THE FIRE STILL BURNS

by Roxanne St Claire

  He let out a little breath and closed his eyes. "He might be a tough client."

  And then it hit her. Why hold back? Why fight for control over something that simply cannot be controlled?

  She squeezed his arm, and took a deep, courage-building breath. "I love you, Colin. I've loved you for as long as I can remember and I probably always will."

  His eyes widened and he started to speak, but suddenly Adrian was marching toward them, eyes blazing. He clamped his hand on Colin's shoulder and pulled him in the opposite direction.

  "For God's sake, man, time is money."

  She stood at the top of the steps, watching him disappear around the corner. But just before he did, Colin turned back.

  "I love you, too." He mouthed the words to her. Grace stood there for a full five minutes, trying to understand what had just happened.

  And then she went home to break her last promise.

  She needed a drink.

  * * *

  Twelve

  « ^ »

  It was nearly eleven when the cab pulled up to the red-brick building that matched the address in the phone book. Colin and his brothers had done their time with Gilmore, which had included a long dinner and a few stops around town. In a noisy Irish pub, Quinn had taken him aside and practically pushed him out the door.

  "Listen, we can handle this guy. You get your ass over to wherever she lives and do what you need to do, bro." Quinn's eyes burned with sincerity. "Trust me on this one. Once you find the one for you, you cannot let her go."

  Colin had answered with an arguably unmanly bear hug, and dashed into the street. The next minute he was shoving money at a surprised Boston cabbie, encouraging him to break a few laws if necessary in order to get to Dartmouth Street

  in record time.

  Colin stood in front of the small apartment building, peering up at the light on the third floor. Luck was with him again—or at least she had been that afternoon when he'd walked into a conference room and seen that amazing woman. And with a little more luck, that light was apartment 3A

  , Gracie was still awake, and she'd accept the offer he was more than prepared to make. He held the buzzer down and prayed he still had his lifelong good luck.

  An unfamiliar female voice answered, and he remembered Gracie had a roommate. Allie. When he told her his name, she hesitated, then buzzed him in. Taking the stairs two at a time, he was just about to knock when the door whipped open.

  A beautiful dark-haired girl gave him a dubious once-over, tugging at the ties of her bathrobe.

  He glanced down at her slippered feet. "Nice Tweeties," he said with what he hoped was a disarming smile. "Is Gracie here?"

  "She's, uh, indisposed, at the moment."

  Indisposed? "Can I wait for her?"

  She shrugged, holding the door open in invitation. "It could be a while. She was pretty far gone."

  "Far gone? Where'd she go?"

  The woman crossed the entryway and led him into a living room. She picked up a half-empty bottle of red wine and gave the label a cursory glance. "Somewhere in the Napa Valley."

  His jaw dropped. "Gracie? Drank wine?"

  "Yep. And it wasn't pretty." She set the bottle down and reached for his hand. "I'm Allison Powers, Grace's roommate."

  "Hi, Allie. Gracie's mentioned you. I'm—"

  "I know who you are. Mr. King Stud."

  "Excuse me?" He laughed at the suggestive way she said it, and remembered a time when Gracie had teased him with the name of a special lumber used for doors. "It's an architect's joke," he explained.

  Allie gave him a sly smile. "So I heard. Unfortunately, I was subjected to a whole string of bad building jokes. She's a veritable Frank Lloyd Wright doing stand-up after the first glass of wine."

  Oh, no. "The first glass?"

  He glanced around the living room, recognizing the sexy pink sweater dropped onto the floor, next to a pair of high heels. Oh, man. What happened to Gracie Harrington—virgin, teetotaler and neat freak?

  He happened.

  "Oh, yeah," Allie added, following his gaze to the floor. "She relieved herself of most of her clothes on glass number two."

  Great. Now she was stripping. "Is that when she … crashed?"

  Allie blew out an expansive breath as though it pained her to relay the story. "No. The third glass brought the expected onslaught of tears."

  His gut tightened. "She cried." So to top it all off, he'd broken her heart.

  "Cried? No, that wasn't crying, pal. That was a blubbering waterfall with terminal nose-blowing, full-body shuddering and some really nasty hiccups."

  He couldn't stand it anymore, literally having to hold himself back from tearing the little apartment to pieces until he found her and made everything right again. "I need to see her."

  Allie looked skeptical. "Well, she's been asleep for several hours. I guess…" She looked over her shoulder to the hallway, then back at him, her dark eyes narrow and accusing. "All I know is that one fairly together woman left here for Newport a month ago, but returned smashed into a million pieces."

  "Please," he said softly. "I can fix that."

  She regarded him for a minute, and then lifted one pouty lip into a half smile. "She probably won't remember, anyway." She pointed down the hall. "First door on the right. And, whatever you do, go easy on her with that load-bearing beam, buddy."

  Smiling, he passed her and headed straight to Gracie.

  The room was completely dark, the only sound the familiar rhythm of Gracie's breathing, broken by little quivering sighs on the exhale. His heart nearly folded in half.

  In the past four weeks, he'd had a lot of conversations with his brothers and one long heart-to-heart with Marguerite, but none of them could make him see what he'd seen this afternoon in a hotel conference room.

  A woman strong enough to hold her own against any level of competition. A woman proud enough to push the envelope and stand up against her manipulative father. A woman with enough control to know when to let go of it.

  A woman he loved.

  Kicking off his shoes, he slid into the bed next to her. She moaned as the weight of the mattress shifted, rolling over to curl one delicious leg around him. Oh, this was so right. So perfect. How could he ever think he could live without Gracie? Loving her was an honor. A privilege. A fact of his life.

  He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, immediately recognizing the worn cotton fabric of his ten-year-old T-shirt.

  He smiled into the darkness and wrapped an arm around her. "Well, what do you know? It's Gracie, sleeping it off in my CMU T-shirt." He kissed her head. "Feels like we've been here before, honey."

  She sighed softly, then resumed the steady breaths of sleep.

  "But last time, I blew it so bad because I let you go. I shouldn't have done that, Gracie. I should never have let you go ten years ago."

  "Mmm. Colin." His name tumbled off her lips as if she'd said it every day.

  He stroked her cheek, pushing a few wayward blond strands behind her ear. "I'll never make that mistake again, honey," he promised with another soft kiss on her cheek. "Because for the last four weeks, I've discovered a new law of design. Wanna hear it?"

  She remained still.

  "The whole world is two-dimensional without Gracie in it. There's no depth. No color. No angles or shapes." He kissed her softly. "I don't like that world, honey. I don't want to live without you."

  She inhaled and let out a long slow breath with a whisper of mint. He smiled at that. She hadn't completely changed. Only Gracie Harrington would get plowed on three glasses of wine and remember to brush her teeth before bed.

  "I came over to tell you I got the business," he whispered, curling a strand of her hair around his finger. "Adrian called it the best of both worlds. And he told me the whole story about your father and the three-week blind date they sent us on."

  Her breathing evened out and for a moment, he thought she might be awake. His eyes began to adjust to the dark and he co
uld see the outline of her beautiful face in repose.

  "Imagine that, your father thinking we belonged together."

  He heard the hitch in her breathing.

  "Funny thing is, we do." He inched her closer into his chest. "And I have a proposal for you." He waited for a reaction to his words, but there was none.

  "You did such a great job today. Your ideas were incredible and, man, you were killing me in that sweater."

  She flinched just enough for him to suspect she might have heard that. Hoping she had, he continued to whisper quietly in the dark.

  "I decided we ought to share this business, Gracie. In fact, I think we ought to make it completely official. Let's rebuild the mansion and create the house and … well, let's just do the whole thing together."

  He tunneled his fingers into her hair and tugged her head into the crook of his neck, so he could breathe his next sentence into her ear.

  "Let's merge, honey. One company. McGrath … and McGrath."

  He felt her body stiffen. She was awake. His pulse quickened, waiting for her response. "What do you think, Gracie?"

  "Either I'm still a little tipsy, or—" she moved her head out of his neck slowly, her eyes clouded with sleep "—I'm having the best dream in the world."

  God, she was beautiful. "This isn't a dream and you're sober enough. What do you think of my proposal?"

  "Did you say McGrath … and McGrath?"

  He lifted her chin so he could kiss her lips but before he did, he smiled. "I thought you'd change your name when you marry me, but you don't have to."

  He inched forward to kiss her but she backed away. "Are you asking me to marry you, Colin?"

  "Honey, I'm not asking, I'm begging." He tightened his embrace and closed his eyes. "I love you, Gracie. I want to spend every day of my life showing you how much I love you."

  "Ah, Colin. I love you, too." Her eyes glistened in the dark. "And I'll never hurt you. I'll never betray you or leave you … or stop loving you."

  "I know, honey." He swallowed the lump in his throat once and for all. "I know."

  She sighed and snuggled back into him. "Please don't ever let me wake up from this dream."

  "You better wake up. Because we have stuff to build."

  "What kind of stuff?"

  "Edgewater. Pineapple House. A business." He paused and held her tighter. "A family. A future. Our life together."

  She sighed, resting her head against his chest. His solitary life was over. He'd found the woman he loved.

  "When do we start?" she asked.

  He slipped his hand under the T-shirt and touched the warm silk of her skin. "Now."

  She moaned softly and arched into his body. "On one condition," she whispered, closing her mouth over his earlobe and fluttering the earring with her tongue.

  "Anything," he promised as she tugged on the leather strap to free his hair.

  She eased her body on top of him, finding that singular place where they melted together. "No rules."

  He started to laugh but she quieted him with one long lusty kiss, and then they broke every rule they could remember.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  « ^

  Somewhere in the midst of spring-green leaf buds, a robin chirped its morning song. Grace closed her eyes for a moment, imagining that it was the spirit of Marguerite Deveraux, her tiny voice calling out in appreciation for the gathering that had formed for the groundbreaking of Pineapple House.

  They stood in a small circle under the ancient elm tree—Colin and Grace, Quinn and his new bride, Nicole, and Cameron. A cool April breeze wafted over Grace's shoulder, and Colin automatically wrapped an arm around her.

  "I guess it's time," he said quietly.

  Cameron nodded, bending over to carefully lay the pineapple shaped container into the deep hole that had been dug. It was so fitting that all three McGrath brothers had arrived for the service. The legal and real estate battles they'd waged in the past seven months had been won by an astounding combination of their skills and wit. They clearly had the genes of a Restoration Rebel living in them, and Pineapple House would be built only because of their joint determination to realize their grandmother's dream.

  The formal groundbreaking, with the first official shovel of dirt being dug by Adrian Gilmore, would start in about an hour, when the cameras arrived and the Burger Boy billionaire's public relations machine took over.

  But this ceremony was a private one. For Marguerite. For family.

  Grace's family now. The McGraths. It would be official when they married in a few months, the first ceremony scheduled to take place in Pineapple House. But these men already felt like brothers to her.

  As she thought of the tiny woman they'd lost a few weeks earlier, Grace's eyes filled with tears of sadness and joy.

  "She was a quiet storm," Colin said, his arm tightening around Grace. "I learned so much from her."

  Quinn swallowed and Grace saw his fingers curl around Nicole's hand. "Thanks for finding her, Colin. She was a real gift to us."

  Cameron started to say a familiar prayer, and they all softly joined in. As she spoke, something caught Grace's eye, a movement from behind the gate of the Edgewater driveway. No one else seemed to notice, but Grace stole a look, hoping that the locals and media weren't planning to arrive too early for the groundbreaking.

  Leaning to her right to see past Quinn, Gracie saw an older woman at the gate, with salt-and-pepper hair and a careworn face. As their gazes locked, another chill rose over Grace's arms. This one not caused by the breeze.

  The dark-brown eyes were eerily familiar. They were Marguerite's eyes. Colin's eyes.

  Cameron's voice faltered. Grace looked up and saw him staring at the same woman. The color drained from his chiseled features, his eyes flashed midnight blue.

  When she looked back to the gate, the woman was gone.

  Grace knew who it was. One more member of the family had tiptoed back to Newport to see her three sons lay her mother to rest.

  Cameron finished the prayer without any other change in his expression, but she saw him look several times toward the gate.

  So their mother had made an appearance but couldn't bring herself to talk to her sons. The thought ripped Grace's heart and she leaned into Colin.

  He smiled down at her, his eyes moist at the loss of his beloved Marguerite. Their shared look spoke the words they were both thinking. I love you.

  Grace dropped her head against Colin's shoulder and made her silent promise to Marguerite. She would spend the rest of her life loving this man, making him whole, healing his wounds and tending to any new ones that life threw their way.

  She would always, always be the woman he loved.

  * * * * *