Saving Grace

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Dying of frustration.

  The wall hanging was another of those subjects they didn’t talk about, just like what had happened on the beach the other night.

  They also avoided mentioning the careful, subtle distance she maintained with Emma. She had been unfailingly kind to his daughter since the day they had gone snorkeling, but she hadn’t read to her again and she went out of her way to avoid situations that might put her in close contact alone with Emma.

  As if she knew he was thinking of her, Em suddenly lifted her attention from the birdbath. “Hey, Lily, can I have a banana Popsicle?” she asked.

  “We’re going to eat in a little while.”

  “Please? I promise I’ll eat all my dinner. Long as it’s not that yucky poi stuff again like we had last night at the party.” She screwed up her face tightly and shuddered at the thought.

  Jack couldn’t help the soft laugh that escaped him. Unfortunately, it gave away his position and all three of them looked toward him, lurking here in the doorway.

  “Daddy!” Emma shrieked. Without a backward look, she let her long-suffering doll drown and launched herself toward him.

  He slid the door open and scooped her up, smiling in greeting to Lily and Grace as he did it.

  “Hey, pumpkin. How was your day?”

  “Good. We went to town again and had shave ice and I played with Pookie. He threw sand at me and it got in my hair.”

  He swallowed a grin at her disgusted tone. “Boys will sometimes do things like that. Better get used to it.”

  “I was going to throw sand back at him but Lily made me drop it. I don’t think that’s very fair.”

  Ah, the injustices of life. He smiled at her. “Did I hear somebody say something about a banana Popsicle?”

  As always, she was easily diverted. She nodded her head. “I’m gonna have one. You want to share?”

  Frozen banana sugar-sticks didn’t rank very high on his list of favorite treats but how could he discourage such willing generosity? “Sure. You go get it and I’ll break it in half for us.”

  He set her down and she hurried into the house. He loved her so much it caught his breath sometimes. How could Grace not adore such a sweet, loving, generous little girl?

  He crossed the lanai and sat in the glider across from the two women, stretching his legs out in front of him.

  “How was your day?” Lily asked.

  Lucrative. Over eighteen holes at the Turtle Bay golf course in Kahuku, he’d cinched the multimillion dollar deal with the Koreans, snatching the account from his largest competitor.

  It should have been a moment rich with professional satisfaction—but through the entire flight shuttling the Kims back to their hotel in Maui, he hadn’t been able to think about anything but Grace and about this heat simmering between them.

  He shrugged and snatched a potato chunk from Lily’s bowl, barely escaping her customary knuckle-rap. “Did I ever tell you how boring I find the game of golf? What I want to know is, why aren’t more business deals conducted over a good game of touch football?”

  He was rewarded with a snicker—an actual snicker—out of Grace.

  Lily—much harder to impress, apparently—just rolled her eyes. “I can just see you and Mr. Kim chasing each other around a football field while you negotiate terms, or whatever it is you hotshot business people do.”

  “It could work. Think about it. There’s nothing like pitting the shirts against the skins to really condense issues down to bare bones.”

  Lily just shook her head at him. “Sometimes it amazes me that you have such a big, successful company. How do you even keep that business of yours running?”

  “Charm and good looks.” He grinned at Grace, who flashed him an amused smile, then quickly returned to the material on her lap.

  Lily snorted. “Oh yeah, Mr. Charm-and-Good-Looks. I forgot to tell you. Sydney called while you were gone. I’m supposed to tell you to call her, no matter what time you get in.”

  He grimaced, hating the reminder of Seattle. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay right here and spend more time with this vibrant Grace, who laughed at his jokes and came alive in his arms.

  He was afraid when they returned to Bainbridge Island, she would disappear back into her cold, lonely world.

  And the realization of how badly he would miss her haunted him.

  * * *

  She was going to kill a certain Hawaiian.

  It was two in the morning, her last night in paradise, and here she sat in her room with her eyes itching, her back aching and her fingers on fire. And for what? Because of this stupid quilted square Lily talked her into starting—a project she had no idea why she was wasting her time struggling with anyway, since she wasn’t ever going to be able to finish it.

  Despite five days of intense effort, she still had hours of work to do on the thing. She ought to just toss it in the rag bin, despite Lily’s blasted calm assurance that she didn’t have much more to do. Every time she was tempted to set it aside and try to forget about it, though, some compulsion would send her back to it.

  If she was going to be frustrated, she’d certainly picked a beautiful place for it. She gazed out the big windows at the moonlight glistening on the water. A bamboo wind chime on the lanai clanked its low song in the ever present breeze that puffed the curtains and rustled the fronds of the palm trees outside her window.

  She didn’t want to go back to Seattle. She wanted to stay here and pretend all the ugliness of her life there was just a distant dream.

  On the other hand, she didn’t know how much more she could survive of this thick sexual tension between her and Jack.

  Every time she was with him, it cranked up a notch, until now she felt as if her body was so tightly strung it would only take a touch to make it crack apart.

  She wasn’t sure what was more responsible for keeping her awake and edgy at night, the unfinished quilted square with its ring of leaping dolphins or this constant, restless craving to be in Jack’s arms again.

  She rotated her shoulders and stretched her neck from side to side. This was crazy. Absolutely crazy. She was going to be as stiff as one of those tiki statues they sold in all the tourist traps if she stayed in this position much longer.

  She needed to get up and move a bit, she thought, and decided to sneak down to the kitchen for a glass of ice water from the refrigerator and a slice of Lily’s heavenly banana bread.

  She closed her door softly and padded in her bare feet down the stairs. The house was dark, as she expected, but the full moon provided enough light to help her make it down the stairs and through the house to the kitchen without stumbling over anything.

  She turned on only the light above the stove, fixed her snack, then turned it off before starting back across the living room, munching banana bread as she went.

  “Can’t sleep?”

  The low voice came out of nowhere, scaring her witless. She gasped, inhaling much too quickly for somebody with a mouthful of banana bread, and the glass of ice water slipped from her hands to shatter with a dainty crash on the sisal rug.

  The gasp of surprise turned into a choking cough as a piece of banana bread lodged in her throat.

  “Are you okay?” Jack’s disembodied voice floated through the dark living room. She wanted to answer him but she was too busy trying to clear an airway.

  The room suddenly lit up as bright as day when he flipped the switch and she finally managed to choke down the errant bite so she could breathe again.

  The blessed oxygen in her lungs lasted only long enough for her to realize he had very little on, just a pair of surfer trunks even more disreputable than the pair she’d seen him in that first morning after their arrival.

  A towel was slung around his neck, his hair was wet and beads of moisture clung to the sculpted muscles of his chest.

  It only took her crack ex-detective brain about a minute of her gaping at him to figure out he’d been swimming.

  She clear
ed away the last of the banana bread. “Good grief, Jack. Are you trying to give me a heart attack? What are you still doing up?”

  He shrugged his bare shoulders. “I couldn’t sleep either and thought I’d work the edge off in the water.”

  “In the ocean? Is that safe in the middle of the night?”

  “No. But the full moon tonight made it seem just like daylight out there. I didn’t even go out to the first line of breakers. Just bodysurfed a little.”

  “I’ve always wanted to try that,” she said, and was surprised at the wistful note in her voice.

  “I’m sorry we’re leaving before you had a chance. Maybe you can try it next time you come.”

  But there wouldn’t be a next time, and both of them knew it. The thought filled her with an aching sadness.

  She would never see this idyllic spot again, never feel the wonder of his touch. He would go on with his life and she would go on with hers and their paths would probably never cross again.

  She gazed at the broken glass and the water spot spreading out across the rug. “I suppose I’d better clean up this mess.”

  “No, stay put. You don’t have shoes on. I’ve at least got flip-flops to protect my feet. Sit down and I’ll clean it up.”

  “It’s my mess. I can take care of it.”

  “A mess you wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t scared you so badly. Sit down.”

  He hurried to the kitchen and quickly returned with a broom, dustpan and towel. While he went to work sweeping up the tiny shards of glass, she ignored his protests and took the towel to sop the water from the carpet.

  When he finished, she followed him into the kitchen. He shook the tiny shards of glass from the dustpan into the trash—rubbish, they called it here—while she went to the sink to wring out the towel.

  Everything would have been fine—they would have said their good-nights and parted to their respective bedrooms—if she hadn’t turned to hang the towel on the stove just as he stepped away from the trash can.

  Their paths collided, their bodies brushed. Both of them froze and the only sound in the kitchen besides the low hum of the refrigerator was her sudden intake of breath.

  He was cool and damp from the water, and she was suddenly conscious of her flimsy nightgown, a simple white sleeveless cotton shift.

  All her instincts shouted at her to step away, to put as much distance between them as she could. But then she made the mistake of lifting her eyes from the wide expanse of muscled chest, of letting her gaze meet his.

  Her heartbeat seemed to stutter and catch in her chest. She knew that look shimmering in those brilliant green depths. She’d spent the last five days dreaming about that look.

  He wanted her, and her body hummed an eager, enthusiastic response.

  She should just ignore it. If she had a brain left in her head, she would just turn around and run as fast as she could to the safe haven of her room and lock the door against him.

  Even as the thought flitted through her head, she heard herself murmur his name and felt her body lean into his.

  CHAPTER 15

  She melted in his arms like hot wax in the sun.

  He closed his eyes at the touch of her mouth, at her warm, lithe body in his arms again, and that ferocious need he had tried to contain for five days growled to life within him. It bayed and howled inside his skin.

  He moved quickly to try to restrain it and took a step back, bumping up against the kitchen counter.

  To his chagrin, she moved with him in a slow, sensuous dance. She gave a soft moan and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer, and he was lost.

  Completely lost.

  All reason, all his arguments for staying away from her, disappeared in an instant, leaving only this raw, pulsing need inside his skin. He buried his hands in her hair and angled her head for his mouth. Her lips parted for him willingly, eagerly, and he groaned at the slick heat of her tongue on his.

  She wore a thin white cotton nightgown, something she must have brought from her apartment. It was plain and simple and shouldn’t have been at all sexy, but it slid against his bare chest with every movement, creating an excruciating friction.

  Her breasts pressed against his skin through the thin cotton, begging for his touch. How could he resist?

  That soft, erotic moan escaped her throat again and he filled his hand with her, his thumb dancing across the hard, aroused peak that pushed against the cloth. Her head slid back and he kissed his way down the long column of her neck to the first tiny buttons on her nightgown.

  His fingers fumbled on the buttons, but he finally found success and the material slid off one shoulder. He kissed the skin there, on the fine, elegant curve of her clavicle, then lifted her bottom to the counter so he could better reach the delights bared before him.

  Her nipple pebbled to his touch and he drew it into his mouth. Her skin was hot—so hot—and smelled like plumeria.

  She dug her hands in his hair, stroking, caressing, murmuring his name, and all he could think about was burying himself inside her.

  It only took an instant for him to free himself from his swim trunks. Standing between her thighs, he lifted the hem of her nightgown and quickly yanked off her panties.

  His fingers found her, slick and welcoming, and she arched against him, gasping his name. Just as he prepared to plunge inside her, she wrenched her mouth away and spoke in a low, breathy voice.

  “Jack… Stop. We can’t… Someone might come,” she whispered.

  He was so lost in the tight grip of desire that it took several seconds for her words to register. Damn. She was right. He was just about to take her against the kitchen cabinets, for heaven’s sake, where anyone could walk in on them. What was he thinking?

  Easy. He wasn’t thinking anything but how wonderful—how completely perfect—she felt in his arms.

  His body cried out a protest as he growled a harsh curse and stepped away.

  “Wait. I didn’t want you to stop. I don’t want you to stop.” Her voice trembled a little and she splayed a hand on his chest. He felt his muscles contract under the heat of her skin.

  “That’s not what I meant. I…I just thought maybe we ought to move this somewhere we are less likely to be interrupted. My room, maybe.”

  He knew he should put a stop to this. Dammit, he knew it. He could come up with a thousand reasons why it was wrong, starting with all the things he’d listed to himself the other night.

  But all those reasons meant nothing compared to the need thundering through him and this soft, disconcerting tenderness.

  He met her gaze and the dazed hunger in her dark eyes there nearly sent him to his knees. “Mine’s closer,” he muttered, and practically dragged her to his room at the top of the stairs.

  He didn’t even wait until they were inside the room before his mouth was on hers again. He pushed her inside the room, kicking the door shut and twisting the lock behind his back without severing the connection of their lips and tongues and teeth.

  “You taste so incredibly good,” he breathed. “Sweet and lush, like ripe bananas and heaven.”

  “And you taste like the sea,” she murmured, and pulled her mouth away from his to press warm lips to the skin of his chest.

  He survived only a few moments of the sweet torture before he pushed her toward the bed, pulling off her nightgown in one easy motion with a silent prayer of gratitude for the heat of the island that lent itself so well to loose, flowing clothing.

  Just before he would have joined her, she took his hand. “Jack, no regrets this time. Promise me.”

  He gazed at her, at the tumble of sable hair in stark contrast to his white sheets, at those huge, luminous brown eyes watching him so seriously, at her exotic dusky skin.

  How could he promise her that when he was already having regrets? They simmered at the back of his mind, just waiting for him to be able to think straight so they could break free.

  He knew there was no going back this time, no wit
hdrawing to the polite distance they’d maintained since that night on the beach.

  “Grace, are you sure about this?”

  “Positive. This is what I want. You’re what I want.”

  He loved her. It was his last coherent thought before he pushed inside her. Despite all his efforts, despite all the reasons why he knew it was a mistake of phenomenal proportions, he had completely lost his heart to this beautiful, sexy, unbelievably brave woman.

  And it scared the hell out of him.

  * * *

  The man had had no more than three hours of sleep. She knew it, since she had spent those three hours wrapped around him like a tangled vine. So how could he manage to look so competent, so completely self-assured, after five hours at the controls of the little jet?

  She gazed at the back of his head, at the sunstreaked blond hair and the tanned skin of his neck.

  He was speaking into his headset and checking the instrument panel in front of him with a seriousness in direct contrast to the relaxed playful man who built sand towers with his daughter and bodysurfed in the middle of the night under a full moon.

  He was a multifaceted man—devoted father, aggressive businessman. Completely masculine, yet compassionate enough to hold a grieving mother while she wept.

  What would she do without him in her life?

  She shivered suddenly and reached above her head to turn off the forced air blowing on her.

  She knew perfectly well that wasn’t the real cause for her chills, but it helped her to focus on something external, something besides the jolt that rippled through her every time she realized how much she’d come to care about Jack Dugan.

  What was she going to do?

  She wrenched her gaze away from him and stared out the little round window at the hard blue of the Pacific beneath them. She had no choice. She had to leave his home, his life, before she did something completely stupid like fall in love with him.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  She shivered again. It wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it happen.