Rising Tides

by Nora Roberts

  his hand. "You're already scattering dust everywhere."

  He scowled at the soap, then at her. "You'd think the Royal Family was dropping by for a visit. Damn it, Grace, I'm not stripping down to my skin and jumping off the dock."

  "Oh, like you've never done it before."

  "Not with a female around."

  "I've seen naked men a time or two, and I'm going to be too busy to take Polaroids of you and your brothers.

  Ethan, I've just spent the best part of my day getting this house to shine. You're not spreading your dirt around."

  Disgusted, because in his experience arguing with a woman's made-up mind was as painful and fruitless as banging your head against a brick wall, he shoved the soap in his pocket. "I'll get the damn towels."

  "No, you won't. Your hands are filthy. I'll bring them out."

  Muttering to himself, he went downstairs. Phillip's reaction to the bathing arrangements was a shrug. Seth's was pure glee. He darted outside, calling for the dogs to follow, and sent shoes, socks, shirt, scattering as he raced for the dock.

  "He'll probably never want to take a regular bath again," Phillip commented. He sat on the dock to remove his shoes.

  Ethan remained standing. He wasn't taking off a blessed thing until Grace delivered the towels and clothes and was back in the house. "What are you doing?" he demanded when Phillip pulled his sweat-stained T-shirt over his head.

  "I'm taking off my shirt."

  "Well, put it back on. Grace is coming out."

  Phillip glanced up, saw that his brother was perfectly serious, and laughed. "Get a grip, Ethan. Even the sight of my amazing and manly chest isn't likely to send her over the edge."

  To prove it, he rose and shot Grace a grin as she crossed the lawn. "I heard something about fried chicken," he called out.

  "I'm about to get to it." When she reached the dock, she set the towels and clean clothes in neat piles. Then she straightened, smiling out to where Seth and the dogs splashed. She imagined they'd scared every bird and fish away for two miles. "This arrangement suits them just fine."

  "Why don't you take a dip with us?" Phillip suggested and swore he heard Ethan's jaw crack. "You can scrub my back."

  She laughed and picked up the clothes that had already been discarded. "It's been a while since I've gone skinny-dipping, and as appealing as it sounds, I've got too much to do to play right now. You give me the rest of your clothes, I'll get them washed before I go."

  "Appreciate it." But when Phillip reached for his belt buckle, Ethan jabbed an elbow into his ribs.

  "You can wash them later if you're set on it. Go in the house."

  "He's shy." Phillip wiggled his brows. "I'm not."

  Grace only laughed again, but she headed back to the house to give them privacy.

  "You shouldn't tease her that way," Ethan muttered.

  "I've been teasing her that way for years." Phillip peeled himself out of his work-stained jeans, delighted to be rid of them.

  "Now it's different."

  "Why?" Phillip started to slip out of his silk boxers, then caught the look in Ethan's eye. "Oh. Well, well. Why didn't you say so?"

  "I got nothing to say." Because Grace was in the house now and he couldn't imagine her pressing her nose to the window, he pulled off his shirt.

  "It's her voice that always got me."

  "Huh?"

  "That throaty sound," Phillip continued, pleased to be able to rile Ethan about something. "Low and smooth and sexy."

  Gritting his teeth, Ethan pried off his work boots. "Maybe you shouldn't listen so hard."

  "What can I do? Can I help it if I have perfect hearing? Perfect eyesight, too," he added, judging the distance between them. "And as far as I can see, there's nothing wrong with the rest of her either. Her mouth's particularly attractive. Full, shapely, unpainted. Looks tasty to me."

  Ethan took two slow breaths as he tugged off his jeans. "Are you trying to irritate me?"

  "I'm giving it my best shot."

  Ethan stood, gauged his man. "You want to go in headfirst, or feetfirst?"

  Pleased, Phillip grinned. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

  Both waited a beat, then charged, grappled. And with Seth's rousing cheers ringing, wrestled each other into the water.

  Oh, my, Grace thought with her nose pressed up against the window. Oh, my. If she'd ever seen two more impressive examples of the male form, she couldn't say when. She'd only intended to sneak a quick glance. Really. Just one innocent little peek. But then Ethan had peeled off his shirt and…

  Well, damn it, she wasn't a saint. And what harm did it do to anyone just to look?

  He was just so beautiful, inside and out. And God, if she could get her hands on him again for just five minutes, she thought she could die a happy woman. Maybe she could, since he wasn't indifferent—the way she'd always assumed he was.

  There'd been nothing indifferent in the way his mouth had crashed down on hers, or the way his hands had rashed over her.

  Stop, she ordered herself and stepped back from the window. The only thing she was going to accomplish this way was to get herself all worked up. She knew how to channel her more intimate needs, and that was to work until they passed away again.

  But if her mind wasn't completely on her chicken, who could blame her?

  she had the potatoes cooling for the salad and the chicken frying when Phillip came back in. Gone was the image of the sweaty laborer. In its place was the smooth, the gilded, the casually sophisticated. He winked at her. "Smells like heaven in here."

  "I made extra so you can have it for lunch tomorrow. You just put those clothes in the laundry room, and I'll see to them in a minute."

  "I don't know what we'd do without you around here."

  She bit her lip and hoped everyone felt the same. "Is Ethan still in the water?"

  "No, he and Seth are doing something to the boat." Phillip went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of wine. "Where's Aubrey today?"

  "With my mother. In fact she just called and wants to keep her a little longer. I guess one of these days I'm going to have to give in and let her stay overnight." She glanced down blankly at the glass of cool golden wine he offered her. "Oh, thanks." What she knew about wine wouldn't fill a thimble, but she sipped because it was expected. Then her brows lifted. "This isn't anything like what they serve down at the pub."

  "I wouldn't think so." He considered what they called the house white down at Shiney's one shaky step up from horse piss. "How are things going there?"

  "Fine." She gave serious attention to her chicken, wondering if Ethan had mentioned the incident. Unlikely, she decided when Phillip didn't press. She relaxed again and let Phillip entertain her while she worked.

  He was always full of stories, she mused. Of easy, even careless conversation. She knew he was smart and successful and had slipped into city living like a duck in water. But he never made her feel inadequate or silly. And in a cozy way, he made her feel just a little more feminine than she had before he'd come into the room.

  That was why Grace's eyes were laughing and her mouth prettily curved when Ethan came in. Phillip sat, sipping wine while she put the finishing touches on the meal.

  "Oh, you're making that up."

  "I swear." Phillip held up a hand in oath and grinned as Ethan came in. "The client wants the goose to be the spokesperson, so we're writing dialogue. Goose Creek Jeans, fine feathers for everyday living."

  "That's the silliest thing I ever heard."

  "Hey." Phillip toasted her. "Watch them sell. I've got a few phone calls to make." He rose, deliberately rounding the table to kiss her and make Ethan seethe. "Thanks for feeding us, darling."

  He strolled out, whistling.

  "Can you imagine, making a living writing words for a goose." Amused, Grace shook her head as she tucked the bowl of potato salad into the refrigerator. "Everything's done, so you can eat when you're hungry. Your clothes are in the dryer. You don't want to leav
e them sitting in there after it's done or they'll be wrinkled."

  She moved around, tidying the kitchen as she spoke. "I'd wait and fold them for you, but I'm running a bit behind."

  "I'll drive you home."

  "I'd appreciate it. I'm dealing with the car on Monday, but until then…" She lifted her shoulders and saw with one last glance that she had nothing left to do. Still, she eyed every nook and corner as she walked through the house to the front door.

  "How are you getting to work?" Ethan demanded when they were in his truck.

  "Julie's taking me. Shiney's taking me home himself." She cleared her throat. "When I explained what happened the other night he was upset. Not mad at me, but really upset it had happened. He was set to skin Steve, but under the circumstances—they had a boy, by the way. Eight and a half pounds. They're calling him Jeremy."

  "I heard," was Ethan's only comment

  Now she drew a bolstering breath. "About what happened, Ethan, I mean afterward—"

  "I've got something to say about that." He'd worked it out carefully, word by word. "I shouldn't have been mad at you. You were scared and I spent more time yelling at you than making sure you were all right."

  "I knew you weren't really mad at me. It was just—"

  "I've got to finish this," he said, but waited until he'd turned into her driveway. "I had no business touching you that way. I'd promised myself I never would."

  "I wanted you to."

  Though the quiet words caused his stomach to clench, he shook his head. "It's not going to happen again. I've got reasons, Grace, good ones. You don't know, and you wouldn't understand."

  "I can't understand if you don't tell me what they are."

  He wasn't going to tell her what he'd done, or what had been done to him. And what he was afraid still lurked inside him ready to spring out if he didn't keep that cage locked. "They're my reasons." He shifted to look at her because it was only right to say what he had to say facing her. "I could have hurt you, and I nearly did. That's not going to happen again."

  "I'm not afraid of you." She reached out to touch, to stroke his cheek, but he grabbed her hand and held her off.

  "You're never going to have to be. You matter to me." He gave her hand a quick squeeze, then released it. "You always have."

  "I'm not a child anymore, and I won't break if you touch me. I want you to touch me."

  Full, shapely, unpainted lips. Phillip's words echoed in his head. And now Ethan knew, God help him, exactly how tasty they were. "I know you think you do, and that's why we're going to try to forget that the other night happened."

  "I'm not going to forget it," she murmured, and the way she looked at him, her eyes soft and full of need, made his head swim.

  "It's not going to happen again. So you stay clear of me for a while." Desperation tinged his voice as he leaned across and shoved open her door. "I mean it, Grace, you just stay clear of me for a while. I've got enough to worry about."

  "All right, Ethan." She wouldn't beg. "If that's what you want."

  "That's exactly what I want."

  This time he didn't wait until she was in the house but backed out of the drive the minute she closed the truck's door.

  For the first time in more years than he could count, he thought seriously about getting blind drunk.

  Chapter Eight

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  seth kept watch for them. His excuse for being in the front yard as the shadows grew long was the dogs. Not that it was an excuse, exactly, he thought. He was trying to teach Foolish not just to chase the battered, well-chewed tennis ball but to bring it back the way Simon did. The trouble was that Foolish would race back to you with the ball, then expect you to play tug-of-war for it.

  Not that Seth minded. He had a supply of balls and sticks and an old hunk of rope that Ethan had given him. He could toss and tug as long as the dogs were willing to run. Which was, as far as he could tell, just about forever.

  But while he played with the dogs, he kept his ears tuned for the sound of an approaching car.

  He knew they were on their way home because Cam had called from the plane. Which was just about the coolest thing Seth could think of. He couldn't wait to tell Danny and Will how he'd talked to Cam while Cam had been flying over the Atlantic Ocean.

  He'd already looked up Italy in the atlas and found Rome. Had traced his finger back and forth, back and forth across that wide ocean from Rome to the Chesapeake Bay, to the little smudge on Maryland's Eastern Shore that was St. Christopher's.

  For a little while he'd been afraid they wouldn't come back. He imagined Cam calling and saying they'd decided to stay over there so he could race again.

  He knew Cam had lived all over the place, racing boats and cars and motorcycles. Ray had told him all about it, and there was a thick scrapbook in the den that was filled with all kinds of newspaper and magazine pictures and articles about how many races Cam had won. And how many women he'd fooled around with.

  And he knew that Cam had won this big-deal race in his hydrofoil—which Seth wished he could ride in just once—right before Ray had run into the telephone pole and died.

  Phillip had finally tracked him down in Monte Carlo. Seth had found that place in the atlas, too, and it didn't look all that much bigger than St. Chris. But they had a palace there and fancy casinos and even a prince.

  Cam had come home in time to see Ray die. Seth knew he hadn't planned to stay very long. But he had stayed. After they'd had sort of a fight, he'd told Seth he wasn't going anywhere. That they were stuck with each other and he was staying put.

  Still, that was before he'd gotten married and everything, before he'd gone back to Italy. Before Seth had started to worry that both Cam and Anna would forget about him and the promises they'd made.

  But they hadn't. They were coming back.

  He didn't want them to know he was waiting for them or that he was excited that they would be home any minute. But he was. He couldn't understand why he was all pumped up about it. They'd only been gone a couple of weeks, and Cam was a pain in the ass most of the time anyway.

  And once Anna was living there, everybody would say how he had to watch his language because there was a woman in the house.

  A part of him worried that Anna would change things. Even though she was his caseworker, she might get tired of having a kid around. She had the power to send him away. More power now, he thought, because she was doing it with Cam all the time.

  He reminded himself that she'd played it straight with him, from the minute she'd pulled him out of class and sat down with him in the school cafeteria to talk.

  But working on a case and living in the same house with that case was different, wasn't it?

  And maybe, just maybe, she'd played straight with him, she'd been nice to him, because she'd liked having Cam poke at her. She'd wanted to get married to him. Now that she was, she wouldn't have to be nice anymore. She could even write in one of her reports that he'd be better off somewhere else.

  Well, he was going to watch, and he was going to see. He could still run if things got sticky. Though the idea of running made his stomach hurt in a way it had never done before.

  He wanted to be here. He wanted to run in the yard, throwing sticks to the dogs. To crawl out of bed when it was still dark and eat breakfast with Ethan and go out on the water crabbing. To work in the boatyard or go down to Danny's and Will's.

  To eat real food whenever he was hungry and sleep in a bed that didn't smell like somebody else's sweat.

  Ray had promised him all of that, and though Seth had never trusted anyone, he'd trusted Ray. Maybe Ray had been his father, maybe he hadn't. But Seth knew he'd paid Gloria a lot of money. He thought of her as Gloria now and not as his mother. It helped to add more distance.

  Now Ray was dead, but he'd made each of his sons promise to keep Seth in the house by the water. Seth figured they probably hadn't liked the idea, but they'd promised anyway. He'd discovered that the Quinns kept t
heir word. It was a new and wonderful concept to him, a promise kept.

  If they broke it now, he knew it would hurt more than anything had hurt him before.

  So he waited, and when he heard the car—the not-quite-tamed roar of the Corvette—his stomach jittered with excitement and nerves.

  Simon woofed twice in greeting, but Foolish set up a din of wild, half-terrified barking. When the sleek white car pulled into the drive, both dogs raced toward it, tails waving like flags. Seth stuck hands that had gone sweaty into his pockets and strolled over casually.

  "Hi!" Anna shot him a brilliant smile.

  Seth could see why Cam had gone for her, all right. He himself had sketched her face a number of times in secret. He liked to draw above all else. His fledgling artist's eye appreciated the sheer beauty of that face—the dark, almond-shaped eyes, the clear, pale-gold skin, the full mouth, and the exotic hint of cheekbones. Her hair was windblown, a dark, curling mass. Her wedding ring set glinted, diamonds and gold, as she stepped out of the car.

  And caught him unprepared in a laughing, bone-crushing hug. "What a terrific welcome party!"

  Though the embrace had surprised him into wanting to linger there, he wiggled free. "I was just out fooling with the dogs." He looked over at Cam, shrugged. "Hey."

  "Hey, kid." Lean and dark, and just a little dangerous to the eye, Cam unfolded his length from the low-riding car. His grin was quicker than Ethan's, sharper than Phillip's. "Just in time to help me unload."

  "Yeah, sure." Seth glanced up, noted the small mountain of luggage strapped to the roof of the car. "You didn't take all that crap with you."

  "We picked up some Italian crap while we were there."

  "I couldn't stop myself," Anna said with a laugh. "We had to buy another suitcase."

  "Two," Cam corrected.

  "One's just a tote—it doesn't count."

  "Okay." Cam popped the trunk, pulled out a generous dark-green suitcase. "You carry the one that doesn't count."

  "Putting your bride to work already?" Phillip crossed to the car, waded through the dogs. "I'll take that, Anna," he said and kissed her with an enthusiasm that had Seth rolling his eyes at Cam.

  "Turn her loose, Phil," Ethan said mildly. "I'd hate for Cam to have to kill you before he even gets in the house. Welcome home," he added and smiled when Anna turned to give him as enthusiastic a kiss as Phillip had given her.

  "It's good to be home."

  the tote, it turned out, contained gifts, which Anna immediately began to dispense, along with stories of each one. Seth only stared down at the bright-blue-and-white soccer shirt she'd given him. No one had ever gone on a trip and brought him back a present. The fact was, if he thought about it, he could count the gifts he'd been given—something for nothing—on the fingers of one hand.

  "Soccer's big over in Europe," Anna told him. "They call it football, but it's not like our football." She dug deeper, then pulled out an oversized book with a glossy cover. "And I thought you might like this. It's not as good as seeing the paintings. It really grabs you by the throat to see them in person, but you'll get the idea."

  The book was filled with paintings, glorious colors and shapes that dazzled his eyes. An art book. She'd remembered that he liked to draw and had thought of him.