Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,68
James, who now stood guard over the horses, seemed to realize he’d been abandoned. He turned aside and whistled softly.
“Cowards,” she and Jillian said in unison.
Neither of them laughed.
“To answer your question,” Jillian said, “no, I didn’t remember you. Since the Muir sisters told me we were twins, I’ve remembered just a few things. Little, stupid things. I didn’t even remember your name, although Jules sounded a lot more familiar than Juliet. I should have been able to remember your name. I’m so sorry.”
“I would have given anything to forget yours,” Jules mumbled.
Jillian’s mouth opened like she’d just been punched in the stomach, but she recovered quickly for someone who’d just been bawling her head off.
“First blood goes to you,” said her sister. “Fine. So I’ll tell you what’s been bothering me for the last day and a half. If you’ve known about me, remembered me, why the hell didn’t you come looking for me before now?”
Jules’ mouth opened with an indignant grunt. “Are you kidding me? I spent my life looking for you! You stupid, self-centered bitch! You never looked back! You never looked for us!”
To her horror, that little outburst opened a floodgate of her own wild emotions. She couldn’t catch her next breath and was at the mercy of her own contorting body. The only way to breathe was to bawl.
Quinn came out of nowhere, but it wasn’t his arms that came around her, it was Jillian’s.
“Get out of here,” her sister barked at him.
Jules was grateful he went. Even her hand spread wide couldn’t hide her gaping, howling mouth, and she turned toward her sister and buried her face against her so no one else could see the ugliness. There was just too much pain for her to handle on her own. For once, just this once, she’d lean on Jillian, but just until the tide in her chest turned.
Jules hadn’t noticed when they’d made it to the ground, but as her surroundings crept back into her awareness, she realized they were seated right hip to right hip facing opposite directions, with their heads on each other’s right shoulders. Jillian flipped a small square of plaid over her arm and Jules hurried to blow her nose on it before anyone told her it was meant for something else. Scots were funny about their plaids, weren’t they?
Jillian let go of her and pulled back to look in her face.
“You said, You never came looking for us.” She took a deep breath. “Who is us?”
Jules wasn’t sure she could talk, but she tried.
“Mom and Dad,” she said.
Jillian frowned. “But they died, when we were three.”
“No. They died when just before our tenth birthday. We looked for you for six years. It’s what we did. Then, after I was old enough to drive, I was always looking for you too. By then I was pretty mad and wanted to take it out on somebody. It wasn’t until I was snooping in an FBI agent’s stuff that I found the file they had on me. They’d known about you, and about grandmother. Suddenly I knew right where to find you.”
Jillian was shaking her head and tearing up again. “I don’t understand. Why would Grandmother have lied to me? Why would she keep me from my parents? Were they abusive?”
“No! No, they were wonderful.” Jules realized she’d been so angry for so long she’d forgotten how lucky she’d been. “It was Grandmother,” she said. “She was crazy. Mother refused to believe her conspiracy theories so Grandmother took you away. Supposedly, she was protecting you from something that was supposed to happen in the future. Now that I know about the tomb, I’m not so sure she was crazy. But how did she know?”
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say, she misunderstood something she heard. I’ll tell you all about it another time. And you can tell me what our parents were like.”
“Deal,” Jules said.
Jillian leaned back on her hands and looked at the toes of her green boots.
“I remember a little girl who I thought was just my reflection in a mirror,” she said. “And a bear named Necklace.”
“White bear with purple legs and arms?”
“And head.”
Jules shook her head. “It wasn’t Necklace. It was Jewels. Your bear was Jules. Mine was Jillybean. They’re in a box, somewhere.”
“Grandmother called me Jillybean.”
“So did I.” Jules swallowed back a wave of tears rising in her throat.
Jillian smiled. “I can’t believe you kept them all this time.”
“Yeah. Neither can I.”
They sat in silence for a