You know her. You’ve loved her forever. She’s changed. Grown up. Gone through the same loss you did. Put both of you out of your collective misery and tell her you still love her.
No.
That was where he put his metaphorical foot down. He wasn’t in love with Juliet. He couldn’t love someone who’d done what she’d done. No. There were no arguments to the contrary. Juliet had lied; he could never trust her. It was that simple.
And that painful.
Fine. Suit yourself. And lose the best thing that ever happened to you.
If Juliet’s lies were the best thing that had ever happened to him, Tanner might just think of giving up and becoming a bum. What was the point of moving forward if he kept going backward?
“I can hear the wheels spinning in your head.” She turned her messy bed-head toward him, her eyes sated and languid, her smile satisfied.
It was a look he’d always loved on her and now was no different. Some things were just hard-wired into his psyche.
Which could be the only explanation for having done this with her.
“Tanner? Please tell me you don’t regret this.”
He’d love to tell her he did. Give her the same kind of pain she’d given him, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t who he was. He prided himself on being honest. “No, Juliet, I don’t. I am wondering, however, how we go on from here. What happens next. I’m still leaving, you know. The divorce will still happen. I can’t live in the same vacuum I’ve been living in these past seven years. I want my life to start. I want to move forward. Have a future. There’s too much past between us for that to happen.”
She blinked. A few times. Rapidly. But to her credit, she didn’t cry.
Maybe Juliet was growing up after all.
So what does that mean for you, buddy boy?
Nothing. Not a damn thing. Too much hurt. Too much pain. They couldn’t go back and they couldn’t go forward. Not together. They had to move on.
“Don’t overanalyze it, Tanner. Let’s just appreciate it for what it is. We’ve always been attracted to each other—that obviously hasn’t changed. You have your life; I have mine. We’re here together because of Nana. Let’s let it be just that. Why analyze it? Why put more pressure on ourselves? Why worry it’s something it’s not? Let’s just enjoy it.” She raised an arm over her head and stretched. “I certainly did.”
He looked at her. Studied her eyes. There was no guile there. No calculating going on. Just honest and open and—her pupils were dilated. Juliet’s pupils always dilated when she was aroused.
He felt himself stir and had to smile. Some things obviously didn’t change in seven years.
“You’re smiling.”
Including the fact that she could read him like a book.
“Does that mean you enjoyed it?”
He grabbed her hand and dragged it down to his groin. “What do you think?”
He shuddered when her fingers closed around him.
“I think the jury needs some more convincing.”
God help him, he let her “convince the jury.” Let her take him in her mouth, and then, when he was just about ready to pull her head away and roll her over, she pulled another condom off the nightstand, sheathed him, and climbed on top, and it was a long time before he was thinking about anything.
And if her father hadn’t shown up at Juliet’s front door, it might have been a lot longer.
Chapter Seventeen
“Dad?”
That one word, in that tone, had Tanner jumping out of Juliet’s bed and yanking on his clothes in two seconds. Her father showing up wasn’t a good thing.
Thank God Juliet had thrown a pair of shorts and a t-shirt on instead of answering the door in her bathrobe, but that wouldn’t help Tanner get the hell out of her bedroom without her father knowing exactly what they’d been doing.
Though… that might be a good thing. It’d bolster their story.
Great. Now he was figuring out how to lie.
“What’s wrong? Is it Nana?”
“Your grandmother is fine. It’s me. I’m here to find out what the hell you and Wentworth are trying to pull.”
“Pull? What are you talking about?”
Tanner walked to the bedroom door, his ear at the opening.
“May I come in?” Mr. Chambers was nothing if not a stickler for propriety and rules. It made him a good businessman but a pain in the ass as a girlfriend’s father.
Tanner wasn’t sure what that made him as a father-in-law since he hadn’t really experienced that part. But if showing up late at their home—okay, his daughter’s home, but the guy thought they were back together, so it should be considered their home and Tanner would worry how he felt about that later—was any indication, Tanner wasn’t a fan. Especially when the guy had interrupted him making love to his wife.
Wife.
Damn. That word rolled way too easily off his tongue.
“Oh. Um. Sure.” Juliet stepped back with a rake of her hand through her hair already messy hair. Jeez, her bed-head couldn’t scream sex any louder. “But please be quiet. Tanner’s sleeping.”
“Where?”
Well that got right to the point.
Juliet looked away and Tanner could see the blush on her cheek.
That got to the point too.
“You’re sleeping with him, Juliet? You haven’t learned your lesson already?”
“Dad, Tanner is my husband.”
“Are you sure about that?”
The question made Tanner’s blood boil. How dare her father question his integrity. He was about to open the bedroom door when Juliet responded.
“Yes, I’m sure about that, Dad. Tanner and I are still married. And he’s honored his vows, just like I have.” She closed the front door. “I know he’s not your favorite person, but our relationship is none of your business.”
If she were saying that as part of their cover story, she couldn’t be more convincing. If she actually believed it, she’d finally learned to take him at his word.
He felt a little flutter in his chest at that thought.
“You’ve made it my business by lying to your grandmother. I will not have it, Juliet. She gave up her life to help me raise you. This is how you repay her?”
“That’s enough, Burt.” Tanner couldn’t stay in Juliet’s room any longer. “Juliet would never hurt her grandmother and you know it. I know you’re worried, but you shouldn’t take it out on your daughter.”
“Should I take it out on you?” Mr. Chambers wasn’t a small man, but he wasn’t in Tanner’s league. Not that Tanner would ever hit him, but Juliet’s father clenched his fists, looking as if he wanted to take more than a few swings at him as they met in the middle of Juliet’s living room.
“Juliet is trying to make her grandmother happy. So am I.”
He father rubbed the side of his neck. “By lying to her? You can’t tell me the two of you have suddenly discovered you can’t live without each other. Not after all these years apart.”
“We’re… working on it.”
“And then what?” He arched an eyebrow. “My mother gets well and you walk out again?”
“Daddy—”
“No, Juliet. I want to hear what he has to say. He’s left you twice already. Why are you opening yourself up to a third time? Do you like getting hurt? Do you like having to pick up the pieces? Why on earth would you let yourself be roped into this?”
“I wasn’t roped into anything. If we were trying to ‘pull something’ as you said, don’t you think I would have had him come back when she went into the hospital?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t want Tanner to have to come back; I wanted him to want to.”
Tanner had seriously undervalued Juliet’s acting ability. She almost had him convinced.
Her father’s fists landed on his hips. “You expect me to believe this is just a coincidence? I didn’t get to where I am today by burying my head in the sa
nd, Juliet. I know a snow job when I see one.”
Tanner so wanted to come clean; he’d told Juliet they couldn’t pull this off. But he’d seen Nana. She had been happy to see him, but he’d seen the frailty under her smile. If keeping the pretense a little longer would help her get well, he was going to do it. In for a penny, in for a mortgage…
“Of course I came back when Juliet told me what happened—but it was because I wanted to. Because it was time to.” There. That was as close to the truth without being a lie that he could go.
“And what do you think will happen, Juliet, when he leaves? Do you think your grandmother will be happy with that?”
“Who says I’m going to?” Tanner couldn’t believe he said the words.
Juliet’s father obviously couldn’t either. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at Tanner. “You.” He pulled himself to his full height which was a good five inches below Tanner’s, but the guy was still as intimidating as he’d been when Tanner had been eighteen. “For some God-only-knows-why reason you make Juliet happy and my mother knows it. I won’t have her hurt again. She’s done too much for this family to have her emotions played with. I don’t know what you and Juliet have concocted, but you will not hurt my mother, is that clear? I still have that mortgage.”
“Dad—”
“Juliet.” Tanner stepped forward. As much as he’d like to set the guy straight, he wasn’t going to and risk what he and Juliet had already worked out.
He took a deep breath and did something he’d never thought he’d be able to do.
He lied to Juliet’s father.
“Juliet and I have had some issues but we owe it to ourselves, to what we’ve meant to each other, to try to work them out. Yes, I’m here because Juliet told me about her grandmother, but that’s not the only reason I came back. I’m here for the right reasons. I have no intention of hurting your mother or your daughter, Burt.” That part was at least true. They’d already laid out the ground rules; if Juliet got hurt, it was because she’d built this into something more than it was. It wouldn’t be his doing; he’d been honest with her.
“But you never do, do you? You just up and leave, and the rest of us get to help her pick up the pieces.”
“Daddy, that’s not fair.”
“Haven’t you heard, Juliet? Nothing’s fair in love and war. I just haven’t figured out which one this relationship between the two of you is.”
Tanner didn’t want to try to classify it. “Juliet and I are adults. We’ve discussed the situation from every angle. You don’t have to worry about your daughter. She’s fine.”
Fine? Juliet wasn’t sure about that. She actually wasn’t sure about anything because hearing what Tanner was saying…
She wanted it to be true. And if they hadn’t had that talk before going to bed together, she might actually think it was, he was that convincing.
And he looked so right talking to her father here in her living room in his t-shirt and shorts and bare feet. As if this was where he belonged.
Her tummy fluttered, imagining it. What it’d be like to go to bed with him each night, to wake up with him each morning, to make him breakfast in bed—or he’d make it for her; they’d liked doing that for each other those few short months they’d moved in together before they’d lost Keegan. She could picture him sitting on the back patio, reading the paper. This house had seemed so tiny before and should, by rights, feel even smaller with Tanner in it, but it didn’t. It felt…
Like home.
“He’s right, Daddy. Tanner and I have talked all about this. You don’t need to worry.”
He glared at Tanner. “I’d like to have a word with my daughter.”
“Daddy, anything you have to say, you can say it in front of Tanner.”
“No, Juliet, that’s okay.” Tanner touched her shoulder and it felt… genuine. “I’ll leave you two alone.” He walked toward the guest bedroom.
So much for genuine. If he really meant what he’d said—what they’d just done together—he would have gone back to her room.
She had to get her head on straight. That wasn’t what they’d agreed on before going into her room. She couldn’t let what they’d done color what they were trying to do: convince her family they were back together.
Her father took a seat when Tanner closed his bedroom door. Juliet had to take a deep breath before she could face him. “Dad, it will be fine.”
“Will it?” He rubbed his temples. “Look, sweetheart. I know you think you’re doing a good thing for your grandmother, but she’s going to be upset when he leaves. You should have seen her after you left today. I haven’t seen her smile that much in well, well, long before the stroke. And she ate tonight. I didn’t have to coax her.”
“See? All good reasons to be glad he’s back.”
Her father leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs, his hands hanging between his legs. “This is exactly what I was worried about, Juliet. You’re too vulnerable when it comes to Tanner Wentworth. You always get your hopes up and then you get let down. He hasn’t been around for any reasonable amount of time for seven years, honey. If he’d wanted to come back, he could have. I could have had grandchildren by now. But you’re wasting your life waiting for something that won’t happen. He’s not the man for you. Whether it’s because you have too much history or some other reason you’re holding onto, the truth is, you have to let him go. You have to move on. You can’t spend your life pining over a guy who doesn’t realize how special you are.”
Juliet bit her lip. She loved her father for saying this. He’d always told her how wonderful and special she was—especially in those early years after Mom had decided her boyfriend was more important than her daughter. But hearing the words from her father didn’t undo her mother’s abandonment.
The truth was, she’d never felt worthy enough. After all, if her own mother left her, why should anyone else not genetically related to her stick around?
Rationally, she knew Tanner couldn’t be held accountable for her mother’s actions, but emotionally, psychologically, she’d been terrified he’d leave her.
And then he had. And the sucky thing was, it’d been her actions to prevent it that had led to the very thing she’d feared most happening.
“Dad, you’re just going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t have perspective, sweetheart. He left you when you needed him most. And not once, but twice. And now you’ve brought him back for a third time? I’d hoped you weren’t carrying a torch for him all these years, but I see I was wrong.” He held her chin. “You’re going to get hurt again and there’s nothing I can do to prevent it.”
“Daddy, I’m a big girl and I’ve done just fine these last few years without him.” Few, not seven, because she hadn’t been fine the first couple.
“You’ve dealt with it, but you haven’t moved on.” He dropped his hand into his lap. “You haven’t dated and you should. Get out and meet another man. One you can build a life with. A future. Have a family.”
“I’m still married, Dad.”
His eyebrows arched and he let go of her hand. “You think he cares about that? If he did, he would have been here. He could be dating and you wouldn’t know.”
“I would. I know Tanner. He’s a man of his word. He spoke his vows and he meant them.”
Of that she was sure. Now.
But she wanted to remind him of the most important one: ’Til death us do part.
Her father’s words were burning a hole in his heart.
Tanner stepped away from his door, the old adage about eavesdroppers never hearing anything good about themselves ringing true.
Mr. Chambers was actually encouraging her to cheat on him. Tanner shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. The opinion the guy had of him…
Yet Juliet had jumped right to his defense. Or was she saying that for her father’s benefit?
He hated that he even had to have that thought.
“Let it go, Daddy, okay? Let’s just be here for Nana. Everything else will work out as it’s supposed to after she’s better.”
After.
It seemed to Tanner as if he’d been living his life with a big helping of after. After he turned thirty. After he got his trust fund. After he paid off the mortgage. After his divorce. Now he had to wait until after Nana got better.
When would he ever be able to live in the moment? To not have to wait for some big, all-important date to define his life?
He snorted. After, that’s when.
“I don’t want him running out again, Juliet. Not while it could hurt your grandmother. Do you trust him enough not to?”
“I do.”
She said those two words more surely and firmly than she’d said them the day they’d gotten married. And this time, they slid through his veins and swirled around his heart in a way they hadn’t when he’d thought she’d been saying them to trap him. But now, she was saying them as if she trusted him. Finally.
But when will you trust her?
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Almost literally. But he wasn’t here to trust her. He was here to honor their agreement and get the mortgage to the ranch. Then he could move on.
You sure that’s what you want to do?
Of course it was. It was what he’d been planning for after.
But what about now?
Now?
He looked through the door and saw her sitting there, her knees pressed together, her hands intertwined in her lap, resolution etched across her face.
The Juliet he’d known had been clingy. Worshipful.
This Juliet was confident. Secure.
Different.
And still so beautiful she made his heart ache.
Why did her father have to show up? Why couldn’t they have had tonight? Was it so much to ask?
Just one night. With his wife.
Juliet closed her front door after her father left, leaned her forehead against it, and took a deep breath. That had not been pleasant.
Dad had said everything she was worried about and she’d given him true responses. She did trust Tanner to not walk away—at least until he’d fulfilled his part of their bargain. Then he’d leave and she’d already sanctioned it.
Beefcake & Retakes Page 15
