Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,67
patient on the shoulder, like it was his own fault he’d gotten hurt.
Quinn held very still, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I’d be better able to concentrate, Jillian, if a certain great uncle of mine would just remove his hands from my woman.”
Jillian straightened and dropped the bloody rag she’d been holding. She glanced in Jules’ direction, but not up at her face. Tears poured from her eyes and she walked away, in the opposite direction, into the trees.
Montgomery’s arm disappeared from Jules’ shoulders and he ran after his wife. She didn’t go far, though, and collapsed at the bottom of a tree, bawling into her hands.
“Jillian! You will be all right, do you hear?”
“No. No, I won’t,” she sobbed quietly, but her voice carried in the moist air.
“Is it the babe? Do you wish to lie down?”
“No. The baby’s fine. But...” She was crying too hard to finish.
She was pregnant?
Well, hormonal or not, Jules knew the crying was her fault. If she were anyone else, she might have been able to run up to the woman who was supposedly her sister, throw her arms around her, and start celebrating. But she just wasn’t like that.
Jillian Ross wasn’t just a stranger; she’d been the bane of Jules’ existence. And she couldn’t just pretend it wasn’t true. She had to show a little loyalty to herself, to remember what she’d come here to do. She was finally close enough to speak to the chick. It was time to suck it up and do it. After all, Jillian was already crying—she couldn’t make it much worse.
Her pounding heart propelled her across the clearing and she didn’t stop walking until she was standing in front of her sister. Montgomery was squatting beside his wife, drying her tears with her own hair. He stood and gave Jules a grateful smile, then started to walk away.
“Wait. You probably don’t want to leave her,” she warned. “Not when you hear what I’ve come to say.”
Monty’s brows rose, but he looked more curious than worried. He shared a glance with Jillian, then leaned against the tree. Within comforting distance maybe.
“First of all,” Jules began, “I want to thank you for taking care of Quinn. I don’t know anything about stitching wounds. I’m probably a lot better at inflicting them. I’m sure you’ll agree in a minute.”
Jillian put a hand on the ground and got to her feet. “I guess if you plan to hurt me, I shouldn’t take it sitting down,” she said. Then she wiped a sleeve across her face and lifted her chin.
It was all too painful to watch, like Jules was seeing herself move, hearing something she might have said under the same circumstances. But she shook off the empathetic impressions and got back to the script she’d practiced on the hillside.
“My parents... Our parents died in a car crash...” She couldn’t go on. After all this rehearsing, she couldn’t tell this ghostly version of herself that it was her fault her parents died. Maybe, now that she wasn’t alone anymore, she could see through that red, angry fog and admit that it hadn’t been Jillian’s fault. All the fault should be laid at their grandmother’s feet.
“My grandmother,” Jillian began. “Our grandmother told me my parents died in a car wreck. She never said anything about a sister. She said we had no other family. I’ve known about you for about thirty-six hours.”
Her sister swallowed, then gave a little smile, but it didn’t stay long. She must have read something on Jules’ face that told her not to start celebrating. It must have been the shock. When Jules was able to speak again, she couldn’t seem to turn up the volume enough to hear herself clearly. What she did hear clearly was her heart pounding against the wall of her chest.
“You don’t remember me?” She didn’t know if she was more hurt or outraged. She’d considered the possibility, but it hadn’t seemed possible that Jillian’s memory would be worse than her own. The second time she spoke, she was nice and clear. “You’re claiming you don’t remember me?”
When her voice bounced around the trees and back into her face, she glanced over at Montgomery, to see if he was going to come to his wife’s defense, but he was gone. Jillian followed her gaze.
About twenty feet away, the missing husband had his arms over the shoulders of Quinn and Ewan and the three of them were sneaking quickly away into the mist.