She tensed, sending needles of ice through the haze of passion, but they weren’t strong enough to distract him. With that faintest taste of her spurring his hunger, he needed more. He took her face in his hands and deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue between her lips.
The spell shattered.
Erin jerked back, and the desire in her eyes vanished quickly as something darker widened them. Abruptly, she turned away, snatched her half-eaten breakfast, and took her plate to the sink.
He stared at her back, shaking. His heart hammered, but it wasn’t desire that made it pound. It was adrenaline, triggered by a primal reaction to the shadow in her eyes.
What had just happened?
As shock gave way to disappointment, his shoulders sagged as a weight descended on him and threatened to crush him to the floor. He sidled around the island and joined her at the sink, cautiously touching her shoulder with his fingertips. She flinched.
“Erin?”
She shook her head, pinching her lips between her teeth. Craning his neck so he could get a better look at her face, he frowned. She looked like she was trying not to cry.
“What did I do?” he entreated.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I….”
“No. I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s not you, Gideon. It’s not what you did.”
“Then what is it?”
Again she shook her head and offered him a forced smile that only deepened his confusion. Whatever it was that shadowed her eyes, she wasn’t going to be able to talk about right now. He lowered his head to kiss her shoulder, and this time she didn’t wince, but she also didn’t give any indication that she wanted him to continue. Discouraged and with his head spinning, he returned to his stool at the island, but he wasn’t hungry anymore.
“Way to go, Dad,” Liam muttered.
Gideon ruffled his son’s hair and gave him the brightest, most teasing smile he could manage. “I’m not doing so great with women this morning, am I.”
“Nope.”
“Finish your breakfast. We need to get on the road.”
All throughout the rest of their meal and packing for the ride home, Erin was her usual warm and cheerful self, and Gideon ached to ask her about what had happened, but the occasional wariness and regret that flashed in her eyes when he got too close made him hesitate.
Once everything was loaded in his SUV, they stepped into Lauren’s gallery.
“You sure you don’t want to stay another night?” the woman asked.
“Positive,” Gideon replied. “We need to swing through Beaverton on the way back to Sea Glass Cove to pick up some more of Liam’s things. I brought some, but I was expecting him to come back with the clothes and toys I sent him to his mother’s with.”
“Pity. Well, come back any time.”
“Thank you, again, for your hospitality, Lauren. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“Likewise.”
He took Liam out to his car and buckled him into his booster seat in the back seat while Erin said her farewells to her cousin. When she returned, he leaned against the hood and held his hands out to her. She hesitated, but then she took them and allowed him to pull her into his arms, and he folded them around her with a sigh of relief.
“Tell me not to worry about what happened in there,” he said gently, “and I’ll keep my questions to myself until you’re ready to answer them.”
“Don’t worry about what happened in there,” she replied. “For now, anyhow.”
“That’s not going to make me worry less.”
“I told you relationships are hard for me. But I’m trying. Is that enough for now?”
“I guess it’ll have to be. I am sorry, for whatever I did.”
She flashed him a grateful smile. “It wasn’t you. But thank you.”
He brushed his lips across her cheeks, further relieved when she didn’t flinch or pull away. Finally, he released her and forced his lips into a grin he didn’t feel. “Let’s get this show on the road. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get back to Sea Glass Cove to relax.”
They climbed into his car, and as he drove north out of Mendocino toward home, he knew it was going to be impossible not to worry about Erin’s reaction to his kiss, despite his promise that he wouldn’t.
The longer he thought about it, the more he believed it wasn’t a lack of chemistry. For someone who claimed to shun relationships, she had opened herself to the possibility of one with him with remarkable ease and willingness. Everything about the way she interacted with him was encouraging—she was warm and witty, sweet and steady—and no matter how many times he ran it through his head, he saw no red flags to make him think she was faking any of it.
Except….
That shadow in her eyes when she’d pulled away, and his visceral reaction to it. Where had that come from? Because he knew with a gut certainty it didn’t stem from disgust or dissatisfaction.
It was born of fear.
Nine
“I’m glad to hear you and Gideon and Liam are going to dinner at your brother’s,” Andra remarked. “Guess that means you’re not still avoiding the poor man.”
Erin winced as she dropped her order pad on the counter with the rest and slipped her pen into the cup beside it.
She didn’t like avoiding Gideon, and she hadn’t set out to do it intentionally. Their ride home from Mendocino had been pleasant enough, like he hadn’t kissed her and she hadn’t jerked away from him. But she hadn’t seen much of him since they’d gotten home at almost three in the morning on Thursday. He and Liam had lazed around the cottage that morning, and then she’d worked the evening shift at the Salty Dog. And she’d taken double shifts the last two days with the excuse that she wanted to make up her lost wages. She doubted he believed that, and her mother certainly didn’t. She couldn’t explain why, but she just… couldn’t face him yet. Not even yesterday, when he’d brought her a gorgeous bouquet of white tulips and hyacinths—a creative apology fitting for an artist like Gideon, even though he had nothing to apologize for. Of course, he didn’t know that, and she hadn’t been able to drum up the courage to tell him why.
“You have been,” Andra continued when she didn’t respond. “What I can’t figure out is why.”
“I’m sure you can guess.”
“He’s not Chaz.”
“I know he’s not.”
“Do you? Do you really know that? Because you’re not acting like you believe it. Chaz was a go-with-the-wind artist. Gideon may be an artist, too, but he’s grounded. Someone like Chaz wouldn’t be fighting so hard for custody of his son.”
“Lauren said the same thing.”
“And he definitely wouldn’t have been able to build the solid business your beau has on his own. You and I both know Chaz’s brother is the only reason their brewery is flourishing.”
Erin nodded, but couldn’t find her voice to say all those points—as reasonable as they were—wouldn’t mean anything if she couldn’t get past the gag reflex every time a man kissed her.
“It’s unfair to judge him by what Chaz did,” her mother continued. “If I’d’ve judged Red by what your father did, I would’ve pushed a good man away, and I wouldn’t have found the love of my life.”
Erin’s brows furrowed. She knew her mother meant well, and her choice of anecdote was certainly a valid one; Red was a good man, and Erin held him almost highly as she held her brother. But her mother didn’t have the same deep-seated, crippling issues Erin did—issues she knew firsthand could suck the life out of a relationship.
“You need to tell him, my girl. Give him the chance to show you if it matters to him.”
Again, she only nodded.
“All right. If you don’t, I will. He’s been too polite so far to ask, but—”
“You’d really interfere in my love life?” Erin eyed her mother warily. The determination burning in her mother’s eyes made her squirm. She’d int
erfere, all right—without hesitation. “Why?”
“Despite what you have tried so hard for so long to convince yourself of, marriage and family suits you, and I think, if you were willing to look deep in your heart, it’s what you want. I want my girl to be happy.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Get out of here. Go get prettied up for your dinner date tonight. I know you hate makeup, but sometimes it can give a woman a boost of confidence, and I suspect you need that right now.”
With a soft laugh, Erin gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek and headed out of the Salty Dog. She didn’t head home to get “prettied up,” though. Instead, she pulled into the northern beach access parking area.
The fort she’d built Gideon’s second evening back in Sea Glass Cove was mostly intact, and she took a few minutes to repair it. Then she sat on the log in front of it, sheltered from the glaring midday sun by the fort, and let her gaze wander from the waves breaking restlessly on the beach to the distant horizon hazed by an off-shore fog bank. Tendrils of clouds reached toward the coast, and the air was thick and heavy—the summer’s stifling heat was breaking, at last.
Sighing, she glanced over her shoulder into her fort. A soothing calm washed over her. Here, in the cool shade filled with the briny scents of the sand and sea, she was safe. She had no clear memories of the events that had once driven her and Owen to the driftwood piles back in Eureka, California, but she remembered his words and the cocoon of safety the walls of their forts had imbibed from them as if he’d whispered them in her ear only moments ago.
Nothing bad will ever happen to you here. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.
No ten-year-old boy should ever need to promise his six-year-old sister those things.
Of course, no promise—however deeply held—could erase the damage.
Erin hugged herself. She didn’t like thinking like this, didn’t like admitting there existed a darkness her big brother couldn’t chase away.
That was why she’d been avoiding Gideon for the last three days. Her reaction to his kiss was irrefutable proof that she couldn’t be fixed. Certain gestures and touches would always trigger her, would always make her jerk away even from a man who made her want to try them.
She was going to have to find the courage to tell him, and probably today, because her mother wasn’t bluffing. She didn’t know what timeframe Andra was operating on, but she would tell Gideon the uncomfortable reason why Erin struggled with relationships, and the thought of her mother revealing such intimate details of her psyche mortified her.
Anxiety exploded, stabbing the muscles all along her spine with needles of burning acid. Her heart raced, and she forced herself to take a long, deep breath to slow it. Then she pushed to her feet.
“I thought I might find you here.”
She flinched at the sound of his voice as a new rush of anxiety-fueled adrenaline flooded her veins. Good God, she hadn’t been this jumpy since that godawful day Chaz had revealed just how little he cared about her needs. She chewed on her lip, took a few more deep, measured breaths, and willed herself to be calm.
Ready or not, he was here.
“Gideon,” she breathed.
“Hi.” He stopped a dozen paces away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I stopped by the Salty Dog, but Andra said you’d already gone home. When you weren’t there, either….”
She slipped her smartphone out of her pants pocket and held it up. “You could’ve saved yourself all that driving with a simple phone call or a text.”
“Left my phone at the cottage.”
“You really do hate that thing, don’t you.”
With a sniff of laughter, he stepped closer. “Mind if I join you?”
Rather than answer with words—she wasn’t wholly certain she could keep her voice steady—she resumed her seat on the log and patted the spot beside her. For a long time, they sat in silence, watching the waves. It was so tempting to rest her head on his shoulder and curl her fingers around his arm… and that was something she’d never felt the urge to do with Chaz. At least, not so strongly and not after those first few weeks early in their relationship.
Deciding it couldn’t do any more harm than bolting on him after he’d kissed her, she gave in and was rewarded when he rested his head on top of hers and let out a sigh like this was exactly what he needed.
“Where’s Liam? And Shadow?”
“Up helping Owen and Hope and Daph prep dinner. I wanted—needed—some time alone to talk to you.”
He let that hang, perhaps waiting for her to respond, perhaps trying to find the right words to express whatever it was he needed to say. If he was waiting on her…. She had no idea what to say or where to begin. Or what she wanted from him, for that matter.
“What happened in Mendocino?” he asked at last.
“I freaked,” she answered. “Obviously.”
“I get that. But why? What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Gideon. I’m just….” She stopped herself short of saying broken. He wouldn’t believe that. And she didn’t honestly believe it herself. She was damaged, yes, but not broken.
“Do you want me to slow down?”
Her brows furrowed. “No… because slowing down won’t help.”
“What will? Whatever you need from me, I’ll do it. But I can’t if I don’t know what you need.”
She snorted. “I need to have had a different start to my life.”
“Owen said your dad was a real piece of garbage. He also said that’s why you build these forts—because you and he used to build them to get away from him.”
Oh, Owen. Her lips curved, and love for her brother was a warm glow in the gloom. Once again, he was there, protecting her and making things easier. Thank you.
“But there’s more to the story than even Owen knows. More than I knew until three years ago when my boyfriend and I broke up.”
“That was Chaz?”
She nodded. “He needed the kind of physical attention I wouldn’t give him. He said wouldn’t, but the truth is, I couldn’t.”
“Please tell me this isn’t going where I think it is,” Gideon said, his voice strangled.
Erin looked up at him. The color had leeched from his face, and the muscle in his jaw worked. Sensing her gaze, he lowered his eyes from the horizon to her face. She’d been where he was right now—trying to make sense of a despicable act. First was the shock. Then the disbelief. Then the anger and the despair. Finally, the relief because she had an answer to the question of why even the raging hormones of adolescence hadn’t kick-started the ravenous sex drive so many of her friends had been swept away by. An explanation for why physical intimacy was a source of anxiety rather than the pleasure it should be.
“I was molested as a child,” she confirmed. Even though she’d had three years to assimilate that information into her sense of being, it still made her feel dirty and exposed to say it out loud. She ignored those feelings and pressed on. “No, it wasn’t my father—at least not that Mom knows. It was his buddy. The night we left, Mom came home to find Dad drunk and passed out on the couch while his friend had me pinned in the recliner with his hands under my dress.”
“Oh, God….” Gideon jerked upright and stared down at her, his face ashen. “Jesus, you were six!”
“Yep.”
“Who could…?” He shook his head. “I’ll never be able to answer that, so I’m not even going to try.”
“I tried to find an answer. For a while. But there isn’t one. And I’m not sure if that makes it easier or harder.”
They sat in silence for almost a minute before he spoke again.
“I’m not sure I want to know, but I have to.” He swallowed and held her gaze as more seconds ticked by. His beautiful dark eyes were apologetic. “Was that the only time… or were there others?”
“I don’t know, but Mom is pretty sure there were others. A few years later, he was convicted of raping his two stepdaughters, so, yeah,
it seems likely that it wasn’t an isolated incident.”
“You don’t remember?”
“No. As impossible as it seems, I don’t remember any of it. I honestly don’t. The only memories I have of back then are vague ones of my parents screaming and breaking things. The only clear ones are of Owen and me building our forts. But I always felt like something was wrong with me.” She snorted. “The boys in high school called me a prude.”
“Why did your mom wait so long to tell you?”
He didn’t say it accusingly. He was only asking a question to give himself a better picture of what had happened. She appreciated that.
“She didn’t want to remind me of it, hoping that would be the end of it. Obviously she was wrong because I can’t even French kiss a guy I really, really like without wanting to gag. After Chaz and I broke up—why we broke up—well, she realized not knowing was only hurting me more.”
“I’m sorry, Erin.”
“Why? You didn’t know. And I thought maybe… just maybe…. But no. Not even with you.”
“That sounds like a compliment—not even with me,” he murmured. “Like you wanted it to work.”
“I did want it to work.” A fragment of abalone shell caught her eyes, gleaming amidst the duller debris the tide had washed against the driftwood. She fiddled with it for almost a minute before she spoke again. “I wanted it to work with Chaz, too, in the beginning. But every time he said something like ‘if you just tried a little harder’, that only made it worse. I tried to suck it up and just do it because he needed that physical connection, but the more he tried to make me enjoy it, the less I could stand to let him touch me.”
“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you aren’t a….”
“Virgin? No. Chaz was my one and only, though. He thought the problem was my inexperience, but nope. Clinical sexual dysfunction.” She sniffed and twisted her head toward Gideon. “How’s that for too much information?”
“Well, considering that I’m interested in a serious relationship with you, I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much information. I’m flattered that you trust me enough to tell me all this, to be honest. What made you break it off with him?”
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