by Nicole Helm
With Kyle’s help.
Grace squeezed her eyes shut. Okay, maybe she didn’t have it as together as she wanted, but she was working on it. Regardless, it was her problem and her burden to bear. Not Jacob’s, not her family’s and most certainly not Kyle’s.
“It’s important that someone’s looking after you,” Kyle added, as if that helped the situation.
It didn’t. She hadn’t spent the past seven years working on herself so her baby brother had to look after her. She hadn’t taken up temporary residence here to make anyone’s life more complicated. She might not feel comfortable being alone yet knowing Barry was free, but being babysat? That was what she was trying to get away from.
“I do not need looking after,” Grace said, trying to remain calm. Trying to keep her emotions under control. She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “I appreciate the concern.”
Kyle and Jacob exchanged frowns.
“Go on your business trip, Jacob. I don’t know why we’re even discussing this. It’s not different from when you were dating Candy and weren’t ever here.”
“But that was different, and the reason I broke up with Candy was so I could...” He clamped his mouth shut.
Right. Apparently it was because of her. Fantastic.
Kyle took a step forward as if to stand between her and Jacob, but when he spoke, it was to Jacob, not to her. “Your parents have backed off. Perhaps...”
“I think they need more time. They’re backing off because I’m here. If she was alone, they’d harp all over again.”
Grace’s stomach cramped. In other words, nothing would ever be normal. A hard realization she didn’t have the stomach for right now.
“Don’t you have an aunt who lives in Ohio or something? Maybe she could visit.”
Grace could honestly not believe what she was hearing. “Uh, hello?”
Two clueless pairs of eyes blinked at her.
“You know I’m right here, right? I didn’t suddenly become invisible. I’m here. Older than both of you, or do I not have the equipment required for your little ‘what to do with Grace’ club?”
“Grace, come on. We’re trying to figure out what to do, to keep you safe.”
“I’m not your problem to solve. Not the crazy wife in the attic you worry over what to do with or who to ship me off to. I’m a person, and I can take care of myself and keep myself safe. Coming here was not about having a bodyguard, it was about getting Mom and Dad to ease up on the worry and because you have a security alarm. I can absolutely take care of myself.” Couldn’t she? She wasn’t even sure, but letting them know that was even worse than being unsure.
“You’re not a problem, Gracie. I just—”
She held up a hand. “Enough. You go do whatever business you have to do. And don’t you dare ask anyone to watch over me like I’m some kind of incapacitated loser. I’ll handle it.”
“You’re overreacting.” Kyle said, his calm, detached way of talking irritating the crap out of her. “This isn’t about you being ‘incapacitated.’ I want...” He stopped himself, cleared his throat. “We want you to be safe.”
She blinked at him, but he looked away. He hadn’t said we. He’d said I. Jacob was giving Kyle a weird look, too, so Grace knew it hadn’t been her imagination. He’d said he wanted her to be safe.
And what did that mean?
Jacob shook his head. “Kyle’s right. We want you to be safe.”
“My safety isn’t dependent on you being here or not being here.” It was dependent on the guy who’d beaten her into a coma and who was recently released from prison.
She turned away from them. “I’ll be fine here. You go on your trip. Kyle will go to his meetings. When no one’s here to watch out for the incapacitated loser, the alarm will be on and all will be fine.”
“She’s right,” Kyle said. “Um, not the loser part. The ‘all will be fine’ part.”
“Yeah, and it wouldn’t be hard to schedule it so someone is always here. If you’re at your meeting, Leah or Kelly or Susan or—”
Grace groaned as loud as she could and pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“What?”
“You don’t get it! You just... You’re infuriating. Both of you. Get out. Go plan your little ‘keep Grace on lockdown’ schedule elsewhere.”
Jacob’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it halfway out, glanced at the screen and cursed. “It’s Jeff Stein from Council Bluffs.” He pulled the phone completely into his palm, then frowned at Grace. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“Will we, Dad?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it with a scowl. Swiping his finger across the phone screen, he stepped out of the room.
So she was left with Kyle. He stared at some spot on the wall, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “I apologize if you feel that we were being...insensitive. It wasn’t our intention to make you feel like you didn’t have a say. That’s why we came to you.”
“And discussed it as if I weren’t even there.”
“That wasn’t our intent. I’m sorry if it was our execution.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Can’t you just say you’re sorry like a normal person?”
“Probably not.”
“I should go home. Coming here was supposed to be...” What? Supposed to be what? Easy? She wanted to laugh. Easy died a long time ago.
She liked it here. Beyond having people around, she liked the old house and the river views and spending her days painting instead of fending off drunk passes from Cabby’s regulars who stopped in to buy their dinner of a twelve pack. She was making friends. She was building this new life, bigger than the insular world she’d been living in for the past seven years.
She looked at her paintings. More than she’d done in the past six months at home. Everything was more here.
It was still scary. It was still hard. But she wouldn’t allow Jacob to make her into his or Kyle’s burden, and she wouldn’t let someone else think it was his responsibility to watch out for her. If Jacob felt that he had to control her life behind the scenes, it was time to get out. Go somewhere else.
Yeah, just keep running, Grace.
Tears threatened because, God, she was so tired of this fear she tried desperately to ignore.
“You have a very tight-knit family that cares for one another,” Kyle said in a quiet, even voice, apparently not taking her turned back as a cue to leave.
“Yeah, so?” Since he couldn’t see her face, she quickly brushed away the tears on her eyelashes.
“So perhaps you could give Jacob a break.”
She didn’t understand how he could make it sound so ambivalent, not recriminating or disdainful, simply a suggestion. Like what to eat for dinner. “You do realize I am older than both of you. That penis between your legs doesn’t magically make you the protector of all female kind.”
“No, but perhaps it gives us an illusion of such.”
She turned and blinked at him. “Was that a joke?”
“Perhaps.” He was even almost kind of smiling. Just a hint of what a full-blown smile might look like on Kyle.
She laughed. What else was there to do? Kyle was joking with her. Kyle. Joking. With her. Almost smiling. Had anything more bizarre happened than this?
“As much as you want to pretend you’re here to give your parents a break, I think we both know that’s not altogether true.” His tone was level, grave and very quiet. No one could have heard him if they weren’t inside her room. The words made something in her chest hitch, so she looked out the window to the river below.
But Kyle did something she hadn’t expected at all. He stepped next to her. So close their shoulders were almost touching. “If you were well and truly in control of this, you wouldn’t be afraid to be alone. No one could
possibly blame you for being afraid.”
“It’s not about...that.” Sad, but admitting it in words she was afraid she felt like a failure, and even if Kyle knew the truth, she didn’t want to vocalize it. “I could be alone if I had to.”
Kyle’s silence egged her on. “I could. I’ll have to be eventually, you know.” She swallowed at the thump of fear in her throat. “It’s not about being afraid or not being afraid. It’s about being treated like a child. Like I’m not smart enough or strong enough or—”
“No one thinks that.” His eyes met hers for the first time. A serious, determined blue. Her heart shivered in response.
“Deciding what to do with me without even asking while I’m standing right there says otherwise.”
“Point taken.” Something she couldn’t read flashed in his expression and he looked down at his hands. “Jacob wants to protect you because he cares about you. That need to protect isn’t trying to diminish your intelligence or strength.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You care about me? You want to protect me?”
He straightened, stepped away from the window and her, and completely ignored the question. “Do I need to apologize further? Because I’d really like to get back to work.”
Grace turned and studied Kyle’s impassive face. He’d said it, hadn’t he? I want you to be safe. He’d fixed it, but too late for it not to mean something. “I’m beginning to think you like having me around.”
His expression went dark, tense. “If I had my way, you would have never been here in the first place.”
Grace lifted her chin. If he wanted to take a shot at her, so be it. “And why didn’t you want me here, Kyle? Because I ruin your perfect life of order with all my silly questions and poor wardrobe?”
“It’s not about you. Per se.”
Grace laughed bitterly. “Per se.” She should go. Open her mouth and say she’d be back in Carvelle by bedtime, but she didn’t want to. Damn it. And Kyle did have a point. No matter how threatened she felt by their machinations, Jacob didn’t mean to belittle her in the process. It was just the dumb way men’s minds worked.
Except Jacob was her brother. The protecting made sense. Half the time Kyle acted as though he couldn’t even tolerate her. “Can I ask you something?”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to like the question.”
“Probably not.” Grace studied him, standing near the far wall, as separate from her as he could get and still be in the room. He was all pressed and polished in khakis and a button-down shirt. Spick-and-span Kyle. Mr. Businessman. Only Mr. Businessman looked a little scared and a lot wary.
“You know I like you. I’ve made it pretty clear I’m attracted to you, and sometimes I think we’re on the same page. But you’re hard to figure, and maybe I’m reading into things. So what’s the deal?”
He swallowed, visibly, audibly, but his gaze met hers, very seriously. “Grace, we shouldn’t.”
Grace took a few test steps toward him and he very subtly backed away. She might not be totally sure and strong when it came to being alone and independent. Yet. But she wasn’t going to be shy and retiring and wait around for an answer to magically appear when it came to her and Kyle.
There was something there. Something that didn’t scare her. He wanted her to be safe. Hell if she wasn’t going to take that opportunity when it was given to her. “We shouldn’t what? Be honest?”
“Shouldn’t...discuss this.”
“Why not? I’m a little over the whole ‘tiptoeing around it’ thing, and I think we’ve established I’d like to be part of the decision-making when it comes to my life.”
His chest expanded and he let out a loud breath. “It doesn’t matter what I feel. It can’t.”
Wasn’t that interesting. Not that he wasn’t interested, but that it didn’t—couldn’t—matter if he was. Grace smiled. She liked that.
She crossed the room, keeping her eyes on his. It was so obvious he wanted to back away, but the challenge in her eyes kept him in place. He even tilted his chin up, challenging her back.
Some of that challenge died away when she got close enough to touch, and she would have kept on going until they were touching, but his hands clamped on her shoulders. He held her there, at arm’s length, but he didn’t put her back a step.
Since Grace couldn’t think of anything pithy to say, she didn’t say anything. She kept her gaze level on his, but when his eyes drifted to her mouth, her whole stomach flipped. A shiver of excitement skittered over her skin.
“I wish you wouldn’t push this.”
But she wanted to push. It was something far more appealing than dealing with the fact that she hadn’t gotten over all her fears in seven long-ass years. Far more appealing than dealing with her brother thinking he had the right to play puppeteer in her life just because she hadn’t totally recovered from her trauma.
“I’m not pushing anything. If you don’t feel anything for me, walk away.”
He didn’t. Indecision played all over his face. From what she knew about Kyle, she imagined there was quite the internal war going on inside that all-too-active brain of his, but she could wait it out.
She knew what his lips would feel like on hers, but just the faintest of touches. She had a vague sense of what he would taste like, but their kiss from a few days ago had been so brief, so totally on her that it had really just been a teaser, an appetizer.
And now she was really interested in the main course.
His hands smoothed down her arms and she thought he was going to let her go, walk away as she’d suggested, but his hands stayed on her elbows, his eyes still on her mouth.
She took the final step to him so they were standing hip to hip, chest to chest. She could hear and see him swallow, but when she tilted her head up, he brushed his mouth across hers. Tentative at first, much like the other night, but when she put her hands on his hips, inching just a bit closer, his mouth pressed to hers firmly.
Everything in her brain fizzled to a stop. When his hands traveled back up her arms, stopped at her neck and pulled closer, her stomach flipped again. And again. The skin on her neck, under the heat of his palms, tightened into goose bumps.
A jittering heat Grace hadn’t felt in a long time began to center itself, and when Kyle’s tongue traced her bottom lip, she opened her mouth eagerly, deepening the kiss, deepening the shivery feeling along every place their bodies came into contact.
She’d wanted more than the little playful brush of mouths from a few nights back, and boy, oh, boy was she getting it. She nipped at his lip, arched against him. Oh, yeah, this was definitely more.
She wasn’t sure what had changed, what had made Kyle inevitably come to his annoying senses, but he pulled away. Grace sighed at the look of utter horror on his face. Way to ruin a moment.
He cleared his throat, dropped his hands as if she were suddenly too hot to touch. Hell, by the heated response of her body, maybe she was.
“Grace.” He shook his head, raked an unsteady hand over his short hair. “This is more complicated than just...”
She had no interest in hearing his excuses or his apologies right now, so she sidestepped him and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“This whole ‘Jacob being gone for three days’ thing might have its advantages.” She grinned, but because she wasn’t feeling as flirty and light as she wanted to, she sauntered past him, not waiting for his response. She needed space, and she wouldn’t get it in the place she’d just kissed him.
Been kissed by him.
Despite the state of everything, when she heard Kyle mutter an oath behind her, she chuckled. Oh, she was getting in over her head, but it was awfully fun.
* * *
KYLE STOOD FROZEN in Grace’s room. His
gaze was trained on one of her paintings, but he didn’t really see it.
He saw Grace.
He’d kissed her. Really kissed her. That had to rank pretty high in the list of mistakes he’d made in his life.
He could try to convince himself she’d goaded him into it, and in a way, she had. But she hadn’t kissed him first and she hadn’t forced his hand. He’d simply kissed her. Of his own accord.
He forced himself to move out of her room, away from the smell of paint and sunshine. In his office, he tried to focus on his computer, but he thought about the kiss.
The kind of kiss one didn’t just forget. The kind of kiss that kept a man up at night wondering what was next.
“Nothing is next. Nothing.”
“Who are you talking to?”
Kyle jumped what felt like a foot. “Uh, just...thinking aloud.” He cleared his throat, swiveled away from Jacob so he could avoid eye contact.
“Where’s Grace?”
“She, uh, went downstairs. I think. I mean, I assume.”
“You smooth things over with her?”
Kyle swallowed. “Um. Yes.” He kept staring at his computer and could only hope Jacob wasn’t reading him like a pathetic open book.
“Maybe we can postpone the trip?”
Yes. That was exactly what they should do. Postpone it until Grace was no longer a houseguest and there was no possibility that he’d be alone in a house with her.
Coward. To postpone the trip would be to risk the job. If they wanted to expand, risking wasn’t an option. “No. No, you should go. I’m sure Grace will be fine. We’ll keep an eye on her.” Which she’d hate to hear him say, but he couldn’t help it.
He did want her to be safe. Him. Alone. Regardless of his relationship to Jacob. He cared about Grace. Damn it.
Jacob sighed loudly. “Yeah. All right. Thanks for taking care of things, man.”
Kyle nodded, hoping Jacob never had any idea just how he had taken care of things. Or the things he was imagining taking care of.
In one breath he’d promised to take care of her, and in the next he’d thought of what she might feel like underneath him.