by Leah Vale
Juliet didn't realize the butler had led her straight through the house until they stepped out onto the back veranda. She found herself face-to-beet-red-face with a group of women. And not one of them looked remotely like an underprivileged, unwed mother. Or under the age of fifty.
The gathering looked more like a garden party, complete with white-linen-covered tables and matching folding chairs scattered around.
She'd been had.
"Juliet, darling!" Dorothy separated herself from the knot of women and hurried to Juliet's side with what seemed to be genuine pleasure. "I'm so glad you could come. I was just telling my friends what a lovely young woman you are and how utterly adorable my great-grandbaby is." She put a loving hand on Nathan's back and pressed a kiss to his willing cheek.
In a low, accusing tone Juliet said, "You said you needed me to talk to other women like me about the scholarship."
Dorothy stepped to Juliet's other side and leaned in close. "I do, I do. But first I need your help in convincing these dear ladies to fund the scholarship. Society matrons can be surprisingly tightfisted at times, I'm afraid."
Mortified, Juliet croaked, "I'm not some poster child, Dorothy. And I'm sure not going to let you use Nathan-"
"Pish." Dorothy cut her off, then looped an arm through Juliet's. "I've thought no such thing. And I swear on my sweet husband's soul I would never use this angel in any way, shape or form. Nor have I gone into any great detail regarding your, er, relationship with Harrison."
Dorothy patted Juliet's arm. "The fact is, you are clearly an intelligent young woman who can speak on this subject in a way no one else I know can. You can help make this scholarship a reality for so many more young women than Harrison had initially envisioned."
Meaning more than just me, Juliet thought. The pain in her chest grew worse. Obviously, if Harrison wanted to soothe his conscience this way, Dorothy wasn't going to let him be so obvious about it.
"Now, come and meet my friends. And don't worry. Just be yourself, and you'll charm the pants right off them." Dorothy beamed.
Just like I did your grandson? Juliet silently asked, as she let Dorothy tow her toward the openly curious group of society ladies.
Before Juliet could get through her first introduction, though, Nathan was bucking and snorting to get down. "Nathan," Juliet pleaded.
"Dada! Dada!" he shouted and pointed. Juliet followed his finger and saw Harrison and Ashley coming toward the veranda from around the corner of the house.
Responding to Nathan's squeal, Harrison's handsome face split into a glowing grin, and Juliet's heart clutched as she watched him squat and spread his arms wide. What would it be like to be on the receiving end of that kind of love? She'd probably keel over dead from the shock of it. Glad to the marrow of her bones that her child knew what it was like, Juliet let Nathan down off her hip, and he immediately ran for his father's arms.
"Oh, my little man," Harrison cooed after scooping the boy up and squeezing him tight against him. "Did you come to see your daddy?" he asked. Nathan pushed back from Harrison's shoulder and nodded. Harrison kissed him on the cheek. "I'm so glad. You've made me very, very happy."
His warm gaze shifted to Juliet.
She couldn't meet his gaze for long. A red-hot flush engulfed her face and she looked down at her brown sandals, instead. She didn't dare let anyone see what a look from him did to her, the memories he evoked. The foolish, stupid things he made her want.
Things she couldn't have because, when all was said and done, she just wasn't good enough.
Harrison fought to swallow past the lump that had formed in his throat when Nathan flung himself at him. His little boy's exuberant love was more than he could have ever
hoped for. The part of him he couldn't seem to get a handle on wished he could elicit the same response from his baby's mother.
Juliet looked beautiful. Willowy and fair in the light summer dress that caressed her form and whispered femininity. She'd pulled her sun-kissed brown hair back into a ponytail at her nape and achieved a look of simple elegance he knew Ashley spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours in pursuit of.
As if knowing she'd stepped into his thoughts in an unfavorable light, Ashley spoke up. "My goodness, she cleans up nicely. Just imagine what a day at Saks with my charge card could do for her."
Harrison set Nathan down at his feet, his brain unable to imagine anything save the image of Juliet "cleaning up." All covered in suds and glistening heat...
"Did you know she would be here today?"
Harrison blinked and looked at his sister. "No, I didn't. When Grandmother suggested involving Juliet in the scholarship program as a way to get her to accept one herself, I assumed we'd have her work on recruiting recipients, not donors." Harrison ran a hand through his hair as he noted who was present. They represented some of the deepest and most influential pockets in the region. "What could Grandmother be thinking? Juliet can't handle this. Did you know about her being here today?"
Ashley shook her head, her thick, gold hoop earrings glinting in the sunlight. "Wish I had. Juliet definitely needs to go shopping."
He looked back to Juliet on the veranda, twining her hands together nervously. "She doesn't need to go shopping, she needs to gain some confidence. If she had a little more confidence she wouldn't be so afraid of change. She'd be more willing to take the steps needed to give Nathan a better life." So Harrison wouldn't have to be forced to take those steps for her.
"I know nothing gives me confidence like a new pair of shoes," she sighed eloquently.
He made an exasperated noise at his sister's idea of personal growth and looked down at his son who'd discovered the tassels on Harrison's shoes and was doing his darnedest to pull one off. "I'm afraid it's going to take more than new clothes to reverse the damage done by her circumstances."
"You'd be surprised, Harrison." She tapped a manicured nail against her chin as she looked at Juliet speculatively.
The last thing he needed was Ashley trying to convince Juliet to change her look at the same time he was trying to get her to change her future. "Ashley," he warned.
"What?" she asked innocently.
"Promise me you won't meddle." Taking Nathan's hand, he headed for the veranda.
Behind him his sister said, "I don't meddle, dear, I manage."
After running the gamut of his grandmother's friends who acted as if they'd never seen such an adorable toddler in their lives, Harrison and Nathan moved to stand behind Juliet. Though she didn't acknowledge him, Harrison knew she was aware of his presence by the way she shifted on her feet, something she did often when he was around.
A glass of iced tea now clutched in her hands, Juliet was in the process, with his grandmother's occasional prompting, of tentatively explaining how the birth of an unplanned child could disrupt a young woman's plans for the future-without using herself as an example.
He wondered if, when she'd hatched this garden party scheme, his grandmother had considered what a blow it would be to Juliet's pride. She didn't want to be pitied.
But she comported herself with such subtle grace and tempered honesty that Harrison reluctantly acknowledged the warmth swelling in his chest as pride. The approving nods and smiles the older ladies sent her told him Juliet was well on her way to impressing them, also.
After standing there with Nathan playing in and out between his legs, listening to Juliet convince the knot of women around her how a college education would elevate a young woman out of hopelessness into a world of choices and possibilities, realization hit him.
Juliet was desperately trying to convince herself, also. And she was doing it with an amazing amount of class. Maybe getting her to accept the scholarship wasn't going to be so difficult, after all.
Not used to being ignored by his mother, their son chose that particular moment to test Harrison's latest observation about her class by lifting the back of Juliet's dress and tenting it over himself.
"Oh, hello!" Juliet exc
laimed, and put a restraining hand on the new lump in the back of her skirt.
"Sorry," Harrison apologized on a laugh and started to reach a hand under her dress to extract Nathan, but his grandmother's discreet cough brought him up short. Though not before several eyebrows went up and speculative looks were exchanged around the circle.
Just what he needed. His grandmother's friends used these charity functions as a means to gather and disseminate gossip. They were worse than a coffee klatch. It wouldn't be long before the whole state of Oregon knew that not only did the heir to the Rivers fortune have an illegitimate child, he tried to cop a feel off the kid's mother in public. Definitely not what he needed when he was trying to win the board's confidence.
Not liking his body's response to the notion of feeling up Juliet any more than losing the board's approval, Harrison withdrew his hand and stepped back.
The blush that had been riding high on Juliet's cheeks since she'd begun talking to the other ladies spread down her throat. "Nathan, come out of there, please," she urged in a strained voice and ushered the toddler from beneath her dress. But not before Harrison got an eyeful of her long, tanned legs. While he'd seen that much, and more, before, the illicitness of the glimpse made swallowing difficult again.
Needing to escape before the potent combination of his desire for Juliet and being so damn proud of her threatened his determination not to care too much, Harrison snagged Nathan's hand. "Would it be all right if I take him down to play on the swing?"
Juliet turned a puzzled gaze to the back lawn.
"You can't see it from here, but that big oak tree, the one in the middle, has a wooden swing hung on the back side." He frowned. "At least it used to." He looked to his grandmother.
She smiled and nodded. "The swing is still there, dear. And it's trustworthy. I was on it myself yesterday."
The other ladies laughed, but Harrison didn't doubt her.
Juliet smiled. "Sure. That sounds like fun." She sounded wistful.
He didn't blame her for wanting to escape. Talking people out of their money, even for a great cause, was rarely fun and never easy. Especially when she didn't have a clue about how it was done and clearly doubted her abilities at every turn.
Thinking she deserved a reprieve more than his hormones deserved a rest, he leaned toward her to keep his words private. "Come join us when you get the chance. I'd like to show you the rest of the grounds."
Her smile was shy, almost tentative. "Thanks. I'd like that."
Unfortunately, so would he. At least the part of him that reveled in her ability to make him forget everything but the sunshine and the peace of just being.
And that afternoon, while playing with his child under the oak tree he'd grown up beneath, he had to remind himself not to consider why.
Juliet rubbed her damp palms on her hips as she crossed the expanse of lawn toward the oak tree where Harrison waited, her nervousness on the rise again. She'd actually relaxed a little talking to the old gals as soon as she'd realized they weren't going to eat her alive. She'd even been given the impression they liked her.
She practiced Dorothy's pish.
Jacobson, Mrs. Dr. William Wheeler and the rest of the matrons probably just had better manners than the type of people Juliet was used to. Whatever the reason, she couldn't say she'd hated chatting with them. Go figure.
The thought of meeting Harrison under the old oak tree had her hands sweating again, though. While she should be suspicious of his motives, she couldn't help thinking, even hoping, that he really wanted to show her his home, to spend time with her.
Lord, she was an idiot. But she couldn't help the hope seeping through her. The sight of him chasing Nathan down the lawn, giving him gentle pushes on the swing and playing hide and seek around the tree's huge trunk until Nathan squealed had yanked at her heart unmercifully. She'd looked toward them so often the ladies finally shooed her away to go join father and son.
They were back playing on the swing, and Juliet clasped her hands together to get a grip on her emotions as she approached them. Harrison’s endless appeal to her senses didn't help. His play-tousled hair and time-of-his-life grin made him look more handsome than she could have ever imagined her wayward knight looking. And while it took none of his ample strength to propel the swing, every time the thick muscles in his arms and back bunched in preparation of being called upon, she yearned to be wrapped in his strong embrace.
Talk about needing a reality check. She couldn't forget she didn't belong here. She never would.
Harrison gave Nathan a soft push on the swing and looked to her with a smile. "I see you finally got away. I'd started to think we were going to have to rescue you."
She returned his smile and propped a hand on the rough, flaky bark of the old tree, reminding herself of their game of hide-and-seek in front of the store. Her cheeks grew hot. "Thanks, but I didn't need rescuing."
His expression turned serious. "Really?"
"Yes, really. It was...not bad. Not bad at all. Actually okay. Dorothy helped me say what needed to be said, and the other women...well, they were pretty nice."
"I have to warn you, sometimes nice is nothing more than impeccable manners learned through years of garden parties and fund-raisers."
She narrowed her eyes at him and gave her head a skeptical tilt. "So you're saying those ladies aren't really nice?"
"Oh, no, that's not what I mean at all," he amended. "You probably won't meet a sweeter bunch than Grandmother's friends. They do an amazing amount of work for several local and national charities." He met her gaze. "What I'm saying is, to successfully achieve your goals in this world you've got to learn to have enough confidence that it won't matter to you whether someone is nice or simply very well mannered."
"Okaaay." She drew the word out, unable to get past the fact that whenhe said this world, she knew he really meant his world. A world she would never have enough confidence to succeed in, no matter how many old ladies liked her.
"High, Dada. High," Nathan urged from the swing.
"Are you sure, buddy?" Harrison asked, still giving the swing gentle pushes.
"High." Nathan let go of one of the ropes and pointed to the sky.
Harrison chuckled and looked to Juliet with a brow raised. "What do you think, Mom?"
His reminder of the family unit that would never be poked yet another hole in her sorry heart. She sighed and shook her head. "The child has no fear. Or sense. He really scares me sometimes."
Harrison's expression sobered. "But I'm sure you keep a close eye on him."
His questioning tone bugged her. Pushing off the tree and crossing her arms in front of her chest, she said firmly, "Yes. I do."
He nodded once as if to close the subject and gave her an apologetic smile. Grabbing the swing's ropes, he brought Nat to an easy halt. "Want to go for a walk, Nathan?"
Nathan lunged off the swing in answer.
Harrison turned to her and offered his hand. "Come on. I'd like to show you where I grew up." Before Juliet could decide whether or not to take his hand, he withdrew it with a glance past her shoulder at the guest-filled veranda. His cheeks looked flushed beneath his tan.
Had he forgotten himself? Or remembered who she was?
Juliet pressed her crossed arms tighter against the pain in her heart as she watched Harrison. When would she stop hurting over this guy?
When I'm dead and in my grave, she thought acidly.
His gaze still focused on the people behind her, he reached up and broke a twig off the oak tree as if that was what he'd intended to do all along. Shifting his deep-river gaze back to hers, he nodded toward a path beside them. "Come on," he whispered, an almost tired-looking smile touching the edges of his mouth.
She was about to tell him what he could do with his little tour and that it was time for her and Nathan to go, but his deep voice stopped her.
"Juliet. Let me show you my home."
Though it hurt like hell, she still wanted to be with him
. She wanted to catch a glimpse of something that would tell her who the real Harrison was. The man who snapped at people on the phone, or the man afraid of the pain from loving too much?
Knowing she shouldn't, but using Nathan's desire to continue playing at "Rivers Park" as an excuse, Juliet uncrossed her arms and followed him.
He headed them toward a path leading to a break in the hedge wall at the back of the huge yard. Nathan alternated between running ahead of them and galloping in circles around them. He'd sleep for a week after this.
When they reached the hedge, the yard sloped down significantly and the path meandered back and forth until it disappeared from sight. She pointed at the raked-gravel path. "Where does this go?"
"To the river."
She rolled her eyes. "Of course. Us bumpkins from the boonies aren't the only ones lucky enough to squat some prime river-front property."
He didn't laugh.
She cleared her throat and wished for that rewind button again. Rubbing his nose in how different they were was not the way to get to know him. "Let's not go all the way down to the river, though, okay? Nathan loves the water, but he can't swim. I'd just as soon not have to go wading in after him."
"I hadn't planned on taking you any farther than the crest, right up here."
She followed him to the point where the slope fell away, and her breath caught at the beauty of the view. There were no blackberry bushes or birch trees to compete with, and the manicured grass grew right up to the water's edge below them. Not a single big, dumb rock in sight. Only a cute little dock complete with its own comfy-looking wooden chair. She would think she'd died and gone to heaven if she ever got to sit and watch the river from such an incredible spot.
He pointed at the dock with the twig he'd snapped from the oak tree and put words to her thoughts. "That's where I escaped things. I used to come down here and sit in that Adirondack and watch the river."
She looked at his handsome profile and her heart ached for him, with the deep feelings he refused to embrace. Too bad she wasn't the woman to show him how. "Used to?"
"No time now."
Juliet muttered, "Well, duh," and fought the urge to spout with corporations to run, illegitimate children to claim, unwed mothers to manage... Instead, she said, "Speaking of which, we should head back."
