Her Secret Husband. Andrea Laurence

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      Julianne knew she should go to bed; it had been a very long day with unexpected twists and turns, but she wasn’t sleepy. She’d woken up worried about her work and the fallout of her latest failed relationship. Then the phone rang and her world turned upside down. Her previous worries were suddenly insignificant. She’d dropped everything, thrown some clothes in a bag and hit the road.

      Even now, hours later, she was still filled with nervous energy. There was a restless anxiety in her muscles, the kind that urged her to go to her workshop and lose herself in the clay. Usually, immersing herself in her work helped clear her mind and solve her problems, but all the pottery in the world wouldn’t fix this.

      She settled for a cup of chamomile tea at the kitchen table. That might bring her brain down a few notches so she could sleep. She was sitting at the table, sipping the hot tea, when she heard a soft tap at the door. The door almost immediately opened and before she could get up, Heath was standing in the kitchen.

      “What is it?” she said, leaping to her feet. “Did the hospital call? Is there a problem?”

      Heath frantically shook his head, making one curl of his light brown hair dip down into his eyes. He held up his hands in surrender and she noticed the duffel bag on his shoulder. “No, no problem. Dad’s fine,” he insisted. “I just didn’t want you to be alone in the house tonight.”

      The air rushed out of her lungs in a loud burst. Thank goodness Dad was okay. Her heart was still racing in her chest from her sudden panic as she slipped back down into her chair. She took a large sip of the scalding tea and winced. After the day she’d had, she didn’t need Heath hovering nearby and the distracting hum of his presence in her veins. An hour after they had left the hospital, she could still recall the weight of his hand on her shoulder and the comforting warmth of his chest pressed against her. The contact had been innocent, but her eyes had fluttered closed for a moment to soak in the forbidden contact. She’d immediately snapped herself out of it and tried to focus on her father’s health.

      “I’ll be okay alone,” she said.

      Heath dropped his bag onto the wooden floor and flopped in the chair across from her. “No, you won’t.”

      She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and middle finger. She could feel a headache coming on and that was the last thing she needed. Of course, she could take one of her migraine pills and knock herself out. That was one sure way to get to sleep tonight, but what if something happened to Dad?

      When she looked up at her guest, she found herself getting lost in the light hazel depths of his eyes. Heath was always happy, always ready with a joke or a smile. But tonight, his expression was different. There was a softness, a weariness, that lined his eyes. He looked concerned. Worried. But not for Ken. At least not entirely. He was concerned about her.

      As always.

      Julianne wouldn’t make light, even in her own mind, of Heath’s protectiveness of her. He had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep her safe. She knew that anytime, day or night, she could call him and he would be there. But not just because they were family and he cared about her. There was a great deal more to it than that and tonight was not the night she was willing to deal with it.

      “Thank you,” she said at last. She wasn’t going to put up a fight and force him into the bunkhouse. She didn’t have the energy to argue and frankly, it would be nice to have someone in the big, creaky house with her. No matter what had happened between them over the years, she always knew she could count on him to respect her boundaries.

      “It feels weird to be in the house without Mom and Dad,” he said, looking around at the large, empty kitchen. “Mom should be fussing at the sink. Dad should be tinkering with farm equipment outside.”

      He was right, but she didn’t want to think about things like that. Those thoughts would require her to face the mortality of her aging parents. Dad would come home this time, but eventually, he wouldn’t. She’d rather pretend they were immortal, like she had believed as a child. “Would you like some tea?” she asked, ignoring his words.

      “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

      She wished he would have accepted the tea. That would have given her something to do for a couple of minutes. Instead, she had to sit idly and wait for the questions she knew were coming. They hadn’t been alone together and able to really talk since before she had left for college eleven years ago. That had been by design on her part. There were so many thoughts, so many feelings she didn’t want to deal with. Looking into Heath’s eyes brought everything back to the surface. The burning attraction, the anxiety, the overwhelming feeling of fear…

      “So, what happened with you and Danny? That seemed kind of sudden.”

      Julianne sighed. “We decided we wanted different things, that’s all. I wanted to focus on my art and building my career. Things have really taken off and I want to strike while the iron is hot. Danny wanted to take our relationship to the next level.”

      A spark of interest flickered in Heath’s light eyes, his full lips pursing with suppressed amusement. “He proposed?”

      “Yes,” she said, trying not to let the memories of the uncomfortable moment flood into her mind. She’d told him repeatedly that she wasn’t interested in marriage right now, and kids were far, far on the horizon. And yet he’d asked anyway. He seemed to mistake her hesitation as her playing hard to get or using reverse psychology with him. She wished she knew why. She’d given him no signals otherwise. “I refused, as politely as I could, but he didn’t take the rejection very well. After that, we decided if we weren’t moving forward, we were stagnating. So he moved out.”

      Danny had been a great guy. He was fun and exciting and sexy. At first, he hadn’t seemed interested in settling down. Given her situation, he was the perfect choice. She didn’t want to get too serious, either. They wouldn’t have even moved in together if he hadn’t needed a new place on short notice. He must have seen that as a positive relationship step, when in fact it was simply practicality and economics. In time, it was just easier to stay together than to break things off and cause an upheaval.

      “You didn’t want to marry him?” Heath asked.

      Julianne looked up at him again and shook her head in exasperation. That was a ridiculous question. He knew full well why she’d turned him down. “No, I didn’t. But even if I did, what was I going to say to him, Heath?”

      There was a long, awkward silence before Heath spoke again. “Jules?”

      “Listen, I know I brought it up, but I really don’t want to talk about it tonight.” Julianne sipped the last of her tea and got up from the table. “With Dad and the stuff with Tommy, I can’t take any more drama.”

      “That’s fine,” he said as he leaned back into the wooden chair and watched her walk into the kitchen. “But considering we’re going to be spending the next few months together, you need to come to terms with the fact that we need to talk about it. We’ve swept the issue under the rug for far too long.”

      She knew when she made the decision to come home that this would happen. No matter how uncomfortable it might be, she knew they needed her help on the farm, so that was where she would be. There wasn’t anywhere else for her anyway. She had sold her house. Closing was next week, and then she was officially homeless. She had to come back here. And she had to deal with her past once and for all.

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