by Parks, AL
He hadn’t, though. Instead, he held her all night long. The nightmares stayed away when he was there to protect her. She had never felt so comfortable and at ease with a man before him. He just made it so simple to feel, and want, and need. She craved his touch after spending a good portion of her life avoiding intimacy. Griff read her like a book, took cues from her, never pushed her farther than she was ready to go. He talked to her, never made her feel inadequate - or broken.
He just accepted her. Just as she was, full of flaws and fears and ghosts from the past.
And it clicked. She had done what she came to Colorado to do. She had told her Mom. Now it was time to return home. Not Newport, but to Griff. If there was a chance in hell of this thing working between them, she needed to be there. Tell him what her father had done, and hope that when the dust settled, she had read him correctly and he was still standing next to her, ready to battle more demons.
She walked out into the kitchen to find her mom. Eve and Jake were sitting at the kitchen table, holding hands and talking. Clarissa stopped and just watched them quietly for a moment. She couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other. It didn’t matter. That’s not what was drawing her attention. It was the sweet tenderness between them. The way they looked at each other as if the world didn’t exist outside their little bubble.
They had found it. True love.
Clarissa cleared her throat and they looked up at her. “Hey, Mom, I was thinking about our discussion earlier and a voice that sounded oddly like yours - but much younger - was saying ‘no time like the present.’ So, I think I’ll try to find a flight out today and take the next step in the Clarissa Bares All Tour. Is it all right if I leave the SUV here? And can you give me a ride to Denver?”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Jake piped in. “Your mother is meeting with a florist this afternoon to go over wedding flowers.”
“You’re supposed to be at that meeting, as well, husband-to-be.”
Jake leaned over and kissed Eve. “Yes, I know, but sacrifices must be made, beautiful - for the children. Besides, I trust you completely and know you will pick the most amazing flowers.”
“Okay, I was with you until you took it too far with that last line. You have got to learn when to stop, and when its just bullshit to make me feel better.”
“Yes, dear.” Jake winked at Clarissa as he walked past her. “Let me know when you’re ready to leave, C.”
“Thanks, Jake.” She walked over to her mother who stood and gave her a warm momma-bear hug.
“I’m so proud of you, baby girl. You are so strong.”
“I learned it from you, Mom. I love you, and I’ll call when I get to Newport.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Music blared from the cab of Griff’s truck as he drove home from the shop. It’d been cooler the last few days, so he’d been forced to drive the truck and keep the bike in the garage. AC/DC shook the windows of the cab. He was hoping the loud metal band would distract him from the constant thoughts of Rissa. He hadn’t heard from her yet today, even though he had left a message for her this morning. “Please let her be okay.” The words had rolled through his head all day long on a constant loop.
He left the shop early, unable to fight the nervous energy that consumed him. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t concentrate on work. Hell, he hadn’t been able to hold tools in his hand very successfully. Neal had shot him more than one irritated yet concerned glare whenever a wrench would slip and clatter to the concrete floor.
Swinging the truck into the driveway, he caught sight of something - or someone - on his front porch. He stopped the truck, turned off the engine, and got out of the cab. Rissa stood up from where she had been sitting on the top stair. Bolting across the yard, he scooped her up in his arms, burying his face in the long wavy auburn tresses that fell around her shoulders.
“Oh, God, I missed you, Riss.”
“Wow, that has got to be the best greeting I have ever received in my entire life.” She looked into his eyes, and he was lost in the shimmering emerald. “I missed you too, Griff.”
“When did you get back?” He dipped his head, lowering his lips to hers. “Never mind, I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re here.” He took her mouth with his, tilting her head back just slightly. She gave in to him, parting her lips, allowing him full access. He snaked his arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground. Carrying her up the steps, he opened the front door and walked into the living room.
Jesus, everything about her was affecting him. The sight of her, smell of her, feel of her in his arms. The taste of her on his lips. He wanted her. Needed her in a way that he couldn’t have imagined ever needing another person a few weeks ago. Walking her backwards, he worked his way towards the hallway and his bedroom.
“Griff, wait.” She pulled her head back. Her breathing was heavy and her lips were already swollen and red. “We need to talk.”
All the heat that had ravaged his body a moment earlier turned ice cold instantly. He loosened his hold on her and she slipped out of his arms.She took one of his hands, and walked them both to the couch and sat down.
“There are things you need to know about me, Griff, about my childhood.”
“Rissa, I don’t give a damn about what happened to you. I know someone hurt you and that you carry those scars with you even now. I know they affect who you are and who you trust. I don’t need specifics. I don’t want to know who it was because I will only want to hunt them down and kill them.” He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. “All you need to know is that I will do whatever I can to make sure you are never hurt again.”
“Griff, you’re going to find out, and I really need for you to hear it from me. The truth, not some fucked-up version. And I think you need to know what happened so you can decide if it’s something you can live with.” She took a deep breath. Griff wished he could take every ounce of pain away, but the only way to do that was to sit and listen. And by the looks of her fidgeting, it was going to be one hell of a story.
“When I was twelve, my father started molesting me. It continued until he and my mother divorced. He manipulated me, told me that my mother would never believe me. That she would hate me, and think I was a horrible person. That she would disown me. I believed him at first. After a while, he began to threaten me by telling me he would make Amber his ‘special girl.’ I couldn’t let that happen. So, I did what he told me to do. I made the sounds he wanted me to make. I pretended to like it so that he would get done faster and leave me alone.”
The air was still in the room. Griff stopped breathing. His world came to a crashing halt. This was so much worse than he had imagined. He knew she had been hurt, had assumed she had been taken advantage of by a boyfriend that liked it a little rough or something. Maybe even had suffered some physical abuse at his hands.
But this…this was beyond what he was prepared for, more than he could comprehend or even handle. “Jesus H, Rissa.” He pulled his hand down his face, buying him some time as he struggled to find the right words to say. Nothing was coming to mind, and he knew she was starting to pull back into her cocoon, trying to find a safe place.
He stood and began to pace. His mind was racing, trying to make sense of it all. The man he had trusted enough to go into business with had betrayed the woman he was falling in love with, in the worst way imaginable. It was all falling into place now. She was afraid of the dark, had talked about a monster that visited her in the night. How had he missed the references? She hated her father. Constantly told Griff how the man he knew was vastly different than the one she had grown up with.
That was the understatement of the century.
He dropped to his knees next to her as she sat on the couch. Reaching his hand up, he caressed her face. “This changes nothing, Rissa. My feelings for you haven’t changed one bit. I promise you. But I have to go yell and cuss and hit something really hard. I need to wrap my head around this in the only way I know how.” He lean
ed his forehead against hers. “I’ll be back. Please, please be here. I don’t want this to come between us. Promise me that you’ll give me this time to go blow off some steam - especially since I can’t hunt your father down and kill the motherfucker.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. She nodded, whispering, “Okay, I promise.” She held onto his arm as he started to rise. “I’m so, so sorry, Griff.”
He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “Baby, you have nothing in the world to be sorry for - nothing.”
He turned and walked out the door, grabbing his leather jacket on the way out. Pulling the motorcycle out onto the road, he headed for the only open stretch of highway that would be mostly clear at this time of the day. He needed unobstructed speed. He needed the bite of the cold air stinging his face. He needed to rage against a man that he owed so much to for bringing Rissa into his life, but who had violated her so horribly. It was a cruel fucking joke, made only more poignant because he couldn’t beat the hell out Brad Beckett.
Rissa deserved so much more. She deserved the chance to exact revenge on the man. To make his life a living hell - the same sentence he had imposed on a trusting little girl.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was getting darker with every tick of the clock. Griff still hadn’t returned. She got off the couch and walked into the kitchen. Rummaging through the cabinets, she finally found the essentials necessary to make a pot of coffee. Just as she filled the water reservoir and pushed start, her phone started ringing. She quickly pulled it from her back pocket.
Her shoulders dropped as she peered at the caller ID. Damn! She pressed the answer button.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, Sweets. I was just checking on you to see how things are going.” Tension and apprehension flowed through the phone all the way from Colorado.
“I wish I knew,” Clarissa answered, and dropped into a chair at the kitchen table.
“Have you had a chance to talk to Griff?”
“Yes, I told him everything.” She knew she was frustrating the hell out of her mother by being intentionally vague, but she was not in the mood to talk. She needed to see Griff, look into his eyes and see that everything was going to be okay between them. Until that happened, she was in limbo and didn’t want to talk about it.
“And?” Her mother’s voice remained even. Clarissa was convinced the woman was the closest thing to a saint sometimes.
“And he took off. He jumped on his motorcycle and I haven’t seen him since. This is going to turn out to be Dad’s last laugh. I finally find a guy I am absolutely crazy about, who - up until now - got me. Accepted me, and didn’t push me. The goddam perfect guy, and now, with four simple words, Dad has run him off. I mean, you gotta give the man credit. He’s able to shoo off boys from the grave. That’s fucking talent! The bastard is going to haunt me for the rest of my life!”
Somewhere during the conversation, her voice had elevated. She was almost yelling which is why she hadn’t heard the door from the garage open and close. She turned and was caught in Griff’s bemused smirk.
“Mom, I gotta go.” She hung up the phone without another thought. “Hey,” she directed at Griff, trying her hardest to keep her voice on an even keel.
“Hey.” He walked past her towards the coffee pot. “You made coffee.”
“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? It’s freakin’ freezing out.”
She watched as he took two mugs from the cupboard and poured coffee into both. Facing her, he handed a her a cup. He took a couple of tentative sips. It was driving her crazy. He was acting like nothing at all had happened. Like she hadn’t just spent the better part of the last two hours fretting over whether or not he would come back tonight. And she was still worried that he was going to ask her to finish her coffee and leave. Oh, and by the way - don’t bother ever coming back.
She had just about reached her limit of trying to remain calm and cool and was ready to explode when he placed his cup on the counter. Running his finger across his lower lip, his eyes pierced her. She couldn’t breathe, just stood there waiting for whatever was going to come next.
“So, I’m the perfect guy, huh?”
She let out more than just her breath. Tension, anxiety, stress - all of it was gone as soon as he smiled at her.
“You eavesdrop on an entire conversation, and that’s all you came away with?” She feigned disgust but he just chuckled. Closing the distance between them, he pulled her arms from where they wrapped protectively across her chest.
“That and the part where you said you’re crazy about me.” He lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, moving to her palm and pressing it hard against his mouth. He pulled her into his body, one hand firm against her lower back, the other pushing the hair away from her face. “Baby, your father can’t hurt us - he can’t hurt you. He’s rotting in hell, exactly where he belongs. But the two of us are solid. He can’t touch us.”
“Where have you been? Why were you gone for so long?” Her hand was over his heart, and she could feel his warmth flood her with every beat.
“I drove around for the first hour, then I went out to the cliffs and said ‘fuck’ a lot, pretty loudly, too. Then I sat on the rocks and thought shit through. It kills me - what he did to you. It’s horrible and wrong, and incomprehensible. And I hate the man for putting you through hell. But what I feel for him doesn’t mean I feel differently about you, Rissa.
“I was also struggling with feeling like crap for ever becoming partners with him. But I think things happen for a reason. At least, that’s what Gram is always saying. The partnership with your dad was only supposed to lead me to you. You are my prize. Because of you, I see things differently. I appreciate things that I took for granted. I slow down, savor every single moment I have with you. Gram is always saying every rain cloud has a silver lining, and I’m not trying to diminish what he did to you by claiming it’s simply a rain cloud. The shit happened, though, Riss, but because it did, we found each other. I’m so happy I have you - in all your fuckedupness - that I can’t regret entering into that partnership with him. And that messes with my head a little bit.” He dropped his forehead against hers.
She struggled to find words that would come close to being as beautiful as his, but found it hard to even speak, let alone form coherent sentences. “God, you’re amazing,” she whispered. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yeah, you do. You deserve everything good and wonderful in this world after the hell you’ve been through, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see that you get it.”
“I have everything good and wonderful in this world, Griff. I have you.” She pressed her lips to his and wrapped her arms around his neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Clarissa was up early the next morning. She lay in bed next to Griff for a while, watching him sleep. It was amazing, really, to consider how far they had come in such a very short time. She had never allowed herself to consider a deeply intimate relationship with a man. Even when she was with Colin, she knew it would never last. There was only so much she could give. Until Griff opened her eyes to all the possibilities he could offer her - all the things she was too afraid to even dream about for her own happiness.
He was sleeping so soundly and she knew he needed the rest. The emotional toll that came with learning she had been her own father’s sexual victim had hit Griff extremely hard. She could see the frustration he felt at not being able to confront the monster, slay the dragon, but it was too late for that now. Her father had gotten off easy, crashing his plane into the ocean. If all this had come out while he was alive, there would have been a long line of people waiting for their chance to torture the bastard.
It took some effort to get out from under Griff as he wrapped himself around her. She closed the bedroom door behind her and padded down the hallway in his heavy wool socks. She was going to have to go shopping for more clothes. Her week’s worth of outfits
was not going to cut it much longer. She started a pot of coffee and sat at the kitchen table, writing a list of things she needed to get done.