chapter Sixteen
Sleeping Adamses and their friends were scattered from one end of the den to the other. Rachel and Darnell had shooed everyone out of the kitchen while they finished cleaning up and Gracie laughed as the clan beat a hasty retreat. Ben and Laquita were napping on the sofa with one of Wiley's offspring curled up between them. The football game droned on in the background but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to it. Sage, Morocco, and Joe—and their offspring—were outside playing a game of touch with two of their sisters while Cheyenne and Storm retreated to the sewing room to work on their dresses. They begged Gracie to let them do one more fitting on the pants suit Rachel was assembling for her but Gracie said if she tried it on tonight they would have to let out all of the seams.
Ruth had excused herself to go upstairs and rest. Noah and Sophie had just plain disappeared. Gracie felt restless and unsettled. The house, big as it was, felt too small to contain her emotions and she found herself craving a lonely sweep of rocky beach. How wonderful to be able to walk out a door and step onto the beach. Everyone had said she was crazy to keep a car in the city but she had needed the means to escape whenever the noise and the crowds became too much for her. Taking the subway to Coney Island or the bus to Rockaway wasn't the same as driving east through Queens, past the Elmhurst tanks and the old World's Fair, LIE to Cross Island to Southern State where she followed the signs to Jones Beach. That wide, smooth expanse of civilized sand was nothing like the unforgiving beaches of her childhood but knowing that the same ocean crashed against the shores of Idle Point soothed her soul.
She grabbed her coat from the hall closet then let herself out the back door, the one that led out into the garden. Two late roses, blood red and just beginning to unfurl, bloomed near the stairs. Beach roses used to line the path to the rocky beach by the lighthouse. Once upon a time, in another life, Noah had trailed a beach rose over the curve of her hip, the line of her thigh. The gesture was both sensually charged and painfully sweet, the kind of gesture a woman never forgot. She remembered the look in his eyes, the faint smell of salt on his skin, the callused tip of his index finger, the velvety softness of the petals of the rose against her bare skin. If the world had ended at that very moment, she would have died knowing her life had been blessed beyond measure.
She didn't have him—she couldn't—but she had those memories and sometimes she even managed to convince herself that those memories were enough.
#
Sophie was fearless. She flew across the rocky beach in her fancy velvet dress and heavy parka as if she had been born there in Idle Point instead of on the other side of the ocean.
"Sophie, be careful!" he shouted into the wind. "The rocks are slippery!"
She didn't hear him. He probably wouldn't have been able to hear a warning at her age either. She was so small, a tiny scrap of humanity against the enormity of the wind and tides. If he had his way, he would lock her in the house until she was forty.
She leaped from rock to rock, arms outstretched, mimicking the gulls that swooped and soared overhead. She reminded him of Gracie as a little girl, so filled with physical energy and enthusiasm that the span of her arms reached the edges of the world.
"She looks like she was born here."
He was surprised he hadn't felt her presence before he heard her voice. "I was thinking the same thing."
Gracie cupped her hands around her mouth. "Soooophie!"
His daughter stopped, perched on a huge rock near the water's edge, and waved.
Gracie waved back, her oversized coat billowing in the wind like a woolen parachute. "Has she seen a gull open a clam yet?"
"I don't think so."
She scanned the area. "I remember the first time you saw that gull drop the clam onto the rocks and break it open."
"You opened my eyes," he said. The natural world had been invisible to him until Gracie came into his life.
"You should go catch up with her," she said, wrapping her arms around her slender body as winds kicked up. "Low tide's a perfect time to start teaching her about the shore."
"Like Gramma Del did for you."
She peered out from beneath her hood. "You remember that."
"I remember a lot of things, Gracie."
She was halfway across the rocks before he realized she was in motion. She ran the way she did everything, with speed and grace. She never slipped, never faltered. This beach, this place, was her heart's home and always had been.
The rocks fought him as he made his way toward his daughter and Gracie. They shifted and moved beneath his feet. Moss, slippery as ice, threatened his balance. He had been denied whatever gene it was that enabled Gracie and Sophie to navigate these rocks like they were on flat dry land. At least it was still daylight. He wouldn't want to be out there in the dark with the tide rolling in.
Gracie used to laugh at him during those hot summer nights when he refused to venture too far from the shadow of the lighthouse. She didn't understand because she was born to be part of this place while he had somehow always felt like he was passing through.
He looked up and saw that Gracie and his daughter were way up the beach already, walking along the shoreline with their heads down. He could see Gracie pointing at various bits of aquatic flora and fauna and if Sophie's body language was any indication, the child was spellbound.
He knew just how she felt.
#
They looked right together, the three of them. Gracie could easily imagine the picture they made as they walked the beach at sunset. Handsome man, hard-working woman, happy child.
They looked like a family.
Tell him, Gracie. It's time. Do it for Sophie if you can't do it for Noah or yourself.
"Ben and Laquita look happy," he observed as they followed the bouncing Sophie up the gilded beach. "What odds do you give them?"
"I think they're going to make it," Gracie said, bending down to pick up a beautiful striated rock. "They're an odd couple but somehow they work."
"We would have made it," he said, his gaze fastened on his quick little daughter.
"Yes," Gracie said, "we probably would have." Tell him, Gracie. Now is as good a time as any. There was no reason for her to keep Simon's secret any longer. It was time to move on.
"I didn't get it, Gracie. Remember when you used to call me the rich kid? You were right. I didn't get how it was for you... what I was asking you to sacrifice."
She took a deep breath and dived in. "You're right," she said. "We need to talk about what happened. You deserve the truth."
His expression held a thousand shades of emotion, all of which broke her heart. "I see us everywhere. The way you looked in the moonlight—"
"Don't," she said. "We can't—"
"I didn't love Sophie's mother."
"I don't want to hear this."
"I liked her. We enjoyed each other's company." He forced her to meet his eyes. "She reminded me of you. She was ambitious. Focused in a way I've never had to be. I wanted something with no strings, no chance of hurting anyone or being hurt myself."
"What did she want?"
"Sex and laughs." He grew quiet for a moment, his gaze returned again to Sophie. "Catherine wasn't one for getting sidetracked."
"Which would explain why she let Sophie go."
"I'm not sure anything explains that." A clean letting-go would have given Sophie a permanent home right off the bat, not years of being passed from relative to relative until somebody thought about letting the father know he had a child.
"You're giving her a good life."
"I can do better."
"You will," she said, "but from what I can see you're doing everything right."
"Which doesn't explain the biting and kicking."
"She's scared. She doesn't have too many ways to express it."
"She could try telling me."
"I'm sure she will once she believes you're a sure thing."
"A sure thing?"
"That you're not going to bail out on her the way every other adult in her life has."
"I've told her that from the beginning."
"So did Ben. Prove it to her and then she'll start believing you."
Another silence.
"I'm planning to go back to London after I work out a deal to sell the Gazette."
"Because you love London?"
Don't go, Noah. Stay here. Make a life for you and Sophie here in Idle Point.
"Because being here is too hard, Gracie."
"I know," she whispered, unable to contain her emotions. "It is for me too." Their dreams waited for them on the corner. Their hopes were still right up the road by the lighthouse.
"What about you? I suppose you're going back to New York after the wedding."
"I don't know what I'm going to do after the wedding."
"I thought you had a big job down there."
"'Had' being the operative word." She kept her eyes trained on Sophie who was a fair distance away. "I'm on suspension." She told him why in fifty words or less.
"You haven't changed."
"I'm not sure how to take that."
"I wouldn't complain if Sophie followed your lead."
"She'll find a better way," Gracie said, bypassing the compliment. She hoped Sophie would find a way that wouldn't break her heart.
Sophie stopped running. They watched as she bent down to inspect something at the shoreline.
"I've missed you, Gracie," he said.
"I've missed you too." You're the other half of my heart. You always will be. She whispered a silent prayer then pushed forward. "I want to tell you why—"
Sophie's scream shattered the mood.
They were at her side seconds later. Sophie threw herself against Noah, sobbing wildly. A small gull, horribly tangled in fishing line, lay dying on the beach. A barbed hook was embedded in the side of his neck. He had lost a great deal of blood; it puddled beneath him on the hard sand. Gracie knew instantly that it was a lost cause and she shook her head at Noah when Sophie wasn't looking.
"It's okay, Soph." He held her close while she cried. "Gracie is an animal doctor. She knows what to do."
Gracie did indeed know what to do but it wasn't something she would tell the child. Sophie had dealt with enough of life's ugliness. She wasn't about to visit any more of it on her.
"He's hurt!" Sophie cried, turning toward Gracie. "Make it stop hurting him, Gracie! Make it stop!"
It would only be a matter of a few minutes. Gracie could tell by the gull's shallow breathing, the utter lack of fear at human contact. She was about to shrug off her coat and wrap the bird in its folds when Noah offered up his jacket instead. She thanked him then motioned for him to divert Sophie's attention while she quickly wrapped the dying bird in his jacket.
"What are you going to do?" Sophie asked, keeping her face pressed tightly against her father's shoulder.
"I'm going to keep him comfortable," Gracie said, walking the fine line of truth and falsehood.
"You'll make it stop hurting him?"
"Yes," Gracie said. "I promise you I will."
#
Sophie wanted to follow Gracie around back to find Doctor Jim but Noah wouldn't let her.
"You're cold and wet," he said to his daughter. "Let's go upstairs and get warm first."
He should have known the quiet afternoon was too good to be true. Her crying about the injured seagull suddenly turned into a mini-temper tantrum. The tantrum fell short of kicking and biting but it wasn't a whole lot of fun for either one of them. Sophie was crying so hard she could hardly breathe by the time he got her upstairs to her room. So much for progress. Every time Noah felt like he'd gotten a handle on fatherhood, he hit another speed bump.
"Take off your clothes," he told Sophie, "and put on your robe while I start a bath for you."
"I don't want to take a bath."
"A nice warm bubble bath will make you feel better."
"I don't want to feel better."
"I don't want you to catch cold, Soph."
She made a run for it. He managed to catch her at the top of the staircase. He tucked her under his arm and carried her back to her room.
"I want to help the bird, Papa," she said, struggling against his efforts to remove her wet clothes. "I have to find Gracie and help her."
"Gracie is an animal doctor," he reminded Sophie, "and so is Doctor Jim. They'll make sure the bird doesn't hurt anymore."
"But I am the one who found him. He'll be looking for me."
"He's being cared for, Sophie. I'll bet Gracie will be up here by the time you finish your bath and put on your nightgown." How did you draw the line between the painful truth and a comforting lie?
Sophie didn't seem convinced but most of the fight drained out of her. He wasn't above taking advantage of that fact.
#
"There was nothing we could have done, Gracie." Doctor Jim put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a swift hug. "He didn't have a chance."
"I know that," Gracie said. "I know all about the food chain and the ways of nature. Believe me, I've dealt with that and more down in New York." She knew the difference between a lost cause and convenience. In fact, knowing that had cost her her position at the hospital where she'd worked. "It was the look in Sophie's eyes..."
"The little one's been through a lot," he said. "It's natural you'd want to protect her."
"She's not mine," Gracie said. "I don't know how Noah wants to handle this." Every parent treated the topic of death in a different way. She only knew she didn't want to lie to Sophie.
"Seeing you and Noah together took me back a lot of years," Doctor Jim said. "I always hoped you would end up together."
"So did I," Gracie said with a soft laugh.
"So what's stopping you? I saw the way you looked at each other over Rachel's turkey. It's clear nothing has changed."
"A lot has changed, Doctor Jim."
"Nothing essential."
She had to stop this now before it went too far. "I'm hoping we can find a way to be friends again."
"And that's your polite way of telling me to mind my own business."
"I'd never tell you that."
"No," he said with a smile. "You wouldn't but I'll do it just the same."
They stood together in silence for a few minutes, watching the sun slide behind the hills.
"There's a place for you here, Gracie," he said as they hugged goodbye. "I meant what I said at the dinner table."
"I know you did," she said, "and I love you for it."
She lingered a few moments more than stepped back into the house where Laquita found her a second later.
"Your father's getting tired," Laquita said, "and I'm working midnight shift. If you don't mind, I think it's time to head home."
Gracie hesitated. She had finally worked up the nerve to tell Noah what had happened the day she left him and the right moment kept slipping between her fingers. "Why don't you two go ahead without me." She told Laquita about Sophie and the injured bird. "I think I'll stay and see if Sophie wants to talk."
"How will you get home?"
"I hadn't thought of that."
Laquita pulled her car keys from the pocket of her bright red down jacket. "Here," she said. "Use my car."
"What about you and Dad?"
"I have ten siblings," she said with a grin. "If I can't bum a ride off one of them, it's a sorry world."
Gracie thanked her then Laquita rushed off to find someone to drive her and Ben home. That was part of being a family, this kind of give and take. Here, take my car... hey, how about a ride down to the corner... it's cold... you'd better borrow my sweater... do you remember when we used to...
She could have that and more if she moved back to Idle Point. It was there for the taking, almost everything she had ever wanted from life. A big loud loving family, even if most of them were imported by marriage. A relationship with her father. The chance to work with Doctor Jim. She could even have Noah in her life—and Sophie, too—although not in the way she had always dreamed. All she had to do was say the word and it was hers.
"Do you know where Noah is?" she asked Rachel who was putting away the last of the dishes.
"He was looking for you," Rachel said, closing the glass doors to the china cabinet. "Sophie wants you to give her a bath."
Second floor, third door on the left.
Gracie flew up the stairs. The signs were all there. She had motive and she had opportunity. She was tired of living only half a life and she wished for more for Sophie and Noah. This wasn't the happy ending she had dreamed about but it was more than she had believed possible these last eight years. Tell him tonight. Tell him before you leave this house. They couldn't be lovers but they could be part of each other's lives. She could be his friend, grow old with him, watch Sophie grow up. And even though it hurt more than she sometimes believed possible, it was so much better than being without him.
She tapped on the door to Sophie's room. "I hear somebody needs a bath," she called out.
"C'mon in," Noah shouted from inside the room. "You're not a minute too soon."
She opened the door and stepped into the bedroom she wished she'd had as a little girl. Open and airy. Pink and white. A window seat. A nightstand piled high with Madeleine and Harry Potter and the Complete Dr. Seuss. Paradise!
Sophie, naked and highly annoyed, stood in the middle of the room.
Noah, fully clothed and completely at a loss, sat on the edge of her bed.
They both looked toward Gracie as if she were the answer to their prayers.
"Barbie's Dream House!" Gracie couldn't believe her eyes. There it was in all of its plastic pre-fab glory to the left of the window seat. "Sophie, you have Barbie's Dream House!" She knelt down in front of the pricey piece of real estate and admired each detail.
"Did you have Barbies when you were a little girl?" Sophie asked, clearly skeptical.
"I sure did," Gracie said. "Mine was one of the beach Barbies. She carried a surfboard and had a year-round tan."
"They had Barbies when you were little?"
"Prehistoric Barbie," Gracie said with a straight face. "Ken came with a loin cloth and a club."
"I have two Barbies and one Ken." Sophie lowered her voice and leaned closer to Gracie. "They pulled his legs off."
Gracie met Noah's eyes over the top of Sophie's head. He was trying hard not to laugh out loud.
"Sounds like they're Biker Barbies," Gracie said, inspecting the two innocent-looking blondes for signs of aggression. "A pair of tough chicks."
"They didn't mean to do it. Sometimes these things happen."
"Ken better watch his step," Gracie said, matching Sophie's serious tone.
"Oh yes," said Sophie, "or something bad might happen to him."
That did it. Both Noah and Gracie burst into laughter. Sophie looked at them with annoyance at first and then she started laughing too, obviously pleased to be the source of such good-natured amusement.
"Okay, Soph.." Noah stood up. "Time for that bath you've been putting off for the last half hour."
Sophie looked toward Gracie. "Will you wash my hair for me?"
"I've never washed a little girl's hair before," Gracie said. "Are you sure you want me to do it?"
"You really never washed a little girl's hair?" Sophie asked.
"I shampooed a cocker spaniel," she said and Sophie giggled. "I shampooed poodles and Dalmatians. I even shampooed my cat once and he sneezed soap bubbles all over me."
Sophie tugged at her sleeve. "You can't shampoo a cat."
"Sure you can," said Gracie, taking her hand. "I didn't say he liked it but you can do it."
"I had a cat named Fred when I lived with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Hamish. He wouldn't go out in the rain."
"Uncle Hamish?" Gracie asked, wide-eyed with pretend innocence.
"No, silly!" Sophie was overcome with giggles. "Fred!"
They kept up the silly banter while Noah ran the tub and filled it with fragrant bubbles. They tried to imagine Gracie's Pyewacket swatting the bubbles with a lazy paw and that only made Sophie laugh even more.
If this was all Gracie could have of Noah, it would be enough.
#
Ruth was engrossed in the newest Dick Francis when Doctor Jim stepped into the library to say goodnight.
"Thank you for opening your home to me, Ruthie." He sat down on the edge of the sofa next to her chair. "You made my first Thanksgiving without Ellen much easier."
"There's no need to thank me, Jim, even though I loved your company. Rachel put everything together. I was nothing more than a party crasher."
Jim's smile always made Ruth feel the world was a better place. "And some party it was," he said. "I feel like everyone in town dropped by at some time or another."
"Rachel and Darnell are lucky people.”
"That they are. They raised themselves a fine group of young men and women, didn't they?"
They chatted for a bit about Laquita and Ben's upcoming wedding then talk turned quite naturally to Noah and Gracie.
"If ever a man and woman were meant for each other, it's those two," Jim said with a shake of his greying head. "I never could figure out what's been keeping them apart."
"Whatever it is, it's between them," Ruth said primly in an attempt to hide her own complicity. "I wouldn't dare ask either one of them about it."
"Not suggesting you should," Jim said easily. "Just making conversation."
Ruth slipped off her reading glasses and gently massaged the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry if I sounded sharp, Jim. The holidays stir up a lot of old memories, some of which are better left undisturbed."
"Don't I know it," he said, rising to his feet. "It's just when it comes to Gracie, I can't seem to help hoping for the best."
"I feel the same way," she said. "About both of them."
"I just wish there was something I could do to make things right." He bent down and kissed her on the left cheek. "Guess it's best left in the hands of God."
Ruth sat staring into the fire for a long time after Jim said goodnight, wishing she had the courage to try and make things right but the thought of disturbing the graves of so many long-buried secrets was more than she could contemplate.
If Noah and Gracie were meant to be, they would find their way to each other without any help.
#
For the first time in the three months he'd known Sophie, Noah felt some of the tension leave his body. It was the sound of her laughter that did it. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard it before, certainly not so much of it or so freely given.
Noah went to place Sophie in the warm tub but she wanted Gracie to do it.
"Are you a poodle?" Gracie teased his daughter.
"No!"
"Are you a cocker spaniel?"
"No!"
"Then I'm not sure I know how to give you a bath."
A moment later Sophie was immersed in bubbles with nothing but her heart-shaped face and halo of blond curls visible.
"You'd better take your coat off," Noah suggested to Gracie. "She splashes."
Gracie looked surprised. "My coat! I completely forgot I was wearing it."
She shrugged it off and hung it from the hook behind the door. "Now where were we?" She pushed her sleeves up over her elbows. "That's right. I was going to bathe a cat."
Sophie loved every second of it. Gracie claimed no prior knowledge of bathing young children but she handled it like a pro. Certainly a hell of a lot better than he had his first time around. She made sure no soap got in Sophie's eyes. She protected her ears with tiny wads of cotton. And when the bath was over she rinsed Sophie squeaky clean then wrapped her in the biggest, warmest towel she could find.
"Do you have a blow dryer?" she asked Noah.
He removed one from the vanity beneath the sink.
"Oh good," said Gracie. "It has a diffuser."
"A diffuser?"
"See this?" She pointed toward the wide attachment over the mouth of the dryer. "That's for curly hair."
"Yes, papa," said Sophie. "Everyone knows that."
"First I've heard of it," he muttered then stepped back into the shadows where he belonged.
Gracie put the dryer on the lowest setting and in no time at all Sophie's hair was a mass of shiny sweet-smelling curls. There had always been a sadness about Gracie even during her happiest moments but the air of sadness about her that night was almost palpable. The look in her eyes when Sophie took her hand for the walk from the bathroom to the bedroom would stay with Noah for a long time.
"You look beautiful, mademoiselle," Gracie said as Sophie did a pirouette in her pink terrycloth bathrobe.
"Okay, Soph," he said, as he slipped her prettiest nightgown over her head, "time for bed."
"No!" She stomped one tiny bare foot on the thick pale pink carpet. "Not yet!"
"It's late," he said, "and you've had a long day."
"No, I haven't."
"Sophie, I'm telling you—
"No!"
Gracie quietly went into the bathroom and when she came out she was wearing her big floppy coat.
"Don't go!" Sophie cried out. "I don't want you to leave."
"And I don't want to leave," Gracie said calmly, "but if you and your daddy are going to fight, I think I'll go home."
"I don't want to fight with Papa."
"Remember when we talked about how sometimes grown-ups talk real loud because they think that's the only way they can be heard?"
Sophie nodded.
"That's what you were doing."
Sophie looked up at him with big teary blue eyes and he was tempted to run out to Toys R Us and buy her a dozen Barbie's Dream Houses to make her smile again.
"Gracie's right, Soph," he said instead. "But we're both learning, aren't we?"
Sophie was quick to anger but equally quick to forget what she had been so angry about. A moment later he had her laughing again and she was still laughing when he tucked her into bed. He read her another scene from a Harry Potter book while Gracie gently stroked her hair. Then it was Gracie's turn and she told Sophie a story about her brand new cat Pyewacket and his adventures on the road from New York City to Idle Point that actually had Noah sitting on the edge of his seat.
Sophie's eyelids fluttered closed. They waited a moment and then when they were sure she was asleep, starting to tiptoe from the room.
"Does Pyewacket ever go home to New York?" Sophie called out as they reached the door.
"I don't know yet," Gracie said, glancing at Noah. "Pye will have to let me know."
Sophie yawned. "What about my seagull? Did you and Doctor Jim make him all better?"
#
Gracie's heart sank to her feet. She had been waiting for this question and when it hadn't come by lights out, she'd thought they were home-free.
"Did he—?" Noah whispered.
"Yes," she said. "I don't want to lie to her."
"I don't want you to either."
It was a small thing but she deserved the truth.
"The gull was hurt very badly, honey," Gracie said, crouching down at the side of Sophie's bed. "Doctor Jim and I did everything we could to make him comfortable."
"Is he all better?"
"We lost him, Sophie. I'm so sorry. We tried our best but he was hurt too badly for us to be able to save him."
"You mean he's gone?"
"Yes, honey."
"Then I should go find him."
"No, Soph, you don't have to do that," Noah bent down to talk to her. "What Gracie's saying is that the gull died."
Sophie thought about that for a moment. Neither Gracie nor Noah knew just how well she understood the concept of death.
"Where is my seagull now?"
"Doctor Jim has him," Gracie said. "He'll take him back to the beach where he belongs." Nature was unforgiving, at best, but there was comfort to be found in the notion of life renewing itself. At five-and-a-half, Sophie was too young to understand that concept but in time she would.
They waited until Sophie's eyes grew heavy a second time, then slipped from the room. Sophie's pink nightlight was on. Its faint glow spilled out into the darkened hallway. The house seemed very quiet after the Thanksgiving Day commotion.
"Listen," Gracie said, tilting her head to the right. "Not a sound. She's out like a light."
His face was inches away from hers. The look in his eyes was filled with both pain and wonder. "You were great with her."
"I think we speak the same language."
"She's had it rough," he said. "She's been passed around since the day she was born then some guy from another country comes along and says, 'I'm your father, kid,' and takes her across the ocean."
"She's lucky you found her. You'll give her the family she deserves."
"No," he said. "I'm the one who's lucky. She's the one good thing to happen to me since I lost you."
"It hurts so much, Noah," she whispered, her voice breaking. He was so close she could smell the dried sea spray on his skin. "When you told me she was your daughter, I hurt so much I thought I was going to die."
"Now you know," he said, his tone fierce with rage and longing. "That's what you did to me, Gracie, when you left me."
"I never wanted to hurt you. That's the last thing I wanted to do. I was scared. I didn't know which way to turn. I did the only thing I could do. I had no choice. It was the only option left to me."
"I pushed too hard," he said, his mouth only inches from hers. "I asked you to give up everything you'd worked for. I wanted you all for myself."
"No, no, that's not what I mean... oh God, this is so hard... seeing you again... seeing you with Sophie—"
They fell into each other's arms as if that was the only safe place on earth to be. And maybe it was. Their kisses were open-mouthed and hungry, hot and wet and impossible to deny. She wanted to taste every inch of his body. She wanted to bite the flesh of his inner thigh and mark him as her own. Years of longing erupted and she was on fire for him. She knew it was wrong. She knew there could be no future for them. She knew it all but she didn't care. She wanted this one night, this one gift to hold onto for the rest of her life.
He pressed her against the wall, trapped her there with his body, his hands, his heart. She clung to him, desperate for more, more of his kisses, his touch, everything he had and was or would ever be.
He was a half-step away from madness. Her slender curves hidden inside that foolish coat awoke a thousand memories. She had been so excited, so eager, so unbearably lovely that first time. He carried those images with him every day of his life. He'd dreamed of holding her again, tasting her skin, hearing her soft cries. And now there she was, in his arms, and he wasn't dreaming. She moved against him, on fire and unashamed, matching him in passion and love and need, all she had been before and more, so much more, because now he knew how it felt to be without her. At once he saw her as she was and as she had been, past and present coming together in a blaze of anger and love and desire that almost brought him to his knees.
"I love you," she murmured, her lips hot against the base of his throat. "I've never stopped loving you."
He pushed the coat off her shoulders, unbuttoned her sweater. "I've never loved anyone but you, Gracie. Never..."
"Those stories... the things you wrote... so beautiful..."
"I remember everything about you... everything—" Every breath she took, every word she had uttered. He remembered it all.
Rachel's voice drifted up the staircase. They needed to be alone, away from the world. He swept Gracie up into his arms and carried her down the hallway to his room, three doors down. The bedroom was dark. He reached for the lamp but Gracie stopped him.
"They'll see the light," she whispered as he stripped off her clothes then shed his own.
They were greedy for each other, avid, intoxicated by the feel of bare skin against bare skin, the wonder of touch. Words of love spiraled between them, striking sparks in the darkness. Their bodies were strange and yet familiar; the rhythm of love was part sense memory, part miracle. He needed all that she had to give, to find the other half of his heart. She needed to make him part of her body the same way he had been part of her heart and soul for as long as she could remember.
Remember... remember this moment...
Remember the way he looked in the moonlit bedroom. Remember the words he murmured against her skin. Remember how it felt to be happy again.
Remember the moment when he pulsed deep inside her body, holding her as if he would never let her go, the way her body answered his with a fierce shattering of her defenses that was triumphant and heartbreaking all at the same time because she knew it could never happen again.
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He unfurled the future for her like a flag of silk. The fact that they would have a future seemed like a miracle to him, like the first snowfall or a baby's smile. They had been handed a second chance and he wasn't about to waste a moment of it.
Words poured from his mouth the way they had poured from his fingers onto the keyboard. She was the key to everything. Without Gracie by his side, life was nothing more than a counting down of the days. He created castles in the air for her, castles with a foundation of unshakable love, and after a bit he realized that she lay curled on the bed next to him but she hadn't said anything at all.
"Gracie?" He rolled on his side and looked at her through the darkness. "Is something wrong?" He reached out and touched her cheek. It was damp with tears. "Did I hurt you?"
She took his face between her hands and ran her thumbs across his cheekbones, down to the corners of his mouth. "I love you so much," she said. "Nothing will ever change that."
He felt the icy breath of fear against the back of his neck. "What is it?" Eight years was a long time to be apart from the one you love. He knew nothing about that time. "You can tell me anything."
"I tried to find the nerve to tell you all day but there was one interruption after the other." She sat up straight with her back against the headboard. "I don't know. Maybe I was looking for a reason not to tell you at all."
"This is about that day, isn't it?"
"Yes." The look in her eyes scared him. Sadness was in her eyes and regret. She drew in a deep breath and the sound struck him like a physical blow. "Your father knew about us. A friend at the courthouse in Portland sent him a copy of our marriage license."
The icy breath grew colder still. "How did you find out?"
She clasped her hands together but her fingers still shook. "He came to my house that afternoon. He told me we were all wrong for each other, that I would only hold you back—"
"But you were the one with the ambitions. I—"
She wouldn't let him continue. If she stopped, she would never manage to say the words and she needed to say them more than anything in the world. "He knew me, Noah. He knew what made me tick. But I wouldn't give in. I told him I loved you, that I would make you happy, that you were the best thing that ever happened to me. He even tried to buy me off, as if money was the one thing I couldn't refuse but I wouldn't give an inch."
Noah leaned back against the pillow as the story took shape in front of him. He'd found his father parked along the side of the road not far from the docks where Gracie lived. Simon's dying words had been about Gracie. Why hadn't he realized that before?
"Did he threaten you? What did he say that made you run?"
"He told me about my mother, that they loved each other." Her voice broke and the sound tore at Noah's heart. "He said they were going to leave their spouses, take me and run away. They were only forty, he said, still young enough to build a new life. I didn't want to believe him but all the bits and pieces suddenly started to fit together, all those things about my life that had never made sense before—"
"Spit it out," he demanded, as fear downshifted into anger. "What does any of that have to do with us? I don't give a damn what happened between them. All I want to know is what made you throw away our dreams."
"Oh God, Noah, don't you see?" She knelt in front of him, forcing him to meet her eyes. "Simon was my father too."