“This is my most favorite-ist book. My daddy’s, too,” Emma confided.
“It’s a good one,” Grace agreed, and proceeded to read the story in a voice that didn’t shake once.
By the time she finished, his chest ached as if he’d taken a hard punch. She set the book carefully on the bedside table then switched off the lamp there, leaving the room bathed only in the glow coming from a starfish night-light Emma insisted on.
“Okay. Now bedtime.”
Emma obediently pulled the covers up to her chin. “Will you kiss me good-night?” she asked in a voice that already sounded half-asleep.
From the doorway, he watched Grace hesitate for several long seconds, then she bent down carefully and brushed her lips quickly over his daughter’s forehead. “Sleep well, sweetheart,” she whispered.
She rose, lingered by the bed for only a moment, then moved blindly towards the door, brushing past him as if she didn’t even see him. Her dark eyes looked hollow, devastated, and the ache in his chest magnified a hundredfold.
“Grace—” he began, but she ignored him, just walked swiftly down the stairs, across the living room and out the sliding glass doors to the lanai.
Should he follow her? He paused at the top of the stairs, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate his interference, that she considered her grief her business and hers alone.
His indecision lasted only about three seconds before he took the stairs two at a time. Hell yes, he should follow her. She had handled this by herself for the past year. She had cut herself off from everyone, had lived like some kind of damn hermit.
Had done all her crying alone.
It couldn’t be healthy and he wasn’t going to stand for it anymore. Not when he could at least provide her with a willing shoulder.
He opened the door to go after her, then growled in frustration when he realized he couldn’t leave the house without alerting Lily so she could listen in case Emma climbed out of bed.
By the time he found her and Tiny in the TV room watching reruns of their favorite detective show, explained to her where he was going, then walked out onto the lanai, Grace was nowhere to be seen.
She had no place else to go but the beach. The sand was cold and damp at night, he knew, so he grabbed a blanket from a chest on the lanai and headed toward the sea.
He found her under the spreading branches of the same ropy banyan tree they had kissed beneath that morning.
Almost invisible in the shadows, she was huddled into herself, arms wrapped around her knees and her face buried against the fabric of her sundress.
“I brought you a blanket,” he said softly.
“Go away,” she mumbled.
“No,” he answered. He wanted nothing more than to gather her into his arms, but now that he was here he didn’t know quite how to go about it. What could he say, after all, that would take away the hurt?
He did the only thing he could think of. He spread the blanket on the sand next to her, then shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.
“Just leave me alone. Please, Jack.”
For a moment he was silent as the leaves of the banyan tree chattered in the trade winds and the ocean murmured its eternal song.
Finally, he took a deep breath, hating himself but knowing she wouldn’t welcome the comfort he wanted to offer. Maybe what she needed was to be shocked out of it.
“Leave you alone so you can have a pity party out here all by yourself?” he asked bluntly. “Sorry. I’m not willing to do that.”
Her eyes widened at his cruelty, until they looked completely black in the night. “A pity party? Is that what you think this is about?”
“What else would you call it?”
“Grieving for my child! Aching for all the nights I’ll never be able to read her a story or kiss her good-night.”
His felt his heart crack apart at the raw pain in her voice. “What you’ve gone through is something no mother should ever have to face,” he said, his voice low. “But you can’t bring her back. All you can do survive. Give her life meaning by not allowing yours to end.”
At his own words, he stared at her, suddenly struck by the unthinkable. She wouldn’t. Would she? Yes, he realized with absolute certainty.
“That’s what you were doing on the highway that night, wasn’t it?”
She climbed to her feet and would have walked away from him but he grabbed her arm and held her in place. “Answer me. You were planning on taking a stroll into traffic that night. To put yourself out of your misery, weren’t you?”
“None of your business,” she snapped, and he knew with sick certainty that he was right.
He thought of his father, of a stupid eighteen-year-old kid walking into a horrific scene of death and waste, and gave her a hard, angry shake. “Dammit, Grace. How could you even think of doing something like that? Don’t you know your life is worth so much more?”
“What?” She hurled the words at him. “What is it worth? I have nothing left. Don’t you understand that? I have nothing! My daughter was everything to me. My whole world. From the moment she was born, from the moment I held her in my arms, she became the center of my life, the reason for everything I did. Without her I have nothing. I am nothing.”
She pulled away from him and tucked her arms around her as if chilled, although the night was muggy for an October evening.
How could he even begin to ease such pain? He couldn’t, he realized grimly, helplessly, so he focused on the physical. “Here. I brought a blanket for you. Sit down.”
He was afraid she would refuse, that she would wander farther down the beach, or worse. But finally she folded onto the blanket next to him.
They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the wind and the sea and the night. Finally, as if she’d been trying to draw the courage to begin, she spoke softly. “I was planning to give her up for adoption, can you believe that?”
He shook his head. “Tell me.”
“I signed the papers a few weeks before she was born. There was this really wonderful couple from Bellingham. He was a doctor—an orthopedist, I think—and she was a preschool teacher who planned to quit and be a stay-at-home mother. They could have given her everything. Everything. What did I have to offer her? I was scared and alone, sixteen years old, with no home, no family, no job.”
“What about Marisa’s father?” He had wondered but never dared ask before. Somehow the night lent an intimacy that allowed the question.
She gave a short laugh. “Alex? He stopped taking my calls after the first trimester, when I refused to have an abortion. I tried to call him again after…after I finally found the courage to tell my aunt. After she kicked me out.”
“What happened?”
“He told me it wasn’t his problem anymore. If I wouldn’t deal with it his way, he said, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Or with our baby.”
He was sorry he’d asked, and had a sudden violent wish he could find this Alex and make him pay for what he had done to her.
“So why didn’t you give Marisa up for adoption?”
“I couldn’t.” She hugged her knees again. “It was completely selfish—the most selfish thing I’ve ever done in my life—but I couldn’t give her away. One look at this little person I’d helped create, that I had carried inside my body, and I couldn’t. For the first time since my father died, I had somebody to love. Somebody who loved me, unconditionally.”
“How did you survive?”
“I found a job at a fast-food restaurant and lived in a group home for unwed teen mothers for a while until I could graduate from high school. I saved enough to get an apartment, enrolled in the local community college, and eventually was accepted into the Academy.”
He imagined her simple, straightforward words concealed years of hardship. Hell, it was difficult enough being a single parent when he was financially secure and had Lily and Tiny to help him. Young and alone as she had been, it would have been so easy for her to giv
e up, to just quietly slip into the welfare system. But she had clawed her way out and had built a happy, secure life for her and for her daughter.
Until a bullet had ripped it apart, had left her with nothing.
“What was she like?”
She blinked at the question. “What?”
“Tell me about Marisa. Was she funny? Shy? Athletic? What kind of books did she like? Who were her friends? What shows did she watch on TV? Anything you can think of.”
For long moments, she could only stare at him, speechless. For more than a year everyone who knew her before avoided mentioning anything about Marisa—as if her death had erased any trace of her life, had wiped out her whole existence. Even Beau shied away from the subject as too painful for both of them.
And now here was Jack, who had not even known Marisa, who had no emotional investment in her whatsoever, asking Grace to share her daughter with him.
She didn’t know when she had ever been so moved.
She settled against the trunk of the banyan, looked out to the ocean, and started to speak.
“She loved to tell jokes,” she began.
Once she started, the words bubbled out of her like lava from Kilauea. While the palm trees swayed in the wind and the sea murmured softly and the night creatures peeped and cooed, she sat in the dark with Jack Dugan and brought her child back to life with words.
She didn’t know long he sat beside her, patiently listening to her ramble on and on. When she finally stopped, her voice was hoarse, her cheeks wet. These tears were different, though, she realized. These were tears of joy, of celebration.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You were right. I…I needed to talk about her. You’ve made me remember her with a peace I haven’t felt since she was killed.”
“I’m glad.” He reached out and covered her hand with his, then lifted it to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss against her palm, his warm breath stirring her skin.
“You must have been an amazing mother to raise such a beautiful child. I would have loved knowing her.”
The impact of his words—of his touch—pierced her heart and crumbled the last of her defenses. What an extraordinary man he was. She tried to imagine any of the few men she had dated showing such patience, such forbearance, to sit quietly with a grieving mother for more than an hour while she rambled on about a child he would never meet.
None of them would have been able to do it. Yet with a few insightful questions, Jack Dugan had encouraged her to share her daughter with him and in the process she had found immeasurable comfort.
“I think she would have liked you, too,” she said softly. Acting completely on impulse, she reached across the blanket and brushed her lips against his cheek, feeling the evening shadow she knew would be dark against his tan. “Thank you for listening to me,” she whispered.
He turned his head and something bright and intense flickered in his green eyes, then he covered her mouth with his.
CHAPTER 13
As his mouth settled over hers—tasting of mint and chocolate and the wine they’d had at dinner—a slow heat uncurled in her stomach and spread through the rest of her body.
The kiss was gentle at first, meant for comfort and solace, and she closed her eyes, welcoming both. He slipped one hand behind her to hold her against him and brought the other up to her face, his thumb skimming across her cheek with aching tenderness.
She leaned into the kiss, into him.
The warm trade winds eddied softly around them, caressing the sand as he caressed her skin. His touch seemed to breathe through her flesh, through her bones, blowing away all the icy numbness she had lived with for a year and leaving behind only need.
Wild, turbulent need.
After several moments of these long, drugging kisses, he started to pull away. She murmured a soft, wordless protest and slipped her arms around his neck to pull him closer.
For a moment, he remained motionless, his breath warm against her mouth, his breathing harsh and ragged. Finally, just as she began to think he would leave her, he deepened the kiss, and his mouth was urgent and fierce on hers.
She moaned and returned the kiss as a tidal wave of emotion crashed over her, leaving her gasping for air. Passion and yearning and need washed over her.
And fear.
Plenty of fear.
Whether he knew it or not, he was offering her a choice—she could remain in a past consumed with sorrow, frozen by her grief, or she could break free, could seize the promise he offered.
There was no choice. Not really.
Jack was life—fiery, scorching life—and even though it terrified her, she wanted to burn her fingers in him.
She parted her lips for him eagerly, tangling her mouth with his, welcoming the slick heat of his tongue.
He pressed her back onto the blanket and his body was warm and solid against her. The only solid thing in her world, suddenly. She clutched him to her, yearning to feel his strength against her, to steal some of it for a little while.
His mouth captivated her, mesmerized her, and she lost track of everything else around her. Her world condensed to only this, to the heated magic of his lips and tongue.
She was just remembering to breathe again when one hand found the curve of her breast through the fabric of her sundress and her breath left in a whoosh.
Wherever he touched, molten fire shot from his fingertips, scorching along her nerve endings.
Her nipple swelled, aching to be touched, and she arched against him, feeling his hardness through his jeans. She couldn’t hold back her soft, aroused moan anymore than she could stop the tide.
At the sound, just a soft whisper in the night, really, he froze. With a growled curse, he rolled away from her and sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face.
For a long moment, he averted his gaze and said nothing. At his continuing silence, embarrassment began to replace the low, steady throb of desire and she could feel her face heat up.
Had she done something wrong? Okay, so she hadn’t made love in a long time—and even then, her few previous relationships had been nothing to write home about. But surely she wasn’t that bad at it.
He had wanted her, she knew that much. She was certainly inexperienced, but she wasn’t stupid and she could definitely recognize a man’s arousal when it jutted against her hip.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said, his voice ragged. “I can’t believe I let that happen.”
“Did you notice me complaining?”
He didn’t seem to hear her question. “I should never have let things get so out of control. It’s just that there’s this…this thing between us.”
“Thing?”
“Attraction. Hunger. Whatever you want to call it. Whatever it is that makes it so I can’t even look at you without wanting you.”
She lifted her gaze to his and her pulse begin to drum loud and strong in her ears. “Really?”
He gave a harsh-sounding laugh. “I’ve been attracted to you since the moment I found you in that miserable apartment. Even when you were so out of it from the pain of your burns that you barely knew your own name, I wanted you. It’s only grown more powerful since then. All you have to do is walk into the room and look at me out of those big, serious dark eyes and I’m hot and hard and ready to go.”
At his words, her body gave an answering sigh. She gripped her hands tightly together to keep them from trembling. “And this is a problem for you because…?”
“Because you’re too vulnerable, dammit. You’re hurting and you want to forget your pain for a little while by tangling your body with mine.” He snarled an oath. “I’d be the king of all sons of bitches if I took advantage of you like that right now.”
He stopped kissing her, touching her because he didn’t want to exploit her vulnerability? Because he thought she was too emotional to know what she was doing?
The irony of it nearly made her laugh.
For the first time in a year she felt as if she was choosing her o
wn destiny—was charting her own course instead of being tossed around on the godforsaken route fate had picked for her.
She wanted this. Wanted him. And she wasn’t about to let him talk her out of it.
She tried a smile that only came out a little bit wobbly. “When I think you’re taking advantage of me, believe me, I’ll let you know.”
For a moment, the only sound came from the night, then he spoke in a voice that matched the sea’s low rumble. “I care about you too much, Grace. If I didn’t, I might just say to hell with my conscience and give us both what we’re aching for. But I can’t do that. You mean something to me. Something important. Something real.”
The tenderness in his voice—in green eyes that she could just make out in the soft glow of the moonlight—destroyed her. She had to force herself to take several deep breaths before she dared speak.
“You’re partly right, I suppose,” she finally answered. “I do want to forget for a little while. But it’s so much more than that.”
He had talked about her vulnerability, yet she had never felt as exposed, as defenseless, as she did talking about this. Baring her soul to this man who had come to mean so much to her.
But he had been honest with her. She knew she owed the same to him.
“Jack, with you, I…I feel alive. I can’t explain it. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I like it or not.”
She stared out to sea, searching for the right words. “All I know,” she finally said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “is that when you touch me, I feel my heart race and my pulse pound and blood rush through parts of me that have been frozen for what seems like forever and I don’t want it to ever, ever stop.”
“Grace—”
She glanced back at him and saw that her words had stunned him. His green eyes were wide, arrested.
She took a shaky breath, amazed at herself. She was practically begging Jack Dugan to make love to her here on this empty, moonlit beach, and she knew if she took the time to think it through she would never again find this kind of courage.
Saving Grace Page 14