by Nora Roberts
He decided the best place for his hands, under the circumstances, was his pockets. He wasn’t sure what to do about the itchy feeling in them. ‘‘She’s a sweetheart.’’ Deliberately, he turned to watch Aubrey in her red sandbox.
‘‘And a handful.’’ She needed to get her feet back under her, Grace told herself, and to do what needed to be done next. ‘‘Why don’t we just forget last night, Ethan? I’m sure you meant it all for the best. Reality’s just not always what we’d choose or what we’d like it to be.’’
He turned back slowly, and those quiet eyes of his focused on her face. ‘‘What do you want it to be, Grace?’’
‘‘What I want is for Aubrey to have a home, and a family. I think I’m pretty close to that.’’
He shook his head. ‘‘No, what do you want for Grace?’’
‘‘Besides her?’’ She looked over at her daughter and smiled. ‘‘I don’t even remember anymore. Right now I want my lawn mowed and my vegetables weeded. I appreciate you coming by like this.’’ She turned away and prepared to give the starter cord another yank. ‘‘I’ll be by the house tomorrow.’’
She went very still when his hand closed over hers.
‘‘I’ll cut the grass.’’
‘‘I can do it.’’
She couldn’t even start the damn lawn mower, he thought, but was wise enough not to mention it. ‘‘I didn’t say you couldn’t. I said I’d do it.’’
She couldn’t turn around, couldn’t risk what it would do to her system to be that close again, face to face. ‘‘You have chores of your own.’’
‘‘Grace, are we going to stand here all day arguing over who’s going to cut this grass? I could have it done twice over by the time we finish, and you could be saving your string beans from being choked out by those weeds.’’
‘‘I was going to get to them.’’ Her voice was thin. They were both bent over, all but spooned together. The flash of sheer animal lust that streaked through the familiar yearning for him staggered her.
‘‘Get to them now.’’ He murmured it, willing her to move. If she didn’t, and very quickly, he might not be able to hold himself back from putting his hands on her. And putting them on her in places they had no business being.
‘‘All right.’’ She shifted away, moving sideways while her heart knocked at her ribs in short rabbit punches. ‘‘I appreciate it. Thanks.’’ She bit her lip hard because she was going to babble. Determined to be normal, she turned and smiled a little. ‘‘It’s probably the carburetor again. I’ve got some tools.’’
Saying nothing, Ethan grabbed the cord with one hand and yanked it hard, twice. The engine caught with a dyspeptic roar. ‘‘It ought to do,’’ he said mildly when he saw her mouth thin in frustration.
‘‘Yeah, it ought to.’’ Struggling not to be annoyed, she strode quickly to her vegetable patch.
And bent over, Ethan thought as he began to cut the first swath. Bent over in those thin cotton shorts in a way that forced him to take several long, careful breaths.
She didn’t have a clue, he decided, what it had done to his usually well-disciplined hormones to have her trim little butt snugged back against him. What it did to theusually moderate temperature of his blood to have all that long, bare leg brushing against his.
She might be a mother—a fact that he reminded himself of often to keep dark and dangerous thoughts at bay—but as far as he was concerned, she was nearly as innocent and unaware as she’d been at fourteen.
When he’d first begun to have those dark and dangerous thoughts about her.
He’d stopped himself from acting on them. For God’s sake, she’d just been a kid. And a man with his past had no right to touch anyone so unspoiled. Instead, he’d been her friend and had found contentment in that. He’d thought he could continue to be her friend, and only her friend. But just lately those thoughts had been striking him more often and with more force. They were becoming very tricky to control.
They both had enough complications in their lives, he reminded himself. He was just going to mow her lawn, maybe help her pull some weeds. If there was time he’d offer to take them into town for some ice cream cones. Aubrey was partial to strawberry.
Then he had to go down to the boatyard and get to work. And since it was his turn to cook, he had to figure out that little nuisance.
But mother or not, he thought, as Grace leaned over to tug out a stubborn dandelion, she had a pair of amazing legs.
GRACE KNEW SHE shouldn’t have let herself be persuaded to go into town, even for a quick ice cream cone. It meant adjusting her day’s schedule, changing into something less disreputable than her gardening clothes, and spending more time in Ethan’s company when she was feeling a bit too aware of her needs.
But Aubrey loved these small trips and treats, so it was impossible to say no.
It was only a mile into St. Chris, but they went from quiet neighborhood to busy waterfront. The gift and souvenir shops would stay open seven days a week now to take advantage of the summer tourist season. Couples and families strolled by with shopping bags filled with memories to take home.
The sky was brilliantly blue, and the Bay reflected it, inviting boats to cruise along its surface. A couple of Sunday sailors had tangled the lines of their little Sunfish, letting the sails flop. But they appeared to be having the time of their lives despite that small mishap.
Grace could smell fish frying, candy melting, the coconut sweetness of sunblock, and always, always, the moist fragrance of the water.
She’d grown up on this waterfront, watching boats, sailing them. She ran free along the docks, in and out of the shops. She learned to pick crabs at her mother’s knee, gaining the speed and skill needed to separate out the meat, that precious commodity that would be packaged and shipped all over the world.
Work hadn’t been a stranger, but she’d always been free. Her family had lived well, if not luxuriously. Her father didn’t believe in spoiling his women with too much pampering. Still, he’d been kind and loving even though set in his ways. And he’d never made her feel that he was disappointed that he had only a daughter instead of sons to carry his name.
In the end, she’d disappointed him anyway.
Grace swung Aubrey up on her hip and nuzzled her.
‘‘Busy today,’’ she commented.
‘‘Seems to get more crowded every summer.’’ But Ethan shrugged it off. They needed the summer crowds to survive the winters. ‘‘I heard Bingham’s going to expand the restaurant, fancy it up, too, to bring more people in year-round.’’
‘‘Well, he’s got that chef from up north now, and got himself reviewed in the Washington Post magazine.’’ She jiggled Aubrey on her hip. ‘‘The Egret Rest is the only linen-tablecloth restaurant around here. Spiffing it up should be good for the town. We always went there for dinner on special occasions.’’
She set Aubrey down, trying not to remember that she hadn’t seen the inside of the restaurant in over three years. She held Aubrey’s hand and let her daughter tug her relentlessly toward Crawford’s.
This was another standard of St. Chris. Crawford’s was for ice cream and cold drinks and take-out submarine sand-wiches. Since it was noon, the shop was doing a brisk business. Grace ordered herself not to spoil things by mentioning that they should be eating sandwiches instead of ice cream.
‘‘Hey, there, Grace, Ethan. Hello, pretty Aubrey.’’ Liz Crawford beamed at them even as she skillfully built a cold-cut sub. She’d gone to school with Ethan and had dated him for a short, careless time that they both remembered with fondness.
Now she was the sturdy, freckle-faced mother of two, married to Junior Crawford, as he was known to distinguish him from his father, Senior.
Junior, skinny as a scarecrow, whistled between his teeth as he rang up sales, and sent them a quick salute.
‘‘Busy day,’’ Ethan said, dodging an elbow from a customer at the counter.
‘‘Tell me.’’ Liz rolled her
eyes, deftly wrapped the sub in white paper and handed it, along with three others, over the counter. ‘‘Y’all want a sub?’’
‘‘Ice cream,’’ Aubrey said definitely. ‘‘Berry.’’
‘‘Well, you go on down and tell Mother Crawford what you have in mind. Oh, Ethan, Seth was in here shortly ago with Danny and Will. I swear, those kids grow like weeds in high summer. Loaded up on subs and soda pop. Said they were working down to your boatyard.’’
He felt a faint flicker of guilt, knowing that Phillip was not only working but riding herd on three young boys. ‘‘I’ll be heading down there myself soon.’’
‘‘Ethan, if you don’t have time for this . . .’’ Grace began.
‘‘I’ve got time to eat an ice cream cone with a pretty girl.’’ So saying, he lifted Aubrey up and let her press her nose to the glass-fronted counter that held the buckets of hand-dipped choices.
Liz took the next order, and spared a wiggling-eyebrow glance toward her husband that spoke volumes. Ethan Quinn and Grace Monroe, it stated clearly. Well, well. What do you think of that?
They took their cones outside, where the breeze was warm off the water, and wandered away from the crowds to find one of the small iron benches the city fathers had campaigned for. Armed with a fistful of napkins, Grace set Aubrey on her lap.
‘‘I remember when you’d come here and know the name of every face you’d see,’’ Grace murmured. ‘‘Mother Crawford would be behind the counter, reading a paperback novel.’’ She felt a wet drip from Aubrey’s ice cream plop on her leg below the hem of her shorts and wiped it up. ‘‘Eat around the edges, honey, before it melts away.’’
‘‘You’d always get strawberry ice cream, too.’’
‘‘Hmm?’’
‘‘As I recall,’’ Ethan said, surprised that the image was so clear in his mind, ‘‘you had a preference for strawberry. And grape Nehi.’’
‘‘I guess I did.’’ Grace’s sunglasses slipped down her nose as she bent to mop up more drips. ‘‘Everything was simple if you had yourself a strawberry cone and a grape Nehi.’’
‘‘Some things stay simple.’’ Because her hands were full, Ethan nudged Grace’s glasses back up—and thought he caught a flicker of something in her eyes behind the shaded lenses. ‘‘Some don’t.’’
He looked out to the water as he applied himself to his own cone. A better idea, he decided, than watching Grace take those long, slow licks from hers. ‘‘We used to come down here on Sundays now and then,’’ he remembered. ‘‘All of us piling into the car and riding into town for ice cream or a sub or just to see what was up. Mom and Dad liked to sit under one of the umbrella tables at the diner and drink lemonade.’’
‘‘I still miss them,’’ she said quietly. ‘‘I know you do. That winter I caught pneumonia—I remember my mother and yours. It seemed every time I woke up, one or the other of them was right there. Dr. Quinn was the kindest woman I ever knew. My mama—’’
She broke off, shook her head.
‘‘What?’’
‘‘I don’t want to make you sad.’’
‘‘You won’t. Finish it.’’
‘‘My mother goes to the cemetery every year in the spring and puts flowers on your mother’s grave. I go with her. I didn’t realize until the first time we went how much my mother loved her.’’
‘‘I wondered who put them there. It’s nice knowing. What’s being said . . . what some people are saying about my father would have got her Irish up. She’d have scalded more than a few tongues by now.’’
‘‘That’s not your way, Ethan. You have to tend to that business your own way.’’
‘‘They would both want us to do what’s best for Seth. That would come first.’’
‘‘You are doing what’s best for him. Every time I see him he looks lighter. There was such a heaviness over him when he first came here. Professor Quinn was working his way through that, but he had such troubles of his own. You know how troubled he was, Ethan.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ And the guilt weighed like a stone, dead center in his heart. ‘‘I know.’’
‘‘Now I have made you sad.’’ She shifted toward him so that their knees bumped. ‘‘Whatever troubled him, it was never you. You were one strong, steady light in his life. Anyone could see that.’’
‘‘If I’d asked more questions . . .’’ he began.
‘‘It’s not your way,’’ she said again and, forgetting her hand was sticky, touched it to his cheek. ‘‘You knew he would talk to you when he was ready, when he could.’’
‘‘Then it was too late.’’
‘‘No, it never is.’’ Her fingers skimmed lightly over his cheek. ‘‘There’s always a chance. I don’t think I could get from one day to the next if I didn’t believe there’s always a chance. Don’t worry,’’ she said softly.
He felt something move inside him as he reached up to cover her hand with his. Something shifting and opening. Then Aubrey let out a wild squeal of joy.
‘‘Grandpa!’’
Grace’s hand jerked, then dropped like a stone. All the warmth that had flowed out of her chilled. Her shoulders went straight and stiff as she turned forward again and watched her father walk toward them.
‘‘There’s my dollbaby. Come see Grandpa.’’
Grace let her daughter go, watched her race and be caught. Her father didn’t wince or shy away from the sticky hands or smeared lips. He laughed and hugged and smacked his lips when kissed lavishly.
‘‘Mmm, strawberry. Gimme more.’’ He made munching noises on Aubrey’s neck until she screamed with delight. Then he hitched her easily on his hip and crossed the slight distance to his daughter. And no longer smiled. ‘‘Grace, Ethan. Taking a Sunday stroll?’’
Grace’s throat was dry, and her eyes burned. ‘‘Ethan offered to buy us some ice cream.’’
‘‘Well, that’s nice.’’
‘‘You’re wearing some of it now,’’ Ethan commented, hoping to ease some of the rippling tension that moved in the air.
Pete glanced down to his shirt, where Aubrey had transferred some of her favored strawberries. ‘‘Clothes wash. Don’t often see you around the waterfront on a Sunday, Ethan, since you started building that boat.’’
‘‘Taking an hour before I get started on it today. Hull’s finished, deck’s nearly.’’
‘‘Good, that’s good.’’ He nodded, meaning it, then shifted his gaze to Grace. ‘‘Your mother’s in the diner. She’ll want to see her granddaughter.’’
‘‘All right. I—’’
‘‘I’ll take her over,’’ he interrupted. ‘‘You can go on home when you’re ready to, and your mother’ll bring her on by your place in an hour or two.’’
She’d have preferred he slap her than speak to her in that polite and distant tone. But she nodded, as Aubrey was already babbling about Grandma.
‘‘Bye! Bye, Mama. Bye, Ethan,’’ Aubrey called over Pete’s shoulder and blew noisy kisses.
‘‘I’m sorry, Grace.’’ Knowing it was inadequate, Ethan took her hand and found it stiff and cold.
‘‘It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. And he loves Aubrey. Just dotes on her. That’s what counts.’’
‘‘It’s not fair to you. Your father’s a good man, Grace, but he hasn’t been fair to you.’’
‘‘I let him down.’’ She rose, quickly wiping her hands on the napkins she’d balled up. ‘‘And that’s that.’’
‘‘It’s nothing more than his pride butting up against yours.’’
‘‘Maybe. But my pride’s important to me.’’ She tossed the napkins into a trash container and told herself that was the end of it. ‘‘I’ve got to get back home, Ethan. There’s a million things I should be doing, and if I’ve got a couple hours free, I’d better do them.’’
He didn’t push, but was surprised how strongly he wanted to. He hated being nudged and nagged to talk about private matters himself. ‘‘I’ll drive you home.’’
‘‘No, I’d like to walk. Really like to walk. Thanks for the help.’’ She managed a smile that looked almost natural. ‘‘And the ice cream. I’ll be by the house tomorrow. Make sure you tell Seth his laundry goes in the hamper, not on the floor.’’
She walked away, her long legs eating up the ground. She made certain she was well away before she allowed her steps to slow. Before she rubbed a hand over the heart that ached no matter how firmly she ordered it not to.
There were only two men in her life she had ever really loved. It seemed neither of them could want her as she needed them to want her.
FOUR
ETHAN DIDN’T MIND MU sic when he worked. The fact was, his taste in music was both broad and eclectic—another gift of the Quinns. The house had often been filled with it. His mother had played a fine piano with as much enthusiasm for the works of Chopin as for those of Scott Joplin. His father’s musical talent had been the violin, and it was that instrument Ethan had gravitated to. He enjoyed the varying moods of it, and its portability.
Still, he found music a waste of sound whenever he was concentrating on a job, as he usually didn’t hear it after ten minutes anyway. Silence suited him best during those times, but Seth liked the radio in the boatyard up, and up loud. So to keep peace, Ethan simply tuned out the head-punching rock and roll.
The hull of the boat had been caulked and filled, a labor-intensive and time-consuming task. Seth had been a lot of help there, Ethan admitted, giving him an extra pair of hands and feet when he needed them. Though Christ knew the boy could complain about the job as much as Phillip did.
Ethan tuned that out as well—to stay sane.
He hoped to finish leveling off the decking before Phillip arrived for the weekend, planing first on one diagonal, then across the next at a right angle.
With any luck, he could get some solid work done that week and the next on the cabin and cockpit.
Seth bitched about being on sanding detail, but he did a decent job of it. Ethan only had to tell him to go back and hit portions of the hull planking again a couple of times. He didn’t mind the boy’s questions, either. Though he had a million of them once he started.