Future Perfect

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “This time, let’s really go out,” Webster said, glancing at the clock. “Come on, it’s almost nine, let’s go down to Red’s, grab a beer and something to eat. Maybe some of Sam’s Nashville friends are still around. Marty told me that when they come to town, they like to go into Red’s and jam. You and I can dance.”

  For about five minutes, he added to himself, looking down at the gorgeous woman in his arms. After only five minutes of dancing, he’d want to take her back here and undress her really slowly.

  “Take me for a ride on your Harley,” he said.

  Juliana looked up at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You’re awfully large,” she said skeptically.

  “Why, thank you,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

  Juliana made a face at him. “Riding a bike has to do with balance,” she said, pulling out of his arms and sitting up. “I’m used to riding with a hundred and twenty-five pounds on the seat. You’re talking about adding another … what? Two hundred?”

  “Almost. One ninety-seven,” he said.

  “Have you ever been on a bike before?” she asked.

  “Once or twice,” he said.

  “How’s your balance?”

  Webster fell over onto his side. “Perfect,” he said.

  She smiled down at him. “It’s cold out there. You better wear leather.”

  Juliana pushed her Harley onto the driveway, under the big spotlight, as Webster came out the back door. She went back into the garage, and returned carrying two helmets. She was wearing her black leather riding jacket and a pair of black pants. She handed him a helmet.

  “Oh my God,” Web said. “Leather pants. Forget the bar. Let’s go back inside.”

  She laughed. “I thought you’d like ’em.”

  “Like ’em?” he said. “It’s beyond like.” He fell to his knees in front of her and ran his hands down her legs. He lifted her knee, bringing one tightly clad thigh toward his mouth. “I have to bite you.”

  “Later.” She smiled, gently kicking free. “I don’t want teeth marks on the leather.”

  She slipped on her helmet and made sure his was properly fastened, then got on the bike. Webster climbed on behind her. “While we’re riding,” she said, “don’t distract me.”

  “Who, me?” he said.

  “I’m serious, Webster,” she said. “I’m going to need you to lean with me. Keep your hands around my waist. Believe me, anywhere else is distracting.”

  Guiltily, he moved his hands from the butter-soft leather that covered her thighs.

  “Where are your gloves?” she asked.

  “I lost ’em.”

  “Put your hands under my jacket,” Juliana said.

  The temptation was too great. His hands strayed upward.

  Juliana turned around and looked at him. He couldn’t see her eyebrows under her helmet, but he knew one was raised.

  “Sorry.” He grinned, obviously not sorry at all.

  She adjusted some of the controls, then jumped on the kick start. The big motorcycle roared to life.

  Webster could see the flash of her white teeth through the protective windshield of her helmet as she looked back at him one more time.

  She revved the engine, and they were off.

  So far, so good, thought Juliana as they came to the end of the driveway. The light from her headlight bounced against the dead leaves of the bushes across the way. There were no cars out, so she pulled slowly onto the road, taking her time, getting used to the feel of the bike with so much additional weight on the back.

  Last time she’d carried a passenger, it had been Liz, back before the woman was pregnant. And tiny Liz barely weighed ninety-five pounds, maybe one hundred on her bad days. With a roar, Juliana gunned the bike past Liz and Sam’s house.

  The night was cold, but the road was dry. Juliana smiled to herself, remembering the last time she’d been on this road, running home with Webster in the torrential rain. Had it really been two days since they’d even been out of the house?

  She slowed as she approached the familiar sign for Red’s, and pulled carefully into the pothole-ridden parking lot. She stopped the bike next to the building, then pulled off her helmet, turning around to look at Webster.

  “What do you think?”

  “It was great,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

  He moved his hands from around her waist. One hand went up, the other went down.

  “Webster,” Juliana laughed, pushing his hands away.

  “I can’t help it,” he said, taking off his helmet. “You make me incredibly hot.”

  “How can a man who’s just spent the past forty-eight hours doing nothing but making love and sleeping possibly want more sex?” she asked, shaking her head.

  “At this point, it doesn’t have anything to do with hormones,” he said. “At this point, it’s psychological. See, I’m … um …”

  “This is going to be a good one,” Juliana smiled. “Come on, you can tell me. No, wait, I think I know. You’re mentally linked to aliens who are using you in a study on human sexuality, and they’re continuously stimulating your brain in such a way as to make you feel constantly aroused.”

  Webster thought about that. “Nope. It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I give up. You’re what?”

  “I’m …” he started, then stopped.

  Webster gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly for a moment, and when he opened them, she was struck by how very blue they were.

  “I’m in love with you, Jule,” he whispered.

  Juliana’s heart almost stopped. She’d never expected him to admit it. Not so soon. Maybe not ever.

  He was looking at her with so much trepidation on his face she almost felt like laughing. Almost.

  Instead, she kissed him.

  And then she took him home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thursday morning, Juliana climbed out of Webster’s bed at six-thirty, trying not to wake him. But a strong hand snaked out, grabbing her and pulling her back into the warmth of the bed. She found herself looking into a pair of sleepy blue eyes.

  “It’s not really Thursday, is it?”

  She smiled. “It really is. There are two million things to do today before the guests arrive. I know Alicia would appreciate my help.”

  “Is there a dinner tonight?” he asked, lazily entwining his legs with hers.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to pull away. “Webster, I really have to get up.”

  He kissed her, then let her go. “When do they leave?”

  “The guests?” Juliana smiled, finding her panties on the floor and pulling them on. “The people staying in the blue room and the ones in the gold room leave Monday morning. The couple in the green room are honeymooners. They’re here ’til Friday.”

  “And that’s when the next guests arrive,” Webster said, trying hard not to pout.

  Juliana pulled her shirt on without bothering to put on her bra, then stepped into her leather pants. She stuck the bra into her jacket pocket, then leaned over Web to kiss him good-bye.

  He caught her face between his hands. “Jule, I want you in my bed at night,” he said. “Do you think, maybe …?”

  “It’s one thing for me to sleep down here when there are no other guests in the house,” she said, her face serious. “But Webster, think of my reputation.” She shook her head. “Sweet heavens, imagine if one of these guests is the newspaper reviewer. Can you picture the kind of review I’d get if they saw me sneaking in and out of your room at all hours of the night and morning?”

  “But you’ve got couples coming, not a reviewer,” he said. “Really, Juliana, I know. The reviewer isn’t—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted. “Come on, Web, it’s my reputation we’re talking about here. Many of my repeat guests enjoy coming here because they appreciate the fact that we observe the proprieties. They like the whole Victo
rian feel of this house—and I’m talking about more than the architecture.”

  “Let me move my computer up to your room,” Webster said. “I can stay up there. I won’t come down, and no one will even know I’m there.”

  Juliana looked at him sharply. He was actually serious. And she couldn’t squelch the panic that rose in her at the thought of him living with her up in her apartment. “No, Web.”

  He must have realized how desperate his words had sounded, because he waggled his eyebrows, and said, “I can be your love slave.”

  “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Yes, it would,” he said, but still, she shook her head. “Why not?”

  Juliana looked away from him, unwilling to tell him that she didn’t want him up in her apartment with her. For him to use her workout gear was one thing. For him to live up there and make love to her was entirely different. She grabbed at the easiest excuse. “Because … I’ve got formal dinner parties tonight, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. And if you’re locked in my apartment, you won’t be able to put on your Victorian clothes and help me with the guests.”

  Webster nodded, disappointed but accepting. “All right.”

  “Next Sunday,” she said, smiling.

  “What?”

  “Starting next Sunday,” Juliana said, “you’ll be the only guest here until the following Friday. It’s the last week of your stay. If you use this week while the other guests are here to finish your book, then starting next Sunday, I’ll come in here and lock this door, and we won’t even come up for air.”

  A slow smile spread across Webster’s face. “Is that a promise?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Juliana went into her office, her long skirt sweeping behind her. She hadn’t set foot in here in days, she thought guiltily, pulling her correspondence file and leafing through it quickly. She had to remember to sit down with Alicia and go through this stuff. A logo and letterhead she recognized as belonging to the Boston Globe caught her eye, and she moved that letter to the top of the pile before laying the entire file down on her desk.

  A folded piece of paper directly in the center of her desk caught her eye. Frowning slightly, she carried it into the kitchen.

  “Alicia,” she said, and her great-aunt looked up from the row of pies she was baking. She held up the piece of paper. “This was on my desk.”

  Alicia was nearly elbow deep in pie crust. “Put my glasses on my nose for me, will you?” she asked.

  Alicia’s reading glasses were hanging by a chain around her neck. Juliana slipped them onto the older woman’s face.

  “It’s addressed to you,” Alicia said.

  Juliana slowly opened it up, holding it out for Alicia to look at.

  “It’s signed, ‘Webster,’ ” Alicia said. “Looks like some kind of love letter. You want me to read it to you?”

  Juliana shook her head, refolding the letter.

  “I guess this means you haven’t told him,” Alicia said dryly.

  Juliana looked unhappily at her aunt. “He thinks I’m perfect, Al,” she said. “And you know, when I’m with him, I can pretend that I am.”

  Alicia stopped rolling out the dough and focused all of her energy into the look she gave her niece. “You are perfect,” she said. “Just a little different.”

  It was the stock reply that Alicia had first given her all those years ago, when Juliana had been a rebellious, angry teenager, feeling woefully inadequate and inferior. She couldn’t read. She was sixteen years old, and she couldn’t even read “See Spot run,” like a first grader. She was stupid. She’d heard it so many times from the other kids, even from the teachers, that she had started to believe it herself.

  “Remember,” Alicia said. “You’re not stupid. You’re dyslexic. There’s a difference.”

  Juliana smiled. Down through the years, that had been Alicia’s other war cry.

  Her smile was the correct response, and Alicia turned some of her attention back to the dough.

  Juliana folded the note from Webster and slipped it into her skirt pocket, then washed her hands.

  “I’m wondering why you haven’t told him,” Alicia said.

  Juliana didn’t answer for a long time, helping Alicia lift the delicate pie crust into the pie tin.

  “I think it’s because I’m afraid Webster won’t accept that I can’t read,” she said quietly. “His whole life is built around words, Al. I’m afraid he’d push for me to go back, see what advances they’ve made in teaching dyslexics to read.” Her voice got even softer. “I don’t want to do that again. I’ve failed enough. And I’ve managed to get by just fine without being able to read.”

  Alicia smiled at her great-niece. She could remember the first time she’d met the scrawny kid with wild red hair and anger on her face. Her lawyer had gotten hold of the girl’s file for her—her school records, the police reports. It had been so obvious to Alicia what the problem was, yet Juliana had never even heard the word dyslexic before. But even after that, despite creative teaching and learning techniques, the girl still hadn’t been able to learn to read.

  Alicia knew it hadn’t been from lack of determination or will, because the child had plenty of those. She wanted to read so badly she made herself physically sick. That was when the specialists all came to the same sad conclusion. Juliana’s dyslexia was so severe, they’d said, she’d probably never learn to read. She’d make better use of her time, they told her, by learning how to get around the written word.

  And that’s exactly what Juliana and Alicia did. With the use of audio tapes and telephone answering machines, they set up a system of communication and learning that worked quite well. Alicia read her favorite books into a tape recorder until her voice was hoarse. Then she got her friends and their friends to do the same. She took Juliana on trips, brought her face to face with historical places and natural wonders that other children only read about in books.

  Juliana’s dyslexia only affected the way her brain processed letters. She could read numbers most of the time, provided they were clearly displayed. And the girl was an absolute whiz at math.

  But many times over the past twelve years, Alicia would read about some new method researchers were using to teach dyslexics, and off Juliana would go, the sacrificial guinea pig. The last time had been over five years ago, at that foolish boy Dennis’s request. Because her fiancé had wanted her to, Juliana had gone twice a week to a Harvard laboratory where she and fourteen seven-year-olds worked with some of the country’s leading special education teachers.

  When Juliana broke off her engagement to Dennis, she dropped out of the program and told Alicia that she was through wasting her time trying to learn to read.

  “I guess you’ll just have to make it clear to Webster how you feel,” Alicia said calmly.

  “But if he really wants me to try again,” Juliana said slowly, “and I don’t, then he’ll think …”

  “That you don’t love him?” Alicia finished for her. Juliana blushed.

  “He probably knows that you love him by now,” Alicia said, “unless, of course, that’s another thing you haven’t bothered to tell him …?”

  “Um,” Juliana said.

  Alicia laughed, shaking her head. “Good Lord, I can remember being young and foolish, too. Well, I guess you’ve got to do it your own way. Lord knows I did.”

  Juliana swept into the front parlor, the perfect Victorian hostess. Her hair was piled on top of her head, off her smooth, creamy shoulders. She was wearing the blue evening gown with the low neckline that revealed the tops of her full breasts. Breasts that Webster had caressed, kissed, tasted.…

  Web crossed his legs, suddenly glad that he was sitting down.

  She moved further into the room, and he watched her greet each couple, holding out her hand, smiling, calling them by name. She was perfect, exactly what he’d expect a beautiful but very proper Victorian lady to be. Slightly aloof, with a hint of holier-than-thou thrown in for good measure. He smiled at a
sudden, very vivid memory of her naked body gleaming in the firelight, her eyes sparkling as she smiled up at him and touched him most intimately.

  God almighty, it had only been two nights since she’d shared his bed, since they’d made love, and he was damn near tied in knots with frustration. Only two nights, and he was ready to scream. And if he couldn’t handle only two nights, there was no way on God’s earth he was going to pack up his things and go back to Boston when his six weeks were up.

  He’d thought about it endlessly during the past two sleepless nights—when he wasn’t thinking about Juliana’s long legs or the look of pleasure in her eyes when he touched her a certain way.

  He’d finally told her he loved her. He’d finally made the words come out of his mouth. And he wrote her that note so she’d understand the things he couldn’t bring himself to say. And as he put it all down on paper, he realized he was doing more than explaining how he felt to Juliana. He was also clarifying his feelings in his own mind.

  He didn’t believe in love, yet he’d gone and proven himself wrong. He’d been skeptical at first, but he loved her. He really, truly loved this woman. And he wanted to be with her.

  He wanted to marry her.

  Except he didn’t believe in marriage. Happily ever after was only the way fairy tales ended. It simply didn’t apply to real life.

  He’d seen enough of his friends’ marriages break up after five or six years—some in even shorter time. And he’d seen enough of his parents’ friends, married for twenty-five, thirty years, apathetically plodding through life, attached to their spouses with an air of resigned indifference.

  No, he didn’t believe in marriage.

  But he still wanted to marry Juliana.

  He wanted to try.

  He wanted to prove himself wrong again.

  She was walking toward him, now, her hand outstretched, smiling politely, her eyes distant.

  Webster got to his feet to take her hand, raising her fingers lightly to his lips. As his mouth brushed her warm skin, he saw her eyes spark, and he smiled.

  “Good evening, Mr. Donovan,” she said.

  He inclined his head slightly. “Miss Anderson,” he murmured, and as she looked one more time into his eyes, he knew that she knew he wanted desperately to tear her clothes off and make mad, passionate love to her.