“Of course.” She climbed the stairs to his side. “And yes, chicken curry sounds great, but I can’t let you provide groceries as well as lessons.”
“I was actually hoping you could pay me back. With a favor.”
Still not recovered from last night’s all-too-vivid dream, Grace’s hormones chose a wholly inappropriate interpretation of favor. Her heart skewed sideways. “F-favor?”
Sean lifted a lazy eyebrow. “Of the running an errand kind. Picking up some groceries for me the next time you go to Perth, so I don’t have to drive in myself.”
Her face flamed. His eyebrow rose higher.
“Are you sure everything is okay? You seem…jittery.”
“I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
“Is it your sister?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your sister. She hasn’t taken a turn for the worse, has she?”
“No. No, she’s still the same, as far as I know.”
Now Sean frowned. “You don’t stay in touch with the hospital?”
Holding still, Grace closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She pulled her chaotic thoughts and traitorous hormones together. Pasted a smile on her lips that she hoped would pass for bright and not terrifying. Opened her eyes again.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day already, and I’m a little out of it. Yes, of course I stay in touch about my sister, and no, there’s been no change. And I’d be happy to get groceries for you. I was actually going to make a run into town tomorrow. If you’re serious about these cooking lessons, I’m going to need something more to cook with than what’s currently in my fridge.”
Sean regarded her, his green eyes narrowed. Then he nodded. “Good plan. I’ll help you make a list.”
………………
Sean dipped a spoon into the simmering curry, blew on it for a moment, then tasted. He let the spicy sauce roll over his tongue. It was milder than he would have made for himself, but most likely perfect for the kids. He swallowed and aimed a sidelong glance at Grace, grinning at her anxiety.
“Perfect,” he declared. “We’ll make a cook out of you yet.”
A delighted smile spread across her face. “It’s really okay?”
“It’s delicious. It’ll knock the kids’ socks off.” Sean set aside the spoon. “You just need to remember to start the rice about half an hour before you want to eat, and then you’ll be set. There should be enough left over for lunch tomorrow, too.”
“You’re not staying for dinner?”
Was that disappointment underlying her surprise? He shook off the thought and steeled himself to stay strong. After that supremely awkward parting on her porch last night, he’d given the whole Grace-and-her-family thing a great deal of thought—and he’d concluded that he needed some time and space to regroup and get his bearings. Even if he hadn’t been determined to stick with the whole idea of not ever settling down or having kids—which he was, he assured himself—there was too much else going on.
Too many questions, and too much growing certainty that his suspicions about her were right. In which case, he didn’t dare get involved. Not if it meant compromising himself as a cop.
“Thank you for the invitation,” he replied, “but as long as you can handle things from here, I think I’ll opt for an early night. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Instant remorse and worry shadowed Grace’s eyes. “You’ve been overdoing it, haven’t you? I knew it was too much for you, back and forth along the path all those times. I shouldn’t have let you—”
“Stop,” Sean interrupted. Playing the sympathy card had seemed a legitimate way to excuse himself, but Grace’s guilt slid under his ribs like the blade of a knife. She had more than enough on her plate without him adding to her stress levels, and he didn’t need any more reason to feel sorry for her.
His judgment was already clouded enough.
“It has nothing to do with you…” he started to add, but then he let his voice trail off. It actually had everything to do with her, just not in the way she thought. Or in a way he needed to think. Damn.
He flexed his jaw and sought neutral ground.
“It’s the cast,” he said. “It gets in the way when I’m trying to sleep.”
Grace wrinkled her nose. Sean buried an impulse to lean over and kiss it. Tightening his grip on his crutches, he held back a curse.
“I can imagine,” she said. “I broke my arm when I was a kid, and the cast nearly drove me nuts. How much longer are you in it?”
“I go back for an MRI next week. They don’t normally cast a broken femur, but even with all the metal they stuck in me, mine wasn’t healing as well as it should. They’re hoping the cast immobilizes it a bit more.”
Guilt returned to her expression, underlined by horror. “Good God, Sean, you’ve been standing in my kitchen for two days straight, you’ve fallen twice, and you’ve made multiple trips through the woods over uneven ground—and now you tell me you haven’t been healing properly?”
She marched around the counter peninsula, pulled a chair out from the table, and pointed. “Sit.”
Josh, Sage, and Lilliane—all working on homework assignments at the table—traded looks, their eyes round. Sean gave them a reassuring smile, then flapped a dismissive hand in Grace’s direction.
“It’s all good,” he said. “I can barely wiggle my toes in this thing, so I can assure you I’m quite immobile. And I’m off the painkillers as of this morning, which proves things are healing.”
“You fell,” she repeated, placing hands on hips. “Twice. I don’t think they designed either your cast or your hardware to withstand that.”
He had to concede that point.
Josh cleared his throat. “When did you fall the second time, Mr. McKittrick? When you were going back to your cottage?”
Sean raised an eyebrow at Grace. “You didn’t tell them?”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “I didn’t see the point.”
“The point is to let them know self-defense works.” Especially Josh, whose intelligence and awkwardness would make him an obvious target for bullies—if it hadn’t already.
Sean met the boy’s wide, wire-framed gaze. “I thought your aunt was an intruder when she came over to check on me the other night. When I grabbed hold of her, she threw me to the floor.”
All three sets of kids’ eyes grew rounder.
“But you’re bigger than she is,” Lilliane said.
“And you’re a police officer,” Josh added.
“Are you going to arrest her?” Sage asked.
Sean pressed his lips together against a smile. Then he shook his head. “No, Sage, I’m not going to arrest her. And being a police officer doesn’t automatically protect me, Josh. Your aunt is well trained in martial arts. Even if I’d expected a fight from her and I didn’t have a cast, I suspect she would have still taken me down.”
The boy’s gaze flicked back to his aunt. “Did she hurt you?”
“Not counting my pride? Only a little. And I’m fine now.” Sean directed the last bit at Grace, who still scowled at him. “Seriously. Things feel better than they have since I was—since it happened. Barring any more gymnastics on my part, I’m sure it will stay that way.”
“Maybe. But even so, you and I both know you’re doing too much. I refuse to be party to that.”
He raised a lazy eyebrow. “So you don’t want me to come over anymore?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“So you do want me to come over.”
Fire, McKittrick. You’re playing with fire.
Grace crossed her arms. “Would you please stop twisting my words? I’m just concerned about your leg, that’s all.”
Given the bright flags of color that so attractively stained her cheeks, Sean suspected that wasn’t all, but he abandoned his teasing anyway, reminding himself he was supposed to be keeping his distance.
He waved a hand in apology, his voice gruffer than he intend
ed. “Sorry. My sense of humor gets a little carried away sometimes. So…I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I’m getting groceries, remember?”
“Right. I forgot.” A thought struck him. “Why don’t I sit with the kids for you? Give you a chance to have some time to yourself?”
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea! his voice of self-preservation screamed at him. He brushed it off. It was just a neighborly thing to do. Hell, Grace wouldn’t even be present, so how could it be interpreted as anything but the most casual of gestures?
Grace directed a pointed look at his leg. “Leave you with four kids to look after? I doubt that’s what your doctor had in mind for immobilization.”
“I’d have Josh and the girls to help me with Annabelle, and I’m sure—”
Sage slipped out of her chair and buried her face against Grace’s waist.
“I don’t want to stay with him,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”
Scared? The questions with which Sean wrestled reared up again. He struggled not to let them show in his face. Patience, he reminded himself. He still didn’t have a usable cell phone. If he went all cop on Grace, she and the kids were likely to disappear beyond his reach. Beyond his help.
And she was going to need that help.
“You don’t have to stay, Sage. Why don’t you and Josh and Lilly go with your aunt, and I’ll just keep Annabelle company?” Sean met Grace’s gaze and shrugged. “I’m sure you’d find it easier to shop without a two-year-old in tow.”
Indecision flickered in her expression for a second before she shook her head. “It would be infinitely easier,” she agreed, “but I don’t dare leave you on your own with her.”
“I’ll stay,” Josh volunteered. “I don’t mind. I don’t feel like shopping anyway, and if Annabelle wakes up, I can get her out of her crib for Mr. McKittrick.”
“Well, then,” Sean said, filing away Grace’s look of utter astonishment with all the other clues he’d collected, “that’s settled. Now, I don’t suppose you have a spare raincoat, do you? The day got a little soggy out there.”
………………
Grace followed Sean out onto the porch, shivering in the afternoon’s damp chill. Holding the umbrella over Sean’s head to protect him from the steady drizzle of rain, she did her best not to dwell on the memories of their parting here the night before. Friends, Grace. You’re just friends. That’s what’s best.
Sean picked his way across the wooden surface carefully, wet leaves slipping beneath his crutches. She made a mental note to have Josh rake them up for her when he finished his homework. The last thing she wanted was to be the cause of yet another fall for their neighbor.
Sean reached the top of the stairs and turned. “You really don’t have to do this.”
She shook her head inside the hood of the rain cape she wore. It was the only adult-sized one in the cottage, and Sean had refused to borrow it and leave her without. Hence the umbrella.
“It’s the least I can do. I’d never forgive myself if you caught pneumonia on top of all the other trouble we’ve caused.”
“You haven’t caused any trouble, Grace. And I won’t melt if I get a little wet. I’m tougher than you think.”
“You have to be, around us.”
He chuckled. “I suppose, yes.”
He picked his way down the stairs, and she trailed behind, one hand half outstretched in case he slipped. Together, they started along the path toward the trees, Sean’s garbage-bag-encased cast rustling with each step. Grace shifted her grip on the umbrella.
“You never told me how it happened,” she said.
Sean paused and looked back over his shoulder. “This?” He indicated his leg and shrugged. “You never asked.”
Because she hadn’t wanted to know. Hadn’t wanted to invite confidences. And sure as heck hadn’t wanted to be close enough to him to care. She held back a sigh.
That ship had sailed.
………………
But still…just friends.
………………
“It never seemed the right time,” she lied.
Sean looked up at the umbrella she held over him, then around at the dripping trees. Thunder rumbled overhead. But he was polite enough not to comment on the obvious.
“Work,” he said. “An accident.”
She frowned. “Car?”
Sean turned to continue picking his way along the path. “I was shot.”
Grace stumbled and almost knocked him over. “Seriously?”
“Unfortunately.” Sean balanced on one leg and a crutch, and pushed the umbrella out of his face. His jaw had flexed, and the bottle-green eyes had gone flat.
“I—wow—I don’t know what to say,” she murmured. “What happened? Or don’t you want to talk about it?”
Sean shrugged. “It was a domestic dispute with suspected weapons involved. And kids. The guy had a high-powered rifle. I got in the way.”
A domestic. Grace shuddered. Just like her sister and Barry, only no one had been there to call the cops for Juli. She thrust away the horror that never quite left her anymore.
“How bad?” she asked Sean.
“A direct hit on the femur. A lot of bone fragments and some soft tissue damage, but fortunately the artery wasn’t touched.”
“And the prognosis? Will you be able to go back to work?”
Would he want to after an incident like that?
“If I stop falling on it?” Sean quirked a half-grin at her. “More than likely. I’ll be off for a few months, and I have a lot of therapy ahead, but all in all, I was lucky.”
Lucky. Grace bit the inside of her bottom lip. She supposed that was one way to look at it, but—
Sean raised an eyebrow. “What?” he asked.
“I’ve just never really thought about how dangerous a cop’s job is. I mean, I read the stories, of course, but I don’t think about it.”
“Few people do—including cops. We function better when we don’t think about it.”
A gust of wind threatened to turn the umbrella inside out, and Sean tipped his head toward his cottage. “Come on. We’d better get me inside so you can get home again and out of this.”
Grace walked with him to the sliding door he’d left unlocked. She held the umbrella over him until he’d stepped inside, then watched him strip off the dripping plastic Josh had helped him taped over the cast.
“Did it survive?” she asked.
“Seems intact. Josh did a good job. Tell him thanks for me?”
“Of course.” She half turned to go, then looked back at him. “About tomorrow—”
“Just after one,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
That wasn’t at all what she’d been going to say, but the unfurling warmth in her chest somehow rendered argument impossible. He was lucky to be alive—and she and the kids were lucky to know him at all. She nodded.
“See you then.”
………………
“Aunt Grace?”
Grace looked up from diapering Annabelle to find her nephew hovering in the bedroom doorway. “Yes, Josh?”
“Why did you learn jujitsu?”
Grace did up the Velcro tabs on the diaper wrap, then secured them with diaper pins. They’d had no more messy surprises since she’d bought the pins, and she intended to see it stayed that way. She reached for her niece’s pajamas and glanced again at Josh.
“You know I do a lot of traveling, right?”
“I kept all the postcards you sent me, but Mom said we didn’t have room to bring everything with us when we moved in with you. I like the ones from China best. And India.”
Grace smiled. She’d known the kids would love those countries. Somehow, when all this was over, she’d get that collection back for Josh.
“Well, traveling alone can be dangerous sometimes, especially for a woman. I wanted to be sure I could protect myself if I got into trouble.”
“Trouble like my mom, you mean?”
Th
e knife that resided permanently in her heart these days gave a vicious little twist. God, how she hated that conversations like this were needed. Wished she knew better how to handle them.
She nodded. “Kind of like that, yes.”
Her nephew digested her words while she slid Annabelle’s legs into the footed pajama onesie and then stood the toddler up on the dresser top. Annabelle bounced enthusiastically.
“Why didn’t Mom learn, too?”
With one of Annabelle’s arms in a pajama sleeve and the other eluding capture, Grace blew out a long breath, puffing out her cheeks. Annabelle giggled and tried to imitate her. Grace seized on the moment of distraction and slid the second sleeve into place. She zipped up the onesie and set her niece on the floor. Then, the knife wound in her heart aching, she leaned against the dresser, hands gripping the top on either side.
“Not everyone is interested in learning. Most people don’t think they need to. Your mom and I never really talked about it, but I suppose she felt safe with your dad when they first met, and then when she had babies to look after, she was just busy.”
And in denial, apparently. So much denial.
Josh’s thin shoulders hunched, and his throat moved convulsively. “I’ll bet she wishes now that she’d learned.”
………………
Grace crossed to his side and wrapped him in a wordless hug, not knowing what to say. Not sure there was anything she could say. But she could hold him. She could hold him—all of them—and keep them safe.
………………
Josh sniffled and lifted a hand to wipe the tears from under his glasses. “She’s not going to wake up, is she?”
Grace squeezed her eyes closed. God, what she wouldn’t give to be able to tell him Juli would wake up and be herself and be his mom again. But she wouldn’t lie. She couldn’t lie, because if Juli died, or lived but wasn’t ever Juli again, Grace would be all Josh and the others had. And if he couldn’t trust her…
She dashed away her own tears. “I don’t know, Josh. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
A shudder traveled through his slight frame, and his arms went around her waist in a fierce hug. Annabelle wedged herself against their legs.
“Jossa sad?” she asked.
Josh stepped back, wiped his eyes again, and then heaved his baby sister into his arms. “Joshua is fine,” he told her. “We’re all fine.”
Forever Grace Page 14