“Hope.”
She turned her back on him, stepped into her shorts, and buttoned them around her waist.
“Hope.” He came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have said that about you not having children. I’m sorry.”
She grabbed her bra and turned to look up at him. He was sorry about the wrong thing. “I respect your moral position and raising your son by example. I really do.” She hooked her bra behind her back and adjusted the straps. “It must be very difficult, but I will not be your nasty secret.” She thought about the times he’d come to her house and parked his truck at Shelly’s. “I will not be something you lie or won’t talk about. I don’t want to live like that.”
“Okay.”
She reached for her shirt and he grabbed it from her hands. “We’ll work through this,” he said. “Somehow. But I’m warning you, Adam isn’t going to like what he saw today. He won’t make it easy for me or for you.” He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “That woman out there is his mama, and he has dreams of the three of us moving in together and living like a happy family. He’s been working on it-”
“Oh, my God,” Hope interrupted and grabbed his wrist. “Juliette Bancroft!”
“I wondered how long it would take you to recognize her.”
“Crap!” She patted her dusty hair. “I look like complete crap.”
Dylan handed her her shirt. “On your worst day, you’re prettier than Julie.”
Which was an outrageous lie but suddenly wasn’t her biggest worry. Now she remembered why the woman in the doorway had looked so familiar, and it wasn’t because of her television show, either. Hope had to get out of the house fast before Juliette remembered they’d met in Blaine’s office a few weeks before he’d served her with divorce papers. During the divorce, Hope had done a few things to get back at her ex-husband. One of them had involved a certain starlet and her secret breast implants.
While Dylan pulled on a pair of clean Levi’s and a T-shirt, Hope stuck her feet in her dirty socks and tied the laces of Shelly’s hiking boots. “I think it would be best if I just hurried up and left so the three of you can talk.”
“Probably, but I’ll take you home.”
“I can walk. It’s only about three miles and I jog more than that every day.”
“I’ll take you.”
“I want to walk. It’ll give me time to think. Really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
She walked slightly behind Dylan as they moved down the hall to the living room. Adam sat in a recliner, rocking so hard the springs squeaked and the back of the chair hit the wall, bam, squeak, bam. He leveled his angry eyes on Hope, and seeing all that pain directed at her bothered her more than she would have thought possible. It slid right next to her heart and lay there like a c
old lump, and she wondered if they would ever be friends again. She switched her gaze to Juliette, who stood with her back to the room as if she didn’t hear a thing, looking at framed pictures of Adam and Dylan that were sitting on the television.
“Adam, stop that,” Dylan told his son. The chair crashed into the wall harder.
Juliette turned and looked at Dylan. “I always wondered what your house would look like. It reminds me of the house we used to live in when Adam was a baby.”
“You never liked that house,” he said and pointed a finger at his son. “Stop now.”
“That’s not really true.” Juliette’s gaze moved to Hope, and under normal circumstances, she would have been mortified by her appearance, especially compared to the perfect and beautiful Juliette Bancroft. Today, she just hoped the dirt in her hair and the spots on her shirt concealed her identity. “Adam didn’t mention that you had a girlfriend.”
“I’ll just be going now.” With a quick exit out the back door in mind, Hope sort of slid sideways across the room. “I’m sure you all have tons to talk about.”
The recliner slammed into the wall one last time and Dylan pulled his son out of the chair. “I’ll call you later. Say good-bye to Ms. Spencer, Adam,” he said.
Adam didn’t utter a sound, and Hope made it as far as the doorway to the kitchen when Juliette’s voice stopped her.
“Wait! I know who you are. You’re Dr. Spencer’s ex-wife.”
Hope closed her eyes. Crap!
“You work for The National Enquirer,” Juliette added.