HER SECRET GUARDIAN

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  "I told myself that if you loved me, you wouldn't have let me go in the first place," she said, trying to hide from him the fact that she was sobbing.

  "I let you go because you told me you couldn't take the risk of loving anyone again, and I understood that."

  "And I told myself the second time that it was nothing but sex—"

  "It was everything," he said. "Everything, and it was absolutely wrong of me to ever let things go that far. There's no excuse for it, Grace. It was wrong."

  "Then why did you let it happen?"

  "I didn't have the courage to tell you the truth about who I was. I couldn't stand what I'd see in your eyes when you looked at me once you knew. When you came back to me the first time, when I saw you standing there in my bathroom, I just couldn't believe it. Not until I touched you. Until I knew you were real, and then I just lost it. There was no way I could let you go."

  "Why?" she asked, needing to hear him say it.

  "It started as guilt," he admitted. "You're right about that. But it's always been so much more than that. Even at eleven, you were so sweet. So brave. You had such spirit. I was amazed by you, even then. And when I finally saw you again, at twenty-one, I wanted you then. I wanted to grab you and carry you out of there and make you swear to me you'd never come back to any place like that. I wanted the right to do that where you were concerned. I've lost more sleep over you in the past ten years than I can even begin to count. Worrying about where you were and what you were doing and just trying to get you out of my mind. I've admired you and been absolutely fascinated by you. I've always thought you were so beautiful and so good, and I knew I shouldn't ever put my hands on you. Because before I ever did that, I owed you the truth about who I was first, and I knew you'd hate me then."

  "I don't hate you," she said, her tears finally slowing.

  "I don't see how you keep from it. I hate what happened. Everything I did to hurt you. All the time when I should have told you the truth and I didn't. But mostly the bombing. I hate it," he said, drawing in a deep, slow, deliberate breath that tickled the back of her neck. "I've hated it every day of my life."

  "I know."

  "And I could have stopped it."

  "Maybe you could have. Maybe," she admitted. "But you didn't cause it. A man with a bomb caused it. Him and everything that went wrong to ever let him that close to my father. Not you. You know that, Sean. And for me to ever hate you, I'd have to dismiss everything I've learned about you, everything you've done for me, everything you've done with your whole life. You'd have me judge you completely by one mistake you made twenty years ago?"

  "A mistake that cost you everything."

  "No. Not everything. I believed that once. I believed it for years. I lived like I didn't care what I did with my life, because I didn't think anything good could ever happen to me again. And I was wrong about that. You showed me I was wrong."

  "Obviously, I didn't," he said, turning her in his arms, his body still pinning her to the door. "Because you went back into San Reino. Right after you left me. Right after that madman kidnapped you, and his guard nearly raped you. How could you do that, Grace? I nearly went crazy thinking about you being back there. Thinking that even if I went to try to get you to leave, you wouldn't go. I was so furious, I could have torn a building apart with my bare hands thinking about you being there all over again."

  "I went because I had to go somewhere. Because work has always saved me, when I had nothing else."

  "Nothing I said to you on that island made any difference at all?" he groaned.

  "It made a difference," she admitted. "Even my job doesn't work for me anymore. It doesn't stop me from thinking or remembering you or hurting. And I don't think I can do it anymore, anyway. Because I'm too scared now. I was never scared before, because I didn't have anything to lose. Do you know why I'm scared now?"

  "No," he said carefully.

  "Because I want to live. I finally have a reason, and it's you. It's always been you. You're the only thing I've looked forward to for years. The only thing that interested me, that excited me, that intrigued me. Just thinking that someday, I'd see you again. Someday you'd come for me, and you'd stay. Someday, I'd find out all about you, and you'd be everything I ever imagined. You'd be the man who saved me."

  He swore softly. "Grace—"

  "And that's who you are. My own personal savior," she told him. "When you have your arms around me, I feel completely safe, like nothing can ever hurt me. I think it must go back to that first time, when you pulled me out of that building. That on some level, I remember you from then. I dreamed about you. For weeks afterward when I was in the hospital, and even after that, when I was all alone. I imagined you were sitting beside my bed, holding my hand and just talking to me, about anything at all. And I wasn't so scared then. I—"

  She looked up and saw his gaze, steady and sure, on hers. He had always been so familiar to her. And she was missing something. Something that was right there on the edges of her brain, teasing at her and then flitting away.

  That day, when he'd told her the truth, he'd started out by saying something she only thought about later, something she hadn't ever understood. Close your eyes for a minute. Listen to my voice. You've always known me.

  And what had Jamie said? She knew Grace was going to be okay, because Sean was with her. She said they'd nearly lost him, too. Jamie said he'd been in the hospital for days afterward. He'd been hurt.

  Grace closed her eyes, and finally, she saw it, saw him. That dark-eyed, dark-haired young man. So tall and so handsome, even with all the bruises he'd had then. She remembered his voice. He'd talked to her for hours on end, somehow helped her fight back her fears, her panic, at the thought of being so alone. He'd single-handedly kept her sane, and he'd been the one who hadn't left her alone. As if he might have known just what she wanted – to be with her family, any way she could.

  "It was you, wasn't it? Not just in the picture. Not just pulling me out of that building. You're the one who sat by my side for days in the hospital and held my hand… It was you."

  Slowly, he nodded.

  No wonder, she thought. Finally she understood why she'd always reacted to him in just that way, always trusted him.

  "God, I've seen you in my dreams for years." She laughed then, as sweet, sad tears fell down her cheeks. "It was as if I took you with me everywhere I went. From that first day in the hospital or maybe the day of the bombing. So much of it I see through a kind of haze. It's never been that clear. But I remember you now. I just spent years thinking you weren't real. I could hear your voice. I imagined I knew what it was like to be in your arms. I thought I knew what you looked like, even when I didn't think you were real. Oh, my God."

  She just stared at him, thinking of all that he'd been to her through the years.

  "I spent nights at that damned boarding school in Kent, crying myself to sleep and thinking I was more alone than anybody in the whole wide world, and there you'd be. I'd dream of you. You were always with me," she said. "That's why you used all those different accents. All the different languages. Why, for so long, you wouldn't let me see your face. Sean, you just don't know. You can't possibly know what you've meant to me over the years. And as much as it was, it's not a fraction of what I feel for you now. Which means, I'm not leaving. I'm not giving up on you. Or us. I'm not going to let you throw the rest of your life away—"

  "Grace—"

  "That's what you're doing," she said, seeing it so clearly now. And it hurt her to think of him doing this, maybe every bit as much as it hurt him to watch her. "You're doing just what you accused me of, for the same reason. I couldn't handle what happened to my family twenty years ago. I couldn't handle the thought of loving anyone else, knowing I might lose him, and you can't handle the guilt over the bombing, even if it wasn't your fault."

  He said nothing. Nothing at all.

  "I think deep down you know it wasn't your fault and the guilt is something that's … not easy. I kno
w it's not easy for you. But I think you're hanging on to the guilt now because it's easier than dealing with the real issue. That you're human like the rest of us. That you can't control everything, can't fix everything. That the world's a big, scary place, and if you love someone, if you let someone into your life and ever let them mean absolutely everything to you, you might end up like me someday. You might get hurt that badly, too. I think you can't let me into your life – no matter how much you might want to – because you're afraid."

  Still, he said nothing.

  "I'm ready, Sean. I'm ready to risk it all. On you and me. If you want that—"

  "God, I want it," he said, swaying toward her now.

  She wrapped her arms around him. His came around her more slowly, more carefully, as if he expected her to pull away, maybe to disappear into thin air.

  She let the tip of her nose rub against his chest, the side of his neck, breathing in his scent. She kissed the side of his neck, his jaw, finally his mouth.

  He groaned, shuddered, and then it was like being in the center of a storm. His mouth was greedy, rushing over her so hungrily, his hands lightning fast, tearing at her clothes and his. The passion just exploded between them, and she was laughing as much as she was crying, her heart soaring, as she found herself stripped bare and lying on a soft rug in front of a roaring fire with him on top of her.

  She gave herself up to him eagerly, needily. Gasping and clutching at his shoulders and shuddering with pleasure as he lowered his big body down on top of hers, pushed her thighs apart and slowly, so slowly, inched his way inside of her.

  It was so powerful, so starkly sexual, yet at the same time, a joining of souls like nothing she'd ever experienced. She knew him. Knew exactly what he was all about, exactly how he'd suffered and what it had cost him to live with what he believed he'd done all these years. He knew how lonely she'd been, how hurt, how empty, and he filled her completely. Every corner of her soul, every molecule in her body.

  If she was taking his pain away, he was taking hers. It was a healing, unlike any she ever expected to find in this world. Unlike anything she ever expected any person to be able to give her.

  He'd given her back her life. He'd shown her all the possibilities, all the wonder. All about happiness and trust. Everything she needed to silence her demons.

  He lay heavily on top of her when it was over, and she clung to him. She was crying and trying to soothe him, trying to make him understand that nothing else mattered anymore but the two of them. That together they could do anything.

  * * *

  They never made it to the bed, but slept on the hard floor in front of the fire with her on top of him. He didn't think he'd loosened his arms a fraction of an inch all night, and he'd been reluctant to even open his eyes when he woke that morning for fear that maybe it had all been a dream.

  They had a lot to learn about trusting this new reality of theirs.

  He could still hardly believe it, Grace here with him in a cabin on top of a mountain, snow falling all around them, and it was almost Christmas.

  She'd given him a gift beyond anything he'd ever imagined. Forgiveness. A cold, hard dose of reality – that part of his problem was accepting that he couldn't quite control the universe – and an all-too-real understanding of the risks they were about to take by loving each other.

  But he'd fallen every bit as hard as she had. There'd been no stopping it, not from the very beginning. Sometimes he thought he'd loved her ever since that first night he'd spent lying by her side in that hospital in Rome. He'd insisted on being there, hadn't left her for the entire time she'd been there, and somewhere along the way what started out as penance had turned into simply everything.

  Everything he'd ever wanted, ever needed, ever dreamed about, he could sum up in one word: Grace.

  He must have said it aloud, because she stirred in his arms, the afghan he'd thrown around them late last night slipping off one smooth, milky-white shoulder. He kissed it, then tucked the blanket more tightly around her.

  Through the windows to the east, over the tops of the mountains, the first hint of dawn was slipping into the darkened sky, and he found he needed to witness the coming of this day, the first of the rest of his life.

  He picked Grace up and put her on the sofa in front of the fire, which he built up again until it was roaring. Then he dressed quickly and slipped outside to stand on the deck.

  So many years, he thought as he stood there in the cold, spent living in the dark. He'd thought there would be nothing but more of the same, of worrying over her and wanting her and chasing her around the world and back, and he hadn't been sure how he'd find a way to go on. He just didn't see the point.

  And now here she was with him…

  He looked across the snow-covered peaks, and the sky was warming to a pale, pinkish glow streaked with a bit of purple, a bit of gold. The clouds were lying low against the top of the mountains and the undersides of them were fluffy and soft-looking and glowing, too. Heaven seemed close enough to touch at the moment.

  He thought about his brother, Rich, whom he still missed every day of his life, and once again thought of Grace long ago, so little, so alone. Thought that so easily he could have lost her, too, right there in Rome, and then what would his life have ever been? He closed his eyes and offered up silent, heartfelt thanks for her and all that he'd been given.

  The door opened behind him, and she stood there staring at him, looking rumpled and very touchable, a little bit shy. Her glorious hair was hanging down her back in a pretty mess, and her cheeks were already chilled pink, her eyes full of sleep, a softly vulnerable smile on her lips.

  "Come here," he said, softly, beckoning her to his side. She slid beneath his arm, and he tucked her against his side.

  "What are you doing out here?" she asked.

  He kissed the tip of her nose – cold, as he expected – then pushed her face against his chest. "It's the first day of the rest of my life, Grace. I wanted to see the sun come up."

  "Oh," she said.

  "You're really going to forgive me," he said, awe still in his voice. "And stay here with me and love me?"

  She squeezed her arms around his chest. "Yes."

  "I think I might need to hear that. Every day."

  "Whatever you need," she said.

  "I need you," he whispered raggedly, as the sun hit him squarely in the face, nearly blinding him. He could feel it on his skin, warming him through and through, the way she did, the way the idea of loving her forever did, and for the first time, he had nothing to hide. He could stand right here in the sunshine with her.

  "I need you every bit as much," she said.

  He thought she was crying again, and he promised himself that one day he was going to put a smile on this woman's face that would never come off.

  "You're the only thing I've wanted in ages," he said, taking her face in both of his hands, and sure enough finding those tears. "The only thing. And I think you're right. I have been hiding, too. Just like you, sweetheart. Maybe it was easier to blame it on what happened twenty years ago than deal with the real issues. Like the fact that I wasn't quite as in charge of the world around me as I liked to think, that there were things I simply couldn't prevent from happening, couldn't fix. Things I might lose, as well," he said. "There came a point a few years ago when I knew what my life had become. Nothing but the job, and for a while that was enough. But there comes a time when a man wants more, and when that happened to me, I looked around and all I could see was you. There's never been a woman in my life who was truly important. No one I ever needed the way I need you. No one who felt absolutely essential to my life. And I didn't think I'd ever have you."

  "I'm yours," she said. "All yours. You couldn't get rid of me now if you tried. I'm as stubborn as you are."

  He rubbed the pad of his thumb along her cheek, kissing her soft, sweet lips. "You're here now. But I've only been waiting for you for half my life. And I just didn't think you were ever comin
g, sweetheart. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself and wondering what was the point? In anything? I told you I sit behind a desk most every day, and I don't think anyone who knows me well believes me when I say that, but it's true. I took myself out of the field because I saw myself getting a little too reckless. Taking too many chances. Just not caring. Right around the time I accepted the fact that there would never be another woman for me but you. And when I saw that same recklessness in you… I knew deep down exactly what it was. I tried to deny it, but I knew."

  "And you had to come save me from myself," she said.

  "Of course I did. I love you," he said, feeling as if the words had been ripped from him, as if he'd torn the bindings off what was once a gaping wound and found that it had healed completely when he wasn't looking. "I love you."

  "And I love you."

  "And you'll stay with me?"

  "Yes."

  "I think I could do anything, if I have you in my life."

  "Even have a life?" she suggested.

  "Even that." He gave her a long, slow, fiercely tender kiss. "I want to make you happy. I want you to have everything. I want to be the man who gives it all to you."

  She looked dazed. "It's a little hard to take it all in," she said. "So many times when you're around, I feel like the world's just moving too fast. Like I can't keep up. I feel like … like…"

  "Tell me, Grace," he invited. "Anything you want. Anything I have to give."

  "Like I've been born again and somehow made whole." She started crying again. "Like every dream I never even let myself have is going to come true."

  "Oh, baby. If I have anything to say about it, they will." He held her for the longest time, keeping her close and warming her body with his and waiting until she wasn't shaking so hard.

  "I'd given up. Completely," she said. "I didn't expect anything at all anymore, except surviving and this … all the possibilities … it makes my head spin."