The Edge of Heaven (50 page)

She took the card, promising to call.

The hostess, sleek and elegant in a slim, black floor-length skirt and a crisp white blouse, joined them, nodding respectfully to Steve's father. "Your table's ready, Mr. Land."

Steve's mother paused for a moment, then turned to Zach. "You've just arrived in town, Mr. McRae?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"Alone?"

"Yes. I was supposed to have dinner with a colleague, but he got tied up at the last minute. I decided to come anyway and try it on my own."

"Well, we can't have you eating dinner all alone. Why don't you join us? We've met so few of Julie's friends, and with her not having any family left..."

Zach gave Julie another one of those looks. "I'd love to join you. If that's all right with everyone."

Barbara Land looked gleeful, as if she'd read between every line and knew Julie was hiding something and that Zach might well be the key. Steve gave Julie an odd look, his arm tightening once again at her waist. She could feel all those not-so-subtle male signals rolling off him.
Hands off. She's mine.
As if Zach had ever seen her as anything but a lost little girl or a reckless teenager.

There was a short, awkward silence before Steve conceded. "Please, join us."

Moving through the crowded restaurant, Zach caught her by the arm. She stared down at his hand, surprised at Zach the man touching her, at the little tingling energy she felt between them. It gave him the time to draw her back from the rest of the group and whisper, "Got rid of the family again, huh, Julie?"

He knew well that she'd spent most of her high school years claiming to be an orphan or the sole child of a father who was off building a bridge in South America and hadn't been seen in years.

"Wouldn't you, if they were yours?" she asked.

"No, I wouldn't."

"Of course not," she admitted more sharply than she intended with her nerves getting to her, as they wove their way through the myriad tables and chairs. "You're perfect, and you have a perfect life."

He caught her arm again and stopped her right there in the middle of the restaurant. Quietly, he said, "You know that's not true."

Yes, she supposed she did. It was something she'd forgotten so many times over the years, because he certainly seemed like a man who'd had everything. But that wasn't the case.

She hadn't believed the story the first time she'd heard it whispered about the neighborhood. About Zach and his two sisters found abandoned in a motel on the edge of town at Christmastime one year. His mother found weeks later in a ditch outside of town, where she'd been left for dead. Not long after that, she
was
dead, Zach's father in prison for killing her.

It hadn't seemed possible. His adoptive family seemed as close to perfect as any she'd ever known. But she'd asked Grace, who'd confirmed the whole story.

Zach had talked about it once, telling Julie he knew what it was like to be alone and scared. He told her because he knew she felt the same way, and he knew how bad it was, something she'd never wanted anyone to know.

And here he was, seeing through her all over again with those beautiful, dark eyes of his.

In the center of the restaurant, they stood staring at each other, his hand still on her arm. He was so big and broad shouldered now. There was heat coming off his body, the smell of warm, clean male skin and something subtle and enticing that emanated from his freshly shaved jaw. She shook her head, trying to dismiss the flash of awareness. That and the innate kindness of the man was nearly too much to bear.

"Zach, please..."

He didn't let go, but his voice changed, going deep and so familiar it hurt. "Why don't you just tell me what's wrong, Julie."

As if that were all she had to do—pour out her troubles to him, and he'd fix everything. He might be able to. Things that seemed impossible to her were no problem in his capable hands. But then the world just worked for Zach McRae, other than that odd little blip in the first five years of his life.

"Come on, Julie. It's me."

Maybe she should tell him. Just so he'd know she was okay. Because even after all this time, he probably still cared. He knew her better than almost anyone ever would, and he still cared.

Before she could open her guilty mouth, Steve showed up. "You two get lost?"

His arm came around her waist, possession and tension evident in just the touch of his hand. Julie stood sandwiched between them, her past on one side, her future on the other, both of them crowding her until she almost couldn't breathe. Steve's jaw was tight, his cheeks flushed. He glanced down pointedly at Zach's hand on her arm.

If they'd stood there one more minute like that, Steve could have grabbed her other arm and they could have played tug-of-war with her. The testosterone levels were soaring. She'd never seen Steve behave this way.

"I'm sorry," she stammered. "We were just... just—"

"Talking about old times," Zach said, as he let his hand fall to his side and stepped back, as if to cede that territory to Steve, ignoring all those not-so-subtle signs of a challenge. "Emma's pregnant again. She's my older sister. She and Rye are hoping for another boy this time to even things out. They already have two girls and a boy. Grace—my younger sister—studied art in Paris for several years. She loved it there, but now she's home."

"And your parents are well?" Julie asked.

"Couldn't be better."

"I'm glad. They were always so kind to me."

They arrived at the table to find Steve's father standing, pointedly waiting. Steve's mother was already seated. Steve held out a chair for Julie, one that put her squarely between the two men and staring at her future in-laws all through dinner.
Wonderful.
Barbara Land seemed overjoyed, possibly thinking tonight she'd find a reason to object to the engagement.

Here Julie had been thinking she was home free from the moment the ring had gone onto her finger. But she wondered now if there'd ever come a point where she felt safe and secure. That's all she'd ever wanted in her whole life. It meant everything to her. She felt so safe with Steve.

She slid into the chair, placed the crisp white napkin on her lap, and looked around the table from one set of inquisitive eyes to another. Her composure slipped another notch.

Another week was all she needed. She and Steve would formally announce their engagement then. Six weeks after that, they'd be married. Even if at some point in the future Steve found out everything, he wouldn't just walk away. Marriage vows meant something to him. Maybe he wouldn't care about her secrets at all. He claimed to love her, after all.

No, he claimed to love the person she was pretending to be.

"Ma'am?"

She looked up. The waiter was holding out a menu to her, probably had been for a while. Everyone at the table was staring at her. She took the menu, studying it intently, wondering what would be easiest on a stomach turning queasier with every passing moment.

She gave a little start when the busboy leaned over her shoulder to fill her delicate crystal water glass. When she dared to look up from her menu again, he was gone. It was just the five of them sitting around the table. Silence fell, an awkwardness settling firmly into place.

It was amazing. Zach had hardly said a thing, and yet they all seemed to know something was wrong. How did they know?

"So... you're still in Ohio, Mr. McRae?" Barbara Land asked.

"Yes," he said.

"And what brings you to Memphis?" Steve's father asked.

"A case," he said.

"Case?"

"I'm an attorney," he said.

Oh, no.
Julie was afraid she knew the case.

She'd scanned the front-page headlines this morning as she'd hurried out the door. Even in a rush, she'd thought about Zach for a moment. Because she knew what he did. She'd stumbled across his name in the paper months ago, when he was defending a boy in Texas, trying to keep him off death row. Next thing Julie knew, he was on the television news. Zach McRae, right there in her living room, the first familiar thing she'd seen in ages. She'd drank in the sight of him and the sound of his voice, and then had gotten caught up in the passion in his words.

"You're defending that boy, aren't you?" she asked. "What's his name? Tim? Tom?"

"Tony Williams." Zach's gaze settled on her, once more seeming to see right inside of her.

She couldn't tell if he was surprised or pleased. Obviously, she'd been keeping up with him, might as well have taken out a billboard announcing that fact.

Oh, Julie. You 're a mess tonight.

"That boy who shot his father?" Steve asked.

"He's been charged with that," Zach said.

"Found standing over the body with blood on his hands, I heard," Steve's father said, sounding incredulous. "You're really defending him?"

"Yes," Zach said, managing with just one word to issue a challenge. "I'm with a foundation that specializes in death penalty cases involving juveniles. They often don't have the money for a defense of their own and end up with overworked public defenders. We step in whenever we can to help. Tony Williams deserves all that we can do for him."

"Why?" Steve asked.

"Let's see." Zach settled back in his chair, getting comfortable. "Because he was fourteen when it happened. Because he has only a marginal IQ. Because he's been abused in ways I doubt you could begin to understand. Because no one ever helped him, not in the entire time he was growing up, and now all society has to offer him is a jail cell and a lethal injection. Yes, I'm defending him. Someone should have shot his father long ago. Tony would have been much better off."

Steve's mother almost choked. She covered her mouth with her hand and coughed, Steve's father patting her on the back, politeness obviously beyond her at the moment.

"Well," she said a moment later, recovering her composure. "How very interesting. This is the sort of thing you do?"

"Yes," Zach said.

And did it very well, from what Julie had found out. Honestly, it was just too easy to find information about people these days. She had ever-so-innocently typed his name into her favorite internet search engine, and there came story after story, pictures often, of Zach McRae, the crusading lawyer, taking on higher-profile, hopeless cases, brutal ones, involving kids.

How did he do that day after day? What sort of toll must that take on a man?

"And you'd put that teenager back on the streets?" Steve asked. "Knowing he could do anything?"

"I don't hold out much hope of him going free, but I'd sure like to see him get the help he needs," Zach admitted. "I don't quite see what society has to gain by putting him to death."

"So, you're an opponent of the death penalty?" Steve's mother tried.

"No," Zach said. "I'm fine with it in certain cases. Say, a grown man who abuses his wife and innocent children."

Julie almost laughed, as horribly inappropriate as that would have been. She felt sorry for the Williams boy. Honestly, she did. There was nothing funny about his situation. It was just that the comment was so Zach. He knew exactly where he stood, what he believed in, and he'd never been shy of telling anyone. She'd always thought if they'd just put him in charge of the world, the whole place would run a lot more smoothly. It was one of the things that made him so attractive to her as a girl. She hadn't felt sure of anything.

Steve's mother was making that little choking sound again at Zach's comment. The things he'd likely seen over the years, the kind of chaos Julie had lived with, were obviously as foreign to Steve's mother as a man who spoke his mind as openly as Zach. Once more, she felt like an outsider looking in on her fiancé and his family. One more time, the lost little girl inside her nagged,
You don't belong here. You never will.

She turned to Zach, a pleading look in her eyes once again. "Is your mother still working in stained glass, Zach?"

"Yes," he said.

"Barbara's great-uncle did, too. He did the windows of their church here in town—"

"The one where we're going to be married," Steve interjected.

"Yes." If she got through this night, they just might. "They're absolutely beautiful, and Steve's parents have a few of his pieces at their home. I was... Well, I thought of your mother when I saw them. I hope her work is going well."

"Couldn't be better," he said. "And it looks like Grace is going to follow in her footsteps, working in glass."

"Oh." Julie smiled, a genuine smile, for the first time all night. "I can see her doing that. And your father? Zach's father does wonderful restoration work," she told Steve. "They used to live in the most fabulous old Victorian house."

"Still do," Zach said.

"Good." She was just starting to relax a bit when she realized what he'd just said. She probably wasn't supposed to have ever seen the house the McRaes still lived in, the one they allegedly moved into after leaving St. Louis, where she claimed she'd known them.

Julie scanned the faces around her, waiting for someone to pick up on that little inconsistency, but no one said a word.