Nothing more than that.
Still, she couldn’t deny that Ross affected her more than any man had in recent memory. It had been seven years since her husband’s death. Seven long, lonely years. She had dated occasionally since then but only on a casual basis. She knew she was the one who always put roadblocks up to avoid things becoming more serious. The time and the person never felt right.
For a long time, she had been too busy trying to glue together the shattered pieces of her life. Then she had been too wrapped up in her new career as a child and family therapist and the new job at the Fortune Foundation to devote much time or energy to a relationship.
For the past year or so she had begun to think that she was finally in a good place to get serious about a man again, to try again at love. She had dated a few possibilities but nothing had ever come of them.
Ross Fortune was definitely not serious relationship material. Despite the attraction that simmered between them—and she knew she was not misreading those signs—Ross Fortune came with complications she wasn’t prepared to deal with. Beyond his current family turmoil, she sensed he was a hard man, not very open to warmth and tenderness.
She tried to picture him being content spending a quiet evening at home with a child on his lap and couldn’t quite manage it. But maybe she wasn’t being fair to him. Maybe that restlessness she sensed was a result of his brother-in-law’s murder and the subsequent fallout from it.
Julie sighed as she approached the Fredericks’ large house that gleamed a pale coral in the fading sunlight. That unspoken attraction between them was real and intense, but for now that was all it could remain.
She wasn’t sure she could afford to see what might come of it, not when she had the feeling Ross Fortune was the kind of man who could easily break her heart like a handful of twigs.
Josh, she reminded herself.
She was here only because he asked her, because she wanted to think they had formed a connection since his father’s death and she wanted to help him sort through his jumbled mix of feelings.
Her own weren’t important right now.
The evening was warm and pleasant as she closed her car door. In other neighborhoods, she might have heard the happy sounds of children playing in the last golden twilight hours before bedtime, but the Frederickses lived in Red Rock’s most exclusive neighborhood. All she could manage to hear was the whir of air conditioners and a few well-mannered birds tweeting in the treetops.
Her own neighborhood near the elementary school was far different, an eclectic mix of old-timers who had lived in Red Rock forever and some of the new blood that had moved into the town, drawn by the quiet pace and friendly neighbors.
Moving here from Austin a year ago had been good for her, she thought as she rang the doorbell. She had made many new friends, she had a busy social life and she enjoyed a career where she felt she was affecting young lives.
Did she really need to snarl that up by yearning for a man who appeared unavailable?
At just that moment, Ross opened the door and she had to swallow hard. He was wearing Levi’s and a navy-blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked casual and relaxed and her traitorous body responded instantly.
She was staring at his mouth. She realized it a half second too late and jerked her gaze up, only to find him watching her with a strange, glittery light in his eyes that struck her as vaguely predatory.
“Hi,” she murmured.
“Evening.”
“It’s a gorgeous one, isn’t it?”
He glanced past her to the soft twilight and blinked a little as if he hadn’t noticed it before. “You’re right. It is. Come in.”
She followed him inside. Though his sister had been in custody for less than a week, the grand house already felt a little neglected. A thin layer of dust covered the table in the foyer and several pairs of shoes were lined up by the door, something she was quite sure Frannie wouldn’t have allowed.
“Where’s Josh?” she asked.
“Holed up in his room, claiming homework. I’ll let him know you’re here in a minute. Actually, I’m glad to have a chance to talk to you alone first.”
Her heart skipped a beat, despite her best efforts to control her reaction. “Oh?”
“About Josh, I mean.”
She hoped he didn’t notice her flushed features or the disappointment she told herself was ridiculous. “Of course.”
“Do you mind coming out back with me? We can talk while I throw the steaks and your fish on the grill.”
She nodded and followed him through the house, noticing a few more subtle signs of neglect in the house that weren’t present when she was first here nearly a week ago. A few dirty dishes in the sink, a clutter of papers on the edge of the kitchen island, a jacket tossed casually over the back of a chair.
Ross grabbed a covered platter from the refrigerator, then opened the sliding doors to the vast patio that led to an elegantly landscaped pool. In the dusky light, the area looked quiet and restful. While she didn’t much care for the style of the rest of the house, Julie very much admired the gardens around Lloyd and Frannie Fredericks’ mansion.
She eased into a comfortable glider swing near the grill and watched while Ross transferred the meat from the plate to the grill with the ease of long practice. When he was done, he approached the swing and after a moment sat beside her, much to her dismay.
He was so big, so very masculine, and she was painfully aware of his proximity.
“What did you want to talk about?” she finally asked, hoping he didn’t try prodding her again to reveal details about her counseling session with Josh earlier.
“I’m looking for an honest opinion here,” he said. “What do you think about Josh’s girlfriend?”
Okay, she hadn’t been expecting that. “Lyndsey? I haven’t met her.”
“But Josh has mentioned her, right?”
“Yes. That first night when I stayed here with him while you were at the jail.” She didn’t want to breach Josh’s confidences by mentioning all the times he had brought up her name during their therapy session. “Why do you ask? Don’t you like her?”
Ross was quiet for a moment, a push of his boot sending the glider swaying slightly. “I’ve only met her briefly myself. Can’t say whether I like her or not. But I know Frannie was concerned about how serious they seemed to be getting. Now that I’ve had a chance to take a closer look at the situation firsthand, I’ve got to admit, it worries me a little, too.”
“In what way?”
“To me, it seems like they’re together all the time. I mean, all the time! When he’s not over at her place or she’s not here, he’s talking to her on the phone or texting her or talking to her online. I don’t know how intense things were between them before Lloyd’s death but I’m a little worried that he’s becoming too wrapped up with her. He’s only a kid, with his whole life ahead of him.”
“Don’t you remember your first love? They can be pretty intense.”
“No,” he said, his voice blunt. “I never had one.”
She stared. “You never had a girlfriend?”
“No. Not in high school, anyway. I was too busy with…things.”
“What kind of things? Sports?”
His mouth tightened. “Family stuff.”
He didn’t seem inclined to add any more, so Julie forced herself to clamp down on her curiosity to press him.
“Well, first love can be