stony, his expression harsh and distant.
“That we can’t be...more than friends. I’ve been trying to tell you. I value your friendship. So much. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t know how else to get it through your head that I...I can’t have a relationship with you.”
“Why? You still have not answered that.”
“I...I’m just not interested,” she lied. “Why can’t you just accept that?”
“Maybe because I don’t believe you. How can I, when you send out conflicting signals every time we’re together?”
He was right. How could she blame him for not knowing what she really wanted?
“I’m attracted to you. Any woman would be. But a purely physical relationship wouldn’t be enough for me. I don’t think it would be for you, either. There are a hundred women in town who would love to date you. If you want, I can set you up with some of my friends.”
It was exactly the wrong thing to say and she knew it before the words were even out. He glared at her, his expression finally revealing frustration and anger and hurt.
“You want to set me up with your friends.”
“I just don’t want you to be lonely, Henry.”
He shook his head. “I think you’re full of more chickenshit than your best fertilizer.”
She stared at him, shocked again that he would swear at her twice in a matter of moments when she had heard expletives from him so rarely over the years.
“Believe what you want. It doesn’t change the fact that my mind is made up.”
Here was the hard part, the bitter words she didn’t want to say but knew she must.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I...I need to ask you to give me some space. I hoped we could stay friends, but we obviously can’t manage that between us now, without all this awkwardness and the...the expectations I can’t meet.”
In the darkness, she couldn’t completely see the expression in his eyes, but she could feel the shock and pain that seemed to radiate from him.
“Message received,” he finally said abruptly and started down the ramp. “I won’t bother you again.”
She couldn’t bear this. “Henry.”
He turned back and somehow the moonlight caught his features, stark and angry and sad.
She had destroyed her closest friendship. How would she ever go on without him?
What else could she have done? She couldn’t inflict her condition on him. Not when he had already been through so much.
“Goodbye, Juliet.”
He walked the rest of the way down the ramp, climbed into his pickup and drove away without another word, leaving devastation behind.
She didn’t know how long she sat there feeling numb with pain. It could have been a few moments or a few days before Olivia pushed open the front door and looked around.
“I thought I heard a vehicle out here. Was that Henry? Did he really just leave you here on the porch like an Amazon delivery? That’s not like him.”
“Maybe I wanted him to,” she snapped, but the words seemed to implode the dam that had been holding back all her feelings. They smashed through in a mad, terrible rush and she burst into raw, agonized tears.
27
OLIVIA
At first, Olivia was so shocked by her mother’s sobs that she did not know how to respond.
Juliet was not a crier. Oh, there may have been times over the years when her mother had lost control of her emotions, but Olivia could probably count the times she had seen her really weep on one hand, most of those after her father died and then again after Natalie’s death.
“Mom. What’s going on? What happened?”
Juliet looked up, her fine-boned features haunted. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
Really? Her mom was really going to play the I’m-fine card?
“You’re obviously not. You’re sitting on the porch and weeping. I can’t believe Henry would leave you out here and not take you into the house.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Juliet’s voice was listless, defeated. She sounded so unlike herself that Olivia began to worry even more.
“What happened? Did you and Henry have a fight?”
Juliet gave a humorless laugh. “A fight. I guess you could say that.”
She looked so very bleak, a few more tears trickling down her cheeks. For one cowardly moment, Olivia wanted to ignore the whole situation, to wheel her mother inside the house and help her transfer to bed. She did not want to know about her mother’s relationship with Henry. With any man.
The easier choice would be to simply leave Juliet to handle things in her own way.
She couldn’t do that. Her mother was