by Nora Roberts
“I was always afraid I’d pick it up wrong, break it in half from being clumsy. I never really got used to it.”
He skimmed his thumb lightly across her cheekbone, where the skin was warm and soft and silky. Then he dropped his hand to his side. “We’d better pitch in before Anna drives Cam over the edge.”
Grace’s stomach continued to flutter with nervous delight even when she went about the chore of carting food from the kitchen out to the picnic table. She would catch herself stopping, a bowl or platter in hand, to watch Ethan drive the horseshoe stakes into the ground.
Look how his muscles ripple under his shirt. He’s so strong. Look at the way he shows Seth how to hold the hammer. He’s so patient. He’s wearing the jeans I washed just the other day. The cuffs have gone white and they’re starting to fray. There was sixty-three cents in the right front pocket.
See how Aubrey climbs up on his back. She knows she’ll be welcome. Yes, he reaches back, gives her a little hitch to secure her there, then goes back to work. He doesn’t mind when she steals his cap and tries to put it on her own head. His hair’s gotten long, and the ends glint in the sun when he shakes it back out of his eyes.
I hope he keeps forgetting to go to the barber for a while yet.
I wish I could touch it, right now. Make those thick, sun-bleached ends curl around my finger.
“It’s a nice picture,” Anna murmured from behind her and made Grace jolt. With a quiet laugh, Anna set down the enormous bowl of pasta salad. “I do the same thing with Cam sometimes. Just stand and watch him. The Quinns are very watchable men.”
“I think I’m just going to take a quick glance, then I can’t stop looking.” She grinned when Ethan rose, Aubrey still clinging to his back, and turned slow circles as if trying to find her.
“He has a wonderful, natural way with children,” Anna commented. “He’ll make a wonderful father.”
Grace felt heat rise up into her cheeks. She’d been thinking the same thing. It was hard to believe that only a few weeks before she’d told her own mother she would never marry again. And now she was thinking, and wondering. And waiting.
It had been easy to put all thoughts of marriage aside when she hadn’t believed she could ever have a life with Ethan. She made a poor job of marriage before because her heart had belonged to someone other than her husband. That was her fault, and she accepted the responsibility for the failure.
But she could make marriage shine with Ethan, couldn’t she? They could build a home and a family and a future based on love and trust and honesty.
He wouldn’t move quickly, she mused. It wasn’t his way. But he loved her. She understood Ethan well enough to know that marriage would be the next step.
She was already poised to take it.
The smell of burgers smoking on the grill, the yeasty tang of beer pumped from a cold keg. The sounds of children laughing and adult voices lifted in bright conversation or lowered in juicy gossip. The low roar of a boat zipping over the water, with the thrilled shouts of its teenage occupants, the metallic clang of a horseshoe striking home.
There were scents and sounds and sights. There was the snappy red, white, and blue of the cloths covering the tables that were crowded with bowls and plates and platters and casseroles.
Mrs. Cutter’s cherry pie. The Wilsons’ shrimp salad. What was left of the bushel of corn the Crawfords had brought along. Jell-O molds and fruit salad, fried chicken and early vine tomatoes. People were spread out and gathered. On chairs, on the lawn, down at the dock, and on the porch.
Several men stood with hands on hips, watching the horseshoe match, their faces sober in the way men had when they kibitzed a sporting event. Babies napped in carriers or willing arms while others wailed for attention. The young splashed and swam in the cool water, and the old fanned themselves in the shade.
The sky was clear, the heat immense.
Grace watched Foolish nosing along the ground in search of dropped food. He’d found plenty, and she imagined he’d be sick as a—well, a dog—before the day was over.
She hoped it was never over.
She waded into the water, gripping Aubrey firmly despite the colorful floats wrapped around her arms. She dipped her daughter down, laughing when Aubrey’s little legs began to kick with delight.
“In, in, in!” Aubrey demanded.
“Honey, I didn’t bring my bathing suit.” But she eased out a little more, until the water lapped at her knees, so she could let Aubrey splash.
“Grace! Grace! Watch this!”
Obliging, Grace squinted against the sun and watched Seth take a running leap off the dock, tucking knees, wrapping arms, and hitting the water like a bomb so that it shot it up in a glittering fountain. And all over her.
“Cannonball,” he announced proudly when he surfaced. Then he grinned. “Gee, you got all wet.”
“Seth, take me.” Straining, Aubrey held out her arms. “Take me.”
“Can’t, Aub. Got bombs to blow.” When he swam off to join the other boys, Aubrey began to sniffle.
“He’ll come back and play later,” Grace assured her.
“Now!”
“Soon.” To ward off what Grace knew could turn into a fine temper, she tossed Aubrey up, catching her as she hit the water. She let her paddle and splash, then let her go, biting her lip as Aubrey reveled in the freedom.
“Swimming, Mama.”
“I see that, baby. You’re a good swimmer. But you stay close.”
As Grace expected, the sun and water and excitement combined to tire the child out. When Aubrey blinked and widened her eyes as she did when she fought sleep, Grace drew her in. “Let’s get a drink, Aubrey.”
“Swimming.”
“We’ll swim some more. I’m thirsty.” Grace lifted her, braced for the minor battle that was bound to come.
“What you got there, Grace, a mermaid?”
Mother and daughter looked up onto the wet slope and saw Ethan.
“She sure is pretty,” he said, smiling into Aubrey’s mutinous face. “Can I have her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She leaned close to Aubrey’s ear. “He thinks you’re a mermaid.”
Aubrey’s lip trembled, but she’d nearly forgotten why she’d wanted to cry. “Like Ariel?”
“Yes, like Ariel in the movie.” She started to climb out, then Ethan’s hand was there, clasping hers firmly. And when she gained her balance, he plucked Aubrey out of her arms.
“Swimming,” she told him, rather pitifully, then buried her face in the curve of his throat.
“I saw you swimming.” She was cool and wet and curled against him. He reached out, took Grace’s hand again and pulled her to level ground. This time, his fingers twined with hers and held. “Looks like I’ve got two mermaids now.”
“She’s tired,” Grace said quietly. “It makes her cross sometimes. She’s wet,” she added and started to take Aubrey from him.
“She’s fine.” He released her hand only because he wanted to skim his over Grace’s damp and shining hair. “You’re wet, too.” Then he slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s walk in the sun for a while.”
“All right.”
“Maybe around the front of the house,” he suggested, smiling a little as Aubrey’s breath fluttered against his skin, evening out into sleep. “Where there aren’t so many people.”
With surprise and a low surge of pleasure, Carol Monroe watched Ethan take her daughter and granddaughter walking. With a woman’s eyes she saw more than a neighbor and friend strolling with a neighbor and friend. Impulsively, she tugged on her husband’s arm, distracting him from his absorption in the current round of horseshoes.
“Hold on, Carol. Junior and I are playing the winners of this round.”
“Look, Pete. Look at that. Grace is with Ethan.”
Vaguely annoyed, he flicked a glance around, shrugged. “So what?”
“With him, Pete, you knothead.” It was said with exasperation and affection
. “Like a boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” He snorted, started to dismiss it—Christ knew, Carol had the screwiest ideas from time to time. Like when she was all het up to take a cruise down to the Bahamas. As if he couldn’t take a sail any damn time of the day or night right in his own backyard. But then he caught—something—in the way Ethan leaned his body toward Grace, the way she tilted her head up.
It made Pete shift his feet, scowl, look away. “Boyfriend,” he muttered, and didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to feel about that. He didn’t poke his nose in his daughter’s life, he reminded himself. She’d already gone her own way.
He scowled hard into the sun because he remembered what it had been like to have his little girl rest her head on his shoulder the way Aubrey was doing right then and there with Ethan Quinn.
When they were little like that, he thought, they trusted you and looked up to you and believed what you told them even if you told them thunder was just angels clapping.
When they got older they started to tug away. And to want things that didn’t make a damn bit of sense. Like money to live in New York City, and your blessing to marry some sneaky bastard who wasn’t half good enough for them.
They stopped thinking you were the man with the answers, and they broke your damn heart. So you had to put it back together as best you could, with a lock on it so it couldn’t happen again.
“Ethan’s just what Grace needs,” Carol was saying in a low voice—just in case any of the fuddy-duddies, who thought tossing a horseshoe at an iron peg was an exciting way to spend the day, had sharp ears. “That’s a steady man, and he’s got gentleness in him. He’s a man she could lean on.”
“Won’t.”
“What?”
“She won’t lean on nobody. She’s too proud for her own good, and always has been.”
Carol merely sighed. If it was true, Grace had gotten every stubborn ounce of that pride from her father. “You’ve never even tried to meet her halfway.”
“Don’t you start on me, Carol. I’ve got nothing to say.” He shifted away from her, ignoring the guilt because he knew the gesture would hurt her. “I want a beer,” he muttered and stalked away.
Phillip Quinn and some of the others were gathered around the keg. Pete noted with an amused snort that Phillip was flirting with the Barrow girl, Celia. He couldn’t blame the boy—she was built like a Playboy pinup and not afraid to show it off. It wasn’t something a man stopped noticing even if he was old enough to be her father.
“Want me to pull you one, Mr. Monroe?”
“ ’Preciate it.” Pete nodded toward the celebrants in the backyard. “Got you a crowd here, today, Phil. Fine spread, too. I remember how your folks’d throw a picnic most every summer. It’s nice you’re keeping up the tradition.”
“Anna thought of it,” Phillip told him, handing Pete a foaming beer in a tall plastic cup.
“Women do, more’n men, I suppose. If I don’t get the chance, you tell her I appreciate the invite. I gotta get back to the waterfront in an hour or so, set up for the display.”
“You always put on a good one. Best fireworks on the Shore.”
“Tradition,” Pete said again. It was a word that mattered.
Carol Monroe hadn’t been the only one to notice the way Ethan and Grace had walked off together. Speculation and sly grins started to spread over the potato salad and steamed crabs.
Mother Crawford wagged her fork at her good friend Lucy Wilson. “You ask me, Grace is going to have to put her foot down if she wants Ethan Quinn to come up to snuff before that baby’s old enough for college. Never seen a man moved so slow.”
“He’s thoughtful,” Lucy said loyally.
“Not saying different. Just saying slow. Seen them moony-eyed over each other since before that boy got his own workboat. Has to be nearly ten years passed. Stella and I—bless her soul—had a conversation over it a time or two.”
Lucy sighed over her fruit salad, and not just because she was watching her calories. “Stella knew her boys inside and out.”
“That she did. I said to her one day, ‘Stella, your Ethan’s got cow’s eyes for the young Monroe girl.’ ” And she laughed, said how he had himself a hard case of puppy love, but that sometimes it was the best way to start the real thing. Never could figure why Ethan didn’t step forward a bit before Grace got herself tangled up with that Jack Casey. Never did like him much.”
“He wasn’t a bad sort, just weak. Look there, Mother,” Lucy said, lowering her voice like a conspirator. She nodded toward Ethan and Grace, as they walked back around the side of the house, hands linked, the baby sleeping on his shoulder.
“Nothing weak about that one.” Mother wiggled her brows and leered at her friend. “And slow can be a fine thing in bed, can’t it, Lucy?”
Lucy hooted. “It can, Mother. That it can.”
Blissfully unaware of the speculation buzzing about a quiet walk around the house on a hot summer afternoon, Grace stopped to pour some iced tea. Before she’d half filled the first glass, her mother was bustling over, beaming smiles.
“Oh, let me hold that precious girl. Nothing so soothing as sitting with a sleeping baby.” She’d slipped Aubrey out of Ethan’s arms while she talked, her voice low and quick. “It’ll give me a fine excuse to sit in the shade a while and be quiet. I swear, Nancy Claremont’s been talking both my ears off. You young people should be off enjoying yourself.”
“I was going to lay her down,” Grace began, but her mother just waved it away.
“No need, no need. I don’t get nearly enough chances to hold her when she’s still. Go on and finish your walk. Ought to get out of the sun, though. It’s brutal.”
“It’s a good idea,” Ethan mused as Carol hurried off, cooing to the sleeping Aubrey. “A little shade and a little quiet wouldn’t hurt.”
“Well . . . all right, but I’ve only got another hour or so before I have to leave.”
He’d been tugging her gently toward the trees, thinking that he could find a sheltered spot, a private spot, and kiss her again. He stopped at the verge and frowned at her. “Leave for what?”
“For work. I’m on at the pub tonight.”
“It’s your night off.”
“It was—that is, it usually is, but I’m putting on some more hours.”
“You work too many hours already.”
She smiled, distracted—then relieved when the shade she walked into cut the intense heat in half. “It’s just a few more. Shiney was good about helping me out so I can make up what I had to pay for the car. Oh, this is nice.” She closed her eyes, breathed deep of the moist, cool air. “Anna said you and your brothers were going to play later. I’ll be sorry to miss that.”
“Grace, I told you if money was a problem, I’d help you out.”
She opened her eyes again. “I don’t need you to help me out, Ethan. I know how to work.”
“Yeah, you know how. It’s damn near all you do.” He paced away from her, paced back as if trying to shake off what was biting at his gut. “I hate you working down there.”
Her spine stiffened—she could feel it go hard and straight, vertebra by vertebra. “I don’t want to fight with you about that again. It’s a good job, honest work.”
“I’m not fighting with you, I’m saying it.” He stalked toward her, the swirling temper in his eyes surprising enough that she backed up against a tree.
“I’ve heard you say it before,” she said evenly. “And it doesn’t change the facts. I work there, and I’m going to go on working there.”
“You need looking after.” It scraped him raw that he couldn’t be the one to do it.
“I don’t.”
Hell she didn’t. There were already tired smudges under those changeable green eyes, and now she was telling him she’d be carting trays until two in the morning. “Did you pay Dave for the car yet?”
“Half.” It was humiliating. “He was good enough to give me until next month to pay him
the rest.”
“You won’t pay him.” That, at least, was something he could do. Would do, by Christ. “I will.”
She forgot about humiliation. Her chin came up, sharp and fast as a bullet. “You will not.”
Another time he would have persuaded, cajoled. Or simply done the deed on the quiet. But something was bubbling up in him—something that had been there, simmering, since he’d turned that morning and seen her. It wouldn’t let him think, only feel and act. With his eyes on hers he slipped a hand up, over her throat.
“Be quiet.”
“I’m not a child, Ethan. You can’t—”
“I’m not thinking about you like a child.” Her eyes were bright and sharp. They were heating the something that was inside him to a boil. “I stopped being able to do that, and I can’t go back to it. Do what I want this time.”
She didn’t know when her breath had started to back up or her skin to shiver. Dimly she felt the rough bark of the tree bite into her hands as she pressed them against it. She didn’t think he was talking about her accepting a few hundred dollars for a car any longer.
“Ethan—”
His other hand was on her breast. He hadn’t meant to put it there, but it covered her and his fingers began to flex and knead. Her shirt was still damp, just a little damp. He could feel her skin go hot under it. “Do what I want this time,” he repeated.
Her eyes were huge. He was falling into them, drowning in them. Her heart was pounding against his hand, as if he held it beating in his palm. His mouth crushed down on hers with a violent greed that he was for once helpless to stem. He heard her shocked cry muffled against his assaulting mouth. And it only thrilled him darkly.
The heat swarmed from him, stunning her. His teeth nipped roughly into her lip, making her gasp, opening herself to the swift and skillful invasion of his tongue.
Sensations flew too quickly to separate one from the other, but all were dark and keen and compelling. His hands were everywhere, tugging up her shirt, claiming her breasts, scraping those deliciously rough palms over her. She felt him quiver, gripped his shoulders to balance them both.