He found a sponge and leaned over her shoulder to wet it under the stream of water from the faucet. His chest grazed her back; his arm brushed hers. His forearm was brown, sprinkled with black springy hair and corded with muscle. The wrist was easily twice as thick as hers. A prominent vein looped over it. She wanted to touch it.
His long, powerful fingers with strong oval nails squeezed the sponge.
He drew back and began wiping the counter, as if nothing had happened except the casual intimacy of two people sharing the sink—something that happened every day. But something had happened. In her life, that sort of casual intimacy didn't happen every day.
She shut off the water. "I haven't thanked you," she said.
He paused in his wiping to smile inquiringly at her. The smile was a little crooked, his upper lip pulled un evenly. "For what?"
"Going with me to the hospital. Helping me bring Granddaddy home. I'm glad you were there. I know it's best for him, but I don't think I would have done it. I'm still angry, but I'm grateful that you are so gentle with him. I was falling apart a little."
He rinsed the sponge and set it on the sink rim. He dried his fingers on a dish towel and rested one hand on JJ's shoulder. "JJ, you're allowed to be upset."
"No, I'm not."
"You are. By me." He ran his hand under her hair, gently stroking and massaging the tight muscles in her neck.
"Don't do that if you don't want me to start bawling."
He pulled her into his arms. "I don't want you to cry, but I do want to make it better for you. Something about you makes me want to make it all better." The gentle circles he was rubbing on her back stopped. "Do you ever get déjà vu?"
"Why? Did you just have one?"
"Yeah. It felt like we'd been here before and I'd said that to you."
Want me to kiss it better? That's what he had said. He'd probably used the line too frequently to remember who and when. "Memory is a funny thing." JJ wiggled out of his arms. She had been this close to letting go.
The more she was around him today, the less she saw of that live-for-the-moment, devil-may-care, all-fun and-games man she'd first met. She had seen at the time how easy it was for him to hook up with a woman he didn't know, and she'd been willing to bet he was prob ably a good SEAL.
In his own way, he was gentle and considerate. He might be careless but never cruel. She didn't doubt that, without a qualm, he'd tell any lie he needed to, but where he gave his loyalty, he would be dependable no matter what the cost. Those were the qualities she needed. A man like that would be able to see the advantages of the deal she had to offer.
This David seemed so different that it was easy to convince herself he was somebody else. When the time came, it wouldn't be so easy for her to let him go. And she was not immune to either David physically. She had needed the reminder that when it came to women, it was still easy come, easy go for him.
She changed the subject. "Do you think Lucas is all right? Did I do the right thing, bringing him home?"
"I'll check him in a few minutes, but on the whole I think he's better off. His temp has come down and his pulse is more regular. His pulse ox is 98."
"But he was so exhausted by the trip home."
"He was exhausted anyway. In the hospital, he was fighting sleep. He'll rest here." David reached across the table to squeeze her arm. "Stop worrying, JJ."
"Did you mean what you said in the car," JJ asked, "about marriage still being negotiable?" She felt oddly shy. Proposing a straight business deal to a man she hardly knew was one thing. Talking about marriage while they cleaned up a kitchen together was something else. The very homeliness encased them in a kind of intimacy.
"There are things you need to know about me."
"Like what?" JJ closed the dishwasher and turned around to find David wiping the table with a damp sponge. The table had been cleared and the food put away with such quiet efficiency that she'd hardly no ticed what he was doing. At the Topsail beach house, his calm assumption that he could go through her kitchen without permission had seemed invasive. Now she saw he was just one of those competent people—the kind who intuitively knew where things were and who saw what needed to be done and did it.
David realized JJ was ready to listen now. He explained to her about his mother's death and about his determina tion that his siblings finish their schooling, in spite of the financial condition in which the family had been left.
"Stop. Are you saying that on top of being badly injured, your mother just died? Oh, I'm so sorry. You must feel like something or someone is out to get you."
He hadn't expected such instant comprehension from her. He waved her sympathy away. He couldn't let her throw him off track. Whether or not it was rational, whenever he tried to sort out the pieces of his life, he could never shake the feeling that some terrible mix-up had substituted his mother's life for his. He'd seen in JJ's proposal a way to discharge the duty he had to his mother. If he could do that, he would finally, maybe, feel free to feel alive again.
"Anyway, I have to ask myself what happens to him if something happens to me?"
"Go on."
"Riley has Asperger's syndrome."
"I know about Asperger's. I'm on the advisory board of an autism group. People with Asperger's have nor mal intelligence, don't they, but they have some autistic characteristics like trouble relating to people. Is that what he's like?"
"He takes things literally, and he doesn't pick up on social cues. He seriously lacks street smarts. My mother got him into a special school and pretty much drained the estate to keep him there."
"So you want money for his tuition? I don't get it. Why didn't you take my first offer?"
"I told you. I don't want to touch your money. I want you to set up a trust for him—enough to care for him and keep him in school through college."
"That would be a condition?" She thought about it a minute. "All right. I can do that."
"So that there won't be any reason for jealousy, you will also arrange scholarships for Eleanor and Harris. I want to know that, no matter what happens to me, they'll have what they need to get through med school." He paused to give JJ some time to think it over. She nodded slowly. "That's not all. I want you to be Riley's guardian if I'm killed or incapacitated."
"But why? Surely your other brother and sister—"
"Harris will get caught up in some fascinating re search and forget Riley exists. Any time Riley hits a rough spot, Eleanor will let her studies slide while she looks after him. One of the reasons I have to provide for Riley is because if I don't, Eleanor will drop out of med school and do it herself."
"But isn't there another member of the family who would be a better choice?"
"I've seen what you are. You're willing to marry a man you don't know in order to take care of your em ployees. Riley isn't easy to warm up to. But even though you felt angry and betrayed by your grandfather, when he needed you, you were there. You'll do what you have to, and if you give your word, you'll keep it. I trust you."
Of all the outcomes JJ had anticipated when she decided to propose to David, the one she'd never thought of was that she would have to take responsibility for three more people. A lot of the work could be turned over to lawyers. They would figure out how to set up the trust and the schol arships, but she understood that David wanted her personal oversight. He wanted her involved. Another duty. Another strain on a load that was already close to unbearable. This was not the simple contract she'd been aiming for.
"This is getting complicated," she told him. "Let me get my laptop so we can make some notes about what we are agreeing to."
"Okay," David agreed. "And there's one more thing."
JJ paused in the act of opening a shiny, apple-red laptop. "One more thing?"
God, she was beautiful. A tendril of dark hair had es caped its clasp. It framed the perfect curve of her cheek. The dark wings of her brows were lifted in inquiry.
That feeling slammed him in the chest again, steal
ing his breath and making him feel weightless at the same time. Brilliantly overflowing peace. Joy. Spreading over the always-present arousal that throbbed through him, its power certain and available, even when it idled.
She had given him everything he'd come hoping to achieve. He'd known, regardless of how he felt, he was not going to allow this opportunity to create security for his brothers and sister escape him—not when all she wanted was his name on a marriage certificate. He ought to leave well enough alone.
He was sweating, his heart pounding. Everything in him said if the kids were taken care of, that was enough. He didn't want to blow what he'd already secured.
He shouldered past the guilt that told him to shut up. Because it wasn't enough.
"One more thing. I want you."
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. "Me? What do you mean?"
"None of this half-married, 'married in name only' bull. For as long as we're married, we're married."
She couldn't think of what to say. Images filled her mind. The sight of his strong, tanned fingers on her breast. His laughter. The casual strength he picked her up with. The feel of his hips clasped in her legs.
"Is it this?" He fingered the scar.
"What?" She jerked her mind back. "No. If you want to know the truth, it makes you more attractive."
"The hell you say. I don't remember some things, but I remember how I looked before. This isn't better."
He met the issue head on, without flinching. He even met it with bravado, but she had already seen his vulnerability around it. His question wasn't about van ity. He had never drawn his self-worth from his beauty. But in a burst of insight, she understood he had used it as a shield, as armor for his heart.
Men's hearts were more delicate than women's, and she suspected his heart was softer than most. While he had his unmarred beauty, he had never had to expose his heart and thus become vulnerable.
Merry. It wasn't a word people used much anymore. Because he'd had so much less to lose than most people, it's what he had been. Merry. Coming at life, coming at her with such gaiety, such promise of fun—did he but know it, it had been the greatest part of his attraction.
In time, he'd probably grow some calluses over his heart. People did. But he didn't have them now. Though she would have run from him, would have put any bar rier between herself and the danger of what he was sug gesting, she could not use the scar.
"I didn't say 'more handsome.' Before you looked… I don't know… too perfect or something. Like you inhab ited a different plane of existence. Now you look… real."
Before, she'd only had to recall her responsibilities to walk away from the devastatingly handsome and charm ing man he had been. She wouldn't be able to walk away from this man who would marry her if she would look after his little brother.
There must be something else he wanted. Something that would allow them to come to an agreement. She stalled for time.
"Let's talk about it in the morning, shall we?" She turned toward the back stairs. "Let's go upstairs and pick you out a bedroom."
"Pick out a bedroom?" he laughed as they moved up the stairs side by side. "How many are there?"
"Not counting mine, three. One on this side of the staircase, two on the other."
He pointed to the room straight ahead, door open. "What is that room?"
"Mine—it was mine."
"Can I see it?" He was already in the doorway.
"Sure, go on in."
"It's huge. It's bigger than my apartment." He had wanted to see this room because he was looking for some trace of her in this house she had lived in over half her life.
This room was so serious. No hint of the little girl or the teenager she had been lingered here. No trace of exuberant enthusiasm, no dreams, no leftover teenaged angst.
He contrasted it with his sister Elle's room where beloved dolls and stuffed toys were still given space on a shelf, the walls rocked with bold energy of posters, and child-sized skis and poles leaned in a corner.
JJ's heart thumped and skipped to see him in her old bedroom. He touched the bedspread and moved a cur tain to peer out the dark window.
JJ had accepted Smiley's absence from the rest of the house, but she never entered this room without expecting to see him get up from the floor to greet her. Something must have showed in her face.
"What is it?"
"My dog. He died the day before I moved to the beach house. I always miss him most in this room."
"Did he sleep with you?"
She smiled a touch guiltily. "Most nights. My grand mother wanted him to sleep in the garage, but I had nightmares without him. Anyway, he slept with me until his arthritis got too bad and he couldn't jump up anymore. Then his bed was right here."
"By yourself in this big, lonely room? It would give any kid nightmares."
"You think this room is lonely?"
A quick flick of his eyes dismissed the room. "I think you're lonely."
"I don't have time to be lonely."
He might have lived at a distance from his own, but he knew what a family was. No family lived in this house. The only emotional security, the only warmth, the only unconditional love JJ had known in this house, had come from a dog. And yet she showed no signs of being emotionally stunted. She wasn't greedy, miserly, or self-absorbed. She was amazing.
He traced the smooth curve of her cheek with one finger. "Time has nothing to do with it."
After a long moment in which he thought about kissing her and decided not to—if he started he wasn't going to stop—he turned to leave. "I'll see you in the morning."
She came out of her daze. "Wait. We didn't pick you out a room."
"Find me a pillow and blanket. I can nap on the sofa in your grandfather's room."
"Oh, yes, of course." She went to a linen closet and came back with the requested items. "I'm not thinking very clearly. I also forgot to discuss how much I'm pay ing you for staying with him."
Just when he thought they were reaching some kind of understanding, there she went with the money again. "Five hundred thousand," he snapped.
"But that's—"
"The amount you were going to pay me to marry you. I've already told you," he spoke through gritted teeth. "I don't want your money."
JJ blinked. "I was going to say, 'That's outrageous.' But I see now I offended you by offering to pay you. That was clumsy of me. Forgive me."
There was just the right amount of contrition in her voice, just the right amount of winsomeness in her smile. She was all contained again. Shit. He wished he hadn't popped off at her. He respected the hell out of her ability to control her emotions, but he didn't want her to suppress her reactions around him. He admired the strength, the self-control, the willingness to shoulder responsibilities far beyond her years. Still, she might as well learn that maintaining a cool, restrained exterior would not keep him at a distance.
Her arms were full of blanket and pillow. Perfect. He leaned forward and found her lips with his. After a shocked moment, hers softened and parted just enough to give him a hint of her taste. He wanted more, much more, but, for now, he had made his point. He forced himself to pull back. "Forget it. No harm done. Get some sleep."
Chapter 28
UNABLE TO SLEEP, UNABLE TO LIE STILL ANY LONGER, JJ threw back the sheet. The rain had ended. Cold patches of moonlight draped her legs. JJ loved the feeling of moonlight on her bare skin. She'd read an article once about the pagan religion Wicca. Most of the beliefs were foreign to her way of thinking, but at some primal level she understood the Wiccan custom of dancing naked at the full of the moon.
It was too cold to go outside, but when they remod eled the house, JJ's grandparents had added an indoor pool with tall Palladian windows down one wall and skylights. The pool area would glow with moonlight, and nothing relaxed her as swimming did.
She swung out of bed and went to the built-in draw ers of her closet for a swimsuit. All her tank suits were at the beach house, and she discarded t
he bikinis she found as too uncomfortable to swim in. She was ready to reject a moonlight swim as unfeasible when it oc curred to her to wonder why she needed a suit at all. She put on an old, wine-red hoodie beach cover-up and headed for the stairs.
The pool had been added at the same time as her grandparents' downstairs master suite. It was accessed through a short tiled hallway in their wing. JJ listened carefully as she passed her grandfather's door. There were no signs that anyone was awake.
The latch on the door to the pool area made a heavy clicking sound when she turned the knob. To silence it she quickly depressed it with her finger as she edged around the door. On the other side, she very slowly re leased the knob. There was still a small click, but she doubted it was enough to wake anyone.
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