Summer Of My Secret Angel (17 page)

“Or, maybe it’s just too
easy
to be
yourself around her?”

I blinked twice then raked a glare over
Julian. Was he accusing me of a soft personality? I was anything
but.

The years in the orphanage and partly in the
streets had taught me a hard lesson: be soft and you go down like a
ship under cannon fire. Only the toughest kids kept their heads on
in a place like the Westminster Children’s Home, where teachers
tried to get under your skirt, and bullies aimed to make you the
poster child for losers.

“You don’t understand,” I muttered. “I don’t
even blame you. From your place in the world, everything must seem
easy. Living in a palace with nice people around, and a good job in
the vines, there’s nothing to worry about. But things look a little
different from the gutters of society.”

Julian’s lips curled as he scooted across
the floor toward me. I watched his every move. His long legs
sprawled out before him. When his left arm brushed my right, the
nearness of him struck me once again. Excitement rose from my
stomach to my chest and set my heart fluttering. Arms crossed over
his chest, he tilted his head to regard the stars.

“What are you up to?” I murmured.

“Just trying to see the world from your
point of view. If that’s okay with you.”

“Oh. Feel free.”

He cast me a sideways glance, and the
strangest thing happened. The expression in his face remained one
of intrigue and friendliness, but his eyes seemed to live through a
multitude of emotions in this extended moment.

What the hell did he see? For a second, I
had the feeling he really had glimpsed the world through my
eyes.

Scads of icicles stabbed a line from my neck
to the bottom of my spine. My toes curled on the warm wood. The
urge to crawl away from him—to safety—was overwhelming. But an even
more powerful impulse kept me rooted. Like two opposite poles of a
magnet, I was drawn toward this man with every cell of my body,
with every breath of my soul. At this moment, I wouldn’t have
budged if someone had shocked me with a cattle prod.

Happiness invaded me and kept me paralyzed.
If I’d been able to move at all, then it would have only been in
one direction. Toward him. An invisible aura radiated around Julian
that made me want to sling my arms around him and press my body
against his as tight as a mountain climber would hold on to
life.

“Knock it off!” Or else I was going to lick
that peaceful aura off his very skin.

The sensation stopped. As fast as it had
begun.

A final quiver started at the back of my
neck and slithered down until it uncurled my toes. Julian crossed
his legs, relaxed his hands at his sides, and gazed at the night
sky. Everything returned to normal.

Apart from me. I sat rigid, but inwardly I
panicked.
Bloody hell,
what was that
?
Had I
gone mental?
Please not now.
Not so shortly before my escape
into freedom.

Calm down, Jona. You’re tired, that’s
all.

Shaking my head, I tried to get rid of the
hysteria inside me. I clenched my hands to fists and buried them in
my lap. An exhausted sigh lifted my chest. Calm enough to speak, I
turned to him. “So, what does life look like from the gutter?”

Julian turned his head and studied me for a
couple of seconds. “Can I ask you something very personal?”

Ugh
. After what had just happened? I
wasn’t sure.

I shrugged one shoulder.

“If your mother was already dead, and Marie
had offered to bring you to her home, would you have come?”

Of course
was the answer I should
have shot at him that very instant. But for a very strange reason I
couldn’t lie to him. Didn’t want to. After a few seconds of
deliberating, I slowly said, “No.”

Julian nodded. “I thought so.”

Swallowing hard, I tucked my hair behind my
ears, let my hands rest behind my neck, and dropped my head. One
particular reason would have kept me from coming. I didn’t want to
get attached to anyone again in my life.
Ever.

That was why I’d had no boyfriend yet. Why
I’d had no real friends in the orphanage. And why I refused to let
Marie get any closer than she had already managed in the past
couple days. I had to protect myself from being abandoned, which
was going to happen in the end.

To get my attention again, Julian tugged
softly at one leg of my jeans. “It doesn’t mean everyone will leave
you just because your mother did.”

My head snapped up with the feeling of being
read like an open book once again. “Yes, it does. If my own mother
could do that to me, what stops a total stranger from doing the
same?”

My furious tone didn’t affect his soft one.
“You know, sometimes people are sorry for what they did and try to
make up for it.”

A warning light went off in my head. This
conversation was going downhill and fast. Anger boiled and
threatened to spill out. “And
you
know, sometimes they just
make the same damn mistake twice.”

A sad expression settled in Julian’s face.
Yep, he knew what I was talking about.

My voice took on a sickly sweet note. “I
believe my mother told you that she came to the orphanage once
before, when I was already twelve years old.” I rolled my eyes.
“Uttered incessant apologies. She promised to get me out of that
hole in a few days when she’d arranged her new life.” I paused,
took a furious breath. “How stupid of me to finally believe her.
The pain only cut deeper when she didn’t show up a few days later
as she’d promised. In fact, she didn’t show up for another five
years.”

Until three days ago.

I feigned a smile. “She wouldn’t have kept
that part of her past a secret from you when you’re
so
close, would she?”

“Maybe she had reasons not to come.”

Oh yes, he knew.

I folded my arms over my chest. “What kind
of reasons could that be? And why had she forgotten to inform
me?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?” A
hint of innocence laced his voice, just enough to make me
understand that he knew very well but wouldn’t betray my mother and
give the reasons away before she had a chance to explain.

A laugh escaped me at his ridiculous words.
“Yeah, right. As if I really wanted to know. She can tell her lies
to the reaper when he comes for her at the end of her goddamned
life.”

Julian’s lips thinned to a line, and I went
silent. He always seemed so hurt when I slagged my mother. I didn’t
want to hurt him. Not now. Not tonight.

A few minutes later, I cleared my throat and
tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. “How long
have you known Charlene?”

“A while.”

“Oh, that says a lot.” Behind closed lids, I
rolled my eyes. “Was she already ill when you met her?”

Julian nodded. Of course, why would he know
her before he started taking care of her?

A sudden curiosity kept me firing questions
at him. “Does she pay you for your services?”

“I’m paid for the work I do for Albert in
the vineyard.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

When Julian inclined his head to lock gazes
with me, I could see that he chose his words very carefully. “I
don’t get any money from your mother. But she’s paying a price to
someone else. It’s a high price, too.”

“And that agency or whoever she’s paying
sent you to take care of her?”

His soft chuckle warmed the atmosphere
around us. “Sort of.”

Suddenly, Valentine’s angry hiss cut through
the night. She was underneath the balcony and cussed in French.
Julian didn’t bother to stifle a hearty laugh. He switched to the
language that was all Greek to me when he replied to her.

When we heard her disappear down the path, I
asked Julian, “What did she say?”

“She cursed the birds for pooping on her
slippers and threatened to shoot them all with Henri’s old
shotgun.”

The image of the teapot going berserk over a
handful of birdies brought a grin to my face. “And what did you
tell her?”

“To be careful not to shred the façade. The
old, twisted gun backfires more often than it hits a target.”

The laugh we share freed me like nothing
before. When he didn’t pester me about my mother, I actually really
liked this man.

During the following half hour, Julian told
me everything he knew about Valentine and Henri, how old they were,
about their three grown up children who occasionally visited here,
and what their main work in the vines was. But it was more the
soothing sound of his voice that kept me intrigued than the actual
information he gave me.

I studied his beautiful blue eyes as he
spoke. The sight of his tongue whisking over his lips from time to
time to wet them sent a shiver through my body. And I noticed how
he would rub the back of his neck and stare into the distance when
he tried to remember something in particular.

A yawn stretched my mouth. I tried to
smother it in the crook of my arm.

Gentle fingers hooked strands of hair behind
my ear. “Your day has been long enough. You better go to sleep now.
I can tell you more about the people here tomorrow if you
like.”

“No,” I said quickly. “Please, tell me
now.”

The shine in Julian’s eyes seemed to
intensify for a moment, then he continued.

Nothing could have stopped me from listening
to him. Not even sleep as it crept over me. I still heard his
mellow voice long after my eyes had closed, and my head rested
heavily on my knees.

Half asleep, I barely noticed the strong
arms that shoved under my bent legs and spine. As I was lifted from
the floor, my head rolled to the side to rest on a comforting
shoulder. My nose brushed against the warm skin of Julian’s throat,
and I buried deeper into the crook, savoring his enchanting scent
of fresh wind wafting along a shore.

My hand wandered up his chest and cupped his
neck for better hold. The cropped hair at the back of his head
tickled my palm. If sleep hadn’t captured me already, I would have
started to explore the sensation and tangled my fingers in his soft
tousled hair.

Holding on to him tight, I made him bend
down with me when he lowered me onto my bed. His breath feathered
against my face. I opened my eyes briefly. A smile that came mostly
from his eyes bid me goodnight.

Please stay.

My knees dipped to one side as he let go of
my legs. Gently, he removed my hands from his neck and placed them
over my stomach. “Sleep tight, princess,” he whispered, brushing a
wisp of hair from my forehead.

I blinked in slow motion, my cheek buried
deeper into the soft pillow. Through a haze of sleep, I watched him
turn away. His fingers swept over the clock on my nightstand. The
hands on the clock spun madly.

“See you tomorrow,” he crooned before he
slipped out through the curtains.

1. A REASON TO STAY
   

I STOOD NEXT to Julian on the balcony, the
little chick with the button eyes comfortably nestled on his
palms.

Julian flashed a toothpaste commercial grin
at me. “Are you ready?”

I nodded and he crouched. With his next
stretch, he pushed off the ground, levitating toward the roof. All
the while, I saluted and sang “God save the Queen,” but the
chirrups of the birds overhead overlapped my blaring. When I got to
the part “long may she reign
,
” I jolted upright in my bed,
wide awake.

The sound of my gasp echoed through the
otherwise silent room. I pressed a sweaty palm to my brow, trying
to get a clear view.

“Crap, what a weird dream.”

Bright daylight floated in through the
windows. I snapped my head right and left, trying to figure out why
I woke in this room again and not on an airplane to London.

Then memories of a glorious time on the
balcony popped into my mind. Warmth filled me as I recalled being
enclosed in Julian’s arms. His scent still wafted all around me. A
deep breath filled my head with a stunning sea breeze. Only when I
wrapped my arms around me and my hands dug into soft cotton, did I
realize the scent was coming from his hoodie that still shrouded
me. I hadn’t returned it to him last night.

And I never will.

But how had I gotten into bed? And why
hadn’t I taken off my jeans? The last thing I remembered clearly
was his melodious laughter as he had told me of Valentine’s landing
on her broad behind while she tried to uproot an ill plant the
other day.

I raked a hand through my bed hair and
brushed the bangs off my face. My fingers skimmed over my right
temple—
saluting
?
There had been something…in my
dream.

Then I whined.
Levitating
. Julian had
become airborne.

And you hailed the Queen, silly. Weird
things happen in dreams. Get a grip.

My eyes narrowed at the balcony door. The
dream seemed so real. Julian had crouched before he took off, just
like yesterday evening when he wanted to set the bird back in its
nest. He prepared to—

To what? To fly?

Be serious.
He wasn’t a mutant,
Superman, or anything like that. He was Julian, the ordinary guy
next door. Lovely, but ordinary.

A sigh of frustration pushed through my nose
as I dropped onto my pillow. A second later, the siren of an alarm
clock blared next to me and gave me a jump-start out of bed. I beat
the device with my flat hand. Three times, to make sure the blaring
really stopped. With one hand clutched to my pounding heart, I sank
into the swivel chair at my desk and let my head tilt over the
backrest.

Boy, things were turning out really weird
this morning. If I could judge the kind of day I was going to have
by its beginning, I might do better to climb back into bed.