âSorry if Iâve kept you up too late.â
What an apology. In the best of all possible worlds, Sam could keep her up all night. No complaints.
But this was the real world. With real limitations and consequences. And Julia had to go up to her bed.
Alone.
âThanks for inviting me to stay.â
She could barely think, barely breathe, with him standing so close to her.
âWe never got a chance to talk about Lester and Lucy,â she realised.
âNot get into another argument, you mean?â He lifted her chin with his fingertip, so that she was looking into his eyes again. And couldnât look away.
And didnât want to.
âIâd rather not argue with you, Julia. In fact, I think Iâm done talking altogether.â
Before Julia could say a word more, he pulled her close. She felt as if she didnât have a chance. Didnât have a choiceâ¦
Something was up.
Julia Martinelli had a funny feeling. Sheâd developed a sixth sense for these things by now. An uncanny radar for her motherâs imminent romantic misadventures.
Her motherâs invitation for dinner had sounded innocent enough. They lived in the same town, the place where Julia had been raised, and got together at least once a week for dinner or lunch, or just to say hello over coffee.
But for some inexplicable reason, Juliaâs skin went all shivery with goose bumps during this particular call. Something in her motherâs tone signaled Watch out. Somethingâs cooking. Itâs not just Momâs special meat loaf.
Julia didnât ask any questions. She didnât want to seem overly suspicious. Her mother had become very sensitive to any inquiries about her love life and Julia had to tiptoe around the subject these days, which wasnât easy. Her mother was a master at avoiding a straight answer.
âYouâre always imagining things, dear,â Lucy Martinelli would claim. As if Julia was the one with the problemâor âissuesâ as folks on TV talk shows liked to say.
Julia knew she did have a few âissuesâ about romance: the greatest one being, she couldnât find much of it. Not the kind she was looking for. Her mother, on the other hand, found more than enough for anyone. Especially a woman her age. Which was oftenâ¦a problem.
As Julia drove over to her motherâs after work on Friday night, she was gripped by the same unnerving sensation, and the palms of her hands were clammy on the steering wheel. Was she only imagining things? She dearly hoped so.
In the small town of Blue Lake, Vermont, Juliaâs mother Lucy was known as âThe Merry Widowââthough technically speaking, only two of Lucyâs four husbands had died.
Marriages two and four had ended in divorce. Which did not bode well for husband Number Five, Julia thought, if and when he arrived. The odd-numbered husbands seemed to have a high mortality rate.
All things considered, it was more a matter of when than if. Julia just knew Number Five was out there somewhere, hovering on the horizon. A new chapter in her motherâs relationship saga, which Julia often thought could provide more than enough material for some thick, juicy novel or a made-for-TV movie.
Married first to her high school sweetheart, Lucy became a widow at the tender age of twenty-one, when her young husband died in a boating accident. She next married Juliaâs father, Tom Martinelli, a local attorney. That union lasted over twenty years, though Julia knew now that her parents had stayed together mainly because of her, both feeling out of synch with their spouse, but committed to giving their only child a stable family life.
It wasnât an unhappy household, though even as a child Julia sensed something was missing between her parents. As a grown woman, she decided sheâd never make that same choiceâto stay stuck in a loveless relationship.
Her parents divorced while Julia was in college. Her father had since retired and moved to Florida with his second wife, Adele, a former elementary school teacher. They played a lot of golf and were ardent fans of the History Channelâpastimes that had never interested Juliaâs mother.