Heath whipped out his phone to text his brothers, but found that wasn’t enough. He needed to call them. He and Julianne both, to share the news. He wished he could give Julianne time to prepare, but the truth was out. They had protected her as well as they could over the years, but now she would have to tell her story. First to her family, then to the public. Perhaps after all this time, the blow of it would soften. He couldn’t imagine the tiny, thirteen-year-old Julianne talking to police and reporters about killing her attacker. Her rapist.
His stomach still ached painfully at that thought. If he had only come across the two of them a few minutes sooner. He might have stopped Tommy before he could have... He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. He already believed he failed to protect Julianne, but he had no idea the extent of the damage that was caused. And by keeping Tommy’s death a secret, they had virtually forced her to keep the rape a secret as well, and hadn’t even known it. Had their attempt to protect her only made it worse?
The bile started to rise in the back of his throat. She should have been taken to the doctor. To a therapist. She should’ve been able to cry in her mother’s arms and she was never able to do any of that.
His knees started to weaken beneath him, so Heath moved quickly to sit on the steps. He would wait there until Julianne and Deborah were done talking. Maybe by then, he could pull himself together.
After a while, Deborah embraced Julianne again, and then she made her way down the sidewalk to her car. Julianne watched her walk away and then finally turned to look at him. It was the first time she’d done that since they’d all gathered inside the police station. She walked over to the steps and sat down beside him.
Minutes passed before either of them spoke. They had shared so much together, and yet when it came to the important things, they knew almost nothing about each other.
“Thank you,” she said at last.
That was the last thing he ever expected her to say. “Why on earth would you be thanking me right now?”
“Thank you for loving me,” she elaborated. “No matter what we’ve said or done to each other over the years, when it was important, you were there for me. You probably don’t think so, but the truth is that you would have gone to jail for me today. You’ve spent the last sixteen years covering for me, even lying to your own brothers about what happened that day. You looked Sheriff Duke in the eye and told him you killed Tommy, consequences be damned. How many people are lucky enough to have someone in their life that is willing to do that for them?”
“That’s what families do. They protect each other.” He watched the traffic drift by the main thoroughfare for a moment. He couldn’t turn to face her while he spoke or he might give away the fact that his feelings for her ran much deeper than that. No matter what happened between them, he would always love Julianne. He couldn’t seem to stop. Knowing the truth only made it harder not to love her more. All his reasons for keeping her at arm’s length were nullified. But they were divorced. What did that matter now?
“You went far beyond family obligation, Heath.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what happened, Jules? You could’ve told me the truth.”
“No,” she said, softly shaking the blond curls around her shoulders. “I couldn’t. You had me on this pedestal. I couldn’t bear for you to know how flawed I was. How broken I was.”
“As though what happened was your fault?”
“It wasn’t my fault. I know that. But it wasn’t your fault, either. If you knew, you would’ve blamed yourself. And you’d never look at me the same way again. I didn’t want to lose that. You were the only person in my life that made me feel special. Mom and Dad loved me, but I always felt like I wasn’t enough for them. You only wanted me. I wanted to stay that perfect vision in your mind.”
“By making me despise you? You made me stay up nights wondering what I’d done wrong. Christ, I divorced you.”
Julianne turned to look at him with a soft smile curling her lips. “I tried to push you away, but you still loved me. All this time, that was the one thing I kept hoping would change. I couldn’t tell you the truth, so I knew there would always be a barrier between us. I kept hoping you’d move on and find someone who could love you the way you deserved to be loved. The way you loved me.”
He shook his head. He didn’t want anyone else to love him. All he had ever wanted was for Julianne to love him. And the way she spoke convinced him that she did. Maybe she had all this time, but the secret she kept was too big. It was easier to keep away than be subjected to his constant needling about why she left him. But to push him into another woman’s arms because she loved him? “I still don’t understand what you’re thinking sometimes, Jules.”
“I know.” She patted his knee and stood up. “Let’s go home. We have some long conversations to have with the family.”
He got up and followed her to the street. She was right. And he had one important conversation with Ken in mind that she wouldn’t be expecting.
Twelve
It was over. Good and truly over.
Julianne slipped into her coat and went out onto the porch to gather herself. The last hour had been harder than confessing the truth to Sheriff Duke. Looking her parents in the eye and telling them everything had been excruciating. Not for her, but she hated to burden them with the truth.
They had taken it better than she expected. Ken got quiet and shook his head, but his color was good and he remained stable. When it was over he’d hugged her tighter than he’d ever hugged her in her entire life. Molly cried a lot. Julianne expected that she would continue to for a while. Her mother was a mother hen. Knowing that had happened to her children under her watch would eat at her for a long time. Maybe always. But Julianne assured her that she was okay, it was a long time ago, and it seemed to calm her.
As she stepped onto the gravel lot behind the house, Julianne looked out at the trees. She had loved being out there once but hadn’t set foot in the fields in sixteen years. The boogeyman was long gone. Most of her own personal demons had been set loose today. She took a deep breath and headed for the north field. That was where she’d been that day. If she were going to face this, she needed to go there.
It didn’t take long to find the spot, but it took a while to walk out there. The trees were different, always changing as they were harvested and replanted. There were no monsters in the trees, no men to chase her, but she could feel the change in the weight on her chest as she got closer. While Wade had hidden the body and Brody took her to shower and change, Heath and Xander had cleaned up the scene. The rock she’d hit him with was flung into the far reaches of the property. The pool of blood was long gone. But when she looked, she could still see it all.
That’s when the first snowflake drifted past her face. One flake became ten, became a thousand. In only a few minutes’ time, the tree branches were dusted with white and the bloodstain in her mind slowly disappeared beneath a layer of snow.
It was a perfect moment. A pure, white cleansing of her past. She tipped her face up, feeling the tiny prickles of flakes melting on her cheeks, and sucked in a deep, cold breath.
Over.
Julianne turned her back to the scene of her attack, putting it behind her with everything else, and started walking in the opposite direction, through the fields. For the first time since she was thirteen, she could enjoy the moment. The snow was beautiful, drifting slowly down into fluffy clumps on the branches. The flakes were getting fatter, some larger than nickels. They would have several inches sticking before too long.