The Wedding Gift (11 page)

Her choice to try for happiness.

In the end, Julie was left with one simple truth: she was the one responsible for messing up her own life. Not Andrew.

Out on the bathroom counter, her phone started ringing again. She ignored it, sitting in the shower until the water ran cold. It didn’t achieve much–it certainly didn’t get rid of
unmemorable
circling in her head–but by the time she dried off, at least she could think a little again by then. She changed into a combination of jeans and a dark sweater before checking her phone.

Call Missed: Andrew Kyle.

Julie couldn’t possibly call him back. Even if she didn’t blame him for all that had happened, she wasn’t sure she could be around him, either.

Not after she’d found out the hard way that the risk simply wasn’t worth it.

A quick stab of hunger told Julie how late it was getting even before she looked at her watch. She wasn’t deluded enough to think that a mess on this scale would look any better after food, but starving herself wouldn’t achieve anything. However, for the first time ever, Julie simply couldn’t face cooking. Even when the restaurant went under, there had been something soothing about picking out a recipe and following it.

Julie thought back to the food truck she’d passed on the way home. Would it still be there? She found an old umbrella and huddled under it as she walked down the empty sidewalk.

Fortunately, the truck was still there, being run by a man in his fifties, whose apron had the obligatory grease stains and whose hair had long since given up any pretense of covering the full surface of his skull.

He beamed as Julie approached. “A customer! I was beginning to think that the rain had chased you all off. What can I get you?”

The menu was a relatively simple one. Steak sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, sausages, burgers, fries. It was exactly the comfort food Julie needed right then. She ordered a chicken sandwich, and though her original intention had been to take it back to the apartment, she stayed outside by the truck instead. Better to be out in the drizzling rain than all alone with her misery.

For his part, the truck owner, whose name turned out to be Frank, was happy to have her there. He told her he hadn’t had any customers there almost since the rain started. The only reason he didn’t move locations was because it would be raining just as hard anywhere else. All part of the marvelous life of the traveling food vendor, as he cheerfully put it. When a couple of new customers showed up despite the rain, Frank declared Julie to be a good luck charm.

“That’s pretty much the opposite of what I am right now,” Julie informed him.

That was when she noticed the small ‘help wanted’ sign stuck to the side of the truck. Part of her dismissed the thought immediately. Even the Rose Chalet had been a step down for her. Something like this was so many steps down that it might as well be a ladder. She’d owned her own restaurant. She shouldn’t even
think
about something like—

“What kind of help do you want?” Julie asked before she could stop herself.

The truth was that she was currently jobless, and unlikely to get anything else, given what had happened with her last two jobs. Besides, given everything that had happened, did she really think that she deserved anything better?

“Oh, I’m looking for a general helper,” Frank said. “Washing up. Some fry cooking. Do you know someone who’d be interested?”

Julie knew she ought to say no. Andrew would have been angry with her for doing anything else. Even Aunt Evie would have told her that she was selling herself short.

Right then though, Julie just needed something real. Something solid. Something she knew she could do and do well.

“Yes,” she said, quickly, before she could change her mind. “Me.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Cut! Get ready for the basic skills section.”

After the cameras turned off, Andrew shook the hand of the local chef he was cooking with, whose name he frankly couldn’t remember, and moved off to the side of the set. He checked his phone as discretely as he could.

Nothing.

Just like the last three times he’d checked.

He put the phone away as Sandy brought over a couple of women in their early twenties who proclaimed themselves his biggest fans and asked if they could get a photo with him. For the first time in a long time, Andrew had to force himself to go through with the whole thing, standing there while Sandy took their picture. One of them slipped a piece of paper into his hand and when Andrew looked, he found that it had a phone number on it.

Sandy saw the two young women off and then turned back to Andrew, just as he was throwing the telephone number away.

“What’s up with you today?”

“Leave it alone, Sandy. In fact, why don’t you go find something useful to do. Go get me a coffee, or something.”

She simply raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately said, knowing he was being the worst boss on the planet. “I’m just a bit—”

“Pig headed? Idiotic? Monumentally—”

“I could still fire you, you know.”

Sandy rolled her eyes. “So are you going to tell your long suffering assistant what’s wrong, or do I have to guess?”

Andrew smiled at that. It was about the first time he’d smiled all day, except on camera, and that didn’t count.

“It’s that chef down at the Rose Chalet, isn't it? The one you’re so gooey-eyed over.”

“Sandy, I’m a full grown man. I don’t get gooey-eyed.”

Another eye roll came his way. “You’ve been checking your cell phone more than a teenage girl praying the star quarterback will call her again after their hour together in the backseat of his car.”

He hadn’t realized that it was that obvious. It was embarrassing. Sandy had hit that nail on the head: he was acting like a jilted teenager.

Why
hadn’t
Julie called? He had thought that things were going great. The night they’d spent together had been amazing, but it was more than that. The morning after—that had been the really special part. They’d solidified their connection then, he’d been sure of it.

Yet here they were again with Julie ignoring his messages. It was as bad as it was after they kissed for the first time. Worse, actually. Avoiding him after their kiss had been nerves, a bump in the road.

Whereas this felt more like a full-on retreat.

“Why don’t you go see her?” Sandy asked. “Talk things through, or whatever it is the magazines always say is supposed to be so much better than getting drunk and sleeping with someone on the rebound.”

Sandy was right. Talking things over with Julie had worked before, and besides, he probably needed to go down to the Rose Chalet anyway.

Not that he needed any excuses. Andrew had said it to Julie the last time they’d seen one another; if she didn’t return his calls, he
was
coming to get answers.

“You know, Sandy, sometimes you have good ideas.”

“Finally, what I’ve been waiting so long to hear,” she said in a sarcastic voice. “Hey, while you’re at it, tell her what the producers have planned for the finale. They want her in on it, boss.”

Andrew drove like a mad-man over to the Rose Chalet, but Julie wasn’t there. Rose wasn’t in, either. The only person Andrew could find was Phoebe, the florist.

“Have you seen Julie?”

“She doesn’t work here anymore, thanks to you.”

“What—fired? Thanks to
me
?”

“Who else do you think got her fired?”

He ran his hand through his hair, already planning to tell Rose he’d cancel the wedding if she didn’t take Julie back. “She hasn’t been answering my calls. I didn’t know.”

The florist’s eyes were narrowed. “Look, I get that this is what always happens to relationships, but Julie is my friend and I hate knowing she’s hurt over this. Over
you
.”

“Tell me where she is, Phoebe. I need to talk to her.”

“I don’t know. But I think you should just leave her alone and let her get on with her life.”

Why hadn’t she told him any of this? What reason could Rose have had to fire her? He didn’t know the answers to either of those questions, but he was going to find out.

He sped back across town to Julie’s house, only to have her aunt tell him, “Oh, she’s gone off to work at the Rose Chalet,” as if everything was perfectly fine.

“But I’ve just been to the—” Andrew realized that he was starting to raise his voice. He never did that. Never. “Please let Julie know I was here to see her. That I'd like to talk to her.”

He got out of there as quickly as he could, trying to work out what was going on when even Evie didn't seem to know Julie had been fired.

He wasn’t sure how he spotted Julie a few seconds later, except that perhaps he would have spotted her anywhere, simply because she mattered so much to him…and he wanted to talk to her so badly.

But he certainly would never have thought to look for her in a food truck like the one parked at the end of the block.

He pulled into the first spot he could find, ignoring the fact that it was a no parking zone. Julie was serving a customer a burger, and it was all Andrew could do to keep from pushing the guy out of the way.

“Julie, what are you doing in a place like this? And why haven’t you answered any of my messages? Phoebe told me what happened. I'm going to tell Rose we're going to cancel the wedding unless she—”

“No!”

The force of the word took Andrew by surprise even as he continued with, “Why have you been avoiding me? Why didn’t you call to give me the news about your job? You promised you wouldn’t pull away like this.”

“And you told me everything would be all right if I only trusted you.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about losing my job at the Rose Chalet. But you should go. I don’t want to lose this job over you too.”

“Julie,” he said gently, “I get that what’s happened has been pretty rough, but if you’ll just come out of there and talk to me—”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I just…can’t anymore. Please, we tried things your way before, but now, I need to try them my way.”

“And what exactly is your way?” he demanded, all gentleness disappearing in the face of his frustration. “Not calling? Not speaking to me? Not letting me know when you’re hurting?”

Didn’t she care that it hurt him, too, not hearing from her like that? Being cut off as though he didn’t matter to her at all?

“We were good together,” he reminded her. “You were happy.”

“For one night. And one morning.” She looked away. “It cost me too much. Everything I’d worked for.”

He could hardly believe that. And, God, he hated the way her voice was so calm. Almost lifeless. “So you’re going to let getting fired from one little job ruin everything we might have? You aren’t even going to take that tiny risk to be happy?”

“Why should I?” she demanded, her voice finally rising again. “Every risk I take, there’s something waiting around the corner to squash me. I know you don’t understand, that you will never understand, but that’s just part of the reason I haven’t been calling.” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t want to fight.”

She sounded more sad than angry, and that was enough to send Andrew’s emotions spiraling the same way. He stood there for several seconds, staring at her standing in the food truck, a stained white apron on over her jeans and t-shirt.

“At least let me help you out of here.”

Julie was shaking her head before he’d even finished the sentence. “No, please. I don’t want any more of your help.”

Andrew winced. He forced himself to try to treat the next part the way he would if he had just run into an old friend when he had news for them, rather than…whatever she was now.

“The producers of my show want you back on,” he informed her.

“Andrew—”

“They liked having you on the show, and now they want you as part of their live grand cook-off. Come on, Julie. You know you deserve that much.”

She shrugged. “I know as well as anyone that people don’t get what they deserve.”

“So you’re not going to do it?” Somehow, that made him angrier than all the rest of it put together. “One or two things go wrong—”

“Not one or two things,” she pointed out. “Pretty much everything.”

“—and now you won’t even take what could be a great chance for you? I don’t understand you, Julie. I just don’t.”

She went back to her grill for a moment, flipping a few pieces of chicken and a hot dog. To his eye, it all looked far too easy.

“Maybe you don’t have to understand it,” she said. “The important thing is that I do, and I can’t go on your show again.”

“Am I supposed to believe that this is enough for you?”

She shrugged again. “It’s going to have to be, at least for now. I didn’t mean for things to work out this way.” She was looking at him again, and the pain on her face was obvious. “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry I can’t do the show. I’m sorry I can’t be the person you want me to be.”

He shook his head. “I can’t accept your apology. I won’t accept it. You say you’re sorry, but you’re still giving up on what we could have. On what we had. What good is an apology without—”

Without you
.

He didn’t say the words, but they hung in the air anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Julie said again.

Andrew knew it was all he was going to get out of her. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

He would have turned everything upside down for her without even hesitating...but she was still too frightened to admit how she truly felt about him. She wasn’t going to take the risk of opening her heart.

And it seemed pretty damn clear that she never would.

He stalked to his car without a backward glance, threw it into gear, and set off for the studio.
He was,
he told himself,
better off without Julie Delgado.

If only he actually believed it.

Chapter Fifteen

“Here you go, Betty.” Julie handed over a grilled tuna and egg salad sandwich. “We’ll see you again tomorrow, I hope?”