by Skye Jordan
“Josh…” Tammy said thoughtfully, shifting toward the counter and scooping a spoonful of salad onto one piece of bread. “Oh, Josh.” She turned again, face open with excitement. Her eyes were light and bright, some shade of hazel. “Navy SEAL?”
He smiled, confused, but comfortable with this warm welcome. “Former, yes.”
“Right, right. A shoulder injury?”
His confusion deepened, unsure who’d been talking about him, Carolyn or Grace.
“Oh, I’ve heard so much about you.” Tammy gestured with the spoon, and a dollop of tuna salad hit the tile. “Oh dear… I’m sorry.”
Josh grabbed a paper towel from the roll on the sink. “No worries. I’ve got it.”
“Thank you. I’m so excited to finally meet you. Carolyn talks about you nonstop when she’s lucid. My, oh my, she couldn’t have been more proud of you if you’d been her own son.”
“I think you have me mixed up with her former son-in-law, Isaac Beck. He’s also a SEAL.”
“No, no, I know all about Isaac. And all the other men in your team. I think there was a Boomer, Digger, Big Joe… But there’s no doubt you were her favorite. Yep, I’ve heard all about you, Mr. Charmer.” Her grin made Josh wonder just what Carolyn had said. “Carolyn will be so thrilled you’re here— Oh…”
She trailed off as if she’d just remembered something, and a shadow darkened her expression.
“What?” he asked when she didn’t continue.
“It’s just… She’s having a rough day, and there’s no guarantee she’ll remember you. People from the past can be a positive trigger, bringing back a whole range of memory, but they can also cause stress and anxiety, which…well…
“I’m sure Grace has told you that Carolyn hasn’t recognized her since Betty passed. That was her roommate.” She shook her head and gazed out the window at the women. “It’s been really rough on Grace. I’m so glad she has someone to lean on now. We all need that, don’t we?” She smiled sadly at Josh. “Even you big strong SEALs lean on each other, right?”
“I’ve got you covered, buddy. They’ll have to get through me to get to you.” Beck’s words to Josh on that horrible day filled his head.
Josh cleared his throat, emotions cluttering his heart. “Yes, ma’am. Everyone needs help once in a while.” He watched Grace and Carolyn through the window. “I was surprised to hear about this. Carolyn is so young…”
“She’s about ten years younger than average for memory issues, but not the youngest resident I’ve had here. Last year, we lost a fifty-eight-year-old woman who’d been suffering for somewhere between five and seven years.”
Josh’s heart sank, and he nodded in acknowledgment of Tammy’s statement.
Outside, an angry outburst drew Josh’s gaze back to the women. With a frustrated cry, Carolyn slapped her hands on the table. She hit the bowl, shooting Cheerios everywhere. And when the little Os hit her, she screamed, batting them away like bees. Josh gripped the counter with one hand, muscles coiled to act. “Should we—”
“Not yet.” Tammy closed a hand around Josh’s forearm. “I’m going to have to stop letting Carolyn do this project.” A wry warmth filled her voice. “We string the Cheerios for the birds because she loves watching them through the window, but when she’s lucid, she says they look like feathered bowling balls and claims we’re promoting sparrow obesity.”
Grace jumped up, wrapping her arms around Carolyn from behind, trapping her arms at her sides while she spoke in her ear.
“Grace is really good with her.” Tammy’s hand eased off Josh’s arm, and she set the spoon down. “The less chaos for Carolyn when she has a moment, the better.”
Carolyn burst into tears and slumped in her chair. Grace pressed her face to her mother’s hair. Then she laid her cheek against her mother’s head, rocking her gently, while tears glistened on Grace’s cheeks.
“Oh dear…”
The empathy in Tammy’s voice resonated in Josh’s chest. His eyes burned. His heart ached. And his whole view of his role in Grace’s life shifted.
“I can see this isn’t the best day for a visit,” he said.
“I’m so sorry.” Tammy turned an uncertain smile on Josh. “Please come back another time. When Carolyn is in a better place, I know she’ll enjoy your visit. I know seeing you with Grace will bring her absolute joy and peace.”
Joy and peace.
The thought of staying with Grace, of being her support, brought Josh the same sense of joy and peace…among other emotions.
Yes. He’d definitely be back.
Grace stepped out onto Safe Haven’s front porch, feeling hollow, fragile, and bruised all at the same time. The memory of her mother coming unglued because she hadn’t been able to thread a goddamned Cheerio onto a freaking piece of yarn burst behind her eyelids again, and her knees buckled. She slid along the door until her butt hit the cement, covered her head with her arms, and burst into tears.
They didn’t last long. Maybe twenty seconds. Crying took energy, and after a sleepless night, she was physically drained and emotionally wiped out. The episode with her mother—mild in the scheme of things—had just pushed her over the edge.
Now, she had to go spend three hours at cheer practice pretending to be bubbly and enthusiastic for twenty-two seventeen-year-olds, followed by another eight hours of teaching women how to be enthusiastically sexy for men looking for a fantasy escape.
Days like this made her want to just give up. The only thing that kept dragging her back to her feet was the thought of how often her mother must have felt just like Grace did now while she’d been raising her alone, working two jobs. And she’d always been there to greet Grace with a smile, dry her tears with soft words of hope, and cheer Grace through life while struggling through her own.
She pushed to her feet and dried her face. She’d be okay. Her mom would be okay. Grace just needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Focus kept her moving forward, right up until she found Josh sitting on her hood, cross trainers propped on her bumper, elbows on knees.
Her stomach dropped. Her shoulders followed. But her heart was already shattered and numb. “I can’t do this, Josh. I really can’t.”
He pushed from the hood, his stance relaxed but his expression serious. “When did this happen?”
“Last year. Listen, I have to get to cheer practice—”
“When she came to see me in the hospital, she was perfectly fine.”
Grace sighed heavily. “No, she wasn’t. She hasn’t been fine for nearly five years, she’s just been hiding it because she didn’t want to burden me.” The thought of her mother being a burden after all she’d done for Grace was ludicrous and just pushed her anger higher and her sadness deeper. “She started taking medication two years ago, but it hasn’t helped. She was doing better before her roommate died…”
Emotion welled up in Grace’s throat, and she couldn’t go on.
“Will it get better?” he asked, his voice filled with the same distress Grace had lived with for the past year.
“No.” The word came out half rasp, half whisper. The will to keep all her emotions stuffed away made Grace tremble.
Josh approached her in slow, thoughtful steps. She wanted to back away, but the utter emotional defeat had robbed her of the will to move. And when he wrapped her in his arms, she squeezed her eyes closed, buried her face in his T-shirt…and broke. Just started bawling.
His arms tightened as he pressed kisses to her hair. Stroked her back. Rocked her gently from side to side. Her second jag in ten minutes dried up as quickly as the first.
“I want to help,” he murmured in that low rumbling voice.
Again, too little, too late.
She knew she should let go and step back, but, God, she needed someone to lean on so badly. “There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. It just…is.”
His hands stroked across her shoulders, those big warm hands on her skin, sliding intimately o
ver her Lycra tank, curving over the small of her back, and traveling up her spine to the back of her neck. She wanted to lift her face to his neck, to breath him in, to taste his skin, to lick his lips the way she had last night. Craved the pressure of him between her legs, the sizzle of skin on skin.
“Let me take over the expenses here,” he murmured, cupping her head and kissing her temple. “I have the money, and you can’t keep running these crazy hours. You come here, then you go to cheer practice, then you’re at the club until an ungodly hour. You’re going to make yourself sick, then where will you be?”
The heat glowing at the center of her body immediately cooled, and she pushed away. “You realize that when you tell me I can’t do something, it just makes me want to prove you wrong, don’t you?”
“I didn’t mean can’t as in can’t, I just—”
“Mom worked two jobs and raised me for over twenty years. I sure as hell can do it for as long as she needs me. And dammit, there’s more to the club than just money. Didn’t you hear what I told you last night?”
“I did—”
“I may have taken the job to pay for Mom’s care, but I’ve built it into something different and special. Something unique. I would still work at the club even if I didn’t need the job for Mom.”
“I know,” he said, gently, seriously. “I talked to the owner last night. He thinks of you like a daughter. Brags about how much business you’ve brought in. How much the girls love you. How you’re the damn glue that keeps that place together.”
She pressed her lips together, not sure how to feel. Or what to believe.
“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” he said. “I just want you safe and happy. And I want Carolyn comfortable. I love her too.”
A mixed flurry of emotion swept in, whirling into chaos. He was able to say he loved her mother but not her. His offer, while sweet and generous, was also ignorant and shortsighted. And the bottom line was…she couldn’t depend on him in any way that mattered.
“I know you mean well, Josh, but that’s unrealistic in more ways than I have time to explain right now.”
He blew out a breath, shifted on his feet, and put his hands on his hips. “What can I do?”
She crossed her arms. “You can leave,” she said, in her gentlest voice, even though a sense of loss raged inside her. “Because we both know you’ve created your life somewhere else, and you’re going to leave eventually anyway. It would be better for all of us if you left sooner rather than later.”
She opened the driver’s door, and Josh caught the top in one big hand. “I’m not leaving like this.”
“Like what? Like this?” She gestured between them, indicating the conflict brewing. “This is how you left it a year ago. And nothing’s changed.”
She sat and pulled on the door, but Josh didn’t let go. “Everything’s changed. And I’m going to find a way to help—both you and Carolyn.”
She heaved a sigh, struggling to hold on to her patience while gathering her last whisper of strength to meet his eyes deliberately. “I’m late for cheer practice. Please let go, I need the money.”
Grace pulled her car around to the back of the club, her mind calculating where Josh might be. If he’d left town directly from Safe Haven, he could be waiting on his flight home to Philadelphia. Pushing him away had been heart wrenching, but she had priorities, and he’d chosen not to be among them. She’d just have to find a way to get over it. Eventually, she would. Her mother’s Alzheimer’s had forced Grace to face a lot of tough times and heartbreaking choices.
She stopped beside the back door, which had been propped open. Drywall leaned against the building, and tools were lined up along the wall.
“Oh jeez,” she muttered, glancing around the lot for a work van. “What’s broken now?”
She only hoped the cost to fix whatever it was wouldn’t interfere with the planned storeroom renovation. Dean had already put her studio on hold once, waiting for his lousy brother-in-law to get his shit together and do the job. Grace had finally convinced him to move forward with a different contractor, but their bids had come in on the high side. Any extra expense or dip in revenue would delay the project again. And she needed that space—one she would lease from Dean to start her own dance school.
Dread snaked down her spine as she pulled the groceries and giant Costco lasagna out of the trunk.She stepped through the back door and scanned the massive dressing room, already buzzing with a dozen dancers pulling out costumes, applying makeup, and styling their hair.
“Hi, ladies,” Grace called, her greeting echoed from the others as she set the food down at the other end of the only table, where one of Jasmine’s four-year-old twins was sitting, coloring. A mix of African-American and Hispanic, the twins were the most beautiful creatures Grace had ever met. They were also as sweet as sugar and as gregarious as their father. “Hi, Dillon. Where’s your mom?”
He looked up with those huge, innocent brown eyes, twirling a blue crayon between his fingers. “Don’t know.”
Grace nodded at his drawing. “What’s that?”
“Transformer. Santa’s gonna bring me one for Christmas.”
“Cool,” she said. “Where’s your brother?”
“Helping the builder man.”
Grace looked left, toward the storeroom she already considered her dance studio. The double doors were open, and more tools and power cords lay at the threshold. The rattle of a tape measure caught Grace’s ear, and she frowned. What the hell could be broken in there?
“Does anyone know where Jasmine is?” Grace asked the room at large. Jasmine was the dancer with the longest history at Allure, and often acted as the house mom when no house mom was around.
“Right here.” She came around the corner from the club’s main stage. She was the most stunning black woman Grace had ever met, with one of those killer, Amazonian bodies—tall, muscular, and built. She’d pulled her long black braids off her face and wore workout tights and a tank. “Rocco will be here in ten minutes to pick up the boys.”
“They’re never a problem. I’m worried about whatever’s going on back there, though. Please tell me it’s not something major like air-conditioning, heating, or plumbing.”
“Nothing broken back there, honey.” Dillon and Dalton’s mother came up beside Grace, and used one perfectly manicured dark hand to lift the aluminum. “What’d you bring us?”
“Lasagna.”
“Nice,” she sang out, then lowered her voice and turned away from her son. “But not near as nice as the eye candy in the back.” She hooked a thumb toward the storeroom, then shook out her hand like it was hot. “Whoo-wee. If I’d known that’s who we’d have hanging around here building the studio, I’d have traded days to work all week.”
Grace frowned. “Studio?” She glanced that direction again but only heard heavy footsteps and the movement of equipment. No voices. Her mind darted back to the large-bellied contractors who’d been chatting Dean up the night before. “Did Dean approve the bid?” She put a hand to her chest. “Be still my heart.”
Jasmine got a devious look in her eye and grinned. “I don’t think he’s using the same contractors, ’cause the dude back there ain’t forty, ain’t balding, and his belly has more ridges than a Trojan Ultra Ribbed. And if he’s here when the rest of the girls come in tonight, you’re gonna have a hard time getting anyone out on stage. You might even have a couple of cat fights over who gets to give him the VIP treatment as a bonus.” She put air quotes around the last word, then tapped Dillon’s shoulder and brought her voice up to a normal level. “Sweet pea, go get your brother. Daddy’s gonna be here in a few minutes to take you home.”
Dillon set the crayon down and slid off the chair.
“I’ll come with you, Dillon,” Grace said, patting his soft head of dark curls, still frowning at Jasmine. “I’d better check out this builder man.”
“I don’t advise stepping into that room without reflective glasses.” She put up her
hands and raised her brows. “Just sayin’. Not my fault if your eyeballs fry.”
“Jaime, Kaitlin, and Hillary,” Grace called, following Dillon as the boy skipped across the dressing room and disappeared through the open double doors, “head out to the stage and start stretching. I’ll be right there.”
From this angle, Grace could only see one wall of the storeroom, its bare studs now covered with gypsum board. Trepidation crawled through her chest. She was going to be so pissed if Dean had gone for the cheapest labor he could find to—
“Whoa!” The familiar male voice carried from inside the large room, one that made Grace’s feet stop midstep. Made her heart flip and squeeze. “What’s this? There’s two of you?”
The twins giggled.
“Good Lord, what a handful,” Josh said. “Your poor mother. No, little dude, don’t touch that. Here, I’ll show you how this works.”
An electric buzz filled the air, followed by more giggles from the boys.
Grace didn’t know how to respond to his voice. She was first shocked, then angry, then confused, then angry again.
“I’m going to find a way to help—both you and Carolyn.”
Josh’s last words filled Grace’s head.
She pushed her feet forward and gripped the doorframe as she turned into the room, but the sight on the floor in front of her tangled her mind.
Josh knelt on the floor between the twins. He was shirtless, wearing only jeans, lightweight suede work boots, and a leather tool belt. And Grace instantly understood Jasmine’s Trojan Ultra Ribbed metaphor. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen his body. Over the years, she’d seen him in swim trunks dozens of times.
But…this was like seeing him again for the first time, all bronze and beefy, the thick muscles of his shoulders and biceps curved and cut. The scars on his right shoulder had healed well, but left thick, discolored welts on his skin. Somehow, it only made him more authentic, more masculine, more…delicious.