Julie’s eyes hurt, felt like her lids scraped at every blink. She poured a cup of coffee and collapsed at the kitchen table. If she slept an hour, she’d be surprised. Tossing and turning, trying to think of some way to stay here. To be with him.
She came up empty.
Watching Nic stew over his teammates on the side of that mountain had thrown her. Danger was a part of him, and he wanted to be in the middle of it. How must wives of these guys feel, even if they weren’t at war in far parts of the world? Even stateside, what they did cheated death. If all went well.
Obviously, it didn’t always go well. Joey’s family now dealt with the gaping void left by his loss. Julie wasn’t sure she could do that. Besides she had her life mapped out.
And Nic wasn’t what she’d planned. He was way out of her league. Guys like Nic didn’t want wives, did they? Her experience with guys like Nic was limited, by her own choice.
Jenn was much more likely to catch guys like that.
In high school, Jenn was the pretty one, Julie was the smart one. Jenn was the cheerleader, Julie worked backstage for the theater group, was president of the French club, and worked on the yearbook.
Julie knew Jenn loved her but still Jenn treated her as something of a project. Jenn wanted to give Julie makeovers, wanted to fix her up with the fabulous friend of her latest boyfriend. Jenn could never understand how Julie could settle for something or someone blah, blah, blah.
Underneath it all, though, Julie hadn’t wanted to settle. She felt the pull toward the jocks, toward the quarterback of the football team. She just knew her limitations. Better to be content than to ache for something you couldn’t have.
Nic was like that.
Besides, she’d played Jenn’s game once. That was enough. Jenn had convinced her, in her junior year to pick out a hunky guy and go after him. Julie agreed, but refused to reveal her choice. And so it began. She picked the gorgeous wide receiver for the football team, bad and gorgeous. His name was BJ.
Julie started saying hello to him in the hallway, would take the route to class that led past his locker, drove by his house whenever she could justify it.
He’d even said hello back. Once, he actually conversed with her. She was shaken for the rest of the day. It was working. Months passed and BJ was more and more friendly. One day he stopped at her locker. Oh, my God! He pulled up close and whispered that he wanted to talk to her after school. Would she meet him at the gym door before practice?
Her stomach lurched with his closeness. He smelled heavenly. She’d never felt that way before. Her hands were sweaty and her voice trembled as she told him she’d meet him. When the fateful meeting happened, lo and behold, he asked her if she would fix him up with her sister Jenn. Sure, she was a senior, and he was a junior. But you only lived once. You never won if you didn’t play.
Julie indeed fixed him up with Jenn and never told a soul about her feelings. BJ and Jenn called it quits before summer of the same year.
But the lesson didn’t stick. She’d spent two years with Brad-of-the-Aussie-accent, never asking why, when he’d come home from a trip, he wasn’t as desperate for her as she was for him. Julie had then resolved to stay away from jocks.
And her resolve had lasted.
Up until the moment Nic had tapped on her car window.
But it had to stop. There was no way she was willing to give up a job she loved to come here and be the little woman waiting for bad news. Even if Nic wanted her to, which was doubtful in the light of day.
Besides, she had work to do before she could go home. It was time to get on with her life.
When Nic got to the kitchen, Julie sat at the table, both hands hugging a mug of coffee. She didn’t even look up when he came in.
“I’m going home.” Her voice was flat.
“Julie...”
Her shoulders hunched as if she were digging in for battle. He switched gears.
“Which home? Yours or theirs?”
“Theirs first. I need to make arrangements.”
“He’ll kill you if he can.”
“If he can.” Her voice was still flat, but now held something of a challenge. She pushed away from the table and deposited her mug in the sink. “And, for the record, you can’t stop me.”
Nic bit back a reply that would have reminded Julie that she didn’t have money or a car and was completely dependent, at this point, on him. Likely, this wasn’t the best time for that reminder.
As she left the kitchen, she nearly ran over Cruz on his way in.
“Eric. I’d like to hire your services.”
He smiled smoothly before he saw the look on her face, then sobered and glanced to Nic, then back to Julie. “Go on.”
“I want you to fly me to Susanville. I’ll pay you when we get there.”
Hell. She’d obviously found a way around the obstacles. Cruz glanced over at Nic with a what-the-hell-is-going-on look. Nic shrugged.
“Do I have time to shower?”
“Yup.” With that, she stalked to Joey’s room and closed the door. Both Nic and Cruz watched her go.
“Nicky,” Cruz crooned in his perfect Hispanic accent as he poured himself a cup of coffee, “you have some ‘splainin’ to do.”
“Well, she’s apparently tired of hangin’ with me.” Nic rinsed out her cup and stuck it in the dishwasher.
Jackpot. He’d finally taken Uncle Mickey’s advice—dropped his guard and waded into the longer-than-a-quick-date-and-done pool. Wicked frickin’ perfect.
“What did he say?” Nic asked as Cruz hung up from his call to Quillen.
“He said I could take the rest of the week but if I wasn’t back on Monday morning, there’d be hell to pay.”
“Anything else?”
Cruz smiled. “Yeah. He said to call if we needed the cavalry.”
Julie made her entrance to the living room, with two handfuls of grocery bags, which still held her things. She wouldn’t look at Nic.
“You ready?” she asked Cruz.
“I have a suitcase you could use,” Nic said, pulling close to her.
“I don’t need a suitcase, thank you.”
“Fine.” He turned toward his room. “I’ll get my stuff.”
“Don’t bother, Nic. You aren’t going.”
He stopped and pivoted in one smooth movement. “The hell I’m not.”
“Eric, I’m paying you to take me to Susanville. If you plan on taking Nic with us, the deal is off.”
Cruz threw his hands up and shook his head. “I’m not stepping in the middle of this one. You guys duke it out and let me know when you’re ready to leave.”
Nic strode toward her in a slow burn. He took her arm and, turning her around, marched her into Joey’s room and slammed the door.
“If you think I’m going to let you go there alone and get yourself killed, think again, Julie.”
“Nic, here’s the reality: your life is here and mine is in Redding. You saved my life. And for that, I’m so very grateful. But we’d be fools to think that what we’ve been through is the foundation for a real relationship.”
Julie turned away, unable to look at him. His look had moved from alarm to pain, making a brief stop at complete disbelief.
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Nic’s voice was low, soft. “Thanks, Batman, for rescuing me from the evil sheriff, but I’m just not up to sharing my life with you.” He paused. “Is that about it?”
When the lump in her throat precluded an answer, he continued.
“Oh, that’s right. You’re the girl who wouldn’t, under any circumstances, become involved with a military guy.”
The way he spit out the last words stabbed her. He’d twisted it all, and she’d let him. But the result was the same. The sooner they parted ways, the easier it would be in the long run.
Nic was all wound up in a rescue mission. When the adrenaline ended and the victim was safe, it wouldn’t take him long to realize Julie wasn’t his type. Then it would be him closing
the door. Besides, he needed to be in the good sheriff’s cross hairs like he needed a hole in his head. The irony of the cliché wasn’t lost on her.
Bile rose in Nic’s throat. What the hell had just happened? Julie turned her back to him and wasn’t moving. Fine. If goodbye was that easy to say.
Fine.
Cruz sat at the kitchen table with a map in front of him. He looked up when Nic walked in.
“She’s all yours, pal.”
Nic continued walking through the kitchen, into the garage. The Batmobile’s wheels screeched as he pulled out of the driveway.
Chapter Twenty Four