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“I couldn’t believe it when Mitch showed up out of the blue, and with you, no less.” She chuckled and rubbed her nose on her knee as if she were scratching an itch.
The desire to touch her was so strong he could taste it, bitter and hot in the back of his throat. Thanks to meds, everything had a rosy sort of glow, a sparkle, and she was so damn gorgeous—although she would have been so even without the effect of medication.
“We didn’t get a lot of warning about the assignment,” he told her, his tongue seeming to function its own. “It was real quick.”
“I’ll say. It was all real quick.” She sighed.
Their briefing had taken all of two days and then they were gone. And Mitch was dead. Real quick.
“We had fun though, didn’t we?” she asked.
“It was the wine,” he said, though Mitch had been the only one who’d drank it.
“It was the company. And the stories.” She pulled at a thread in the hem of the sweater. “Those stories Mitch told about you guys growing up and all the trouble you got into.”
“Mitch got us in trouble, I was just the cleanup.” The official blame-taker. No one had believed the troubled kid with the drunk for a father and everyone had believed the star football player who could always outrun the cops.
“Come on,” she teased. “Mitch said painting the water tower was your idea.”
He smiled, remembering. “Yeah, you’re right.”
There had been good times with Mitch. His wild streak had called out to Jesse’s own and in high school there was nowhere he’d rather have been than causing trouble with Mitch.
Mitch, however, had adopted that wildness as his life mission. Jesse found that, by default, he’d still been expected to clean up after his old buddy, long after the thrill had worn off for him.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and lifted her feet a little off the step so she balanced on her butt.
“Mitch told me you were a dancer,” Jesse blurted.
Julia shook her head, her eyes suddenly darker. “My husband said a lot of things…most of them not true.”
“He wasn’t known for his honesty.”
Julia’s eyes got sadder and Jesse could feel sympathy churn through his gut. The silence stretched and he watched her profile, the sweet line of her cheek, her nose. The perfect rose of her mouth. He was the only other person in the world who knew what Mitch was really like—and high on painkillers he couldn’t deny her the small bit of comfort she clearly needed.
“He was hard on the people who loved him,” he finally said.
She turned wide eyes on him. “You sound like a man with experience.” She tried to smile, but failed, and that told him so much about what being married to Mitch had cost her.
His hands itched to stroke her narrow shoulders, but not for comfort. Not as further cleanup after Mitch.
Jesse wanted to touch her for himself.
“Everybody in this town loved him, but no one knew him. There was only one guy stupid enough to be his best friend.”
She bit her lip and he wondered if he’d gone too far. If he’d read her wrong and her emotions for her husband were stronger than he thought. Maybe she didn’t know what a bastard Mitch was.
“He was pretty good at keeping the worst of himself hidden. Until it was too late.”
“Remember that when you get tired of all the Mitch stories this town can tell. These people never knew him like we knew him.”
He met her crystal gaze and they were suddenly knit together, not just by that morning in Germany, and not by the terrible, forbidden things he felt for her, but in their knowledge of Mitch Adams.
The Mitch the whole town refused to believe existed.
“I thought I married someone else,” she said. “The way he talked, I thought… Well, I thought he was a different person.”
“I understand,” he said. An expression of gratitude spread over her features.
“It’s been a long time since someone has said that to me.”
The moment stretched taut and then snapped. He looked away with a cough—hot and uncomfortable with how much he still wanted his best friend’s widow.
She laughed nervously and wiped at her eyes. “Look at me,” she said. “I arrive out of the blue to start crying on your porch.”
“Go ahead. Cry away.”
She turned aside and studied the stars while he studied her. Birds called and dogs barked and Jesse lifted himself from the chair and stupidly, foolishly, was about to lower himself onto the steps so he could touch her, smell her. Press his lips to the quick pulse that beat in her neck.
“Do you know Mitch’s parents real well?”
The air went cold, dousing the flames in him.
“Yeah.” He sat down heavily.
“What are they like?”
“They hate me,” he said, getting right to the point. “They’d hate you sitting on this porch with me.”
“Because of the accident?”
The word shattered the serene picture they made like a pane of glass. His intentions, his desire for her, turned to ash. They weren’t two strangers engaged in warm conversation, carefully scoping out the edges of their feelings for each other.
Mitch was between them. Mitch and his death and the accident.
He almost laughed. Accident? People could be so stupid. Didn’t anyone realize there were no such things as accidents?
“Among other things,” he said and shrugged.
She must blame him, at least a little, for Mitch’s death. How could she not? Her husband was dead while Jesse was alive. In his head the math was simple.
“Jesse?” She looked at him warily. The pressure in his chest grew unbearable. “That morning in Germany when you—”
“Don’t.” He groaned and shook his head. The honesty in her eyes and the ache in his chest defeated him so, like a coward, he looked away. “Don’t say anything. I’m sorry. I’m… sorry.”
“Sorry?”
He refused to look at her, willing her to get off his porch. He had been stupid to let her stay. Drugs or no drugs.
The silence built like a wall between them. Brick by brick, until he wasn’t even sure he could see her.
Finally she stood, swiped her hands over her butt and took a step toward the shadows of the lawn.
“Good night, Jesse.” She took another step, all but disappearing in the dark. “I’m so glad you’re here. I never expected a friend—”
“We’re not friends, Julia,” he said, from his side of the wall of silence and lies. “Don’t come back.”
JULIA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. She was plagued by Jesse’s ravaged face and the sharp-fanged nightmares Mitch’s old room seemed to spark.
She had to put Mitch’s prom picture facedown in the hopes that she’d stop seeing it when she shut her eyes. But it was useless, Mitch’s ghost lived in this room, lived in these quiet moments of doubt that came at night. He mocked her and reminded her of how much she’d fallen out of love with him. Of how badly she’d wished he’d been more like Jesse.
In fact, that night in Germany with Jesse and Mitch, she’d wished he was Jesse.
And to make it all worse, there was nothing she could do to shake loose Jesse’s words. They ran on a loop whether her eyes were closed or not.
I’m sorry.
She’d carried the memory of that morning in Germany with Jesse in her heart for months. She’d lived on it when food tasted like dirt. She’d breathed it through Mitch’s funeral and through all the long nights.
And he was sorry. Sorry it ever happened.
We’re not friends. Don’t come back.
She flopped over on her back and stared up at the ceiling where the shadows of the maple branches danced and that morning rushed back to her in painful detail….
“All done,” Julia whispered to Ben. She heldout her hands as if to prove she wasn’t holdinganymore puréed peaches. “All gone.”
Ben mimicked her, shouting her words backto her in his gibberish.
“Sh,” she whispered. “We have to be quiet.Daddy and Jesse are sleeping.”
Jesse Filmore—the much-boasted-aboutfriend of Mitch’s youth—slept in the livingroom, draped over the too-small couch. AndMitch slept on in the bedroom, smelling slightlyof the wine he’d drank last night and the uncomfortable,lousy sex he’d attempted beforedawn. He’d come to bed late, full of drunkenapologies and tears. There’d been another girl.A reporter or a contractor or something. She’dmeant nothing, he swore.
None of them meant anything.
Julia wiped Ben’s face, holding his head stillso she could get the cereal from under his chin,and pulled him out of the makeshift high chairshe’d rigged on the kitchen counter.
She filled his sippy cup with juice and waterand walked behind him as he toddled over tothe table she’d set up next to the only windowin the apartment that let in the morning light.
She sat in her chair and Ben tried to pullhimself up into her lap.
“Up you go,” she whispered, giving him aboost.
He repeated the tone of her voice, if not herexact words.
She had a few toys on the table and he playedwhile she rested her chin on his head andlooked out the window to the street of duplicatehouses, covered in Christmas lights and snowthat made up the family housing on thebarracks.
Houses filled with women just like her. Alone.Lonely. Worried half the time. Scared the otherhalf. They filled their time with book groupsand sewing circles, coffee klatches and grief-counseling sessions.
She went, dragging Ben and bad pasta salad,wearing the mask of a woman still in love withher husband. She wore that mask until shethought she’d scream.
She rested her head against the window.
“Jesse,” Ben whispered and her heartsqueezed tight at the mention of the handsomestranger her husband had brought home lastnight. It had been a surprise, not just Jesse, butMitch’s appearance as well. She’d had no noticeof their leave. No chance to prepare herself.
Not that she could have.
Not for Jesse Filmore.
He’d walked into her home, he’d shaken herhand, he’d smiled at her, played with her son. He’d even gone so far as to compliment herspaghetti and she knew she’d found the verylimit to her foolish heart.
She’d watched him all night from the cornerof her eye, from beneath her lashes like somelovesick teenager.
Maybe that’s what I am.
Maybe that’s what this feeling is.
He was a good man—it was the clearestthing she’d ever seen. As real as the sun behindthe window. He’d walked into the room andshe’d known him. Known him as though she’dbeen beside him his whole life. Jesse was thekind of man she’d imagined Mitch to be. Thekind of man she wanted Mitch to be and itburned her like acid to have him in her house.
“Jesse,” Ben said louder and Julia turnedfinally to shush him, only to find Jessestanding in the doorway to the kitchen. Abright and dark angel brought into her life toremind her of the mistakes she’d made, of thethings she’d never have.
His black eyes were a hot touch on her face.
She opened her mouth, but there was nothingto say. No empty chatter in her head to fill upthis moment. She wanted to stay this way withthis man’s eyes on her—intense and dark andso knowing she felt naked.
Ben scrambled off her lap and ran past Jesseinto the TV room.
“There’s…” Her mouth was sticky, dry. Butbefore she could try to finish her sentence Jessecrossed the kitchen in three steps, stopping onlywhen he was right in front of her. Less than afoot away. She could have reached out to touchthe hem of his gray T-shirt.
You’re married, she told herself—a stupidreminder of the vows she’d taken, bindingherself to a man who had never meant them.
Jesse crouched in front of her, until his facewas level with hers.
She grasped her hands in her lap until herknuckles went white.
“You deserve better,” Jesse whispered, andher lips parted on a broken breath. He reachedout and his fingers, the very tips of them, brushedher face in a nearly imperceptible touch. Hercheek and the curve of her jaw. As though shewere diamonds and gold to him. Precious.
She shut her eyes and hated herself forwanting him so much.
Jesse stood, jammed his fingers through hisshort military hair as if he wished he couldpull it out.
“I can’t stay here,” he said.
Julia didn’t stop him and when she heard herfront door click shut the tattered, threadbarelife she’d managed to hold together split at theseams, falling in terrible ruin around her.
Julia closed her eyes wishing the memory away. Wishing it on another person. She’d arrived in New Springs looking for a family, to set down roots…and finding Jesse was like a dream come true. She was so close to all she ever wanted, only to have it ripped away.
Don’t come back here.
