Goodbye, Luke.
JULIE DIDN’T WANT to be alone in her bed, but she didn’t want to expend the energy to drive anywhere on the off chance she would see someone she knew. She thought about calling one of her teacher friends in San Diego, but checked the clock first. It was only nine o’clock. Numbness set in as she took a hot bath and then slipped on a comforting flannel nightie. She called her co-worker, Annalise, who picked up on the first ring.
“Well that makes two of us who don’t have dates, then,” Julie forced herself to say.
“So what else is new? How’s it going up there, Julie?”
“Oh, okay, I guess.”
“Any cute new guys hanging around? Your brother has some hunky friends down here.”
“I’ve been busy with the arrangements. Mom has me pretty tied up the next two days, going back and forth to San Francisco and Oakland airports to pick people up, get them to their hotels. I could probably become a chauffeur or do wine tours if I lost my teaching job.”
It grated on her that, even though she had a master’s degree, she could only get a sixty percent contract to teach. That way, the school district didn’t have to pay benefits. Although if it hadn’t been for that, she wouldn’t have had a job at all, since enrollment was declining.
“Speaking of which,” Annalise’s voice now sounded conspiratorial. Julie’s mind drifted back to the afternoon session a few days ago in Dr. Connors’s office. She didn’t pay attention to Annalise until the words, “and she said he wanted you fired.”
“Who said that?” Julie asked.
“The girl was talking about it in school the last day, how you weren’t coming back. You haven’t had a conversation with Connors I don’t know about, have you?”
“No. I even asked him. But you know, the guy won’t give me a straight answer.”
“Well, Julie, maybe he doesn’t know.”
“One thing’s for sure, he isn’t going to risk his job. Just wish he’d jumped in, been more proactive with the family.”
“He probably thought it would all blow over,” Annalise said.
It is going to all blow away. Everything is going away. Sharp, warm tears filled her eyes. That’s when it hit her. She’d been clinging to her strong side, holding everything in, and what she really wanted to do was have a seriously sloppy, slobbery cry.
Suddenly it didn’t matter if Annalise had information about her job. Her job could take a flying leap. The prospect of teaching in San Diego, a place where she’d loved living, was suddenly unappealing. Especially because she’d be looking for him everywhere. It would not give her any rest.
Better to go away, perhaps back up to Oregon, or try to come home and get a job up here. Then Colin and Stephanie could come visit her here, where Luke wouldn’t be. Except there’d be pictures of him she wouldn’t be able to avoid. Stories about what he was doing. Who he was sharing his life with.
Someone other than her in the picture.
Annalise finally noticed Julie wasn’t listening. “Hey, kiddo. What’s going on? You called me, but I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to say a word. You just like listening to me go on and on about boring things down here? I thought you’d have a great adventure up there. I was hoping for it, anyway.”
“Thanks, Annalise.”
No. Nothing much is going on except my heart is broken.
Again.
She wiped tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “I’m going to go now. I’ll give you a call later in the week. You doing anything exciting?”
“I’m thinking when you get back we’ll go to Vegas for a weekend. Sound good to you?”
“Sounds perfect. Girl’s weekend out. Just what I think I need.” She continued brushing the tears from her face. “Thanks for picking up. Take care.”
Chapter 14
‡
WHITE LINEN TABLECLOTHS graced rounded patio tables surrounded by folding chairs decorated with peach and green ribbons Julie had tied all by herself. There were one hundred of them. She’d tied the balloons all along the approach to her parents’ house, along the mile-long driveway through massive oaks and tall Bay trees.
Colin and Stephanie had made a wooden arch out of pieces of fallen tree branches from the woods surrounding the estate. It was rough-hewn, but they’d covered it with garlands of flowers and more wide satin green and peach ribbon. A dance floor had been laid down over her parents’ lawn yesterday, and Julie had settled fifty votive candles in little metal boats to float on her parents’ pool, so they’d twinkle in the dark.
Her mother’s garden was in full bloom, even more abundant than in years past. She’d planted golden yellow black-eyed Susans and white Shasta daisies around her blooming purple and pink hydrangeas, which stood easily six feet tall. An array of snapdragons and sweet Williams dotted the front levels of the raised rock garden walls. In between, large South African lilies sent out a heady fragrance.
The gardeners had worked furiously over the past week and everything, including the multiple colored pots overflowing with annuals, looked like it had been trimmed with a pair of scissors. There wasn’t a blade out of place, and yet the gardens had an exuberant, joyful look. Bench seats built into the rock walls were shaded with burgundy and green umbrellas, stuck into plastic piping embedded in the base of the seats. At night, the solar lights would come on and give it the magical glow they’d worked so hard to achieve.
She was still putting on finishing touches when her mother came out onto the patio.
“Julie, you’d better get inside and get dressed. People will be arriving in a half hour.”
The sounds of the caterers clanging around in her mother’s kitchen drifted through the open doorway. She surveyed the chairs and umbrellas she’d decorated and called it good. Behind her mother came two young men carrying the flowers for each of the tables and the buffet, sending her scooting out onto the patio.
“Oh, my God, I totally forgot the flowers!” her mother exclaimed as she dropped her shoulders and looked at Julie with her head cocked.
“It’s cutting it rather close, I’d say. The boys better be careful they don’t encounter guests on the driveway on the way down,” Julie said as she watched the flower handlers set their box down and place little sprays at each table.
The driveway was a single lane. They’d hired a couple of high school boys with walkie-talkies to manage the traffic, and to drive guests up and down in a trailered golf cart for the faint of heart or legs. The property owner at the bottom had agreed to loan his bare land to serve as a parking lot. When Julie was in high school, some partygoers had driven off the steep hill and wound up entangled in oak trees, lucky their descent had been halted by the sturdy trunks.
“Good point. I’ll go let them know.” Her mother darted back into the house.
The sky had remained cloudless on this beautiful June afternoon. A gentle breeze fluttered the ribbons, made the tall flowers of her mother’s garden bob as if nodding at her in agreement. She’d always thought her wedding would look like this. Today she could look at it all, and actually feel happy for her brother and fiancée. The sting of Luke’s rejection had dulled, and she sternly reminded herself this day wasn’t about her and her feelings, it was about her brother’s. She would not let anything interfere with that.
She ran upstairs and began showering, washing and styling her hair and rubbing Tuscan Orange body cream everywhere. She took out the pink box and peeled back the peach tissue, revealing a light pink brocade corset. It hugged her waist, making it easily two inches smaller, made her already flat tummy even flatter, and rode down her hips and rear. She attached her peach stockings with the adjustable garter clips. The corset boosted her breasts up and gave her a luscious cleavage to accentuate her small waist.
Julie drew the lovely silk and voile bridesmaid’s gown over her head, smoothing it down her breasts and waist, making her body shudder under the shush of the cool fabric. She zipped it up the side and walked in a cloud of peach to
the bathroom to do her makeup.
She applied creams, powder, added some dusting powder with sparkles in it for her shoulders, and used a pearlescent face powder. She lined her eyes in dark brown pencil, added bronze eye shadow at the corners. With a generous serving of mascara, eyebrow gel and a last minute fluff-up of her long curls held tousled by spray gel, she looked at herself in the mirror. Nodded. It was as good as it was going to get.
She reached for the light pink lipstick just as she heard cars outside, and saw her brother and the groomsmen get out of the SUVs. She wasn’t going to look for him, but her brain counted them.
Six.
She lifted the tube of pink lipstick to her lips and stopped. Setting it down gently, she reached for the bright red lipstick and at first dabbed it sparingly. It was an afternoon wedding, after all. But she evaluated her looks and decided she needed to go full-on red. Full-on, sexual-siren-drop-down-and-beg-red. The come over here and fuck me kind of red. It was a statement to herself. She was ripe and ready to party, with or without the handsome SEAL. In spite of the handsome SEAL. She’d be aloof, pouty, difficult, and nobody’s fool. She’d flit about this afternoon and evening, and not even look in his direction once.
She sprayed the room with the expensive bouquet Audrey Hepburn had created, walking through it and feeling the tiny atomized droplets hit her body. At last she put her peach satin ballet shoes on, twirled to see the layers of crinkle chiffon and voile rise up as if on a breeze created by angels’ wings.
Exiting her old room, she heard people talking downstairs and identified her brother and several of his friends. She grabbed her skirts nearly mid-thigh to hold them up while she traveled to her parent’s room, where the bride was being primped for her big day. She found her mother and the makeup artist busy working on Stephanie. Her small, heart-shaped face was framed in off-white lace worn like a tiara on top of her head. Her bodice and sleeves were made of delicate cording held together by lace webbing, populated with a generous supply of crystals. She wore crystals in her hair, which sparked under her veil. She was the most beautiful bride Julie had ever seen.
“Sister!” Stephanie said, holding out her arms. The makeup artist barely had enough time to get her large brush out of the way before Stephanie moved past her to give Julie a hug. Afterward, the two held hands and beamed at each other’s beautiful gowns.
“Stephanie, you are absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never seen someone so happy, so radiant. Colin is just going to die when he sees you. He’ll have a stroke, honest!”
“Oh, silly. I think there is going to be one SEAL who is going to step on his own tongue this afternoon. Honestly, Julie, you’ll be the prettiest one out there.”
“Nonsense.”
The makeup artist demanded Stephanie’s exclusivity again, and then looked at Julie’s face and applied some blush and powder. Even her mother was attended to. A gentle knock on the door was the only warning before a bevy of peach and pink lovelies came squealing in, jumping and hugging the bride and getting caught in her veil. Julie enjoyed the happy banter and laughter of the bride and her attendants. She was so happy for all of them.
Julie and Colin’s dad was going to walk Stephanie down the aisle. Her father was smartly dressed in a three-piece black suit with a silvery brocade vest. He’d kept his trim figure and proud bearing, looking more like an older SEAL than an architect. He came over to wrap his arm around her waist and whisper to her ear, “Sweet Julie, next I’ll be walking you down the aisle.”
She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him on the check, and then squeezed him in a tight hug. “Not today, Daddy. Today belongs to Colin and Stephanie. I’m just so happy to be able to be here to enjoy it.”
He gave her a squint and tilted his head to the side. “There isn’t a single man downstairs,” he pointed to the floor, “I’d object to you landing as a husband.”
“In time, Dad. But don’t get your hopes up. I’m happy being single.” He held her face between his palms and kissed her gently on the lips. “My good girl. Always Daddy’s special one. Always will be.”
He gave a hug and kiss to his wife and then addressed the bride as if he’d just noticed her. “Oh, my heavens! You look just like an angel, my dear,” he said. The bridesmaids giggled softly. “My son is one very lucky man,” he said, winking at his wife.
It was arranged so the grooms stood in order at the foot of the stairs and the bridesmaids followed each other single file down to them. Stephanie stayed alone in the bedroom with her future mother-in-law. Julie made her way down the stairs carefully and watched over the top of the crystal-enhanced hairdos of the other bridesmaids while they paired up with their grooms.
She deliberately didn’t look for Luke, and then when she realized she was close, instead of looking into his eyes as all the other couples had done, she looked down. Luke hooked his arm out to the side and she tucked hers through it, gently pressing her upper arm against the back of his and resting her fingers on his forearm next to his elbow. This had all been choreographed and scripted, and she followed along as instructed. She moved with him as he escorted her across the concrete floor of the living room, and out the ten-light double doors towards the patio. She carefully stepped over the threshold. Part of her dress snagged briefly on a rough spot in the wooden doorjamb.
In an instant Luke was there in front of her, kneeling, looking for where the fabric had hung up. The delicate material looked soft and luscious in his large, callused hands, like he was handling armfuls of whipped cream. He pressed the fabric he’d freed back into her skirts and she felt a gentle touch of his fingers on her voile-encased thigh. That’s when he looked up at her and his blue eyes seared her, and in spite of herself, she focused on his lips, thinking it would be safer than his eyes, until she realized he had done the same.
Their look mated. Both of them did a deep, controlled inhale, and both of them noticed the other doing it. Neither one looked away as the rest of the room faded to the background of muted voices and faded, blurry colors.
She had gotten used to his constant dark stubble, but today he was clean-shaven, his cheeks smooth and shiny, like they’d been oiled, but she knew it was his aftershave lotion. The lemony one he used, and yes, she could smell it. The light fragrance would still be on his fingers. His full lips were deep pink. Without his stubble, she noticed he had a dimple on his right side which was usually hidden, even during their ardent lovemaking. She’d thought she knew every luscious detail of his face, so this discovery was thrilling.
And that’s what she was thinking about when he turned and brought her through the doorway, the last couple to make their way across the patio, across the dance floor to the corner of the stone wall near the large cascading fountain. At the sight of Colin’s face, his eyes sashaying between the two of them, his lips raised in a private grin, she and Luke drifted apart and took their respective positions at the end of the procession on either side of the ceremony center.
A lute player began playing an old English hymn and the minister instructed everyone to rise and turn to see Stephanie standing at the edge of the patio with Julie’s dad proudly at her side. There was a collective gasp, and for a second Julie thought the audience would break into spontaneous applause.
Though Julie was focused on the bride, and frequently bringing her warm, loving gaze back to Colin, she felt Luke watching her. She could feel the heat of his smoldering gaze, the attraction that was still so strong, especially since it had been given a little encouragement earlier with the snag of her dress and the gentle brush of his fingers against her. She hadn’t flinched or stepped back at his subtle touch. Her heart still pounded at the closeness to him, at the feel of his eyes perusing her body carefully while everyone else’s was focused on the bride. She was doing her own private lap dance for him though she barely moved.
When Stephanie approached her future husband, Julie allowed Colin’s head to obscure Luke’s face. She noticed the SEAL stayed put and then moved slightly to the side so s
he got a clear look at his questioning blue eyes. She rocked back on the heels of her slippers and he was obscured again, and she turned her eyes downward as if she hadn’t noticed what she’d done.
In an act of boldness rising from somewhere deep within her, she licked her ruby red lips, raised her chin and stared straight into the blue heaven of his eyes. Her heart fluttered and protested the pain of needing him so much, but took solace in the equal need she saw in his.
Chapter 15
‡
DAMN IT! LUKE’S inability to focus wasn’t helping today. He was tethered to the sight of Julie, like a big peach wad of cotton candy, ripe and exploding on his taste buds, the image of her delicate flower underneath all those petticoats and the way she would writhe beneath him.
Is she feeling it too?
Why couldn’t they just sit and talk first? Why did it always end up being about sex with her? He wanted desperately to plunge into her, but the need to be understood…to be loved…first was filling him with an angst which normally would make him incapable. Not today. He was drilling deep with his eyes, as if he could convince her he had the best of intentions, but couldn’t think until he was next to her, inside her, breathing her spice and tasting her juices.
At her fuckin’ brother’s wedding. He felt an unmistakable, and damned inconvenient, rock-hard erection. Maybe the pain of his need was spurring him on. Was it the PTSD, making it so he wanted to lose control, take her, lift up her skirts and bask in the glory of her pink, quivering peach?
God in heaven, I’m a fuckin’ dog. He made quick apologies to Mama Guzman’s God, the one they all prayed to on Team 3.
Help me out, here.
And then he saw her wet her lips. She was all pink and innocent except for lips the color of blood. The crack of the automatic, the feeling of warm liquid on his thighs, Camilla’s blood, the whisper from his beloved, the one he had held onto every night, in spite of how much pain it caused him, the familiar things of his memory and his life, slipping into the slots of his brain and one by one faded, until all he could see was Camilla’s lips saying, goodbye.
SEAL My Destiny (SEAL Brotherhood) Page 8
