Love Starts with Elle(77)

“I have a customer.” Julianne stepped around Elle.

“Do not go out that door, Jules.”

With a desperate sigh, Julianne fell against the door, holding her head high, fixing her eyes on some point beyond Elle. “You want a reason? You think this is so cut and dried, black and white? Just confess, Jules, all your problems will be solved. No, they won’t. Nothing can remove the shame. I’m ashamed, Elle, and it physically hurts to think about it.” Her terse words flew like arrows.

“You’re not the first woman to have a baby out of wedlock.” Elle tread with a light step.

Julianne’s eyes glistened as she absently bit her bottom lip. “He’s been divorced three years. Rio is four.”

Elle crossed her arms in an academic way, as if she’d just grasped the law of entropy. “Okay, a small complication—”

“Small complication? You think I’m going to waltz into Truman and Lady Garvey’s house and confess their foolish and stupid daughter had an affair with a married man? I won’t do it. It was bad enough telling them I was pregnant. Every time I’m with them, I feel their disappointment.”

“Don’t see them through your guilt, Jules. They love you; they’re proud of you. They strutted around here like peacocks at your grand opening.”

“Okay, maybe the ordeal of their daughter having a baby out of wedlock has passed. Besides, it’s happened to half their friends. It’s not so shameful anymore, but, Elle, if I start letting on that Danny Simmons is Rio’s daddy . . .” She snatched a tissue from a nearby box and blotted under her eyes. “I won’t do it, not to them. Danny can live with it.”

“Do you love him? What if this isn’t about you or Danny or Mama and Daddy. Could it be about Rio and what’s best for her?”

“What’s best for her is what I say. Danny isn’t leaving me many options, Elle. If I’m with him, the truth has to come out. He won’t have it any other way. He’s tired of being in the background and frankly, I don’t blame him. But, Elle, this is one valley our love can’t cross.”

“Not even for Rio?”

Julianne lowered her eyes, shaking her head. “It sounds simple, but—” A single tear dangled from her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “Imagining the look on their faces as they hear one of their adorable offspring willingly carried on with a married man, one of Daddy’s friends, no less, is the stuff of nightmares.”

Lacy knocked again. “Are you coming? He says he’s in a hurry.”

“Be right out, Lace.”

How had Jules borne this alone for so long? Elle would’ve cracked under the pressure. “At the risk of sounding like a hundred-year-old hymn, I think I know someone who can take away your burden of guilt and shame.”

“I’ve prayed, Elle, if that’s what you mean.” Julianne checked her makeup in the mirror before easing open the door. “Maybe some of us are just destined to be shackled by a heavy burden.”





TWENTY-FOUR

Since his conversation with Nate, Heath’s novel determination suffered. He’d not touched his laptop today since checking e-mail before driving TL to school.

Should he continue to pen a book no one would ever read? A real artist would say yes. Art for art’s sake. Elle seemed willing to create work no one would ever see. But her issues were different from his. She was insecure. He was efficient.

Maybe it was Heath’s practical side. Or his ego. But if he worked his backside off preparing a case, writing a book, or carving an angel out of a tree stump, somebody had better benefit from it.

So maybe it was back to Manhattan and his Central Park apartment with a cleaning service and take out. He’d finish Chet and Kelly’s story on the weekends, see if Nate could land it a home.

Lately, he missed waking up in the morning with a distinct sense of purpose, reviewing case details as he showered, reading briefs on his train ride downtown. And the other night he’d had a craving for the kabobs served by the Indian place on the corner of Lexington and 49th.

Plopping down on the couch, he reached for the remote, surfed a few channels, then clicked the TV off. He was restless. Ready to move on with his life.

When he’d moved down to St. Helena, he’d wanted to forget himself, get lost in something that had no ties to Ava. But nearing the anniversary of her death, he was ready to be found.

Wandering out to the screen porch, he eased down into the iron rocker and listened to the melody of the creek.

Maybe writing a book didn’t matter as much as healing and closing those final doors of grief. Looking back, he’d done well. Only one door remained. The letter.

Heath thought for a moment, mentally testing his tender spots, then went to the kitchen. Ava’s envelope remained perched in the window, crisp and faded from months of southern sunshine.

Walking out the kitchen door and stepping off the porch, he took the slope of the yard toward the dock, crossing the pine needle garden where the angel-with-splinters waited. Taking a bench seat between two pylons, Heath considered his options while staring at the horizon where clusters of island trees appeared like rolling hills.

He could drop the letter in the water right now and forget she ever wrote it. Or he could read it and say good-bye forever to his first true love.