He gave a low, hungry growl that mimicked the surf and deepened the kiss. When he pressed her back against the straw mat, she could feel the jut of his arousal through the loose trunks. It frightened her—she wasn’t at all ready for anything like this—but at the same time she had to admit she found it unbearably exciting.
He couldn’t get enough of her. With her light-brown skin and her dark curls dancing in the breeze, she was like some wild, exotic sea sprite and he wanted her with an aching urgency completely new to him.
It wasn’t only a physical desire. He wanted to ease that sadness in her eyes, to watch that elusive smile appear and to hear her rare laughter. He wanted to take away her pain and help her heal.
He kissed her for a long time, until he lost track of everything around them, until he was shaking with need, consumed only by Grace.
She reacted so sweetly to him. He wondered if she realized how her arms tightened around him every time he tried to pull away and how she sighed his name when he trailed kisses down the long, elegant column of her neck, to the hollows and curves of her collarbone, to her shoulder, bared by her sleeveless sundress.
Her hands dipped into his damp hair, caressing, stroking. He trailed kisses along the scooped neckline of her dress and felt her fingers tighten when his mouth reached the slope of one high, firm breast.
Her breathing sounded ragged and harsh as he pressed his lips just beneath the neckline, where his hands ached to touch. Just before he would have given in to the need, before he would have filled his hands with her, the harsh call of their mischievous mynah friend rang through the secluded section of beach.
Forget it. Ignore it, he wanted to murmur, but he was too late. She stiffened in his arms as if the surf had doused them in icy water.
She opened her eyes, her pupils dazed and unfocused. When her gaze collided with his, he read shock and dismay there.
She rolled away and scrambled to her feet. She stared at him, her eyes huge and dark, and her fingers trembled slightly as she lifted them to her mouth, swollen from his kisses.
“Grace—” he began, not sure what he wanted to say, other than don’t leave.
Stay, stay, stay.
“Don’t,” she mumbled around her fingers. “Don’t say anything.”
He stood, wishing for a good sturdy pair of jeans with pockets to shove his hands into, instead of these loose, baggy, entirely too revealing swimming trunks.
Wishing he knew what to say so they could return to the fragile peace they’d enjoyed before he had kissed her.
Wishing more than anything that she was still in his arms.
“It was just a kiss,” she muttered. “That’s all. Let’s not make any more of it than that.”
Just a kiss. Just a merging of lips and tongues and teeth in a cataclysmic explosion that rocked him to his soul. Hell, he was still feeling aftershocks from it.
He said nothing though, just continued watching her, until she finally looked away from him, down at her bare toes buried in the sand.
“When—” her voice broke and she tried again. “When did you want to go snorkeling?”
Surprised, he stared at her bent head, at the vulnerable, soft skin at the nape of her neck. Even though she wanted to treat it with such apparent nonchalance, he would have expected her to use the kiss as an excuse to avoid going with them, to make it yet another reason why she wanted nothing to do with him or his daughter.
“The surf can be a bit calmer in the afternoon. Would that work for you?”
She looked up, her high cheekbones dusted with color. “Fine. Sure.”
Should he let it go, as she obviously wanted, or should he push her, insist she admit she had felt the raw impact of their embrace as well?
What would that accomplish, other than to appease his ego? Knowing Grace, she would react angrily and he would defeat his own purpose, to get her to relax and enjoy herself while they were in Hawaii.
He swallowed the instinct to poke and prod at her feelings. If she wanted to pretend nothing had happened, he could damn well pretend nothing had happened.
He forced his mouth to twist into a casual smile and unclenched his teeth so he could at least pretend to speak calmly. “Why don’t we make a day of it? Emma and I can give you a quick tour of our favorite sights on the North Shore.”
She looked away again, this time out to sea. “Why don’t we?” she murmured, then gathered up her straw mat and walked away.
* * *
“What’s that one, Daddy?”
Grace followed the direction of Emma’s finger and found an odd-looking creature with a pointed mouth curving through the water.
“It’s a trumpet fish,” Jack answered. “See, isn’t his mouth kind of like a trumpet?”
Emma—who looked absolutely endearing in a neon green swimsuit, orange life vest and bright pink mask—nodded solemnly. She clutched the foam noodle she was also using to stay afloat and stuck her face into the water again, as if she couldn’t look away.
“Which one’s your favorite, Em?” Jack asked her when she came up for air again.
Emma pulled her snorkel away to answer. “I can’t pick. They’re all too pretty.”
Grace knew just what she meant. She felt as if she were swimming through some vast, exotic aquarium. The coral reef in the sheltered cove was home to every species of tropical fish imaginable. Jack seemed to know all their names—black-and-yellow striped tangs, funny-looking triggerfish, exotic-colored butterfly fish.
They pounded against the coral or darted through it alone or in vast schools, in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of color.
Marisa would have loved it here. She had always loved the ocean, had dreamed of being a marine biologist. As the thought drifted into her head—and with it, the endless, aching emptiness—Grace pushed it away.
She wasn’t going to think about Marisa here. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t ruin the day for Jack and Emma.
“I wish I could take them all home and put them in my room,” Emma said, and Grace was surprised by the small laugh that escaped her at the speculative light suddenly flitting through the little girl’s eyes that she could see even through her mask.
Jack must have seen, it too. He shoved his own mask back, shaking his head. “Get that look out of your eyes, young lady. No way are we carting any tropical fish home.”
“But Daddy—”
He laughed and tweaked her nose. “Not a chance, pumpkin. The fish belong right here. Besides, where would you put them all?”
She frowned in concentration for a moment, then her face brightened. “Your swimming pool! Then we could watch them all the time, not just when we come here.”
“You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you, Miss Smarty-Pants?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have an answer for why I can’t take some fish home. Just a couple? Please, Daddy?”
“No. But nice try.” Jack’s rugged, beautiful features twisted into a grin, and Grace stared at him, mesmerized.
Drops of water beaded his face and clung to the hard, sculpted muscles of his chest. She remembered the strength of those muscles against her, the salty-sweet taste of his mouth, the erotic coolness of his fingers against the swell of her breast.
She forced her gaze away and blew out a breath through her snorkel, grateful for the concealing mask she prayed hid the sizzling impact he had on her.
The heat they had shared on the beach that morning still simmered between them, bubbling and frothing like the edge of the waves breaking on the sand.
Just like the surf, it ebbed and flowed but it was always there.
Every once in a while he would slant her a look, his eyes turning a smoky green, and she knew without a doubt that he was also remembering their embrace, that he wanted to kiss her again—that he would kiss her again, given the chance.
Knowing he wouldn’t try anything with Emma paddling happily nearby only seemed to add fuel to the slow fire coursing through her veins.
What was she going to do about him? How could she convince him she didn’t want him to touch her again when she wasn’t at all convinced of that herself?
She couldn’t let him, no matter how badly her body might yearn. He was getting too close. Sneaking under her guard, around the barriers she’d built so carefully. She couldn’t afford to let him any closer.
This tropical paradise was a dangerous place. She already had a difficult time remembering why she was here, that she needed to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity, either by Jack or the people around him.
The idea of him as a cold-blooded gunrunner seemed ludicrous here on the islands. The man swapped elephant jokes with his five-year-old daughter, for heaven’s sake.
She glanced at the two of them, heads bent to the water as a school of large gray parrotfish darted past.
Riley had to be wrong. The whole task force had to be wrong.
She had an easier time believing that trumpet fish back there might suddenly start playing Dixieland jazz than she could believe Jack Dugan was a weapons smuggler.
How had it happened, this total shift in her thinking? And what in the world was she going to do about it?
She drew another breath in through her snorkel, determined to forget about the case for a while. She headed in the opposite direction from the two of them and rode the waves for a while, letting her thoughts and her body drift on the current.
She lost track of time, suspended there in the peace of the water. Eventually she felt a soft feathery touch on her ankle. At first she thought it was just a curious fish, then the touch turned into distinct tap. She looked back to find Jack and Emma both there, beckoning to her.
She turned in the water to follow them. The coral dropped off sharply here, to a pocket she estimated to be about fifteen feet deep, and there, gliding through the water with dignity and grace was an enormous sea turtle.
Faces close together in the water, they all stared, entranced, until it swam out of sight around another coral ridge.
“That was the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen!” Emma said when they all lifted their faces above the surface. Her eyes glowed with excitement, but Grace noticed her teeth were chattering and her lips were beginning to look a little blue around the edges.
While they’d been in the water, clouds had gathered, obscuring the late-afternoon sun and even she was beginning to feel cold.
“I think we better warm up for a while,” Jack said firmly.
“Nooo,” Emma complained. “I like it here and Grace does, too.”
“I brought your sand stuff.” Without warning, he reached out and snagged a hand around Grace’s ponytail. His hand brushed her skin and she shivered—not at all from the cold. “You and I can build a sandcastle for this beautiful mermaid princess I just captured.”
Emma giggled. “Mermaids don’t live in sandcastles. They live in water castles. Besides, Grace isn’t a mermaid. She’s my friend.”
A small, sweet warmth settled in her heart at the words. “I promise I won’t escape,” she told Jack. “You can let go now.”
“What if I don’t want to?” he murmured in her ear, and her body instantly reacted.
She sternly squelched the heat zinging through her. “Then Emma and I will just have to dunk you. Won’t we, Em?”
The little girl giggled again. “Yeah. Watch out, Daddy. We’re going to dunk you.”
They swam to shore, twenty feet away, riding the baby breakers. Once out of the water, the muggy heat not only warmed her quickly but also sapped her energy.
While Jack and Emma set to work building sand creations, she spread out on the blanket they’d brought along. It felt gloriously hedonistic to lie here on her stomach and do nothing, her head pillowed in her arms.
She barely summoned the energy to open her eyes when Jack joined her, stretching his long legs out beside her.
“So how was your first day in Hawaii?” he asked.
She smiled slightly. “Wonderful.”
To her amazement, it was true. Once she concentrated on it hard enough she’d been able to wrap her memories in cotton and tuck them away. At least for the most part. And for the first time in a year, she had been shocked to find herself enjoying the sights and sounds around her.
They’d spent the morning wandering through the shops of Hali’ewa, looking at T-shirts and bright sarongs and row after row of vividly painted surfboards.
Since Lily was busy catching up with her family and friends, Jack took them to lunch at an Italian restaurant, of all places.
After lunch, they took a drive down the two-lane highway that nearly circled the island—past famous beaches with names like Sunset, Waimea and Pipeline—and bought fresh pineapple at a roadside stand.
Juice dripping down their chins, they ate it on the way back to the beach house before they grabbed snorkels and swimming suits for the short drive here.
“So how about we do it all again tomorrow?” he asked.
Right now, the very idea exhausted her. She laughed softly. “Ask me in the morning. If I can move again by then.”
He didn’t answer her for several moments. Finally she opened her eyes and found him watching, his green eyes dark and intense. “I wish you’d do that more often,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Laugh.”
Her breath caught in her throat at his fierce expression, and she didn’t know what to say.
She was spared from having to come up with an answer by Emma, who trudged over to them carrying pail and shovel. “You promised you’d help me build a tower,” she complained. “You’re not helping, Daddy!”
He sent Grace one more glittering look then climbed to his feet, brushing off the fine sand that clung to his tanned skin. He grabbed Emma around the waist and scooped her, giggling, up to his shoulder. “Sorry. Let’s go build a tower. Then I’ll put you in it for about thirty years and you’ll have to let your hair grow long so the boys can climb in.”
Long after the two of them walked away, Grace felt the impact of that look, of his words.
It took her a long time to relax again.
CHAPTER 12
She dreamed of her daughter.
They were at the ocean, a soft, breathtaking blue, and Marisa hung on a swim noodle much like Emma’s, bobbing and floating on the waves like driftwood.
As she watched from the shore, her daughter began to float farther and farther away from her. Grace called to her to come back, told her she was drifting too far out to sea. She cried and screamed at her until her voice was hoarse, but Marisa didn’t pay any attention. She just smiled and shook her head.
“I have to go,” she mouthed. “Goodbye. I love you.”
Then she blew kisses to her mother as the water carried her out of sight, and the sky began to weep.
Grace awoke with wet cheeks and familiar pain and loss choking her. For a moment, she just lay on the blanket with her eyes closed, disoriented by the abrupt shift from dream to reality, then she realized the sky’s tears were rain and Jack was nudging her gently.
“Sorry to wake you up but we’re going to be soaked in a minute if we don’t hurry to the car,” he said.
She sat up and rubbed a damp towel over her face, hoping to hide the traces of the grief that refused to leave her, even in sleep.
“You okay?”
She pulled the towel away and glanced briefly at him then away, unable to bear the concern in his eyes. “Fine. Just fine. Let me carry some of that.”
She grabbed a blanket and Emma’s sand bucket and walked to the Jeep without looking back to the ocean, to the water she knew would be empty of any trace of her child.
* * *
“Grace, will you read me a story and tuck me in?”
Jack swore under his breath. Emma was just supposed to knock o
n Grace’s door, wish her good night and thank her for the good day they’d shared. This hadn’t been part of the plan.
He studied her beautiful, fine-boned features, trying to gauge her reaction to the request, but he couldn’t read anything there. She paused for several moments, then skimmed a hand over Emma’s hair, still damp from the bath he’d just finished giving her.
“I’m not very good at stories, sweetheart. Wouldn’t you rather have your father read to you? Or Lily?”
Emma shook her head with an obstinance he was all too familiar with. “No. You.”
Grace sent him a helpless, “What-do-I-do-now?” look over his daughter’s head and he prepared to step in. He knew damn well going through the traditional pre-sleep ritual for someone else’s child would likely be agony for her and he refused to put her through it.
He reached out and grabbed Emma’s little hand. “Come on. Let’s go find the book about Max and the wild things.”
“Okay. And then Grace can read it to me.”
“Emma—”
“No. It’s okay.” Grace’s voice was firm, suddenly, her eyes determined. “I can read to her.”
“Are you sure you can do it?”
“Positive.” Her mouth stretched into a wobbly smile. “I’ve been reading a long time, Dugan. You might have to help me on some of the big words, though.”
A joke. She just made a joke. He stared at her, amazed. She met his gaze for an instant, then turned away to walk up the stairs toward Emma’s room, down the hall from the guest room.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said in a low voice, when they reached the doorway.
She didn’t look at him. “Yes. Yes, I do,” she answered. With a shaky breath, she walked across the threshold like she was entering the fiery flames of hell.
He should leave them alone, he thought. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to walk away. He hovered in the doorway, feeling awkward and superfluous, while Emma made a huge, drawn-out ceremony of looking for the book.
Finally, when he was just about to tip the whole damn bookcase over and find it himself, she pulled it out with a triumphant flourish then climbed into her bed, straightened the covers just so, and waited for Grace to perch near her on the mattress.
Saving Grace Page 13