painted in the typical “school beige.” An empty teacher’s desk and a few traditional student desks but not much else. She’d had to fight for a padded area that had been necessary for some of her out-of-control students. The attached bathroom had been an even harder battle, but it was another she’d won. The walls now held murals of letters and numbers painted by art students. There was even a row of older computers her students could use whenever they wanted.

The place was finally a proper special education area. The cabinets were filled with tactile activities, many of which she’d paid for herself but was leaving behind. What would she need them for? Real estate agents didn’t play with wooden puzzles or foam shapes or coloring books.

A real estate agent.
Was that what she was now?

So much of her identity had been tied to being a teacher. Each time she’d introduced herself to someone, that was how she defined who she was.

I’m Juliana Kelley. I teach special ed.

Would she be able to find the strength to do this? She’d always been the strong one, especially among the Ladies Who Lunch. Mallory was the wise one. Bethany the enthusiastic one. Danielle the grounded one. But Juliana had been the backbone—the one who held them all together.

She’d planned their trips. Encouraged them in their goals. Destroyed their enemies.

A laugh slipped out at that notion. How many loser guys had she rebuffed on their nights out? How often had she been the one to tell Beth or Dani that the man she had her eye on wasn’t as perfect as her young brain might have believed?

How could she handle not seeing them every day?

Tears blurred her vision, but she refused to let a single one fall. This choice was the right one. She knew it, deep in her heart. She had to do this. Now was the moment.