Jo Leigh - Confessions Bundle

Juliet had no choice but to do the same.

She’d intended to tell her little girl on Friday night, but after dinner out at a local hamburger joint—Mary Jane’s choice—the child had been taken with a fit of the giggles that had set the tone for the rest of the evening. They’d rented a silly movie, spilled popcorn in Juliet’s bed while watching it and done each other’s hair, and Juliet had painted Mary Jane’s face.

It had been just what the doctor would’ve ordered, had he been asked, Juliet decided early Saturday morning, staring at the smooth and beautiful features of the child sleeping so peacefully beside her. Mary Jane’s curls spiraled around her head like a dark halo. The little girl’s rounded nose and full sweet lips almost brought tears to her eyes.

God, give me the words to tell her about Blake in a way that makes it okay for her.

She’d said this same prayer several times during the previous night, holding the child against her while she slept. She’d do anything for Mary Jane. It was just damn tough, sometimes, to know the best thing to do.

Give her a court of a law, an intimidating judge, a dishonest prosecutor, a wrongfully accused murderer, and she was fine. Give her a fifty-pound child with springy curls and eyes just like her own, and she had no idea what to do. There’d been no degree to get in motherhood. No Mary Jane manual.

And Juliet had never been comfortable with just winging it.

The phone rang and she panicked until she realized it was her home phone, not her cell. Blake Ramsden didn’t have access to the unlisted number.

She reached over her still-sleeping daughter for the receiver on the nightstand.

“Hello?”

“Jules? Did I wake you?”

Juliet stretched. Grinned. “No, but I’m still in bed,” she told her twin. “Mary Jane’s here, too.” The three McNeil women, together, at least in a sense. Her day was complete and it had only begun.

The little girl moaned, turned over.

“I need to talk to you.”

Juliet’s smile faded. With one last look to make sure that Mary Jane hadn’t awakened, she slid out of bed.

“What’s up?” she asked softly, tiptoeing out of the bedroom with the cordless phone and down the hall to the kitchen. Normally Mary Jane could sleep through an earthquake—except, of course, for those few times when Juliet needed the child to stay asleep. She seemed to have some kind of sensor that alerted her to those.

“I…I…” Marcie hiccuped.

“Marce? Talk to me.” Juliet’s voice was firm, but it hid a heart full of fear. If Hank had hurt her…

“You aren’t sick, are you?” She held her breath until she knew. Anything else they could handle.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Okay. Her sister was talking. One-answer questions seemed to be the trick. “Is it Hank?”

“No.” The word broke on another hiccup.

“If he did anything…”

“He didn’t.” Marcie’s words were quick. Too quick?

“He doesn’t know…”

“Know what?”

“Jules?” Marcie’s generally controlled tone rose in a wail.

Juliet sank to a chair at the kitchen table, staring out at the ocean. There had been times in her life when that view had been the only thing that saved her. Its vastness and strength, its vitality, and its unwavering existence always helped put life in perspective. “Yeah, Marce, I’m right here.”

“Are you busy?” At seven o’clock on a Saturday morning?

“No.”

“Can I fly down?”

Juliet’s stomach knotted. “Of course. You got a flight or you need me to call for one?”

“I’ve got one.” She named a flight that left San Francisco in a little under three hours.

That was good then. If her sister was capable of making flight plans, things couldn’t be all that bad. Could they?

“You going to make me wait until you get here to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nooo…” Marcie’s hiccup strayed to a sob. “Oh, God, Jules, I can’t believe, after everything…”

“What?”

“I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”

What could be so difficult to talk about? Juliet twisted a finger in her hair, something she hadn’t done since she’d been a first-year lawyer and learned that the gesture was a sign of inner weakness.

“You’ve done something?”

“I…I…I can’t seem to tell you, Jules. You’re never going to believe I was this stupid.”

“Just say it.” Juliet fought the tension gripping her, so that she could give her sister the empathy she so clearly needed.

Something she’d be a lot better equipped to do if she knew what she was trying to be empathetic about.

“Is it about money?” She crossed her fingers. That would be an easy fix.

“No.”

And then something a little more horrific occurred to her. “You aren’t in trouble with the law, are you?”

“No.” Marcie almost chuckled, but hiccuped instead. “Of course not.”

Juliet laid her cheek on her hand. Her voice lowered, softened. “Tell me.”

“I’m…pregnant.”

Juliet’s entire body stiffened. Her skin felt hot. And then cold. The phone started to slip from her hand.

“Say something.”

She would. As soon as she could think.

“I love you.”

Inane, maybe, but it was all she could come up with.

“I love you, too,” Marcie said, and sniffled.

“Hey, Marce, don’t cry.” Her sister’s tears brought Juliet’s mind at least partially back to action. “We’ll get through this. You know we will. We always do. Together.”

The assurance was as much for herself as for her sister. “You’re coming here. That’s the right choice.”

She had to get Marcie out of Maple Grove. Away from settling for life in a trailer, raising a child alone only to have the child go off and find a better life, a fuller life, leaving Marcie with nothing but a bottle of sleeping pills and a bathtub filled with bubbles….

“It’s only for the weekend,” Marcie said. “I have to open the shop on Monday.”

“Who cares about the shop?” Juliet said, half-crazed with panic and half-determined to take control and make sure that they all lived happily ever after.

“I do.”

Yes. She knew that. “I’m sorry, Marce. It’s just a bit of a shock, you know?”

“Tell me about it.” The droll tone didn’t erase the tears in Marcie’s voice, but it helped calm Juliet anyway.

“Okay, did I hear you say Hank doesn’t know?”

“Yeah.”

Good. That gave them time to figure things out before Marce was pulled in ways she might not want to go. As their mother had been.

“And you aren’t planning to tell him? At least not this morning, before you fly out?”

“No. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

What did that mean?

“You’re having the baby, right?” She couldn’t believe she was asking.

“Of course.”

“And keeping it?” Neither of them would ever consider anything else. They’d been abandoned by a parent. Twice.

“Of course.”

“Good, so go pack, get down here, and we’ll figure out the rest.”

“Okay.” A loud sniffle sounded again.

Juliet watched waves roll onto the beach in the distance, wondering how many generations of babies had been born, how many generations of people had died, while that water just kept right on rolling in and out.

“How long have you known?”

“The time it took for you to answer your phone,” Marcie said, speaking the entire sentence without a sob. “I knew I’d be in trouble if what I suspected was true, so I made the plane reservation, dialed your number on my cell phone and waited until I got the results before I hit send.”

That sounded more like the Marcie she knew.