Confessions Bundle

“You are my daughter, flesh of my flesh, heart of my heart. And nothing, not even death, will change that. Ever. Got it?”

“Yes.” Mary Jane was still subdued.

“And we’ll always have our time, just you and me,” Juliet continued, finding words from someplace. “While Aunt Marcie lives with us, you can pick a night of the week, or a weekend day, or both, and it’ll be just the two of us.”

Looking over the child’s head, Juliet caught an expression of longing—and fear—on her twin’s face. Was Marcie imagining a similar moment, with her child in her lap needing assurance and love?

“And you and Aunt Marcie can have a day, too, if you’d like,” she said, still watching her sister. Marcie smiled, nodded, and still appeared on the verge of tears.

“Okay,” Mary Jane said. “Because, you know, Mom, Aunt Marcie likes to look for sand crabs and go to museums and you don’t.”

Juliet turned the child so she could look her straight in the face. “So, you’re okay with her moving in with us?”

Mary Jane’s nod was enthusiastic. “When are you coming?” she asked her aunt, sliding back down to the quilt. “Today? Does Hank know? And what about your shop and people?”

“I don’t know how soon,” Marcie said, her blond hair shadowing her face as she smiled down at the child. “Maybe next week if I can get the arrangements made. And no, Hank doesn’t know yet and I’m going to ask Tammy if she wants to buy out my half of the business. She’ll have to hire someone to take over my clients, or I can try to find someone for her.”

Mary Jane nodded. “Hank’ll sure be surprised.”

“Yeah.” Marcie frowned. “But if we really loved each other, we would have wanted to get married a long time ago,” she said. “And since neither of us has ever wanted that, I think we probably don’t.”

“So if he doesn’t love you that much, Hank pro’bly’ll get over it pretty quick,” Mary Jane said, her forehead creased in a frown.

“Probably.”

“Man, he’s dumb!” the child said.

Marcie’s answering smile faded quickly. And then the conversation faltered. Remembering back nine years, to her own feelings of panic and uncertainty, Juliet tapped her daughter on the knee.

“There’s a reason Aunt Marcie is moving in with us, sweetie,” Juliet said.

“Because she’s going to work at a studio?”

“No. Because she’s going to have a baby.”

The little girl’s mouth dropped, her eyes wide. “You are?” She stared at her aunt.

With a tremulous smile, Marcie nodded.

The sound of waves lapping against the sand was comforting in its unchanging routine. Juliet concentrated on it.

Mary Jane glanced at Marcie’s slim belly, and then back up. “A boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know yet,” Marcie said. “It’s too soon to tell stuff like that.”

Looking down again, Mary Jane asked, “But you’re sure it’s in there, right?”

“Positive.”

“Well, then, we’re going to have to get the crib out of the attic.”

And that was that.

Juliet hoped the second topic of conversation would go even a quarter that well.

MARY JANE INSISTED the baby was going to be a girl—to make them two pairs. She spent the next twenty minutes, as they unwrapped the cheese and bread and fruit, trying out different names. So far she’d settled on six of them. She ate enough, steadily, so the food was disappearing, although her mother and aunt had done no more than eat a grape or two.

Juliet shifted her weight, the sand hard beneath her.

“So what was the second thing to talk about?” Mary Jane asked, chocolate-chip cookie crumbs on her lips as she chewed. Clearly, she thought she’d heard the worst of it.

“I…” Juliet started. Stopped. Looked out at the ocean. “I…”

“Your mother has a new client,” Marcie said. “And you’re not going to like who it is and you’re probably going to think there’s more to it than there is, but there isn’t, and you’re just going to have to trust us on that one.”

“Huh?”

“Blake Ramsden’s been charged with fraud and he’s asked me to represent him.” It wasn’t how she’d wanted to break the news, but other words failed her.

Mary Jane’s mouth froze. The cookie in her hand crumbled. And her eyes creased, their depth lit with sheer panic in the bright sunlight.

“And you told him no, right?” the child asked as though warding off a blow.

Juliet was aware of Marcie next to her, watching them, but she kept her gaze focused strictly on her daughter. “Is that what you’d want me to do, Mary Jane?”

“Yes.”

On one hand, Juliet completely understood—had expected this, even—but another part of her was disappointed.

“She’s only eight years old,” Marcie’s voice came softly beside her. Juliet listened for the waves—for reassurance—and for whatever voice inside was going to tell her what to do next.

“He’s a man I once knew, Mary Jane. Someone who was kind to me, made me laugh, gave me the greatest gift I will ever receive…”

The little girl stared, the expression in her eyes a mixture of belligerence, fear and a small hint of that peculiarly mature blend of tolerance and innocence with which she normally approached life.

“And I think someone might be framing him for a crime he didn’t commit,” Juliet continued. She’d always told Mary Jane the truth. In the end, it was the one thing the child could count on and Juliet wasn’t going to let her down. Their entire relationship was built on that trust. “If he doesn’t find a way to prove that, he could spend the rest of his life in jail.”

Juliet waited. Continued to watch her daughter’s bent head. The child was hugging one upraised knee, the remains of her chocolate-chip cookie still clutched in one hand. Little bits of melted chocolate oozed through her fingers.

“Why does it have to be you?”

She could hardly make out the mumbled words.

“Because I’m familiar with the case. Because he trusts me. And because I’m one of the best defense attorneys in the state.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“I know, sweetie, and I thought about that,” Juliet said, hurting, as she watched her daughter struggle. “But there’s no reason this can’t work out just fine for all three of us.” She’d worried about finding the right words, but in the end, they just started to flow.

“How many times, in the past eight years, have you met any of my clients?”

Mary Jane glanced up. “None.”

“Okay, so percentages say you don’t have a whole lot to worry about there. If you’ve never met one of my clients, and they’ve never met you, why should this time be any different?”

“I guess…”

“Now,” she hurried on when Mary Jane took a breath as though preparing to argue. “Second, there’s me.” The little girl looked scared again. “For eight years, my life has been very, very blessed because of you. Sometimes I start to feel a little guilty about that.” The admission wasn’t easy. “Because Blake Ramsden doesn’t even know about you and has never had a chance to be happy knowing you.”

The girl’s face paled. “You said you weren’t going to tell him about me unless I—”

“I’m not planning to tell him about you,” Juliet interrupted. “But right now, his life isn’t happy or blessed at all, and if I can help him, if I can win him his freedom, then I’ve sort of paid him back. Do you see that?”

Mary Jane’s nose crinkled. She ground her chin against her knee. Marcie reached over, ran her fingers through Mary Jane’s curls. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of, sweetie.”

Mary Jane raised her head. “Kind of like a life for a life?” she asked Juliet, her tone a little less defensive.

“Kind of.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“I know.”

“You promise you won’t tell him about me?”

“Not without telling you first.”

Mary Jane didn’t look satisfied, but after staring intently for a long moment, she didn’t argue the point any further.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MARCIE STARTED loading empty sandwich wrappers into the canvas bag they’d brought with them. Mary Jane continued to sit, now hugging both knees.

Thinking about the man who was her father?

“Is there anything you’d like to know about him?” Juliet asked, just in case.

Did the child ever wonder what kind of person Blake was? Whether he was smart? Or liked dogs?

“So you’re sure he didn’t do it?”

Leave it up to Mary Jane to find the most difficult question. “I don’t know, sweetie, but I don’t think so.”

The little girl nodded. “I don’t think so, either.”

She leaned over to the edge of the blanket, opened her hand and dropped the cookie she’d been holding. With a quick brush of her hand, she jumped up.

“Can I go look for shells now?”

Feeling there was more she should say, Juliet just nodded. And Mary Jane ran off.

“That went surprisingly well,” Marcie said, lying back on the blanket and closing her eyes.

Outwardly, Juliet agreed with her sister. But as she watched her daughter strolling listlessly by the water, her heart told her differently. This wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.

ON MONDAY, Blake went to the pound and picked out a puppy. A Labrador-greyhound mix—pitch-black with a long nose, pointed ears that stood upright and looked too large for its small head and a skinny tail that hung down almost to the floor. He’d toyed with the idea all weekend. It was a positive move, manifesting his belief that he’d be free to raise the pup. He’d accepted the January speaking engagement, too.

Buying a puppy was something he’d often thought about since returning to San Diego—he liked the idea of having something to come home to at the end of a long day. Or to spend time with on weekends that sometimes stretched too long.

But he couldn’t quite escape a twinge of guilt at the thought of taking the pup home, making them a family, only to have to abandon the little guy to someone else three months later—three months older, three months less adaptable—as his master went to prison.

Still, getting up Tuesday morning after an almost sleepless night, Blake felt better than he had in weeks.

“Freedom, my boy, you win,” he told the whining pup as he let him out of the crate he’d purchased the day before. “Tonight you sleep on the bed, so we can both sleep.”

Freedom yawned, shook himself, wagged his tail and peed all over Blake’s shoe.

JULIET CALLED early Tuesday afternoon. He thought about telling her about the pup, or the series of gifts taking up every bit of available space in his office, but she was all business.

“I’ve heard from Paul Schuster,” she told him, her tone without inflection—not welcome, doom or even boredom. “When would be a convenient time for us to meet?”

He offered to come to her office immediately. She preferred to come to his. Blake didn’t argue.

“SCHUSTER’S OFFERED a plea agreement.”

She’d only just arrived, barely taken time to give him a somewhat unfocused smile of hello, before she’d taken the seat he’d indicated on the couch and opened her satchel.

Blake had been about to offer her something to drink. Instead he sat down. Hard.

“Meaning?”

She met his gaze for the first time since she’d arrived. “He’s offered to lessen the charge to two counts of fraud.”

Her suit was navy today, with a slim knee-length skirt, white blouse and short tailored jacket.

“If I plead guilty?” he asked. Blake had been doing a lot of reading on a subject of which he’d been completely ignorant. The details of criminal proceedings had just never interested him.

Juliet nodded.

Slow down, he admonished himself when he might have bitten out an instant refusal. He had to take this calmly. One step at a time. Detaching from emotion so that he could think.

“Why would he be willing to do that?” Because he wasn’t so sure he could make the original charges stick? Then why press them in the first place? Unless something had happened between last week and this.

“Two reasons,” Juliet said, leaning forward as she explained, her voice softening to the tone he’d grown to expect from her. “First, it’s palatable to the prosecutor because it puts the onus on the judge. Second, it’s easier—and less time-consuming—than going to trial.”

“I hadn’t read Paul Schuster as a man who takes the easy way out.” Blake still wanted to believe that something had happened to make the prosecutor less confident that he could win.

Juliet smiled, almost as though she knew what he was thinking. “It’s not the easy way out. He’s spent a lot of time on this case, he thinks he’s got his man, and now he’s ready to move on to get the next one.”

“He’s bored,” Blake translated.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but you’re a first offender, Blake, and to Schuster, this isn’t nearly as big as Eaton’s alleged fake companies. He knows, no matter how good a case he builds, you aren’t going to get a maximum sentence anyway.”

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Blake read the Chinese proverb. He’d hung the plaque by the door to his office so he saw it every time he glanced up from his desk—and again every time he left his domain.

“What happens if we accept the agreement?” He wasn’t going to. He couldn’t. Because to do that would be a lie. He wasn’t guilty.

“You get a maximum of fifteen years.”

“And realistically?”

“Seven 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 I think it’s cruel of me not to tell him about Mary Jane,” she added when she could.

“How many days has it been since Mrs. Cummings called?” Marcie asked.

“Two. Mary Jane has failed three math tests in a row.” It would be a cause for concern with any child. And with a child who could blurt out the answers to math problems in class before her teacher even had time to write them out on the board, it was especially worrisome.

“Is she doing it on purpose?” Marcie asked.

Juliet tried to concentrate on loosening the knot in her stomach. “Obviously,” she said. “The question is why, and what to do about it.”

“What does Mary Jane say?”

“That she’s not doing it on purpose.”

“She’s never lied to you before.”

The sky was black, with shades of navy and gray where the moon shone through. So much out there—unseen.

“I don’t think she’s lying now. She’s somehow convinced herself she can’t do the math,” Marcie added.

“We had her talk to the school counselor and Mary Jane answered all her questions like a happy, normal, well-adjusted kid.”

“What does Mrs. Cummings say?”

“That Mary Jane is troubled about something.” Juliet had been trying desperately not to think of her most recent phone conversation with the elementary-school principal. She’d suggested that Juliet look into some kind of special-education class that worked with children one-on-one to determine the extent of Mary Jane’s needs.

As if her daughter wasn’t already segregated enough by her differences from the other children.

“And you think she’s troubled about her father?”

Juliet didn’t know what else to think. “School’s always been a bit of a struggle, you know that,” Juliet said. “She’s too smart for her grade, too outspoken for her age, and she bores easily. But she’s always taken that in stride. It never really seemed to bother her, until the past few months—ever since the first conversation about her father came up again. She seems to have lost, at least to some degree, her sense of security.”

“Which is why you can’t tell Blake anything about her,” Marcie said. “Obviously Mary Jane comes first. And introducing a huge change into her life certainly isn’t going to enhance her security. Besides, for now, Blake needs something else from you far more than he needs to know that you had his baby eight years ago. He’s a client and should remain that way if you’re going to do your job and set him free. You tell him about Mary Jane now, and there’s no way you’d still be able to keep him on as a client. Things would be too personal.

“Think of it this way, Jules,” Marcie continued. “It’s not going to do him a hell of a lot of good to know he has a daughter if he’s locked up and can’t see her anyway.”

“Yeah.” She’d already told herself all the things that Marcie said. Still, the validation helped.

“Maybe after the case is over, and third grade is over, and I’ve been living there for a while, Mary Jane will be feeling secure enough for you to tell Blake about her.”

Maybe. But that thought struck as much terror in her heart as anything else.

ON FRIDAY, two weeks after his arraignment, Juliet was back in Blake’s office.

“I met Fred Manning coming up in the elevator,” she told him, holding the back of her black silk skirt down as she took her usual seat on his couch. It was beginning to seem routine, all in a day’s work, having her there.

She had a “usual” seat.

Careful, buddy, Blake warned himself. If there was one thing he knew, it was that it would be suicide to get too comfortable with Juliet McNeil. She was his attorney. Nothing more. They’d both decided to leave it that way before he even knew he needed an attorney.

“Fred’s a good guy,” he said now. “He’s been with us for years. My father hired him straight out of law school.”

“I know.” Juliet smiled. “He told me. He thinks the world of you.”

Blake shrugged, glanced around him at the mementos that were helping him more than his staff would ever know.

“Lee Anne does, too,” Juliet added. “I get the feeling pretty much everyone around here does.”

He took the chair adjacent to her, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. “They’re a good group.”

“It’s important, Blake.” Her gaze was dead serious as she looked him in the eye. “We’re going to need every single one of them as character witnesses. I don’t care if it takes six months to parade them all through court, we’re going to paint a picture of you the jury will never forget.”

Okay. He’d handle the embarrassment. It was a small price to pay.