“Oh.” He switched to the glass of water in front of him. Sipping. “So it’s all in the looks, huh?”
“Damn right it is.” Juliet grinned and then her eyes grew serious. “I haven’t ever been with a man I thought I wanted to look at first thing in the morning, or across the dinner table at night, until the day I die.”
He was a little surprised at the instant disappointment her words aroused.
“So maybe you just aren’t the marrying kind.”
“Maybe.” Her smile was sad. “I don’t think so, though. Looking at an empty pillow, an empty chair, instead, is a pretty lonely prospect.”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Juliet McNeil. If you want to find someone, you will.” A beautiful woman. A passionate, smart, funny, strong woman. What man wouldn’t want her if he were in a position to want anybody?
“I’m opinionated and willful and far too outspoken sometimes. And I expect a man to give as good as I hand out. I’m not sure such a man exists.”
Grinning, Blake nodded. “I see what you mean about getting bogged down until you can’t see straight. Because you sure have that one wrong.”
“You think so?” She peered at him, head cocked to one side.
“I do.”
“Well, I’ll take your word for it. And hope that if I run into you again in another nine years, I won’t have to call you a liar.”
“A liar is one thing I’ll never be. At least not consciously.”
SHE HAD TO GO. Mary Jane was going to be home in another hour or so. “You said your ex-wife died. What happened? Cancer?” She had no idea why she asked. She’d already decided his heartache wasn’t her concern.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t offer comfort, especially since she had the idea he needed some. And he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.
He glanced down, then back up, focusing just beyond her. If at all. “Suicide.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that at all. When was she ever going to learn to keep her big mouth shut?
“Apparently she’d decided that because of the choices she’d already made, her life was never going to be what she wanted. She’d blown her chance and didn’t want to settle for anything less.”
For Juliet it was almost an instant replay of another time in her life. And the second time around was no less sad. Or wrong. “You never know what might be waiting around the corner,” she murmured, mostly to herself.
She’d learned that one firsthand.
If she’d had any idea what dimensions Mary Jane would bring to her life, she sure as hell wouldn’t have spent the nine months of her pregnancy afraid that life, as she wanted it to be, was over.
“For all her wild ideas, her free spirit, Amunet held a pretty strong belief that marriage was forever. And that a woman should only marry once.”
“So once you divorced she couldn’t marry again?” Pretty outdated, but Juliet certainly understood that different things mattered to different people. Look at her own twin.
“She did marry again. Quickly. I think to try to escape the state of being divorced.”
“So she was married when she died?”
He shook his head, still focused someplace else—someplace inside. “It didn’t last. And then, to her way of thinking, she had two strikes against her.”
Juliet’s breath caught as he finally glanced at her.
“You blame yourself for this, too.”
“Not completely.”
“Yes, you do.”
He finished his drink. Pushed the glass to the end of the table for their waiter to pick up on his way past. “I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in a couple of years. I certainly had nothing to do with the bottle of pills she got hold of. Or the fact that she took them.”
“Of course you didn’t. But you blame yourself anyway.”
His gaze was certain. “I made some choices in my life that were selfish, thoughtless. I married a woman I barely knew at a time I didn’t even know myself. I promised her forever when I had no idea where I was going to be, who I was going to be, the next week. Sometimes I think the only thing I did right back then was refuse to have children when she asked me. I’d hate to think what the kid’s life would’ve been like being raised by a mother who felt trapped by his or her presence.”
“I guess it would depend on the role you played in the child’s life.” Her stomach knotted. She had to go.
His slow grin surprised her. It wasn’t effusive, or filled with humor, but it was genuine. “It’s been good seeing you again,” he said.
“Yeah, you, too.” She really had to go.
“You wouldn’t want to do it again sometime, would you?”
Probably. And no, never.
“How do you go from that night nine years ago to settling for an occasional drink?”
They couldn’t. That night was there. Between them. Incredible. Time out of time. They’d be driven to do it again. And then…
“You probably don’t,” he admitted.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Anything more than an occasional drink wouldn’t be right. We hardly know each other.”
“Too much too soon.” Too much, period. She had a life. One that didn’t—couldn’t—include him. A life that, if he knew about it, could make him hate her. And what kind of effect would it have on him? He was already bearing an unrealistic responsibility for three deaths due to his youthful quest for self-discovery. He’d told her that night on the beach that he didn’t want children, didn’t want to be in a position to have such control over another individual that he might affect another person as his father had affected him. If he knew that, in his zeal to run, he’d run from his own daughter, he might never fully recover. And always, most important, was Mary Jane. What if Blake knew the truth and still didn’t want kids? His abandonment would devastate Mary Jane.
“It’s probably best that we just leave it as a great memory,” he said.
God, she hated how that sounded. So final. “I think so.”
He was quiet for a moment, then paid the check that the waiter brought. “For now, I think so, too.”
Relief caused her stomach to go weak. The disappointment she’d deal with later, when she was alone that night.
They stood. Walked to the door. Juliet was very careful not to let any part of her touch any part of him.
He held the door. She walked by, feeling his heat, but absolutely determined not to touch him.
She turned to the left. He stood by the door.
“I’m parked over this way.”
She nodded. “I’m back there.”
“This is it, then.” He didn’t come closer. If he’d come closer, maybe…
“Thanks for dinner. And the drinks.” She walked backward slowly as she talked.
Hands in his pockets, he stood there, watching. “You’re welcome.”
“Be happy.”
“You, too.”
There was nothing more to say.
“If you ever find yourself in need of a good attorney, don’t hesitate to call.”
People