She thought of that old marmalade cat, already ancient, according to the vet, when it had found them, and how it had disappeared one day, never to be seen again. She remembered how she’d cried, how Wayne had held her, promising other cats, other pets, a whole zoo, just to assuage her grief.
“I’ll never love another,” she’d said then.
“I’ll never love another,” she said now.
Dawn came late to Malibu, because the Santa Monica Mountains blocked the sun’s earliest light. But the sky overhead was turning from midnight blue to morning gray as Noah pulled in front of the house on Mar Vista Drive and turned off the engine. When Juliet didn’t stir, he steeled himself and glanced over.
She was looking at him.
He almost jumped out of his skin.
They’d been together for hours, first on the beach, and then at a twenty-four-hour diner where he’d plied her with little pots of lemony tea and stacks of rubbery pancakes doused in sticky syrup. Juliet had been her customary courteous self, quick with her usual “please” and “thank you,” but he wasn’t certain she’d even been fully aware of his presence. They’d not spoken beyond the polite phrase or two.
He hadn’t known what she was thinking. For his part, he’d been preoccupied with the memory of her shaking and sobbing in his arms.
I’ll never love another.
Echoes of that whisper had raked at his insides.
But he didn’t want to think about that anymore. Somewhere between that stark whisper and the final drip of maple syrup, he’d made a decision. Juliet had taken her big step last night, and today was a new day. His new day, the day he would take his first step away from her.
He couldn’t think when she was looking at him like that, though. “What?” he asked. “Do I have jam on my face or something?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m just realizing I haven’t thanked you.”
“Not a problem.”
“I just assumed you would go with me to do that last night.”
He shrugged.
“I wasn’t surprised to see you wading out to get me, either. Or to find myself comforted in your arms.”
A night without sleep hadn’t dimmed her blue and green gaze. As usual, their bicolors unsteadied him, and the fragility that the faint purple shadows beneath them added only made him rockier. He jerked open his door before he did something stupid like draw her into his arms again. It was that new day.
They both followed the front path leading to the door. He stooped for the morning paper, then stood back as she put her key in the lock. Yeah, he could have gone around the side gate to get to the guesthouse, but it was quicker to go through her place, and having seen her this far, he decided to go the whole nine yards.
In the kitchen, he hesitated before the back door, the newspaper still in hand. “Juliet,” he started.
“Noah,” she said at the same time.
They both went silent for so long, deferring to each other, that the moment turned awkward. Awkward enough for Juliet’s face to go pink. He wondered if what she wanted to bring up was as uncomfortable as what he wanted to say, and that’s why they were both still mum.
But he had to get on with his life. “Mind if I take the classifieds with me?”
She blinked. “Oh, sure.”
Glancing down to separate the sections, he took the plunge. “I’m going to look for another place to live.”
Her answering silence told him nothing. He had to shift his gaze upward. Their eyes met. Again, the silence stretched thin.
Finally, she turned away. “Orders all carried out then?” she asked, an odd tightness to her voice.
Noah frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Wayne’s orders. He issued them, didn’t he? That’s what this has been about these months, I know that. That you helped me with everything after his death, that you helped me move here, that you thought you needed to check up on the situation with Cassandra and Nikki, that you…that you…” She made a vague gesture with her hand that seemed to encompass all manner of things. “That you did everything I asked for or needed.”
Hell. This wasn’t a conversation he wished to have. He’d merely wanted to make his plans known and then escape. “Of course the general talked to me about you and…what would come after. He was concerned.”
“So he came up with a plan. Told you how to carry it out.”
Noah tossed the newspaper onto the nearby counter. “I’m not here because of what the general wanted.”
Her head whipped toward him so fast her hair flew out like a golden banner. “Then why?”
Shit. And he’d been thinking he was so smart. Walked right into that one, Smith. He ran his hand down his face. “Juliet—”