Chapter Twenty-Three
PARKER SAT ON the stoop beside Grayson and rested her head on his shoulder. It had been twenty minutes since he’d mentioned the similarities between the picture of Miriam and her younger self and the coincidence of the dates of Miriam’s call and her mother’s death. Now it was all she could think about—and she didn’t want to think about it for another second.
“I’m sorry I pushed the issue about Miriam,” he said for the tenth time. “I probably saw something that wasn’t there.”
She wasn’t sure if he’d seen similarities that didn’t exist, or if she didn’t want to see whatever he claimed to—and she didn’t really want to know.
“I’m sorry I got so upset. It’s been a stressful afternoon, but you didn’t deserve that.” She leaned into him, and he put his arm around her, which settled some of her anxiety.
“I don’t know what’s taking Matt so long. He’s never late, and he’s not the kind of guy to blow us off without a phone call.”
She was thankful for the change in subject, but she knew he was still thinking about the picture, wondering if there was a connection and keeping those thoughts to himself. He loved her enough to suffer through his questions in silence, and she loved him even more for it.
“I’m sure he’ll be here when he can. Maybe he got hung up with a student or something. At least it’s nice out and we’re together. Thank you for being here. It means a lot to me.”
“Always, baby.” He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her.
She pushed away all the troubling thoughts and surrendered to the blissful feeling that always accompanied their kisses. A car door closed, startling Parker. She jumped from Grayson’s lap.
“Matt’s seen people kiss before.” Grayson rose to greet his brother.
Parker had seen pictures of Matt in Grayson’s house, but she barely recognized him in the disheveled man stepping around the car. His hair was going every which way, as if he’d been stuck in a crosswind. His button-down shirt was untucked, torn at the shoulder seam and across the chest. Smears of what looked like blood stained his arm and streaked his face.
Grayson embraced him. “Missed you,” he said, as if this were Matt’s everyday appearance, which was unfitting of a Princeton professor.
“You too. Sorry I’m late.” Matt flashed a crooked smile at Parker, which softened his chiseled features. “It’s nice to finally meet the woman who’s got my brother’s head in the clouds.” He embraced Parker.
“Nice to meet you, too.” She followed him to the door, stunned by their lack of conversation about Matt’s torn and bloody clothes. She mouthed, What happened? to Grayson. He lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug. This was a great distraction from her worries about Miriam, but now she had all sorts of new concerns racing through her mind.
“Come on in.” Matt tossed his keys on a table by the door and began unbuttoning the few remaining buttons on his shirt. He nodded to the living room. Cardboard boxes were stacked two and three high. The framed picture of Parker and Grayson kissing sat atop one of the boxes, and two couches sat at odd angles near the back wall.
“Did you just move in?” Parker asked.
“No.” Matt wrinkled his brow like she’d asked a ridiculous question. “Make yourselves at home.” He hiked his thumb over his shoulder toward the staircase. “I’m going to shower and change, and then we can head out to dinner.”
“Sounds good,” Grayson said to his brother’s back as Matt ascended the stairs. “Sweetheart,” he said to Parker. “I’m going to grab our stuff.”
She followed him out. “What do you think happened to him?”
“Who knows.” He pulled their suitcase from the trunk and headed back toward the house.
“Grayson? He was bloody and his clothes were torn. Aren’t you worried?”
“About him?” He laughed. “Matt’s like Clark Kent. Clean-cut professor by day, superhero by night.”
She stopped cold. “What does that mean? He beats up bad guys? Flies through the air with a cape?”
He reached for her hand, bringing her into the house with him. “Not usually.”
“How can you be so nonchalant about this?”
He shrugged again, and she followed him downstairs to a bedroom, where he set their things down and wrapped her in his arms again.
“Sweetheart, he’s not a dangerous guy. Matt’s as straitlaced as they come. But if there’s trouble—a car accident, an unfair fight, an old lady needing help crossing the street—Matt jumps in. Always has. No big deal.”
She could easily imagine Grayson doing every one of those things and coming out of the fight with the same calm demeanor he’d possessed since she’d known him.
“It’s not a big deal. Don’t overthink it.” Grayson stripped down to his briefs to change for dinner, making it easy for her to stop thinking about Matt.
Matt joined them a little while later, freshly showered and dressed in a neatly pressed white button-down and a pair of dark slacks, looking very professorial. Now that Parker wasn’t focused on his torn clothing, she saw that where Grayson was broad and thick chested with muscles that rivaled that of a bodybuilder, Matt was athletically built, but leaner and slimmer at the waist. His features were more angular than Grayson’s. He was handsome, as all the Lacrouxs were, but he didn’t hold a candle to her man, who took her breath away in a pair of low-slung jeans and a black button-down rolled up to his elbows, exposing the muscular forearms she loved to touch.
Matt jiggled the keys hanging from his finger. “Dinner?”
Parker wondered what type of spell their parents had cast that enabled them to remain calm in the face of any storm—and how she could get some of that potion.
LATER THAT EVENING Grayson sat on the edge of the bed in Matt’s guest room, rationalizing the calls he’d made to Hunter and Caden when Parker had been on the phone with Luce. No matter how hard he tried not to think about the possible connection between Parker and Miriam Stein, it was right there, refusing to be ignored. He loved Parker too much to let even a remote possibility of finding her family go and he loved her too much to cause her the anguish of false hope.
He looked across the room at her now, sorting through her toiletries, still wearing the little black dress she’d worn to dinner, and he hoped he’d done the right thing.
“I had a nice time tonight,” Parker said. “That was crazy about the cat in the sewer.”
“Leave it to Matt to get tangled up in something.” Matt had told Parker he’d rescued a cat that had been stuck in a sewer after work, calming her concerns about his roughed-up appearance. Grayson had seen a shadowed look in his brother’s eyes, and when Parker had gone to the ladies’ room, Grayson had called him on it. Matt admitted to stopping a carjacking and not wanting to worry Parker, which made him appreciate his brother’s careful thought process even more.
Grayson had taken advantage of their brief moment alone to tell Matt about the similarities in the photos and the dates surrounding Miriam’s last call and Parker’s mother’s death. Matt’s response mirrored Grayson’s thoughts. They have DNA tests for that. It sounded so easy, but Parker had been vehement in wanting no part of it, taking easy out of the equation.
They’d had a nice evening despite the rocky beginning. After dinner Matt had given them a tour of Princeton’s campus. Grayson had almost forgotten how being with Matt was like spending time with both their mother and father. Matt possessed their father’s innate ability to remember everything he’d ever read or heard and their mother’s ability to get to the heart of any issue with just a few words. In the first few minutes of their walk, Matt had learned about Bert, Abe, and Christmas. Grayson had to admit he was a little jealous, considering it had taken him ten months to learn as much, but he took that as a good sign. Parker had been on such an emotional roller coaster lately, he hadn’t expected her to share much of herself with Matt. The fact that she had proved just how strong she was.
Parker put her toiletries in the bathroom and glanced at him over her shoulder. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”
She was so beautiful, standing inside the open bathroom doorway with her back to him. She stepped from her dress, purposely giving Grayson an eyeful—and wiping his brain clean of anything but thoughts of loving her, body, mind, and soul. She unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor, hooked her fingers in the sliver-like sides of her thong, and wiggled her butt as she stepped out of it. Then she moved out of sight and turned on the shower.
Grayson undressed as he walked toward the bathroom. He drank in her gorgeous silhouette through the foggy glass doors before stepping in beside her.
“I was wondering when you were going to join me.”
“I’ll make up for taking so long.”
He lowered his mouth to her shoulder, biting just hard enough to cause her to gasp with pleasure. She turned toward him, and he held her beneath the warm shower spray. He loved that she trusted him enough to give herself over completely to him when they made love, but nothing touched him more deeply than when she went soft in his arms, knowing he’d take care of her.
She was leaving for California in four days, and he wouldn’t be there to take care of her. He had three more nights to hold her in his arms. Four mornings to wake up with her by his side. The timeline felt more like a time bomb. He’d worried about living on opposite sides of the country, but their intimacy ran beyond sex and secrets, and when he looked into their future, he knew there was no distance vast enough to keep them apart.