“I’m sure you have. And I’ll give you the best answers I can. I promise.”
His eyes narrowed. “No sidestepping,” he warned. “All the cards on the table.”
“Yes. I owe you that.”
“Why don’t we eat first? You look about the way I feel. Some nourishment might do you some good.”
But she barely ate any of her meal. She simply couldn’t swallow anything but the tea, which the waiter kept refilling.
He’d managed to find an out of the way place to take her, and she was so grateful he was sensitive to the need for them not to be disturbed. Julia didn’t think she’d see anyone she knew, but you never could tell. She was always expecting Rod to pop up like some jack-in-the-box.
“Julia.” Luke put his coffee cup down and looked across the table at her. “I think it’s time to talk.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and prayed for strength and guidance to get through this. To make him see things from her point of view. For him to forgive her. He might not want either her or Courtney in his life now, but she couldn’t stand it if he hated either one of them.
She started with the reason for her divorce and the rest just came tumbling out. She was totally honest with him. Well, almost. She gave him every detail of Charles’s illness, unloaded her guilty feelings about his heart attack, and even confessed to looking for Luke more than once.
“I understand the pressure you were under, believe me.” He paused. “But I think we still have a lot of unanswered questions on the table here. We haven’t gotten to the reason you couldn’t let me know what was going on.” His voice was calm and even, but there was strain and even anger behind it. “I know Claire told you how many times I called, but you couldn’t take a minute to contact me at all? Not once?”
“No.” Her voice was so low she almost didn’t hear it herself. “I didn’t.”
“I have a daughter I didn’t know about and I’ve missed thirteen years of her life. You tell me she’s going through a rough patch, not unusual for teenagers, but maybe I could have helped.” He signaled the waiter and ordered another drink before continuing. “So let’s agree you were behind the eight ball during the time Charles was dying at the home you so graciously accepted him back into. But what about after the funeral? What then, Julia?”
“I didn’t want you hurt.” She whispered the words.
“Hurt?” He picked up the drink the waiter placed in front of him, took a healthy swallow, and reached across the table for her hand. It was the first intimate contact he’d made with her since picking her up. “How on earth could I be more hurt than to be shut completely out of your life after what was building between us?”
And then, like a bad dream, a shadow fell over the table and she looked up to see Rod Maguire standing there. Her first thought was she should stop going to restaurants. Her second was a reminder she was no longer the scared woman she’d been all those years ago.
“Hello, Julia.” His voice was like steel. “How about introducing me to your…companion?”
Somewhere deep inside she found the remnants of courage and pulled herself together.
“Hello, Rod.” She congratulated herself on her composure. “This doesn’t seem like your usual place to hang out.”
“The owners are new clients. Sharon and I are having dinner with them.” He looked pointedly at Luke. “And you are?”
“Luke Buchanan. And you?”
“This is Rod Maguire.” Julia folded her hands in front of her so neither man could see how they trembled. “He was a friend of Charles’s and one of his law partners.”
“Yes.” It was difficult for anyone to miss the distaste in his voice. “Charles Patterson and I were childhood friends. He was a great man and an excellent attorney.”
“I’m sure he was.” Luke’s tone was mild. “How fortunate for him, then, to find a woman of such quality as Julia for his wife.”
“Fortunate. Really. An interesting word. Well. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.” He looked at Julia. “Right, Julia?”
“Nice of you to stop by, Rod.” She was through letting him frighten her. Each time she faced him down only made her stronger. “Don’t let us keep you from your clients.”
He gave her one last scathing look before walking away.
Julia slumped in her seat, taking deep breaths to steady her pulse. A waiter placed a glass in front of her.
“Drink it.” Luke’s voice penetrated the fog. “Come on, Julia. You’re white as a sheet and look like you’re about to faint.”
When she made no move to do anything, Luke reached across the table and placed her fingers around the glass.
“Drink it, honey. Then we’ll talk.”
Honey. She hadn’t thought he’d ever speak to her in such a caring tone again. It gave her enough strength to lift her drink and take a swallow. The amaretto burned its way down her throat and into her bloodstream, and shook her out of the well of defeat she’d fallen into.
“Good.” Luke tipped the glass toward her. “A little more. Then we’re getting out of here. I’m guessing the asshole we just saw has something to do with this and I want to leave before I’m tempted to kill him.”
Somehow she managed to sit there as he paid the check, then let him help her out of the chair and lead her from the restaurant. When they got into his car, her reserve snapped and the tears she’d been holding back for fourteen years came flooding out.
“I’m glad I have a car with a bench seat,” Luke told her, pulling her close to him and cradling her against his chest.
She cried until she was sure her tears were gone and then she cried some more. A storm of such violence, when it subsided she was left with no strength.
Luke tightened his arms around her.
