If the Shoe Fits Read Free Page B

Julianne asked as the very fat Hanes family cat sauntered into the kitchen. Isaiah had been around since the dawn of time; Will wondered how the old thing still managed to stay on his paws.
    Will’s dad nodded. “Turkey and giblets tonight.”
    “His fave,” she replied.
    Uplifting praise music wafting in from the living room drew Will’s attention as Julianne began to sing along. The sour clank of her tone tickled at the center of Will’s heart. She couldn’t hold a tune if it were packed up for her in a handy little box, but he sure did love to hear her try.
    “Hey!” he blurted, as much for his own sake as to stop her from singing. “Another toast! To Pop’s clean bill of health from the doctor today.”
    “Davis, that’s awesome!” Julianne declared.
    “Yeah, the medication seems to be working well. You sure can’t cure Parkinson’s, but I’ll settle for holding it at bay for a little while.”
    “Well, here’s to dreams coming true all over the place!” she added, and she clinked her glass against his dad’s before grinning at Will with a mustache thick with foam. “Today is the start of something big. I can feel it.”
    He suddenly sensed the dawn of a case of root beer indigestion coming on.
    “Mom!” she exclaimed. “I saw the man of my dreams today, just walking down the center line of the road, headed straight for me.”
    “Ohhh,” Amanda growled as Will downed half of the root beer from his float and suppressed the belch that tried to follow.
    “On the very day that we open our offices,” she went on.
    “Julianne, really.”
    “I’m not joking, Mom. It was a sign … especially since I was just thinking about those things that horrible Lacey James said about me at the pediatric AIDS fund-raiser the other night. You heard her, Will!” Julianne looked at Will with narrowed eyes before darting her attention back to her mother. “She had half the table full of my peers making fun of me for never being able to keep a guy around for long. They said the only long-term relationship I’d ever had in my life was with Will, and that there’s something wrong with me. But then this …
vision!
… stepped onto the horizon. I’m telling you, Mom, he’s the kind of guy who would really show them. He’d show them all!”
    Amanda cocked her head and looked at Will for a long moment. Her hazel eyes, almond-shaped just like her daughter’s, told him she knew about his secret feelings. And she appeared to apologize for Julianne’s insensitivity.
    He wanted to release her from the regret, tell her that they’d never made any promises to each other; both of them had dated other people over the years, after all. They weren’t an actual couple or anything….
    Julianne’s creamy round face looked so expectant, her pale blue eyes brimming with such hope that he almost wanted to believe it for her—which struck him immediately as nothing short of absurd. Will expelled a chortle that surprised even him.
    “Will?” she asked softly, and the disappointment cutting through her eyes with catlike precision sliced him right to the quick. “Are you laughing at me?”
    Fortunately, the doorbell rescued him.
    “Dinner,” he announced, thumbing through his wallet for a tip as he headed for the door. She was sure to ask him again before the final crack of the almond cookies, but for the moment he was safe.

Will’s dad’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s had been a pretty big motivator to do what he couldn’t have imagined doing just six months prior. But moving back into his family home to provide care hadn’t actually been so bad, after all. The move gave him a chance to spend time with his dad while his health was still relatively good, and the place was loaded with great childhood memories; not to mention three times the space of the cozy little house in Forest Park that he’d reluctantly sold. Lots of room to move around in … and he loved that massive stone fireplace on the largest wall of the