Despite telling herself repeatedly not to get her hopes up, Julia couldn’t stop the bubble of optimism from forming. It was one of those traits she sometimes wished she could squash but wouldn’t really if given the choice. Even if it increased her chances of disappointment.
They’d probably just talk, but Julia showered and took her time getting ready. It never hurt to look good. And there was the matter of having five hours to kill. Even with primping, it didn’t take long. She texted Chris and headed to his house.
He answered the door with a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry things went sideways.”
Julia shook her head. “Don’t apologize. It’s not like you had anything to do with it.”
He shrugged. “I encouraged Taylor to go down, to surprise you.”
Her heart ached for the mess she’d created, or at least helped create. “I loved the surprise. It was my ex who threw a wrench in everything.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” He seemed vaguely uncomfortable, like he was worried about loyalties or confidences or something. He tipped his head toward the back of the house. “Jack is in the kitchen.”
She did her best to offer an encouraging smile. “I think I should talk to Taylor first. I’m sure one of us will fill you in sooner rather than later.”
He nodded but frowned. “You’re not going to break her heart, are you?”
The question brought tears to her eyes. God, she’d been doing a lot of crying lately. “I’m going to do everything in my power not to.”
“Good.” Chris pulled her into a hug, making her think how lucky she was to have fallen into this extended family. “You want some coffee or something?”
“I so appreciate the offer—”
He waved a hand. “I understand. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of each other instead of less.”
She nodded, grateful for the encouragement even more. “I hope so.”
He whistled for Waylon, whose head poked up over the back of the sofa in the living room. “Look who’s here.”
Julia smiled at the dog, but then narrowed her eyes at Chris. “I thought he wasn’t allowed on the couch.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
If Taylor was half as happy to see her as Waylon was, things might work out. Julia loaded him into the back seat of the Buick and headed to Taylor’s. When she let him out, he went right to the front door and sniffed his impatience while she riffled around for the key.
Inside, he headed straight for his bed. Julia, who still had time to kill, wandered the first floor and let memories of her time in the house wash over her. She also laughed at herself, seeing as she hadn’t even been gone a month.
When Taylor’s truck pulled into the driveway, she resisted the urge to run out and fling herself into Taylor’s arms. Instead, she went out to the porch. Taylor, minus the jacket and tie but otherwise still in a tux, looked bedraggled but gorgeous. The open vest and untucked shirt only intensified the rumpled sexiness. Not where her brain needed to be right now.
Taylor climbed the steps slowly, like someone who hadn’t slept at all and who’d spent the night roaming the city.
“I thought you were here,” Julia said in lieu of a greeting.
Taylor offered a half-smile. “I thought you were there.”
“Do you want some coffee? A shower?”
“I’m going to say yes to both, but we should talk.”
“We will.” Despite the churning in her gut, the need to take care of Taylor beat the need to have it out immediately. “You go shower and I’ll put a pot on.”
Without another word, Taylor nodded and headed for the stairs. Julia hoped it was fatigue talking and not resignation.
Twenty minutes later, Taylor came down in clean clothes, feeling at least halfway human. They sat on the sofa, facing each other, but not touching. Taylor fought the urge to take Julia’s face in her hands, to kiss her and tell her she was sorry and pretend the last twenty-four hours never happened. As good as that might feel in the moment, it wouldn’t solve anything.
“I never—”
“Can I start—”
Just as she’d started to speak, Julia did, too. Taylor motioned to her. “You first.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about Erica’s connection to the foundation. I was annoyed by it, and I had this nagging feeling that maybe she’d had something to do with my selection and I was ashamed and scared.”
It killed her that Julia still questioned herself. Almost as much as the fact that Julia questioned her. “I get it. I swear I do. But if we have any chance of making this work, you can’t go it alone.”
“I understand that now. If I’d told you, nothing she could have said would have made you assume—”
“She did a hell of a lot more than make me assume.” Taylor spat out the words, unable to keep the anger from bubbling back up.
Julia rolled her eyes. “Of course she did. God, I was so stupid to think even for a second that maybe she’d changed.”
“She changed her mind, that’s for sure. She realized what a colossal mistake it was letting you go.” Try as she might, Taylor couldn’t shake the mental picture of Erica’s hand on Julia’s back, on her bare skin.
Julia shook her head. “I don’t think she wanted me back. She just wanted to know she could.”
“Could she?” She hated herself for asking, but she needed to hear Julia deny it.
“Seriously?” Julia’s eyes narrowed, but Taylor couldn’t bring herself to take the question back. Julia waited a beat. “No. No, she could not. Even if I wasn’t in love with you, I could never trust her again.”
Taylor would never know if the flip her stomach did came from Julia’s dismissal of her ex or saying she was in love. “Could you say that again?”
“That I can’t, won’t, ever trust her again?”
Taylor smiled. “No, the other part.”
Confusion played across Julia’s face before realization flashed in her eyes. She returned the smile. “I love you. I’m so ridiculously in love with you.”
Taylor stilled. The seeds of doubt, those planted by Erica as well as the ones conjured from Taylor’s own mind, scattered. “Julia—”
Julia pressed a finger to Taylor’s lips. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m not taking it back, though. I love you in the ‘you’re an amazing person’ sort of way, but also,” she paused, as though searching for the right words, “the ‘you make my heart flutter and make me imagine a forever’ way. You should know that.”
Taylor wrapped her fingers around Julia’s wrist. She pulled Julia’s hand away, but not before kissing each of her fingers. “I love you, too.”
Julia cringed. “I get the timing of this is shit. I just, wait, what?”
Taylor laced their fingers together. “I love you, too. You’re right about the timing, but I don’t see why we’d start being conventional now.”
“Me.” Julia moved her hands up and down to indicate herself. “You really are in love with me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Julia’s tone was incredulous. Taylor took her hands. “You. It’s always been you.”
Julia nodded. “I used to think love was all about losing yourself in another person. But you make me feel seen, loved, as a whole person, exactly as I am. I can’t tell you how much that means. You’re the one for me today, tomorrow, always.”
Taylor pulled her into a kiss. “I’ll take it.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Julia got this worried look on her face. When she took a shaky breath, Taylor braced herself. “I think I should withdraw from the program. I want to be here, with you. And having anything to do with the foundation feels like a conflict of interest at this point.”
Taylor shook her head. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Ethan and Enrique and Nyasha and Daniyal and Anna…” She trailed off, not sure of how many more of Julia’s students she could call by name.
Julia’s head dropped. “Yeah.”
“They’re counting on you. They need you.”
Julia looked up and into Taylor’s eyes. “But what about you? Don’t you need me?”
If only there were words for how much. “I do. But as much as I love having you in arm’s reach, I don’t need that.”
“I know, but—”
“I love you, Julia, but I also trust you.”
“Do you? I have to be honest, it hasn’t felt that way lately.” Her eyes held more sadness than anger.
“When you didn’t tell me about the residency in the first place, it threw me. I thought I’d gotten over it, but I guess I’d just set it to the side.” Because that was her habit, because she didn’t want to rock the boat.
Julia looked at her hands again. “That’s fair.”
If they were being honest, she should probably own the rest of it. “I think I also had this fear you’d change your mind.”
“About you?”
Taylor blew out a breath and looked at the ceiling. “About everything. You came home because you had to not because you wanted to.”
“That’s fair, too. But so much has changed. You have to believe everything that’s happened over the last few months has been real.”
For as much as she wanted to blame Julia for the doubts and questions, she knew they were rooted in her own fears. Fear of being everything to Julia, but also nothing. “I believe it. I know I’ve not been the best at showing it lately, but I do.”
Julia nodded, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry I ever did anything to jeopardize your trust.”
Taylor traced her thumb across Julia’s cheek, wiping away one that spilled over. “Then trust me enough to tell me things, even the hard things.”
“I will.” She sniffed. “You, too.”
“This might be a good time to tell you I’ve decided to open up a shop.” Suddenly, it didn’t seem so hard.
“You have?”
“In addition to wanting to surprise you and be there for your big night, I wanted to tell you in person. I found a storefront. I wanted to show you, pictures at least, before I signed the lease. But now I can show you in person.”
Julia’s eyes got huge and a grin spread across her face. “That’s amazing.”
“I was hoping you might consider making it a joint venture. Running it, but also stocking it. I don’t want it to just be my furniture. I want to sell your photography, too.”
“Really?”
“And Mandy’s jewelry and all sorts of local crafts and art and stuff. There’s no reason Kenota shouldn’t have a store like that.”
Julia nodded. “And no reason it shouldn’t be yours.”
Taylor shook her head. “Ours.”
Julia’s grin softened, and for the first time since Julia told her about winning the contest, Taylor believed everything was going to work out. “Ours.”
* * *
On the drive to the shop, Julia did her best not to fidget. Her mind raced, thinking about the next five months and whether she could really tolerate being away from home, from the launch of a new venture. If Taylor would really wait for her.
“It’s empty now, but the lease wouldn’t start until January. I’m hoping to knock off the first month or two of rent by offering to do some work on the place. I thought maybe we’d open in May.”
Julia looked at Taylor sideways. “Are you reading my mind now?”
Taylor grinned. “A spring opening is always better than winter. Besides, I’m not about to do this without you.”
The calm certainty of Taylor’s declaration warmed Julia’s heart, especially after how the last twenty-four hours, or even the last month, had played out. It gave her the certainty she’d not been able to muster on her own.
They pulled into the parking lot of a building Julia had been in at least a hundred times. It sat on the old stretch of Main Street that languished in her teens but had started to bounce back in recent years. A couple of shops, one of those wine and paint places, a brewery. This specific building had been home to a bookstore, one she’d been sad to see close up in the wake of ebooks and online retailers. It had been empty for ages.
“This is the place? Brown’s. For real?”
Taylor lifted a shoulder. “It’s been wanting for a new life, don’t you think?”
She did. “It’s a little surreal that it might be ours.”
“I called the owner and she said she’d stop by and unlock it for us.”
Taylor took her hand and in they went, right through the front door. Julia looked up and smiled. A bell announced their arrival. Inside, it was just as she’d remembered, only empty. Memories of coming here with her friends, poring over used copies of the Babysitter’s Club series or, later, Harlequins. She turned a slow circle. “It’s amazing.”
“You haven’t seen the best part.” Taylor’s smile was sly.
“Hard to imagine something better than this.” The space was truly perfect: huge windows, concrete floors stained an earthy green, great light. All the bookshelves had been cleared away, leaving an open and airy feel.
Taylor took her hand and led her toward the back. “Come with me.”
“If you’re more excited about the stockroom than the retail side, I’m going to give you a really hard time.”
“The stockroom is impressive, but no.”
Taylor opened a door and flicked a switch. The room was kind of large for an office, but it had an old desk and a few chairs in it, along with a pair of oak filing cabinets. “You’re excited about an office?”
“I thought we could set up a mini office in the stockroom.”
“Um, I’m confused, then.”
“I did some research, and I think if we get you the right lights and background screens, it’ll work.”
Realization dawned and Julia’s heart flipped in her chest. “You want this to be my studio?”
“I mean, I know it’s on the small side, but it wouldn’t be a bad start, especially since you do a lot of shoots outside or on location. And you’d be able to spend your money on equipment instead of rent.”
She could see it as clearly as she could see Taylor standing in front of her. She didn’t need an elaborate setup, and this fit the bill perfectly. Even better, it was within her reach. More than the prospect of taking her business to the next level was knowing Taylor had been thinking about her—the future she wanted to build for the two of them. Not that she’d even consider Erica at this point, but the difference was stark.
“If you don’t like it, it’s okay. I don’t want you to feel obligated or, worse, trapped.” Taylor looked at her with concern.
“I don’t like it.” She closed the distance between them. “I love it.”
“I figured the foot traffic would be good exposure for you, and if your clients happen to shop while they’re here, it’s a win for everyone.”
It was. It would be. And the best part, they’d be in it together. “Where do I sign?”
Taylor, being Taylor, had the paperwork at the ready. They reviewed the terms together. Taylor was basically taking on the lease herself, and Julia would contribute a portion of the rent for her space, but Taylor had gotten it all written into the agreement. It made Julia feel like they were equals, but not like she was making an impulsive decision she might regret later. Then, after one more look around the space and a long, lingering kiss near the registers, they signed on the dotted line.