Country Roads(15)

“Done what?”

“Run away from home.” A realization speared through her and jerked her gaze up to Paul. “I need to tell my uncle where I am before he sends out a search party.”

Paul held out his phone. She just looked at it as she chewed on her lip. She had no idea how to explain her abrupt flight without stirring up a hornet’s nest of recriminations. However misguided her uncle’s actions might have been, he had acted out of concern. She knew she was going to upset him no matter what she said, but she wanted to deliver the bad news as tactfully as possible. Tact was not her long suit.

“Tell him you needed a change of scene,” Paul said. “You can blame it on your artistic temperament.”

Anger flared. She was tired of people assuming her creativity made her flaky. Her health issue had nothing to do with her work; it was a physiological malfunction of her brain, nothing more or less. She glared at him. “I don’t have an artistic temperament. I’m very easy to get along with.” She snatched the cell out of his hand.

“So I see.”

“I used to be easy to get along with. Until I met you.”

“Yeah, I bring out the worst in people.”

“Not according to Mrs. Bostic.” She grimaced down at the phone in her hand before she punched in her uncle’s number. Taking a deep breath and putting the phone to her ear, she walked into the living room and stood at a window looking out over the inn’s garden. As the phone rang, she traced the curving brick walkway through the brightly hued blossoms, hoping the peaceful beauty of the scene would relax the tightness in her neck.

“Who is this?” Her uncle’s voice with its faint accent boomed through the phone.

Julia winced. “It’s Julia, Tío.”

“Julia!” A string of rapid-fire Spanish bombarded her. She could follow the gist of what he said, which was that he was frantic with worry, was about to call the police, why hadn’t she told him she was leaving, was she losing her mind, and where was she anyway?

“I’m in Sanctuary, West Virginia,” she said when he paused for breath. That was the easiest question to answer.

“Where?”

“Sanctuary, West Virginia,” she repeated. “I brought my paintings to show Claire Parker.”

“You did what? I was trying to protect you from people seeing those…dios mío, Julia, how did you get there? You did not drive!”

“Yes, I did. I bought a car.” She squared her shoulders. “I needed to come, to find out what someone else thought of my Night Mares.”

Silence. Then in a heavy voice he said, “You did not trust my judgment.”

“It was important to me,” she said, hating the note of pleading she heard in her own voice. “If I don’t have my art, what do I have?”

“Your life, Julia! Which you will not have if you go careening around in a car all alone. You know what could happen.”

“Yes, I know, but I’ve been fine for two years since I stopped taking the medicine.” She hunched her shoulders and murmured into the phone, not wanting Paul to hear.

“Do you have your medication with you?”

“No.” She was practically whispering. “I threw it all away.”

Her uncle exploded into Spanish again, ending with the demand that she fly home immediately.

“I thought I’d stay here a few days.”

“Julia, mi querida, you have the courage of a lioness, but you are taking great chances. I will come tomorrow to get you.”

As she tried to find a kind way to tell him not to come, she felt herself being herded back into the loving cage her family had built around her.



Paul leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and studied the woman bathed in the sunshine slanting through the glass. Her waving hair glinted with brilliant golds and reds while the light turned the thin fabric of her blouse almost transparent. She was silhouetted against the window so he could see the slope of her shoulders, the defined slimness of her arms, and the sensual curve of her waist and hip.

Pure lust slugged him in the gut, and he straightened away from the door. This was a complication he hadn’t expected, especially considering he could see the tension holding her back ramrod straight and squeezing her free hand in and out of a fist. Julia was obviously drawing on every ounce of her strength to get through a difficult discussion, and all he could think about was working his hands up under her blouse to touch the creamy skin tantalizing him through the gauze.

That would give new meaning to the attorney-client relationship. In his opinion she didn’t really need a lawyer, she just needed some clearheaded perspective on dealing with a family member. He could offer her that without crossing any ethical boundaries.