Unforgettable Love Page 9

  It was the perfect plan if only he knew Savannahs was a bridal boutique.

  “Julie, I’m going as fast as I can. I wouldn’t have picked a dress with this many buttons up the back.”

  “We need to hurry. My mom said she’d be back in about an hour.”

  “Okay, just three more ... two more ... one. Okay. Done. I think I’ve lost all feeling in my fingertips.”

  Without the least concern for modesty, Julie quickly dashed into the changing room, peeled off her wedding dress and slipped back into her street clothes.

  “Brenda! Are you out of that dress? My mom is probably giving the valet her ticket as we speak! If we hurry, we can...”

  Julie stopped dead in her tracks and sucked all the air out of the room.

  “You can what?” James hissed as he stood next to Brenda. Her face was frozen with nervous surprise.

  “James,” Brenda finally choked out. “You aren’t supposed to be here. What if you had caught Julie in her wedding dress? Now that would have been a bad way to start your marriage. You don’t want that do you?”

  “Shut up!” he growled at Brenda, stepping closer to Julie. “If you hurry you can what, Julie?”

  Julie couldn’t think up a suitable answer quick enough. Nothing she said would placate James at this point anyway. So she said nothing, feeling the pounding of her heart at every pulse point.

  “You seemed eager to talk just a second ago. What happened? Is it because I’m here? You should know you can tell me anything, Julie. We’re going to be married, remember. I’ll be your husband, and you’ll be my wife.”

  The words sounded like a lifetime stint in Alcatraz Prison. Julie’s breath was quickening.

  “James, I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry about everything. But I will not be marrying you.” Julie’s voice was quiet, but calm, even though she was certain that James could see her knees shaking. “It’s a lie, and you know it. Just like this.” She tapped the little crystal bob around her neck and watched as James’s expression flushed in embarrassment and then back to anger.

  “You didn’t give me this. You’d never think to give me something simple. Mark Stewart gave this to me. I remember him, James. I met him at Inspiration Point when I was running away from you and my mother. I knew him for four beautiful days.” Julie was on auto-pilot. The words were coming out of her before she could even acknowledge what she was saying. They weren’t from her brain but rather straight from her heart. It was the last chance she would have to speak to James like a person. If she couldn’t get through to him now with kindness, then there was no hope for him ever.

  “People keep telling me that you and I have been together for three years, and I can’t remember any of it? Why, James, would I block it all out? You tell me!” she pleaded.

  As quick as the snap of a whip, James grabbed Julie’s wrist and yanked her toward him.

  “I don’t know why, Julie, probably because you are so selfish!” He dragged her toward the elevator doors. “All you do, all you have ever done, is think about yourself. I’m surprised you can fit another thought in that pretty little head of yours!”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Brenda stepped in and tried to hold James by his other arm, but he easily shook her loose. “You can’t do this, James! You’re acting insane!”

  Brenda was helpless to watch James lug Julie out of the boutique. With her mind still trying to wrap around what she saw, she called Margaret. Margaret was not happy with Brenda at all.

  “You were going to what?” she screamed over the phone. “Take her back to Los Angeles to find some guy? Have you lost your mind, Brenda?”

  “But, Margaret, aren’t you worried about ...” Brenda’s eyes were wide as she stared at nothing while her mind wondered how she had slipped into the Twilight Zone so seamlessly. Was this really happening?

  “I misjudged you, Brenda. After all these years, this is how you repay the Petersons. For everything we have done for you, you were like a second daughter to me and then you act like this. Well, I know you’ve always been jealous of Julie. You’ve proven me right today.”

  “Jealous? Margaret, I love Julie. Julie is a wonderful person, and you’re letting her get hurt. She’s in trouble! James literally dragged her out of here!”

  The phone line was quiet.

  “Margaret? Did you hear what I said?”

  “I suggest you take off that bridesmaid dress and make sure no alterations are made, Brenda. You will not be participating in the wedding.”

  The line went dead. Brenda stood alone in the viewing lounge wondering what to do next.

  “James, you are hurting me!” Julie cried as she was pulled out of the boutique onto the busy sidewalk.

  “Again, just thinking about yourself. If you want to act like an infant, I’ll treat you like one. That includes giving you a good hard spanking in front of everyone.” He wrenched her harder to the valet box, where he gave a very nervous young man in a red vest his valet ticket. The boy took off running to find the coupe that matched the ticket.

  “You lied to me, James. You told me I was a monster. That I was horrible and cruel and selfish, but I’m not! It’s you! I’ll never believe another word you say to me! Not ever!”

  “Just shut your ugly mouth or so help me ...”

  “Julie?” came a familiar voice from behind her. “Julie, is that you?”

  Julie snapped her head around and saw Aaron climbing out of his car with a concerned look on his face. It wasn’t the peaceful girls’ luncheon he was expecting. Tearing free from James, Julie ran into Aaron’s arms sobbing and pleading with him.

  “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. Please, get me out of here,” she whispered into his neck as she hugged him tightly.

  Aaron looked at James and completely understood. The hulking man stared at them, his hands clenching and unclenching in tight, white knuckled fists.

  Patting Julie’s back, Aaron never let his eyes off of James. He looked like an animal just waiting for its prey to look away for a split second so it could pounce and devour.

  “Julie, I’m only going to ask you once. Get over here,” James said in a low voice through clenched teeth.

  “Aaron, please.”

  Without a second thought, Aaron opened the passenger door, watching James the whole time and let Julie in. Before closing the door, he flipped the lock on her side. He walked around the front of the car, quickening his pace, just as he saw James making his move. Before he could stop him, Aaron slammed the driver side door shut and locked it. James began pounding on the roof and the hood, screaming Julie’s name. As Aaron sped away, he saw in the rearview mirror that James had turned his aggression on the valet, grabbing the kid by the red vest and shaking him.

  “Sorry for the mess. I should have cleaned out the car. I wasn’t thinking that I might be making a speedy get away from your fiancé. No, that really was the last thing on my mind.”

  He looked at Julie, who held her hand over her mouth as if to hold in a scream while her eyes flooded with tears. Julie didn’t want to let it all out, so her shoulders shook and her breath began to come in hard, jagged gasps. Finally, after trying to keep herself together, Julie began to cry.

  Aaron had never seen or heard such sadness. Even when she had no memory, Julie never cried like this. Even after she had nearly been attacked, she didn’t cry like this. This was the sound of a heart breaking.

  “What happened?” Aaron said after she started to calm down.

  Julie looked at Aaron as if she were surprised he didn’t know the answer to that question.

  “You saved my life, again.”

  It wasn’t long after Julie sped away with Aaron that James came squealing into the driveway of the Peterson home. He had spoken to Margaret on the phone and told him a modified version of what had happened. Brenda, who had been friends with the family since she was a little girl, was to blame and would be dealt with accordingly, according to Margaret, who would have quite an earful to give h
er mother. She assured James of that.

  “Richard is at work and can’t get away,” Margaret said to James, pouring him a cup of coffee. “James, I can’t believe this. Julie must be suffering from something the doctor missed. Perhaps she really got hurt when she fell off your boat. I don’t know.”

  “But she acted like this before the boat accident,” he said, folding his arms across his broad chest. His leg bounced with nerves underneath the kitchen table.

  “Well, I’m certainly going to tell Richard to put a stop payment on any check to that Aaron boy. He has really added gum to the works, and I for one will not reward bad behavior.”

  “If only Julie would just let me help her,” James insisted.

  Margaret stopped for a moment and smiled.

  “I hate to say this James, but I think I know what her problem is.”

  He looked up at his future mother-in-law and took a sip of his coffee.

  “We have to treat Julie like she’s an addict. In a way she is. She is so helpless to this attention addiction that she needs us to step in on her behalf. She isn’t thinking straight, James. She loves you, I know she does. But the people she associates with, the places that have become her haunts aren’t good for her.”

  “I think you’re right, Margaret. If only I could just talk to her alone for a while.”

  “Well, if she hopped in the car with that Aaron boy, then she’s probably headed back to Catalina Island. She has nowhere else to go.”

  “She mentioned some guy named Mark in Los Angeles. Do you know who that could be?”

  “Not a clue. But, chances are if she met him while she was there, he has already forgotten about her. You know how those men from Los Angeles are. A starlet on every couch.”

  “I’ll kill him if I find out who he is. If he’s filled her head up with nonsense and made her think he could provide a better life for her than I can, he’s a sick and twisted man.” James felt the sting of tears in his eyes. “I can’t live without her, Margaret. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  Margaret calmly sat down at the table and put a loving hand on James’s arm.

  “We don’t need to rush after her. In fact, I say we give her a little time. Now that her memory is coming back, she’ll remember how easy life was with everything we provided for her. She’ll remember having you for a fiancé was what made her truly happy. Maybe, James, the best thing to do at this moment, is nothing.”

  Just then the doorbell rang. It was just a little past three in the afternoon. Both James and Margaret looked at each other.

  “Expecting company?” he asked.

  “None today,” Margaret said, standing.

  James put his hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “You’re such a good man, James. Don’t ever forget that,” Margaret said.

  Walking to the door, James half expected to see a concerned and frightened Aaron boy at the door, asking if Julie had made her way back home. It wasn’t just James who she would ditch. It couldn’t just be him. She was a manipulative woman and probably jumped out of Aaron’s car at a stoplight or excused herself to go to the bathroom and slipped away from him. Within the fifteen seconds it took to get from the kitchen to the front door, James was ready to greet the Aaron boy with a smug smirk and then slam the door in his face.

  Instead, he opened the door to a complete stranger.

  “Hello. Does Julie Peterson live here? My name is Mark Stewart. I’m a friend of hers.”

  Chapter 11

  Sitting outside at a small café, Julie looked at the sky and wondered how things could be so messed up on such a beautiful day.

  “And that is what they said was the truth,” she said as Aaron stared at her across a little tiny mosaic tiled table. There were other people around them smiling and chatting or talking on their phones. They all seemed to be enjoying their drama free lives. Julie looked at them all as if they were a sideshow exhibit.

  “Wow. That’s some story.” Aaron wasn’t sure how to proceed as Julie wrapped up her tale of woe. It felt like he suddenly had his arms full of those delicate little china teacups and had to cross a busy intersection without dropping a single one.

  “It’s worse than any soap opera on television, I’m sure.” She rubbed her arms as a cool breeze kicked up from the water. Julie didn’t tell Aaron where to drive when he whisked her away from James. She just insisted he drive, anywhere so long as he just keep driving. Having explained everything she could remember to Aaron, about finding Mark at Inspiration Point up until the moment she climbed into his car, the story sounded like a half-baked movie script with many holes and undeveloped plotlines. The small coffee Aaron had bought her proceeded to give off steam as if trying to gain her attention with its rich, bitter aroma but to no avail. It continued to get cold untouched.

  “So, what are you going to do now?”

  Julie looked at Aaron intently. It wasn’t him she saw, but she was carefully contemplating his words. What was she going to do?

  “I need to get to Mark. I need to find him and tell him I love him.”

  Those words stung Aaron deep in his chest, but he said nothing.

  Still looking through Aaron as she bit her thumbnail, Julie muttered more to herself than anyone listening.

  “I just have to get things straight and see what happens. I might be totally wrong and reading into things. I did succumb to hysterical amnesia and still don’t remember half the things that went on over the past few days. Maybe I am reading Mark all wrong, and this is all wishful thinking.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about all this,” Aaron said with an uneasy smile on his face. “I came all this way to tell you that I love you. Here you are, within arms’ reach, telling me you want me to help you find another guy so you can tell him you love him. And that guy is not your Mr. Universe fiancé.”

  Julie cringed.

  “When you put it like that it sounds horrible.”

  Aaron ran his hand through his hair and let his arm fall with a slap on his thigh.

  “Julie, does it mean anything to you that I care about you? Have you even noticed that I’ve got my heart right out here?” he tugged at his sleeve and looked at her sternly.

  “Aaron, you barely know me. I barely know me. There is still a big void in my head that is blank and covered in shadows. And thanks to my ex-fiancé and my own mother, I don’t even know if I like me. But you want to know how I feel about you? Well, I’ll tell you what I think about you.”

  She scooted closer to him, put her hand over his and held it tight.

  “I think you try too hard, but when you let your guard down, you are beyond charming. I think you are the quintessential knight in shining armor, and I consider myself an authority since you’ve saved me not just once but ...”

  “Twice,” Aaron chimed in, smiling a little bashfully.

  “You are good to your family, and you seemed to be well liked at your job, so you must be a hard worker.”

  “I pay all those people,” he said a little slyly.

  “I don’t think you pay them enough to put on a show like that every time you bring a lady in the place.”

  Aaron laughed but squeezed Julie’s hand desperately.

  “But Julie, if you see all these things, what’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you Aaron. You just aren’t meant for me. God’s got plans for all of us. He brought us together for a reason. But it wasn’t so we could run off into the sunset together.”

  Aaron looked into her blue eyes and saw there was nothing hiding behind them. Julie wasn’t hiding anything from him. She was being honest. It made her look so pretty.

  “Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Miss Peterson. You want to find this Mark fellow don’t you? By the time we get back to L.A., the sun will be setting.”

  Julie smiled and tears glistened in her eyes.

  “You’ve done so much for me already. I can’t ask you to drive me all that way ...”


  “Oh, sure. I drive all the way down here to see you, and you expect me to go back all by myself? Not a chance, sister. But, I will make a suggestion that you may not think is a good one.”

  Julie folded her arms and leaned on the table, finally taking her small coffee in her hand and raising it to her lips to drink.

  “You need to tell your parents. If you just run off again, they will continue to treat you like a child. I think it would be best if you let them know exactly what you’re doing and make them understand they cannot stop you.”

  The suggestion was like a punch in the gut, but Julie saw Aaron was right. How could she ever expect her parents to treat her like an adult if she ran away again?

  Nodding her head reluctantly and not saying another word, Julie sipped her cold coffee and planned her speech in her head.

  “If you can break a guy’s heart like you did and still make him feel like a million dollars being around you, you should be able to explain this to your parents and get them to understand.”

  “You don’t know my parents.”

  “Maybe not, but I know you.”

  When Mark made it back to his apartment, it was past ten o’clock at night.

  “What was I thinking?” he chided himself as the words James Turner had said to him kept replaying in his head. It was lonely in the little apartment as Tobie was at Mrs. Carter’s house since she had a trusted house sitter who would make sure he got fed as he ran in and out of the grand home chasing squirrels and seagulls and enjoying life without a leash for a while.

  At that moment, Mark wished he were nothing more than a dumb dog who was happy with a little grass to roll in, some dry kibble and a scratch behind the ears every once in a while.

  “Looks like Julie played you, too, my friend. She just drove off with some guy for parts unknown.”

  Mark just stood there facing the man who introduced himself as Julie’s fiancé in front of a massive mansion like a pizza delivery boy hoping to catch a glimpse of the prom queen. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake, and had lived through rejection before.