Jamaica Dreaming (Caribbean Heat) (23 page)

“I love the island,” she heard Julissa say, in response to a question from Mr. Chung, senior. “But, even more, I love that I’m making a difference. I mean…” She looked self–conscious. “I hope I’m making a difference.”

“You are.” Sebastian’s hand covered hers. “Of course, you are.”

“You’re talking about your work with Ananda?” his father asked, wanting to be clear.

“Yes, that, but also with the children.” The corners of her mouth turned up in the most she appeared able to manage of a smile but, for the first time since she’d arrived, she brightened noticeably. “I went to Joyce’s school.”

“Joyce was the girl Julissa made a personal appeal for,” Sebastian explained.

Julissa nodded. “And, I talked to the kids about not doing horrible things to their skin trying to look like somebody they’re not. Afterward, some of the girls came up and thanked me. They said they’d been thinking of bleaching their skin but now, after listening to what I’d said, they probably wouldn’t do it. Hearing them say that made me feel really good.”

“It’s an awful practice,” Mr. Chung said. “The government should ban the sale of those creams.”

“The ones with problematic ingredients
are
banned,” Sebastian said. “Enforcement is the problem.”

“I think educating girls and the wider society about the issue and helping girls improve their self–esteem would really help,” Julissa said. They discussed the subject for a little while more and then the conversation drifted away to other topics.

Before they left a few hours later, Mrs. Chung pulled Sebastian aside under the pretense of showing him where they planned on putting in a new koi pond.

“She’s beautiful, my son, but she’s carrying a great pain.” Her eyes searched his.

“I know, Mumma.” Sebastian sighed and gave his mother a hug.

“She must release her burden or her heart will never be truly and fully yours. Do you know what pains her so?”

“No, she hasn’t confided in me. I saw it there when she first came to the island, but it’s worse, much worse today.” He dropped his eyes and Mrs. Chung realized there was something important he wasn’t saying. They remained silent, standing there looking out over the garden while, far away, the moon silvered the shifting sea.

“I told you about her accident, what she calls The Event.” Sebastian dropped his voice. Mrs. Chung nodded, he’d told them it was why Julissa had dropped out of the music scene for more than a year. She’d been badly injured. Mrs. Chung supposed that accounted for the young woman’s almost imperceptible limp. “What I didn’t tell you was that, ever since, she’s suffered from panic attacks. Three days ago, she had a bad one and they took her to St. Ann’s Bay where they kept her overnight. Her fiancé was here.”

Mrs. Chung’s eyes widened. “Her fiancé? You never said she had a fiancé!”

Sebastian grinned crookedly. “I didn’t see any reason to, as my plan was to make her forget him.”

“Oh, Sebastian.” But, what could she say? All his life he’d been the kind of person who went after what he wanted with a single–minded devotion that tended to overlook or minimize the obstacles in his way. Christopher, her husband, his father, was like that, too. So was she, though she didn’t like to admit it. “Go on.”

“She arrived in Jamaica and we met and she liked me and wanted me as much as I wanted her, but she was strong and resisted the attraction.” Julissa’s resistance had made Sebastian admire her even more, Mrs. Chung saw that clearly. “I went away to Flax Hall and Earle, the fiancé, arrived.”

“Did she send for him?”

“No. Lori says she’d actually begged him to stay away. I don’t know, anyway, he came, and then, two days later, she had the panic attack. Today, she called to remind me of the offer I’d made back in Kingston to take her to Dunn’s River. When I asked if Earle was coming, she said they’d split up and he’d be returning to Chicago.”

“She didn’t say why?”

“No, she hasn’t really said anything all day, but it’s clear the break–up has torn her apart.”

“Poor girl.” Mrs. Chung chose her next words carefully. “I’ve seen how she leans on you. She cares for you, my son, but it may be impossible for her to contemplate entering into another relationship right away. You understand that, don’t you?” Her handsome driven son was one of the smartest people she knew but, in matters of the heart, she suspected he might be a bit dense.

“You mean because she’ll be on the rebound?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve thought about that, but I love her, Mumma, and I’ve got to be there for her. She might not have been able to count on Earle, but she can count on me.”

They left it there and returned to the house where Mr. Chung was showing Julissa his collection of antique firearms. At the door, both Mrs. Chung and her husband kissed and hugged Julissa.

“We hope to see you again soon,” Mrs. Chung said, meaning it, though probably more for her son’s sake than Julissa’s. Sebastian had fallen and fallen hard. He’d spoken of
her
broken heart, but Mrs. Chung wondered if he had any idea of the danger his own heart was in if this girl couldn’t summon the will or the energy to break free from whatever emotional prison held her.

“He has to live his life,” Christopher Chung said, slipping his arm around his wife as they watched their son’s rented SUV disappear down their driveway.

“I know. I know.” But that didn’t stop her from sending up a quick prayer for both of the young people.

“I liked them,” Julissa said as Sebastian drove back down the hill.

He smiled at her. “They liked you, too.”

“Did they? Sometimes, I felt like I was in a fog. I’d lose the thread.”

“Yes,” he said, his tone very gentle. “I noticed. Julissa…” He paused. “I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy, but if you want to talk about what’s bothering you, I’m here to listen.”

“You’re very kind to me.” She stared out the windshield at the dark road ahead of them.

Sebastian wanted to tell her nothing he did for her he did from kindness. No, that was much too insipid a word for what drove his behavior toward her. He glanced at her profile and saw that she was lost in her thoughts, and not happy ones either, he could tell from the droop of her mouth. He would have liked to stop the car, pull over on the side of the road, take her into his arms and kiss her more thoroughly than any woman had ever been kissed in the history of the world. Instead, his hands gripped the wheel, the knuckles whitening under the pressure. Julissa didn’t need that from him right now. Any move like that on his part would only drive her deeper into her funk. She had to sort things out for herself and then make the first move to him.

Anything he took from her right now, she’d reclaim later because he had no right to it. He understood that. The dinner had not gone quite as he’d wished but he didn’t think it had gone badly, either. He knew his mother was worried for him but she had no need to be. He was a grown man and he knew what he was doing. His patience would pay off in the end and Julissa would be his. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name.

“That song,” Julissa said, suddenly. She leaned forward and turned up the volume. Buju Banton’s
One to One
filled the Montero. She listened to it intently, nodding her head, her lips moving. “We danced to it at that club in Kingston.”

“Yes.” He hadn’t thought she’d remember. “That’s Buju Banton.”

As the last notes of the song died away and the DJ began talking, Julissa turned the volume back down but continued singing the words under her breath.

Sebastian’s heart constricted. Was it Earle she was thinking of? Was she having second thoughts about their break–up?

“That was how I felt when you went away.”

Sebastian’s heart stopped. He didn’t understand what she was saying.

“When you went to your coffee farm, I missed you so much.”

“Me, Julissa?”

“Yes. You.”

He reached out to grab her hand in his.

“You,” she repeated, holding on to him tight.

She didn’t say anything else and Sebastian found he couldn’t talk, there was such a huge lump in his throat. His heart sang. Him, she’d meant him. She’d missed him.

Sebastian swept up his driveway, parked outside his house and went around to open her car door.

“I’d like you to spend the night with me,” he said, once her hand was in his again. They looked into each other’s eyes, Sebastian so intent on her, and Julissa so caught up in him, neither heard the bushes rustle.

“
That’s
why you sent me away,” a voice snarled out of the darkness. “Because you want to be with him.”

Julissa and Sebastian whirled to see Earle standing just a few feet away from them.

A white hot flame of heat surged through Sebastian but, as if she sensed it, Julissa tightened her grip on his hand.

“Earle! I thought you’d left,” Julissa said, staring at him as if she were seeing a ghost.

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” He sneered. “You’ve snared yourself a new man and you just expected I would go away quietly, didn’t you? Well, I haven’t.” He drew closer to them and now they could see his haggard face and wrinkled clothes. “I’ve waited here all day for you.” His tone changed. “Julissa, please, let’s talk it out. Please.”

Julissa thought it was eerie how he was using the same words to the Buju Banton song she’d just been singing. Yes, she needed to talk things out, but not with him. With Sebastian.

“There’s nothing more to say,” she said to Earle. “You had all of last year to talk, to come clean, but you chose not to. Now it’s too late.”

“No.” He took another step forward.

Sebastian drew Julissa behind him. “You heard the lady,” he said, evenly. “She doesn’t want to talk to you. Now, since I know you don’t have a remote for my gate, I’m guessing you somehow climbed in. You don’t have my permission to be here. You’re trespassing on private property. I suggest you get out. Now.” He spoke quietly but the menace in his voice was unmistakable.

Earle flinched, but stood his ground.

“I want to talk to Julissa,” he said. “Please, Julie.” His pet name for her. It was only then she realized it had been a long time since he’d used it. She hadn’t heard it since The Event.

“Earle. I told you last night that I don’t want to ever see you again.” She looked at him almost pityingly. She couldn’t imagine what life must be like for him, pretending to be someone he was not, afraid that, at any minute, his secret might be discovered.

“Julissa, I’m not giving you up without a fight. I love you.”

Julissa simply stared at him. Did he really think she was that woman? The woman who would forget what she’d seen and heard, so desperate for his love, that she was willing to allow the wool to be pulled over her eyes. Any wool–pulling had happened by accident because of The Event. Now, the scales had dropped and she saw Earle for who he was.

“Please, Earle. Don’t do this. Just leave. Let it go.”

“No!” He lunged at her and then it was like time sped up so fast she barely saw what happened next. Sebastian swung her away, out of harm’s reach, before whirling, his hands clenched. Next thing she knew, Earle was lying sprawled on the driveway, blood trickling from his mouth.

Sebastian’s hands clenched at his sides, itching to make contact again. “Get up,” he snapped.

Earle stared at him, his expression wild. “I…I’ll sue. You hit me.” His eyes sought Julissa’s. “He hit me. You saw that. You’ll be my witness.”

“Are you forgetting you climbed over my wall to get in?” Sebastian asked, stunned by the man’s behavior. “You’re trespassing. I could shoot you and no court would convict me.”

Earle’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

“I’m going to count to three, Earle. If you’re still in front of me by the time Î’m finished…” He left the threat hanging in the air.

“Julissa, please.” Earle still hadn’t gotten to his feet. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Sadness, pity and anger mingled on Julissa’s face.

“There’s nothing you can say that I want to hear,” she said.

“One.”

“I love you.”

“Two.” Sebastian took a step toward Earle who jumped to his feet.

“You can’t—”

“Three.”

Earle took off down the driveway as if all the powers of hell were after him. Sebastian turned to Julissa who was watching Earle’s disappearing back with a strange expression on her face.

“Won’t the gate be closed?” she asked.

“It will, but he managed to find himself in so I have no worries about him finding his way out. Are you all right?”

She looked startled. “Yes.” She paused and seemed about to say something else then thought better of it.

“Shall I walk you to your door?” he asked, gently. What he really wanted to do was spirit her inside his house and make love to her until the sun rose.

“I—” She started crying, great heaving sobs that shook her body as she hid her face in her hands.

“Julissa.” In an instant, Sebastian had taken her in his arms.