Judith McNaught by Perfect Read Free Book Online

carrots at the sink; Carl scarcely looked up from the floor plan of a house he was drawing for his Future Architects of America project at school; and Ted gave her an absentminded grin and continued reading the movie magazine with Zack Benedict on the cover of it. "We know you didn't take their money, honey," Mrs. Mathison finally

    replied. "You said you didn't."
    "That's right. You told us you didn't," Ted reminded her, turning the of his magazine.
    "Yes, but—but I can make you really believe it. I mean I can prove it!" she cried, looking from one bland face to another.
    Mrs. Mathison laid the carrots aside and began to unfasten Julie's jacket. With a gentle smile, she said,
    "You already did prove it—you gave us your word, remember?"
    "Yes, but my word isn't like real proof. It isn't good enough."
    19
    Mrs. Mathison looked straight into Julie's eyes. "Yes, Julie," she said with gentle firmness, "it is.
    Absolutely." Unfastening the first button on Julie's quilted jacket, she added, "If you're always as honest with everyone as you are with us, your word will soon be proof enough for the entire world."
    "Billy Nesbitt swiped the money to buy beer for his friends," Julie said in obstinate protest to this anticlimax. And then, because she couldn't stop herself, she said, "How do you know I'll always tell you
    the truth and not swipe stuff anymore either?"
    "We know that because we know you, " her foster mother said emphatically. "We know you and we trust you and we love you."
    "Yes, brat, we do," Ted put in with a grin.
    "Yep, we do," Carl echoed, looking up from his project and nodding.
    To her horror, Julie felt tears sting her eyes, and she hastily turned aside, but that day marked an irrevocable turning point in her life. The Mathisons had offered their home and trust and love to her, not to some other lucky child. This wondrous, warm family was hers forever, not just awhile. They knew all
    about her, and they still loved her.
    Julie basked in that newfound knowledge; she blossomed in its warmth like a tender bloom opening its

    petals to the sunlight. She threw herself into her schoolwork with even more determination and surprised
    herself with how easily she was able to learn. When summer came, she asked to go to summer school so she could make up more missed classwork.
    The following winter, Julie was summoned into the living room where she opened her very first gift-wrapped birthday presents while her beaming family looked on. When the last package had been opened and the last piece of torn gift wrap picked up, James and Mary Mathison and Ted and Carl gave
    her the most exquisite gift of all. It came in a large, inauspicious-looking brown envelope. Inside was a long sheet of paper with elaborate black printing on the top that read,PETITION FOR ADOPTION.
    Julie looked at them through eyes swimming with tears, the paper clutched against her chest. "Me?"
    she
    breathed. Ted and Carl misinterpreted the reason for her tears and started talking at the same time, their voices filled with anxiety. "We, all of us, just wanted to make it official, Julie, that's all, so your name could be Mathison like ours," Carl said, and Ted added, "I mean, like, if you aren't sure it's a good idea,
    you don't have to go along with it—" He stopped as Julie hurtled herself into his arms, nearly knocking him over.
    "I'm sure," she squealed in delight. "I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure!"
    Nothing could dim her pleasure. That night, when her brothers invited her to go to the movies with a group of their friends to see their hero, Zack Benedict, she agreed instantly, even though she couldn't see
    why her brothers thought he was so neat. Wrapped in joy, she sat in the third row at the Bijou Theater with her brothers on either side of her, their shoulders dwarfing hers, absently watching a movie featuring
    a tall, dark-haired guy who didn't do much of anything except race motorcycles, get into fistfights, and

    look bored and kind of …