“I’m so sorry,” she said.
Her lips tingled at the contact, drawn back to his like a tidal pull. She resisted it, stroking her palms down his arms, warming his skin or hers, she wasn’t sure. Then she sat back, forcing him to meet her gaze.
“You told me when you were a kid you liked fixing things.” Her voice wobbled as the words she planned to say spun through her head. God knew if anything would get through to him. “Now you’re an adult, and that doesn’t seem to have changed. You fix broken people every day. But that isn’t all you try to fix. When your mother got sick, you stepped up and took on a responsibility you didn’t think you could cope with—but you did it anyway. When I needed a job”— her voice wobbled again, and she squeezed her knees against him to try to steady it—“when I needed a home, you offered me both.”
Owen’s hand skimmed up her leg and tightened on her hip. “There are some things I can’t fix.”
“I know, baby. You can’t fix your sister’s life being taken too soon, and you can’t fix the last conversation you had with her. But you can learn to accept that one conversation doesn’t equal the sum of your relationship. She loved her smart, workaholic little brother.” Gracie smiled at him. “Know how I know how much Alison loved you?”
Owen shook his head, and in the moonlight, his eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
“Because of how much Morgan, William, and Charlie love you. By example, Alison taught them that. She loved you so much that her kids already had a head start.”
Owen traced his hand up her spine, settling his long fingers on her nape. He squeezed, ever so gently, and drew her mouth down to his. His kiss, so sweet but so restrained, had her hands fisting into his tee shirt until she could feel the pounding of his heart against her knuckles.
Restraint wouldn’t help him. It was arrogant to assume she knew what he needed, yet she knew it just the same. Love was shrugging off restraints, diving from that cliff into the unknown and trusting the other person to be there to catch you. She mightn’t know much about healing broken bones, but she could be the one to cushion Owen’s fall. If he would trust her enough to take the plunge.
Sometimes, a guy needed a little push…
Gracie arched and grabbed hold of her top, yanking it up and over her head, leaving her in only her panties. Her nipples peaked in the chill, her breasts suddenly fuller, lusher under Owen’s heated gaze. The tip of his tongue darted out to slide along his lower lip.
“I thought you weren’t up for a booty call?” His attempt at humor deflated, and he scrubbed a hand along the stubble prickling his jaw. “I should probably go.”
His lips spoke the words, but his eyes—and the tenting of his sleep pants—said he wanted to stay. Needed to stay.
“You’re staying.” She wriggled forward on his lap so her breasts brushed his chest. Her suitable-only-for-bed panties pressed against hard evidence that part of him wasn’t going anywhere. Not if he planned to get any sleep tonight.
“I am?”
Gracie slid her hands under his tee shirt and raked her nails lightly down the bumps of his abs. “You are. So shut up and get naked.”
The flash of his smile disappeared, and he hauled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. The muscles of his chest and stomach were a moonlit landscape, one she couldn’t wait a moment longer to explore.
“Scoot down,” she ordered, voice a little on the rough side because, damn, it’d been too many days since she’d last seen his bare skin.
She lifted her hips to give him room to move, wriggling backward in preparation to taste the temptation below. Big hands clasped her bottom, keeping her in place while he scooted down, positioning his head between her spread thighs.
“Oh…” She gasped as warm lips dropped kisses along her skin. “But I was going to—oh!”
A sharp tug on her hips and the hissing sound of torn cotton. Sudden freedom and delightful coolness swirled around her. Owen’s breath, hot and damp, traversed up her inner thighs, and she jolted, electrified by the flick of his tongue through her slick folds. The trembling squeak she made as he repeated the motion would’ve embarrassed her if not for Owen’s approving growl as he covered her with his mouth and did amazing things to her with his tongue.
Gracie could only scrabble for purchase on the carved headboard, trying to find something to hang on to as sensation after sensation threatened to blow her away. Before she took off like a bottle rocket, Owen flipped her onto the bed. He rolled on top of her and kissed her as if depleting her lungs of all remaining oxygen was his number one goal. Desperate, hot kisses that burned away the last of his restraint.
Gracie lifted her legs and shucked the loose waistband of his sleep pants down with her toes. Somehow, in the planned attempt to make him lose his mind, she’d managed to lose hers. Now all that mattered was furthering their connection. Having him buried deep inside her, filling her both physically and emotionally with every wonderful thing that was Owen Bennett.
He rolled over and snatched protection from her nightstand. Making short work of the little foil packet—bless the man’s talented fingers because she trembled so much she couldn’t have helped—he sheathed himself. His fingers laced tight with hers as he stretched her arms above her head, his weight bearing her into the mattress as he made himself at home between her legs. And he was at home, right where he belonged. Right where she wanted him to be every night for the rest of her life.
Owen stared down, his mouth curving in a smile that told her without words how beautiful, how desirable he found her. Her chest ached, her lungs struggling to find air. No one, no man, had ever looked at her like that before. Like a blind man with his sight restored after a life-changing surgery.
His body nudged against hers, and delicious, primal shivers rippled through her as he thrust inside. She flexed around him, her spine bowing as he withdrew slightly and then sank back into her. Slow, measured strokes, maximizing her pleasure with friction so good it made her cry out. He waited for her, taking care of her first and denying himself release until she was satisfied. Gracie’s eyes blurred with tears as he lowered his head and fanned kisses along the side of her throat.
She’d never be satisfied. Never be filled to overflowing with him…she’d always want more.
Anchoring herself to his strength, she wrapped herself around him, encouraging him with her body to move faster, harder, to hold nothing back of himself, to give her everything. And with a growl of pure male surrender, he did, taking them both over the edge.
Later, Gracie twined around him, tracing the swirls of black ink on Owen’s arm. The steady thump of his heartbeat under her cheek marked time until he’d have to return inside.
“Tell me about the tattoo.” She figured it’d keep him in her bed a few stolen moments longer.
He ran a hand down her bare back. “This will totally ruin my rep as a tough guy, but I have a thing about needles.”
Gracie blinked. “But you’re a doctor.”
“I’ve no problem sticking them in people. I just don’t like them stuck into me.”
“Wuss. What changed your mind?”
“Not a what,” he said. “A who. Ali dared me when she found out Sam asked me to get a tatt before I went to med school, and I’d said ‘hell, no.’”
For the first time since she’d met Owen, his sister’s name was said with only the warmth of good memories behind it. Gracie squeezed his arm.
“She double dared you, huh?”
“Yeah. And Ali being Ali, she had to go one better. The day before Sam and I got ours, she sent a photo of her reddened ankle with a fresh tattoo.” His chuckle vibrated under her cheek. “A tattoo of two words: carpe diem.”
“Seize the day,” Gracie whispered. “I would’ve liked your big sister.”
“She would’ve liked you, too.” Owen gently peeled her arms off him and sat up.
He leaned down to kiss her—a long, hot kiss that spoke promises of more lazy mornings spent together in his bed.
Promises Gracie desperately wanted to believe in. Promises she wanted to make in return.
Carpe diem. Seize the day.
The words “I love you” rose in her throat, but he pulled away, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand.
“I have to go. Charlie might wake early.”
Owen climbed out of the bed, and the moment of opportunity, so fragile that it trembled like dawn on the horizon, disappeared.
Chapter 18
Sunday morning, Owen woke to find he wasn’t alone in his bed. Blisteringly cheerful music beeped and trilled from beside him. He cracked open an eye and rolled his head to the side. Charlie lay propped up on his spare pillows, his phone resting on her tummy as she tapped the screen, her eyebrows furrowed.
“Charlie?”
She held up a shushing finger then resumed tapping. With a chuckle, Owen stretched and rolled his head to the other side, where he’d deliberately left the drapes open last night, so he could see the deck by the guest room door. It made the physical distance between them more palatable if he could spot Gracie the moment she stepped out of her room.
What a sap. He grinned and laced his fingers beneath his head.
“Are you awake now?” Charlie asked.
Yanking his thoughts back to the present and his niece, who’d made him the laughing stock of the ED after Jolene spotted all the kids’ games on his phone, Owen rolled onto his side. “Not quite, Charlie-chimp.”
Charlie sat upright with a bounce. “When I’m big, I can make you coffee to wake you up.”
She tilted her head to one side, even as Owen’s stomach clenched. Where would Charlie be when she was old enough to make coffee?
“You must be real sleepy,” she continued. “Didn’t you hear your phone?”
Owen shook his head. He must’ve been close to comatose to miss the call.
“It was ringing and ringing and ringing,” she said. “Then it stopped, and I thought you’d runned away.”
His gut gave another twinge. “Why would you think that?”
Charlie’s head dipped, her hair falling into a bouncy curtain of curls over her face. “’Cause maybe you’re still mad at me.”
“About Hagrid?”
Yesterday morning, Gracie and the kids had taken the bulldog to the pound, where it turned out the mutt’s name was actually Baxter. Baxter had a well-known rap sheet of Houdini-like escapes from his owner’s yard.
“Sweetheart, I’m not mad, and I wouldn’t ever run away from you.”
And that’s when it hit him.
Like defibrillator paddles to the heart.
Not only wouldn’t he run away from Morgan, William, and Charlie, he couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine not waking up to a house full of noise and laughter and squabbles over the last serving of sugary cereal. He couldn’t imagine going cold turkey from Charlie’s giggles, William’s Hogwarts trivia, and Morgan’s rare smiles.
Suddenly, ten days’ time, when the kids were due to go back to Whangarei, seemed way too close.
“You promise?” Charlie asked.
He held out his hooked pinkie finger, and Charlie tugged on it with hers, a shy smile blooming on her face.
“Grown-ups don’t run away when they’re mad, anyway,” he said, wriggling his fingers for the phone. “They stay and talk things out.” He tapped the screen to find his missed calls, expecting to see the emergency department listed, or since it was the weekend, Sam or Todd ordering him out of bed for a surf session. It was neither—and his pulse gave a little skip at seeing his dad’s number appear on the screen.
“Why don’t you go and pick out the clothes you want to wear today, and then Morgan can help you get dressed?” he said.
Charlie’s chest expanded like a puffer fish. “I can dress myself. I’m nearly, almost five, don’t-ya-know.” She hopped off the bed and flounced to the door. “And today is pink day.”
“Knock yourself out,” he said. “Blind me with pinkness.”
After Charlie skipped down the hallway, Owen tapped his dad’s number.
His dad answered with his normal, cheerful, “Owen my man.”
Owen squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, the tension wiring across his shoulder blades relaxing. “You’re both okay, then?”
His dad snorted. “’Course we are. Just thought we’d catch you before you left for the hospital or hit those left handers peeling into the Bay.”
Huh? Owen blinked at the wall, trying to organize his sleep-scrambled brain around his dad’s words. Realization hit a two-count later. He flung back the bedcovers and swung his legs to the side. “You’re here? In Bounty Bay?”
Visions of his parents’ ugly green bus parked at the bottom of his driveway sprang into his mind, and he was halfway to the door before his dad’s next words registered.
“At the campgrounds. Mum and I wanted a change of scenery, and since the school term has only got a week to go, we thought we’d save you a trip…” His dad’s voice was loaded with undercurrents Owen didn’t want to get caught in.
He had to make a plan. Some sort of proposal to convince his parents the kids belonged with him. But his brain kept spinning in circles like a tire churning around in mud. Nothing was clear about how to go about it—and worse—how he could possibly make it work.
Owen strode into the kitchen. Since he was now wide awake, he might as well get the coffee on. “You’re sure Mum’s okay to be traveling?”
“She’s as good as gold, son. Almost her old self again and dying to see the kids.”
“Oh.” Owen switched the kettle on. “I’m glad to hear it.”
From the direction of Morgan and Charlie’s room came the catchy chorus of a Taylor Swift song at high volume, interrupted moments later by Morgan hollering at her little sister.
Maybe he was being greedy in wanting it all. Family and his career—and, whoa, don’t even get him started on the niggling little idea that’d burrowed into his brain lately about having his own brood of blue-eyed babies.
Because he had no idea if Gracie was on board with any of his way-out-there thoughts.
Owen reached for a bag of coffee grounds. Instant wasn’t going to cut it this morning. “I’ll bring the kids down for a visit after breakfast.”
“Excellent,” his dad said.
In the background, his mum stage-whisper-shouted, “They’re coming, then? Tell him to bring Gracie, too, go on!”
Owen’s fingers squeezed the bag of coffee until it threatened to pop open. Guess today was as good as any day to throw Gracie in the deep end and hope she was as strong a swimmer as she claimed. Time had all but run out.
“You hear that, son?”
“Everybody heard that,” Owen said. “Probably half of the campground, too. We’ll see you at ten.” And before his mum could get hold of the phone and grill him about Gracie, he disconnected.
***
Three hours later, Owen drove into the Bounty Bay Campground, his fingers locked on the steering wheel, his shoulder muscles once again ratcheted tight. Gracie sat beside him in the passenger seat, with the three kids lined up from shortest to tallest in the back.
“It was Charlie’s turn to sit in the middle,” William grumbled. “I sat in the middle the last—”
“Did not! Gracie, Will hasn’t sat in the middle for ages, has he?”
Gracie twisted in her seat and said something soothing. God knew what, because Owen was focused on the green monstrosity growing closer in the windshield. It’ll be fine, he told himself. But the memory of Gracie showing the kids some childhood photos a few weeks before burrowed into his confidence like fleshing-eating bacteria. The one that stuck in his craw was the two-storied, expensive-as-hell house with Gracie and her brothers dressed in tailored school blazers posed out front. The brothers bookended Gracie, their arms stiffly draped around her shoulders. Posed but perfect.
A world away from one of his family portraits where he and Daniel, covered in old scabs and muddy clothes, would’ve needed bribery to cease
wrestling at their sister’s feet. Come to think of it, Ali would’ve been wrestling in the dirt, too.
Owen pulled into the visitors’ parking lot and killed the engine. A sideways glance revealed Gracie’s arched-eyebrow stare. Her gaze flicked down to his hands—still clenched on the wheel—and then up again.
“Okay?” she asked.
He nodded, not trusting his voice. Yanking open his door, he exited the car as fast as possible. The sooner he got this meet-and-greet over, the sooner they could leave.
Charlie peppered him with questions about Nana as they walked toward the house bus.
“Nana’s fine,” he said for the tenth time. “See? There she is.”
Inside the house bus, his mum waved out a window as they approached. William and Charlie sprinted off, with Morgan, willing to be a little uncool, following at a brisk jog.
By the time they reached the house bus, Owen had worked up a sweat comparable to a marathon runner, and he wondered if he was about to lose his breakfast on the Wipe Your Paws welcome mat. He swallowed hard, tried to see the Rambling Gypsies through Gracie’s eyes.
Battered metal steps. An Elmo-like fluffy cover on the huge steering wheel. A little dreamcatcher Alison made as a twelve-year-old hanging from the rear-view mirror. The bus’s faded, fake-wood-pattern linoleum that’d been there since God was a boy. Owen turned, preparing for a what have I let myself in for clenched smile on Gracie’s face.
She was smiling, all right. Smiling, her blue eyes sparkling with…was that—?
“Oh my God.” She punched his arm. “You never told me your parents’ bus was so damn cool.” She gave him a little shove.
He had to brace his hand on the bus to prevent falling up the stairs.
“Out of the way,” she said. “I want to see the inside.”
On autopilot, he stepped aside, and Gracie raced up the steps.
Hi’s and how-are-you’s rang out, and Owen hesitated a few more moments while his jaw finally unlocked. By the time he climbed the three steps leading inside, the kids had disappeared into the bunny-hole, and Gracie was embracing his mother.
Teach Your Heart: A New Zealand Opposites Attract Romance (Far North Series Book 3) Page 22