Page 28 of Almost True
I exited the truck without addressing that little quip and rounded to the bed, where I handed him a few things and tossed some shovels over my shoulder. The easiest route to the back was along an access pathway shrouded in trees. I had to hand it to the developers—they’d kept as much original foliage as possible, and they’d done it well. Across the driveway, Wilder Saint gave me a little nod after doing a chin-point thing toward my son. Guess we had the security go-ahead. I’d heard he’d gotten his security firm up and running but hadn’t realized he already had such high-profile clients. Good for him.
“This is pretty,” Luca said as we walked along the weedy dirt pathway.
“It is. You’ll like this project.” Despite his irritability, the kid loved the outdoors. Thank God, because I didn’t know what I’d do with him half the time if he didn’t. Granted, he didn’t want to work it with me, but he’d be content to read under a tree all day every day if I’d let him.
“Who’s the owner? Someone fancy, right?”
I hid my wince at that. “A businesswoman. Ms. Reynolds. I doubt we’ll see her.” I’d done my job of scaring her away too effectively.
“Is that her?”
My heart kicked as I followed his gaze to a tall blonde woman. Even if Maddie had dyed her hair back, that wasn’t her. This was someone else. Another assistant, maybe? “Uh, no. Not sure who that is.”
“Aid! This is Juliet, Mad—er, Ms. Reynolds’ best friend! She’s taking our coffee order this morning.”
Jake sent me an oblivious wave, and I willed my cheeks not to heat with the crush of embarrassment that hit.
I loved the kid. He was a hard worker. But never before had a person so embodied the Golden Retriever energy of friendly, adorable, and clueless as well as Jake did.
When we neared them enough so I didn’t have to yell, I greeted her. “Hello, ma’am. Nice to meet you.”
She smiled something so genuine, it almost blinded me.
“Please, call me Juliet. You must be Aidan Wallace.” She stuck out her hand for a shake.
Thankful I hadn’t already been digging and that my hands were relatively clean, I accepted. Though she looked like she might have one of those handshakes that sat limp at the fingers, she clasped mine firmly and gave a purposeful shake.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, at a loss for what to do with myself. Again, my lack of interaction with beautiful, likely extremely wealthy women knocked me over the head.
“I was just getting orders, and then I’m going to run into town. Coffee?”
And the disarming bat of her lashes had me saying, “That’d be great. Just black.”
Next, she looked down and to my right, where the son I’d temporarily forgotten about thanks to my spiking pulse and the repeated glances back to Maddie’s house in an attempt to see if she was anywhere within view stood quietly.
“And you?”
“Sure. Are you going to Rise and Shine?”
Juliet smiled. “Yes. I hear it’s the best.”
“It is. Sadie’s smart and she’s expanded her business a lot in the last year. You should get some bread, too. But I’ll take a raspberry whip if they’re doing them. If not, that’s okay.”
Juliet’s smile was charmed and not shocked by my son’s presumption, thankfully. She watched Luca trot off to a spot under a tree and turned back to me. “That’s your son?”
A wash of something—dread? Fear? God help me but was it embarrassment again?—slipped over me head to toe. Telling her meant telling Maddie, and this wasn’t the right way to do that. Then again, we weren’t involved anymore, so what did it matter?
That was a bunch of bull, and I knew it. “Yes. But I… we never talked about him.”
She studied me as though deciding what she thought of me. “She’s told me a bit about you.”
I swallowed, desperate to know what Maddie had shared. Our first meeting? The kiss? My fumbling of every interaction since? “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
She tilted her head to one side. “It’s good… depending.”
I shifted, restless at that. “Depending on what?”
Juliet smiled again, a bright beaming thing that should probably be weaponized. “You, of course.”
