by Bay, Louise
“Amanda, you shouldn’t ask people such personal questions,” Max said.
“Why not? It’s just Grace. She asks me much more personal questions.”
I curled my hand around the edge of the countertop, hanging on to I didn’t know what. I needed something solid—something to be sure of. The ache for something that had gone before grew and grew.
I tried to refocus on the conversation around me.
“You’re right. I do ask you personal questions and there shouldn’t be a double standard,” Grace replied. “Sam and I haven’t known each other very long, but maybe someday.”
Surely Grace understood I wasn’t that man, the one who could commit. I couldn’t give her three children, a house filled with love and laughter and chaos. It was too much to be responsible for.
Too much to lose.
“Excuse me,” I said as my stool scraped against the slate floor of the kitchen. “I’ll get our bags out of the car.” I needed some air. Some distance from a life I could never give Grace. I wasn’t the man who deserved her.
I was anything but.
* * *
“I’m sorry for saying that earlier,” Grace said as we shut the door to the pool house. “About marriage, I mean. I know we’re going a million miles an hour and—”
“Hey,” I said, pulling her into my arms. As much as what she’d said had unsettled me, she shouldn’t be apologizing “You have nothing to be sorry for. I like knowing how you feel about these things.” I moved us toward the bed and pushed her onto her back.
She pulled at my shirt until I was leaning over her. “Did I freak you out?”
“You didn’t say anything wrong. Why would I freak out?” I wanted to protect her from my fears.
She grinned as she scraped her nails over my scalp absentmindedly. Her touch went straight to my cock. Every. Time. I had to slow this down—tell her I couldn’t give her what she wanted.
I groaned, rolled away and presented her with an opportunity. Straddling me, she settled on top of me, and my dick hardened four layers beneath her pussy.
“Are you telling me you’ve thought about marrying me?” she asked as she moved her hips back and forward.
“No, I haven’t.” It was the truth and she deserved that. Her smile faltered, just a fraction. “But you’re the only woman I’ve ever cared about in this way.”
She stopped rocking and tried to move, but I grabbed the tops of her thighs and held her in place. “Talk to me. Is marriage what you’re looking for?”
“Not for the sake of it,” she said, her gaze fixed to my chest.
“I don’t understand. Do you want a family, the children, the chaos—all the responsibility? Is that what you see for yourself?”
“For myself and the man I love.” She looked at me from under her eyelashes. Was she saying she loved me?
“No, Grace.” I released her thighs and moved her off me and sat up. “I’m not a man you should love.” I pushed my hands through my hair. Didn’t she understand? That wasn’t what this was between us.
“What do you mean, you’re not a man I can love?” she asked from behind me. The bed moved as she shifted and I felt the warmth of her hands on my shoulders. I stood to avoid her touch.
I couldn’t do this. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking getting involved with a woman—allowing myself to care about someone, for someone to care about me. I’d known it could only end in disaster.
“Surely I get to choose who I love?” Her voice was harder than before, her tone more challenging.
I couldn’t look at her. Instead I pulled out my overnight bag and began to pack. I needed to leave. Get back to my apartment—be on my own. “I’m just saying you can’t chose me. And if you do . . .”
“What? You’re going to leave me? Because I love you?”
The hints were gone. She’d said it. “Don’t say that. You can’t love me. And I can never love you.”
Something hit me on the head—a shoe maybe. “You’re an asshole, Sam Shaw.” Her voice cracked on my last name. “You’ve spent the last few months being the best man I’ve ever known after my father.” It took all my strength not to look at her as she began to sob. I wanted to make her feel better, to pull her into my arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but it wasn’t. I stayed silent.
“What am I supposed to do? Just ignore how wonderful you are—how special you make me feel? I love you. And if you don’t love me then we’ll go our separate ways, but you can’t tell me not to love you.”
The more she used that word—love—the weaker I became. I hated that I liked hearing it so much. She slammed the bathroom door and I could hear her sobbing on the other side. Our separate ways. Her words woke something in me. I wasn’t sure I could give her up.
I dropped the jeans I was holding and sank onto the chair at the end of the bed, clutching my head. As much as I didn’t want it to be true, the fact that Grace loved me hadn’t caused my world to come tumbling down—not yet. But it would eventually, right?
Her sobs echoed around the bathroom. I hated hearing her crying. More, I hated I had caused her tears.
Shit. What was I going to do? I owed her the truth. I had to tell her how I felt.
I stood and headed to the bathroom, gently knocking on the door. “Grace,” I called, “I’m sorry.” Should I open the door? We’d never argued before, not like this. “Can I come in?” She didn’t answer, which wasn’t a no. I turned the knob, sagging in relief that she hadn’t locked me out. Not physically, anyway, though that might have been better for both of us.
Grace sat on the edge of the bath, her head bowed. I hated seeing her sad. I wasn’t used to it. I loved basking in her confidence and smiles, loved the way she’d wickedly flick her hips or cock her head to one side in a challenge. “Grace, I’m not trying to fuck you over here.”
She stayed completely still.
I sat next to her, pressing my thigh to hers. Even though it had only been seconds without feeling her, it was still too long. “I’m sorry. This is just—”
“Too much. I knew it.” She got up abruptly and I grabbed her wrist.
“Let me finish. I know I’ve upset you, but you have to let me explain. Coming here . . . it’s brought up a lot of stuff for me.”
Her body went limp and she stood expectantly in front of me.
“Stuff about my parents. Things I never even think about because the memories cut like thousands of tiny blades.”
“What kind of things?” she asked, her voice neutral, as if she were keeping herself limber and ready to run in whatever direction would protect her best.
I wanted her to know everything, but I didn’t want to have to tell her, didn’t want to go through the agony of saying the words. It was why my friendship with Angie was always so easy. She knew, and always had.
“Being here reminds me of my childhood home. The place I lived before my parents died.” I took a deep breath, wanting to steady myself. “It’s just brought up some memories that I’ve spent a long time trying to forget.”
“You never talk about them,” she said, her body relaxing slightly against mine.
“I know, but it’s not just you. I don’t talk with anyone about this anymore. My parents aren’t ever coming back, so it always seemed easier to forget they were ever there in the first place.” I rested my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I didn’t want to do this, but she deserved to hear it. “When I think about what I had—everything I lost—the pain comes back.”
Her thigh brushed against mine again and she smoothed a hand down my back. It was such a gentle touch, but it ripped me open.
“I lost my whole world when my parents died. I felt like I was being punished for something I didn’t do, sent to jail for crimes I hadn’t committed. Their deaths were unjust and the consequences just as unmerited.”
She pressed her lips to my shoulder, soothing me with a simple gesture. She’d become so special to me. How had I let that happen?
<
br /> “Forgetting about them was my escape. I never wanted to go through anything like that again—and I’ve made sure I haven’t. Unwittingly, I made a vow never to love anyone again.”
“But you care about me, Sam, I know you do. I feel it.”
I reached for her hand, still unable to look at her but wanting to reassure her anyway. “I do. But it wasn’t something I was looking for, and it wasn’t a choice.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
The last thing I wanted to do was make her unhappy. “Of course you should. I had no idea seeing Max and Harper’s family would bring back so many memories for me. And seeing you with them—you deserve the same kind of happiness.”
“You don’t want marriage or a family?”
Just the words sent my pulse spinning. “I’ve never thought that would be my journey.”
The silence between us grew, but neither of us moved until she released my hand and began grabbing at my shirt. “Lift your arms up,” she said, pulling the fabric over my head. “Here.” She traced my tattoo with her finger.
Wait and hope.
“That’s who you are. I know you’re an orphan, a victim, a child in mourning. But you’re an optimist, too. Don’t you see? The thing about the Count is that he might have had to wait years, he might have had to dig tunnels and fight pirates, but he finds his ultimate bliss at the end. Life is a storm, my love.”
Life is a storm, my young friend.
You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next.
What makes you a man is what you do when the storm comes.
You must look into the storm and shout as you did in Rome
Do your worst, because I will do mine.
“Storms will come, Sam, but I want us to face them together.”
I turned to her. “I want us to face the storms together too.” It was the only thing I was certain of. I didn’t know if I could give her a family, or a home like the one I’d had. But I could try.
* * *
I’d never gone fishing before, but now that Max and I were sitting in chairs on the riverbed, sipping beers and enjoying the fresh Connecticut air, I wondered why. “The peace is nice,” I said.
Max laughed. “Yeah. The house is so chaotic sometimes, it’s good to spend a couple of hours in silence.”
“But you like it,” I said. “The chaos?”
“Of course. I love my family, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still like to escape the crazy. That’s why we’re out here when it’s so damn cold.”
I glanced back at the clapboard house in the distance. The land Max and Harper’s home was built on led down to a river on a gentle slope. The leaves on the trees were gone, but their branches provided a chestnut-colored canopy over the clear calm water. It was a beautiful spot.
“My father and I used to come fishing to escape the three girls back home. Sometimes Violet joined us, but normally it was just me and my dad.”
“Does Harper mind?”
“Not at all. She counts the minutes I take out here and makes sure she gets her alone time, too.”
I laughed. “That seems fair enough.”
“It works for us both. But I also make sure Harper and I spend time together—it’s so easy for it to become all about the kids.”
Max shared his experiences as if he believed it was inevitable that Grace and I would start a family. For so many couples, it was the natural course of events. As much as I wanted to try to open up with Grace, I just didn’t think it would be easy after a lifetime of doing everything I could to avoid personal entanglements.
“It’s a lot of pressure.” I mumbled almost to myself.
“What is?” Max asked, snapping shut his box of fishing tackle.
“Clearly, having three kids has logistical challenges, but do you find yourself worrying about losing it all or something happening to one of them?” Were my fears irrational, brought on only because of what I’d experienced, or did everyone go through it?
Max’s brow furrowed as he tipped back his beer. “Every day. Amanda going to high school nearly killed me—all the exposure to drugs and alcohol, you know?” He squinted in the sunlight as he glanced across the water. “She’ll be driving in just over a year.” He sighed. “I have to try not to think about what the hell could happen to the babies. Harper may seem like she’s super cool with everything, but she’s anything but. A few weeks after Amber was born, I insisted on taking Harper to dinner while my mother was visiting.” He sat back in his chair. “Now, my mother has had three kids of her own, and she had Amanda with her. She can drive, use a phone and is far calmer than either Harper or me. But still, Harper cried all the way to the restaurant because she was terrified something horrible was going to happen to Amber in the two hours it was going to take us to eat dinner.”
He bent and fiddled with the fishing rod. “Being responsible for another human being is the scariest thing you’ll ever do, but it’s also the most rewarding.” Max smiled. “It’s a legacy, and infinitely more important than any business you might build.”
I took another gulp of my beer, finishing it off, and set the bottle down in the grass. I understood what he was saying, but I doubted he’d ever had to endure time in a group home. He would never understand the freedom that financial security brought—and that’s what my business had given me. “But I can control the success of my business to a certain extent—I can make decisions that keep my money safe. The same’s not true of people.”
Max didn’t say anything for a while. We were both content to watch the surface of the water, and the bob of the floats. “You a football fan?” he asked after a few minutes had passed.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Baseball? Any sports team?”
“Hockey. New York Rangers. You?”
“The Red Sox.”
“Really? In a land of Yankee fans?” I bet he kept that quiet in the office.
“What can I say? I like to take risks. I mean, Jesus, you’re a hockey fan. Anyway, you don’t follow a team knowing they’re going to win every time, do you?”
“Definitely not if you’re a Red Sox fan.”
He chuckled. “That’s life, isn’t it? There are no guarantees. But it’s something else when your team wins, right? You know you’re not going to win every year. You still support them through the rough times. Kids are the same. You know a lot of it is going to be hard, and you’re going to worry a lot. But it’s all worth it when they smile and tell you they love you. Trust me.”
My parents must have worried about me all the time. But they’d never let it show. They’d still taught me to ride a bike and cross the street. They knew they couldn’t protect me from everything and they didn’t try and stop me from going out into the world because they knew it was dangerous. Still, I understood now that my happiness was always their priority. And I was sure that if they were still alive they’d still want that—want me to love and be loved.
Had I been letting them down by keeping myself so closed off all these years?
And even if I was, could I risk my sanity, my heart, my life, with no guarantee life wouldn’t snatch everything I loved away from me? Again?
One thing was for sure, I’d survived loss once, but I wasn’t strong enough to do it twice.
Chapter Eighteen
Grace
“It’s so good to be home.” I kicked off my shoes before the door was even closed. The drive back from Connecticut had been almost twice as long as on the way out and I was ready for a bath and my bed.
“You didn’t have a good time?” Sam asked, taking my coat and hanging it up for me.
I grinned at what had become a habit of ours when we got back to Brooklyn. “Of course. But I’m always happy to come home.”
“Do you know what I missed?” Sam asked, stopping me from going into the kitchen and circling his arms around my waist, pushing his erection against my stomach.
�
��How long have you been in that state?” I asked.
He dipped his head and kissed my neck. “All weekend,” he replied. “It’s been torture.”
I giggled. “Thank you for not dry humping me in front of Max and Harper.” After our argument, sex hadn’t been on the agenda. But despite the lack of physical intimacy, after our discussion in the pool house about Sam’s parents, I felt we were closer than ever.
“Well, my control is up.” He walked me backward toward the bedroom. “I want to show you what you’ve been missing.”
As we walked, he pulled off my top and unzipped my skirt. I bounced as my ass hit the bed and watched as Sam stripped off in double time before me.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, standing on one leg as he peeled off his socks.
I shrugged. “Some guy.”
“Some guy who thinks you’re the most beautiful woman on the planet?” he asked as he stood naked, sliding his finger behind my knee. How could one touch in such an innocuous place get me so wet?
“Maybe,” I breathed. I’d told him I’d loved him and he’d freaked out. I could settle for him calling me beautiful for now. I knew he cared about me, and I had to be sensitive to how different our relationship was for him.
He leaned over, forcing my back to the mattress. Rather than drive me away as Sam had feared, the things he’d told me about his past only made me love him more. To have endured what he had as a child and be the man he was, floored me. I was in awe of him. “Some guy who is the most special man.”
“Some guy who’s going to work really hard at being the man you deserve,” he said.
My body and mind turned to jelly.
He placed small kisses from my stomach up between my breasts, then yanked down my bra straps, enveloping my hardened nipple with his tongue. My fingers threaded through his hair as he sucked and scraped, bit and licked. I twisted my hips in frustration. I needed him to know how wet I was. His palm spanned my belly, holding my hips to the mattress.
He released a nipple and looked up at me. “Is that the way your pussy asks for attention?”