“I appreciate you coming out here, son. I know you’re busy and I hope it didn’t mess up your schedule too much.”
As Ross shook his uncle William’s hand in the foyer of the Double Crown, he thought how much he respected him. His mother’s brother was as unlike Cindy as he imagined two people who came from the same womb could possibly be.
William had always struck him as decent and honorable. Though Ross hadn’t known him well growing up because William and his wife and five sons lived in Los Angeles and their respective spheres rarely intersected, his uncle had invariably been kind to him and his brothers and sister when they did.
His wife Molly had died a year ago, and William had temporarily moved from California to Texas and the family ranch just a few months earlier after a string of mysterious incidents threatened the family’s security.
Ross thought of the word he had used the night of the dinner with Julie that had upset Josh so much—loyalty. William typified family loyalty. His uncle invariably thought first about the Fortunes and what was in the family’s best interest, and Ross had to respect him all the more for it.
“Not a problem,” he said now. “I’m staying in Red Rock with Josh anyway so it wasn’t any trouble to come out here to the Double Crown.”
Before William could answer him, Lily—William and Cindy’s cousin by marriage—walked down the stairs.
At sixty-three, she was still exotically lovely from her Apache and Spanish heritage, with high cheekbones, tilt-tipped eyes framed by thick lashes and a wide, sultry mouth.
She was also one of his favorite Fortunes. He would have loved having a mother as warm and caring and maternal as Lily Fortune.
“Ross, my dear. You don’t come to the Double Crown enough,” she said, gripping his hands and squeezing them tightly.
“Sorry about that. I’ve been pretty busy lately.”
“You’ve got your hands full right now, don’t you? How is Frannie?”
He frowned. He had seen Frannie that morning at the jail—just another frustrating visit. How had he never guessed that such obstinance lurked inside his delicate sister? He had asked, begged and finally pleaded with her to tell him what had happened the night of Lloyd’s death, but she remained stubbornly silent.
“I can’t talk about it.”
That was her only response, every single time he pushed her. Finally she had told him she would tell the guards she wouldn’t take any more visits from him if he didn’t stop haranguing her about it.
“She doesn’t belong in prison. That’s for damn sure.”
He heard his own language and winced. “Sorry, Lily. For darn sure, I meant.”
She rolled her eyes. “If a little colorful language ever sent me into a swoon, I wouldn’t be much good on a working ranch, would I?”
Ross grinned. “I suppose not.”
“For what it’s worth, I completely agree with you. I can’t believe that pip-squeak Bruce Gibson was able to get his way and have her held without bail. It’s an outrage, that’s what it is.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” William put in. “Any word on appealing the judge’s decision on bail?”
“The lawyers are working on it.” Like everything else, they were in wait-and-see mode.
“Whatever you need, Ross,” William said, his expression solemn and sincere. “The family is behind you a hundred percent on this. We can hire different attorneys to argue for a change of venue if that would help.”
“I don’t know what’s going to help at this point. I just need to figure out who really killed Lloyd so I can get her out of there.”
“Whatever you need,” William repeated. “Just say the word and we’ll do anything it takes to help you.”
“Thanks, Uncle William. I appreciate that.”
He did, though it wasn’t an easy thing for him to admit. As much as he respected his Fortune relatives, they had all come to his immediate family’s rescue far more often than he could ever find comfortable. Cindy would have sucked the Fortune financial well dry if she could have found a way.
“Come on back to the kitchen, why don’t you?” Lily said after a moment. “Rosita made cinnamon rolls this morning and I’m sure there are a few left.”
His stomach rumbled, reminding him that breakfast had been coffee and a slice of burnt toast made from one of the last pieces of bread at the house. They were just about out of food. If he didn’t want his nephew to starve, he was going to have to schedule a trip to the grocery store soon, as much as he heartily disliked the task.
He couldn’t help comparing the big, warm kitchen at the Double Crown with Frannie’s elegant, spare kitchen. This was the kitchen of his childhood dreams, something he didn’t think was a coincidence. On his few trips to the Double Crown as a kid, this place had seemed like heaven on earth, from the horses to the swimming hole to the big rope swing in the barn that sent anyone brave enough for it sailing through the air into soft, clean-smelling hay.
Given a choice, he would much rather slide up to this table, with its scarred top and acres of mismatched chairs, than Frannie’s perfect designer set.
Rosita, Lily’s longtime friend and housekeeper, bustled around in the kitchen in an old-fashioned ruffled apron. She beamed when she saw Ross and ordered him to sit.
“You are too skinny. You need to come eat in my kitchen more often.”
He raised an eyebrow. Only someone as comfortably round as Rosita could ever call him skinny. “If those cinnamon rolls taste as good as they smell, I might just have to kidnap you and take you back to Frannie’s mausoleum to cook for Josh and me. We’re getting a little tired of ordering pizza.”
“You know you and Josh are welcome here anytime,” Lily said.
“I wasn’t hinting for an invitation,” Ross said, embarrassed that his words might have been construed that way.
Lily smiled and squeezed his arm. It took him a moment to realize why the gesture seemed familiar. Julie had the same kind of mannerisms, that almost unconscious way of reinforcing her words with a physical touch.
He had come to crave those casual little brushes of her hands on him, though he would rather be hog-tied and left in a bull paddock than admit it.
They spoke of family news for a few moments while he savored divine mouthfuls of the gooey, yeasty cinnamon rolls. William caught him up on the upcoming wedding of his son Darr to Bethany Burdett, a receptionist at the Fortune Foundation, then Lily shared news about her family.
Ross had never quite figured out his place on the Fortune family tree. Sure, he shared the surname since Cindy had never bothered to change her name through any of her three marriages and had made sure each of her children carried it, as well. But he never quite felt a part of the family.
Cindy had been estranged from her siblings for years. Until Frannie’s marriage to Lloyd eighteen years ago gave her more of an excuse, Cindy only popped into Red Rock once in a while, usually to hit somebody in her family up for money.
How many times had his uncle William and aunt Molly bailed Cindy out of some scrape or another? Even Lily and her late husband Ryan had taken a turn.
Ross felt keenly obligated to them all for it—which was exactly why he was here listening to family gossip he didn’t really care about and enjoying Rosita’s exquisite cinnamon rolls.
“I guess you know the reason we asked you here,” William finally said when there was a lull in the conversation. “We’re just looking for an update on your investigation.”
“Which one?” Ross muttered ruefully, taking a sip of coffee. Right now he felt as if he were spinning three or four dozen plates and was quite sure each one was ready to crash to the ground.
“Finding out the truth behind whoever killed Lloyd has to be your priority right now, for Frannie and Josh’s sake. We completely understand that.” William paused, his expression serious. “But I hope you understand that my priority right now is keeping the rest of the family safe.”
His gaze flickered briefly to Lily just long enough for Ross to wonder if something were going on between the two of them. William and Lily? As stunning as he found the idea, it made an odd sort of sense. They each had lost—and mourned—their respective spouses and they were both heavily involved with the Fortune Foundation.
He hadn’t heard anything from any other family members about a burgeoning romance between the two of them, but maybe it was still in the early stages.
He had enough genuine mysteries to solve, he reminded himself. He didn’t need to concern himself with any hypothetical romance between Lily and William—and it was none of his business anyway.
“Have you discovered anything new about the fires here and at Red or the mysterious notes we’ve received?” William asked.
In January, a fire nearly destroyed the local restaurant owned by good friends of the Fortunes, the Mendozas. At that same time, William and his brother Patrick each received a mysterious note that said simply “One of the Fortunes is not who you think.”
Just a month later, another fire had destroyed a barn at the Double Crown, killing a favorite horse, and Lily had received a note of her own that read “This one wasn’t an accident, either.”
Ross had been brought in after that, when the family realized all these seemingly random events were connected.
He hadn’t been very successful, though, much to his chagrin, both professionally and personally. Then in April, the mystery deepened and became even more sinister when his mother wrecked her car after a visit with Frannie and the Red Rock police discovered that her brakes had been tampered with.
Ross still couldn’t completely convince himself Cindy hadn’t done it herself for attention. That was a pretty pitiful suspicion for a son to have about his own mother, but he had learned during his forty years on the planet not to put much past her. Still, he was investigating the brake-tampering incident as part of the pattern.
“I’ll be honest with you, Uncle William,” he said now. “I’m hitting a wall. The private lab I sent the letters to was unable to find any legible fingerprints on either the notepaper itself or the envelopes used, and they were both very generic items that could have been purchased anywhere. Nothing distinctive at all that might help us identify who purchased them and sent them. The lab was able to collect a small amount of DNA from whoever licked the envelopes, but it’s not in any of the databanks we can access.”
“Which means what, exactly?” Lily asked.
He gave them both an apologetic look. “Until we have a suspect to compare the sample to, DNA doesn’t do us much good.”
“Where do you suggest we go from here?” William asked, his expression troubled. He slanted a look at Lily and the obvious worry in his eyes made Ross wonder again at their relationship.
“I’ve still got some leads I’m following on Cindy’s brakes and the accelerant used in both fires. But I’ll be honest, right now my focus has to be on Frannie.”
“That’s just as it should be,” Lily assured him, her features sympathetic. “I worry so for her. She’s such a quiet soul, one who certainly doesn’t belong in jail. I hate that she has to go through this.”
“What about Josh?” William asked. “In a way, he’s lost both a mother and a father, hasn’t he?”
“Only temporarily, until I can clear Frannie and get her home where she belongs.” He spoke the words in a vow.
Lily touched his arm again, her hands cool and soft. “You’re such a good brother, Ross. You always have been. I don’t know what would have happened to Frannie or your brothers if not for you.”
William made a face. “It was an outrage what you children had to endure. The rest of us should never have allowed it. It’s one of my greatest regrets in life that we didn’t realize just how bad things were and didn’t sue for custody of all of you.”
How different his life might have turned out, if that had happened. He might have grown up in California with William and Molly and their sons or here on the ranch with Ryan and his first wife. He might have had breakfast every morning in this big, comfortable kitchen, instead of in whatever dingy apartment Cindy found for them.
“I wish I could say my sister ever outgrew her irresponsibility,” William went on, “but she’s as flighty and self-destructive at seventy as she was when she was a girl. I’m only sorry she dragged the four of you with her.”
The last thing Ross wanted to talk about right now was his mother and the chaos of his childhood and all the might-havebeens that seemed more painful in retrospect. He quickly changed the subject.
“I’ll admit, I’m worried about how this is all affecting Josh. He went back to school last week but he won’t talk about how things are going. I know how kids can talk and I’m sure a scandal like this is the hot topic at Red Rock High School.”
As he hoped, the diversionary tactic did the trick. Lily’s eyes grew soft with concern, as they did whenever she heard about a child or youth in need.
“Have you thought about grief counseling for him?” she asked. “Perhaps someone at the Foundation might be able to see him. Julie Osterman, for instance, specializes in helping teens who have suffered loss.”
Okay, maybe changing the subject hadn’t been the greatest idea. He didn’t want to talk about Julie any more than he wanted to discuss Cindy.
He certainly hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since their dinner and the heated kiss they had shared nearly a week before. He had tried everything to get the blasted woman out of his system. He had worked like a maniac tracking down leads in Frannie’s case, had taken Josh out fishing three more times, had swum so many laps in his sister’s pool he thought he might just grow fins.
But he still dreamed of Julie every night and thoughts of her had a devious way of slithering into his mind at the most inconvenient time. Like, oh, just about every other minute.
“He’s actually seeing Julie,” Ross admitted. “He’s been to a few sessions now. I can’t say if they’re helping yet.”
“Julie is wonderful,” Lily exclaimed. “Don’t you just love her?”
Ross nearly choked on his coffee. “Um, she seems nice enough.” Somehow he managed not to choke on the understatement, as well. “Josh likes her and that’s the important thing.”
“Julie is the perfect one to help him,” Lily said. “She understands what it is to lose someone she loved.”
“Yeah,” Ross said, his voice gruff. “She told me about her husband.”
Lily blinked a little at that. “Did she?”
Ross fiddled with his cup. “Yeah.”
“What happened?” William asked. “I had no idea she was even married.”
Lily touched his hand. “I’ll tell you later,” she said, then turned back to Ross. “I can’t tell you how pleased and relieved I am that Josh is talking to someone. I’ve been so worried for him, especially since the last words between Josh and Lloyd were so harsh.”
Ross frowned. “Harsh? Why do you say that?”
Lily shifted in her chair, looking as if she wished she hadn’t said anything. “They were fighting, maybe a half hour before Lloyd was found dead. I’m sorry. I assumed you knew.”
Fighting? Josh and Lloyd? This was the first he had heard anything about Josh even seeing his father the night of Lloyd’s death. His nephew had never said a word about it.
Why hadn’t he? Ross wondered.
“Did you hear them?” he asked.
“It wasn’t my intention to eavesdrop. You have to understand that. But I left the dance for a moment and returned to the art booths, hoping to catch one of the vendors who was selling a particularly lovely plein air painting I had my eye on. I had talked myself out of it then decided at the last moment that it would be stunning in one of the guest bedrooms here. It was perfect, by the way. Would you like to see it?”
Lily was stalling, which wasn’t at all like her.
“What did you hear?” he asked.
She sighed. “I was taking the painting to my car when I heard raised voices. I would have walked past, but then I recognized Josh’s voice. They were some distance away, behind the exhibits, and I’m sure they didn’t see me. I’m not sure they would have noticed anyway. They both sounded so furious.”
His gut clenched. Why hadn’t Josh mentioned any fight with his father? In the nearly two weeks since the murder, his nephew hadn’t said a single word about any altercation. Why the hell not?
“Could you hear what they were saying?” Ross asked, unable to keep the harsh urgency out of his voice.
Lily glanced at William then back at Ross. “Not clearly. I’m sorry, Ross. They were some distance away from me. And though their voices were raised, I couldn’t hear everything. Lloyd was mostly yelling at poor Josh about something or other. I heard him call him a careless idiot at one point and he said something else about Josh ruining his life.”
“Did you hear Josh’s response?” he asked. It suddenly seemed vitally important, for reasons Ross wasn’t prepared to analyze.
Again Lily looked at William as if seeking moral support. His uncle looked as concerned as Ross was and he was quite certain this was the first his uncle had heard about an altercation between them, as well.
“He’s just a boy,” she said. “He didn’t mean anything.”
“What did he say, Lily?” William picked up her hand and curled his fingers around it. “Tell us.”
She sighed. “He said he wouldn’t let Lloyd get away with it. Whatever it might have been. I couldn’t hear that part. And then he said something about how he—Josh—would stop Lloyd, no matter what it took.”
The coffee and cinnamon rolls seemed to congeal in Ross’s stomach. “Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No.” She frowned, suddenly pensive. “But I think Frannie heard their argument, too. In fact, I’m almost certain of it. I saw her just a few moments later and she looked white and didn’t even say hello, which was not at all like her.”
What else had his family not bothered to tell him? His first instinct was to drive to the high school, yank Josh out of his chemistry final and rip into him for keeping these kinds of secrets.
What had Josh and his father been fighting about? And more importantly, why the hell hadn’t Josh told him?
“I’m sorry, Ross. I can see you’re upset. I would have told you earlier but I just assumed Josh or Frannie must have mentioned it to you.”
“No,” he said grimly. “Both of them are apparently keeping their mouths shut about any number of things. But I intend to find out what.”
* * *
He had learned after more than a decade on the police force and two more years as a private investigator that sometimes he just needed to give his subconscious time and space to chew on things, to sort through all the pieces of a case and help him put them back together in the right order.
Sometimes mundane tasks helped the process, so Ross decided to stop at the grocery store on the way back from the Double Crown.
The wheels were spinning a hundred miles an hour as he pushed the cart through the cereal aisle, trying to remember which were Josh’s favorites.
He disliked grocery shopping. Always had. He had a service in San Antonio that delivered the same things to him every week. Milk, eggs, cheese, a variety of frozen dinners. He still had to make the occasional trip to the store but most of the basics were covered by the delivery service.
Yeah, it made him feel like a pathetic old bachelor once in a while, but he figured it was all about time management. Why waste time with a task he disliked when he could pay someone else to take care of it?
He knew why shopping bothered him. He didn’t need counseling to figure it out. It was a silly reaction, he knew, but somehow grocery shopping reminded him far too much of those frequent times when Cindy would take off when they were kids—of being nine years old again, pushing five-year-old Frannie in a shopping cart and nagging his six-and seven-year-old brothers to stay with them while he roamed through the aisle trying to figure out what they could afford from the emergency stash he always tried to stockpile with money he stole out of his mother’s purse for just these moments.
He pushed back the image as he mechanically moved through the store, trying to remember what kind of food he liked when he was eighteen.
He passed the pharmacy at the front of the store and suddenly saw Jillian Fredericks standing at the counter.
Damn. He was in no mood for a confrontation with the woman right here in the middle of the Piggly Wiggly, for her sake or his own. She had been through enough and he didn’t want to dredge up any more pain for her.
Sidestepping to a different aisle was simply the humane, decent thing to do, he told himself, though slinking through the store made him feel even more like that nine year old of his memory.
He was so intent on avoiding Jillian that he didn’t notice anybody else in the aisle until someone called his name.
“Ross. Hello! How are you?”
He lifted his gaze from the detergent bottles and found Julie Osterman standing just across the aisle from him.
To his eternal chagrin, his heart did a crazy little tap dance at the sight of her.
She glanced at the few items in his cart. “Please tell me you and Josh are eating something besides cold cereal and potato chips.”
He felt his face heat. “We had steak the other night with you. And we’ve gone to Red a few times. Tonight we’re ordering pizza.”
She didn’t roll her eyes but he could tell she wanted to. Instead, she gave a rueful smile. “I won’t nag.”
He didn’t want to think about the way her concern for their diet sent a traitorous warmth uncurling through him. “But you’d like to.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but sighed instead. “Just remember, he’s right in the middle of finals. A balanced meal here or there won’t hurt.”
“I’ll have Mel down at the pizza parlor throw on extra vegetables, how about that?”
“Sounds perfect.” She smiled, her lovely blue eyes bright and amused, and he suddenly couldn’t think about anything but the heat and wonder of that blasted kiss. “You’re not working today?” he asked.
“It’s my afternoon off. Usually I try to catch up on my reports at home where it’s quiet but I’ve been putting off grocery shopping and I decided to check that task off my list this afternoon.”
“It’s a pain in the neck, isn’t it?”
She looked surprised. “I kind of like shopping. All those possibilities in front of me. I can walk out of the store with the makings of a gourmet supper or I can just run in for a glazed doughnut that’s lousy for me but tastes divine. It all depends on my mood.”
“Must be a girl thing.”
She laughed and he realized how much brighter the world suddenly seemed than when he walked into the store. It was an uncomfortable discovery, that she could affect his entire mood just with her presence.
“How’s Josh doing today?”
“That seems to be the question of the day. I wish I could tell people some answer other than ‘fine.’ He doesn’t talk much to me about it.”
He hadn’t pushed the boy, but after his conversation with Lily, he was beginning to think that had been a mistake.
“That’s completely normal, Ross,” she answered. “Most seventeen-year-old boys would much prefer going outside and shooting hoops to sitting around discussing their emotional mood of the moment.”
“I think it’s probably fair to say most forty-year-old men aren’t much different.”
She laughed softly and he was suddenly consumed with the desire to taste that delectable mouth again, right there beside the fabric softeners. He even leaned forward slightly, then caught himself and jerked back.
Josh, he reminded himself. Focus on Josh. The conversation with Lily came back to him. Had Josh told Julie about his fight with his father the night of his death?
“Josh talks to you, though, right? I mean, you’ve had two sessions with him now.”
“Yes,” she said, somewhat warily.
“Did he mention anything about talking to his father the night of the Spring Fling?” he asked.
She sighed. “You know I can’t tell you anything about my conversations with him, Ross. They’re confidential. Right now Josh is still willing to talk to me and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the trust he has in me. I’m sorry.”
Sometimes he really hated when people were decent and honorable.
That didn’t mean he always had to play by the same rules. A good investigator could read as much in what a person didn’t say—in her body language and her facial expressions—as in her words. He had learned that sometimes offering information of his own could elicit the reaction he needed to verify his suspicions.
“I had an interesting conversation with someone today who said she overheard Josh and his father in a bitter argument shortly before Lloyd’s death,” he said with studied casualness. “I was just going to ask if he had said anything to you about it.”
Julie was pretty adept at hiding her reaction to his words—but not quite good enough. He didn’t miss how her eyes widened with surprise and the ever-so-slight way her lips parted just for an instant.
So Josh hadn’t mentioned the fight to Julie in their sessions. Why not? he wondered, concerned all over again at what other secrets his nephew might be keeping.
“Do you think that’s pertinent to investigating what might have happened that night?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I can’t say. I just find it surprising that Josh hasn’t bothered to mention it. He never even told me he saw his father at the Spring Fling. Even though he claimed to hate Lloyd, I imagine it’s got to be tough on any kid to know the last words he had with his old man were angry ones.”
Not that he would know. His own father had left Cindy when Ross was less than a year old. Riley Randolph hadn’t exactly been the fatherly type. Big surprise there, that Cindy would pick that kind of husband.
“If you’re trying to get me to divulge anything from our therapy sessions,” Julie said with a frown, “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
Sweetheart, you already have, he thought. While he wouldn’t exactly call her transparent, she was far too open a person to keep all her reactions concealed.
“I just wanted to pass on information,” he said, which wasn’t completely a lie. “Thought it might help you to have a little more background on that night when you’re talking to Josh. You could ask him in the next session why they fought.”
And why he hasn’t bothered to tell anyone, he added silently.
“Thank you, Ross. I appreciate the information, then.”
They lapsed into silence and Ross thought he probably ought to be moving his cart along, but he was suddenly loath to leave. He searched for some excuse to prolong their conversation, even as some part of his mind was fully aware of how pathetic it was that he was so conflicted over her.
He told himself every time he was with her that he needed to keep his distance. But then the next time he saw her, he was drawn to her all over again.
He knew he shouldn’t find it such a consolation that she didn’t seem in a hurry to leave his company, either.
“Josh told me it is his eighteenth birthday this weekend. What are his plans?” she asked.
He seized on the question. “Actually, I’m glad you brought that up. While I have you here, I could use some advice.”
“Sure.”
“We have to do something to celebrate his birthday. I mean, a kid only turns eighteen once. But I’m wondering if you’ve got any suggestions about what might be appropriate. Before everything happened, Frannie had talked about throwing a big party for him, but that doesn’t seem right now, given the circumstances.”
“That’s a really good question.” Her brow furrowed. “What would make Josh happiest? What might help him forget for a few hours all that’s happened in his world?”
“I think he got a kick out of going out to the lake last week. We could do that again.” He paused. “And he has that girlfriend, Lyndsey. Maybe I could have a barbecue that night and invite her and a few of his other friends.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea, Ross. See, you’re better at this whole parenthood thing than you give yourself credit for.”
He wasn’t, though. He had sucked at it when he was a kid forced to take care of his younger siblings and he didn’t feel any more capable now.
“Will you help me?”
The question came out of nowhere, surprising him as much as it did her.
“Help you how?” she asked, that wariness in her eyes again.
So much for keeping his distance from her. Ross sighed. But now that he had asked her, it made sense. He really could use help. It would certainly be easier on his self-control if that help came from someone else, but it was too late to back down now.
“I’m not sure I can handle throwing a teenage party by myself, even a little one,” he admitted. “Sure, I can grill steaks and maybe some burgers but other than that, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
He thought he caught a flash of reluctance in her eyes and he felt foolish for asking. He had already dragged her into their lives too much.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll just get some pop and open a few bags of chips. We should be fine.”
She let out a long breath. “I can help you. I don’t have any plans Saturday. Why don’t you take care of the grill and I’ll handle all the other details? The side dishes, the chips, the cake and ice cream.”
“Are you sure?”
“No problem.” She smiled, with no trace of that hesitation he thought he had seen and he wondered if he had been mistaken. “It will be fun.”
* * *
Fun. Right.
She was an idiot.
Julie sat in her car in the parking lot of the grocery store for several moments after she had loaded her groceries into the trunk of her car.
She had absolutely no willpower when it came to Ross Fortune. Since that stunning kiss they had shared the week before, she had promised herself she would do her best to return things to a casual friendship.
For the sake of her psyche, she had no other choice. It was painfully obvious he wasn’t available for anything else. He had made it quite clear that he only wanted her help with Josh, not for anything else.
She was happy to help with Josh. But she wasn’t at all certain she could continue to do so when she was beginning to entertain all sorts of inappropriate thoughts about the teen’s uncle.
She couldn’t afford to let herself care for Ross, not when they obviously wanted far different things from life.
A woman came out of the store and pushed her cart to the minivan beside Julie’s car. She had a preschool-aged boy hanging off her cart and a curly-haired baby in the cart. The baby was perhaps nine months old, in a pink outfit with bright flowers.
The boy said something to his mother that Julie couldn’t hear but the mother laughed and kissed the child on the nose before she picked up the baby to settle her in her car seat.
As she watched them, Julie’s heart turned over.
That was what she wanted. She was ready for children of her own, for a family. Seven years had passed since Chris’s death and in all the ways that mattered, she had been alone for the last few years of their marriage before that.
She was tired of it. She was ready to move forward with her life. She had even talked to Linda Jamison, the Foundation director, about adopting an older child as a single mother. She had so much love inside her and she wanted somewhere to give it beyond her clients.
Allowing herself to become any more entangled with a man like Ross Fortune would jeopardize all that progress she had made these past seven years toward healing and peace. She sensed it with a certainty she couldn’t deny.
Oh, they might have a brief affair that would probably be intense and passionate and wonderful while it lasted.
But Julie knew she would end up more alone than ever. Alone and heartbroken.
The mother beside her finished loading her groceries and her children and backed out of the parking lot. Julie watched them go with renewed determination.
She would help Ross with Josh’s birthday party and that would be the end of it. If he asked for her help with his nephew again, she would politely tell him she was only available in a professional capacity for more counseling sessions.
It would hurt, she knew. She was already coming to care for him and Josh too much. But she didn’t see she had any other choice.
She’d already lost too much to risk her heart again.