by Amy Gamet
“Mom,” she continued, “we owe you a special thanks.” To the room, she said, “When the caterer double-booked and cancelled on us last week, my mother stepped up and offered to do the cooking herself.” Gasps could be heard around the room. “We couldn’t do this without you, Mom.” Claps and a few cheers followed.
“And to my brother, Hank, who will be walking me down the aisle tomorrow,” she paused and bit her lip to keep the tears that threatened in check, “I am so very glad you were able to make it. There’s only one person I’d rather have at my side, and I’m sure he is smiling down from heaven at the thought that you will stand in his place.”
Ron put his arm around his fiancé and raised his glass in Hank’s direction. Julie felt a knot in her throat at the sense of loss these people so obviously shared, on the eve of such celebration. It occurred to her that Hank had missed the rehearsal dinner because he was helping her at the farmhouse. Would he have missed the entire wedding if she had still needed him in Vermont?
Lois Lane was one lucky woman.
Hank looked up at that moment. Their gazes met and locked, sharing a moment of intimate appraisal. Everything about this man attracted her, and she felt a tingling sensation in her abdomen. Hank’s eyes dropped to her lips, and she knew he wanted to kiss her.
She flashed back to the barn, and their brief, fiery kisses, her cheeks heating at the memory. The realization that she wanted him even more now set her into a small panic.
Forget about Superman. He isn’t even trustworthy.
She broke eye contact and took a step away.
Kelly and Ron finished their remarks, and Julie turned on her heel and walked away from Hank. She’d rather face a hundred and one people who thought she was in love with him than face the man himself.
She spent forty-five minutes in the kitchen, listening to his great aunt Phoebe describe her trip to Paris, then ten more talking to Ron, who got her a beer. Feeling pleasantly relaxed from the drink, she slipped up the stairs to turn in for the night.
Hank caught up to her just outside the bedroom door, turning her around by touching her shoulder.
“Do you know that everyone in that room thinks we’re fighting?”
Julie bristled at his tone.
“I may be sleeping on the floor,” he continued, “but there’s no need for the whole world to know it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was only kidding. You can sleep with me.”
“What?” His pupils dilated and he leaned toward her.
“In fact,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes, “I’m kind of tired.”
“Hey, Hank,” said a voice just behind him. He turned and saw Kelly’s fiancé. “I’m going to get heading home. I’m glad you were able to make it,” said Ron as he shook Hank’s hand. “It means a lot to Kelly, and to me.”
“Couldn’t have kept me away if you’d tried,” he said, smiling at the other man. “Ron, did you meet my girlfriend, Julie?”
“Yes, downstairs,” said Ron.
Julie smirked, leaning on the door jam. “Ron was telling me how he and Kelly met.”
“Now, don’t go telling on me before the ceremony. I’ve almost made it without being discovered.” Ron chuckled, a goofy grin on his face. “I’m going to head home. I’ll see you both at the church tomorrow. Sorry if I interrupted anything,” he said with a wink, then walked away.
Hank rounded on Julie. “He did interrupt something, didn’t he?”
Julie’s eyes went wide. She made certain Ron was out of earshot before she whispered, “I was just pretending.”
He moved into her personal space, his eyes smoldering and purposeful.
She took a step backward into the bedroom and watched as he advanced on her by equal measure, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Were you pretending in the barn?”
“The barn?” she asked, continuing her backward retreat. She stopped when the back of her legs hit the bed.
The bed!
Her lungs sucked in air as her pulse hammered away.
“You do remember the barn. I can see it all over your face.” he bent his head purposefully, his hand reaching for the back of her neck.
Julie wanted it so badly. She wanted this strong, sexy man to kiss her like mad, to take possession of her body and make her forget everything else, but a nagging voice wailed in her head. Her life was a complete disaster. She just lost her father. She was being hunted by a crazy ex-boyfriend or her father’s killer, maybe both. You don’t find love in the middle of all that.
You find men who prey on women who don’t have their shit together.
The thought had her pushing him away. “Whoa, hold on a minute. I was just putting on a show for your new brother-in-law,” she said, standing taller and squaring her shoulders.
“He’s not my brother-in-law until tomorrow,” He corrected her, staring at her full breasts, then back to her lips.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, sidestepping to get past Hank’s wide shoulders. Walking to the dresser, she began digging in her overnight bag for her pajamas, flustered when she couldn’t find what she wanted. Feeling like an idiot, she picked up the whole bag, went in the bathroom, and locked the door.
She sank down onto the toilet seat, clutching her bag, and breathed deeply as she closed her eyes. Sadness and fatigue surrounded her in a drenching wave. She was enjoying the sexual banter with Hank, then suddenly she saw herself as he must see her—a grieving, messed up woman with nowhere to go and just a handful of people who loved her.
Hank wasn’t interested in her awesome personality. He was a Navy officer who just happened to be sharing her bedroom tonight, and figured he may as well get lucky. Kill two birds with one stone. She knew his type well and had little respect for them. The familiar uniform just added insult to injury, pointing out what she should never have forgotten.
Hank Jared was not someone she could trust.
Julie stood and turned the hot water on full force as she began to undress. She resented the fact that she was stuck here, pretending to be someone she wasn’t just to stay one step ahead of a nameless, faceless enemy. As the water sluiced over her skin, she shivered in spite of the heat. Her mind was full of images—a burned out hotel room, the window seat at Gwen’s house, a rusty red generator and footprints in the snow.
She thought of the message from the safe deposit box as she let the water run down her bent head and shoulders. Her quick cryptanalysis in the car had begun to awaken memories of processes long since forgotten. She knew and understood every class of cipher ever popularized, from simple substitution and Masonics to the latest in computer generated random keys and transport layer security. Her mind played the options like notes on a score, trying different combinations and looking for patterns that would confirm or deny their collusion.
Grabbing a bar of sweet-smelling soap, she began to wash away the experience of the day while her mind raced through secret codes and memories. Something was bothering her about the message, interfering with her thoughts like a car parked in the middle of a freeway. There was a familiarity about the cipher that eluded her, ringing the faintest of bells in her jangled memory.
Frustrated with herself, she tried to stop focusing on it, hoping it would gather itself together in her subconscious and emerge as a coherent whole if she left it alone.
Julie turned off the water and opened the shower curtain, gazing through the steam at the bathroom door with annoyance. It was going to be a long night with Hank sleeping on the floor just feet from her bed. The thought of him in such close proximity made her pulse pick up, and she cursed her own attraction to the man.
She dried her hair with the towel before wrapping it around her torso. The pajamas she’d frantically been searching for earlier were now clearly visible at the top of her duffle bag.
That figures.
An old favorite, they were knit of soft green cotton, with a boxy tee and wide pants that were about as alluring as a
potato sack.
“Thank God for ugly pajamas,” she said to herself.
The bedroom was dark when she emerged, with just a small nightlight in the bathroom behind her to light the way. Maybe he was already asleep. She stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the inky blackness.
“I’m on the floor, between the bathroom and the bed. Don’t step on me.”
She could just make out the bed posts and began walking toward them in the darkness. Three steps in, she kicked something solid.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry!”
“Seriously? Because I didn’t tell you exactly where I was?”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“Well then, I guess it didn’t hurt.”
“Oh please, you’re fine.”
“You just kicked me.”
“What are you, a baby? Because you’re carrying on like one.”
She heard him stand up in front of her. “You’re calling me names, now?”
“If the shoe fits…” she was startled when he pulled her against him.
“Shut up, Julie,” he said, kissing her roughly. She pushed against him half-heartedly, even as her mouth responded to his and kissed him back passionately. His hand slipped beneath her top to caress the bare skin of her back.
~~~
He hadn’t meant to kiss her.
She had been playing games with him, flirting and retreating, and Hank didn’t like games. While she was in the bathroom, he made the decision to keep their relationship professional. He had no intention of jeopardizing his career for Julie Trueblood.
That was, until she opened the bathroom door and he saw her body silhouetted in the light of the doorway, the thin fabric of her pajamas teasing him like the sexiest lingerie.
His body’s response had been instantaneous.
This woman made him feel like he was in high school, all hormones and raging lust. He might die if he couldn’t get close to her, couldn’t rub her smooth skin and feel her body pressed against him.
Her breasts pushed at his bare chest, separated from him only by the light material, and his hand reach up in an intimate caress, making her moan. Her head fell back and he grabbed the hem of her shirt, lifting it upward.
Julie jumped back, recoiling from his hands. “I don’t want to do this.”
Hank’s stare bored into her own in the dark room. “Liar,” he said thickly. “You want to as much as I do.”
Her chin lifted in denial and she opened her mouth to speak.
He didn’t want to hear it. He was tired, he was aggravated, and he was bordering on crazy. He sank down on his makeshift bed before she could pretend she wasn’t on fire, just like he was. “Goodnight, Julie.”
She stood shock still for a moment before finishing her walk to the high poster bed, and scurried under the covers. “Goodnight.”
The carpeted floor was rigid beneath Hank’s frustrated form, and he punched the pillow in an attempt to get comfortable. He imagined resting his head on Julie’s soft breasts instead, and knew that sleep would be hard to come by this evening.
“Just so you know, tomorrow’s a big deal to me and my family. I’d appreciate it if you try to be a convincing girlfriend.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“Pretend you like me, Julie. Don’t cross your arms over your chest or walk away when I speak to you. Smile at me once in a while. Dance with me at the reception and hold my hand if you can stand the thought.”
He was about to ask if she’d heard him, when she finally replied, “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll pretend to like you.”
“Great. Thank you. I hope the experience isn’t too painful for you.”
“Goodnight, Hank.”
“Goodnight, Julie.”
~~~
The pungent smell of wood smoke burned Julie’s nostrils and woke her from a sound sleep. She sat up in bed to a room she didn’t recognize, completely alone and terrified. Reaching for the bedside lamp, she turned the switch and heard a click, but no light came on.
In the distance, someone laughed maniacally, and an old red generator appeared next to the bed, lit as if by a spotlight. Her father stood before her, his lifeless eyes staring at a fixed point on the wall. In his hands, he held a severed electrical cord. “Did you check the starter?” he asked.
Julie heard a piercing scream, but did not realize it was her own.
The bedroom door opened, and she could see leaping flames of orange and red violently consuming the hallway beyond. Gwen appeared through the wall of fire completely unscathed, and entered the room wearing an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform.
“Telegram,” said Gwen. “I have a telegram here for Julie McDowell.”
“That’s me,” Julie said, but her aunt didn’t seem to hear her. “That’s me,” she said again, but to no avail.
Next to the bed, the generator roared to life with a great shudder, and Julie pressed her hand to her frantically beating heart. She felt rich beading beneath her fingers and looked down at the bodice of a white wedding gown.
Hank!
She had to save Hank! She knew he was in this house, burning in the fire that had been meant for her alone. Desperate to find him, she threw back the covers on the bed and got up, standing face-to-face with a burned-out skeleton in a Navy officer’s uniform.
The screaming wouldn’t stop this time. Flames broke through the door to the bedroom. Nurse Gwen stood next to an eye chart emblazoned with the beginning of the cipher from the safe deposit box. “Cover your left eye, please. What does this say?” she asked Julie.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” she wailed. The dead body in the Navy uniform grabbed at her arms, shaking her. “Get off of me! Let me go!” she wailed in horror.
“Julie!” Shouted the corpse. “Julie! Wake up! It’s just a dream!”
“Get off of me! I have to find Hank!” she screamed, yanking her arms free of her captor and connecting with the solid bones of his face.
“Julie! It’s me! It’s Hank! Wake up!”
Hank was here? Confusion had her fiery dream evaporating into nothingness. Slowly the weight of her eyelids lifted and she saw Hank’s face just inches from her own in the darkness.
Her hysterical screaming stopped, and a relief-stricken wail began. He was okay. He was safe from the fire. “You’re all right,” she said between great gasps of air.
He wrapped her into his arms, pulling her tightly against his chest as he spoke in a calming voice. “I’m fine. You were having a bad dream. Everything’s okay now.” He cuddled her against his warm body, gently stroking her hair.
“Everything was on fire. My father was there, and he was…” she tried to find the words to describe her gruesome vision, “burned. It was horrible.”
Julie wiped her eyes, her hands shaking.
“How awful for you.”
She realized that Hank had actually seen her father after the fire, and cringed at the thought. She didn’t want to imagine what he had seen, didn’t want to know he had seen it.
“There was a generator with a severed cord. And Gwen was there in a nurse’s uniform, trying to give me a telegram.”
“It sounds like your mind has had a lot to take in over the last couple of days.”
“Yes.” She snuggled closer to his chest, burying her face in his T-shirt.
“Was I in your dream?” he asked, his fingers tentatively stroking her shoulder. “You called my name.”
“Yes,” she said, suddenly shy. “I couldn’t see you, but I knew you were in the building and the fire was going to get you. I was trying to save you.” She left out the part about the wedding gown.
Hank gently rubbed her back and she felt her body slowly relax into the mattress. “Hank?”
“Mmm hmm?”
“Are we safe here?”
“Of course.”
“Are you sure they don’t know where we are?”
“I’m positive. No
one followed us here, and I didn’t tell anyone where we went.” He hadn’t even told Barstow, a fact which might come back to haunt him. “How else would someone know where we are?”
“I don’t know.”
Hank’s brow furrowed as Julie settled back into the crook of his arm and fell back asleep.
If Julie was correct, then not only were she and Gwen in danger, but his entire family. Hank gave himself a mental shake. Her bad feeling could not be based in fact.
They hadn’t been followed, of that he was certain. He had deliberately set the GPS to avoid expressways so he could better watch the cars around them. Still, his gut didn’t like this. The people who Hank loved most were gathered in this house. Was it possible he had put them all in danger by bringing Julie and Gwen here?
He laid awake in the night, Julie curled by his side, for some hours after that. His eyes finally succumbed to sleep as the first light of Christmas Eve beckoned on the horizon.
~~~
Julie was gone when Hank woke up to rays of bright sunshine on his face. He’d have to remember to close the blinds tonight.
He caught a whiff of coffee on the air, his mind turning to the day ahead. There must be a million things to do, and they had let him sleep late. He pulled a green polo over his head and went to see what he could do to help.
Voices flowed up the stairway, the sound reminiscent of a million other family get-togethers. For a moment, he imagined his father downstairs with the others, talking and laughing over morning coffee. Hank’s feet stilled on the top step, his eyes landing on the familiar photograph of him with his dad, fishing poles in their hands.
For just a moment, he was sure he could feel his father’s comforting presence, smell the scent that belonged to him alone.
I love you, Dad.
Hank walked down the steps, smiling, suddenly certain his father would not miss Kelly’s wedding after all.
“Well, look who finally decided to get out of bed,” said Marianne. She was standing at the sink filling a large coffee urn with water, her warm smile contrasting her reproachful tone. “We were going to sneak in and take turns poking you with a stick in another half an hour.”
