Then he said, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s good crazy and just plain crazy crazy. You ditching it all for a new life in some place you’ve never been, to come all the way to Maine, sight unseen, lock, stock, and barrel, yeah. That’s crazy crazy. But what the hell do I know? Maybe you know better, and it’s the good kind.”
Her heart picked up speed again, and she hated that she was willing to cling to the tiniest crumb of acceptance from him. But she wanted . . . something. A way in. Maybe that was what he was offering . . . in his own way. She didn’t know. For all that he was her brother, and they definitely had a shared past that neither of them would ever forget, or be able to fully bury . . . the truth was, the man standing in front of her was a complete and total stranger. She didn’t even know where to start with that. With him. Their shared past didn’t seem like such a good starting point. So . . . where then? And how?
“What kind of crazy was it when you came here and decided to stay?” she asked, knowing that whatever path they took going forward, being open, honest, and unafraid was mandatory or why bother? She wanted to know her brother and have him back in her life, be a part of his, or . . . not. She didn’t want some surface, pretend, superficial bullshit deal.
“Crazy crazy. But I guess now, looking back, that described me more than anything else. So I honestly don’t know. Maybe a little of both.”
“And now?”
He folded his arms, then dropped them to his sides, finally shoving his hands in his pockets. “Now it’s the good kind. Or at least, not so crazy.”
“Well . . . that’s good.” It’s a place to start, anyway. “Who’s Dee? Or who was she?”
Just like that, his expression became shuttered again.
There was being straightforward and honest, and there was pushing too far, too soon. Grace lifted both hands, palms out. “Never mind. Another time. Or never. It’s not really my business.”
“She runs the diner. In the Cove. She wasn’t my girlfriend. Just . . . a friend. I guess.”
He seemed almost a little . . . confused by who or what she’d been to him, so, despite being ridiculously curious to know the whole story, Grace let it go. She gestured to the island behind her. “What brought you out here?”
“Solitude. Quiet.”
She smiled at that and looked up at the sky, shielding her eyes from the sun. Birds were everywhere. Big ones, small ones, white, gray, black. On the rocks, floating on the water, dotting the harbor coastline, perched in the trees, and filling the sky. And they were anything but quiet. Between their constant calling and the waves pounding the pier and the rocky coastline, it was far more turbulent and chaotic than peaceful.
He followed her gaze. “You get used to it. It’s like white noise now.”
“And it’s not people.”
“No,” he said, more quietly. “It’s not people.”
It occurred to her that they had kept a good distance from each other the entire time they’d been talking. Initially, it had seemed, well, normal, given the situation. Suddenly it felt awkward. She couldn’t exactly run to him and hug him. She just . . . wanted to. He was still a stranger, but she felt like the cathartic, awful, horrible part was over. He hadn’t ordered her gone or walked away. He’d let her rant. He’d listened. He’d even opened up. A little, anyway.
Most important, they were talking. And . . . that’s all she could hope for, really. Only time would tell where it might lead, if it would matter. If they would matter again. To each other.
“There are a few others out here,” she said. “Researchers and interns, right? I read the brochure,” she added, when he glanced at her.
“From mid-May to end of August, yes. Then everybody goes. The people, and the birds.”
“And you?”
He looked back to the island. He was quiet for a long moment. “I stay.”
She watched him for another silent moment. He tensed when he talked to her, and she understood that. She was tense, too. But when he looked at the island or talked about the birds, he relaxed. Or some part of him did, anyway.
“So . . . this is your safe place,” she said, realizing she’d said it out loud when he looked sharply back at her. “For some people that’s a good thing. It was for me. For a really long time that safe place was my job and being on the river. I’m a rower. I think both of those things probably saved me. But . . . not anymore.” She looked away from him then, because she had the distinct impression that she’d hurt him somehow. “I’m glad you found your place, Ford. I really am.”
She wanted to go to him then. It was almost like a physical ache, the need to hug him, to just . . . connect. In more than only words shared. But she couldn’t seem to make herself take that first step, and she realized then that the hard part, the cathartic part, wasn’t over. In fact, they’d only uncovered the tip of that iceberg . . . because hugging your own brother should be easy. Natural.
It wasn’t—which meant she was still afraid of being hurt. Of rejection. She knew that, for today anyway, she was going to take the winning parts, the good parts, and be happy. And not push for more. Risk . . . wanting more.
She had just opened her mouth to ask him if he could show her the island, show her what he was doing, thinking that might be the best way to build a bridge between their past . . . and their possible future . . . when a voice called out from the other end of the pier.
“Hey, Doc? We need you to come check on one of the blinds.”
A young girl who appeared to be in her early twenties, dressed in khaki pants and a long-sleeved shirt, came trotting down the dock toward them. On her head was a hard hat, of all things. “I think we have a problem with—oh, hey.” She stopped short once she spied Grace. Ford had apparently blocked her from view.
“Hi,” she said, friendly, smiling. She looked at Ford. “Sorry, I didn’t see you were talking.” She extended her hand to Grace. “I’m Annie. Welcome to Sandpiper.”
“Hi,” Grace said, smiling back at her, but her mind spinning in a dozen other directions. “Thanks. I’m Grace,” she added clumsily.
“Are you joining the ranks?” she asked brightly.
Grace looked at Ford, then back at her. “Uh, no. I’m just . . .”
“It’s okay, Annie,” Ford told the young girl. “I’ll be back up in a minute.”
The young girl looked between the two of them and seemed to realize for the first time that maybe she’d intruded. “Oh, right. Sorry. Well, welcome anyway,” she told Grace. “I’ll—yeah, I’m going now.” She shot Ford a curious look, not intimidated by him, but certainly respectful, then trotted back up the pier.
Grace knew it shouldn’t be weird that people who knew Ford would be completely at ease around him, and yet, it totally was. He was this . . . enigma to her. Standing there talking to him hadn’t changed that sense at all. If anything, it had reinforced it. Of course he worked with people. He wasn’t a total recluse. No matter that he sure as hell acted like one, at least with her, anyway. It was also stupid and irrational to be jealous of the people who worked with him, who knew him, who could be so comfortable and casual around him . . . but she was.
All of that took a giant step back to the one thing her brain was still stuck on. “Doc?” she asked him. “Is that like a . . . nickname?”
For the first time since she’d climbed up to the pier and laid eyes on her long-lost brother, a tiny hint of a smile ghosted the corners of his mouth. “You didn’t get all the brains in the family, you know.”
Her eyes went wide. “So you’re a real . . . I mean, you actually went and got a doctorate?”
“I did, yeah.” He seemed embarrassed. And the humor was gone. “I . . . need to get back to work. It’s—this is the busiest we get, and time is short. It’s—” He paused, looked away again, and swore under his breath again.
“No, I get it. I didn’t exactly make an appointment or give you a heads-up. I . . . I appreciate that you took the time you did.” Just . . . don
’t let me walk away, she silently begged. Well then, don’t let him, you idiot. Stop waiting for other people to save you. “I want to see you again. I’d like to see the island. See what it is you do. When . . . whenever you can fit it in.” She braced her hand on her forehead again as the sun peeked out from behind a passing cloud. When the silence spun out, she said, “I’m staying, Ford. I’m here. And I’m not leaving. Blueberry Cove, I mean.”
He held her gaze for a long time. “Okay.”
“Okay, you’ll show me the island? Okay, that I’m living in Maine now?”
That ghost of humor flickered across his face, then was gone again. “Just . . . okay. For now.”
“Doc? There’s a problem with the generator in Cabin 2! Cam is down in Grid 30 through Grid 42.” The shout came from a young man who’d just climbed up to the pier from the rocks on the other side, about twenty yards closer to shore.
“Go do your work,” Grace said, hugging his words, his acceptance to her heart as if he’d just made an undying declaration of brotherly love, tentative though they were. “I’ll just—uh, well, I don’t know what I’ll do. You can put me to work, too, if I can help in some way.”
He glanced at the young man hanging at the ladder that led back down to the rocks. “How are you with mechanical things?”
She grinned, and it felt . . . tremendous. “Yeah, um . . . what else do you have?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, looking past her out to the open water. “I think your ride is here.”
“My—what?” She spun around. A single-mast sloop was dropping anchor in the harbor. She’d seen the boat before, moored one pier over from Brodie’s two-masted schooner. She’d thought it belonged to someone else, as she had the schooner, but she realized it had to be his, too.
She turned back to Ford and saw he was walking back down the pier. “Wait,” she called out.
He paused and looked over his shoulder.
She had a moment of hesitation, of debating whether it was the wise thing to do, what he’d think about it, then thought screw that and started walking toward him. He didn’t turn to face her, much less walk toward her, but he didn’t walk away. Then she was jogging and then running and all she could think was I’m finally running toward something, not away from it. She didn’t bother to look for acceptance or even willingness. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly, so many emotions going through her mind. It was weird to feel like she was hugging a total stranger, but she was. Tall and rangy, his body was hard and lean . . . and completely stiff and unyielding. But in her heart, she knew she was holding on to the one person she’d loved from the very first day of her life.
“Hug me back, dammit,” she whispered fiercely. “Just because I was mad at you a million years ago doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Then and now.”
“God, Gracie, don’t say that.”
“Too late, I already did.” She held on for another moment, then finally started to let go.
A heartbeat later he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her so tightly she lost her breath. She squeezed her eyes shut against the instant onslaught of tears, thinking this was everything, everything, she’d come to Maine for . . . and so much more than she’d ever hoped she’d actually get. “I missed you so much,” she said, barely getting the words past the lump in her throat.
Then he let her go just as abruptly as he’d hugged her, turned before she could see his face, and headed down the pier.
That’s okay, she told herself. It was a start. And left no doubt in her mind or her heart that he still loved her, too. Everything else was workable, if they had that. “I want to come back and see the island,” she called out to his retreating back. “If you don’t want me just showing up like an annoying baby sister, invite me. Just tell Blue’s when and I’ll be here.”
He didn’t make any signal that he’d heard her, but she knew he had. Hell, the whole island probably had.
“If you come in to Blueberry Cove, I bought one of Monaghan’s boathouses in Half Moon Harbor. Last one on the left as you come in from the water. No advance warning necessary. Just . . . come.” Her bravery faltered then and she fell silent. She waited, for what she wasn’t sure, hand still propped on her forehead against the bright sunshine.
The young man at the ladder was staring unabashedly at her. As he realized Ford was at the ladder, he quickly climbed down so Ford could climb down after him. Her brother disappeared below the dock without so much as a single wave, but she hadn’t expected otherwise.
Her gaze skimmed past the ladder to the rocky shore. Two girls in hard hats were out on the boulders. Both of them had stopped what they were doing and were also openly staring at her. She assumed her shouts had carried to them and had no idea what they’d make of her showing up on the island, much less what she’d said to their boss. She assumed he was their boss. They seemed to come running to him when they needed something, anyway. It was a good bet that her presence was going to make things challenging for him, having to explain. Or maybe he simply wouldn’t. She sincerely doubted he’d told anyone that he had a sister. That might have worried her before, but that hug . . . She closed her eyes just for a moment and relived every too-short second of it. She’d waited so long. So damn long.
Tears continued to trickle down her cheeks as she turned to look out at the harbor and Brodie’s sailboat. She couldn’t see anybody on board and silently thanked him for giving her the space she’d asked for and having her back at the same time. She remembered when she’d first met him, she’d had him pegged for a love-’em-and-leave-’em charmer, a looking-out-for-number-one kind of guy.
She hadn’t been so wrong about the love-’em-and-leave-’em part—he’d admitted that very thing to her . . . right before making her eyes roll back in her head as she came for the third or fourth time. But she was realizing she’d been wrong about the rest. He was proving himself to be a pretty stand-up guy. Or more specifically, a stand-up-for-her guy. All those sisters must have taught him something.
She lifted his baseball cap, which she realized was still crushed in her hand, and waved it from the end of the dock. She still hadn’t seen any sign of him above deck. He must have been watching from belowdecks because a minute after she’d waved, he lowered an inflatable skiff into the water off the side of the boat before hopping in and skimming over the water, heading her way.
She watched him man the small speedboat over the waves with an ease that revealed how much time he’d spent on the water. The wind ruffled his thick, sun-streaked hair, while black shades covered his green eyes. Even from a distance she admired the play of muscles in his bare arms and shoulders and how the sleeveless T-shirt was plastered against a chest and torso she was intimately familiar with.
She’d just proven to herself, to Ford, hell, to the world, that she was willing to do whatever it took, even if it was hard. She felt strong and whole, finally able to take risks and put herself out there for what was truly important. “And here comes Brodie Monaghan to my rescue,” she murmured, wiping away the last of her tears. “Who’d have thought it?”
He throttled down and let the boat drift and bump up against the pier pilings. At the top of the ladder, she looked down at him and found him grinning up at her.
“Ahoy, lass. Need a lift?”
And who’d have thought I’d really like it?
Chapter 18
Even before Grace had gotten fully in the boat, Brodie could see that she’d been crying. Shit. He really wanted to figure out this whole relationship deal, do the right thing, but tears were his Kryptonite. He’d known that long before he’d even had his first kiss, courtesy of six sisters who, when quick wit and collective strength weren’t enough to get their way, had swiftly learned the value of a well-timed tear tracking down a fair, freckled cheek.
“I wasn’t tryin’ to intrude,” he said, as he helped her jump lightly from ladder to boat.
“No, no. You didn’t. In fact, you were remarkably timely.” Sh
e balanced herself quickly and moved to sit in the front as he took up his position by the engine again, revved it back up before turning neatly and heading back over the water toward his sailboat.
He watched her look back to the island, but wasn’t sure from the expression on her face if things had gone as she’d hoped. Better? Worse?
“How did you—what made you come out?” she shouted back to him over the sound of the motor and the wind.
“I was over at Blue’s docks, chatting with the guys coming in with the last eel catch, when Robie radioed that he was heading out and not going back to Sandpiper until tomorrow. He didn’t seem real clear on whether that was okay with you or not. So . . . I thought I’d head out, anchor, and”—he lifted a shoulder—“be there for the ride back whenever you were ready.”
“Thank you.” Never more sincere, she smiled, holding his gaze. “I know you’ve got a lot going on, so I really appreciate that.”
He nodded, feeling a bit of anticipatory dread start to curl in his gut. He had come out for exactly the reason he’d said . . . and because he was hoping the time they’d spend alone on his boat, away from any and all distractions, would give him a chance to explain about the schooner deal. And about Cami.
Even with Grace spending all of her time knee-deep in the boathouse renovation, there was no way she wouldn’t hear about it. With no idea how Cami would react when he didn’t agree to her being a signing bonus, he had to make certain Grace heard the news from him first.
But with her face freshly tear-streaked, he wasn’t so sure his timing was all that great. Not that he had much choice.
He angled the skiff along the back of the sailboat.
“The Margaret Mary,” Grace said, reading the name on the back.
“My dear, departed mum,” he replied with a smile.
Smiling in return, Grace leaned out and grabbed the handle mounted to the back. He liked seeing how comfortable she was on the water. Not surprising given her hobby, but her natural grace and balance definitely stirred more than his professional respect. Her tear-streaked cheeks didn’t keep him from eyeing her curvy little bum as she climbed from skiff to deck, either. She didn’t typically dress in a manner that overtly showed her figure off, but he rather liked the way her khaki cropped pants and loose polo shirt left most things to the imagination. Well, not that he’d cry foul if she suddenly decided to wear something a bit more snug with an occasional plunging neckline, but as she hopped onto the deck, showing off the flex and play of strong, shapely calves, he was okay with her keeping all the rest of what was strong and shapely for his eyes only.
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