Page 30 of Unpacking Secrets
“Where did you live before?”
A few hours ago, I hadn’t had any interest in knowing more about this woman, but now I was invested, eager to learn all I could. She’d clearly inherited more than just Nan’s red hair and heartstopping blue eyes. It took a damned lot of strength to get up after the kind of spill she’d taken, then walk for miles in an unfamiliar forest, all alone.
A swift wave of relief that I’d been the one to find her filled me as I waited for her response.
“Just outside of Minneapolis.”
I didn’t think I was imagining the flash of homesickness in her eyes. “Do you have any family out there?”
Juliet was silent so long that I opened my mouth to apologize for the question, but she waved it off before I could speak.
“My mom died six months ago. Pancreatic cancer. It was just me and her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said gently.
That loneliness I'd sensed earlier was written clearly across her freckled face. I wanted to say more, to offer some degree of comfort, but I couldn’t find the words—and I still wasn’t sure she’d even want them from me at this point.
Juliet apparently decided to seize the opportunity to learn something about me in return.
“What about your family? Aside from Gerard, obviously. You mentioned that you have a brother, does he live around here? What about your parents?”
“My brother Aaron is a nurse at Libby’s clinic. He married his college sweetheart and moved to Oakville, just down the road. My parents bought an RV when they retired and are currently working their way across the country,” I said with a grin.
My family was close, sometimes annoyingly so, but I loved them fiercely. Juliet didn’t hesitate to smile back this time.
“My best friend, Sarah, is backpacking through Europe with her husband at the moment. She makes me feel like a homebody.”
“You, a homebody? You just moved halfway across the country with a single week’s notice, Red. That strikes me as pretty adventurous.”
The comment caused a faint blush to rise in her cheeks, or maybe it was the nickname. Either way, I liked it. Maybe a little too much for my own good.
“Maybe. So . . . you’ve been married?”
“I wondered when you’d get around to that.” I smiled at her expression, alight with curiosity. “Yes, Libby and I got married very young, realized we both had very different aspirations in life, and got divorced less than a year later. It was all very amicable. She married the love of her life a few years back, who happens to be one of our best friends, and now it’s her life goal to find me someone to settle down with.”
Juliet laughed. “Sounds like Sarah. I think wondering what’s happening here is probably driving her up the wall right now. I’m positive it’s making her poor husband crazy, having to deal with her worrying about me. They spent years planning this trip and saving up so they could spend as much time as they want over there, and here I am, distracting them from it all.”
“At least you’ll be keeping her entertained with your adventures,” I teased.
Juliet threw a balled up napkin in my direction, but it fell short of actually hitting me. I laughed and laced my hands behind my head, watching Juliet’s gaze drift to my chest. When I glanced down, I noticed that my shirt had stretched tight across my pecs, and I bit back a grin.
Even in her disheveled state, she was beautiful in a way that tempted me to hold onto her and never let go. I hadn’t hesitated for even a second before volunteering to spend the night watching over her, though I fully anticipated the experience might be torturous for us both—for her, because she was clearly uncomfortable with the thought of me staying at the cottage, and for me, because she was in no condition for me to act on any of the less-than-chivalrous images I’d entertained while Libby patched her up.
Instead, I cocked a brow. “What about you? Did you leave a boyfriend back home, pining after you?”
“No,” she said, grimacing. “My ex and I broke up when he proposed to me in my mother’s hospital room, three days before she died.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“Nope. I managed to avoid him asking me to move in with him by moving back to my mom’s house when she got sick, and I guess I thought that would slow things down. We barely saw each other during those months. I, uh, didn’t handle the proposal scene very well.”
“Who would? What a jackass.”
With a glum nod, she shrugged and kept her gaze on her lap. “What’s done is done, and that’sverydone after how I responded.”
I wanted to ask for details, to get a clear picture of this fiery woman knocking her asshole ex down a peg, but we weren’t there yet. Maybe someday. Instead, I turned the conversation back to safer subjects.
“Do you like it here? Spruce Hill, I mean?”
