Page 51 of His Best Friend's Baby

“Hello?” the voice said again and this time there were footsteps heading from the front door to the kitchen.

“Shit!” Jesse muttered. He stepped away and he and Julia tried frantically, uselessly to put themselves right.

He watched her smooth her hair and wipe her mouth, but her lips were still swollen and her nipples were hard under her shirt.

“This is why I don’t want you around,” he told her.

She smiled at him the way Eve must have when she had that apple in her hands. For a minute he didn’t recognize Julia as Julia. The quiet, shy woman whose smile was like summer and whose eyes forgave every stupid thing he’d ever done had disappeared. She was someone else, someone else with secrets and hidden depths. A woman with a plan, an agenda of her own.

She scared the bejesus out of him.

“You’re such a coward,” she murmured moments before his sister and niece barged in.

CHAPTER TWELVE

JULIA WAS TREMBLING. Shaking from a giddy combination of adrenaline and desire. Had she done that? Was that her saying those things? Good gravy, she felt… great. Liberated.

Oddly enough, she felt taller.

Did I just call Jesse a coward? She nearly laughed.

“Well, well.” To Julia’s horror, Rachel, Jesse’s sister, walked into the kitchen and suddenly she didn’t feel quite so bold. Instead, she felt like a teenager caught with her pants down. “Good to see you again, Julia.”

She could hear Amanda in the front room talking to Ben. Rachel stepped deeper into the room and leaned against a kitchen chair. She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled as though she knew exactly where Jesse’s hand had been just moments ago. There wasn’t any anger in that look, just a feminine understanding, but it still made Julia uncomfortable.

“I was just…ah…” Julia couldn’t look at Jesse and she couldn’t get a feasible lie to stumble through her lips.

“She was leaving,” Jesse said and Julia’s overheated body temperature chilled considerably.

“Right.” She turned to Jesse. “Glad to see you’re doing…okay.” She nodded once, briskly. And walked past Rachel.

Ben heard her coming and greeted her as though she’d been gone for months. “Mama!” he cried.

“Hi, Julia.” Amanda pushed herself up on her elbow from where she’d been lying on the floor beside Ben. “Ben was just telling me about his train.”

“He loves his train,” Julia said stupidly. She could feel Rachel’s and Jesse’s eyes on her back and she wanted out of there immediately.

This is what happens to bravery, she thought. It turns into foolishness real fast. “Let’s go, Ben.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Amanda said, standing with Ben.

“No, it’s—” But Ben clapped, clearly besotted with Amanda.

“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling caught.

She didn’t turn back around, she didn’t wave or say goodbye, but she was barely out the front door before a rough touch on her hand stopped her.

“Thank you,” Jesse said, his eyes sincere and warm. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“You’re welcome,” she whispered, hope and her heart lodged in her throat.

He squeezed her hand before dropping it and she, in her short years of marriage, had never felt something so tender. So important to her bruised and battered spirit.

Ben and Amanda skipped on ahead and Julia followed with a foreign lightness in her own step.

And just like that, foolishness pays off, she thought with a smile.

“Hey, Julia?” Amanda turned around and walked backward.

“Yes, Amanda.”

“You know, if you ever need a…like, a baby-sitter or something. You could call me.” Amanda smiled and tripped a little, ruining her sales pitch.

“I could?” She smiled at the girl. God, could it be this easy? A great girl whom she trusted and liked ready to babysit?

“For sure,” she said emphatically. “I babysit all the time and this summer I’m going to be doing an internship at the paper, so I’ll be, like, totally broke.”

“Sadly, Amanda, I know that feeling very well.”

“Well, you should know—I am very affordable.”

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