2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Juliet
L eo Galloway actually came back home.
My heart pounds with disbelief as I lead him down the hallway so that Frank can’t hear our conversation. One of the many hallways that my mom diligently kept clean for years for the Galloway family. She spent so many hours here that I considered this a second home.
Now, I somehow spend even more time here.
Once I believe we’re far out of earshot, I turn around to face Leo, drawing in an unstable breath as I take in how much he has changed.
He helped around the logging facility when he was a teenager, so he’s always been fit, but I can tell that his arms and chest have gotten even broader.
Even through that expensive black suit that he’s wearing .
His dirty blonde hair used to be adorably shaggy, but the waves are now shorter and tamed with some sort of product. His face is still clean shaven, and his eyes are still that gorgeous cornflower blue color. One look at him and every carefully buried feeling claws back to life.
Not everything has changed.
“You’re his nurse?” Leo questions me, his voice deeper and firmer than before.
It jars me at first. I have to remember that we’re both seven years older than we were the last time that we saw each other.
We’re no longer two eighteen-year-olds full of love and excitement for our imagined future together. Time has turned the sweet mountain boy I loved into the kind of man women probably ruin their lives over.
“He needed long term care after his diagnosis,” I explain as I twine my fingers together in front of me.
Leo blinks at me. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you the one working for him?” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest .
Well, this isn’t the response that I was expecting. The judgment in his voice snaps something sharp inside me. I thought I’d hear a little more gratitude, but I didn’t expect to hear anything at all from him.
After he and his father had that awful fight seven years ago, I didn’t think he would ever come home. The words they exchanged that day still stick with me. Not only because I was part of what they were fighting about, but also because of the terrible things that were said.
Family shouldn’t ever fight like that. A father broke down his son’s spirit that day, and a son turned his back on his father.
When Frank was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer, I wondered if Leo would show up to make amends, but Frank was insistent on not letting Leo know. He was willing to die without his son even knowing that he was sick.
So, why is Leo here now?
“I heard about the job, and I applied,” I tell him. “It was the best paid nurse job in town.”
Leo nods slowly. “So, it was just about money?”
Why does he seem more at peace with that reasoning ?
“Not entirely. I know Frank. When I heard about how sick he was, I…I couldn’t bring myself to just turn my back on him.”
Leo scoffs a little. “He called you a phase, Juliet. He threatened your mom’s job to get me to stop dating you.”
Heavy memories try to breach my mind, but I hold steady. “I’m well aware of what happened. I’ve chosen to look past all of that and give your father as much comfort and care as I can in his final weeks.”
Leo’s face twitches at the mention of weeks . He doesn’t even understand how bad off his father is.
“His secretary called me yesterday and told me that he was sick,” Leo tells me. “She said things at the company needed to be taken care of.”
She wasn’t supposed to say anything, but I guess Leo was bound to find out one way or another. Frank’s illness isn’t a secret in town. Word spreads too quickly here.
“So, you’re just here to deal with the company?”
“I’m sure that’s what he wants me to do. It’s all he has ever cared about. ”
I fix him with a stern look. I can’t believe I’m defending Frank after everything that happened, but the world has flipped upside down.
“That’s not true,” I tell him.
He tilts his head at me as he takes a step closer, his body seeming to take up so much space in the hallway. He’s just that big . And suddenly I remember exactly what it felt like to be pinned beneath him. Which is incredibly inconvenient.
“And you know him so well now?”
I wrinkle my nose at him, not liking his attitude. Some gratitude would go a long way, but he wants to act like he runs the show.
“I do because I’ve been by his side every day for a long time now. I take care of him. I schedule when the cleaner, the lawn care guy, and the grocery delivery person come by. I make sure the estate is tended to,” I say, resisting the urge to jab my finger against his chest with every word.
He needs to get it through his head that I’m the one who stepped up. I’m the one who stayed and dedicated myself to this town and the people in it .
His jaw clenches as he stares down at me. “You could’ve gotten out like I did. You could’ve done more for yourself than being ordered around by him for another few years.”
A laugh breaks from me. “You really think he orders me around, Leo? He can’t even walk to the bathroom without my help. He knows that he needs me. He doesn’t treat me how you think he does.”
Leo doesn’t look convinced.
I shake my head at him, a little stung by his words. He thinks that I haven’t done anything important with my life. He has no idea what I’ve gone through since he left.
He didn’t just leave me and his father behind. He left so much more.
“I’m sorry this is all a big inconvenience for you,” I tell him.
Leo pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes falling shut. I can’t believe the sweet teenager I fell in love with grew into this cold, selfish man.
It feels like I’m talking to a stranger.
“I was caught off guard. How would you feel if you got the call that your dad is dying? ”
A heavy ache fills my chest, but I don’t let the pain show on my face. Honestly, he sort of has a point. This was sprung on him, but it still doesn’t give him an excuse to act like this.
His phone goes off in his back pocket. Instead of immediately hanging it up, he presses it against his ear. “I need to take this.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
“It’s work,” Leo replies before walking past me to wander farther down the hallway.
Is he serious? Work is more important than his dying father?
I grind my teeth and whip around to head back to Frank’s bedroom, keeping myself from screaming at Leo for a number of reasons. He has no idea how much he flipped my life upside down.
Since he’s going to put his back to me and this town again, there’s no reason to delve into that with him.
When I enter Frank’s bedroom, I expect him to go off on a rant about his son, but he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at the flatscreen television mounted on the wall to the left of me, watching an old Western movie play silently.
“Are you okay?” I ask him as I walk over to his bedside, checking his vitals and using the stethoscope hanging around my neck to check his breathing. That same rattle fills my ears.
“Fine,” he says in a gruff voice.
I pull the ear tips out and hang my stethoscope around my neck. “You haven’t seen Leo in years. You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel.”
“I feel like he shouldn’t have shown up,” Frank replies, still staring at the television screen.
I frown, hearing the heaviness in his voice. He doesn’t mean those words. He’s just upset that he and Leo are still on bad terms.
“You should’ve reached out to him a year ago,” I say, not caring if that’s not what he wants to hear. I’m done tiptoeing around him like I used to. “He’s your son.”
“He left,” Frank grits out. “If he cared, he would’ve come back on his own during the past seven years. ”
I get where he’s coming from, but communication is a two-way street. I know for a fact that Frank never reached out to Leo after he left town.
Not a single email, call, or text.
When people asked him about his son, he only said that Leo left town to live his own life and then changed the subject. His son is basically a forbidden topic, and it’s not like I’m going to go out of my way to bring up the man who shattered my heart.
In a way, I guess we both acted like Leo didn’t exist.
“Try to relax. Getting worked up is just going to make you feel worse,” I tell him. “Are you in pain? I can give you something.”
Frank shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
Stubborn men.
“If you decide that you’re not fine, you know to call me,” I say. “That tough guy act doesn’t work on me, and don’t try to play it up big just because Leo is here.”
He huffs, but he doesn’t argue because he knows that I’m on the money. I know him .
“It’s almost 2:30. I have to go,” I say after checking my phone.
“Tell her I said hello.”
I nod and double check his vitals before leaving the room. My gaze automatically strays down the hallway where I last saw Leo, but he’s nowhere to be found.
I roll my eyes and walk out of the mansion to reach my car parked in the garage on the side. Compared to Frank’s Bentley and convertible Corvette, my little red Toyota is nothing special, but it gets me from point A to point B.
Point B being Evergreen Heights Elementary.
I join the pickup line full of other parents, edging toward the front of the large building where all the kids are waiting to go home.
Mrs. Janice, the first grade teacher, pulls open the backseat door with a beaming smile on her face. “Bye, Piper. Have a good day.”
A blonde-haired six-year-old clambers into the car, a butterfly themed backpack bouncing against her back. She sits down in her booster seat, and Mrs. Janice clicks the seatbelt in place before shutting the car door .
“Hi, Mommy,” Piper greets me, smiling at me in the reflection of the rearview mirror with a slightly red nose from the chilly wind.
Her father’s hair. Her mother’s hazel eyes. She’s the spitting image of both of us.
I didn’t even realize until I saw her father again in person.
“Hi, baby. Ready to go home?” I ask her as I pull away from the school.
“Can we see Mr. Frank?”
“Another day. He’s…busy,” I say, my heart hammering my ribs.
Probably busy arguing with her dad over anything and everything.
If Leo stays for a few days or a week, he’ll eventually figure out that I have a child. Will he put two and two together? Will he realize that he unknowingly left me pregnant all those years ago?
Granted, I didn’t even know that I was pregnant either until he was long gone .
Of course, I tried to call him, but he changed his number without telling anyone. I only figured out where exactly he went years later because an article about his incredibly successful company popped up on my social media feed.
By that time, I was so consumed by my heartbreak and anger over him leaving that I didn’t try to reach out. I was too scared that he would hurt me all over again, and our daughter would get caught in the crossfire of our mess.
It was easier to pretend a one night stand with a stranger passing through town was Piper’s father.
It still is, especially after seeing the man Leo has grown into.
He’ll either not want her or try to steamroll me about parenting her, and I didn’t come this far to be outpowered by another Galloway.
I hold the cards, whether Leo wants to believe that or not.