CHAPTER TWELVE
SIPPING AT ROOM service coffee, Griffin listened to the sound of the shower and calculated how long before he’d be back to real life—his other real life—in Beach House No. 9. If Jane didn’t stop to dry her hair and he put her own caffeine in a to-go cup, they could be in secure environs in approximately seventy minutes, he guessed.
He couldn’t get out of the hotel suite soon enough.
His glance caught on the tumbled pair of sandals he’d slipped off Jane the night before. Pooled just a few inches away was the silky fabric of her dress. From there it was just another heartbeat before a memory of those ribbon-and-wishes panties made his palms itch.
“God,” he murmured to himself, then strode over to the discarded articles and snatched them off the floor. The shoes he placed on a small table beside the door leading to the bedroom. The dress didn’t cooperate as well, but he managed to fold it into a slithery bundle that he balanced on top of the sandals. “All tidied up,” he told himself.
Could it be that easy?
We’ve escaped, just for the night. A single night, she’d said. Now that it was morning, could they return to their previous relationship? Which was no relationship at all, he hurriedly assured himself.
There was a knock on the suite’s outer door.
On the other side, he discovered, stood his agent, Frank De Luca. The man was dressed in a coat and tie and carried a supersize manila envelope that rivaled his belly in the bulging department.
“Uh, hey,” Griffin said and had a sudden image of Jane walking out of the bedroom clad only in a towel, or maybe even less. With a glance over his shoulder, he stepped to block the gap in the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I got a text this morning,” Frank replied, his gray brows beetling over his pudgy boxer’s nose. He was half Irish and half Italian, which made him a perfect advocate for his clients. He loved to fight. “From Janie.”
“Janie? You call her Janie?” Ian Stone had called her Janie.
The other man waved a hand. “I’ve known her since she was a kid. Her dad was a client of mine at one time. Aren’t you going to let me in?”
Letting Frank in could complicate matters. And also postpone Griffin’s return to the cove. He glanced at the envelope. “If that’s for her, you can hand it over and be on your way. I’ll make sure she gets it.”
“This is yours,” Frank said. “And I’m here to talk with you too.”
What could he do but open the door? “I thought you said Jane sent you a text,” he muttered as the other man passed him on his way inside.
“To say she was sorry she missed me last night. But when I found out you were both still in town, I decided to drop by.”
“Wonderful. Terrific. Always a pleasure,” Griffin lied. Thank God he’d picked up Jane’s fallen clothes. He wouldn’t have wanted to explain them away, he thought, watching the other man toss the envelope onto the table in front of the couch. “What’s that?”
“Stuff the magazine was holding for you. They forwarded it to me since you went missing.”
“If I went missing, how come the book doctor, my sister and my agent all find me so damn easily?”
“Why are you so damn set on being hard to find?” Frank countered.
Griffin pasted on a smile. “How are the wife and kids?”
Frank hitched up his pants at the thighs and then settled into one of the room’s armchairs. “Spending about twenty-three hours of the day in the pool. Raeanne is teaching Tim how to dive. Amy can almost swim one whole length underwater.”
Pride puffed Frank’s chest so that it nearly matched his belly. Still, since marrying Raeanne, he’d dropped about twenty pounds and his face wasn’t quite so unhealthily florid. “Have you been watching your blood pressure and eating better?” Griffin asked, sitting on the couch across from the older man.
“Sure. Raeanne insists on all that organic age-free crap.”
Griffin bit down on his smile. “I believe you mean free-range.”
“Free-range, age-free, what’s the difference? She made something for dinner last night with tutu.”
“Tofu.”
“It wasn’t sirloin, that’s all I know. But it makes her happy, so…” He shrugged. “She’s been good to me. Marriage has been good to me. I highly recommend it.”
Griffin thought of Tess, who’d run from her husband to the cove. Of David, sleeping in his kids’ sleeping bags on the beach. “Glad to hear it.”
“You know what I’m not glad to hear?” Frank asked, crossing one ankle over his knee. “Janie says you’re not making much progress.”
Shit. “There’s an office. Whiteboards. Sharpened pencils.”
Frank just looked at him.
Double shit. “I’ve never missed a deadline. You know that.”
And still Frank looked at him.
Griffin shifted his gaze. Outside the window, the sky was that flat blue of summer, as if it had been ironed by the heat. This time of year in Afghanistan, the temperature was brutally hot, matching the increasing violence as insurgents climbed over the mountain passes to engage the troops. It was a deadly season that might only be mitigated if the previous year’s lousy crop yield forced the other side’s fighters to focus more on growing poppies and wheat than killing their enemies.
It was the kind of detail that belonged in his book. And if it was just a succession of those kind of details, he’d have racked up the pages by now. But Jane was insisting on emotions too, which meant writing about Erica and Randolph and all the other young and innocent cherries who’d stepped off the Chinooks as rookies and had been exposed to death within thirty seconds.
Which made them feel so damn alive. So damn alive until they went home…or weren’t alive at all anymore.
If he wrote about all that, would his calm last?
Maybe he should raise the idea of not completing the project, Griffin thought. Though it was true that he’d never missed a deadline and he didn’t want to start now, when each morning came, he couldn’t dredge up a shred of motivation. Backing out was going to be a pain in the ass, and he wasn’t happy about how it might affect him professionally, but waiting for the will to begin work became less viable an option with every passing day.
Torn, he pushed both hands through his hair. “Look, Frank. I’ve not completely made up my mind, but I need to tell you I’m considering—”
“You should cut Jane loose if you’re not going to get serious,” Frank said.
Grimacing, he leaned forward on the cushion. “I said I’m only considering—”
“This is about her, Griff, not about you.”
Griffin stared at the other man. Then he glanced toward the bedroom door, not sure if he wanted Jane to step out and interrupt the conversation or if he wanted Frank to finish. “I—” he started, then stopped, resigned. “What are you getting at?”
“Ian Stone.”
The name made him want to spit, even though Ian Stone was exactly why Jane had ended up in bed with Griffin last night. Knowing she was still hung up on her literary superstar had made it safe for him to even consider sex. And it was clear why she’d accepted—she’d been willing to take her night out of time because a little self-esteem boosting had been in order after coming face-to-face with that ass and the other woman.
“I know about all that,” Griffin said.
Frank raised an eyebrow. “Then you’ll understand me when I say it’s not right to fuck with her.”
Griffin twitched. Jesus! Did it show on him? Was there a sign on his forehead that read I Boffed Jane? He frowned at his agent. “I don’t think it’s right to call it fucking, either.”
That word implied callousness. He hadn’t been uncaring. To the contrary, he’d wanted to pleasure her. Was it his fault that she hadn’t trusted him to make that happen? His own ego had taken the blow last night, but next time he was going to tie her up—
No, of course there wasn’t going to be a next time.
“That’s what it will be, though,” Frank said, “if it gets around that you reneged on your obligation when you were working with Jane.”
The words took a minute to sink in, because Griffin’s mind had spun away on images of Jane bound by soft rope. Blinking, he came out of his brief reverie to focus on Frank once again. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”
The agent narrowed his eyes. “She told you about working with Ian?”
“Yeah. Heard all about that.”
“And that she left him?”
“Because he two-timed her,” Griffin protested. “Hell, any thinking person would walk away.”
“Ian Stone hasn’t turned in a book since. He’d been a blockbuster well, and without Jane it dried up.”
“Serves him right.” He was supposed to feel sympathy?
“But the blame has fallen on Jane’s shoulders. Ian claims to any who’ll listen that it’s her fault. That her defection eroded his confidence.”
“What a pussy,” Griffin said, disgusted.
“But a talkative, loud one. Loud enough that she hasn’t been able to find more work. He’s dragged her good name through the mud. Spread it around that she’s willing to leave a writer in the lurch.”
Griffin froze. While he’d been loath to ditch his deadline because of the ding to his rep, he could see how much harder Jane would take the professional hit. He heard her voice in his head on the day she went to visit her father: success is the only option.
“You said you know her dad?”
“Brilliant guy. Cold as a fish.”
His legs suddenly restless, Griffin popped up from the couch, crossing to the window, then circling the room. There on the table were those girlie shoes, that slithery dress, the evidence that he’d held a naked Jane in his arms.
Nobody’s ever tried to put me first.
“So you see, Griffin, if you’re not going to get serious on this project, you need to cut her loose, quick, so she can find another client. Have a real success. Reputation and word of mouth are everything in her line of work.”
The information tumbled through his brain and roiled his belly. Before he could answer Frank, before he knew how he would answer Frank, the bedroom door snicked open. Carrying her small duffel bag, Jane wore a straight khaki skirt, a white T-shirt made like mummy bandages and a pair of glossy flat shoes the color of new money. Her color was high, and her mouth was swollen. If you looked closely—he did and found himself shifting forward before he stopped himself—you could see that the edges of her lips were blurred by the slight burn his stubble had left behind. Her glance flicked to Frank and then transferred to Griffin.
Their gazes locked. This could end now, he thought. Right this moment he could tell Jane he wasn’t going to write the book, and Frank would pack her up and take her away. He would never have to see her again, not those too-clear eyes, not her crazy shoes. Never again would he have to wonder what decadent underwear she wore.
Never let himself think that if he hadn’t been a part of ruining her career, he sure as hell hadn’t been involved in saving it either.
Nobody’s ever tried to put me first.
He crossed to her and snatched her small bag out of her hand. His decision had been made. Self-aware enough to acknowledge the ice inside him had been compromised and what came next would risk further damage, he gritted his teeth as he stalked toward the door. He didn’t know how he was going to do it without getting screaming ugly, but real life back at the cove meant writing that goddamn memoir. “Let’s go, honey-pie. We’ve got work to do at Beach House No. 9.”
* * *
JANE AND GRIFFIN were stuck in traffic on an infamous stretch of the 405 freeway, but she finally felt as if she’d made some progress. Things were going her way professionally. And on the personal side, her Ian-related demons had been banished. Last night’s escapade between the sheets had been good for her ego.
Only two things kept her from bouncing in her seat. One, she was a little tender in certain places, and two, she didn’t think her driver shared her good mood. He sat, silent and still, behind the wheel of his boxy vintage BMW.
Nevertheless, it appeared the tide had turned in her favor. When she’d ventured from the bedroom this morning—a little uncertain, she’d admit, since she’d woken alone and the only evidence he was still in the suite was the scent of fresh coffee—he’d been standing on the other side of the door, an unreadable expression on his face. “We’ve got work to do,” he’d said, and she might have disbelieved the seriousness of the statement if Frank hadn’t been in the room as well. Griffin wouldn’t have made the declaration in front of his agent unless he meant it.
Darling Frank.
“He looked good,” she mused aloud, then darted a glance to her left. “Frank, I mean.”
Griffin grunted. “He told me he’s been eating tutu.”
“Huh?”
A smile hitched the corner of his mouth. “Tofu.”
She laughed, even as she stared at that small curve of his lips. He hadn’t shaved, and dark whiskers peppered his jaw and chin. It would have made for a prickly kiss if he’d woken her with one.
She wouldn’t have turned away from it.
No, no! She would have turned away from it. That was their agreement, right? They’d decided that what happened that night in the hotel room would stay in that hotel room. Meaning she wouldn’t have let it happen again this morning.
She wouldn’t let it happen again, period.
He looked toward her as if he’d heard her little sigh. “You know Frank’s wife, Raeanne?”
“Sure. I’ve babysat for Tim and Amy on occasion.”
“Nice of you.” His attention turned out the windshield as the line of cars started to move.
“Nice of them,” she said, her voice light. “I needed the extra cash.”
Griffin muttered darkly.
“What’s that?”
His gaze slid right again, and she felt it like a touch. Then, as the cars in front of them came to a stop, he did just that, he touched her, his hand sliding beneath her hair to cup the nape of her neck. His thumb stroked her cheek, and her belly clenched. Between her thighs there was an instant swelling heat. Tingling.
She held her breath, trying to disguise her reaction. But when his thumb moved again, a shivery chill ran down her neck and made her nipples tighten against the cups of her bra. Surely he couldn’t miss the flush blossoming over her skin.
“Jane.” His fingers gave her neck a little squeeze. “About last night…”
No! Were there three words a person wanted less to hear? Her annoyed glance bounced off him, and she squirmed against the soft leather. Did he think he needed to reiterate theirs was a one-night thing? Didn’t she know that? It had been a great one-night thing—she hoped for him too—but she’d set the terms herself.
Nobody knew better than Jane that going any deeper could lead to professional and personal disaster. A woman had to protect herself from that.
Just as she opened her mouth to make clear she knew the score, a deafening noise blasted. A blur of movement raced past her window. With a little shriek, Jane jumped, dislodging Griffin’s hand.
“Damn motorcycle,” he said, glaring out the windshield.
Her startled heart settled as she realized what had happened. A guy on a wicked-looking two-wheeled vehicle was weaving through the traffic ahead, using the space between automobiles to create his own lane. Blowing out a breath of air, she noted Griffin continued to glower in that direction.
Then he shook himself and cast a quick glance at her. “Where were we?”
No place they needed to return to, Jane decided, and grasped for a different subject. “You don’t like motorcycles?” she asked.
“Hate ’em.”
Weird. “I thought men had a thing for those kind of machines—something about all that horsepower between their thighs….” The instant the words left her mouth her mind tumbled back to the night before. Griffin on top of her, his body driving into hers, her legs wrapped around his hips. It had been so long for her that her inner flesh could still feel his imprint. Her face went hot again.
“Jane?” Griffin sounded amused. “What’s going through your head?”
As if she’d tell. “I’m just curious,” she said, holding tight to this new thread of conversation. “A risk taker like yourself, an open road, a Harley-Davidson. Is there no appeal whatsoever?”
“Zero.” He ran a hand over his hair. It was longer now, long enough for her to see the crisp darkness was thick and straight. “We had a couple of trail bikes as kids. Riding them almost killed my brother. I almost killed my brother.”
She stared at him when he didn’t elaborate. “You can’t leave it at that.”
The traffic had slowed again, and as he braked he threw her a look. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re way too curious?”
She supposed she was. Another woman, knowing there was nothing for her beyond a one-night stand, would have curtailed any further thoughts about being in Griffin’s bed. To daydream about what it would be like to be there again, to be able to stroke those lean muscles and lick at his hard mouth and run her palm down his erection to see if she could make him tremble as she had when he’d placed that first light kiss to her nipple. That kiss and every other had ignited a fire in her, and she’d been desperate to experience the burn.
“My brother’s the real risk taker,” Griffin said now.
“Oh, right,” she scoffed, hoping he wouldn’t notice the hoarse note to her voice. “And you’re Safety Sam.”
He shrugged. “More so than Gage, anyway. He was the one always issuing challenges.”
She glanced over, surprised and a little gratified. It looked as if he might actually open up. “Challenges like what?”
“When we were young it was typical kid stuff. Who could hold a handstand the longest. Which one of us could catch the first lizard. Who could eat the most Oreo cookie middles.”
Jane sniffed. “This is what makes males unfathomable to me. Clearly the chocolate wafers are the only reason an Oreo’s worth eating.”
He tossed her a smile that made her heart stumble. She gave it a moment to stabilize, then prodded him again. “So if Gage was always the challenger, who was usually the winner?”
His smile died. “Gage…Gage would do just about anything to win, and he usually did, except for the day I dared him to race those stupid motorcycles.”
“Because…?”
He sent her a wry glance. “It was one of the few things I was better at.”
“So what happened?” she asked, her tone neutral.
“We were visiting the mountains. There was a trail that led away from the house, that ran for, I don’t know—three or four miles? Off we went.”
“With you in the lead?”
“Oh, yeah. Adrenaline was pumping through my blood and I was running as fast and hot as that damn bike. I felt like a million bucks when I got to the turnaround point without a sign of Gage behind me. But then I went cold, my twin-sense telling me something bad had happened.”
Jane felt her mouth go dry. Griffin seemed lost in thought, his gaze trained out the windshield but his focus clearly on the past. “But your brother’s all right,” she heard herself say. Of course he was all right.
“I turned around, revving the bike even faster. Gage was about a mile back, his own bike on the ground. He was struggling to get it righted. That’s when I saw that his chest was bleeding. He’d lost control and run into a tree. The sharp end of a broken limb had stabbed him in the chest.”
Oh, God. She could see it. She heard the echo of fear in Griffin’s voice.
“I got him on the back of my seat. He didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong, but I screamed at him to wrap his arms around my waist. I threw one arm behind me to make sure he didn’t fall. It seemed to take hours to get back to the house, and the whole time I felt his blood pumping in spurts against my back. And I kept thinking, I goaded him to do this. I’m going to have to tell our parents it’s my fault he’s dead. I’ve killed my twin.”
“You didn’t goad—”
“But I did. He hadn’t wanted to race, but I called him every name one brother will call another until he got mad enough to go along.” Griffin ran his hand over his hair again, and his voice was so quiet she thought he was talking to himself and not to her. “I’m the older brother. It’s up to me to keep everybody safe.”
She didn’t like the dark note in his voice. This was supposed to be her happy day! But she appreciated the insight into his personality. He felt so responsible for people. “That must have been scary,” she said. “Was the recovery difficult?”
“Sometimes I think it was harder for me than him. He took full advantage of my guilt. The video-game challenges I lost!” And then he grinned.
It was as if that white smile had the power to break up the traffic as well as the tension in the car. They started moving again, and she flipped on the radio and found a station dedicated to surf music from the 1960s. “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Surfer Girl.” Nobody could be unhappy hearing those songs. They were the perfect antidote to any lingering down mood.
In a few minutes she caught him tapping out the beat on the steering wheel. He saw her looking at him and smiling about that. “What?” he asked.
As if she’d point out he was humming. “Just thinking about how well we’d share a package of cookies,” she said, determined to keep things light. “I’d take all the crispy wafers—”
“Leaving me the sweet creamy centers,” he finished, capping it off with a leering wiggle of his eyebrows. “You know how good I am with those.”
She whacked him on the shoulder, pretending outrage when she was actually delighted by the teasing turn of the conversation. They were almost back at Beach House No. 9, and they’d managed to sidestep all the potential land mines left by their interlude between the sheets the night before.
The car tires crunched over the shells, and Jane unrolled her window to take in the scent of the cove, all warm summer day spiced with salt and balanced by the tang of the eucalyptus trees. A shaft of sunlight hit her straight in the eyes, and she closed them, breathing deep of the magic. In the distance the waves threw themselves onto the shore, no holding back.
He pulled into the driveway at the rear of the house. As they stepped from the car, Private came racing from Tess’s place, where he’d had a sleepover with her kids. He ran to Griffin first, carrying a well-bitten Frisbee. But he paused for only a short head rub before he rushed to Jane.
Her mood only rose higher. The plastic toy was more than a little slimy, and Griffin snickered at her lame excuse for a toss, but who wouldn’t be charmed by the canine’s exuberant greeting? “Good dog,” she said as Private raced back.
She might have even skipped a little. Good day.
“Hey, can you get that manila envelope?” Griffin asked. “I’ll bring in the bags.”
She held the bulky thing in two hands as she followed him into the cottage. The memory of her first visit rose in her mind as she scuffed her feet on the welcome mat that advised the visitor to abandon hope. Take that, she thought, scraping her soles against the words All Ye Who Enter Here a second time for good measure.
He carried their bags toward the bedrooms. Jane headed for the office. The lousy Frisbee toss should have been forewarning, but she didn’t think of it as she paused in the doorway to lob the envelope at the desk. It slid straight across the unencumbered surface to fall to the floor, some of the contents spilling.
Grumbling to herself, she crossed the sisal area rug. Everything had landed upside down. She crouched to gather a sheaf of papers. Underneath them was a dozen photographs. Their subject matter caught her off guard, her hand going lax so the pictures scattered across the floor in an array of images.
A shadow loomed in the doorway. Griffin stood there, with Private at his side. She glanced toward him as his gaze trained on the glossy paper. All expression on his handsome face was wiped clean and his fingers curled in the dog’s dark fur.
“Erica and I had been embedded about six months when they sent a photographer,” he said. His expression remained closed off, but his voice was matter-of-fact. “Believe it or not, we’d had a chance to clean up when those were snapped. Still look a little worse for wear.”
Jane gazed back at the photos. Some were posed, some were candid. In each, Griffin and his colleague were front and center. You couldn’t miss the effects of their half a year at war. They were both thinner than the “On Our Way” image. Their clothes were ragged.
One shot pictured Griffin from behind. He stood on the edge of a ravine, his arm around Erica’s shoulders. Her face was turned in profile, her expression clearly one of…
Love.
There was no doubt in Jane’s mind that the woman reporter had been in love with Griffin. Glancing at him now, taking in his tense pose and rigid expression, she realized he must have reciprocated her feelings. Jane didn’t know why she hadn’t come to this conclusion before…it made perfect sense. Two intelligent, good-looking people with common interests and a common goal. Add to that the intense atmosphere of war, and falling in love seemed inevitable. Ernest Hemingway was famous for a novel with similar elements.
From the beginning, Jane had known Griffin’s memoir would include stories of people he’d lived and breathed beside. Some who had been wounded. Some who had died. From the beginning, Jane had known the project would be difficult for him.
A chill washed over her skin as all her happy mood dissipated. She didn’t want to think it had anything to do with this new revelation regarding Griffin’s heart. They didn’t have feelings for each other, after all. They’d been clear about the boundaries. It must be that the fog was returning to the beach early.
But as the room went darker, for the first time Jane was forced to recognize that—even without any particular attachment to Griffin—his project might also be tough on her.