to seven and a half.”
Seven and a half years in prison didn’t sound any different to Blake than a lifetime.
“Tell Schuster no thank you.” As soon as he got home tonight he was going to teach Freedom how to run on the beach.
“You’re sure?” Juliet asked, though her expression was completely calm, as though she’d expected as much. “You don’t want to think about it?”
“There’s nothing to think about,” Blake told her. “I didn’t do it.”
She didn’t reply. At least not with words. Her gaze, as it held his for seconds longer than might have happened had they not been alone, seemed to gleam with support.
MARCIE CALLED on Wednesday night, just as Juliet was about to grab a can of Mace and a walkie-talkie that allowed her to hear if Mary Jane woke up, and head out to the beach.
“I told Hank I was leaving.”
Her twin sister had been crying.
“Did you tell him why?” They’d discussed both sides of that particular issue. Juliet thought Marcie should tell him. Marcie had been afraid that if she did, and he pressured her to marry him, she’d give in.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He wants me to marry him.”
Portable phone in hand, she stepped just outside the back door, to feel the sand beneath her bare feet and be closer to the waves that had a way of promising her that life would go on.
“We suspected that.” In some ways, Hank was an old-fashioned guy.
“Yeah.” Marcie sounded tired. Beaten.
Juliet held her breath, crossed her fingers and prayed that Marcie hadn’t traded her soul for the false lure of safety and security their mother had. If Marcie was head over heels in love, that would be one thing, but…“And?”
“I said no.”
Whew. Juliet’s breathed hissed out on a long sigh. “How’d he take that?”
Marcie chuckled. As much as she could while choking back tears that had obviously been falling a lot already that evening. “He said he’d like to help me move, that he was going to be financially responsible starting immediately, and that he wasn’t ever going to quit asking.”
“In that order?”
“Yeah.”
“That was decent of him.”
“He’s a decent man.”
But not what Marcie had ever said she wanted. And not where her sister wanted, either. Marcie wanted to travel. And to meet new people. She wanted a busy life, social and involved in the world around her.
She didn’t want to sit at home every night in Maple Grove and watch life go by on the television screen.
And that was all Hank had ever wanted.
Marcie wanted magic when she looked across the dinner table every night and woke up every morning.
Juliet understood. It was what she’d always wanted, too.
That was a part of their mother they’d both inherited. The part that, if they weren’t careful, could kill them. Just as it had her.
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, one week after Blake’s arraignment and two days before her sister rented a truck and drove from Maple Grove to San Diego, Juliet called Marcie.
“Hey, Jules, only two more days,” Marcie said, out of breath from packing as she answered the phone.
She sounded energized, as though now that her decisions had been made, she was ready and hopeful about what the changes would bring.
“Mary Jane and I are spending all day tomorrow cleaning out the playroom,” Juliet said from the beach outside her door. The child had talked of nothing else over dinner at the spaghetti warehouse that night. Assured that the key relationships in her life weren’t going to change, she thought Marcie’s moving in with them was the greatest thing that had ever happened. She had already planned which of her toys she could part with to make room in the small cottage for another adult.
“Hank still driving you down?” The man had taken a day off from the hardware store to help Marcie move.
“Yes.”
Juliet didn’t like that uncertain note in her sister’s voice. “Don’t get cold feet now, Marce. You’ve said a thousand times this is what you want.”
“I know.”
“The baby is just a catalyst making it happen.”
“I know.”
“And if you want to get married someday, San Diego has lots of men to choose from.”
“For a woman with a newborn child?”
“For anyone.”
They chatted for another couple of minutes about the logistics of the move. Juliet could see only good in Marcie’s decision. They’d never had any difficulty living together. Marcie would finally begin the life she’d always wanted and Juliet could quit worrying that her sister was going to end up like her mother someday. And she’d have help with Mary Jane.
She’d never felt more in need of the latter than she did right then.
“How are things going with Blake Ramsden?” Marcie asked just as Juliet was starting to feel relaxed enough to sleep.
She kicked at the sand. Watched the moon’s glow bob out on the ocean. Wished the waves would kick up enough of a breeze to cool her heated skin.
“As well as can be expected,” she said, telling her sister about the plea agreement Blake had rejected. And that she thought he’d done the right thing.
“So,” Marcie pressed, “you’re doing okay?”
“I don’t know.” Juliet admitted to her twin what she wouldn’t have told anyone else. “I think so, and then he’ll say something and I get this horrible guilty feeling.” She dug a little tunnel in the sand with her toes. “I think he’s lonely, Marce. He bought this puppy….”
If she hadn’t known all the reasons it would be a mistake for her to fall for Blake Ramsden, she might have been tempted when he’d been sitting there chuckling over the dog’s having chewed a corner off the cupboard when Blake had locked him in the kitchen while he’d showered on Monday night.
“He got the dog from the pound. Named it Freedom because that was what they both needed. The puppy needed freedom from its cage and imminent death, and so does he….”
She had to stop before she did something stupid. Like start to cry.
“Sometimes
