Beach Rental(78)

“Why don’t I pick you up this afternoon? It’s quiet at the gallery.”

“Getting away while you can? Sounds like a good idea.”

“Would you prefer to do something else? I’m open.”

Could she go through with it?

“I’d love to go sailing with you.”

“Great. I’ll see you about three? Wear rubber shoes, sneakers or something, because the boat can get slick.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Before three p.m. she found herself in Ben’s room with a light jacket in her arms and her sneakers hanging from her fingers. She hadn’t planned to stop here. Ben, I have a date. I hope you don’t mind.

She wiped a tear. Luke would be here any minute and she didn’t want red eyes.

The doorbell broke the spell. She laughed at herself and hurried to the door.

****

Luke entered, awkward at first, but only briefly. Juli’s smile blew away his doubts, too easily. Odd that he found some reassurance in her slightly red eyes. This wasn’t easy for her either.

She held out the windbreaker. He held it while she sat and tugged her sneakers on.

“What are you staring at?”

Luke said, “I was just thinking you need to get out and have fun as much as I do.”

She stood and when she extended her hand to him, it was as if they’d done this every day for a thousand years and something hurt in his chest.

In the parking lot, she stopped and asked, “Are you okay?”

He looked at the way her brown hair lit with fire from the sun and the blue eyes that matched the sea. “I’m good.”

Juli laughed as she threw her jacket into the car. “Only good? On a beautiful day like this? Sometimes good is enough, but not today.”





Chapter Twenty-Seven



It came upon her slowly—a gradual awareness. By the time she understood, she didn’t find it surprising.

She stared at her face in the mirror. Did she look any different? Her eyes were bright and her face was flushed.

It was impossible. Frightening. Heat flooded her body.

Her heart raced. It was unbelievable. Exciting.

She couldn’t do this by herself. She had no experience.

She wished she’d known in time to tell Ben.

Juli placed her hands on her flat belly. Stress could’ve interrupted her cycle. The past few months certainly had disrupted everything else in her life and she might have lost track.

That was it. She’d lost track. So much had happened, it was understandable.

But then again, her life had been a series of unexpected, unlikely events since the night at the Hammonds’ house. This was just one more.

As frightened and excited as she was, there was no question in her mind of how Ben would react. He might not be here in person, but somewhere, somehow, he knew. “Ben, if this is true, if it’s real, this is for you.”

What would it mean to her and Luke?

Ben had been gone almost three months. She and Luke had worked in the gallery together. Gone sailing together. As friends. She felt more than friendship, but kept it locked up tight. Luke had mentioned Thanksgiving again. He said she should attend because she was Ben’s widow.

The rest of the world wouldn’t understand their relationship. Those who believed she’d married Ben for his money would—oh, but it was true, wasn’t it? Ben got companionship and Juli got money. What neither of them had counted on was that their hearts would become entangled inextricably in the business arrangement.

Juli had loved Ben. She loved him, even if she hadn’t been in love with him. Luke had taken that prize, perhaps from the first moment she saw him—not a tender love, but something different.

What about her feelings now? So soon after Ben’s death, perhaps she was on a rebound. Luke was attentive. Any decent person would be kind to her because of her loss. She must not read too much into it.

But he might feel more.

Luke and Juli, as a couple too soon, would condemn her forever as mercenary in everyone’s eyes. Now, believing she was expecting Ben’s child, the idea of a relationship with Luke was out of the question. She didn’t understand why she felt that way, but she did. She dreaded telling him.

By Thanksgiving, she’d be somewhere between three and four months along. She had to tell Luke soon.

****

Luke sat on the porch with her one evening in the golden light of a late October afternoon.

“It’s not a good idea to live at the beach year-round. Not for a novice.”

“People do.”

“They do, but the population thins out dramatically as the weeks wind down toward winter. Winter storms here on the edge of the Atlantic can be dangerous and destructive.”

She watched Luke’s face as he spoke. His eyes rested on the ocean swells racing into the shore with a recurring, hypnotic rhythm beneath the tranquil blue of the sky. There was no renter in the other half of the duplex this week. He was right about the off-season solitude. “I might want to move elsewhere, but not now. Not for a while.”