by Teresa Hill
"I would have," he said quietly.
All the breath went out of her at the understanding look in his eyes and the promise of the words.
She believed he would have, even after all these years, and to someone like her, who'd never really had the kind of family she could depend upon, it meant the world to her, knowing that.
And she was kicking him out of her life at practically the first sight of him in years? It sounded crazy when she thought about it like that. It wasn't like she had a lot of people in her corner.
Julie sat down, her legs trembling, her hands, too.
Zach leaned back in his chair, looking perfectly comfortable, waiting for whatever she'd say next.
It was an old trick of his. He sat and stared at people, and they confessed everything. She used to squirm and look at the floor and tell herself to just get up and walk away. But she didn't. She'd found herself telling him the hardest things, the things she'd most wanted to hide.
"That's it?" she asked finally. "You're going to let me off that easy?"
"You want me to give you a hard time, I will," he said with a grin. "I'd probably say something about it being a mistake to lie to a man you're going to marry, but I doubt you need me to tell you that."
"No, I don't." She'd told herself that very thing time and time again. "And I told him, Zach. I did. I told him there were things that happened back home—"
"In St. Louis? Did you ever live in St. Louis?"
"No," she admitted. "But does it really matter where I was?"
"It seems to. To you."
She let that go. Honestly, it wasn't important. She'd just felt safer, thinking if anyone ever went looking, they'd go there and not find anything. Because she'd never been there.
"Anyway," she went on. "I told Steve I hadn't had the greatest childhood, that there were things I wasn't dying to talk to him about, and he's okay with that. He said I didn't have to tell him anything I didn't want to."
"Okay," Zach said.
But with his tone, he managed to say he didn't think it was.
"Everything is different for me here," she tried. "I'm different."
"Are you happy, Julie?"
"Yes," she insisted.
"Talk to anybody back home lately?" Zach put his feet up on the coffee table, like he was settling in for a nice long chat. His shirt gaped open even farther, showing even more skin, tanned and delineated by the muscles beneath.
"No." And she liked it that way. Honestly, she did.
There was something so nice about being in a brand-new place and starting over completely. She could be anyone she wanted to be. So she was surprised to sit here with him and realize how nice it was to be with someone so familiar. It seemed there were a million memories stuffed into her head that came flooding back, tiny little things she'd done and people she'd known that he would know, too. It might be nice to sit here and catch up, but it seemed dangerous, too. Like opening a door she might not be able to close again.
And she liked having that door closed.
"Your mother and stepfather are still there," Zach offered. "Your little brother, too."
"Half brother." He'd be thirteen now, and she barely knew him.
She had to turn away for a moment. There'd been a time... a you-and-me-against-the-world kind of time, when Peter had been so little and the house had been loud and crazy. When things had scared him, and he'd come running to her.
But that was a long time ago. Her stepfather had seen what was happening and hadn't liked it. She'd never known exactly what he'd said or done to change things between her and Peter, but they had changed. Not that it mattered now. The damage had been done a long time ago.
"Zach, there's nothing back there for me anymore."
"Okay."
He waited, patient as always, as if he thought she might change her mind. She wouldn't.
"Look, it was good to see you again," she said. Unsettlingly good. She knew she couldn't afford to linger.
"You, too. You look great," he said, and it was probably her imagination, had to be, that he stared at her legs for a minute as he said it.
She grabbed her purse, dug for her keys, then remembered one more thing. "About the engagement party... You don't really want to go, do you, Zach?"
"What if your parents were in some kind of trouble, Julie? What if Peter was? Would you want to know then?"
"No," she insisted, that little voice inside saying, Go now, while you still can.
They were a mess no one could fix. She'd be damned if, now that she'd built a new life for herself, she'd be drawn back into theirs. If that made her selfish in Zach's eyes...
It did. She could see that. Family was so important to him.
But then, she'd disappointed Zach McRae so many times before. She'd disappointed herself, too, but she could live with that. The distance from her family was what kept her safe—and halfway sane.
"I really have to go," she said.
He nodded once again, still watching her in that quiet, unsettling way of his. She would not let him make her feel bad, and she wouldn't defend herself to him.
She wasn't going to let herself think that this meant she probably wouldn't see him again. Judging from her unsettling reaction to him, it was certainly for the best.
"I'm sorry, Zach," she said at the door.
He stood leaning casually against it. "I hope this works for you, Julie. I hope it makes you happy."
But she knew he didn't think it would. He thought it would all backfire in her face, and everything she was trying so hard to hide would come out.
Bed of Lies
The McRae's Series
Book Three
by
Teresa Hill
~
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Bed of Lies
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Complete your journey with an excerpt
from Teresa Hill's
Critically Acclaimed
Unbreak My Heart
Excerpt from
Unbreak My Heart
by
Teresa Hill
USA Today Bestselling Author
Prologue
Nine-year-old Allie Bennett woke to a hand shaking her shoulder, a light shining in her eyes. "Allie?" Her mother's voice was odd and tense. "Come on. We have to get up now."
"Is it morning?" She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her soft pillow. "Do I have school today?"
"No. No school. It's not morning. But we have to get up. Now."
"Why?" Allie said. Outside, it was dark. Inside, the only light came from the flashlight her mother held.
"You and I are going away. Tonight."
"Away?" she whispered, the first flickering of unease creeping in.
Her sister, Megan, went away. And never came back.
Megan ran away six months ago. Allie still missed her desperately. She sneaked into Megan's room sometimes and lay on Megan's bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms clasped around them, and inside she just ached from missing her sister.
"Why are we going away?" Allie whispered, scared now. It seemed she'd been scared the whole time since Megan disappeared.
"We just have to. Be a good girl for me and hurry." Her mother went to Allie's closet and flung open the doors. "Get dressed while I pack your things."
Her mother handed her a pair of jeans and a sweater, socks and her favorite shoes. Still sleepy, she hurried to put them on, watching in growing fear as her mother hastily stuffed things from Allie's closet into two suitcases. Cold, Allie grabbed her favorite doll and sat on her bed wrapped up in her comforter.
Outside, the rain was loud. At times she heard the crackle and boom of thunder, saw a flash of lightning. Her mother, breathing hard and still wiping away tears, took Allie by
the hand and led her down the big, curving staircase to the front door. Two more bags sat there, packed and waiting. From out front, Allie heard a car horn.
"There's the cab," her mother said, reaching down for the bags.
There were footsteps behind them. Allie turned and ran to her father. He lifted her into his arms and held her, something he rarely did now that she was so big.
She held on tight. "Daddy? We're going on a trip?"
"Oh, baby. I love you. Will you remember that? Always? I love you."
She nodded gravely. He put her down and went to her mother. There were whispers, strangely intense whispers. Something was terribly wrong. Sick with fear, Allie remembered the morning they woke up and found Megan gone. She wanted to be back upstairs safe in her bed.
Her mother and father began arguing. Her father said, "Don't do this, Janet. Don't take her away from me." Her mother, weeping, said, "I've already lost one daughter. I'm not going to lose another one."
And that was that. Her father turned away.
Allie ran to him and threw herself into his arms once again. "Daddy?" she said urgently. "You're not coming with us?"
"I'm sorry, baby." She saw tears in his eyes, thought his heart must hurt, just like hers did. "I'm so sorry."
"For what?" she said. Whatever it was, he'd said he was sorry. When someone said he was sorry, you were supposed to forgive him and be his friend again. Her mother taught her that.
"If I could go back and change things, I would, Allie," he said. "And I'll always love you."
There was a rush of air, and the sound of the rain grew louder. Someone must have opened the front door. She buried her face against her father's neck, the next moments a terrifying blur. She remembered screaming and holding onto her father, her mother pulling her away, her father wearing such an odd expression on his face as he watched them disappear into the night.
Chapter 1
It was just a house, Allie told herself as she climbed the front steps for the first time in fifteen years and paused outside the massive door of wood and beveled glass.
Of course, that was like saying this was merely a small town in Kentucky. That it held no power over her. It was like saying all the people now gone from her life were nothing more than her family, like claiming that finding herself virtually alone in the world didn't matter in the least.
It did.
So did this house.
A shiver started at the base of her skull and worked its way down her spine, chilling her through and through. Allie wasn't sure if she could open the door and walk across the threshold. She never expected it to be this hard to come back, never expected anything as ridiculous as an eerie feeling about a house to throw her so off balance. Especially after she'd read the letters and realized she had to come back.
She was a careful, cautious woman, with her feet planted firmly upon the ground, one who'd spent the past six months watching her last living relative—her mother—die. There wasn't a single, silly, fanciful notion in her head, and certainly not a superstitious one.
Still, the house seemed to have a power all its own. It stood three stories tall, a stately mass of whitewashed stone with white columns on either side of the entrance. Statuesque oaks and broad, full willow trees—weeping willows, for which the road was named—shaded the entire area and hid most of the house from passersby. Rosebushes, azaleas, and all sorts of greenery had run amok throughout the yard, and she could smell the river from here, the scent achingly familiar.
Outwardly, there was nothing at all sinister about the house, just an air of abandonment, of loneliness, and of isolation. Yet Allie had felt a sense of dread building inside her from the moment she learned it was still standing, that it passed to her mother upon her father's death two and a half years ago, then to Allie at her own mother's death.
Until then, Allie hadn't even known her own father was dead and buried. She never had a chance to ask why a mother would keep such a thing a secret. Allie had written him letters for years, letters he never answered, letters she now suspected her mother never mailed. She'd found one among her mother's possessions, stamped, addressed, just lying in a box gathering dust, letters in which she'd poured out her heart to a father she believed hadn't cared enough about her to even take the time to write her back. And now there was this thing with her sister... Could her mother have lied to her about what really happened to Allie's sister, too? Why would she ever do that?
Allie sighed. Why indeed? Maybe for the same reason that fifteen years ago Allie and her mother had run off into the night and never returned. Maybe if she could solve that one mystery, she could solve them all.
A strong autumn breeze, surprisingly chilly for this early in the fall, whipped around the corner, hissing menacingly as it came and smelling of rain. The wind wrapped itself around Allie, sending shivers through her. It felt like an omen, like someone or something warning her, Don't go inside.
Unnerved, Allie was grateful to see a car pull into the circular driveway. A statuesque man with stark white hair and a kind smile climbed out of the car.
"Miss Bennett? I'm William Webster." The man in his sixties moved slowly up the walkway and held out a hand. "I'm so sorry I'm late."
Allie wasn't sorry at all. She didn't want to go inside. They shook hands, and she said, "I appreciate you meeting me here on such short notice."
"No problem at all, young lady," he said, smiling. "I'm awfully sorry to hear about your mother. And I'm glad someone's finally going to do something with this old place. It's a shame the way it sat empty all these years."
She smiled, knowing it was as obvious an opening as she was likely to get.
Ask him, she told herself. Just ask.
"I made copies of the keys for you." Mr. Webster pulled a set from the pocket of his overcoat. "Had the utilities turned on, too. Shall we go inside?"
"Of course."
She hadn't come all this way to cower on the front porch. After all, it was just a house, stone and mortar, wood and plasterboard. An inanimate object. It could not hurt her.
In fact, the few memories she had of this place were happy ones—at least until that last summer. Until her sixteen-year-old sister ran off into the night and was never seen alive again. Somewhere on a rural highway in Georgia, Megan had died in a car accident. At least, that's what Allie had been told. To this day, Allie didn't know why her sister ran away, and she could no longer be certain how her sister died, either.
Glancing up at the stately white columns flanking the entranceway like the most stoic of sentinels, she wondered if the answers to that particular mystery were somewhere inside. She hoped so, because there was no one left to ask. There was no other place to go for answers. Except here.
The front door opened with an ominous creak. The lawyer stepped back to allow her to enter. Allie took that first step. And caught her heel on the antique rug just inside the doorway, nearly falling down.
"Careful." Mr. Webster's hand shot out to steady her. His other hand stretched past her left shoulder and found the light switch.
Nothing happened.
"Why am I not surprised?" Allie said.
"I'm so sorry," he said, flipping three wall switches in a row, all to no avail. "My secretary called the power company as soon as I hung up the phone with you yesterday. They assured her this would be taken care of by now."
"Oh, I didn't mean this is your fault. Just that I'm not surprised at any little glitches. It's been a difficult day."
She spared him her tale of flying through the storm. Now she found herself in something akin to a mausoleum with no electricity. Glancing outside the open doorway, she saw the faint light of day beginning to fade. Soon it would give way to full darkness, made even more ominous by the clouds that would obliterate the moon and the stars. She'd be alone with nothing but her memories and wild speculations about why she'd been so scared to come back.
Mr. Webster phoned the power company about her electricity. Allie hovered just inside the doorway
thinking that perhaps this was a blessing. She didn't have to stay. It would have been silly to go to a hotel when she had a five-bedroom house sitting here empty. But she had no power. For one more night, she had an excuse not to be here. Relief flooded through her.
Just then the lights in the overhead chandelier flickered once, then again, then stayed on.
"Damn," Allie muttered. It would be a long night.
Mr. Webster graciously brought in her bags. In the big kitchen, he opened the refrigerator, showing her the casserole his own housekeeper had prepared and delivered earlier, along with a few other staples. A small welcome home, he explained. Surprised and touched, Allie thanked him.
She stopped him at the front door, knowing she couldn't let him go at this. "My father... All those years, he knew where my mother and I were?"
"I'm not sure he knew all along," the man said kindly. "But when he came to me eleven years ago to make out a will, he did. Your mother was his sole beneficiary. He told me then where to find her."
He rattled off the address and phone number.
Allie nodded, unable to deny it any longer. All along, her father had known. He could have been with them, if that's what he wanted.
She forced herself to go on. "He and my mother never divorced?"
"I've never seen anything to indicate they divorced."
It seemed impossible. They'd lived apart for fifteen years, yet Allie also had found no divorce decree when she went through her mother's things. Instead she'd found letters from William A. Webster, attorney at law, Dublin, Kentucky, the town of her birth. Letters addressed to Mrs. John Bennett, among them one notifying her that her husband had died, a letter dated more than two years ago. Allie had been sure it must be an awful mistake. What kind of mother didn't even tell her own daughter that her father was dead? One who hadn't told her daughter much of anything else, she supposed.
"What about custody? Of me?" Allie tried. "If they went to court, there should be a record of it somewhere, shouldn't there?"
