She read the letter a second time. Brad was still taking charge, even from the great beyond. He’d picked this house. Now he was giving her a clear path for her life for the first time in years. She actually liked these instructions. She’d been stuck for so long in this dark little house. Brad was okay with her letting go of it. She’d sell and buy a house that she liked. A fresh start sounded really good to her right now. Filled with an almost manic energy, Julia set to work in a frenzy of decluttering the bedroom. She didn’t stop until she finally collapsed from exhaustion.
The next night she went through the same routine with the other bedroom. And every time her energy flagged, she’d reread the letter, hear Brad’s voice urging her to start fresh, and dive right back in. Night after night after night. By Saturday night, the house was nearly empty, just the bare minimum furniture and her most prized possessions. Except for the basement, she wasn’t ready to go there, but still…enough to give her the confidence to call a realtor and make an appointment.
That was as far as she could take the moving-forward stuff, and she thought she’d accomplished a lot. She wasn’t ready to see Brad’s parents. Wasn’t ready to be in his old childhood room again. And she definitely wasn’t ready to find another letter from him. She would. She just needed more time to work up the nerve to deal with the emotional upheaval.
Chapter Six
Angel stopped by Julia’s place after his tutoring session on Saturday morning to have lunch with her and to check in. She’d been too tired to talk the last couple of times he’d called, and he wanted to make sure she was okay. He really hoped she wasn’t avoiding him because of their first date.
He knocked and waited. He could hear music blasting from inside, the hard-core heavy metal stuff that Brad liked, not Julia. He pounded on the door. Was she sinking back into a depression over Brad? She still kept his things around, clinging to what she had left of him.
“Julia!” he shouted through the door. “Julia!”
He pounded for a few more minutes and then finally dug out the spare key from his key chain and let himself in. She froze in the living room, where she stood holding a can of Pledge, her hair up in a tangled knot on top of her head, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, barefoot in January. So many things wrong with this picture.
“Hi!” she said cheerfully. “Sorry, I didn’t hear the door.”
She pulled her cell out of her shorts pocket, aimed it at a brand-new speaker sitting on an empty bookshelf, and turned the music down remotely. He stepped closer. She was drenched in sweat. A flash of memory, Julia and him in a marathon sex session, fucking, fucking, fucking. His blood heated, Julia panting under him, the slap of sweat-soaked skin, her cries of ecstasy. He had to touch her. He lifted a hand and realized dimly that she’d said something.
He pushed a sweaty lock of hair away from her face. “What?”
She looked at him with concern. “I said are you okay?”
“Are you okay?” He forced himself to focus on her dark blue eyes, not all the slick, smooth skin exposed to his mouth and hands. And tongue.
“I’m great!”
“Were you working out?” Something was off. This music felt like Brad was here. It was fucking with his head to be turned on while seeing Julia cheerfully listening to her dead husband’s music. He took off his jacket and tossed it over the arm of the sofa.
She laughed. “I know, hard to believe, right? I was cleaning and dancing in between cleaning.”
“Oh-kay. Can you turn off the music?”
She nodded and shut it off.
For the first time, he looked around. Whoa. The place looked brand new. He realized the curtains were open. Sunshine streamed in, highlighting the wooden surfaces of the bookcases, coffee table, and end tables that she’d polished to a shine. Every surface was empty of its usual pile of crap. The floors were vacuumed with neat lines from the vacuum cleaner. “What is going on?” he asked in wonder.
She beamed. “I cleaned.”
He went to the kitchen and did a double take. He couldn’t remember the kitchen ever looking like this since she’d moved in. The small counter space had been cleared, the refrigerator door emptied of magnets and notes, and the round kitchen table cleared of papers. It was an old kitchen, updated last in the seventies, but she’d made the small space look more open, more usable. “Wow.”
She giggled, a sound he hadn’t heard in way too long. A carefree laugh of a young woman. It filled him with joy.
“Open the cabinets!” she exclaimed.
He did, working his way through them. Empty. Empty. A small assortment of plates, bowls, and cups. Half of the old coffee mugs were gone. “Impressive,” he said.
“Come on, check out the bedrooms and bathroom.”
He followed her, peeking in at the guest bedroom that used to be a free-for-all storage space and now held a single twin bed, nightstand, and dresser from her childhood bedroom.
She waved a hand at the room. “I thought about donating the furniture, but then I thought it would show better with furniture in it.”
He was about to ask her what she meant, but then she turned and gave him a full-wattage smile, electrifying him with lust. He wanted to rip that shirt off her—
“Come on!” She gestured for him to follow.
The bathroom had a new shower curtain—bright royal blue with a silver zigzag pattern—with matching soap dispenser, toothbrush holder, and trash can. “What is all this for?” he asked.
“Last stop!” she called over her shoulder, already moving on to the master bedroom.
He stood in the doorway. This was a room he felt uncomfortable entering. It felt like Brad lived in here. That was their marriage bed. “Very nice,” he said.
“Do you like the new comforter?” she asked, suddenly sounding unsure.
It was very girly—purple and light green with large oddly shaped flowers. “It’s got interesting flowers.”
“They’re not flowers. It’s paisley.”
He crossed back to the safe living room and puzzled over this unusual change in Julia and the house. “What’s going on?” he asked when she returned.
She bit her lip, and he stifled a groan. So sexy, so blissfully unaware of her own appeal. “Don’t you like it?”
“It’s great. Impressive what you did in a week. What inspired it?” Some part of him hoped it was their date. She was moving on from Brad, embracing life. Maybe embracing him.
“Oh!” She went to the bookcase and handed him a book. Rejuvenate Your Life Through Decluttering. “It’s been life-changing!”
He couldn’t remember the last time Julia had gotten truly excited about anything. “Yeah? Maybe I should try it.”
“Oh, you definitely should! I got it from the book club. No one else was all that excited about it, but I said it’s a New Year, I could use some rejuvenating.”
“What book club?”
“You remember Hailey from that holiday cooking class we took at Ludbury House?” That was the historic mansion owned by Clover Park where a lot of community events were held—weddings mostly on the inside of the house, some cooking classes more recently. Festivals for various occasions took place on the large landscaped grounds.
“Yeah, I remember her.” Hailey was a wedding planner and had said she’d help Julia in the love department. He’d hoped that meant for him.
“She invited me to Singles Book Club.”
“Singles Book Club,” he echoed. Why had he not known about this? Julia usually told him everything. Was she going to meet some guy at a book club?
“Yeah. I think she thought it would be a total meat market, but it turns out only women showed up.”
He relaxed considerably. “Maybe I should join.”
She frowned. “Ah, you probably wouldn’t like it.”
“Why not? You read life-changing rejuvenating books there.”
Her cheeks flushed bright pink. Unusual that he could make her blush with how comfortable she was telling him most everythin
g. It immediately raised his suspicions about why she hadn’t told him about the book club.
“Julia,” he said in a teasing voice, “what kind of books do you read there?”
The pink crept into her neck. “Fiction and nonfiction.”
He stepped closer. “What fiction?”
She mumbled something unintelligible, and the pink turned to scarlet. Interesting. He stepped directly in front of her and waited. She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes reflecting a secret. He knew when she was hiding something, and he knew he could get it out of her too. “Julia,” he prompted.
She looked at a point over his shoulder and mumbled, “Fierce Longing.”
He nearly laughed. He’d heard some of the women talking about that book in the teachers’ lounge. It was very racy, apparently, and they spoke of it in hushed whispers. He was having a hard time imagining Julia reading that with a bunch of other women. He didn’t put it past her to read anything, she was a voracious reader of all kinds of books, just not in a group like that. She was a very private person. “I heard them talk about that book in the teachers’ lounge,” he said. “Pretty racy stuff.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? What’d they say?” She looked away. “Never mind.”
He laughed. “Yeah, really. They loved it.”
She blushed some more and fluttered away, stopping to polish up the already gleaming coffee table. Something wasn’t sitting right with him. She’d gone through this place in a week, accomplishing what she’d never managed in five years. Hell, eight years, now that he thought about it.
“What’s this cleaning all about?” he asked.
She kept polishing, round and round. “I’m selling the house.”
Elation filled him. She was ready to leave behind the house she’d shared with Brad. This was monumental. He sat on the sofa across from her, where she was still polishing the life out of the wood. He rested his elbows on his knees and spoke in a soothing tone. “That’s fantastic. A big step forward for you.”
She stopped polishing and met his eyes. “It’s time for a fresh start. I want a house that I pick, that I like. Something modern with open spaces.”
“This is all good news. What brought it on?” Was she ready for him? For them to finally be together?
She gave him a wobbly smile. “I found a letter from Brad.”
His hopes took a quick dive. “Seriously? Like you just found it? Where was it?”
She shook her head, smiling to herself. “It was in his sock drawer.”
“Seriously?” He was having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that she’d just found a letter five years after his death. But then he realized, she hadn’t been ready to go through Brad’s things until now. “What did it say?”
“I’ll get it.” She left. He leaned back on the sofa, stunned and wondering what this meant. Had Brad finally come clean to her? He quickly dismissed that possibility. She would’ve been upset, not cheerfully cleaning out the house to sell it.
She returned and sat next to him on the sofa while he read it. He finished the part about selling the house, his mouth in a grim line. Wasn’t this just like Brad to try to control her life from beyond the grave? Angel could’ve told her to sell the house years ago, but he respected her enough to trust that she’d make her own decisions when she was ready. It must’ve worked, though, because Julia seemed happy to have the direction. Maybe Angel had played this wrong all along with his hands-off approach. Maybe he should’ve pushed her more. He got to the p.s. and was instantly enraged. Brad was sending her on a scavenger hunt of letters, hiding one at his parents’ house. Everything was a fucking game to him. Then his stomach dropped at the last part where Brad mentioned Angel had promised to look after her. He had made that promise the night before their wedding, but for his own selfish reasons. He wanted to be with her. A sense of duty, even a promise to a friend meant nothing compared to his desire for her. But Julia could very easily take Angel’s place in her life the wrong way.
He set the letter on the coffee table and turned to her. “Julia—”
“Did Brad make you promise to look after me?” she asked softly.
“Yes, but…” She hissed out a breath. He met her eyes with all the love he’d always had for her from the first day they met. “I would’ve stuck around anyway. Did you ever wonder why Brad bought this house?”
Her brows drew together in confusion before she said slowly, “He said it was perfect for us. Nice house in a nice town.”
“He wanted you to live near me in case he didn’t come back. He told me that straight out. He knew I grew up nearby and had a lot of family around.”
She wrung her hands together. “He did mention you had family nearby, but I never really understood that. Are you saying Brad wanted me to—”
“He wanted to make sure you were taken care of, and he knew he could count on me to do that.”
She stared at the letter. “I kinda hoped you actually wanted to be my best friend.”
“I do.”
“But you did it out of a sense of duty.” She sounded resigned.
“I did it because I wanted you in my life.”
Tears leaked out of her eyes. She was still so vulnerable with all she’d been through, the grief always so close to the surface. He pulled her close, though this was how they’d gotten themselves in deep last time, the night of Brad’s funeral.
She sniffled and sat up. “I really do need a fresh start. I have a master of education. I’m thinking of applying for assistant principal positions.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. Wherever they need one. A promotion, a fresh start. It sounds like just what I need.”
“What about me?”
She took a deep breath in and out, then hit him with a shattering statement. “You’re free, Angel. You don’t have to look after me anymore.”
“I don’t look after you.”
“You do.”
“I’m here for you because I…” He stopped himself. She wasn’t ready to hear that he loved her. He was pissed at Brad more than ever for fighting dirty and stealing her right out from under him, leaving him with the messy pieces in his wake. Dammit. How could he be mad at a dead man? He died a hero for his country.
“What?” Julia asked.
“Look, I’m all for a promotion, new house, the works, just keep me in the loop, okay?”
“Of course I will. You’re the first person I tell everything. You’re my best friend.”
“See, you know deep down that I am. And no one in their right mind would stick around as long as I have out of a sense of duty.”
She gave him a small smile. “I don’t know. You’re awfully good.”
He shoved a hand in his hair. He was so sick of being thought of as the good one. Even his family had branded him angelic, calling him a priest. Fuck it. He didn’t want to be that anymore. This wasn’t a damn Nicholas Sparks’ novel (not that he read them). This was real life! And he was tired of waiting. The time for him and Julia was now.
He gazed at her, debating his next move. He wanted so badly to remind her of what they had, to strip her naked and bury himself deep inside her, but he didn’t want to push her when she was in a vulnerable state. That would just put up all kinds of emotional walls with her. She had to feel good about them together, not remorseful. They just needed to get through the last of the Brad stuff and she’d be free.
She reached for the letter and carefully folded it.
“When are you going to his parents’ house?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Eventually. It’s hard to bring all this stuff up again. When I read his letter, I could hear him again, like he never left.” She dropped the folded letter like it burned. “He must’ve planned this ahead of time with the hidden letters. What do you think he wants me to find?”
It wasn’t his place to say, but he suspected Brad had been trying to come clean with her when he couldn’t in real life. More damn secrets.
“Who knows
with Brad?” he finally said.
She let out a shuddery sigh and leaned against his shoulder. He looped an arm around her so her head rested on his chest. “What would I do without you, Angel? You make everything feel more manageable.”
Wasn’t he such a swell guy? The good one, the nice guy, the good listener. Fuck that shit. “How about a second date tonight?”
She startled, like she’d never considered it. “Oh. I thought that last date was just pretend.”
“That wasn’t pretend.”
“But you were in disguise. So was I.”
“That was so you and I could have a do-over.”
“We don’t need a do-over. You’re the best part of my life, and I never want to lose that.”
He hesitated before he spit out his worst fear. “As a friend or…”
“Yes.” No!
“But we’re good together. You know that.”
“Every time we’ve been together has been wrong,” she whispered hoarsely.
He tipped her chin up and gazed into her eyes. “Nothing we do together is wrong.”
“It was, it is…” She broke down in tears, and he instantly felt remorse. His own selfish needs made him push her when he knew very well this was a delicate first step for her in moving past her grief.
He kissed her hair. “I’ve got you.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
A short while later, she fell asleep leaning against him. She must’ve worn herself out physically and emotionally from emptying the house of years of collected stuff. He scooped her up, carrying her to bed and drawing the covers over her. He’d waited five years, he could wait a little longer. She was making progress. He took one last look at the woman who’d stolen his heart all those years ago, looked around the one room he really didn’t belong in, and headed back to the living room.
A Tempting Friendship (Clover Park #10) Page 6
