Outside The Lines

by Kimberly Kincaid

  The frown on Mrs. Fisher’s mouth broadcast her disdain better than ten-speaker surround sound. “Am I to understand that all of your notes are longhand?”

  “Oh.” The word clunked past Jules’s lips, the back of her neck descending into a slow burn. “Well, that’s how I do my planning, yes.”

  “On paper napkins?” Her voice dripped with disdain as she held up the original plan for the bachelor auction that Jules had scribbled out five weeks ago. Jules must’ve stuck it in the front of the book and forgotten about it once they got the real plan rolling.

  Her cheeks went hot to match her neck. “Blake keeps a backup set of notes on his laptop.”

  Mrs. Fisher smiled, but there was little humor in the gesture. “An e-mail copy from your latest session will be fine. I’ll have him send it to me when he arrives.”

  “Okay, sure.” Jules bit back the sting welling up at the scrape of the older woman’s words, reaching for the cover of the grocery bags. The feel of the food in her hands brought her pulse to a manageable level, and she channeled her focus into unloading the containers, one at a time.

  Mrs. Fisher turned toward her slim leather briefcase, rifling through some papers from her strategic spot at the head of the rectangular table. The bones in her wrists stood out in stark relief against the moonglow of her skin, snagging Jules’s attention and begging a closer look. The woman’s expensively-cut navy blue suit was flawless, but it hung on her frame too loosely, and the elegant double-string of pearls at her neck wasn’t quite good enough to cover the obvious flash of her stick-thin collarbones.

  Holy shit. Blake’s mother was hungry.

  “I brought plenty for everybody,” Jules said, sorting through the clear plastic containers without pause. “The blueberry muffins are pretty popular, but my friend Violet gave me the recipe for her breakfast burritos, too. I think Blake and Dr. Cross ate five of them put together when I brought breakfast last week.”

  For a second, the woman’s expression dipped, just enough for Jules to recognize the hitch before she stamped it out. “I’m not hungry, thank you,” Mrs. Fisher clipped out, but oh God, everything else about her said otherwise.

  “Are you sure?” Jules pressed, but Mrs. Fisher just met her with a pointed stare.

  “You are aware that it’s not part of your contractual obligation to provide food until the day of the carnival, correct?” Mrs. Fisher turned her gaze toward the table between them, and something way down deep in her gut forced the words right out of her.

  “I’ve read the contract. But I didn’t bring breakfast out of any kind of obligation.” She stepped in, and all of a sudden, there was nothing in the room but her and Blake’s mother, just like that night eight years ago she’d tracked Jules down in her dingy apartment. “I did it because I know how much this department means to Blake, and I care about him.”

  Mrs. Fisher paused, as if she hadn’t expected Jules’s admission, and hell, that made two of them. But then she took a step herself and said, “Then it must be particularly bittersweet for you that we’re nearly done with this project.”

  “I…I’m sorry?”

  “Well, once the carnival is over, we won’t really have cause to see you here at the hospital anymore. Certainly you’ll be busy with other projects, and other people to care about.” One blond brow rose before she added, “As will Blake.”

  Understanding slid through Jules’s veins like ice water. “You think I’m going to leave him once this carnival is over.”

  “You’ve done it before, Ms. Shaw,” she pointed out, and of course she was right. Jules had left Blake eight years ago. Mrs. Fisher’s words might not have helped, but Jules had written the letter. She’d ignored the phone calls and called in sick at her job on the off-chance he’d go looking for her there.

  She’d left of her own accord. Jules hadn’t meant to hurt him so deeply. But of course, she had.

  And didn’t Blake deserve better than that?

  “A lot has changed since then. Things are different now. I’m… I’m different,” Jules said, but the waver in her voice was a dead giveaway, and Mrs. Fisher pounced.

  “Are you? Let’s be honest. You and Blake may have had your fun over the last few weeks, much to my dismay. But I told you eight years ago you’re not meant for him. Do you honestly believe that time has made you more worthy of my son? Do you really think you’re good enough to make him happy?”

  The word yes ricocheted to Jules’s mouth, hot and brash and ready to go, but she captured it between her teeth.

  Because deep down beneath her borrowed skirt and all her good intentions, Mrs. Fisher was right. Underneath it all, Jules was exactly the same person she’d been eight years ago. She was still just a foster kid who nobody had wanted, a dirt-poor northie who wished for nothing more than to spend the rest of her life feeding people in the local diner.

  Jules would never be good enough for a man like Blake Fisher, no matter how badly she wanted him, and no matter how blindly he thought otherwise.

  But before she could say so, a cold, masculine voice cut across the room to land right in the center of her chest.

  “I’m not sure what the hell is going on here, but you’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Both of you.”

  #

  Blake’s head buzzed with a dangerous combination of raw shock and undiluted anger, neither of which helped to ratchet down the slam of his heartbeat beneath his light blue scrubs. He’d hadn’t exactly started off with cucumber-cool blood pressure to begin with, having just come off a moderately gruesome code red double trauma. But tending to the victims of the multi-vehicle car accident had been tea and fucking cake compared to what he’d just overheard between Jules and his mother. They’d both been too tangled up in their argument to notice he’d slipped quietly into the staff lounge, but Blake had heard enough to piece together a picture that made him want to scream.

  He just couldn’t decide which one of them to start with.

  “Blake.” His mother gripped the back of the chair in front of her as she turned to look at him. She rearranged the streak of shock on her face into impenetrable calm before saying, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t. Otherwise you might have thought twice about interfering so directly in my love life.”

  At the tail end of his sentence, Jules let out an unmistakable flinch, and Blake dug into the linoleum even harder. “But it seems this isn’t the first time for that, now is it?”

  “I’m not certain I know what you mean,” his mother said, but the reply lacked all the trademark Fisher conviction she normally put to everything from board meetings to her breakfast order.

  “Blake, don’t do this,” Jules whispered, and his head whipped toward her, the muscles in his jaw going tight enough to burn as he locked his molars together.

  “Don’t do what? I deserve to know the truth, Jules. Although it’s not something you’ve been particularly forthcoming with, either, is it? So do you want to tell me what the hell happened between the two of you eight years ago?” The words came out more serrated than he intended, but Christ, his mother’s interference was bad enough.

  But not only did it look like Jules had kept it from him this whole time, but she’d actually believed his mother’s disdain instead of believing him. And from the way the look on her face was hardening by the second, the last five weeks meant nothing in the grander scheme of the last eight years.

  Like an idiot, Blake had put his heart right back on the line. He’d trusted Jules impulsively, and rather than showing him how to live out loud, that trust was going to wreck him.

  Again.

  “No,” Jules said, but one way or another, he was getting answers. Right now.

  “What about you?” Blake swung toward his mother, unwilling to let her off the hook, either. “Would you like to let me in on exactly what I’ve been missing?”

  The gravel he’d put to the question returned the steel to her spine, and his mother fixed him with a stare
that said he was going to get the fight he’d picked. “You were twenty-two years old, Blake. You were grieving your brother and about to begin medical school. You didn’t need the emotional upheaval of a rash marriage to the wrong person on top of that. I simply sought out Ms. Shaw to discuss the matter. And obviously she agreed.”

  His pulse went ballistic in his veins. “You bullied Jules into leaving me?”

  “It wasn’t quite so dramatic. I pointed out the truth that you were both too blind to see.”

  “You knew nothing about the truth. Not that it was any of your business,” Blake shot back, anger churning through his gut hard enough to make his vision slip. “Jesus, Mom. Are you seriously so far inside the elite society box that you think shit like where you live or how you were raised actually defines a person?”

  His mother didn’t move. “Your happiness is absolutely my business. I was only doing what I thought was best for you. These things matter more than you think.”

  “Jules mattered more than you think!” The words exploded from his mouth, and he turned back to Jules, desperate for the truth. “Why did you leave me eight years ago? Was it because of this? Was it?”

  For a split second of suspended time, hope burned, low and bright and hot in his chest. Surely she’d believe how he felt about her now over what his mother was saying, and what she’d done. Surely, Jules would finally trust him with all of her heart the way he’d trusted her with all of his.

  Surely she wouldn’t run.

  But then Jules shifted her weight, just slightly toward the door, and that hope flickered out.

  “I left you for the same reason I can’t stay now. Your mother is right, Blake.” Although her eyes filled with tears, she didn’t hesitate as she started to move. “Those things do matter. I believe you deserve everything she wants for you. But I also believe that’s not me. I’m sorry.”

  And she walked out the door without looking back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jules stood on the periphery of Brentsville’s City Commons, her nose buried in her careworn notebook even though she knew the plan on the pages by heart. Although the sky had barely lost the purple-pink of fresh dawn, she and the catering crew from Mac’s had already been at it for hours, prepping and packing and transporting what they’d need to feed everyone at today’s Carnival For A Cure.

  It had been the first time ever that having her hands on food hadn’t given Jules even an ounce of comfort. Not that she hadn’t tried. But even the things that normally set her to rights made her think of Blake, of what he might be doing or thinking or seeing right now.

  And she missed him. It had been two days, and she’d missed him every second.

  “Okay, now that all of the trucks are here and the main food tent is set up, let’s get the grills unloaded.” She sent the directive at three of the guys who had volunteered for heavy lifting, clamping down on the ache taking over her chest. She had work to do— tons of it, actually— and it was counter-productive to think about where Blake was and what he might be doing, or how close he might be to her at this very minute.

  Right. She’d just have to work around the ache, then.

  “Do you want them set up according to the schematic?” asked one of the volunteers, holding up a copy of the site map of their area, and Jules nodded.

  “I have all the permits in case anyone asks for them, but someone from the Brentsville FD is supposed to come check on the setup.”

  “That sounds like my cue.” A deep voice rumbled from over her shoulder, and Jules swung toward it, her pulse skipping up a notch in her veins.

  “Well color me impressed,” she said, unable to help the tiny smile lifting the corners of her mouth at the sight of the rough-edged firefighter in front of her. “You don’t strike me as a get-out-of-bed-early kind of guy, lieutenant.”

  “What makes you think I’ve been to bed yet, Cupcake?” Aaron’s near-black eyebrows disappeared beneath the brim of his faded blue Brentsville Fire Department baseball hat as he leaned in to give her a friendly hug, and yeah, given his track record for crazy, the guy totally had a point.

  “Fair enough, I guess. So do you want to watch my guys do the setup on those things?” Jules pointed to the back of the equipment truck, where her crew was already unloading one of the commercial-grade portable grills to the near side of the tent.

  “Nah. You run a tight ship. I’ll double-check ‘em when they’re done, but I’m sure they’ll be up to spec. In the meantime, you wouldn’t happen to have any coffee, would you? Man cannot live on adrenaline alone.”

  “Oh, sure. There’s some in the service truck, right here.” They crossed the grass to the white-paneled food service truck, where Jules had made sure there was enough coffee to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. She led the way up the two steps leading to the narrow galley space, grabbing a cup from the stainless steel counter by the coffee urns.

  “So, now that we’ve got a minute, do you want to talk about this?” Aaron asked, screeching Jules’s movements to a halt over the Styrofoam to-go cup in her hands. “And please don’t insult me by asking about what. There’s no bullshitting a bullshitter, not even for someone as tough as you.”

  “You don’t pull any punches, do you?” Jules asked, mostly to buy herself time, but Aaron didn’t budge.

  “Nope. Out with it.”

  As if on cue, her defenses snapped to life, but their intensity was short-lived. “It’s complicated.”

  “Jesus, woman. You sound like my cousin.” He shook his head over a wistful smile. “Why are you two so determined to do this the hard way?”

  “We’re not doing this any way,” Jules said in a rush, wishing like hell she could shake the vulnerable waver in her voice. “His mother is right, Aaron. A woman like me isn’t meant for him. He deserves better.”

  “But he wants you.”

  Aaron took the half-full cup from her hand, setting it on the counter before turning back to serve her with an expression of pure honesty. “And you want him, too, don’t you?”

  She grasped for her tough veneer, but it slipped through her fingers, leaving her to whisper, “I do. But his mother—”

  “Jules, please. I love my aunt, and I respect that she’s protective of her son, but she’s full of shit on this. Take a look outside that window.”

  Jules blinked. “What?”

  “The window.” He pointed to the large rectangular service window used to pass food from the truck to anyone outside, and she followed the trajectory to the commons beyond. “What do you see?”

  “Um, the food service tent?”

  “Do you see anyone sitting around? Anyone not sure of what they’re supposed to be doing?”

  “No.” She’d made extensive lists of each volunteer position, with tasks from setup to breakdown, personally making triple sure every person in a bright yellow staff shirt had a copy. “But what does that have to do with Blake’s mother?”

  “Nothing, actually. It has to do with you.”

  Jules opened her mouth, but Aaron cut her protest off with a lift of his hand.

  “Look, I know a thing or two about being the black sheep of the Fisher family. My aunt might’ve thought she was looking out for her son, but she judged you unfairly. I get that your life hasn’t been a bed of roses.” He paused, the hard line of his shoulders knotting ever further. “But you organized one hell of a charity event. You’re a good person, Jules. And if you care about Blake like I think you do, you’ll realize that not only does he believe in you, but what everyone else thinks doesn’t matter.”

  Oh. Oh, God, what had she done?

  “But I’ve hurt him so much already,” Jules said, the ache in her chest expanding with realization. “I believe him, but I don’t think I can fix this.

  But Aaron just smiled. “Do you want to?”

  Jules shook her head. “Of course I want to. But it’s too late for that.”

  “Lucky for you, I love bad odds. What do you say, Cupcake? You got a plan for too la
te?”

  Whether it was the family resemblance or the playful smirk or the plain truth finally rebounding through her ribcage, Jules couldn’t be sure. But in that moment, she knew Jeremy’s philosophy was right.

  It was past time to start believing in herself and living life out loud. And if she wanted to land on her feet, if she wanted Blake to know she trusted him with her heart, she needed the mother of all plans.

  “As crazy as it sounds, I just might. Now here’s what we’re going to do.”

  #

  Blake surveyed the bustling carnival site, and despite the hollow feeling burrowed deep beneath his sternum, he had to admit, the event was a smashing success. Mid-day had come and gone without a hitch, and despite his worry about the potential for heat, the temperature had settled in at a breezy eighty-two degrees. Groups of children filtered through the crowd with their parents, laughing freely as they clutched balloon animals and paper cones full of cotton candy. Teenaged boys tried to outdo each other at row after row of game booths, and everywhere Blake turned, people were smiling and eating with looks of pure comfort on their faces.

  He’d spoken with Serenity, who had closed Mac’s for the afternoon in order for her staff to be able to attend the carnival, several times throughout the course of the day. The food service was going so seamlessly that he hadn’t needed more than those few check-ins. Although he knew Jules had to be here, running things from behind the scenes, Blake hadn’t caught even a glimpse of her from the main tent area, despite having actively looked more than once.

  Damn, he missed her.

  “Hello, Blake. The carnival is lovely. You should be proud.”

  His first inclination was to walk away from the woman who had materialized at his side while he’d been lost in impossible thought. But the anger that had run white-hot over the course of the last two days had gradually leveled off to a slow burn, and now wasn’t the time or place to tangle with what was left of it.