Cutting Through

by Joan Hohl

  The coffee arrived a few minutes before Jon walked back into the room, dressed in pajama pants and a silk robe. Julia had already poured cups for both of them. He picked up the cup, cradling it as he sat opposite her.

  “Okay, Julia, what’s this all about?”

  “Us.” She gently blew on the hot beverage before trying a sip.

  “What about us?” His voice held a wary note.

  Julia took another, bolstering sip. “About whether or not we’re going to stay together.”

  Jon nearly choked. “Are you telling me you want a divorce?”

  “Is that what you want?” Julia asked, sounding steady, feeling quivery inside.

  “Me? No!” He stared at her in amazement. “I didn’t start this.” He stopped, closed his eyes as he grimaced, then opening his eyes again said, “Or maybe I did.”

  Thrown off by his statement, Julia stared at him. “What do you mean, maybe you did?”

  “Julia, I should have told you this from the beginning.” He stopped to take a deep—strength gathering?—breath.

  Oh, God, no. Brooke. She felt sick and had to force the question through her dry throat. “Tell me what?”

  Though Jon hesitated a moment longer, he met her intent gaze squarely. “I performed the surgery on Emily.”

  She blinked, thrown even further off-kilter. In the next instant, the full content of his confession hit her. “You did what? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I performed most of the surgery on Emily,” he repeated, going on to explain. “Halfway through the procedure, Doctor Michaelson felt light-headed, almost fell. One of the assistants caught him. It quickly passed, but he no longer felt safe doing the surgery. Emily was prepped, out cold on the table. He told me I’d have to do it…and I did.” He grabbed another quick breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  “Jon…I…” Julia shook her head, angry and mystified. “After the way I had begged you to do it yourself—” She paused in an attempt to control herself. It didn’t help. Jumping up, she shouted at him, “Damn you, why the hell didn’t you tell me then, or at any time since?”

  “Julia,” he said with careful patience. “Please calm…”

  “No!” she yelled over his even tones. “I won’t calm down. You have been keeping this from me for years. I want an answer. Now!”

  “Okay.” He tried a smile; it was more a grimace. “Maybe it was pride or maybe stupidity…” Again her scathing voice cut across his, shocking him.

  “No shit, Dick Tracy.”

  Jon stared at her in sheer amazement.

  Julia understood why. She never used that kind of language. She thought it at times, but never used it.

  “I’m waiting.” She prompted him.

  “I was hurt,” he suddenly blurted. “Dammit, Julia, you worked in the medical field, around doctors for years. You should have known, understood why I was so unwilling to perform the surgery.” He shuddered. “For God’s sake, Julia. She’s my, our baby. One tiny tremor in my hand and…I could have killed her, and if I had, I would have killed myself.” Tears pooled in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Julia, what’s hard to understand about that?”

  Julia was stunned by his outcry. His words were more prayer than curse. Tears ran down his face.

  She had never seen Jon cry before, not even when their babies were born. She had always believed he was simply the type of man who thought it unmanly to weep. Maybe she had been wrong all along.

  Maybe she had been wrong about a lot of things.

  Any maybe it was time for confessions all around.

  “I’m sorry.” Julia lowered her eyes, ashamed to meet his gaze. “I knew all along that I was wrong to insist you do the surgery.” She raised her eyes, bit her lips, sighed. “You see, I did understand…but I was so terrified. And I believed absolutely that you were the very best for Emily.” Tears stung her own eyes. “I understood, and still I’ve been harboring resentment all this time, letting it color my feelings, my life.”

  “Thank you.”

  The soft sound of his voice, his words, startled her.

  “For what? For resenting you all this time?”

  He smiled, sadly. “No, Julia, for having the courage to tell me after all this time.”

  “Have you been working up to telling me you want a divorce?” Jon asked.

  “I’ve thought about it,” she answered with blunt honesty. “Neither one of us can claim the last years have been…” She broke off, shrugging.

  “No, neither one of us can,” he agreed, mirroring her shrug.

  “It’s certainly been no bed of roses.”

  “It’s hardly been any bed at all,” he came back at her, making an obvious point.

  “What about Brooke?” she retorted.

  “What about her?”

  “Have you slept with her?” Her anger was showing again. She didn’t care, it was better than revealing the pain of feeling betrayed.

  “No. No. No.” Jon exploded. “I told you I had not been intimate with her.”

  “You don’t call kissing her intimate?” she cried. “Not just once, but several times?”

  “Okay.” He was breathing heavily, but he had managed to calm his voice. “Yes, as I told you, I kissed her, several times but that was all. I couldn’t do it, Julia, but I admit I was tempted, very tempted. What man whose wife was distant wouldn’t be?”

  Julia stiffened. “I never refused you, turned you away, had a headache.”

  “I know that, Julia.” He rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly looking tired. “But you were so passive, showed very little feeling.” A half smile flickered over his lips. “Until the last couple of times.” He flicked a hand to indicate their surroundings. “That night in this hotel. You were on fire.”

  “I was experiencing the same thing you were feeling,” she said in the most dignified tone she could muster. “Lust. Old-fashioned, down and dirty, lust.”

  “Works for me.” He had the audacity to grin at her.

  Julia pulled a stern face to keep from grinning back at him. “I hear it does for most men.”

  Jon swept a slow, suggestive look over her. “For many women, too.”

  Her spark of humor died. “If lust is all that’s left between us, there’s not much hope for our marriage, is there?”

  “Do you expect the carefree days of our youth to last forever?” he said, beginning to look beaten and strangely hopeless.

  “I’m not a silly fool, Jon. I know the excitement of first love can’t possibly last. I’ve always known that.” She heard his soft sigh of relief, but she wasn’t finished.

  “I’ve also always known that a marriage doesn’t have to deteriorate into long silences and loneliness either. There’s always the hope of laughter, companionship, as a couple grow old together.”

  “You’re saying I’m away from home too much.”

  Julia wasn’t about to pull her punches. “Yes, you are not home enough, and I think it’s deliberate.”

  Jon bristled. “I do have a large practice, you know.”

  Julia sighed, beginning to feel defeated. “I know you do. I also know you no longer need to put in those long hours. You’ve been hiding, taking any and all patients to keep from coming home.”

  He looked down, as if fascinated by his shoes. “Maybe I didn’t think there was any reason to come home.” He glanced up, challenge in his expression. “Is there?”

  The air of defeat dissipated. “Yes, there’s our daughters, who love you very much.” She drew a quick breath. “And there’s me. I still live there, you know. And I still love you.”

  “I’m glad, about both. Because I still love you. I always will.” He swallowed, smiled. “I’ll start trimming my patient list Monday. It may take a while.”

  She smiled back. “That’s okay. I won’t be lonely after the girls go back to school. You see, I’m going back to work.”

  “What?” Jon frowned. “Why?”

  Julia shrugged. “Because I
want to.”

  “Oh.” The frown disappeared. “Where?”

  Julia laughed, the easiest she had laughed while with him in much too long a time. “I’m going back to radiology. I’ve already talked to Jim Murro, the new head of the department?” He nodded. “He suggested I start by following around a tech to bring me up to speed. I start the day after the girls go back to school.”

  “What about all your other activities?”

  This time she allowed herself a wide grin. “I was planning to start trimming back Monday.”

  Jon began to laugh, the same joyful laugh he’d had before Emily’s fall.

  Laughing with him, Julia slid her hand into his and led him to the bedroom.

  A little healthy lust never hurt an aging marriage…or the couple in it.

  Turn the page for another exciting NEXT read

  that will have all your friends talking.

  Here’s an exciting sneak peek of Old Boyfriends,

  a brand-new story by USA TODAY

  bestselling author Rexanne Becnel,

  available now from Harlequin NEXT.

  My friend M.J.’s husband died on a Friday, lying on the table during a therapeutic massage. A massive heart attack, that’s how the newspaper reported it. But that’s only because his son and the PR firm for their restaurant chain made sure that’s what they reported.

  The truth? Viagra and the too-capable ministrations of a pseudo-woman, pseudo-masseuse wearing a black oriental wig, a red thong and fishnet hose are what did in Frank Hollander. The table was actually a round bed covered with black satin sheets, with an honest-to-God mirror on the ceiling. The House of the Rising Sun serves a very good hot and sour soup downstairs, but the therapy going on upstairs isn’t the sort that the chairman of this year’s United Way Fund Drive could afford to be associated with.

  Needless to say, the funeral was huge. The mayor spoke, the bishop said the mass and the choir from St. Joseph’s Special School, a major beneficiary of the United Way, sang good old Frank into the ground. As pure as those kids’ souls were, even they couldn’t have sung Frank into heaven.

  Afterwards, M.J.’s stepchildren entertained the mourners at her home, where everyone came up to the widow and said all the things they were supposed to:

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hollander.”

  “If I can do anything, Mary Jo, just call. Promise me you’ll call.”

  “Your husband was a great man, Mrs. Hollander. We’ll all miss him.”

  Blah, blah, blah. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. But Bitsey had given me my marching orders and I knew my role. I was there to support M.J.

  Thank God for Bitsey—and I’m not using the Lord’s name casually when I say that. Thank you, God, for giving me Bitsey. She’s like the voice of reason in my life, the perfect mother image for someone sorely deprived of that in her biological parent.

  M.J., Bitsey and me. Three girls raised in the South, but trapped in California.

  Well, I think that maybe I was the only one who felt trapped in the vast, arid beigeness of southern California. But then, I felt trapped wherever I was. I was slowly figuring that out.

  That Tuesday, however, at M.J.’s palatial home with the air-conditioning running double-time, and Frank Jr.’s Pacific rim fusion restaurant catering the after-funeral festivities, we were all feeling trapped. Sushi at a funeral is beyond unreal.

  Bitsey had explained to M.J. that she had to stay downstairs until the last guests left. She was the hostess, and it was only right. But yes, she could anaesthetize herself if she wanted to. Everyone else was.

  So M.J. in her perfect size-six black Giselle dress and her Jimmy Choo sling backs, with her Effay makeup and Liz Taylor fragrance, sat in Frank Sr.’s favorite fake leopard-skin chair and tossed back five vodka martinis in less than two hours.

  M.J. drank, Bitsey ate, and I fumed and wanted to get the hell out of there. That awful, morbid couple of hours sums up pretty well how the three of us react to any stress thrown our way. And God knows there’s enough of it. When Bitsey hurts, she eats. Even when she was on Phen-Fen, and now Meridia, if she’s hurting—especially if her husband, Jack, pulls some stunt—she eats. Considering that Jack Albertson can be a coldhearted bastard, and unlike Frank, doesn’t bother to hide it, it’s no wonder she’s packed close to two hundred pounds onto her five-foot frame. The more she eats, the fatter she gets, and the more remote and critical he gets. Which, of course, makes her eat even more.

  But I digress, which I do a lot. According to my sometimes therapist, that’s a typical coping mechanism: catalog everybody else’s flaws and you’ll be too busy to examine your own. M.J. drinks, Bitsey eats, and I run. New job. New man. New apartment.

  Today, however, I had vowed to hang in there, bite my tongue and generally struggle against every impulse I had.

  Here’s an exciting preview of Pelican Bay,

  the first title in an exciting new

  three-book miniseries by Charlotte Douglas,

  available in September from Harlequin NEXT.

  Six hours after first arriving at Edith Wainwright’s home, I eased my way through the door of my town house, mindful of sleeping neighbors. With nerves as raw as ground meat and my brain wired from too much coffee and adrenaline, sleep wouldn’t come easy.

  I climbed the stairs to the second-floor bedroom, peeled off my navy blazer and tossed it onto the quilted bedspread. As was my habit, I removed my Smith & Wesson .357 from its holster, both the property of the Pelican Bay Police Department, and placed it on the bedside table. Beside it I put my ID, Maggie Skerritt, Detective, then set the alarm for 6:00 a.m., just a few hours away.

  After hanging my canvas shoulder holster on a hook inside the closet door, I tugged off my khaki skirt and plaid blouse and kicked off my loafers. I was stuck in a time warp. Almost thirty years out of college, and I still dressed like a preppy coed.

  At least I was consistent. The oversized PBPD T-shirt I chose to sleep in wouldn’t be out of place in any college dorm. After grabbing a blanket from the foot of my bed, I opened the sliding glass doors to the balcony, wrapped the blanket around me and settled on the cushions of the lounge chair.

  When my father died, I’d used the money from my inheritance to buy a small condo on the waterfront. Its living room opened onto a small lawn with a seawall that held back the waters of St. Joseph Sound. I figured my investment had saved me thousands in psychiatry bills. When the stress of my job mounted, I’d sit on the seawall or the bedroom balcony and watch waves lap against the shore. The lulling, white noise of wind and water almost always scoured away the tensions and frustrations of work.

  Tonight, I counted on the soothing surf and sea breeze to ease my racing mind so I could sleep, but I didn’t hold out much hope.

  I flashed back in my mind to the crime scene I’d reviewed earlier and the nosy neighbor I’d met before entering Edith Wainwright’s home. Mrs. Eagleton claimed she’d looked through the dining-room window after hearing her cat crying and noticing Edith’s car still in the driveway long after she should have left for work. To her amazement, she saw Edith lying on the floor in the hallway with her cat by her side. That was when she’d called the police.

  What I saw upon entering Edith’s home was the victim, lying like a beached whale across the threshold between the living room and the hallway, her dark, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. Neither the extra pounds nor the trauma of death disguised the beauty of the woman’s face, the product of good bones, flawless skin, and youth.

  What surprised me most was that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning, ingested by the victim herself. All signs pointed to murder, but with no indications of forced entry or a struggle, was it possible Edith Wainwright had committed suicide? Her diary revealed no one who might have snuffed her in the throes of hot-blooded passion.

  But my instincts told me I was dealing with murder, the first in over five years in Pelican Bay. I took a dim view of some crazy out there killing the
people I was sworn to protect and serve.

  Young and getting her life on track, Edith Wainwright shouldn’t have died. The more I’d studied the scene and evidence, the more convinced I’d become that Edith’s death was murder. After all, besides pinpointing no one specific who’d want her dead, her most recent diary entries were filled with upbeat, hopeful details of every pound shed, every new step taken to the life she’d always wanted. But with crucial details like motive, opportunity, and suspects missing from my assessment, I was at a loss to explain why it wasn’t suicide.

  All I knew was, Edith Wainwright’s family deserved answers, and my mind couldn’t stop turning over every possible scenario.

  Clearly I was in for a long night.

  COMING NEXT MONTH

  Be enthralled, moved, thrilled, delighted…and satisfied by exceptional reads from outstanding authors and well-loved series.

  Come back every two weeks for newly released selections in eight varied categories offering stories that appeal to every taste and mood.

  Have a great time!

  AVAILABLE NOW

  Showcase

  Enthralling stories by the brightest stars in women’s fiction—from MIRA Books; and big romances that sweep you away—from HQN Books

  KILLER TAKES ALL by Erica Spindler, MIRA (psychological thriller)

  BEFORE SUNRISE by Diana Palmer (contemporary romance)

  DARK SKY by Carla Neggers, MIRA (romantic suspense)

  50 HARBOR STREET by Debbie Macomber, MIRA (women’s fiction)

  GHOST WALK by Heather Graham, MIRA (paranormal mystery)

  Sexy Reads

  Powerful, provocative tales full of heat and passion—from Harlequin Blaze, Silhouette Desire and Harlequin Presents

  THE ITALIAN’S STOLEN BRIDE by Emma Darcy, Harlequin Presents

  UNCONTROLLABLE by Susan Kearney, Harlequin Blaze

  WHATEVER RILEY WANTS by Maureen Child, Silhouette Desire

  SEXY ALL OVER by Jamie Sobrato, Harlequin Blaze