by Leah Vale
"Thank you." He took the mug, capturing her fingers beneath his in the process. She glanced up at him, her gaze searching his, before she pulled her hand away. She must think he was a real piece of work.
Then he remembered the olive branch he'd brought with him. "Hey, I have something for you, too." He went to his car and set his glass on the hood so he could retrieve the manila envelope from his briefcase in the back seat.
She wandered after him. "Your Porsche in the shop?"
"Nope. Traded it for this one. It wasn't exactly a family car." Envelope in hand, he grinned in anticipation as he turned and handed it to her. "Here you go-"
"What's this?" Her suspicion was clear in her tone and the narrowing of her glorious brown eyes.
"Just look," he urged. Harrison wasn't certain, but he thought her hands shook when she broke the envelope's seal. Had no one ever given her a surprise before? No one besides him, that is. Thank goodness this was one she would be pleased to receive. His grin widened in anticipation. There was definitely something to be said for this Prince Charming, Fairy Godfather, whatever routine.
After removing the papers inside, she began to read them. She flipped through the pages twice before raising her eyes to his.
Harrison nearly took a step back from the force of the recrimination in her expression.
Her lip curled and her eyes narrowed. She grated out, "How dare you."
Harrison blinked. Of all the reactions he'd imagined receiving from her,
anger hadn't been one of them. "Beg your pardon?"
Juliet pulled in a shaky breath, her fingers crushing the papers in her hand. "I said, how dare you. How dare you mess with my life like this."
"I'm not messing-"
"Yes you are! And that's all you've done since the first second I saw you."
He stared at her in confusion. "But you said, down by the river, that you'd planned on going to college before-"
"Before you messed with my-"
"I'm sorry I didn't come back, Juliet," he cut her off, losing the battle with his disappointment and frustration. He'd wanted so much to do something for her, to somehow make amends. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sure you're sorry you ever set eyes, or anything else, on me," she said in a hard tone, and Harrison wasn't sure if it was directed at him or herself.
"No." Stepping closer, he took hold of her upper arm. "I will never, ever regret finding you." His voice dropped a notch. "I can't even make myself regret what happened between us." Harrison closed his eyes in remembrance and filled his lungs with summer-tinged air to steady himself against the heady images in his head.
She'd felt so wonderful in his arms. So right.
Opening his eyes, he glanced over at his son trying to hold an ant. "And I sure as hell don't regret creating that little bit of magic over there. What I do regret is how..." He looked back down at her and had to swallow when he saw the moisture glistening in her big, brown eyes. "How I handled things after the first time."
"You didn't handle things." She dropped her gaze from his, focusing instead on the front of his shirt. "You kissed me goodbye and left."
She was right. He'd said goodbye and driven back to his life, back to his reality, thinking he was free to focus on achieving the one and only goal he'd ever had in life-running his grandfather's company. "That's right," he whispered past the thickness in his throat. "And I held the memory of you, of us, close, like I would any fantasy come true. It wasn't long before I halfway doubted that it had really happened."
She looked over at their son. "Oh, it happened, all right."
"I know that. But I guess pretending it hadn't was how I dealt with what I'd done, the impulses I'd given in to. The pain I'd needed help getting past." He gently squeezed her arm, hoping she'd recognize his earnestness. "And that's why I'm trying to make it right. I never meant to rob you of what you'd planned for your life, Juliet." He nodded at the papers she held tightly in her hands. "That's why I enrolled you at the community college in Eugene-"
"So that's how you're going to pay me off? Foot the bill for me to go to school and study..." She flipped through the papers again until she reached the schedule of classes he'd signed her up for. "English Lit 101?" She met his gaze again, a light-brown eyebrow raised.
"I'm not paying you off." He dropped his hand from her arm, feeling like the thief he was. He had stolen so much from her with his recklessness, yet he still found himself wanting more. "I'm not paying for anything. You've been awarded a full-ride scholarship." He shifted on his feet, conscious of not being entirely truthful.
"How? For what? I seriously doubt Lane Community College has a
river-watching team."
"For being a single mother. There's a scholarship fund set up for single mothers. So they can go to school and make something of their lives."
She flipped through the papers again. "It says here this 'scholarship' is given by the Rivers Foundation. My, what a coincidence."
"It's legitimate, Juliet."
"Oh, really. And how long, exactly, has it been around?"
He planted his hands on his hips and seriously considered lying to her, but knew there was no point. She could discover the truth easily enough. "Not long. And I admit your situation gave me the idea."
"Oh. so I'm a situation now. Well, I don't want it." She slapped the papers against his chest and turned to walk away.
Harrison fumbled to catch them. "For God's sake, why?"
"Because I don't need pity or to have my life manipulated-"
"I'm not manipulating you!" Clutching the papers to his chest, he followed after her. If only he had a free hand to shake some sense into her. Didn't she understand this was the least he could do for so drastically changing her life? "If you don't want to take the courses I signed you up for, you don't have to-"
"I don't want you controlling me."
He sighed and prayed for patience. "I won't be controlling you. I won't have anything to do with your schooling."
"Oh, and like the Rivers Foundation's Scholarship for Unwed Mothers, or whatever you've named it, won't be notified when I flunk a class."
He brought his brows down. "What makes you think you'll fail a class?"
She crossed her arms over her chest, her shoulders hunched up high.
A light bulb came on in his head. "You don't want to go to school because you're afraid of failing."
"My, don't you belong on Oprah," she gibed, but wouldn't meet his gaze. "What I'm afraid of is you taking our son from me."
He forced himself to focus on getting her acquiescence, not on her admission and those two wonderful words our son. "It's okay to fail, Juliet. You learn from it and try again."
"You can afford to fail." She scoffed. "Some of us aren't so lucky."
"But you have to at least try. How will you ever know what you can achieve if you won't take the risk?"
She finally looked up at him. "The last time-that is, the only time-I took a risk..." She paused, her lip quivering and her eyes bright with unshed tears. Bitterness spilled over into her voice. "I got nailed- literally. So forgive me if I'm not in any all-fire hurry to go for something again. Why can't things stay the way they are? Nobody's going to get hurt if you'd leave things the way they are." She went to Nathan and picked him up before retreating into the store, the screen door slamming in her wake.
Harrison looked down at the crumpled papers he still held trapped against his chest. So, she thought it was easier-and safer-to leave things as they were. She was afraid to take the chance that life might hold possibilities for her. Possibilities that would take her out of her comfort zone, out of the world she knew.
He raised his gaze to the tilting balcony with its lone chair. She'd been sitting there the first time he'd seen her, and he remembered wondering what could a gorgeous woman like her be waiting for up there? And she was still waiting. For the courage to take another risk? Or for someone to push her into taking one?
After retrieving the lemonade glasses,
he went into the store, not surprised to find it empty, and placed the drinks and the envelope on the checkout counter. Juliet would realize her dreams, even if he had to haul her along by the scruff of her beautiful neck to do it.
Juliet dragged her bare heels back and forth over the balcony rail, inadvertently cleaning off the final layer of peeling white paint. It was all too much. The river of change swamping her life had picked up so much speed she was finally drowning in the murky current.
Harrison expected her to go to college. She couldn't. While she was a heck of a lot smarter than the rest of her family, taking after Grandpa and all, she wasn't smart enough for college. Or was she?
Harrison might as well have asked her to walk on the moon. Something to dream about but never do. No one in her world had ever gone to college. No one could tell her what to expect and reassure her.
No one but Harrison.
Juliet didn't want him to know how much the unknown scared her spitless. She tilted her chair on its back legs and stared up at the late-afternoon sky, its color faded by the heat. If only Grandpa were still here to help her figure out what to do. He would be able to help her see the right way of things. And she sure needed some guidance now. She so desperately wanted to do right by Nat. If only she knew what right was.
She closed her eyes and dropped her head onto the back of her chair, only vaguely aware of the phone ringing downstairs. Probably Harrison calling to bug her some more. As if he hadn't already done enough.
"Jules, it's for you!" Willie shouted up the stairs at her.
Juliet groaned and let her chair back down on all four legs with a soft thunk. She better not be right. And Willie better not have woken Nat with his bellowing. He knew Nat was napping.
After a quick look-see into Nathan's crib, she was reassured he had, indeed, worn himself out too much this morning playing with his father to be disturbed by his loudmouthed uncle. Closing the door quietly behind her, she hurried downstairs.
With Willie nowhere in sight, she gave the phone the walleye for a second as it swung by its cord before she mustered the courage to pick it up, put it to her ear and acknowledge whoever waited on the other end.
Halfway hoping, halfway dreading to hear Harrison's voice, she said, "Hello?"
A woman's voice answered her. "Juliet? This is Dorothy Rivers."
Juliet heaved a sigh of relief. Sort of.After the usual pleasantries-usual in Dorothy's world, that is-Nathan's great-grandmother's tone changed subtly and Juliet knew Dorothy was about to get down to business.
"I know this is extremely short notice and rather abrupt, dear," Dorothy said. "But I desperately need your help."
Her hands sticky with perspiration, Juliet readjusted her grip on the wheel of Willie's truck and wished for the millionth time she'd had the guts to tell Dorothy Rivers no. 'Course it hadn't been until Juliet had hung up the phone and climbed halfway up the stairs that it dawned on her what Dorothy had talked her into doing.
Just because she was an unwed mother didn't mean she was an expert on them. And how in the world was she supposed to go up to these girls and convince them to try to get a scholarship she herself didn't want? But Dorothy had convinced her that she could approach poor, unwed mothers in a way a rich patron couldn't.
The rich patron hadn't knocked up these other girls, though. Harrison must have told his grandmother how badly he'd blown it when he'd tried to give her the scholarship.
The old gal had fought dirty-she'd brought Nathan, and all the other innocent babes, into the discussion. Juliet wanted her baby to grow up proud of his mother, and she was sure these other young women felt the same way. So Dorothy had convinced her to help. Too bad she and Nathan had to go to the Rivers estate to do it.
Oh, man.
Juliet glanced down at her floral rayon dress and prayed she looked okay. She had to, because this dress was all she owned that wasn't denim and frayed. Not exactly what one would wear to a millionaire's house.
Oh, man.
For courage she looked at the beautiful baby next to her, happily shredding the directions to the estate. Thank heaven he'd stayed clean. His overalls with the little trains were getting short, but they were still cute on him. Even with bits of paper sprinkled all over them.
"Nathan, let Mommy have that please," she said, and reached to take the torn paper from his hand.
Rechecking what was left of the instructions, she slowed Willie's truck so she wouldn't miss the turn to the Riverses' private drive.
She shouldn't have worried. The huge, black-iron gate with the Rivers name fashioned out of metal was hard to miss. The gate reminded her of the entrance to an old graveyard. But instead of being all rusted and broken-down, the fancy scrolled-iron gate gleamed in the noontime sun and swung silently open as she approached, closing with finality once she was through. She checked for some sort of security booth hidden in the perfect shrub wall on either side of the gate but didn't see one. Probably operated remotely by satellite, she thought sarcastically.
Juliet cussed silently as she drove up the gently curving, dark-gray cobblestone drive. One more example of how different she and Harrison were. She'd grown up in a dump while he'd grown up in a park. That was the only way she could think to describe the perfect lawn, flowers and trees casually but definitely arranged on either side of the drive.
The green of the grass and the reds and yellows and purples of the different kinds of flowers were so vibrant she mumbled, "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
The farther up the drive they went, the more formal the planting
arrangements became. A low boxwood hedge curved in toward the drive to frame it, and Juliet wondered if Harrison planned to eventually marry some debutante in the midst of the rose garden on the right. Some debutante he wouldn't love too much, of course. The thought made her chest hurt.
Too easily she remembered him saying he needed her, and the words he'dwhispered in her ear after he'd made that first tentative touch in theback shed. He'd said he felt that they'd been predestined to be together.
That one word had helped her through the worst parts of her pregnancy, had helped her believe their child hadn't simply been a mistake. Now did he believe that he was predestined to marry one of his own kind in a rose garden?
"Like it matters to you," Juliet stubbornly told herself and focused her attention back on the cobblestones.
Then the house came into view. Juliet's jaw dropped.
It was big, brick and had lots of windows. Make that huge, with a ton of windows, the tops of some stained glass. The house was beautiful. Church beautiful. She felt as if she had warped into the English countryside and was driving up to some duke's estate. She had only seen houses like this on those old-fashioned, British detective shows she loved to watch on public television.
No wonder Harrison had wanted to bring Nathan here to play. How long before he would want Nathan to live here?
And how could she say no?
Hating the crushing weight she felt every time she thought of losing her child, she maneuvered the truck past the half-dozen luxury cars parked along the circular drive in front of the house.
"The Riverses have way too many cars, Nathan baby."
"Outside!" He pointed to the vast, velvety-looking lawn. "Outside!"
"Maybe later, baby," she said as she parked the truck.
She lifted Nathan out and carried him up the wide stone steps leading to the beautifully carved double doors of the mansion. Shifting him to her hip, she raised a fist, uncertainly eyeing the doors' iron lion's head knockers, but the right door opened before she could lay a knuckle to the wood.
On the other side a slender man in a simple black suit smiled and inclined his head as he moved back out of the way. " Jones and Nathan! Rivers has been expecting you."
A butler, no less. Juliet swallowed heavily and stepped inside. Then froze in her tracks. She shouldn't have been surprised. Really, she shouldn't have. But the sight of the large black-and-white marble-tiled foye
r with its huge, curving staircase, a large round table sporting an oriental-looking vase full of fresh flowers bigger than her head, topped off with a crystal chandelier the size of a Volkswagen Bug stunned her. It was like walking into the classiest of hotels. Only this wasn't a hotel. This was Harrison's home. She was so out of her element.
The butler closed the door behind her. The latch clicking home startled her back to life. He reached for the diaper bag slung over her shoulder and politely asked, "May I?"
"Sure. But don't stash it too far away. He hasn't done his big job yet." She patted Nathan's bottom, then mentally cringed. While he didn't show any outward reaction, now the butler knew she had no class. Great start, Jules.
"Oh, and here." She handed him Willie's keys, noticing too late the miniature beer can key chain. "Just shove 'em..." She waved at the diaper bag. The beer can went just great with the teddy bear design on the bag. She turned and headed down the wood-paneled entryway, furious at her nervousness.
The butler hurried to catch up with her and proceeded to lead her through the house.
And what a house.
She caught glimpses of some of the rooms that opened directly off the large, rectangle foyer. There was an office with a huge desk, a dining room with a huge table, a library with wall-to-wall books and a not-so-huge piano. It was all so...so...decorated. But not in a gaudy or overdone way, despite the size of some of the pieces. The house and its furnishings gave off the same kind of vibes as Dorothy Rivers- and Harrison and Ashley, for that matter. Those vibes said money, but didn't scream it at you. In a word, the Rivers family had class.
Juliet's focus shifted to keeping Nathan's curious little paws off the vases and other pricey-looking knickknacks-namely pointless looking glass and marble balls-hanging out on a constant string of skinny tables placed below large paintings. The artwork, for the most part, matched the formal style of the house, with horses and countrysides-except for a few modemish, splashes-of-color-type paintings that were as surprising as Dorothy herself.
