Chasing Julia (Rhode Island Romance #2) (3 page)

“Pull up!” he
shouted.

She gave the string
a firm yank, and Tony scooped the net under the crab. He gave a buoyant whoop
of laughter as he captured the crab and lifted the net. She shrieked when he
brought the net too close to her. He’d toyed with her for a few seconds,
pretending he was losing control of the net, and she’d scrabbled backwards on
her bottom along the pier, laughing and pleading with him to stop at the same
time.

That had been a fun
afternoon. Tony had been so nice to her, almost sweet.

Now, standing in
the kitchen that suddenly felt confining, she couldn’t think of a word to say
to his cruel remark. She felt pinpricks of tears threatening to fall. Her mouth
wobbled.

Tony’s dark
eyebrows shot up; his harsh features melted into a contrite expression. But it
was too late for apologies. Nick, who must’ve been standing in the hallway and
listening to their argument, came storming into the room, all six feet, five, muscle-packed
inches of him. He grabbed Tony by his shirt collar and hauled him out the
backdoor to the fence-enclosed yard where he’d proceeded to beat the crap out
of his nephew. Nick’s movements were controlled, his expression taut and grim
as he pounded his fists into Tony’s face and then across his shoulders, back
and ribs when Tony hunched over in an effort to avoid the punches.

Julia had stood on
the doorstep, hands pressed to her face as she watched in shocked silence. She
wasn’t used to violence. Being an only child, she’d lived a fairly sheltered
life and avoided any kind of physical altercation. At the same time, she felt
relieved that Nick had stepped in. Joe was so seldom home; he’d never witnessed
Tony’s antagonism towards Julia. And she’d never shared it with him because she
didn’t want to burden him. Joe already had too much on his plate.

Tears streamed down
her face as she watched Tony take his punishment. But when he began to groan
and plead for mercy, she called out beseechingly, “Stop, Nick! Please stop.
That’s enough.”

Nick gave Tony a
harsh shove to the ground, then lifted him back up again by his collar. He got
in close to his nephew’s face and said calmly and coolly, “If you ever treat
that sweet lady with disrespect again, you can consider this as just a dress
rehearsal. Next time, I won’t pull any punches.”

He released Tony’s
collar and stalked back into the house. Tony swayed on his feet, looking ready
to pass out. Blood streamed from his nose and one corner of his mouth. Julia
ran towards him but halted less than a foot away as he held out a stopping
hand. “Don’t,” he said in a choking voice.

“Come into the
house. I’ll put some ice on your face.”

“No. I’ll do it myself.”

She didn’t realize
that she was still crying until Tony reached out and touched her cheek with a
shaking hand. His fingers traced her damp skin. His light brown eyes glistened
with his own tears. He looked absolutely shattered. “I’m sorry, Julia,” he
rasped. “I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole to you. I promise I’ll never make
you cry again.”

And he hadn’t.

Strangely, though,
over the years, she’d sometimes found herself thinking back on those arguments
and recalling how energized and animated she’d felt. Of everyone she’d ever
known in her thirty-three years, Tony was the only person who’d been able to
stir such passionate depths of emotion inside of her.

Sometimes she
missed that side of her nature.

“Jules.
Jules
!
Are you even paying attention to this? After this commercial, they’re going to
Joe’s cabinet shop to see what he’s done with that wall unit.” Hannah’s face
loomed in front of Julia, tugging her out of her vodka-soaked reverie.

“Huh?”

“Okay. No more
shots for you. You look ready to crash.”

Julia blinked. “I’m
fine. Jus’ thinking about Tony.”

“Tony? Why?”

“He’s never made me
cry. He did once. A long time ago. But not anymore.”

Hannah patted
Julia’s hand. Her own voice was slurred. “That’s good. That’s good. No one
should make you cry.”

“Joe made me cry.”

“Yeah, he did. But
you’re gonna move on. You’re gonna find a guy worthy of your love.”

“Joe wasn’t
worthy.”

“No…
Look
there he is.”

Joe’s face loomed
on the screen. He looked tired and a little grim as he explained that he was fabricating
two different furniture pieces out of the kitchen wall unit. One would go in
Willa’s new kitchen; the other would go in the bakery Willa was planning to
open on Thayer Street.

And then Willa was
entering Joe’s cabinet shop, and he was showing her a wooden bench he’d built,
and he put his hand real close to hers on the bench—their pinkies almost
touched—and they looked at each other like the cameras weren’t even in the
room.

“What’s wrong with
me
?”
Julia wailed.

Hannah turned off
the television and tossed the remote aside before dragging Julia into a fierce
hug and rocking her back and forth. “There’s not a damn thing wrong with you, honey.”

“Then why did he
leave me? Why did he choose her? Wasn’t I good enough for him? Aren’t I pretty?
Aren’t I kind and smart?”

Julia felt Hannah’s
hand on her back, rubbing, soothing. “Of course you are, sweetie. Of course you
are.”

“I
am
kind
and good. I’ve been a good girl all my life. My mom and dad’s perfect little
girl.”

“
Shh
. Let it
go, Jules. You just gotta let it go.”

Julia yanked out of
Hannah’s embrace and gave her friend a fuming glare. “Let it go? Let it
go
?
Like I’m some kind of animated cartoon character? What the
fuck
! I’ve
been dreaming about my wedding since I was a little girl, since I was five
years old and hit Joe on the head with my p-plastic shovel in the sandbox. My
m-mom told me that same day that I was going to marry him one day. He was
supposed to be t-the
one
! And he just dropped me like that.” She tried
to snap her fingers but failed. She flung her hands in the air instead. “He
didn’t give me any w-warning. Nothing! It was like I was a defective p-purchase
he wanted to return for a refund!”

“That’s not true.
You can’t think of yourself like that. He told you the reasons why…”

“Like what reasons?
Like putting himself first for a change? As if I was just someone he’d taken
for granted all this t-time? Like I was just the girl he’d settled for because
he couldn’t find his dream girl? What if we’d already been m-married when he
met her? Would he have dumped me even then?”

“No. Not Joe. He
would’ve stuck by your side. You know that.”

“And he would’ve
been absolutely m-miserable.” Julia felt hot tears rolling down her cheeks. She
swiped them away and rubbed her nose.

Hannah lifted a
corner of the throw and dabbed at Julia’s face. “We’ve had this same
conversation too many times, sweetie. You’re just torturing yourself. That’s
what I mean when I say let it go.”

Julia took several
hiccupping breaths. She tugged the throw out of her friend’s hands and wrapped
it around her shaking body. She fell sideways on the couch and curled her knees
towards her chest. “I’m so tired. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. I get
that he loves her. I get that she’s his one. But he was
my
one… Wasn’t
he?”

Hannah stood up
from the couch and pulled the throw across Julia’s legs. She lifted Julia’s
head and propped a pillow beneath it. She brushed one hand down Julia’s cheek.
“Go to sleep. I’ll be here in the morning. We’ll go for a long walk. Talk when
our heads are clear. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Julia watched with
bleary eyes as her friend walked to the bedroom, turning off the light as she
left.

Alone in the
darkened living room, Julia tried to tamp down the snippets of the conversation
she’d had with Joe on that horrible, awful day, but they refused to stay put.

“What if you’d
met her after we got married?”

“I was already
having reservations and doubts before I met Willa. I couldn’t have gone through
with the wedding, regardless. I should never have asked you to marry me in the
first place. It wasn’t fair to you.”

“Why? Wasn’t I
good enough for you?”

“No. No, Julia.
Don’t think of yourself like that. You are a sweet, kind and beautiful woman.
You’ve always been my best friend. But I’ve finally realized that that’s all
you
can
be. I know I’m being a
selfish prick right now when I ask you if we can keep our friendship going.
You’re part of my family, Julia. You always have been. I don’t want to lose
that. And I know that there’s a guy out there who’ll be a much better husband
for you than I could ever be. Don’t give up on that dream because of what’s
happened with us. I’m not going to let you.”

Sweet. Kind. Her
parents’ perfect little girl.

What had that
gotten her?

Nothing but
heartbreak.

At least now she
was finally able to fully acknowledge and accept a truth that she’d secretly
hoped was a temporary madness on Joe’s part. He really did love Willa. It was
there, in living color, for the entire world to see. He wasn’t coming back to
Julia. Ever.

It was time to move
on.

“He’s
been out there for ten minutes now. Doesn’t look like he’s calmed down much.
I’ll go talk to him.”

“Give him a few
more minutes,” Willa advised, coming to stand beside Tony at the kitchen island
where they could both observe Joe pacing back and forth on the screened back
porch. “He’s been on edge for the last week. He was worried about how the
episode would be edited. He didn’t want too much emphasis on me and him.”

Tony gave a curt
shake of his head. “Veronica pulled a fast one on us,” he said grimly, referring
to the field producer of the television series. “All those damn close-ups.”

“I think it was
unavoidable. Things were more obvious than we realized.”

Tony pulled his
eyes from his brother to focus on the woman standing beside him. He liked
Willa; he had from the beginning. She and Joe made a good match. “How do
you
feel?”

She sighed heavily.
“I’m relieved that it’s finally aired. It’s all the girls have talked about for
the last month. But I’m just as worried as Joe about hurting Julia further.
Neither one of us wanted that.”

“I think she
would’ve been hurt no matter how the episode was edited.” Tony took a swig from
the bottle of beer he’d been nursing for a while and propped one hip on the
counter to face Willa directly.

“Do you think she
watched it?” Willa asked.

“I know she did.
She told me she was going to.”

Willa gave him a
searching look. “The two of you talk often?”

“I see her at least
once a week.”

“But she still
won’t talk to Joe. She hasn’t returned any of his calls.”

“Can you blame
her?”

“No. But it’s
bothering him so much.” She glanced towards the porch again, her expression
tautening with concern. “I hate to see him this way.”

Tony felt the same.
“These are unusual circumstances. Had it been anyone other than Julia…”

Willa glanced up at
him. “She’s part of your family. I get that.”

He set his beer on
the counter so that he could pull Willa in for a brief hug. “And so are you.”

She hugged him back
and then stood back so she could look him in the eye. She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Things will work
out, Willa. I know it.”

“How’s that coffee
coming along?” Collette Fournier, Willa’s next-door neighbor, asked as she
walked into the kitchen.

From the living
room came the sound of female chatter and laughter. All the girls—Audrey,
Shirley and Mercy—had come to Willa’s house to watch the show. They were
Collette’s best friends and had quickly become Willa’s, too. Both Joe and Tony
had been taken into their fold; the fifty-something women enjoyed pretending
they were the fussy aunts that the brothers had never had.

Sylvie, Joe and
Tony’s little sister, was there, too. She’d graduated with honors from Johnson
and Wales University in May and was now working fulltime as Willa’s assistant
manager at the bakery Willa had opened on Thayer Street in Providence back in
June.

Tony’s features
relaxed in a grin as Collette sidled up next to him and playfully nudged him in
the ribs with her elbow. He couldn’t help but smile every time he was around
her. She had one of those loud, effusive personalities that were very prevalent
among women of her generation in the North Providence neighborhood where he’d
grown up. She reminded him a little bit of his mother, who’d been strong and
fearless in addition to being very protective of her children. He felt a little
twist of pain in his heart; not a day went by that he didn’t think of his
mother at some point. “How you doin’, Collette?” he asked, laying his Little
Rhody accent on thicker than usual. “How does it feel to be a TV star?”

Collette beamed. “I
looked good on there, didn’t I.”

“You were the
highlight of the show.”

“Sylvie says I
should open a Twitter and Instagram account for all the fans I’m going to have.
She’s going to show me how.”

“Go for it.”

Collette tugged her
cellphone from her pants pocket and handed it to Willa. “Take our picture, hon.
This’ll be my first post, or whatever you call it. Me and Mr. Tall, Dark, Sexy
and Handsome here. My co-workers are going to be so jealous.”

Tony’s grin widened
as he threw an arm around Collette’s shoulder and allowed himself to be posed
to the older woman’s satisfaction. After Willa took a couple of shots, he
glanced towards the porch. Joe was no longer in sight. “Think I’ll go outside
for a while,” he said to the ladies, giving Willa a speaking look.

She nodded. “I’ll
have dessert ready in a half hour. Collette, can you help me with the whipped
cream?”

Tony stepped onto
the back porch and looked around. Through the screen, he caught a glimpse of
Joe walking around the corner of the house towards the front yard. Tony pushed
the screen door open and set out after him.

It was a warm
September night, just one week after Labor Day. The sun had gone down a couple
of hours ago. As he moved away from the light streaming from Willa’s house, it
took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the mid-evening dark. Then he saw
Joe walking down the driveway towards the street. Tony quickened his pace until
he came abreast of his older brother.

Joe gave him a
sideways look but didn’t speak. He only nodded to the left, indicating the way
to the main road that led to Conimicut Point Park.

They walked in
silence for a while, keeping their eyes on the road. Aside from the occasional
passing car, the neighborhood was quiet. Dinner smells wafted in the air, combining
with the scent of the salt marsh and the fainter scent of sea lavender.

It’d been a long
time since he’d been alone with his brother like this, Tony reflected. They’d
both been working nonstop on the television series since April. There’d been
six projects in total, each one with unique challenges that had piled on extra
hours right up until the final shoot that had taken place in early August. This
was on top of a few other projects their construction company had taken on that
weren’t related to the show. Business was better than it had ever been, and
they’d been able to hire a couple of project managers plus additional crew to
help offload some of the strain.

When Julia and Joe
had still been together, Tony had seen both of them almost every day. He, Joe
and Sylvie shared the three-decker house in North Providence where they’d been
raised. Julia’s parents, Tom and Diane Kelly, lived next door. When Frank and Sarah
Rossetti had been killed in a warehouse fire fifteen years ago, Diane and Julia
had taken on most of the cooking and cleaning for the orphaned Rossetti
siblings. Although Joe and Julia’s romantic relationship had been off and on
over the years, there had been very few occasions where Julia hadn’t joined the
Rossetti clan for dinner or just to hang out with them.

But Joe had moved
in with Willa in July. And Julia hadn’t been back to her parents’ house since
May. When Sylvia wasn’t working at the bakery, she was off with her friends,
enjoying her early twenties to their fullest, as she should. Most nights, when
he wasn’t catching up on paperwork at the office, Tony spent alone in a quiet
house. Much of his eating these days was of the take-out variety. As he sat at the
kitchen table, surrounded by empty chairs, his thoughts—more and more
often—centered on Julia. In his mind’s eye, she was sitting across from him,
her blond hair framing her lovely, heart-shaped face, her amber eyes smiling at
him.

“When was the last
time you saw her?” Joe asked, as if he’d been reading Tony’s thoughts.

Tony cleared his
throat. “Last week. Helped her move some furniture.”

“Yeah? Where?”

“In her office.
She’s converted the back room into a conference room. Looks nice.”

“Business has been
good?”

“There wasn’t much
going on in August, but it’s picking up again. She has some corporate functions
lined up through December.”

“Good.”

They walked a few
yards farther in silence. Joe kept his gaze straight ahead when he asked, “Does
she… Do you two talk about me? About Willa?”

Tony kept his tone
neutral. “Just once. Right after she came back from San Diego. She wanted my
take on things. Did I know what had been going on. Did I think it was legit.
That kind of thing.”

“What did you tell
her?”

“The truth. That
I’d tried to prevent it. How hard you tried to stay away from Willa. Nothing
you probably didn’t tell her already.”

Joe drew up short
and pivoted to face Tony. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled.
“Damn it. I wish I’d told Veronica what was going on. She said from the
beginning that the wall unit would be the central focus of the episode. She
could’ve edited things differently.”

“That storyline and
you and Willa go hand in hand,” Tony pointed out. “I don’t think there was any
way she could’ve avoided it.”

“I didn’t want to
cause Julia any more hurt or embarrassment.”

Tony sighed. “I’ll
stop by her place this weekend. Feel her out. It’s been four months. It’s time
for both of you—all of us—to move on.”

Joe gave him a
measuring look. He seemed to hesitate a moment before saying, “You see her a
lot then.”

Tony shrugged,
trying for nonchalance. “I used to see her every day before you two split.
Sylvie sees her, too.” He retrieved his cellphone from his jeans pocket and
glanced at the time. “We should be heading back. Willa said she’d have dessert
ready in a half hour. That was twenty minutes ago.”

Joe shoved his
hands in his pockets as he turned to head back to the house. Tony kept one eye
on his brother’s stern profile, one eye on the road.

After a couple of minutes,
Joe cleared his throat before asking gruffly, “So… You’re just being a good
brother to her then.”

Tony’s steps
faltered a little. He took a fortifying breath. “I don’t think of her that way.
I don’t think I ever did.”

“How do think of
her then?” Joe persisted, nothing more than curiosity in his voice. “As just a
good friend?”

“Maybe.”

Joe suddenly
grabbed Tony’s arm, bringing him to a halt. He had a good two inches on Tony,
but there wasn’t anything aggressive in his touch. He only looked concerned, an
expression Tony had witnessed many, many times since that devastating night
when their parents had died, and Joe had taken on the dual role of both father
and brother, more of the former until Tony had left for college. “Anything you
want to tell me, little brother?” he asked quietly.

Tony held Joe’s
assessing gaze. He squared his jaw. “Still haven’t sorted it out in my own
head.”

Joe frowned. He
looked a little uncomfortable as he said, “If it’s something…more, I want you
to know I’m okay with it.”

Tony’s startled
laugh was abrupt. “Bullshit,” he said succinctly. “Don’t act so damn noble. You
know it’s weird.”

Joe dropped his
hand from Tony’s arm. His mouth twisted in an acknowledging smile. “Okay. Yeah,
it’s weird. Aside from the fact that she and I have a sexual history…” He made
a gruff sound. “She’s my age. Six years older than you.”

Tony straightened
his shoulders. “Five and a half to be exact. About the same age difference as
between you and Willa.”

Joe shook his head.
“That’s different. I’m older than Willa.”

“Age is just a
number.”

“And you don’t have
an issue with the fact that she was in love with me since we were kids?”

Tony felt a
stirring of annoyance, almost on the verge of anger. “That’s what she said
anyway.”

His brother’s
eyebrows lifted. “You don’t think she was?”

“Of course she
was,” Tony conceded. “But there are different kinds of love, as you’ve recently
discovered. And who planted that seed in her head—and yours—in the first place?
Her mom.”

Joe cocked his head
to one side. His expression turned considering. “And our mom, too. They teased
me and Julia about it constantly.”

Tony felt his features
relax. First, he hadn’t anticipated this conversation happening tonight.
Second, he hadn’t anticipated Joe apparently taking things so well. Tony was
still coming to terms with his feelings for Julia, feelings that he was only
beginning to realize had been lying dormant for years. “Do you think the reason
you finally asked her to marry you was because it was what Mom would’ve
wanted?”

Joe heaved a deep
sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe. You know how your own memories of things can change
over the years, become embellished or exaggerated?” He shook his head. “Lately,
I’ve wondered if things would’ve been different if Julia and I had just been
left alone when we were kids. Left to figure things out for ourselves, you
know? How much of our relationship was simply the result of the power of
suggestion, planted in us at a young age? Both Mom and Diane said we fell in love
with each other when we were kids, and they took it for granted that we’d get
married someday. Julia was so set on it. In the end, I went along with whatever
made her happy.”