by Ruth Wind
Josh put one hand beneath the table and squeezed Juliet's hand lightly. "Thanks," he said very quietly.
"No problem." She pulled free delicately, and Desi came back to the table.
"Ready?" her sister asked, putting sunglasses on her head.
"I am."
A woman in a yellow jacket moved by the table and gave Desi a long, hard glare. Desi stared right back. When the woman continued toward the cash register, Desi rolled her eyes at Juliet. "The dentist's wife," she said when the woman had gone outside. "She hates my guts."
"Because?"
"Because she's one of Claude's groupies, and in their eyes, I'm just a mean woman who doesn't understand him."
"Yeah," Josh said, behind them, "you old meanie, you."
Desi grinned, her eyes flashing in a way that made her sister wonder what had forged the bond between these two.
And was there something romantic brewing? "You better believe it, mister."
Did her sister have feelings for this man? He was sort of her type, after all, a rugged Native American, an outdoorsman. He had that adorable daughter who needed a mother.
Josh laughed softly, and Juliet felt the sound run down her neck like warm fingers. She resisted looking up at him, getting caught again in that dark, patient gaze. But even as she resisted, she felt the steady presence of him at her back, solid, steady, calm, and she couldn't help the wave of yearning it kindled in her. It had been a long time since Juliet had felt safe—if she ever had.
Scott was a good man—smart, supportive, ambitious—but she'd never felt sheltered by him. Josh, on the other hand—
With a popping little shock, she heard her thoughts. Stop it! She was engaged! It was one thing to admire the long, sturdy thighs of a man, or the grace of his hands. A woman had eyes, after all…
But it was something else again to be thinking of resting against that broad shoulder, to imagine taking a deep breath of relief as that deep laughter rang into the room.
Disloyal. In two directions if Desi was attracted to him, too.
Blindly, Juliet stood and walked towards the door, grabbing a green-and-brown-wrapped mint from a bowl on the counter. "I'll be right outside," she called back. Without waiting for a reply, she rushed out.
The door was in a little foyer with racks of newspapers and tourist brochures on one side. As Juliet rushed through, a man was coming in, and Juliet stepped aside, and—
Slammed squarely into her demons. She was never quite sure what happened, why she was flung back in time, but suddenly, she smelled a musky aftershave and margaritas, and there was a swooshing of all sound, as if her ears were covered. In real time, she ducked her head and managed to stumble around the man coming in the door, ignoring him when he said, "Miss, are you all right?" and got out to the sunshine in the street. Sweat poured down the back of her neck.
But even in the bright sunshine and open air, her throat felt constricted, and her breath came in ragged, tearing gasps. The worst was the sense of mindless panic urging her to flee! flee! flee! Her legs burned with the need, her lungs felt as if they would explode. With as much control as she could muster, she grabbed the stone corner of the building and leaned on it, trying not to fight the sensations nor give into them.
A heavy hand fell on her shoulder. "Hey, Juliet, are you—"
She screamed, slammed the hand away. Tried to back off, bumped into the wall.
Saw that it was Josh, and wanted to burst into tears. He held his hands up, palm out to show he wouldn't hurt her. "Hey, hey, hey," he said. That rich gentle voice splashed into her panic, coating it like chocolate.
And just as suddenly as she'd been sucked into the flashback, she fell back out. With a soft noise, Juliet pitched forward, instinctively reaching for the sturdiness of his big, strong shoulders. Her head landed against his sternum, and she could smell the clean freshness of clothes hung out to dry on a line, and something deeper, his flesh. A gentle light hand smoothed her hair.
"You're okay," he said. "You're okay."
And it was true. After a moment, the dark memories retreated, and she could take a long, slow breath. Raise her head. Only then did she realize how close they were. Embarrassed, she tried to take a step back, and bumped into the wall at her back. "I'm sorry," she said, trying to duck to her left, afraid to look at him.
"Easy." He moved his big hand up and down her arm. "You don't have to go anywhere. Your sister will be here in a hot second."
"I'm—this is … oh, I'm embarrassed." She bent her head. "Thanks. I'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologize." His rumbling voice again rolled down her spine, easing the tension there, and his hands kept moving on her arms in a most soothing way. Steady. Gentle. "You don't have to say anything at all."
Juliet bent her head. He wore dark brown leather hiking boots, sturdy-looking with laces and hooks and eyes and a sole that looked as if it could withstand six inches of ice. Her feet in their thin California boots looked insubstantial, tiny even, and with a glimmer of pleasure, she thought one of the reasons to like a man so big was so that you could feel small next to him. And she was not normally a small woman.
She wanted to offer an explanation, to say something to excuse her weird behavior. The flashbacks were hateful, like a scar, and it made her feel overwhelmed to imagine telling him. Where to start? "Thanks," was all she said.
He released her and in the next instant, Desi came out, offering breath mints to everyone. Juliet moved away, vaguely aware of him watching her. "We'd better get to the courthouse," she said. "Get this taken care of."
"Yep. Let's do it."
Juliet glanced up at Josh. "See you later."
His eyes were steady and sober and saw far more than she wished. "Right."
* * *
The homeschoolers left after their weekly practice, and Josh took advantage of the fact that he had a day off from his job as a tribal policeman on the reservation—they worked three on and two off—and the fact that his mother had Glory for the morning to do some cleaning at the dojo. He could have hired a service to do the work for him, but he found the rote actions of dusting, sweeping, mopping to be a healthy way to order his own mind.
He opened the doors and windows to the blaze of fresh mountain air, sweetened by the now-melting snow. In predictable autumn capriciousness, the sun was now warm enough to warrant the dread-locked boys taking off their shirts.
There were several layers of things on Josh's mind this afternoon. The first was Desi and Claude. It was a dangerous situation and getting more dangerous by the hour. Until now, Claude had kept his little assignations quiet, or at least somewhat under the table, and although some of the ex-mistresses were a little volatile, Claude had managed to keep them under control. The new one, Christie Lundgren, was a well-known professional skier, a woman much younger than Claude, and well known for her scathing and destructive temper. By all accounts, she was wildly smitten with her handsome, artistic, exotic lover.
Now Claude had gone public, humiliating Desi and, Josh was afraid, others. Claude's layers of women were like those Russian dolls, another and another and another. Someone had been cast aside for Lundgren.
On the plus side, Lundgren had plenty of money from endorsements, and Claude would no doubt want to keep her happy. Maybe he'd accept the restraining order with something resembling respect, at least until the divorce settlement could be hammered out.
Or not.
Trading a feather duster for a spray bottle filled with vinegar and water and a bag full of clean rags, Josh sprayed the first of the big windows in the room. It had once been a mother-in-law house behind a bungalow. Josh had knocked out most of the internal walls to open it up, and hung mirrors along the far wall. These old windows had ancient glass, with ripples and imperfections he genuinely loved, and he liked the action of making them shiny.
The next thing on his mind was his daughter's absolute refusal to speak of her time with her mother at all. Not with a counselor, not with her grandmother
, not with him. But sometimes in nursery school, she drew chaotic pictures that frightened her teacher, and sometimes, she still awakened screaming.
It killed him. If it was not against his practice, he would hate his ex-wife. He didn't know, had no way to know, what had transpired in the long months Glory had been missing. She was found in Denver, finally, when the house they were living in caught fire, and they were transported, along with the other eight people living in the house, to the hospital. A nurse recognized Glory from a flyer in the newspaper, and called the police, who took the little girl into custody. Glory had been too thin, easily startled, but there had been no evidence of any sort of abuse. She'd been almost heartbreakingly happy to see her father and rarely spoke of her mother ever after.
Sunlight, captured by a bubble in the old glass, blazed in the window he washed. Josh rubbed a circle around it, thinking. The way Juliet looked after breakfast made him think of Glory's blankness when her mother was mentioned.
Which brought him to the last thing on his mental agenda—his discovery that Juliet was wounded. Obviously. Painfully.
Which, in a word, sucked. He'd done his time with broken birds. He drew them in flocks for reasons he could never quite figure out, and inevitably, he tried to mend their cracked wings and broken hearts. Inevitably, he failed, the most dramatically with his ex-wife.
These days, there was only room in his life for one wounded bird, and that was his own daughter.
The trouble was, Glory had made up her mind that Juliet was the finest thing to fall to earth in eons. Josh couldn't bear to deny her the pleasure of Juliet's company. Perhaps it would be a healing thing for both of them. Maybe the wounded birds would heal each other.
In the meantime, he'd just have to keep himself a bit aloof, apart. Much as he'd like to, he couldn't afford to explore the depths of the lovely Juliet.
* * *
Chapter 5
« ^ »
Josh's resolve to stay aloof was immediately tested when Juliet showed up at the dojo an hour later. She'd obviously been shopping with Desi, because the pair of them came in wearing matching blouses, Desi in pink, Juliet in blue. He half grinned when they came in, laughing like girls. "Sorry, did we have a flashback to the hippie days?"
Desi laughed. Their blouses were airy Indian cotton embroidered with sequins and beads. "Everything in the stores is like this! It's like sixth grade all over again!" She spun around to model it, her long, long dark hair spilling down back, her curvy figure giving new meaning to the word body. "What do you think?"
"I think you ought to put on girl clothes more often." He knew Desi rarely—if ever—indulged on clothes that could only be worn for fashion's sake, opting instead for more practical garb.
"That's what I told her," Juliet said.
Until she spoke, he'd managed to keep her blurred at the edges of his vision, a smear of blue and yellow in the corner of his eye. When she spoke, he had to look.
And then he couldn't look away. Everything about her looked floaty. Otherworldly, like a scarf that might blow away in a good wind. Her fine blond hair hung loose around her neck; the thin fabric of the blouse skimmed her slim shoulders and arms in a way that made him think of cobwebs.
She was … ethereal. Well, ethereal except the vivid turquoise of her eyes. And the lush, red bow of her mouth and the supple thrust of her breasts beneath the all-too-thin fabric. How could someone be so wispy and so lush at once?
"You look nice, too," he said. Did they notice the gruffness of his voice? He resisted clearing his throat. Don't be an idiot, man. Ain't you ever seen a girl before?
"Thanks." She held up the shopping bag she was carrying. "I hope you don't mind, but I brought Glory a present."
"You did?" He tried to hide his dismay, but evidently was not particularly successful. Juliet's cheeks turned red and Desi jumped in.
"It's my fault," she said. "We bought matching shirts for us, and for our sister in New York, and we decided to see if there was one in Glory's size."
"But it's okay, we can take it back, no problem," Juliet said. "It was presumptuous, I'm sorry."
"Naw, it's all right." He leaned on his broom, let a smile surface. "I'm just worried that she's gonna get her little heart broken, you know?"
Juliet put her hands to her chest. "Oh, I'd never break her heart! I promise."
She would never mean to, he could see that. He folded the rag in his hands, then refolded it, testing the sensation in his chest. Warning. But for was it for Glory, or for him? "She'll be tickled pink that you brought her a present, Princess."
"I've got to get some work done," Desi said, "check on a bull that was injured and touch bases with the clinic. You can stay here and visit with Glory, if you want. Give me a call on the cell—" She halted, frowned thunderously. "How am I going to function without a cell phone?"
Juliet raised her eyebrows.
"I'll have to go get a replacement." She growled. "That infuriates me!"
"Let it go," Juliet said.
Desi's hands flew in the air. "I know, I know." She pursed her lips. "Okay, when I get my new cell, I'll call you on yours, and then I can run by and pick you up later."
"Can I walk over to the clinic?" In addition to the wolf center, Desi had a traditional large animal practice in town. "I'd like to see it."
"Sure, it's at the east end of town, on the main road." She gave walking directions. "Still, let me know you're coming, okay? So you're not stuck waiting for me forever and I don't even know. I'll finish up and then we'll head back to the house."
"Trust me," Josh said, "you want to call her."
"Okay. I've got the number programmed into my cell." Juliet pulled it out of her purse to show them. "You guys are acting like I'm twelve. I live in Hollywood, remember?"
Desi laughed, and Josh thought it was the easiest-sounding sound that had come from her in months. It was good for her to have Juliet around. "Did you get everything taken care of this morning?" he asked.
"Yes. Restraining order filed. Divorce papers picked up and will be filed by the end of the week, so we can get that rolling." She held up three fingers. "Scout's honor."
"Good work."
"Thanks." Desi put on her coat and headed for the door, rattling her keys as she waved. "See you kids later."
When she left, the bell over the door ringing faintly, Juliet looked at Josh and said, "I'm sorry about the little scene at the restaurant. That hasn't happened for awhile."
"You don't have to apologize," he said again. "It's okay."
She started to speak, then stopped, putting her hands in her back pockets. A pose that neatly illuminated the curve of her waist. For a long moment, she searched his face with narrowed eyes, and he had a chance to simply meet that blue gaze. He took in the tiny scar through her left eyebrow, and what looked like a chicken pox scar on her chin, barely visible and strangely appealing.
At last she nodded. "That's a relief. Thanks."
"No problem. Let's go find Glory, Princess Juliet."
* * *
Juliet stepped out into the day and blinked, wishing for her sunglasses. With one hand, she shielded her eyes and lifted her head to the brilliant blue sky. "Wow."
Josh raised his gaze, chuckled. "That about says it, all right."
Down the mountains spilled gleaming waterfalls of yellow aspens, vivid against the darker pines. It looked as if a pot of paint had tipped over. "I keep trying to name that color in my head—yellow doesn't really capture it, and lemon is too bright and it's not quite like butter."
"Marigold?"
"Closer," she agreed. "Saffron, maybe?"
"I'm not sure I know what saffron is."
"A spice. It's a little muddy, though. Marigold or sunflower are much closer." She dropped her hand, gave him a quick smile. "Sorry. I keep stopping to rhapsodize."
"Don't apologize. It's too easy to forget how amazing it is when you live here. We need the reminder to look around once in awhile." He gestured. "I never drive i
n town, so we'll just walk over to my mother's. It's not very far."
"I'm glad to walk. It's an amazing day." She felt buoyed, effervescent, and wasn't sure if it was the weather or the altitude or maybe the company of the very handsome man beside her. "The weather changed so fast!"
"And it'll change again this afternoon," he said, pointing toward the south. "Those clouds might bring some more snow with them."
A pair of dogs, one black, one salt-and-pepper, loped by on some happy errand, bandanas tied around their throats. One stopped to bark at a third dog leaning his head out of the window of a pickup truck, a dog with an enormous head, who simply looked down at the Lab and yawned.
"I've never seen so many dogs in a town in my life," Juliet commented.
"They issue you one when you come to town." Juliet laughed.
His eyes glittered. "Haven't you gotten yours yet?"
"Please, Desi has three big dogs. That's plenty."
"All right, we'll let you slide for a bit."
They walked in agreeable silence up a short hill. "So, what sort of martial arts do you teach?" she asked.
"Kung fu, mostly."
"I like the eastern arts," she said, and hoped it didn't sound too prim. "I studied yoga and tai chi for awhile."
"Yoga makes me feel impatient," he said, and gave her a rueful smile. "I think I need to move more than that."
They stopped at Black Diamond Boulevard
and waited for the traffic to thin. "It's really busy for a small town," Juliet said.
"Wait until winter comes. You'll have to fight to cross this street, even with stop signs at every corner."
Juliet started to say, I won't be staying that long, but how did she know? She wouldn't leave Desi until everything was stable. "I'll keep that in mind."
The light changed and they crossed the street, and into a small pocket of cottages and bungalows tucked between the main drag and the northern mountain. "Why aren't there ski slopes on both sides of the valley?" Juliet asked.
He flipped a thumb over his shoulder to the south.
