Reprieve (Love's Second Chance Book 1)

by Scott,Scarlett

  “I don’t know if I can let them go yet,” she confessed. “I know that I’ve only been tormenting myself but strange as this may sound, I don’t know if I’m ready to accept that they’re never coming back.” She paused for a moment to gauge his reaction before continuing. “For weeks after the accident, I’d open Peter’s closet because it still smelled like him and that was my connection to him, you know? I used to fall asleep crying, holding Elizabeth’s favorite teddy bear. And then, one month ago, I hit rock bottom. I was so miserable I thought it would be better for everyone if I just ended it all.”

  Trevor’s other hand tightened on her waist as though he could keep her feet firmly planted on earth. His eyes deepened with worry.

  “But what about now, sweetheart?”

  What about now? Over the course of the past few weeks, Sophie had pushed most thoughts of her suicide attempt to the back burner. In a way, she hadn’t wanted to analyze either it or her sudden about-face. She merely wanted to wipe the proverbial slate clean. Initially, she had been dismayed by her failure to commit suicide, then embarrassed by her moment of ultimate personal cowardice. But if she were to be brutally honest with herself, she would have to acknowledge that Trevor was responsible for her rebound.

  And that was precisely it, she realized. He knew her in a way that transcended all boundaries, from time to grief. It was already impossible for her to imagine not having him in her life. The thought was almost terrifying because she was afraid losing him would undo her all over again.

  “Sophie?” Trevor broke into her troubled musings. “What about now?”

  “I know that killing myself isn’t the answer.” She wished there wasn’t so much obvious concern and tenderness reflected in his eyes. It was beginning to become apparent to her that she was growing entirely too dependent on him and that, she knew, would be a huge mistake.

  She disengaged herself from his embrace, crossing to the opposite end of the kitchen to put some space between them. She kept her back to him, knowing he watched her and knowing too that he understood her need to retreat. She gathered her emotions before turning to him once more.

  “I just don’t know what the answer truly is,” she told him, meaning the words.

  He laughed and raked a hand through his already charmingly disheveled hair. “Then you’re not alone. I don’t think anyone knows what the answer to life is. It’s just one big damn mystery.”

  An answering smile tugged at her lips. “You’re probably right. I dwell too much on trivialities, I know.”

  “You’re far too hard on yourself.” His tone was serious. “Claire told me you’ve been denying yourself even the smallest pleasures.”

  Sophie stiffened, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “She had no right to tell you anything.”

  She didn’t want to rehash the hell she’d been through, nor did she want Trevor to know her every weakness. He already knew too much, had crossed boundaries she’d never believed another man would cross with her. Besides, talking about her grief for her husband while she was on a semi-date with another man seemed awful and strange. And she had loved Peter with all her heart, despite the inexplicably overwhelming emotions she felt for Trevor.

  Trevor’s full lips had compressed into a thin line. “Regardless of whether or not Claire had the right to tell me, she did. Your sister is worried about you, Sophie and rightly so. My God, a month ago, you were so desolate you tried to kill yourself. Not that Claire knows it, of course, since you refuse to admit it.”

  “Telling her wouldn’t do any good now,” Sophie defended herself. “It would just upset her without reason.”

  Trevor shook his head. “Christ, you just can’t handle it, can you?”

  Suddenly, he was striding toward her, crowding her against the wall at her back. She tried to escape but he pressed his hands to the plaster on either side of her face, effectively caging her in. He was so tall and so muscular that he towered over her. As fleeing was not an option, she chose to brazen it out with him.

  “What can’t I handle?”

  “Laying your soul bare.” Some of his anger seemed to drain away as his gaze met hers once more. “You’re afraid to admit you need someone, afraid to admit you don’t know how to cope with your grief.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I didn’t tell Claire how miserable I was because, well, I don’t know. And what do you know about grief, anyway? Do you know what it’s like to have a normal life with a spouse you love and a daughter you adore and then have it all ripped away in fifteen seconds on some damn stretch of highway? Do you know what it’s like to have to pick out what you’re going to wear to the funeral of your husband and your daughter? Then to watch their caskets being covered with dirt, knowing that they’ll never come back, that your life as you knew it is over?

  “Or how about coming home every night to an empty house and thinking you hear their voices, or praying every day that it’s all a nightmare and you’ll wake up any second? Do you know what it’s like to look into the eyes of your friends and family and see only pity? Do you?”

  She realized belatedly she had been striking his chest to punctuate each anguished sentence and she was shaking with violent, pent-up emotion. He looked down at her as though he was seeing her for the first time. Her reaction had clearly startled him in its intensity. She waited to see the pity in his eyes too, waited to watch him spin on his heel and leave. But none of that happened.

  “No, sweetheart, I don’t know what any of those things are like. And believe me when I say it, sweetheart, I’m very sorry that you do. No one should have to go through what you did.”

  He was being understanding. Her anger crumpled like a wilted flower. Why, oh why did he have to react in the one way she needed? If he had been disgusted or angry, she could have gladly watched him leave her alone forever. Instead, he was endearing himself to her. It was almost as if he knew her better than she knew herself.

  She laid a palm over his chest, directly over the beating of his heart. “I’m sorry I hit you,” she whispered.

  “You needed to get that out of you.”

  He was right again. Sophie hadn’t acknowledged the anger hiding within her grief until now. She hadn’t even noticed its existence. Expelling it felt good, healing. Therapeutic. He was right about her being afraid to admit she needed someone too. Maybe the time had come for that to change.

  “Trevor?” She paused and took a deep breath. “I need you.”

  He caught her to him in a powerful embrace and brushed a kiss over the top of her head. “I’m beginning to think I need you too.”

  She wrapped her arms around his lean waist and smiled. At least one thing was right in the world.

  He pulled back and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “It’s getting late. I should leave. I’ve got a long drive ahead of me.”

  The mere mentioning of his leaving replaced the warm, comfortable glow radiating through her body with a sense of panic. She didn’t want to be alone. With a few exceptions, she had spent every night alone in this house for the past two years and she was sick to death of it. Of course, it was hardly in her character to ask a man she’d known for only a little over a month to spend the night at her house. In fact, she’d barely even noticed the existence of the opposite sex since Peter’s death. But this wasn’t just any man. This was Trevor. Trevor who had saved her life in more ways than one. Trevor with the knowing eyes and the tender concern for her. She knew instinctively she was safe with him.

  “Don’t go,” she said softly. “It’s late and we’ve both had a few glasses of wine. Besides, I have fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room upstairs.”

  Trevor gave her a half-smile. “You don’t need to worry about me. I only had one glass and I’m accustomed to the drive.”

  He didn’t understand her real reason for wanting him to stay the night. She caught one of his hands in hers, giving it a needy squeeze.

  “Please, Trevor,” she managed. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
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  He seemed to sense just how intense the emotion was that ran beneath the surface of what she was saying. He nodded, returning the squeeze. “If that’s what you want, Sophie, then I’ll stay.”

  “In the guest bedroom,” she reminded him nervously, just in case she had given him the wrong impression. She certainly wasn’t ready for that particular step with Trevor, not by a long shot.

  He flashed her a wry grin. “In the guest bedroom.”

  Trevor couldn’t sleep.

  He was flat on his back in Sophie’s comfortable guest bed, head buffeted by a fluffy feather pillow, staring blankly at the ceiling. It was a pleasant room, illuminated by the glow of a street light filtering in the window. The walls were a warm mocha color that complemented the polished hardwood floor and intricately carved antique bed. There was a wicker settee beneath one window, a claw-foot table beside the bed, and tastefully chosen prints adorning the walls. It was a perfect blend of elegance and hominess, with Sophie’s classic touch of refinement. In fact, every room in Sophie’s house looked like a page in one of the chic decorating magazines his sister Danielle was forever flipping through.

  A smile curved his lips. Leave it to Sophie. Her home was spotless and her life was anything but. He supposed that keeping her home in top order granted her at least some measure of control in her life, however small.

  Ah, Sophie.

  Trevor sighed. She was so close he’d heard the soft rustlings of her clothing when she had changed for bed earlier and could hear a slight creak of her bed every time she moved. He’d been plagued by vivid fantasies of Sophie shedding her clothes and slipping between the sheets. It was sheer hell to be this close to Sophie and not be able to take her into his arms as he desperately wanted to do. It was something akin to standing outside the pearly gates and being told you could only watch through the bars, not go inside.

  With a groan, Trevor rolled over onto his stomach and gave his pillow an irritable punch. At this rate, he would never get to sleep. Jesus, he didn’t think he’d ever been this sexually frustrated in his life. He could hardly believe it. She was a heartbroken widow, for God’s sake. What business did he have panting after her like a dog in heat? Trevor didn’t date emotional, picket-fence type women with long brown hair and gorgeous smiles. He dated women who were good in bed and knew when to move on. Sophie was the complete opposite and yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling she was somehow perfect for him.

  Oh, he could lie to himself and say it was pure lust that drove him to pursue her, but he was beyond believing it. There was no doubt Sophie was beautiful, with a curvaceous body that was every man’s dream, but there was far more to his attraction to her than a hard cock. She was lost and alone. Trevor wanted to chase the shadows from her eyes, make her smile and laugh, show her a whole new world beyond her sheltered life. He wanted to take her to New York with him, show her how much of life there was yet to be lived.

  It was damn hard to believe she had only come into his life a mere month ago. He’d never fallen so fast and so hard for a woman. If he had any sense of self-preservation, he’d skulk back to New York and wipe her from his mind. But he couldn’t do it. God, the look in Sophie’s eyes when she had told him she didn’t want to be alone had nearly undone him. It had been all he could do to keep from pressing her to the wall and ravaging her mouth with a hungry kiss. His common sense told him he needed to take it slow with Sophie or risk scaring her away. The trouble was, taking things slowly was eating him alive.

  His musings were suddenly interrupted by what sounded like soft whimpers coming from next door. Trevor held his breath, listening, certain his imagination had conjured up the sound when he heard it again, this time accompanied by a strident, “No!”

  Terrified that someone had broken into the house and was attacking Sophie in her bedroom, he shot out of bed and dashed next door. But when he flipped on the light switch, he was startled to find no one but Sophie shaking on her bed, apparently caught in the throes of a nightmare. He hovered at the doorway for a moment, hesitant to barge in and wake her up.

  She tossed and turned fitfully in her sleep, oblivious to the harshness of the light he had just turned on, the covers twisting around her body. “No!” she cried again. “I can’t get to them! Let me go. Let me go!”

  Trevor couldn’t bear to see her suffering. He strode across the room and gently shook her shoulder. “Sophie. Sweetheart, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

  She jerked to wakefulness, her eyes flying open, then blinking at the light shining into them. “Trevor?”

  Her voice sounded so lost and confused it was all he could do not to scoop her up in his arms and cradle her against him.

  “You were crying out in your sleep.”

  “It was horrible.” She stared past him at something only she could see. “I watched the accident that killed them and when I tried to get to them to save them, I couldn’t.” She looked at him again, her gaze tortured. “I can never save them.”

  Trevor couldn’t help himself. He sat down on the edge of the bed and gathered Sophie into his arms. She trembled violently against him, still overwrought from the dream.

  “It’s okay now, sweetheart.” He ran his hands up and down the small of her back. “I’m here.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, clinging to him as though her life depended upon it. The wetness of her tears rained on his bare chest. He’d been so worried about her he had rushed to her room, heedless that he was clad only in his boxer briefs. She didn’t seem to notice or mind.

  “Hold me, Trevor,” she said against his chest. “Please hold me.”

  He swallowed, a wave of unexpected tenderness crashing over him. God, he wanted to protect the woman in his arms, wanted it like he had never before wanted anything in his life. He continued to caress her back, the warmth of her skin through the thin cotton of her nightgown doing things to his senses.

  “Anything you want, Sophie.”

  “I should have been in the car with them that night,” she said, still trapped in the torture of her nightmare. “I would have been, but I was coming down with the flu. Elizabeth wanted to visit her cousins so badly, so I told Peter to take her to Anne Marie’s without me. But they never made it there. A rock fell from the cliff face and hit the highway and a trucker swerved to avoid it, hitting Peter and Elizabeth instead. They told me that they were dead on impact. I should have been there too.”

  “Don’t say that. It wasn’t your time, Sophie, but it was theirs. Nothing you could have done or said would have changed that. Stop torturing yourself over this, sweetheart. You know they wouldn’t want that.”

  She bowed her head. “You’re right, but it’s so hard… I keep having these nightmares and I can’t help but think—”

  “Don’t,” he interrupted firmly. “None of what happened was your fault.”

  “Trevor?” She looked back up at him again, at once innocent and beautiful in her demure white nightgown with her cloud of dark hair tousled and hanging loose around her shoulders. “Would you stay with me, tonight? Just holding me?”

  Ah, God. To just hold her body against his and not make love to her would be utter agony. But if it would help her to sleep, he would do it.

  “Of course.”

  She licked her lips, looking suddenly nervous. “Not here. In your room.”

  She didn’t have to explain her request. Trevor already understood. She was so damn protective of Peter’s memory that at times it made Trevor jealous. Still, he didn’t mind taking Sophie to the guest bedroom. He wanted no ghosts between them.

  He scooped her up into his arms and rose from the bed. Her eyes grew wider, but she didn’t offer protest, just wound her arms about his neck. Making his way across the cool, hardwood floor, he paused at the doorway.

  “Light.”

  Sophie unhooked one arm to flick the switch, casting her bedroom back into darkness. In no time, he had them next door and safely ensconced in the guest bedroom. To his surprise, Sophie didn’
t withdraw from him, not even after they were both beneath the covers on his bed. She lay curled against his chest. He kept his arms snugly around her, sensing her need for both protection and solace.

  One of her fingers trailed lazy patterns on his chest. “Tell me about you,” she requested, her voice sounding sleepy and far more relaxed. “What made you want to open an art gallery in New York?”

  Clearly, she needed some distraction.

  He sighed, thinking of his somewhat muddled past. Ordinarily, he didn’t share his history with other people. There were too many things he would have done over again if given the chance. But before he knew it, he was opening up to her.

  “It’s actually hard to say why I wanted to.” He stroked her silken hair with one hand as he spoke. “God knows it isn’t what I set out to do. I always had a love for art, but it took a backseat to my father’s ambitions. Before I knew it, I was playing college football and majoring in business. I didn’t realize it was only what he wanted until it was too late. My senior year, I quit the football team and my father was livid. He said I wasn’t man enough to tough out a fourth year.” He laughed bitterly to think of it. Nothing he had ever done had been up to Sinclair James’ impossible high standards and he knew that nothing ever would.

  Sophie looked up at him, a frown on her perfect rosebud lips. “I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories. You don’t have to go on if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

  He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, unable to help himself. She was so sweet to be concerned about his emotions when hers were in such obvious disarray.

  “I want to tell you.” he said. And it was true. He had never talked about his relationship with his father with anyone other than his sister but telling Sophie felt right. “I started to recognize by the end of college that it was my father who had chosen my path, not me. But I graduated all the same and set out for New York City. My father had arranged some interviews for me, so I followed through and the next thing I knew, I was working at some Fortune 500 company, making a great salary, but completely miserable.