CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
GRIFFIN DIDN’T KNOW what to do with himself, so he drove to visit Rex during the hospital’s evening visiting hours. Anything to occupy himself since he couldn’t find his iPod, and nothing on television—not even 24/7 news—was working as a tranquilizer. He ran into his sister near the bank of elevators on her way to see the old man too. “David took the kids out for pizza to give me a break,” Tess said.
Even in the shittiest mood of all time, he could attempt some social niceties. “How are the minions?”
“Great. Happy to be home with a happy mom and dad.”
“Listen, you gotta do something about Duncan and Oliver.” He might not get another chance to tell her before he left the States. “That Cheeto thing just creeps me out.”
“David’s working on it,” Tess said. “Why don’t you come home with me after our visit and give him some opinions on how to best do that? I made a cake for dessert.”
Griffin stepped back. “No.” He’d just gotten the tribe of them out of his life. “I don’t feel much like cake.”
“That’s the thousandth time you’ve refused to do a family thing with us since you returned from Afghanistan. If I hadn’t come to the cove, would we have seen you at all this summer?”
He ignored the question. “A thousand is an overstatement. And I just don’t have a big interest in cake.”
Unexpected tears glittered in his sister’s eyes. He groaned. “What is it now, Tessie? What’s wrong?”
She held the back of her hand to her nose. “I heard what you said in Rebecca’s class. That the civilian world is dull after coming back from war.”
He shrugged, not following her thought.
“You think we’re dull. Is that why you won’t come over for dessert? Is that why Gage never visits? The two of you are too busy on your never-ending quest for the next adrenaline high?”
Why hadn’t he stayed home and pushed pins beneath his fingernails? His sister looked ready to bawl.
“I can’t speak for Gage,” he said. “It’s just…I’m sorry.” He shrugged again.
Tess stepped forward. He held out his arms, exhorting himself to give her a comforting hug. Instead she whacked him on the shoulder with her purse. “Ow!” he said. She carried one of those bags big enough to hold a circus. Including the elephant. She lifted it again, and he put up his hands. “What’s gotten into you?”
“You’re so dumb, that’s what!” She put her fists on her hips. “How do you think you find meaning in our mundane world? You come to your family—you find your purpose with them.”
“What purpose is that?” he asked, half bemused and half bewildered by her diatribe.
She made a wild gesture that had her purse swinging. “Teach your nephews how to catch a ball—David’s got the bicycle down, but he hates baseball. Get to work glaring at your niece’s first dates. Tickle Baby Russ’s belly.”
“Tess—”
“And then find a woman who you can value and love every day.”
“Tess—”
“Which bring me to Jane,” his sister said.
His expression must have made some sort of statement.
His sister groaned. “Griffin. Tell me you haven’t ruined what you had with her.”
“We didn’t have anything.” Just the greatest sex, the best laughs, the kind of connection he’d never found with another woman. The elevator arrived with a ping. “Get off my back, Tess.”
They stepped into the empty metal box. “I thought there was some magic at the cove,” Tess said. “Seeing you and Jane, I had high hopes, and with Gage exchanging letters with Skye, for a moment I even thought…”
He stared at his sister. “Gage and Skye?”
Tess waved a hand. “Forget it. Now I wouldn’t wish you and your twin on any woman.”
Magic at the cove, Griffin mused, as the elevator chugged upward. What a crock. And to think he’d sold Colonel Parker on the idea. Colonel Parker, who wouldn’t be bringing his darling daughter to No. 9 after all. He thought of Vance Smith, the combat medic who always kept his cool. Could that last during the month at the cove he’d promised to a fatherless girl? Still recuperating from his own wounds, he’d be at the beach house in mere days.
Which got him thinking about the email he’d received that very morning. Vance himself, touching base. Griffin was still confused by it. The man seemed to be operating under the impression that the colonel’s daughter, Layla, was a child, when Griffin knew for a fact she was in her mid-twenties—all grown up. Must be me who misunderstood Vance, he decided. Still, he sent the other man a silent message. Good luck, buddy.
When Griffin and his sister found the coot’s room, Tess was still muttering about her twin brothers’ lack of intelligence, common sense and general good manners. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he told her. “We never ate food with our feet.”
She ignored him to greet the elderly reporter with a kiss on the cheek, and Griffin could tell she was trying to be cheerful for the invalid’s sake. Rex looked pretty damn lively for someone ancient enough to be a first cousin to God, and Griffin told him so.
“They’re letting me go home tomorrow,” the elderly man said. “After fourteen tests and being prodded and poked more than a rodeo clown, they say it was likely dehydration.”
“Well, drink some more water, you irascible antique!” But the news solidified a hazy idea Griffin had. “Listen, Rex…I’m going overseas and could use somebody to look after Private. Are you up to it?”
“Me? And that flea-bitten, mannerless, mangy canine that either pees on my bushes or tries to dig them up?”
Griffin lifted a shoulder. “If you’re not interested—”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. Someone has to take charge of that dog. I’ll bet I can teach him a little courtesy.”
“You manage that, you should tackle Duncan and Oliver next.”
He realized his sister was giving him a dirty look. “Hey,” he said, defending himself, “the curmudgeon scared the shit out of me when I was their age. It could work.”
“It’s not about my boys,” she said. “It’s about this new plan of yours to go overseas. This is about Gage’s offer, I presume? You’re taking him up on it after all, and that’s why you had the falling-out with Jane.”
“We haven’t had a falling-out.” There’d almost been a knockout, and the thought of it still sickened him—and only confirmed how necessary it was for him to get away from her.
Suddenly that memory was front and center. Even the chatter between Tess and Monroe couldn’t prevent what was recurring in blazing Technicolor in his head. In one quick breath, it stopped being something he recalled and became something he was reliving.
He’s on the deck at Captain Crow’s. Rage is a ball of fire in his belly. Ian Stone is a smug prick who thinks he’s going to get Jane back into his life and back into his bed. Griffin doesn’t want to allow him to have another chance to chip away at her confidence. Jane might seem to stand ten feet tall, but a lot of that is wedge heel and ribbon bows. She should be with a man who cherishes her, who will nurture her can-do attitude and spoil her on the days when she’s feeling blue.
Ian Stone is not that man. And as Griffin waits for the jerk to get back up and come at him, his fists clench tighter.
Then there’s that quick touch. He spins, his arm cocking back.
Jane’s sweet face. Her little jerk of fear. The thudding crash his heart makes when it falls to the pit of his belly.
He came back to the present and realized that Tess was gone and he was alone in the hospital room with his neighbor. Surprised, he looked around him. “I…”
“She had to get back home to her husband and family. You answered when she said goodbye, but I didn’t think you were all here.” Rex waited a beat, then asked a casual question. “Flashback?”
Griffin stared at the old man.
“You think PTSD is new? We called it something different, but…”
“I don’t have that.” Griffin paced to look out the window. It was nearing dark. “I wasn’t at war. I was reporting on war.”
“In my time, I talked to a lot of soldiers and I talked to a lot of other combat journalists. Believe me, Griffin, we’re all affected by the things we’ve seen. I’ve told you before, you need to describe how that changed you.”
“I put it away. It’s better to keep it distant.” And he’d managed that fairly well until Jane insisted he look at the photos and write the words.
He’s on the deck at Captain Crow’s, and then he isn’t. Instead he’s in the Humvee, his ears ringing and Jackal’s leg…he can feel it right now in his hands, the weight of it, the bloody warmth….
“Sit down, son,” Rex said, his voice sharp. “Griffin, sit down.”
The vinyl cushion wasn’t soft, but at least the chair supported his weight. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. “I’ll leave in a minute,” he mumbled. “I have packing to do.”
“There’s no place far enough away,” the old man said. “No place you can go that those memories won’t find you.”
“I feel like I’m going crazy,” he heard himself mutter.
“Finish the memoir,” Rex urged. “Stay stateside and finish before thinking of traveling again.”
“I don’t care about the book.”
The coot sighed. “Do I have to remind you that a life unexamined is a life not worth living?”
“What?” Griffin said. “Did you read that on the bottom of a bubble-gum wrapper?”
“Socrates, which I’m sure you know.” The old man was silent a moment, then his voice turned softer, kinder. “Son, you need to deal with your experience. When you put down the ugly memories on the page, you defuse them of their power.”
“Rex—”
“Put them down like you would put Private down if he was sick and he was hurting. Out of kindness, Griffin. Out of love.”
Before he could spit out some pithy and clever retort like “Fuck you,” which was the first that came to mind, a nurse arrived and shooed Griffin away. A doctor was coming in for late rounds. Griffin was damn glad to walk away from the crabby codger and his amateur psychoanalysis.
The fact that the guy was ninety-four years old didn’t mean he knew squat about anything.
Truth was, it wasn’t the memories that were sick and hurting. It was Griffin himself.
On the way down in the elevator, he had company. A couple were talking in low tones to each other. The man of the pair had a little girl’s hand in his. Maybe…three, four years old? She had dirty-blond hair in pigtails tied with red ribbons. Her white dress was dotted with red cherries, and the poofy skirt belled around her knees as she swung her body back and forth. On her feet were white socks and little red patent leather shoes that were tied on with more ribbon.
Jane would have loved the outfit.
Jane would have looked just like this when she was a kid.
This kid noticed Griffin staring at her, compelling him to make a stab at conversation. “Uh, you have very pretty shoes,” he said, feeling awkward.
She responded to the compliment by lifting the hand not clutching her dad’s. Four tiny fingers waved in his direction. “I’m this many.”
He nodded, acknowledging the unsolicited intel. Then the elevator stopped, the door opening with a ping. With a gesture, he indicated the family should precede him. As the little kid crossed into the lobby, she glanced over her shoulder at Griffin. “It’s my birfday.”
The three words shot through him like an arrow. It froze him for a moment, thinking of Jane’s recent birthday, of all the birthdays he’d miss of hers. Another sharp-edged ache. The elevator doors started to close, and it galvanized him to move, but there was still the hurt.
And an idea. He wasn’t any good for Jane, true, but he couldn’t leave without first letting her know she’d meant something to him. That he wouldn’t forget her, even though he couldn’t love her as she deserved.
* * *
MOONLIGHT POURED OVER the cove, and at her place on the cliff just south of Beach House No. 9, Jane watched a series of incoming waves ripple forward, as if someone on the horizon had snapped an immense gray sheet. The night was warm, the breeze mild, and she let the calming sound of the water wash over her. With the seabirds asleep, there were no raucous high notes to nature tonight, just the constant wet wash that, while not unchanging, was unceasing. A reminder to take the next breath. To put your next foot forward.
To toughen up and get on with your life.
She’d been doing that ever since the final confrontation with Griffin on the beach that afternoon. Even with his “I don’t want to ever love anybody” still echoing in her ears, she’d marched back to Captain Crow’s and given Ian Stone the big heave-ho in no uncertain terms.
“For the record,” she told him, standing beside his table, her arms folded over her chest, “I’m not now and not ever going to work with you again.”
He’d blinked at her, looking bewildered behind the blossoming facial bruises. “But…but it sounded like you were considering my offer.”
She’d been goading Griffin was what she’d been doing. And maybe giving Ian some momentary false hope in the process, because she was a little mean that way. “I don’t work with cheaters. And I don’t work with people who try to blame their failures on someone else.”
“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, like a kid who finally had to do his own homework. “I haven’t written a word since we’ve been apart!”
“Not my problem, Norm,” she’d said, then strolled away.
His career could stay flatlined, for all she cared. As for her…she’d find another author to work with, or a new line of work if it came to that. She had great confidence in her ability to overcome—even with her heart broken, she was still breathing, wasn’t she?
And though a certain blue-eyed reporter might be out of her life, he’d left her with something. When he’d taunted her about trying to please her father, it had been the boot she needed to get her butt to Corbett Pearson’s place again. Once there, she’d ticked off three points on her fingers. One, never give her personal information to anyone; two, never get involved in her professional life again; and three, she loved him despite what she considered to be his faults and she expected him to do the same when it came to her. No more interfering and disapproval or no more daughter Jane!
Her dad had stuttered, he’d stumbled, he’d even managed to give her an awkward pat on the back. Progress.
Yes, she thought, closing her eyes, her life would move forward too.
The sound of her name startled her, and her eyes flew open. But no, she was mistaken, she must be, because she’d come up here to be alone for her goodbye and there weren’t any others on the bluff. Below, though light shone in some of the Crescent Cove bungalow windows and farther off was the glow from Captain Crow’s, the nearest dwellings were dark. She’d packed and put her belongings in her car and closed up No. 8. Beach House No. 9 still appeared deserted.
Yet something caused the downy hairs on the back of her neck to rise. Rubbing her nape, she edged closer to the rim of her jutting promontory. This protrusion was nowhere near the bluff’s highest point, but it seemed a long twelve feet to where the water swirled and lifted in white tufts against the jagged edges of rock below. She shivered and took a wary step back, then her gaze shifted left and caught on the sight of a dark figure scaling the cliff. Swift and sure, he swung up arm-over-arm, something—a bag?—caught in the grip of his teeth, just like a pirate clenching a dagger, climbing the riggings of an unsuspecting ship.
Jane retreated two more steps, until her back pressed against the rough surface of the bluff’s face. It still left little room for the buccaneer who reached her ledge and tore the paper from his mouth to address her in a raspy, breathless voice. “What the hell are you doing?”
It wasn’t fair, she thought. She’d come up here to gain perspective. To begin the process, finally, of abandoning hope when it came to her and Griffin. But seeing him again, even wearing a grim expression and with his chest heaving with jerky breaths, made her skin feel tender and her heart soften with exquisite yearning, both painful and sweet.
“Well?” he prompted, clearly agitated.
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans, she met his gaze in stubborn silence.
“It’s dangerous up here,” he said. “You shouldn’t risk it.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” she said, then managed a little smile. “Hey. Irony again.”
The line of his mouth flattened. “Let’s go, Jane.” He held out his hand to her. “I’ll help you down.”
She shook her head, shuffling away from his touch. “I don’t need your help. I got up here just fine on my own, though by an admittedly tamer route than yours.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I took a shortcut when I spotted you. I was worried…”
“Worried about what?”
His gaze cut away from hers, and she suddenly knew what had gone through his mind.
“No,” she said, a laugh escaping. “You thought I was going to do myself in? All because you don’t love me?”
“No. I don’t know. Not exactly.” He still wouldn’t look at her. “Go ahead, call me Mr. Ego again.”
Except the idea of jumping in had crossed her mind. Not because she wanted to end it all—yes, Mr. Ego indeed—but because she wanted a temporary end to her current unhappiness. Griffin wasn’t in love with her. He was going toward danger, and she might never see him alive again.
According to Tess, the jolt of jumping off could offer some reprieve. It had a numbing power.
Jane moistened her lips. “Does adrenaline really get rid of the pain?”
His glance was wary.
“Is that why you’re going to Gage? To get away from what’s hurting you here?”
He made a dismissive gesture, drawing both their attention to the bag he was holding.
“Look,” he said. “I brought you presents. Come down and you can have them.”
“Presents?” Jane frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. Gifts to appease his conscience? “I don’t need anything from you.”
“I missed your birthday,” Griffin said.
“For heaven’s sake…” Couldn’t he just go away? The shelf of rock was so small that she could feel his body heat from here. It pressed against her breastbone, making it hard to breathe. Putting stress on her already battered heart.
“Come on down,” he coaxed again.
“I won’t,” Jane said. She’d depart on her own terms. Alone, just the way she’d arrived that day when she’d foolishly disregarded the skull and crossbones, scoffing at the idea of danger.
He sighed, apparently accepting her stubbornness. “Fine, then,” he said, his tone disgruntled. Then he rummaged in the bag. “I was at the mercy of that convenience store a couple of miles away, you understand.”
“If it’s one of those icky beef sticks, I’m tossing it over the cliff,” she warned.
“You just stay where you are,” Griffin said. With a little flourish, he presented her with a slender plastic-and-cardboard package.
Jane stared down at the item in her hands. The bright moon was as good as a flashlight. “A toothbrush?”
“Are you aware you hum when you brush your teeth, honey-pie?”
“The ‘Happy Birthday’ song. Twice. Dentists recommend brushing the length of time that takes for optimum cleaning.”
He quickly averted his head, but it didn’t hide the swift grin.
“Don’t laugh at me!”
“It’s either that or kiss you, Jane.”
She took a half step away from him. “None of that, either.”
Still smiling, he pointed to her gift. “This one’s special. You can record any song you like, then listen to your favorite while keeping your dentist happy morning and night.”
“Oh.” Jane regarded it with more interest. “Clever.”
His hand dipped back in the bag. “Here.”
Out came a small square of cardboard threaded with a pair of earrings. Pink with purple polka dots, they were probably intended for a child, given the color combination.
“They’re bows,” Griffin said. “You always wear bows.”
She looked up at him. His amazing eyes were focused on her, as if he was trying to read her thoughts. Her feet moved again, taking another step away from him and his piercing gaze. “Th-thank you,” she said, her voice unsteady.
No man had ever seen so much about her.
He shrugged and then rummaged in the bag. “Last one.” His hand stilled inside the paper, and he locked eyes with her. “No matter what happens, Jane, I want you to know…” And then the daredevil reporter seemed to run out of words. Instead of handing over the final gift, he pushed the bag into her hands.
Feeling both curious and oddly cautious, Jane tucked the toothbrush and the earrings into the pockets of her jeans, then reached inside the sack for the next present. Her fingers curled around something plastic and mostly round. Her breath caught in her throat as she drew it out.
A snow globe.
How had he known?
A cheap tourist trinket, it had probably been made thousands and thousands of miles from here but was stamped “Crescent Cove” on the base. Clutching the bag in one hand, Jane let the globe sit on the shelf of her other palm, ignoring how it trembled. Inside the bubble was a dab of blue ocean and a painted beach. On that sat a little grass shack beside two palm trees and strung between them was a tiny hammock, upon which reclined an even tinier woman in a yellow bikini.
Griffin gestured at the plastic capsule. “You have a suit just that color. So it’s as if you’ll always be here. Forever.”
A prickle ran across Jane’s scalp. Always and forever unable to forget this place or the man she’d fallen in love with. Always and forever wishing for him, worrying about him, wondering if he ever thought of her with regret. Always and forever his, even if he didn’t want her. That wasn’t any kind of progress.
Panic clutched her throat and wrapped her ribs with heavy bands.
God knew what expression overtook her face, because Griffin suddenly started forward. “Sweetheart…”
But she couldn’t be touched by him, she thought in hasty alarm. Not now. Not ever again. Her feet shuffled in retreat and she put out the hand holding the bag to keep him away.
A sudden gust of wind fluttered her hair and caught at the paper. It was torn from her grasp and instinct had her snatching for it. Unsteadied by the sudden move, she took another step back to keep her balance.
Her foot found air. She felt herself going over the ledge.
* * *
IN COMBAT, TIME stretched like a child’s imagination, allowing in every boogeyman, every monster-under-the-bed, even as one’s vision sharpened and dexterity heightened. Griffin’s heart knelled like slow thunder as he saw Jane wobble and her body arch over the edge. Fear tasted like ash on his tongue as he lunged for her. Image after image shuffled through his mind as he made the long reach.
Jane plummeting onto sharp rocks, Jane plunging into chilly water and never coming up, Jane falling toward her greatest fear as her body slipped through his hands. She’d go down thinking he’d failed her like every other man in her life.
Your kind always lets go.
But then—miracle!—he caught her upper arm. His fingers closed over her slender biceps, locking them together. Just as he prepared to yank her back to safety, though, he realized that her momentum was too much for him to battle.
In this, the librarian couldn’t defy the laws of physics.
They both went over, the ocean a second or two away. But it took a very long time to fall when you’d really rather not.
Enough time for Griffin to realize that Jane wouldn’t know to swim away from the rocks to keep from being bashed against them.
Enough time for that thought to plow with the power of an ice-breaking ship through his frozen heart.
Enough time for him to be certain he wouldn’t survive one more loss. That he wouldn’t survive without her in his life.
Dark, cold water closed over him like a thick shroud. It tried tearing Jane from his grasp, but knowing what was at stake, he hung on to her, kicking powerfully with his legs to take them both away from the dangerous crags. To his surprise, she was kicking too, doing her share, but the unexpected dousing, fully clothed, made it a heavy slog.
For every movement forward, the water washed them back. He’d lost his flip-flops, and he felt the bite of rock on his sole as he pushed off to propel Jane away from danger. “Let…go!” she gasped out, then coughed. “Let. Me. Go!”
Let go? He couldn’t let go. He’d never let go.
But then she wrenched free of him, and without the hamper of a second body, she started stroking away. Heart pounding in his ears, he followed behind, matching his arm pulls to hers. It wasn’t easy getting away from the surf breaking against the bluff. It still fought to wash them back, just as they fought to break from it. He was breathing hard, anxiety taking its toll, and his panic didn’t lessen, even when he realized the shoreline was a straight shot ahead.
People drowned in bathtubs. In puddles. In their own blood.
Those thoughts were still in his mind as their bellies hit sand. They combat crawled and coughed their way onto the beach. Safe.
Lying on the sand beside her, he tried coping with the aftermath of horror and the sharp spike of survival euphoria. And the new sudden yet certain understanding that his life was about to take a drastic turn.
He glanced over when he finally caught his breath. “We have to talk.”
Then he jerked upright and put his hand on her shoulder. “Jane!” She was sodden and cold as a corpse, her eyes open and staring straight at the sky. Jesus, was she dead? “Jane.”
“I’m right here,” she said, sounding slow and drunk. One hand flopped on the sand like a fish. “Right. Here.”
“Oh, thank God.” He pulled her into his lap, curled his chilled and wet body over her chilled and wet body. Pressing his cheek to hers, he rocked them a little. He couldn’t lose her now.
His arms tightened. “I was terrified, damn you,” he said, his voice rough. “Beyond terrified. And if anything had happened to you, I would have killed you!”
She reached up to pat his dripping hair as she would Private. “Calm down.”
“I am calm. I’m always calm!”
Her hand gave him another pat. “No, you’re not. You throw things—plates, fists, fits. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but those aren’t really the actions of a ninety-nine-percent no-feelings guy.” She allowed that a minute to sink in. “Just saying.”
“Jane, I…” But a shiver racked her small frame, and new alarm rushed through him. “We have to get you warm.” He picked them both up off the sand and half carried, half led her to Beach House No. 9. Private greeted them with a worried whine and stealthy licks at the salt water running off their bodies.
Griffin escorted her to the guest bath when she insisted on privacy, then hit his own shower. Standing under the spray, his restless mind replayed the event: his alarm upon seeing her on the cliff, his panic when she started to fall, that absolute certainty that he couldn’t go on without her.
She’d come to mean so much. And yes, she was right again, damn her. He wasn’t a ninety-nine-percent no-feelings guy.
Even as anxiety beat its vulture wings in his belly at the idea, he could no longer hide from the truth. His heart was no longer untouchable. Hell, it was no longer his own. He hadn’t wanted this, had never wanted this, but the battle was lost.
Dry and dressed again, he stood outside the bathroom where Jane was cleaning up, overwhelmed by the need to see her and touch her. Each moment that passed ratcheted his tension higher. His hand rubbed a nervous path on the thigh of his jeans, and he had to keep telling himself to unclench his back teeth. Nothing had prepared him for this feeling.
Never had he felt so vulnerable.
And still Jane didn’t emerge from the shower.
“It’s taking too long,” he muttered. Then he banged on the door with his knuckles. “You’re wasting water!”
She came out long minutes later, wrapped in a towel and flushed with heat, a pink cast to her cheeks, her shoulders, her chest.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
“It seems I am,” she said, her expression bemused. “I saved myself from the giant eels and the whale snot.”
Griffin wanted to claim that he had saved her, but of course it wasn’t true. “You did,” he acknowledged. “You did.”
“I’m sort of an ocean stud now,” she added, a satisfied gleam in her eyes.
God, the woman just slayed him. His mouth twitched with a smile. “You are.”
“Well, then.” She took a quick step. “I have clothes in my car—”
“You don’t need clothes,” he said brusquely.
Her downy brows came together. “What?”
“Just a minute, just a minute,” he muttered, then stalked down the hall, stalked back.
“Griffin?”
“I’m a writer, okay? Give me a second to find the words.”
Instead of being patient as he thought she should, she brushed past him and turned into the master bedroom. There she rummaged through his drawers, filching a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. She went behind another closed bathroom door to put them on.
He found himself rapping on that door too. How long did it take to get dressed? “Hurry up.”
Her expression was a little forlorn when she finally emerged. “I lost my new toothbrush.”
“I’ll buy you another one.”
“I don’t mind about the earrings. They were designed for a five-year-old.”
“Hey, it’s the thought that counts,” he said, nearly annoyed.
She swallowed, and the new expression overtaking her face was one he couldn’t read. “I never want to see that snow globe again.”
He frowned at her. “That kind of hurts my feelings.”
“Are we back to that?” Now, for the first time since they’d washed up on the beach, she sounded weary. “I thought you were sure you didn’t have any.”
He hesitated one more moment, and then he saw a shiver work its way up her spine. “You’re still cold.” Jane should never be cold again.
He reached out, intent on sweeping her to his chest. The maddening librarian stepped back, forcing him to beg for her patience. Which she seemed to like. “Please, Jane. Please give me a moment of your time.”
She allowed herself to be towed to the living room, where he wrapped her in a blanket and placed her on the couch. He sat on the coffee table opposite her, staring into her lovely face.
A tense silence developed as he tried to figure out what to tell her.
“I’ve already showed you the inside of my heart, Griffin,” she said in a tight voice. “Can’t you leave me alone now?”
“You don’t understand,” he answered. “I’m trying to see myself in your eyes. I keep thinking they’re like mirrors.”
She cocked her head, cautious. “What is it you think you should see?”
Griffin took a breath. A life unexamined is not worth living. “That final explosion in the Humvee…the one that took Jackal’s leg—it splintered me into pieces. One part objective reporter, one part combatant affected—no, injured—by war, one part human being grieving for friends lost and wounded. I’ve been avoiding putting those three back together.”
“You don’t say.”
“Smart-ass.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Separated like that, it seemed I could keep myself from feeling—” Breaking off, he forced himself to breathe.
“But you are feeling. You’re hurting. That’s why you’re—”
“Throwing plates, fists and fits.” He looked away, looked back. She deserved the truth. “I’m having flashbacks. More all the time.”
“Oh, Griffin.” Sitting straighter, she leaned toward him. “How frightening.”
His mouth was dry. “I’m a mess.” He’d been trying to deny it for so long. Refusing to acknowledge what everyone had been telling him.
“You can get help.”
“Rex thinks the book will go a long way toward that,” he said, then hesitated. “I’m not going to Gage. I’m done with war.”
God, what a relief it was to say those words.
Jane’s expression was once more inscrutable. “But not done with the memoir?” she asked. “You’re actually going to finish it?”
Here was the critical moment, one that felt more live-or-die than any he’d faced in Afghanistan. He took another deep breath. “If I can get some assistance.”
In an abrupt move, she sat back. “Maybe Frank can find you someone.”
His gaze caught hers. “I’ve already found someone.”
“Griffin…”
“Look, your reputation doesn’t need me. It doesn’t need this job. You’re incredible at what you do—you’re good with the words, you’re good with people. You’ve already made my memoir so much better.”
Her face flushed. “Thank you.”
“But this isn’t about the book. I need you, Jane.” He was certain of this. Find a woman you can value and love every day. “You’re the glue. In your eyes I see me, whole and well. Loved…and loving.”
She made to rise off the couch.
He grabbed her knees, holding her down. “I love you, Jane Pearson. I can’t run from my memories any longer, and I don’t want to distance myself from this either. I am desperately in love with you.”
She turned her face away from his. “You’re riding the adrenaline rush from the fall. Don’t say something you’ll regret later.”
Griffin hadn’t come this far to fail. “Let me be the one who never lets go of you, sweetheart.” He caressed her bare legs in soft persuasion. “I know I’m not completely healthy, but I promise—”
“It’s not that.” She whipped her head toward his, and he could see the tears standing in her eyes. “It’s… You’ve been all over the world. Been in perilous places, taken risks that stop my breath. In comparison to all that, will what we might have…will I be enough?”
“Sweetheart…”
“You said my world, this world, is colorless, remember?”
It almost made him laugh. “Honey-pie, when I’m with you, I think of a thousand colors. Your beautiful silvery eyes, your lemon-yellow swimsuit, your pink sunburn, your pumpkin shoes. You’re…you’re my rainbow.” His darling, serious, wonderful, brave, spirited, beautiful, talented Jane. So, so lovable.
He would make it his worthy purpose to assure her of that every day.
But she didn’t yet appear entirely convinced, damn it.
“Jane, sweetheart, remember…” His heart felt unmoored in his chest, bumping throat, ribs, belly. Oh, God, he thought, he had to get this right.
He reached for her hands, held tight. “Remember when I told you that during each moment in war, you hold the certain knowledge that what you’re doing might be the very last thing you ever do?”
She nodded, and her mouth was trembling.
He pulled her forward, into his arms. His lips found the smooth skin of her cheek. “Jane. Oh, Jane.”
Holding her away again, he hoped that there really was magic in Beach House No. 9, because he wasn’t too proud to accept enchanted spells and secret love potions if it meant he could convince her. If it meant he could keep her forever. “I want my very last thing to be you.”
There was a taut moment of stunned silence. Then she launched herself into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. “Oh, God. I love you, I love you too.”
Their kiss was tender and deep, carnal and exuberant. Needing breath, he finally lifted his head. “Jane—”
“Griffin—” she said at the same time.
They smiled at each other. Her eyes sparkled. “We’ve still got the name thing down, chili-dog. But this time…you first.”
He grinned, and then when he opened his mouth to speak, he found himself reaching for a real future, he found himself believing in it for the first time since he’d left Afghanistan, and he finally felt one hundred percent alive, ready to leap for that silver horizon ahead that was waiting for him in Jane’s eyes. “Marry me. Please, honey-pie, marry me.”
And then he knew there was indeed magic at Beach House No. 9, because his beloved took her own leap, trusting that he would always be there to catch her, to be the one who never let go. Without another hesitation, she said, “Yes.”
# # #
Dear Reader:
Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the . Jane and Griffin are two of my favorite story people and I hope you feel the same. I loved writing their romance.
Continue on to read some information about the real-life place that inspired the fictional Crescent Cove as well as view some photos of the area. If you want to hear my audio introduction to the story and your device does not support audio, you can find the mp3 file in which I talk about the book at my website, .
Interested in sharing your thoughts about Jane and Griffin’s romance with other readers? I hope you’ll leave a review for the book and look for the first in the series, , as well as and ALMOST PARADISE, coming soon.
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I’ve also included here an excerpt of (Rock Royalty Book 1) and (Billionaire’s Beach Book 1).
All the best!
Christie Ridgway